S.C. Senator Jim DeMint forces U.S. change on Honduras stance on elections

[Judi Lynn]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

Wires - Wire - News - Wire - Politics - Wire
Sunday, Nov. 15, 2009
S.C. Senator Jim DeMint forces U.S. change on Honduras stance on elections
By JAMES ROSEN - McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican known for his efforts to block influence domestic immigration and health-care issues, has scored a foreign-policy coup by helping to compel the Obama administration to shift its stance on strife-ridden Honduras.

After demanding for months that deposed Honduran President Mel Zelaya be restored to power, senior State Department officials now say they'll accept the outcome of Nov. 29 elections in the Central American country even if Zelaya doesn't reclaim his post.

"We support the elections process there," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Thursday. "We have provided technical assistance. ... These elections will be important to restoring Democratic and constitutional order in Honduras."

That position is a marked change from the tough stance President Barack Obama took in the days following the June 28 removal of Zelaya, when Honduran soldiers launched a dawn raid and whisked him away in his pajamas.

Read more: http://www.thestate.com/nationalpolitics/story/1029134....

[ixion]

1. Obama follows the rethug line... again

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. C street won again. Scary.

[ShortnFiery]

5. No, they ALL are a part of one big club.

And us unwashed masses are NOT in it.

[Aramchek]

3. Obama doesn't do anything based on Demint. Don't be silly.

[Toots]

4. Why wouldn't the state Department accept the election outcome?

Since it is only a couple of weeks away and the current "government" is paralyzed that seems the totally sensible course of action..

[EFerrari]

18. Because there is no way a brutal military dictatorship can

supervise a democratic election.

[AllTooEasy]

45. What if Zelaya wins?

[EFerrari]

46. Zelaya isn't running?

[clear eye]

78. Coupsters are have rounded up and disappeared leading Zelaya supporters

and not allowed him to return to campaign, so he's not on the ballot.

The election is not an open, democratic one, due to repressive measures by this gov't against their own people.

From an article in The Economist, "But the crucial question of Mr Zelaya’s reinstatement has been left to Honduras’s Congress, which shows no sign of discussing it soon. This week Mr Zelaya was still trapped in the Brazilian embassy, where he has been since sneaking back into the country six weeks ago. The de facto government still says it will arrest him if he ventures outside."

"The United States, which has already reopened its visa office in Tegucigalpa, the capital, appears willing to recognise the elections whether or not Congress votes to restore Mr Zelaya. But most of Latin America is unlikely to follow suit unless Mr Zelaya is reinstated before the ballot—especially since the head of the electoral tribunal says that anyone calling for a boycott will be jailed."

[Selatius]

82. You can't have credible elections when the dictatorship still controls the military apparatus.

There are, for sure, areas of resistance against the dictatorship, but to expect unmarred elections in such an extreme environment is expecting too much.

[Peace Patriot]

6. McClatchy has gone rancid, maybe the bad influence of the Miami Hairball?

They have herein printed a TOTAL AND COMPLETE BULLSHIT PROPAGANDA **LIE**, as follows:

"At the time of his removal, Zelaya was seeking to annul a constitutional clause limiting the president to a single term and to hold a referendum on the change."

Geez, we can't even trust the MOST BASIC FACTS from these corpo-fascist 'news' monopolies! It is disgusting.







Get that Hairball out, McClatchy!

[bertman]

29. Except that it would not have allowed HIM to run again. Minor detail, I realize, but

one you'd think McClatchy might be able to get right. Unless they didn't WANT to get it right.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

7. What other options are available to Obama?

I hate to say it, but this seemed like the inevitable result, didn't it? Those currently in charge in Honduras were intentionally dragging their feet, knowing an election was just around the corner. Given that, it doesn't appear the Obama Administration has a lot of other options open to it. Unless I'm overlooking them?

[Judi Lynn]

9. What options are available to all the REST of the countries in the world who refuse

to recognize this filthy coup government and also the results of an election controlled by the vicious bastards.

[AlphaCentauri]

80. Embargo, blockade?

those are traditional means to defit left wing governments why not apply them to right wing coup leaders?

