Official Buyers Remorse Thread

[Mavdog]

it's pretty clear the side of the story you have been following.

the deposed president wanted to have a referendum (he didn't want "to change the constitution", he wanted a referendum on changing the constitution). the honduran supreme court ruled that he couldn't (the referendum had to be further spaced form other voting), and the head of the army, who is in charge of running the election/referendum, said the army wasn't going to distribute the ballots...so the president fired him, and that is when they ended up shipping the president to costa rica.

the issue is the rule of law. if the president was afoul of the law, there are legal avenues to prosecute him. there was a coup; the military took him at gunpoint, put him on a plane, and sent him out of the country.

tell me, do you believe the constitution of honduras says it is legal for the army to seize the president of honduras, force him to sign a resignation letter and put him on a plane to another country, is somehow legal? I seriously doubt it.

so the question is do we as a principle of our foreign policy respect the will of the voters in a country, and respect the rule of law, or do we just throw those out the door and say that if a country's army wants to seize power we are OK with it?

obama, and the rest of the world, says the former. the fact that castro and chavez also say the same isn't a knock on obama, and to portray the confluence of castro, chavez and obama's opinions as somehow being evidence of obama being in error is just asinine.

[Underdog]

I wonder how you guys (or President Obama, for that matter) would feel if the EXACT same thing happened in Iran instead of Honduras...

(my guess is that everyone would be seeing this situation through different-colored glasses...)

[GermanDunk]

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by Underdog

I wonder how you guys (or President Obama, for that matter) would feel if the EXACT same thing happened in Iran instead of Honduras...

(my guess is that everyone would be seeing this situation through different-colored glasses...)

so you expect that a coup in iran would be OK?

hmm, there is the issue with an election that was seen by most of the world as stolen, therefore the legitimacy of admenijobbies rule is pretty much zero....

but then again the army isn't much different than the fascist currently in power.

yeah, it's quite the conundrum you've come up with.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Underdog

I wonder how you guys (or President Obama, for that matter) would feel if the EXACT same thing happened in Iran instead of Honduras...

(my guess is that everyone would be seeing this situation through different-colored glasses...)

You mean if the military arrested the president under orders of the supreme court as stated in the constitution of the deomocratically elected iranian government. I think I'd be quite happy with it.

It appears to me that there really isn't much that is illegal going on in honduras, but perfectly legal (except for the president trying to vote himself in for life).

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

You mean if the military arrested the president under orders of the supreme court as stated in the constitution of the deomocratically elected iranian government. I think I'd be quite happy with it.

It appears to me that there really isn't much that is illegal going on in honduras, but perfectly legal (except for the president trying to vote himself in for life).

uh, there was no "arrest", they put a gun to his head and flew him out of the country. don't believe that act is "stated in the constitution" of honduras, so it is not "perfectly legal" is it?

you and others somehow fail to understand that critical point. it was a coup, not a legal action.

you and the others on the right who support the coup and the military thumbing their nose at the law have more in common with castro and chavez, who are prone to do that very same action, than those who criticize this coup.

[mcsluggo]

Originally Posted by dude1394

I haven't looked to be honest. What I do know is that the president of honduras illegally (according to their supreme court, constitution and congress) tried to change said constitution to allow himself to be re-elected, I'm not sure if it was for life or not. And the supreme court ordered the military (who are the protectors of said constitution) to stop the dude and the congress selected a new president (again via their constitution).

Funny...I sorta thought obeying the constitution WAS being legal, but obviously barry (and yourself) do not think so.

Thanks for playing yourself, chavez, ortega, barry thank you very,very much.

dude, you come off as a bit of a tool here.

why didn't you say

"thanks for playing yourself Harper, Uribe, Obama thank you thank you very much"
(ie the most CONSERVATIVE leaders in the hemisphere, who are also denouncing the coup)

why not?

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

uh, there was no "arrest", they put a gun to his head and flew him out of the country. don't believe that act is "stated in the constitution" of honduras, so it is not "perfectly legal" is it?

you and others somehow fail to understand that critical point. it was a coup, not a legal action.

you and the others on the right who support the coup and the military thumbing their nose at the law have more in common with castro and chavez, who are prone to do that very same action, than those who criticize this coup.

Lessee...it was commanded by the supreme court..isn't that the definition of a legal action?

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by mcsluggo

dude, you come off as a bit of a tool here.

why didn't you say

"thanks for playing yourself Harper, Uribe, Obama thank you thank you very much"
(ie the most CONSERVATIVE leaders in the hemisphere, who are also denouncing the coup)

why not?

If I look like a tool so be it. Before the referendum was to go out the supremes ruled it illegal, however the president went forward with it anyway, trying to force the action.

It seems to me like the correct thing to do to a president who was trying to subvert their constitution by voting himself in for life. And congress (elected by the people also) almost unanimously agreed to this and replaced him with someone from his own party.

Sounds like some damn good democracy to me.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Lessee...it was commanded by the supreme court..isn't that the definition of a legal action?

what makes you believe that the honduras supreme court ordered the military to take the president at gunpoint and ship him out of the country?

a court would at the most order the arrest of the person and their being held for adjudication, rather than the banishment, of someone seen as violating the law.

that is what rule of law is all about, being charged and tried, a point that seems to escape your vision.

