Blueprint for Revolution
Blueprint for Revolution
There is your country and it's being taken from you one election at a time. Take it back.
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How My Lawsuit Against the TSA Made Airports Safe For the Constitution Again
via The Huffington Post
On March 29, 2009, I was traveling through Lambert-St. Louis International Airport carrying approximately $4,700 in cash. I'm the Director of Development for Campaign for Liberty, a political organization that grew out of Congressman Ron Paul's presidential campaign and promotes constitutional principles of freedom. The cash was money the Campaign for Liberty had received at our Regional Conference in St. Louis -- the proceeds of ticket sales, t-shirts, stickers, books, etc. -- that I was transporting back to our office in Virginia. The price for bringing my organization's cash box through TSA screening? TSA agents detained me for half an hour of harassing questioning.t.
Of course, carrying cash on flights within the United States is not illegal. My case was one of many troubling incidents in which the TSA attempted to transform its limited search authority into a license to invade people's privacy by performing sweeping, unfounded searches that have nothing to do with keeping flights safe. The only difference between others who have been subjected to these types of illegal searches and myself is that I was equipped with a pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution and my iPhone. And I wasn't afraid to use either.
Although my knowledge of the law was limited, I did not believe that I should have to surrender my constitutional rights because I chose to travel by plane. I knew I was not doing anything illegal or suspicious. I also knew the government's interest in investigating me had nothing to do with flight safety. There was no suggestion I was carrying anything dangerous to anyone on board or the plane itself. The TSA agents focused their entire interrogation on the fact that I was carrying $4,700 cash. Based on that, they held me in an interrogation room to investigate me; I remained polite but insisted on at least being informed of my rights under the Constitution.
You don't have to believe my characterization of the interrogation. I recorded audio of the incident with my iPhone. Two things emerge clearly from the recording: first, the agents were not plausibly investigating evidence of a risk to flight safety; and second, they were not interested in informing me of my legal rights. When a combination of TSA agents and police officers crowded the room, the interactions became like something you'd see on a television police drama.
I was repeatedly asked where I worked, what I was doing with the money, where I got the money, and a host of other unnecessary questions. My response? "Am I legally required to answer?" I was told I would be taken to see the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), asked if I needed to be handcuffed, and informed, "If you have nothing to hide, just answer the questions." Upon my final statement that I was looking for direction as I did not understand the law, I was informed, "We're gonna help you understand the law," and I was lead down the hall to be further investigated, I was told, by the FBI and/or DEA. Although I never did end up speaking with the FBI or DEA, it's worth listening to the audio of my interrogation to get a clear sense of the situation.
The law states that TSA agents should be able to search for weapons and explosives, things that could pose a threat to flight safety. But extending their searches to fishing expeditions for general law enforcement purposes - searches TSA agents are not trained to perform - only serves to distract from that task.
On June 18, 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on my behalf in federal court, charging TSA with violating my constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. My focus was on principle rather than financial gain, and I did not seek money in the lawsuit. Rather, my case asked the court to order TSA screeners to conform their searches to the Constitution's requirements. Under the Constitution, TSA screeners do not have the unlimited ability to search and detain passengers. Search procedures designed for purposes other than screening for weapons and explosives exceed TSA's authority and violate passenger rights, and we hoped a court order could generate a policy from TSA that respected all travelers' liberties.
What a difference a lawsuit makes... Eight days before the government's response was due in our case, TSA issued a new policy directive making clear that its safety screening procedures would be strictly limited to passenger searches for the purpose of safeguarding flight safety. In combination with other directives issued in the wake of our lawsuit, TSA's policy now makes clear that passengers should not experience the kind of suspicionless detention and questioning I had been subjected to.
In light of this victory, yesterday the ACLU informed the court of our intention to voluntarily dismiss the suit. The Constitution draws a critical distinction, which these new directives reflect: when subjecting individuals to blanket, suspicionless searches, TSA agents must adhere to their limited mandate of protecting flights against weapons or explosives. The new policy is clear: passengers are no longer forced to check their constitutional rights at the airport counter, and that is a victory for all.
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Woman Deemed "Not Bright Enough to Marry"
EXCLUSIVE by Alison Smith-Squire 18/10/2009
A pregnant young woman,whose wedding was halted by social workers in an extraordinary row over whether she is bright enough to marry, is to have her baby boy forcefully removed from her at birth.