[iandhr]

8. Whats so bad about this

they'll accept the outcome of Nov. 29 elections

IS DU against democracy

[Peace Patriot]

11. Yeah, that must be it. We're "against democracy."

[Judi Lynn]

12. Take some of your posting time to start doing your homework on this coup. RESEARCH. THINK. n/t

[boppers]

13. A summary:

Some of DU wants a socialist Honduras, and Zelaya's removal was a rejection of that goal. They'd like him re-instated, and his agenda (re-writing the constitution) carried out.
Some of DU focus on purely on the law, and see the exile, and removal from office without a two-thirds congressional vote, as unconstitutional, and the current government (and any actions they take) as illegitimate.
Some of DU really doesn't care.
Some of DU are in favor of the elections as a solution, some aren't, because of the reasons listed above.

[EFerrari]

19. Rubbish. There is no way Honduras can have a free election

with the coup in charge. They've illegally detained people, tortured them and even killed them. Any election under their auspices is a farce.

[boppers]

21. So, how many elections would be needed?

How many successive governments would have to be in place before it's no longer a "coup" government, putting themselves up to be voted out?

I'm guessing that no number of governments would make the difference to Zelaya, any government, any election, without him as the leader, would be one he refuses to accept as a legitimate one. There's a word for that kind of thinking.

[EFerrari]

31. This isn't about him. This is about a clean election.

Shouldn't you be asking instead how long the Honduran people will be forced to accept a brutal government?

How would you like to live with compulsory voting when you don't know who is going to kick your door in on election day? When the government has demanded lists of resisters from the heads of municipalities? When there are thousands of people who have just vanished? How would you like to GOTV in such a situation?

Forget about Zelaya. He'll be all right. It's Honduras that's hanging in the balance.

[boppers]

39. Sounds pretty hellish.

Especially when the government tries to force you to vote one way or another to keep them in power....

Having elections that are legal in both legal and fair in Honduran, and International, terms, seems to be one way forward...

[EFerrari]

41. The huge failure in Honduras is not allowing a climate where people feel

that they can cast their vote without penalty. The poll Zelaya wanted didn't jeopardize that security and couldn't. No matter the outcome of that poll, he would have had to leave office while the years long reform process played out.

Constitutional reform has long, long been wanted by a lot of people because the Honduran constitution is short on the participatory part of participatory democracy. That whole process has been pushed back. Honduras has been set back decades and I'm afraid there will be more casualties before this is over.

Edit: clarity

[boppers]

48. "he would have had to leave office"?

I'm not convinced he would have left.

His behavior has actually convinced me otherwise, where he seems to think that his office was an entitlement that was not subject to law... he keeps refusing any compromise that doesn't restore him to office.

[EFerrari]

50. Why would a democratically elected popular president

agree with his own ouster when the people are in the streets demanding his restoration, your mind reading abilities aside.

[boppers]

52. Maybe because his principles were more important than his position?

Since it looks like he's never going to be allowed into that level of office again, his best move might be to try and either form a new party, or steer his party...

[EFerrari]

54. All but our US lapdogs are in complete agreement that Zelaya

should have been restored. Again, this isn't about him but about reverting to the bad old days when planes that fueled up at our bases carried kidnapped presidents out of their countries. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.

[boppers]

56. Since those days are over (hopefully), I wonder how many years those days will be used as cover.

It seems to take 50-100 years for an agrarian->colonialist->capitalist->socialist state to realize that all four systems are failures, and that only a hybrid system actually works.

Chavez is already rationing power and water, Castro is rationing toilet paper... it's like watching the USSR fall, again, in a different culture.

[EFerrari]

58. The past isn't even past. And California has been rationing water

on and off my entire adult life. lol

[boppers]

60. LOL back, I'm a born-and-bred 'zonie, myself.

Yay, at least, for the growth and change that comes from ideological failures.

I wonder what "free-market socialism" would look like, with people, household by household, allowed to join a different "state", regardless of location.

Maybe I'll get to see it in my lifetime.