[dude1394]

You tell me which party you believe in this case.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/worl...5/9938466.html

Honduran president says he will not obey court order

By Freddy Cuevas, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Last Updated: 25th June 2009, 7:55pm

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The Honduran president vowed Thursday to ignore a Supreme Court ruling ordering him to reinstate the military chief he fired, escalating a showdown that has threatened the leftist leader’s hold on power.


President Manuel Zelaya’s attempt to hold a referendum Sunday on changing the constitution has pitted him against the country’s top courts, the attorney general, military leaders and even his own party, all of whom argue the vote is illegal.
But Zelaya has galvanized the support of labour leaders, farmers and civic organizations who hope constitutional reforms will give them a greater voice in a conservative country where 70 per cent of the population is poor.


The crisis quickly ballooned when Zelaya fired Gen. Romeo Vasquez as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff late Wednesday for refusing to support the referendum, which is intended to measure popular support for possible constitutional changes. Zelaya has not said what he wants, but critics accuse him of trying to extend presidential terms before his ends in January, like his ally Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela.


The Supreme court ordered Vasquez reinstated Thursday and warned Zelaya would face penal consequences if he does not respect the ruling.


“We will not obey the Supreme Court,” Zelaya told more than 2,000 cheering supporters gathered in front of the presidential offices. “The court, which only imparts justice for the powerful, the rich and the bankers, only causes problems for democracy.”


The top court, Congress and the attorney general say the vote is illegal because it would violate constitutional clauses barring some changes.
The president’s dismissal of Vasquez prompted the chiefs of the army, navy and air force to resign. The president himself announced Wednesday night that Defence Minister Edmundo Orellana had resigned.


Vasquez said he could not support a referendum that the courts had declared illegal, but he ruled out the possibility of a coup.
“We are prudent and we accept the decision of the president, whom we respect and who has the right to dismiss whom he wants,” Vasquez said.
The Organization of American States called an emergency meeting Friday to discuss the Honduras crisis.
The president’s nonbinding referendum asks voters if they want a further, formal election on whether to call an assembly to write a new constitution.


Zelaya, who is close to Chavez and the Castro brothers in Cuba, has argued that Honduras’ social problems are rooted in the 27-year-old constitution. Critics say Zelaya, like Chavez and other Latin American leaders, wants to expand presidential powers and remove limits on re-election.


Venezuela’s socialist president offered Zelaya his full support. “We’re willing to do whatever it takes to make sure the Honduran people’s will and sovereignty is respected,” Chavez said during his “Alo, Presidente!” program.
Zelaya, a wealthy landowner grappling with rising food prices and a sharp spike in drug violence, is currently barred from seeking re-election when his four-year term ends in January.


“What you see is the growing delegitimizing of a president by a larger and growing group of leading elites, including the military,” said Manuel Orozco, a political analyst with the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think-tank .
But Zelaya has tapped into discontent among civil organization who see their chance to have greater influence in Honduran politics, Orozco said. And it will be hard to prevent the referendum from happening unless the military steps in directly, he added.


“This fragmentation of the political circles of power have given an opportunity to leverage the demands that civil society has, such as more freedom of expression in a country where the media is owned by a few families,” Orozco said. “I think he has the upper hand right now. The army is uncertain as to whether they should prevent the referendum.”


U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, a leftist Nicaraguan priest and former foreign minister, “clearly and strongly condemns the attempted coup d’etat that is currently unfolding against the democratically elected government of President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras,” his spokesman said.


Earlier Thursday, the Supreme Court ordered police to remove all electoral material stored an air force base at the international airport in the capital, Tegucigalpa. After his speech, Zelaya and his supporters headed to the military base and took ballots and other materials out in military trucks and headed to an undisclosed location.


Attorney General Luis Alberto Rubi, who was appointed by Congress, is urging the legislator to remove Zelaya from office. It is unclear if there is support in Congress for Zelaya’s ouster, but the legislature clearly opposes the referendum.


On Wednesday, the 128-seat unicameral chamber voted unanimously to ask a group of international election observers to leave, arguing their presence legitimized an illegal vote.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

what makes you believe that the honduras supreme court ordered the military to take the president at gunpoint and ship him out of the country?

a court would at the most order the arrest of the person and their being held for adjudication, rather than the banishment, of someone seen as violating the law.

that is what rule of law is all about, being charged and tried, a point that seems to escape your vision.

Well this type of reporting for one.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index....inmenu-36/1312

Acting on the orders of the Honduran Supreme Court, on June 28 a military force detained the nation's president, Manuel Zelaya, and took him to an air force base, where he was taken by plane into exile in San Jose, Costa Rica. ABC News reported that Zelaya's arrest and exile occurred "just hours before a rogue referendum he had called in defiance of the courts and Congress, and which his opponents said was an attempt to remain in power after his term ends January 27."

A VOA news report observed that "Zelaya was going ahead with the referendum in defiance of the Honduran Supreme Court, which declared the vote illegal. The Honduran military had refused to help organize the balloting. The president fired the armed forces chief of staff, General Romeo Vasquez, last week for failing to support him."

