It took the Obama administration eight days to figure out whether Iranians being gunned down for protesting a fraudulent election and demanding basic civil liberties deserved to be acknowledged by the President of the United States. It took the O-Team less than eight hours to side with Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega over the ouster of Manuel Zelaya in Honduras.

As we now have come to expect, Mr. Obama got it wrong again -- but this time nobody noticed. The U.S. news media, preoccupied with the sudden demise of Michael Jackson, ignored the event in Central America. For those who care about things more important than the passing of a “pop-music legend,” here’s the rest of the story.

Manuel Zelaya, a wealthy rancher and agri-business executive and a self-described “poor farmer,” won a four-year term as Honduran President in November 2005 with 49.8 percent of the vote. Article 374 of the Honduran constitution bars the nation’s chief executive from serving consecutive terms. Apparently one term wasn’t enough for Mr. Zelaya, a protégé of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez and Nicaragua’s phobic anti-American leader, Daniel Ortega.   Late last year, as the Honduran economy tanked and unemployment grew to nearly 28 percent, Mr. Zelaya forced Elvin Santos, the country’s elected Vice President to resign and began holding conversations with Messer’s Chavez and Ortega on how to hold onto power. In lengthy Chavez-like populist speeches he denounced the U.S., wealthy land-owners, and linked himself with leftists in the Honduran labor movement. Then on March 23, he issued an Executive Decree directing a national referendum on a Venezuelan-styled Constituent Assembly to re-write the country’s constitution in time for presidential and legislative elections in November. The Obama-Clinton State Department was mute about all of this.

Unfortunately for Mr. Zelaya’s aspirations, the Honduran constitution requires that amendments be passed by a two-thirds vote of the country’s unicameral National Congress during two consecutive sessions. By late May the National Congress, the Honduran Supreme Court, the Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Honduran Electoral Tribunal had all overwhelmingly declared the referendum unconstitutional. Mr. Zelaya ignored the people’s representatives, had ballots printed in Venezuela and announced that the vote would take place on June 28. Again, the O-Team was silent.

In keeping with the rule of law, Honduran Attorney General Luis Alberto Rubi took the case to court. The Supreme Court of Justice ruled the referendum to be illegal and ordered the ballots to be confiscated. Late on June 23, Mr. Zelaya countermanded the court order and directed the Army to distribute the ballots. General Romeo Vásquez, the Chief of Staff of the Honduran military, sought a legal opinion and was ordered by the Supreme Court not to do so. The following day, Mr. Zelaya fired the Minister of Defense, Edmundo Orellana, General Vásquez and the chiefs of the Honduran Armed Forces.
( THE REST )  http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32572

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                As the stunned and defeated British army marched out of Yorktown, their band appropriately played the song "A World Turned Upside Down."

Our forefathers pledged their lives and fortunes to fight and defeat the world's mightiest army and give birth to America. Our victory over King George was the greatest military upset in the annals of human history. George Washington believed our amazing victory was a result of divine providence.

The dream of limited government, personal freedom and liberty, rugged individualism, and self-sufficiency that our forefathers fought and died for is rapidly disappearing in 2009. It is once again a world turned upside down.  Our federal government is turning into the very type of heavy-handed, unaccountable, and disrespectful government our forefathers despised, fought against, and warned us to avoid. Too few Americans know and appreciate this critically important piece of American history. Shame on them.

Instead of heeding the warnings of our forefathers, we have embraced big government and both political parties have been more than happy to give it to us over the past 45 years, thereby making us more dependent on Fedzilla--the federal beast with a voracious appetite for our tax dollars, and intentionally creating dependency and control. We are once again becoming subjects, not citizens.

Fedzilla is the most unresponsive, unaccountable, bloated and ineffective bureaucratic nightmare the world has ever witnessed. It punishes the producers and risk-takers while rewarding the simpletons it has conned into believing it is helping. Fedzilla is the enemy of the free market and freedom.

Instead of allowing the free market to correct itself, Fedzilla meddles in the free market and makes things worse. I give you Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Using our tax dollars, Fedzilla has purchased General Motors, and bailed out AIG and other financial institutions.

Fedzilla pushed through an unauthorized trillion-dollar economic stimulus bill that not one elected representative read before voting on it. Regardless what legal nuance or loophole some Fedzillacrat lawyer could point to in our constitution or court decision that allows for such grotesque meddling and spending, I adamantly believe this level of federal meddling and control was not the dream of our forefathers.

And guess what? It’s not working. Our economy would recover more and faster if Congress repealed the phony “stimulus” and get out of the way of free market capitalism.
( THE REST )   http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32564

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   The Hemisphere: A Honduran official has warned that deposed President Mel Zelaya was in league with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to ship drugs to the U.S. If true, can this really be the man the U.S. wants back in power?...... 

Foreign Minister Enrique Ortez dropped a bombshell last week when he said Zelaya, the president who was thrown out by a constitutional process June 28 after defying the law, had a little side business with the Caracas caudillo allowing cocaine to roll into Honduras from Venezuela before heading to the U.S.

"Every night, three or four Venezuelan-registered planes land without the permission of appropriate authorities and bring thousands of pounds . . . and packages of money that are the fruit of drug trafficking," Ortez told CNN En Espanol. "We have proof of all of this. Neighboring governments have it. The DEA has it."

If Ortiz is right, the U.S. effort to restore Zelaya to power would be suicidal for U.S. efforts to destroy drug organizations south of our border. It would undercut Mexico's and Colombia's savage drug wars and give drug lords such as the Sinaloa cartel's Shorty Guzman, who has bases in Honduras, reason to strengthen operations.