Kerry Robertson, 17, who has mild learning difficulties, was this week told during a meeting with social workers they believe she is also not ëintelligent enoughí to look after her baby, due in January.She will be allowed just a few hours with her baby, whom she has already named Ben. But she and fiance Mark McDougall, 25, will not be allowed to leave the hospital with Ben and he will then be placed with foster parents.
She said yesterday: "I couldn't believe it when they told me I wouldnít be allowed to bring my baby home. I feel sick all the time.
"I am so upset I donít know what to do with myself. I know I am having a little boy and so I have already started buying baby clothes and am getting a nursery ready for him. But now I can't take it in. I don't want to think about January and I canít stop crying."
Last month Kerry, who is 26 weeks pregnant, was told her wedding was being halted just 48 hours before she was due to walk up the aisle because, according to social services, she 'did not understand the implications of getting married'.
Her fiance Mark, an artist, added: "Seeing Kerry so upset is absolutely heartbreaking and I am very worried that all this stress she is under will affect our unborn baby's health.
"We're just devastated by this and at the moment we just don't know how we are going to cope in January. We have both already bonded with Ben and I can't even begin to think what it will be like coming home without him.
"It seems unbelievably cruel but social workers told us that after an hour or two with Ben, he will be placed into the care system. They added neither Kerry nor myself will be allowed to remove him from the hospital.
"Social services are ruining our lives. They say they don't believe Kerry has the mental capacity to look after a baby but this is nonsense. Kerry isn't even being given a chance to prove herself as a parent. Yet, she is enjoying her pregnancy and would be a great mum."
Mark said he would be happy to take on full responsibility for his son.
He added: "However, social workers just told me at the meeting to be quiet. As we are not married - because social workers would not let us marry - it seems I have no rights as a dad at all.
"Kerry's grandmother is trying to apply for custody of Ben but social services have already told us it is unlikely she will be successful.
"It seems social services have their hearts set on taking him away from all of us for good. It looks like Ben will eventually be put up for adoption. We feel totally helpless as there seems to be no way of stopping them."
Kerry, from Dunfermline, Fife, has been in the care of her grandmother since she was nine months old after her parents were unable to look after her, with welfare overseen by social services at Fife Council.
In January, she met Mark, from Arbroath and when she became pregnant, they planned to marry.
But their plans were dramatically halted when in September, two days before their church wedding, two social workers arrived at the flat they had shared for four months and told them because of Kerry's learning difficulties, their forthcoming marriage was illegal.
Under Scottish law, a registrar may refuse to marry a couple if he believes one or both the parties lack the mental capacity to understand what the institution of marriage is about.
In a highly unusual step, the registrar at Dunfermline Register Office refused to sanction the marriage after Fife Council wrote a letter of objection.
Mark said: "Everything was organised, from the church to Kerry's wedding dress.
"Yet, despite arguing with the social workers that we loved one another and didn't want our baby to be born to unmarried parents, they wouldn't budge and we were forced to cancel our 40 guests."
However, Kerry, who is still waiting to undergo an official psychological assessment, says her learning difficulties are not as severe as Fife Council make out.
"Last year I volunteered to help disabled children at my local primary school," she says, "I have friends, a family who supports me and a fiance who loves me. I do everything for myself."
Meanwhile, Mark points out that whilst his fiance 'is not terribly academic', she can read and write.
"She is a loving caring person, who is enjoying being pregnant and would be a good mum," he says, "I didn't even know she had learning difficulties until we'd been dating for two months and anyone who meets Kerry can see for themselves she is just a normal girl.
"For the first time in her life Kerry was truly happy. We were both looking forward to having out baby. But now our lives have been totally turned upside down and we are living a nightmare."
Stephen Moore, Executive Director, Social Work Service said: "Much of the work we do is governed by legislation. Complex decisions are made that balance risk and welfare while supporting people at times of personal or family need.
"We cannot discuss details of individual cases for reasons of confidentiality but give assurance that we will always work with people for the best outcome for all involved."
Originally posted at the UK Mirror.
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Global Police
Interpol, the global police organization, said Monday it will provide enhanced technical and advisory support to the United Nations in the world body's peacekeeping missions worldwide.
Interpol director of legal affairs Joel Sollier told reporters in Singapore that his organisation "will provide advice and consulting services in the area of policing during peacekeeping operations." He said Interpol's support will include field information to police officers as well as assistance in areas such as investigation techniques.
"Interpol is not going to send troops out into the field here and there throughout the world," Sollier said on the sidelines of Interpol's 78th general assembly that began Monday in Singapore.
"What Interpol is going to do is provide technical assistance, technical support. It will provide advice and consulting services in the area of policing during peacekeeping operations."