And this assertion
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/wo...as/02coup.html

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras—Flipping through a stack of legal opinions and holding up a detention order signed by a Supreme Court judge, the chief lawyer of the Honduran armed forces insisted that what soldiers carried out over the weekend when they detained President Manuel Zelaya was no coup d’état.
...
The detention order, signed on June 26 by a Supreme Court judge, ordered the armed forces to detain the president, identified by his full name of José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, at his home in the Tres Caminos area of the capital. It cited him for treason and abuse of authority, among other charges.
“It was a clean operation,” Colonel Bayardo said, dismissing Mr. Zelaya’s remarks before the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday in which he described the arrest as a brutal coup. “It was a fast operation. It was over in minutes and there were no injuries, no deaths. We said, ‘Sir, we have a judicial order to detain you.’ We did it with respect.”

We can quibble over whether he should have been removed from the country but there is no doubt that he was ordered arrested and therefore should be removed from power it appears to me.

[Mavdog]

are you supportive of the rule of law, or are you supportive of those who act outside the law?

the law does not support arrest and banishment without trial of the president. it supports arrest with a trial to determine the guilt or innocence.

it's really a simple question of if you subscribe to the rule of law. nobody here (or obama or the rest of the world either) is arguing that zelaya was or was not guilty of violating honduran law, only that zelaya, like any other person, should be determined to be guilty or not guilty within the framework of the legal system and not by the military and the barrel of a gun.

it seems this simple concept escapes you.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

We can quibble over whether he should have been removed from the country but there is no doubt that he was ordered arrested and therefore should be removed from power it appears to me.

"quibble"?????

THAT is the issue.

the court ordered his "detention". nowhere does it say the court ordered the president be sent to costa rica.

it is impossible for the president to go through a trial and defend hinself if he isn't there.

[dude1394]

It's hilarious to me for you to talk about "outside the law" when the supreme court was the one that very legally ordered him arrested. I haven't seen their order (nor have yourself) so I don't know what they expected the military to do with him, but up until he was removed from the country(alleged illegal by you), everything was very legal.

But if the entire issue is whether he is being held in a jail cell somewhere versus on the world stage chatting up barry to you, then we can't reach rapprochement.

It appears to me that his opportunity to get his position back is much helped by being out on the national stage, versus locked in his bedroom. The dude wasn't killed, wasn't harmed, but was VERY LEGALLY arrested and jailed.

So the issue is where is his jail cell and would he have the same freedom of action in IT or at the UN (for example).

[dude1394]

I also think you are being pretty naive to be imposing your beliefs of what would be happening here to what might be happening in Honduras. Those countries have a pretty big problem with despots taking over the governments and it appears the hondurans are very,very sensitive to that...as they probably should be. That's why they claim it treason for someone that is not the congress to try and enact constitutional changes.

With our much more open and wealthy society barry couldn't pull this off at all, but someone in honduras might. See the above parrots.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

I also think you are being pretty naive to be imposing your beliefs of what would be happening here to what might be happening in Honduras.

yeah, "imposing [our] belief" in the rule of law is just so damn naive.

Those countries have a pretty big problem with despots taking over the governments and it appears the hondurans are very,very sensitive to that...as they probably should be.

uh, those "despots", esp in the case of honduras, have been the military leaders, the generals who use the guns of the army to seize power. the people are very sensitive to the military stepping in and acting outside the legal system.

That's why they claim it treason for someone that is not the congress to try and enact constitutional changes.

that is not at all what this is all about. the president wanted to have a referendum by the people on if they wanted to change the constitution (this vote was not to make changes to the constitution). the court said the law stated these votes (there is another election scheduled) cannot be within a specific time from each other, and the president's plan to hold the referendum was in violation of that law, ordered the vote to be stopped. the president said he would hold the election anyway and that's when al;l hell broke loose.

again, charge the president with a crime and hold the trial to determine guilt or innocence. that's what the law says to do, not to stahe a coup and put the offender on a plane to costa rica.

With our much more open and wealthy society barry couldn't pull this off at all, but someone in honduras might. See the above parrots.

that's very interesting...so you see the problem in honduras being due to their not being an "open" society and their relative poverty?

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

It's hilarious to me for you to talk about "outside the law" when the supreme court was the one that very legally ordered him arrested. I haven't seen their order (nor have yourself) so I don't know what they expected the military to do with him, but up until he was removed from the country(alleged illegal by you), everything was very legal.

But if the entire issue is whether he is being held in a jail cell somewhere versus on the world stage chatting up barry to you, then we can't reach rapprochement.

It appears to me that his opportunity to get his position back is much helped by being out on the national stage, versus locked in his bedroom. The dude wasn't killed, wasn't harmed, but was VERY LEGALLY arrested and jailed.

So the issue is where is his jail cell and would he have the same freedom of action in IT or at the UN (for example).

uh, he wasn't "arrested and jailed" he was effectively kidnapped, and he won't have the opportunity for a trial to prove his innocence or the state to prove his guilt.

the whole idea of law and jurisprudence seems to be foreign to you....

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

uh, he wasn't "arrested and jailed" he was effectively kidnapped, and he won't have the opportunity for a trial to prove his innocence or the state to prove his guilt.

the whole idea of law and jurisprudence seems to be foreign to you....

So if he were being held under house arrest you would be okay with all of this. It would have been legal?

His arrest by the military and his removal (possibly, I don't know their impeachment portions of their constitution).