[Duende azul]

62. To be a little more humble would do you good.

You're not convinced he would have left? Wow, that settles the argument.
Any other foreign police issues where your uninformed gut feelings should dictate the course?
Let us know.




Btw: I admire EFerrari who treats you with such patience.

[boppers]

63. I admire EFerrari as well.

Learning is not always easy.

[EFerrari]

67. boppers and I have a cease fire going.

Imho, it will work out well for both of us.

[boppers]

76. Opposition learning, and argument, can educate.

We come from totally different perspectives on some issues, and from the same perspective on others, but our "fencing" (in public view) both informs each of us (and any audience), as well as stretching us to learn how others see things differently.

Occasionally we trade barbs, as well, but there seems to be enough respect in the dialog that our barbs are also met with humor, or more knowledge.

[L. Coyote]

81. It would free up a lot of cyberspace

[Peace Patriot]

10. Recommended reading…

Honduras Revisited

Robert White | November 11, 2009
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP)

It is now possible to reconstruct with a fair degree of accuracy how the Obama administration turned an imminent diplomatic triumph into a negotiated defeat.

(His conclusion: )

Unless the Obama administration acts quickly to rescue this bungled outcome, Zelaya will take the only road open to him and call for his supporters to boycott the elections.

Most nations of the hemisphere will support him by refusing to recognize the elections and the crisis will drag on.

It is sad to contemplate how the Obama administration has botched a challenge in which it had the support of the entire hemisphere. No wonder President Lula of Brazil has accused President Obama of going back on his promise of a new relationship with Latin America.

http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6565

(Robert White is a former United States ambassador to Paraguay and El Salvador (1980-1981), where he was instrumental in the investigation of the rape and murder of four U.S. churchwomen by Salvadorean death squads. He is currently the president of the Center for International Policy.)

------------

White describes the Obama envoys' recent actions in Honduras as a "charade" and as "cynical and amateurish diplomacy." I would be less charitable. It was vile. They stabbed President Zelaya and the people of Honduras in the back. And Obama's stated policy of peace, respect and cooperation in Latin America will never recover from this. Obama will never be trusted again. Latin America will form its own "common market"--South America already has--and go their own way. And truly this is going to be Latin America's century. They have the creative democratic energy and the resources. The Bushwhacks may try to stop them with an oil war--which is what this Honduran coup is all about (securing the US military base in Honduras, and Honduras itself as a strategically placed war asset)--but they will fail. There is nothing like democratic fervor to overthrow tyranny. And U.S. behavior toward Latin America has been nothing short of tyranny for half a century. Meanwhile, we have been bankrupted by the Bushwhacks, and are looking at our last days as a bully empire.

If the Bushwhacks' purpose was to embarrass, sabotage and destroy Obama's stated good intentions in Latin America, they have succeeded. If their larger purpose is to blackmail him when the Pentagon's plan for SEVEN new US military bases in Colombia--a country with one of the worst human rights record on earth--comes before Congress, they will likely succeed. And if Obama was collusive on destroying democracy in Honduras, and approves militarizing US client states in Latin America for an oil war, then he will be exposed as a liar and a compromised tool of global corporate predators and war profiteers. I still tend to believe that he has good intentions and wants peace and social justice. If so--and if all of this is a Bushwhack plot to Diebold him out of office in 2012 and install their next "war president"--then God bless him and give him strength to defeat them. But I have to say, after this horrid, backstabbing, two-faced, pro-corporate, pro-war profiteer, pro-fascist debacle in Honduras, I am not hopeful about the Obama administration.

[boppers]

15. Interesting opinion.

Obama could be faulted either way, though, for exerting influence. Both camps clearly went outside the law (IMNSHO), and short of the AG and the courts intervening and arresting, well, damn near everybody, there doesn't seem to be any good solutions.

[Peace Patriot]

16. Zelaya did not break any law. He merely proposed what numerous labor unions,

community activists, religious advocates of the poor and grass roots groups all over Honduras asked him to propose, which was well within the limits of the current Constitution and his authority: An ADVISORY vote of the people on whether or not they want to convene a Constituent Assembly to fundamentally reform Honduras' wretched Constitution (which Oscar Arias called "the worst Constitution in the world") and its putrid, elitist political system. The vote would not have had any force of law. If approved by the voters, it would have gone to Congress, which would likely have let it die there, but it would have been a moral victory for the forces of change.