It also means the U.S. must start asking questions about Chavez's role in the drug trade now that U.S.-Venezuelan diplomatic ties are being restored. Right now, it's such a hot potato that nobody in either the State Department or the Drug Enforcement Administration wants to comment on it.

Zelaya's return would put the U.S. in a dilemma. The U.S. has gone along with the Chavez-led global consensus denouncing Zelaya's exit as a coup d'etat and condemning the current Honduran government. But that position means the U.S. would have to cut off a $43 million aid package to Honduras that includes drug-fighting.

This is why the legal definition of "coup" is so touchy.U.S. policymakers are stalling about labeling Zelaya's removal as such — though hotheads in the Obama administration, such as U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, don't hesitate to use the term.

It also would represent a sorry retreat on current policy.

In 1989, the U.S. took out Manuel Noriega in a military operation over his ties to the Medellin cartel. In 1994, the U.S. cut off aid to Colombia when its new president, Ernesto Samper, was caught on tape with the kingpins of the Cali cartel and taking their cash.

Restoring Zelaya and then pretending the drug war can be won would be a travesty, harming the interests of the U.S. and all the battered nations fighting drugs alongside us.

Ortez's warning lacks detail. But it does describe the well-known problem of traffickers using Central American countries as transshipment points for drugs. This has gotten worse since Zelaya made his alliance with Chavez two years ago.  ( THE REST )  http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=331427135557475

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Dictators and demagogues can rest easy on President Obama's watch. When thousands of Iranians flooded the streets of Tehran protesting a rigged election and were beaten and shot down by pro-regime thugs, the president bided his time before making a series of noncommittal statements. He seemed to hope it would all just go away. However, when a socialist demagogue was ejected unceremoniously from Honduras on Sunday by his own government for trying to establish a presidency for life, Mr. Obama instantly sprang to his defense.

What happened in Honduras was not a military coup. Honduras has a civilian president, Roberto Micheletti, a member of former President Manuel Zelaya's own Liberal Party, who was elevated to the post after Mr. Zelaya was removed. The army did not seize power, but acted as the elected government's instrument in ousting Mr. Zelaya, who was well on his way to subverting the Honduran constitution and erecting a dictatorship.

The crisis followed an intense week of political drama over a planned referendum seeking to convene an assembly to rewrite the 1982 constitution to allow Mr. Zelaya to serve in office beyond the mandated one-term limit, which would have ended in January 2010. The Honduran National Congress opposed the referendum, and the Supreme Court declared it illegal. The plan was denounced by majority and opposition political parties, the Catholic Church and the Honduran Human Rights Commission.

The military impounded the illegal ballots, and Mr. Zelaya fired military chief Gen. Romeo Vasquez for refusing to distribute them. This prompted resignations from Defense Minister Edmundo Orellana and all the service chiefs. The Supreme Court quickly ruled the firing was illegal. Meanwhile, Mr. Zelaya led a band of followers to air force headquarters and seized the illegal ballots, seeking to hold the referendum regardless. The Congress then acted to remove this renegade ruler and defend the Honduran constitution. ( THE REST )  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/02/obama-stands-with-tyrants/

                                                                                                                                                                                  Does the Honduran government have the right to enforce its own Constitution? Isn't it a sovereign nation?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     American Muslims gather by the tens of thousands in our nation's capital this weekend, as our nation celebrates its birthday.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Democracy: Nations aren't usually put to the fearsome test to "live free or die." But Hondurans are accepting it as the world pressures them to reseat a potential dictator in office. They aren't bending. ..........

On Tuesday, all 192 members of the U.N. General Assembly voted to condemn Hondurans' removal of President Mel Zelaya from office. He was ousted this week after brazenly defying a Supreme Court ruling against a reelection referendum. Using the language of the effort's ringleader, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, the U.N. called the constitutional act "a military coup."

The same day, the Organization of American States gave Honduras three days to reinstall Zelaya as president or its membership would be suspended.

The World Bank "paused' lending until Zelaya is back. The Inter American Development Bank followed suit.

Standard & Poor's warned of a credit downgrade. Tourists were told by embassies to leave. Three bordering nations cut off trade. Nations pulled ambassadors. Venezuela's despot, Hugo Chavez, cut off cheap oil. He now bucks for an OAS-led military invasion if his leftist pal Zelaya is not restored to power.

The U.S. has its own bag of potential sanctions for Honduras, although as new facts emerge about Zelaya's involvement in the drug trade and his mental instability, doesn't look as though it intends to use them. Still, the Sword of Damocles over Honduras could mean a suspended free trade treaty, a cutoff of its $200 million in aid, and an end to its immigration agreement with the U.S.

As the world follows Chavez's lead in trying to force Honduras to accept a lawless man as its leader, disasters for Honduras loom.

The tiny country is impoverished. Its seven million people have a per capita income of just $1,635 a year. Its economy has been enfeebled by Zelaya himself. He has fixed prices and wages, and opened the door to drug traffickers, creating a burgeoning narcostate.

It seems impossible that Honduras could withstand new draconian pressure and isolation over taking Zelaya back.

Yet evidence shows that Hondurans consider the latter fate worse. If Zelaya is restored as president, he will resume his dictatorial ambitions while Hondurans lose their future freedoms. Oh, the OAS will tell them "dialogue" will solve it.

But Hondurans know better: If the rule of law won't dissuade Zelaya from being dictator, why would sweet talk work?   ( THE REST )   http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=331340666433338