[92bDad]

This thread is called "Buyers Remorse Thread"

Obviously this topic can encompass a ton of sub categories...so I'm curious, if we didn't buy in, but we are being forced to go along...can we call it Remorse or are we now victims?

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

So if he were being held under house arrest you would be okay with all of this. It would have been legal?

His arrest by the military and his removal (possibly, I don't know their impeachment portions of their constitution).

sure, if he were arrested and allowed the opportunity to defend himself in court according to the honduran laws I'd expect the world opinion to be different, probably favorable.

[dude1394]

I think the Marx brothers are missing gummo and zeppo. Heh...

Latin American Marxists Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez rallied with ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in Managua yesterday.
Barack Obama, who supports Zelaya, did not make the rally.

Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya poses with his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro (L) and Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez (R) during the Central American integration meeting in Managua June 29, 2009. (REUTERS/Miraflores Palace)

[dude1394]

John Fund: "tool" and "not understanding of law and juriprudence". Just another barry basher.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124633015879271647.html

Many foreign observers are condemning the ouster of Honduran President Mel Zelaya, a supporter of Hugo Chavez, as a "military coup." But can it be a coup when the Honduran military acted on the orders of the nation's Supreme Court, the step was backed by the nation's attorney general, and the man replacing Mr. Zelaya and elected in emergency session by that nation's Congress is a member of the former president's own political party?


Mr. Zelaya had sacked General Romeo Vasquez, head of the country's armed forces, after he refused to use his troops to provide logistical support for a referendum designed to let Mr. Zelaya escape the country's one-term limit on presidents. Both the referendum and the firing of the military chief have been declared illegal by the Honduran Supreme Court. Nonetheless, Mr. Zelaya intended yesterday to use ballots printed in Venezuela to conduct the vote anyway.


All this will be familiar to members of Honduras' legislature, who vividly recall how Mr. Chavez in Venezuela adopted similar means to hijack his country's democracy and economy. Elected a decade ago, Mr. Chavez held a Constituent Assembly and changed the constitution to enhance his power and subvert the country's governing institutions. Mr. Zelaya made it clear that he wished to do the same in Honduras and that the referendum was the first step in installing a new constitution that would enhance his powers and allow him to run for re-election.


No one likes to see a nation's military in the streets, especially in a continent with such painful memories of military rule. But Honduras is clearly a different situation. Members of Mr. Zelaya's own party in Congress voted last week to declare him unfit for his office. Given his refusal to leave, who else was going to enforce the orders of the nation's other branches of government?
--John Fund

[dude1394]

It appears the government legally voted to unseat him. So his ouster from the country is neither illegal or a coup.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32508

Sunday June 28, President Zelaya tried to put the referendum in place and the Army, acting on orders by the Supreme Court, stopped the event. President Zelaya was placed in a plane, unharmed, and sent to neighboring Costa Rica. The same day the Honduran National Congress decided, with the votes of the members of the government party, to unseat him as president. The reason? President Zelaya had tried to place himself above the laws of the country. By trying to pave the way for his re-election he had attempted a coup.

[Mavdog]

odd, there seems to be no mention of any honduran law which allows for a honduran citizen to be kidnapped and forcibly expelled from their country.

the timeline is that he was forcibly detained and placed on an airplane to costa rica, and then later that day he was voted out of office by the legislature. yep, that's a coup.

this is the most ridiculous comment in the above piece:"By trying to pave the way for his re-election he had attempted a coup". the absurdity of describing the potential of his election by the citizens of honduras to being a coup is darn funny.

[mcsluggo]

Dude...

1) the congress voted AFTER the coup to support the action. It was still a coup.

2) Whether or not the coup was justifiable is what some are trying to debate. Fine, I can see some logic to the justification presented for the actions... howover it CERTAINLY would have been much more intelligent and ultimatley successful to handle the situation differently.

3) I am calling YOU a tool for constantly throwing out the retarded line of reasoning that since Chavez and Castro and Ortega support Zelaya, Obama must be one of them to have decried the coup. It is moronic, and tiresome.

[dude1394]

From the CSM

A 'coup' in Honduras? Nonsense.

Don't believe the myth. The arrest of President Zelaya represents the triumph of the rule of law.

By Octavio Sánchez from the July 2, 2009 edition
Tegucigalpa, Honduras - Sometimes, the whole world prefers a lie to the truth. The White House, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and much of the media have condemned the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya this past weekend as a coup d'état.

That is nonsense.

In fact, what happened here is nothing short of the triumph of the rule of law.

To understand recent events, you have to know a bit about Honduras's constitutional history. In 1982, my country adopted a new Constitution that enabled our orderly return to democracy after years of military rule. After more than a dozen previous constitutions, the current Constitution, at 27 years old, has endured the longest.

It has endured because it responds and adapts to changing political conditions: Of its original 379 articles, seven have been completely or partially repealed, 18 have been interpreted, and 121 have been reformed.

It also includes seven articles that cannot be repealed or amended because they address issues that are critical for us. Those unchangeable articles include the form of government; the extent of our borders; the number of years of the presidential term; two prohibitions – one with respect to reelection of presidents, the other concerning eligibility for the presidency; and one article that penalizes the abrogation of the Constitution.