An opinion poll. And for that, the Honduran military and its rich oligarchy shot up his home, terrified his family, kidnapped him at gunpoint and forced him into exile, then declared martial law, suspended civil rights, shut down opposition news media, and began beating up and killing people who objected.

"Both camps clearly went outside the law...". That is not true.

"Obama could be faulted either way, though, for exerting influence." Not true.

Honduras is a U.S. client state. It is very dependent on the U.S. for trade and aid. U.S. taxpayers support the Honduran military as well, and Honduras is the site of extensive U.S. military presence--a base and port facilities. The plane carrying the kidnapped president of the country stopped at the U.S. military base at Soto Cano, Honduras, for refueling. That, and the U.S. embassy's prior knowledge of the coup, should have put a stop to the coup, right there. But it didn't. Who is to blame? I don't know for sure. All Obama would have had to do was order the U.S. military to stop and search the plane, and all he would have had to say is "no more money." End of story. The coup would not have lasted a week.

I don't agree with those who say he should have declared it a "military coup" which triggers full sanctions, because that law also triggers the requirement of Congressional approval, and Jim De Mint and the Pukes were laying in wait to ambush Obama in Congress and hand him a major defeat on his new policy of peace, respect and cooperation in Latin America. But he could have stopped all current funding, and frozen all bank accounts and visas, immediately--or threatened to--and that would have been an end to it. He did not do this. He SAID Zelaya should be restored, but he ACTED as if the Junta had a right to negotiate conditions to end the coup. Thus began the song and dance in Costa Rica.

Considering Honduras' dependence on the U.S. and long and awful history of being used as a "stepping stool" for U.S. aggression against other countries, it is absurd to say that Obama "should not have exerted influence." U.S. "influence" in--and, indeed, its domination of--Honduras is the reality. NOT to exert "U.S. influence" to REQUIRE democracy in Honduras is the same as saying that a fascist junta is just hunky-dory with the United States. There are no two sides to this. Either you have democracy and the rule of law or you do not. And the Junta, by their violent expulsion of the ELECTED president, and their brutal repression of all who have protested it, including 26 known murders, and thousands of unjust arrests, beatings, rapes, tortures and other horrors, has proven, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that they are lawless fascists who have no legitimacy whatsoever.

If they had any kind of case against Zelaya, why did they wait until they had forced him out of the country to state it, and then bring charges in his absence, when he could not be there to defend himself, and forge his signature on a resignation letter--and, finally, twice refuse him re-entry into the country to face their trumped up charges?

They are lying, illegitimate jerks, is why. And they knew damn well that their false charges against Zelaya would have brought forth an unbashable, unmurderable, untorturable, unrepressable revolution in the streets, and they would have been out on their ears. So, they snuck around, and lied, and forced Zelaya out of the country, and counted on corpo-fascist support here, by the likes of Jim DeMint, John McCain, John "death squad" Negroponte and James "Mr. Election Fixer" Baker, to "handle" Obama.

The irony of this situation--if Obama is sincere in his pledge for a new relationship between the U.S. and Latin America-- is that the President of United States seems to have no more power to implement his own policy than President Zelalya does.

President Chavez of Venezuela said that Obama "is the prisoner of the Pentagon," and I'm beginning to think that he was right on the money. The Pentagon interest in this affair is securing the U.S. military base in Honduras, to work in coordination with the proposed new SEVEN U.S. military bases in Colombia (another military run fascist state--with one of the worst human rights records on earth, on whom we are larding $6 BILLION in military aid), and the restoration of the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean, and new bases in Panama--for purposes that we can't know for sure--since the American people are always the last to find out what the Pentagon's plans are--but which look very much like a deliberate surrounding of Venezuela's main oil region on the Caribbean coast, adjacent to Colombia.

Is Obama "a prisoner of the Pentagon"? I hope we don't find out the hard way.