During these 27 years, Honduras has dealt with its problems within the rule of law. Every successful democratic country has lived through similar periods of trial and error until they were able to forge legal frameworks that adapt to their reality. France crafted more than a dozen constitutions between 1789 and the adoption of the current one in 1958. The US Constitution has been amended 27 times since 1789. And the British – pragmatic as they are – in 900 years have made so many changes that they have never bothered to compile their Constitution into a single body of law.

Under our Constitution, what happened in Honduras this past Sunday? Soldiers arrested and sent out of the country a Honduran citizen who, the day before, through his own actions had stripped himself of the presidency.

These are the facts: On June 26, President Zelaya issued a decree ordering all government employees to take part in the "Public Opinion Poll to convene a National Constitutional Assembly." In doing so, Zelaya triggered a constitutional provision that automatically removed him from office.

Constitutional assemblies are convened to write new constitutions. When Zelaya published that decree to initiate an "opinion poll" about the possibility of convening a national assembly, he contravened the unchangeable articles of the Constitution that deal with the prohibition of reelecting a president and of extending his term. His actions showed intent.

Our Constitution takes such intent seriously. According to Article 239: "No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform [emphasis added], as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years."

Notice that the article speaks about intent and that it also says "immediately" – as in "instant," as in "no trial required," as in "no impeachment needed."

Continuismo – the tendency of heads of state to extend their rule indefinitely – has been the lifeblood of Latin America's authoritarian tradition. The Constitution's provision of instant sanction might sound draconian, but every Latin American democrat knows how much of a threat to our fragile democracies continuismo presents. In Latin America, chiefs of state have often been above the law. The instant sanction of the supreme law has successfully prevented the possibility of a new Honduran continuismo.

The Supreme Court and the attorney general ordered Zelaya's arrest for disobeying several court orders compelling him to obey the Constitution. He was detained and taken to Costa Rica. Why? Congress needed time to convene and remove him from office. With him inside the country that would have been impossible. This decision was taken by the 123 (of the 128) members of Congress present that day.

Don't believe the coup myth. The Honduran military acted entirely within the bounds of the Constitution. The military gained nothing but the respect of the nation by its actions.

I am extremely proud of my compatriots. Finally, we have decided to stand up and become a country of laws, not men. From now on, here in Honduras, no one will be above the law.
Octavio Sánchez, a lawyer, is a former presidential adviser (2002-05) and minister of culture (2005-06) of the Republic of Honduras.

[Mavdog]

senor sanchez makes a few errors: first, he makes the presumption that the national consitutional assembly would allow for zelaya to be president again, which is not a fact but a presumption. a presumption on a potential future action is not basis for guilt today.

second, he fails to mention that the assembly was seen as invalid due to a bill passed the week prior to the removal of the president, therefore the original call for the assembly did not violate any laws that existed at that time. the honduran constituion does allow for reform of articles outside of the seven articles mentioned above.

last, there is no mention of a law that allows for kidnapping of an honduran citizen and their expulsion. kidnapping is illegal in honduras just as it is is elsewhere.

the assertion that these events are validation that honduras is a "country of laws" fails the test of accuracy.

a "country of laws" arrests a person who is believed to have broken the law, and holds a fair trial to allow the prosecution and the defendant to prove guilt or innocence.

what occured in honduras is opposite of what happens in a "country of laws". the supreme court ordered the arrest and detention of the president, and that was not followed.

[dude1394]

Another person much closer to what is really happening.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...070103210.html

Honduras's Coup Is President Zelaya's Fault

By Alvaro Vargas Llosa
Wednesday, July 1, 2009; 5:49 PM

Any time a bunch of soldiers break into a presidential palace, pick up the president and put him on a flight to exile, as happened in Honduras last Sunday, you have a "coup." But, unlike most coup targets in Latin America's tortuous republican history, Honduras's deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, bears the biggest responsibility for his overthrow.



A member of the rancid oligarchy he now decries, Zelaya took office in 2006 as the leader of one of the two center-right parties that have dominated Honduran politics for decades. His general platform, his support for the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and his alliances with business organizations gave no inkling of the fact that halfway into his term he would become a political cross-dresser.


Suddenly, in 2007, he declared himself a socialist and began to establish close ties with Venezuela. In December of that year, he incorporated Honduras into Petrocaribe, a mechanism set up by Hugo Chávez for lavishing oil subsidies on Latin American and Caribbean countries in exchange for political subservience. Then his government joined the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA), Venezuela's answer to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, ostensibly a commercial alliance but in practice a political conspiracy that seeks to expand populist dictatorship to the rest of Latin America.



Last year, following the script originally laid out by Chávez in Venezuela and adopted by Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Zelaya announced that he would hold a referendum to set up a constituent assembly that would change the constitution that barred him from reelection. In the next few months, every legal body in Honduras -- the electoral tribunal, the Supreme Court, the attorney general, the human rights ombudsman -- declared the referendum unconstitutional. According to the Honduran constitution (articles 5, 373 and 374), presidential term limits cannot be changed under any circumstance; only Congress can modify the constitution; and political institutions are not subject to referendums.



Honduras's Congress, Zelaya's own Liberal Party and a majority of Hondurans (in various polls) expressed their horror at the prospect of having Zelaya perpetuate himself and bring Honduras into the Chávez fold. In defiance of court orders, Zelaya persisted. Surrounded by a friendly mob, he broke into the military installations where the ballots were kept and ordered them distributed. The courts declared that Zelaya had placed himself outside the law, and Congress began an impeachment procedure.



This is the context in which the military, in an ill-advised move that turned a perfectly legal mechanism for stopping Zelaya into a coup, expelled the president. The fact that the constitutional procedure was subsequently followed by having Congress appoint the head of the legislative body, Roberto Micheletti, as interim president, and that the elections scheduled for November have not been canceled, is not enough to dissipate the cloud of illegitimacy that hangs over the new government. This factor has disarmed Zelaya's critics in the international community in the face of a well-coordinated campaign led by Chávez to reinstate him and denounce the coup as an oligarchic assault on democracy.



That said, the international response, seeking to reinstate Zelaya without any mention of his illegal acts, has been highly inadequate. The Organization of American States, led by its secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, has acted like Venezuela's poodle. At Chávez's request, Insulza went to Nicaragua, where a summit of the anti-democratic ALBA group became the hemisphere's political center of gravity after the coup. Insulza and other populist presidents said nothing about Zelaya's dictatorial conduct leading up to last Sunday's events and simply echoed Venezuela's self-serving stance. Efforts by other countries, including the United States and many South American governments, to put some nuance into the public statements were neutralized by the spectacle unfolding in Nicaragua, which was widely reported across the Spanish-speaking world. It was sad to see Insulza suddenly remember his organization's Inter-American Democratic Charter in relation to Honduras -- the same rules of democratic conduct that Chávez, Morales, Correa and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega have violated on numerous occasions while the OAS looked the other way.



The crisis in Honduras should bring to people's attention this truth about Latin America today: The gravest threat to liberty comes from elected populists who are seeking to subject the institutions of the law to their megalomaniac whims. Given that scenario, the hemisphere's response to Honduras's crisis has undermined those who are trying to prevent populism from taking the region back to the times when it was forced to choose between left-wing revolution and military dictatorships.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

senor sanchez makes a few errors: first, he makes the presumption that the national consitutional assembly would allow for zelaya to be president again, which is not a fact but a presumption. a presumption on a potential future action is not basis for guilt today.

Obviously the honduran elected representatives did not feel quite as sanguine about this as you do. Do you think the same was said about Chavez with his referendum?

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Obviously the honduran elected representatives did not feel quite as sanguine about this as you do.

"sanguine"?? did you mean something else, you're saying that they are not as optimistic or enthusiastic as I am....want to try another word?

Do you think the same was said about Chavez with his referendum?

same what? that chavez did not have legal justification for his referendums? I'm not very sanguine about answering your question without better clarification....but you know chavez does have a sanguine complexion, perhaps he has been in the sun too much, or perhaps a bit too much vino.

[dude1394]

I would suggest that Barry not visit Hamasastan. Fortunes can change quickly there.

The Hamas terrorists want President Obama to visit Gaza.
One World News reported:

A peace delegation visiting the war-torn Gaza Strip traveled to Cairo last week to hand-deliver a letter from Hamas officials to President Obama, requesting the U.S. President visit Gaza to see the humanitarian situation there.

"Obama should go to Gaza and see the devastation for himself, or send envoy George Mitchell," said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK.

At the end of May, CODEPINK led a 66-person delegation through Gaza, where they met with various government officials, schools, hospitals, human rights lawyers, businessmen, and women's groups in the area.

The group carried the letter from Hamas to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. They also delivered a petition signed by over 10,000 Americans, calling on Obama to see for himself the situation in Gaza.

The Syrian Regime invited Obama to Damascus this week.

[alexamenos]

Is it too late for buyer's remore on Governor Goodhair? I never bought him in the first place, so can I have buyer's remorse in any event? Anyhoo....this didn't seem thread worthy but I need to vent just a sec about what a mendacious liar Perry is....

Here Governor Goodhair talks about how hard he's working to stop appraisal inflation by a variety of means including greater State oversight of CADs....

The Governor made this speech today in Houston at a ceremonial bill signing:

July 09, 2009


Thank you all for being here on a beautiful Houston day.

...

I'm glad you're joining me here today as I put pen to paper and
continue protecting the rights of Texas property owners, while
fighting the syndrome known as appraisal creep.

You might recall that we secured a $15.5 billion tax cut for Texas
property owners back in 2006, but have seen much of that achievement
whittled away by local authorities raising appraisals without restraint.

As the legislative session began, I called on members of the House
and Senate to continue our efforts to reform our appraisal system.
It is unfair that Texans keep getting stuck with higher and higher
taxes as local authorities answer tax cuts with inflated appraisals
in what equates to a high-stakes shell game.
...

...we have continually worked to improve our property tax
system, placing our faith in the proven tools of greater
transparency, increased accountability, and tight reins on government
growth at every level.

....

I believe these bills will improve those vital protections by setting
a more uniform standard for appraisals and slowing their steady
increase across the state.

House Bill 8 attempts to slow this pressure in a fairly simple way by
doubling the time between the Property Value Studies that Central
Appraisal Districts have typically conducted on a yearly basis.
This bill also gives the Comptroller increased oversight of Central
Appraisal Districts including a biannual review of appraisal
standards which should move us closer to a standardized statewide approach.