[boppers]

20. No laws broken?

"If they had any kind of case against Zelaya, why did they wait until they had forced him out of the country to state it, and then bring charges in his absence, when he could not be there to defend himself, and forge his signature on a resignation letter--and, finally, twice refuse him re-entry into the country to face their trumped up charges? "

They didn't wait. They brought the 18 charges two days before the actual arrest and overthrow. Here's a summary from an adversarial perspective:
--
VIOLACIONES A LA LEY ATRIBUIDAS A zelaya

1. Ordenar a las FF AA el manejo y custodia de las urnas para la encuesta popular.
2. Ordenar a las FF AA la construcción de una terminal aérea civil en Palmerola.
3. Extender por tres años el periodo del Jefe del Estado Mayor Conjunto de las FF AA.
4. Creación de la figura del Comisionado Vicepresidente.
5. Engavetar más de ochenta leyes aprobadas en el Congreso.
6. Intentar colocar urnas para la encuesta popular contraviniendo sentencias del Poder Judicial.
7. Bloqueo de las transferencias presupuestarias a la Alcaldía de Tegucigalpa.
8. Transferencia de sólo setecientos millones de lempiras de los cinco mil que les correspondían a las alcaldías nacionales.
9. No enviar en tiempo y forma al Congreso el Presupuesto General de la República.
10. Asignación anual extra del uno por ciento del Presupuesto General de la nación a las FF AA.
11. Calificar de políticas las decisiones del Ministerio Publico y el Poder Judicial.
12. Manifestar que el Congreso Nacional no tiene moral para aprobar la Ley del Plebiscito y Referéndum.
13. Acusar de “Ley mentirosa” la regulación del plebiscito y referéndum aprobada en el Congreso.
14. No transferir fondos al Congreso Nacional.
15. Desobedecer la orden de suspender la propaganda a favor de la cuarta urna.
16. Utilizar fondos del Estado para promover la cuarta urna.
17. Exponer públicamente a una niña contaminada con el virus de la influenza H1N1.
18. Destituir al general Romeo Vásquez Velásquez como Jefe del Estado Mayor Conjunto de las FF AA.
---
(From http://www.laprensahn.com/Ediciones/2009/07/02/Noticias... )

A machine translation (not my spin, it's already spun in the above):
---
1. Ordering the AA FF handling and safekeeping of the polls for the popular poll.
2. Ordering the AA FF building a civil air terminal in Palmerola.
3. Spread over three years the period of the Chief of Joint Staff of the Armed Forces AA.
4. Creation of the post of Vice-Commissioner.
5. Shelve more than eighty laws passed in Congress.
6. Try placing popular vote to the poll contrary judgments of the judiciary.
7. Blocking of budgetary transfers to the municipality.
8. Transfer of only seven hundred million lempiras of the five thousand that corresponded to the national mayors.
9. Do not send in a timely manner to Congress the General Budget of the Republic.
10. Extra annual allocation of one percent of the general budget of the nation to the FF AA.
11. Rate policy decisions of prosecutors and the judiciary.
12. Demonstrating that the Congress has no moral authority to approve the Plebiscite and Referendum Act.
13. Accused of "Law liar" regulation of the plebiscite and referendum passed by Congress.
14. No transfer funds to the National Congress.
15. Disobeying the order to suspend the propaganda of the fourth ballot.
16. Using state funds to promote the fourth ballot.
17. Publicly exposing a child contaminated with the H1N1 influenza virus.
18. Dismissed by General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez as Chief of Joint Staff of the Armed Forces AA.
---

There's definitely some bullshit in there (A child with H1N1? Really?), that any court would laugh at, but there's also some serious fiscal and authority issues.

[EFerrari]

32. Iirc, they backdated this document. And do you think you can trust

anything they produce when they also faked a letter of resignation?

Zelaya's real crime was raising the minimum wage. Dole and Chiquita and the owners of Honduran textile sweatshops didn't like that.

[boppers]

37. "They"... is a few parties.

The AG office seems clean, at least.

The resignation letter (and whoever "produced" it), not so much.