...and here are the facts...

1) the reason home appraisals have increased in recent years is not because Central Appraisal Districts are screwing people around, but instead because housing prices have gone up and appraisal districts have (by and large) done their job.

2) the Comptroller's purpose is not to ensure that appraisal districts don't appraise homes to high, but instead to ensure that appraisal districts don't appraise homes at too low of a value. Let's state that again....the purpose of the State's involvement in local property taxes is to get house values up (higher taxes), not to keep house values down. Perry knows this, or at least he would if he wasn't so friggin' stupid.

3a) Oil and gas companies pay taxes on their mineral interests, and these interests are systemically undervalued because the comptroller sets key parameters which are used to determine the value of the interests. Because the value of oil and gas mineral interests are systematically low, the property tax burden across the state of texas is shifted away from oil companies and onto homeowners.

3b) a bill was introduced in the latest session to correct the Comptroller's nonsense...it got killed by oil company lobbyists, naturally, but it could have been added to a special session. Governor Goodhair was asked to include it in the special session, but he killed it preferring that home owners pay more taxes to the benefit of oil companies.

Republican government at it's finest, suck oil company penis, raise taxes on the peeps, and then bleet about opposition to high taxes.

[Mavdog]

here's the view on honduras as expressed by the interim pres.
it's been interesting to see the drama play out over the last few weeks, the photo of zelaya stepping a few feet into honduras only to scurry back across was classic.
now zelaya is accusing the americans of not doing enough to support him.
bottom line, if you are not pleasing either side in this situation you must be doing something right...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Path Forward for Honduras
Zelaya’s removal from office was a triumph for the rule of law.
By ROBERTO MICHELETTI
One of America’s most loyal Latin American allies—Honduras—has been in the midst of a constitutional crisis that threatens its democracy. Sadly, key undisputed facts regarding the crisis have often been ignored by America’s leaders, at least during the earliest days of the crisis.

In recent days, the rhetoric from allies of former President Manuel Zelaya has also dominated media reporting in the U.S. The worst distortion is the repetition of the false statement that Mr. Zelaya was removed from office by the military and for being a “reformer.” The truth is that he was removed by a democratically elected civilian government because the independent judicial and legislative branches of our government found that he had violated our laws and constitution.

Let’s review some fundamental facts that cannot be disputed:

• The Supreme Court, by a 15-0 vote, found that Mr. Zelaya had acted illegally by proceeding with an unconstitutional “referendum,” and it ordered the Armed Forces to arrest him. The military executed the arrest order of the Supreme Court because it was the appropriate agency to do so under Honduran law.

• Eight of the 15 votes on the Supreme Court were cast by members of Mr. Zelaya’s own Liberal Party. Strange that the pro-Zelaya propagandists who talk about the rule of law forget to mention the unanimous Supreme Court decision with a majority from Mr. Zelaya’s own party. Thus, Mr. Zelaya’s arrest was at the instigation of Honduran’s constitutional and civilian authorities—not the military.

• The Honduran Congress voted overwhelmingly in support of removing Mr. Zelaya. The vote included a majority of members of Mr. Zelaya’s Liberal Party.

• Independent government and religious leaders and institutions—including the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the Administrative Law Tribunal, the independent Human Rights Ombudsman, four-out-of-five political parties, the two major presidential candidates of the Liberal and National Parties, and Honduras’s Catholic Cardinal—all agreed that Mr. Zelaya had acted illegally.

• The constitution expressly states in Article 239 that any president who seeks to amend the constitution and extend his term is automatically disqualified and is no longer president. There is no express provision for an impeachment process in the Honduran constitution. But the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision affirmed that Mr. Zelaya was attempting to extend his term with his illegal referendum. Thus, at the time of his arrest he was no longer—as a matter of law, as far as the Supreme Court was concerned—president of Honduras.

• Days before his arrest, Mr. Zelaya had his chief of staff illegally withdraw millions of dollars in cash from the Central Bank of Honduras.

• A day or so before his arrest, Mr. Zelaya led a violent mob to overrun an Air Force base to seize referendum ballots that had been shipped into Honduras by Hugo Chávez’s Venezuelan government.

• I succeeded Mr. Zelaya under the Honduran constitution’s order of succession (our vice president had resigned before all of this began so that he could run for president). This is and has always been an entirely civilian government. The military was ordered by an entirely civilian Supreme Court to arrest Mr. Zelaya. His removal was ordered by an entirely civilian and elected Congress. To suggest that Mr. Zelaya was ousted by means of a military coup is demonstrably false.

Regarding the decision to expel Mr. Zelaya from the country the evening of June 28 without a trial, reasonable people can believe the situation could have been handled differently. But it is also necessary to understand the decision in the context of genuine fear of Mr. Zelaya’s proven willingness to violate the law and to engage in mob-led violence.

The way forward is to work with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. He is proposing ways to ensure that Mr. Zelaya complies with Honduras’s laws and its constitution and allows the people of Honduras to elect a new president in the regularly scheduled Nov. 29 elections (or perhaps earlier, if the date is moved up as President Arias has suggested and as Honduran law allows).

If all parties reach agreement to allow Mr. Zelaya to return to Honduras—a big “if”—we believe that he cannot be trusted to comply with the law and therefore it is our position that he must be prosecuted with full due process.

President Arias’s proposal for a moratorium on prosecution of all parties may be considered, but our Supreme Court has indicated that such a proposal presents serious legal problems under our constitution.

Like America, our constitutional democracy has three co-equal and independent branches of government—a fact that Mr. Zelaya ignored when he openly defied the positions of both the Supreme Court and Congress. But we are ready to continue discussions once the Supreme Court, the attorney general and Congress analyze President Arias’s proposal. That proposal has been turned over to them so that they can review provisions that impact their legal authority. Once we know their legal positions we will proceed accordingly.

The Honduran people must have confidence that their Congress is a co-equal branch of government. They must be assured that the rule of law in Honduras applies to everyone, even their president, and that their Supreme Court’s orders will not be dismissed and swept aside by other nations as inconvenient obstacles.

Meanwhile, the other elements of the Arias proposal, especially the establishment of a Truth Commission to make findings of fact and international enforcement mechanisms to ensure Mr. Zelaya complies with the agreement, are worthy of serious consideration.

Mr. Zelaya’s irresponsible attempt on Friday afternoon to cross the border into Honduras before President Arias has obtained agreement from all parties—an attempt that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appropriately described as “reckless”—was just another example of why Mr. Zelaya cannot be trusted to keep his word.

Regardless of what happens, the worst thing the U.S. can do is to impose economic sanctions that would primarily hurt the poorest people in Honduras. Rather than impose sanctions, the U.S. should continue the wise policies of Mrs. Clinton. She is supporting President Arias’s efforts to mediate the issues. The goal is a peaceful solution that is consistent with Honduran law in a civil society where even the president is not above the law.

Mr. Micheletti, previously the president of the Honduran Congress, became president of Honduras upon the departure of Manuel Zelaya. He is a member of the Liberal Party, the same party as Mr. Zelaya.

[dude1394]

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12985897

For those of us who were convinced a government-sponsored spending bill was needed to stimulate the economy, the jobs picture in Colorado is dispiriting.



Five months into the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a minuscule fraction of the jobs that were promised to be either "saved or created" have been either saved or created — here or anywhere.
Fewer than 1,000 jobs in Colorado fit that description, according to The Post's Greg Griffin. Many went to college kids looking for summer work. Washington says some 59,000 Colorado jobs will be saved or created by the end of 2010.



We're told (now) that these things take time.



We supported the idea of a stimulus plan that would invest in the nation's infrastructure, but questioned the eventual bill that was so larded with non-stimulus projects.



It seems these new job numbers might be this week's teachable moment, which has us thinking we've learned our lesson.



So please, Congress, drop any talk of an additional "stimulus" package, and instead let this one work through the system.



Maybe once the economy recovers, we can start paying down the debt the stimulus has left us.

[dude1394]

Heh...

On Nov. 4, the hope and happiness seemed boundless for supporters of President-elect Barack Obama, leading some to speculate, with a wink and a nod, that in nine months there would be a virtual Obama baby boom -- a celebratory uptick in the national birthrate.

But now, 40 weeks later -- the average human gestation period -- MSNBC is reporting the prediction has largely been nothing more than, well, false hope. In reality, experts said, a generation is not borne from one night.

[dude1394]

August 12, 2009 - Cost of Government Day Has Arrived!

Every year, the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation and the Center for Fiscal Accountability calculate Cost of Government Day. This is the day on which the average American has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of the spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government at the federal, state, and local levels.

In 2009, Cost of Government Day falls on August 12. Working people must toil 224 days out of the year just to meet all costs imposed by government - a full 26 days longer than last year.
In other words, in 2009 the cost of government consumes 61.34 percent of national income.
To view a pdf of this year's report, click here.

http://www.fiscalaccountability.org/...tent=cogd-teas#

[wmbwinn]

That is funny, Dude. I was going to drop that same exact information onto this thread. You beat me to it...

in another format:

Dear friend,

Happy Cost of Government Day! Today, August 12, is Cost of Government Day (COGD), the day of the calendar year when the average American worker has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of the spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government on the federal, state, and local levels.

COGD falls 26 days later than last year's date, and it's 23 days later than the previous all-time high of July 20, in 1982. There are numerous reasons for this explosive growth in government spending including TARP, the so-called Stimulus, and the big three auto "bailouts." If Congress and the President had not pushed for TARP, Americans would have celebrated COGD on July 25 rather than on August 12.

As your Congressman and Senators hold their town hall meetings this recess, you should ask them why you needed to spend 224 days working to pay off your share of government. You should also ask them if you've already spent this much time working to pay off government, why would you possibly want to spend additional days working for a government takeover of healthcare?

View the COGD report at www.CostofGovernmentDay.com and arm yourselves with the data to ask your representatives the necessary and hard questions about the astonishing growth in government. The report contains a state-by-state breakdown so you can find out how your state ranks by visiting www.CostOfGovernmentDay.com.

[chumdawg]

Yeah, but what about what the average American gets back? What if they bought a car with the cash-for-clunkers deal? For some Americans, that would push them back to January 1. Sweet deal for them!

[dude1394]

Let's see...I don't really think that I get more than half of my working life-force back from the government. If I was rating that expenditure...that would have to be a loser.