I think overall that Zelaya's biggest "crime" was openly defying congress, and refusing to pass democratic laws. Then openly defying courts, and trying to run a private election. Then trying to fire the military leader....

He just kept pissing people off, and when those people happen to be the "the rest of the government", well, that tends to cause problems.

[EFerrari]

38. boppers, he raised the minimum wage.

Do you believe these "guardians of democracy" who went from zero to torturing journalists in a matter of weeks give a sh!t about anything else?

[boppers]

40. This didn't go down in weeks. This has been going down since January.

Raising minimum wage: Good
Denying regional funding: Bad
Interstate co-ordination with regional partners: Good
Personal use of the military for politics: Bad
Calling for changes needed for the poor: Good
Refusing to sign, or veto, laws, based on executive opinion: Bad
Power sharing in government: Good
Unilateral decisions about power sharing: Bad

This is about much more than just the minimum wage. Zelaya and Michaletti's camps would both like to paint it in simplistic, talking-points, terms like that, but that is simply not the reality.

[EFerrari]

43. Read down your own list and notice that the things you've labeled "bad"

are reasonably the jobs of an executive.

I'd like to read more about denying regional funding. What does that mean, exactly?

There was no use of the military for politics, that's spin, as is protecting the power of a weak executive branch. It really does come down to Zelaya upsetting the PTB over the little sweatshop we know as Honduras, as far as I can tell.

[boppers]

47. Hmm? Okay, the "Bad" first:

Denying regional funding: Bad
The executive branch of a government shouldn't get to grant, or deny, funding based on whims. That's not executive, that's flat out corruption, enforced by payola. Don't agree with a dictator? He won't fund your area.

Personal use of the military for politics: Bad
Always a bad thing, military should be used for defense of the state, not as a private enforcement army. If anything, the sad Latin America saga is most polluted by military subject to a "leader".

Refusing to sign, or veto, laws, based on executive opinion: Bad
This is just plain obstructionism. It's dictatorship by refusing a congress the power to enact laws.

Unilateral decisions about power sharing: Bad
Uhm, this was actually a shot at two camps, but if only one person is making decisions, it's not power sharing.

"I'd like to read more about denying regional funding. What does that mean, exactly?"
In US terms, it would mean that Obama was signing executive orders that banned federal Highway funds to "red states". It's a political tactic to consolidate power by de-funding opponents.

"There was no use of the military for politics"
Demanding that the military run an election question, outside of congressional and court authority, counts in my book. Maybe you consider that acceptable, I don't.

[EFerrari]

49. I'd like to read about denying funding to a region.

As in, a link with information. Not an analogy or sundry epithets. I'm always looking for new information.

[boppers]

55. How I did it:

I pulled the "charges", and then googled them:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Bloqueo+de+las+transf...
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Transferencia+de+s%C3...

(Let's hope this transfer in DU)

[EFerrari]

59. Search this phrase

"Bloqueo de las transferencias presupuestarias a la Alcaldía de Tegucigalpa"

and when you do, notice that it has been astroturfed all over right wing sites.

It doesn't return anything but accusations as far as I can tell but will have to keep checking in the a.m. A quick scan looks like Zelaya disrupted a system of bribes. Oops.

[boppers]

61. AH, you caught that possible angle too?

Good on ya.

If a bribe system is caught, and bribes to opponents are disrupted, what does that say?

(Aside from the system being corrupt...)

[SharonAnn]

22. Thank you. You're absolutely right. Honduras is a U.S. Client state and more.

Their current constitution was written until the previous military junta and is designed to keep the military and the oligarchy in control.

I lived there. I know what it was like and now it sounds even worse.

[gmpierce]

25. it's a clear day...

It's all just another example of Obama playing 12 dimensional chess. By this action, he is teaching the rest of South America that they can't trust us and they can't believe anything we say.

The result is that all of South America will become socialist. It looks like incompetence, but it's really a liberal plot. </sarcasm>

[David__77]

14. This will isolate the US in Latin America. I guess that's a good thing.

I'd rather have the administration follow an openly right-wing position such as this than try to undermine Latin American solidarity and fool people with a vacillating, opportunist position. The countries of Latin America and the developing countries generally will not accept the fascist coup elections.

[wisteria]

17. The fact that DeMint is receiving credit for this when in fact he was just a thug and obstructionist

is outrageous. Others fought to keep Zelaya relevant while DeMint went behind the administrations back and met with the coup leader making promises he had no right to make. I do understand how difficult a decision like this was for the administration, but appearance wise, this looks like the administration needed to be told the right path by a first term Republican with his own political ambitions.

[SharonAnn]

23. Since when is DeMint in charge of U. S. diplomacy?

[wisteria]

26. That is my point. He has been "going rouge" so to speak with some assistance on travel expenses

provided by Minority leader Mitch McConnell, and DeMint got what he wanted which was to travel to Honduras to meet with that coup leader. DeMint has attempted to undercut the authority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, he has held up the confirmation of two regional representatives,which he released from hold,after assurances from Clinton who was speaking 0n behalf 0f the administration, to back the coup leader after the elections- and a win.

[TomCADem]

24. At This Point, Since Zelaya Would Be Termed Out Anyways, What's The Point...

In refusing to recognize elections?

[wisteria]

27. There are questions regarding the Constitution and whether Zelaya would have really been termed out.

I think Zelaya might have become a concern because of his associations.

[TomCADem]

28. I Personally Would Hope The U.S. Just Stay Out Of It...

Wait until the Hondurans figure it out.

[EFerrari]

34. Actually, there is no question there at all.

The constitutional reform project he undertook would have barely been started when he left office.

[EFerrari]

35. The media makes it about him in the way the right wing always

tries to isolate a scapegoat.

No one will recognize these elections except now us. And the reason not to recognize them is because they will be run by the same group of gangsters that are disappearing people and torturing journalists and killing off opposition leaders. Not nice people.

[boppers]

44. Valid points I've seen:

1. Refusing to recognize the elections puts pressure on current (and future) political chicanery of the sort that went down.
2. Dissenting media outlets have been shut down and/or disrupted, leading to a less informed populace.
3. If an election is mis-trusted, and "recognized" anyways, people are less likely to trust their system.
4. There are reports of opposition being tortured and murdered.

I personally think that elections are the *solution* to this crisis, but there's some very valid points being made in opposition.

[harmonicon]

30. this makes me wonder "WHO THE FUCK IS RUNNING THE STATE DEPARTMENT!?!?"

.... and then I remember, and I think, "oh, yeah....", and I'm not surprised.

[boppers]

42. ...dude....

[EFerrari]

51. And if Lanny Davis has a hot line. n/t

[DU GrovelBot]

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[boppers]

64. Grovelbot is a golpista.

Way to argue for the oligarchy, grovelbot.

[Garam_Masala]

36. After the 2000 Florida election debacle we have forefeited

the right to criticize other countries on their
election legalities and fraud.

[EFerrari]

53. I didn't steal Florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004

and reserve the right to protest this fake upcoming election in Honduras.

[boppers]

57. What would make an election valid, to you?

Can you list some bullet points, of things that must happen, for an election to be considered valid?

I'll start:
1. Media outlets that do not advocate riots should be allowed to express candidate views.
2. Media outlets should be *required* to broadcast opposing views (aka: fairness doctrine)

Your turn.

[EFerrari]

65. There can be no free election in a military dictatorship.

[Peace Patriot]

66. 1. Rightwing juntas that murder & torture leftists should not be allowed to run elections.

2. Media outlets that call peaceful protests "riots" should be "balanced" with media outlets that don't.

Your turn.

[boppers]

69. Oooh, nicely balanced!

3. Vote counting should be transparent to all parties in the election.
4. Candidates should not be "selected" by parties, they should be selected by the voters.

[L. Coyote]

74. But, but, right wing juntas must run elections by murdering & torturing leftists, or they lose them.

The desperation of measures to retain control indicates their extreme right wingnut position.

[Garam_Masala]

70. Nobody said YOU stole anything===but vote fraud is rampant in good ole USA

There are countless incidents of vote fraud in USA including
rigged electronic machines, courts stopping vote counts, Acorn
registering mickey mouse and rugrats, lost ballots, shortage of
voting machines and ballots, dead people voting, felons allowed
to vote etc.........on and on

So who are we to tell Honduras or Afghans that their elections are bogus?

[L. Coyote]

72. "who are we" There you go again, including your pocket mouse

We are the people who did not steal anything, and who will bitch, at least,
if anyone even tries to steal an election. We do it all day if needed.

That's DU for you! And your mouse.

[EFerrari]

75. Indeed. Our government doesn't have a fig leaf to call its own.

Agreed.

[L. Coyote]

71. Take that we out of your pocket and tell it

this story.

I did not forfeit any of my rights in 2000 or 2004,
just like being tortured does not forfeit your right to not be tortured.

In fact, 2000 was the biggest lesson history ever gave about allowing incompetent duchebags to steal an election.

After the 2000 Florida and 2004 Ohio lessons, we know how important our rtight to criticize stolen elections is.

It is easy to imagine in 2012 the Hondurans saying, "Allowing the 2009 election to be stolen by a coup was something we did not foresee and did not STOP."

[Selatius]

83. As someone who has lived in the Deep South, the US had no right to criticize anybody...EVER.

For a long time, Blacks and other minorities in this country have been prevented from voting or have had their votes rigged against them or have simply had them thrown out. On top of that, intimidation of voters, execution of prominent dissidents and civil rights leaders, lynchings, bombings, etc. have been used for the longest time to suppress minority views. The US claims to be a lot of things, and it has done a lot of good things, but free and fair elections are something even the US has failed to live up to. The state I live in, the state of Mississippi, has been one of the most egregious, most authoritarian historically in its treatment of minorities and of opposition forces against the established interests that run the state.

[fascisthunter]

68. "forces"...lol.

Nobody was forced to go along with this fascist shitbag

[L. Coyote]

73. I noticed the bolding

Source: McClatchy Newspapers says it all!!!

[Judi Lynn]

77. Honduras' crisis brings South Florida election showdown

Posted on Monday, 11.16.09
Honduras' crisis brings South Florida election showdown

Divisions over Honduras' political future are evident not only in the Central American country but also in South Florida as legal issues arise over elections.

BY TRENTON DANIEL
[e-mail]

Editor's Note: This story is part of an occasional series appearing in The Miami Herald leading up to Honduras' Nov. 29 national elections.

Honduras' chief diplomat in Miami flips to page 117 of his nation's election manual and insists that his fellow countrymen living here must vote for their new president at the consulate in South Florida.

In Tegucigalpa, more than 900 miles away, government officials say Fernando Agurcia is wrong. His consulate no longer has the authority to organize elections outside the country.

``Right now, we're on standby,'' Agurcia said. ``Not knowing what is going to happen has been very stressful.''

Hondurans may go to the polls on Nov. 29 with hopes of resolving the 20-week-old presidential crisis that was triggered by President Manuel Zelaya's sudden ouster in a military coup.

Yet, for the half-million Honduran citizens living in the United States, 61,000 of them in South Florida, a new crisis is brewing over where they will vote, and how.

That's because Agurcia was appointed by Zelaya. A framed photo of the toppled populist hung prominently in the consul general's West Miami-Dade office where he defended his authority to administer the Nov. 29 balloting.

But the interim government of Roberto Micheletti, shunned by the Obama administration and Organization of American States, ordered Zelaya's diplomats out. The U.S. State Department told him to stay.

The showdown in South Florida may not be a tipping point on the magnitude of the 2000 Bush-Gore elections that hung on dimpled chads and butterfly ballots.

Still, it is rattling nerves in particular here because the more outspoken Hondurans support Micheletti and his coup -- and don't want to vote in a process administered by a Zelaya ally.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1335534....

[New Dawn]

79. Wake up people.

This was a US-backed coup. Extreme-rightist DeMint did not "force" the State Department to do anything.

[anonymous171]

84. Obama is a pussy.

There I said it. If he isn't a wimp then he is a goddamn corporate fucking whore.