About 64 foreign, justice and home affairs ministers from around the world endorsed a declaration committing Interpol to help the UN strengthen the role of police forces in peacekeeping and rebuilding operations in countries recovering from conflict.
The ministers were among 800 delegates from 187 member countries attending the general assembly which ends Thursday.
UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations police adviser Andrew Hughes said Interpol's help is important because rebuilding efforts are often complicated by trans-national crime syndicates keen to exploit the situation.
"On every front, whether it's capacity building, interim law enforcement or close operations support, we need the help of Interpol... we need all of the technical expertise that Interpol can bring to the equation," Hughes said.
The number of police forces involved in UN peacekeeping operations are expected to increase to 15,000 in the next two months from 6,000 in 2005, UN officials said.
Government officials in recent years have recognised the crucial role of police forces to complement soldiers in peacekeeping and peace-building missions, UN and Interpol officials said.
For example, countries recovering from conflicts need police expertise in managing border movements and in having access to secure international police communications and global databases, they said.
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
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Boston Launches "Flu Shot Tracking"
By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff
Using technology originally developed for mass disasters, Boston disease trackers are embarking on a novel experiment - one of the first in the country - aimed at eventually creating a citywide registry of everyone who has had a flu vaccination. The resulting vaccination map would allow swift intervention in neighborhoods left vulnerable to the fast-moving respiratory illness.
The trial starts this afternoon, when several hundred people are expected to queue up for immunizations at the headquarters of the Boston Public Health Commission. Each of them will get a bracelet printed with a unique identifier code. Information about the vaccine's recipients, and the shot, will be entered into handheld devices similar to those used by delivery truck drivers.
Infectious disease specialists in Boston and elsewhere predicted that the registry approach could prove even more useful if something more sinister strikes: a bioterrorism attack or the long-feared arrival of a global flu epidemic. In such crises, the registry could be used to track who received a special vaccine or antidote to a deadly germ.
"Anything you can do to better pinpoint who's vaccinated and who's not, that's absolutely vital," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy at the University of Minnesota. "I wish more cities were doing this kind of thing."
Boston is believed to be the first city to embrace this particular approach to tracking vaccinations against the seasonal flu, estimated to kill 36,000 people each year in the United States, principally the elderly.
But when Boston bought the monitoring system from a Milwaukee company in 2006, emergency authorities had a far different use in mind: tracking people injured in big fires, plane crashes, or other disasters.
"When there's a large catastrophic event, people end up in a variety of healthcare facilities," said Dr. Anita Barry, Boston's director of communicable disease control. "Of course, their family members and loved ones are trying to find out where they are and how they're doing."
To see how well the system would work, emergency crews tested it at the Boston Marathon and the Fourth of July extravaganza on the Esplanade. The trial proved successful.
"If we can make it work in the Boston Marathon medical tent, then you have to think about making it so that it can work in other environments as well - whether it's a community clinic or a doctor's office or a flu shot clinic," said Rich Serino, chief of Boston Emergency Medical Services. Thus, the idea to use the registry as a flu vaccine tracker was born.
Every autumn in medical offices across the country, flu vaccine floods in. The perishable medical product must be delivered to millions in a matter of months.
Keeping track of that cache of vaccine - and which patients are getting it - is a daunting proposition.
In some medical offices, the information is entered into electronic medical records. At Boston's health department, nurses fill out paper forms.
But there's never been any way to systematically monitor whether, for example, Dorchester has lower vaccination rates than the North End.
"When you're working in one clinic, you don't have a good sense of that," said Dr. Alfred DeMaria, top disease doctor at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. "But if you're tracking multiple clinics in real time, you can see where the uptake is better and where it's less, and then focus on outreach."
Today's experiment, which does not require any additional direct spending, is a first step toward that.
When people arrive for their shots, they will get an ID bracelet with a barcode. Next, basic information - name, age, gender, address - will be entered into the patient tracking database. There will be electronic records, too, of who gave the vaccine and whether it was injected into the right arm or the left, and time-stamped for that day.
The resulting trove of data could be used to figure out why some patients had to wait longer than others to be vaccinated. "When all is said and done," said Jun Davantes, director of product management at EMSystems, the company that makes the technology, "Boston will be able to identify where there are certain bottlenecks in the process and hopefully improve it the next time around."
Ultimately, city health authorities said, they envision creating a network across the city that would allow public and private providers of flu shots to add data to a registry.
But acknowledging patients' privacy concerns, officials promised that if a citywide system were implemented, only a limited amount of information would be gathered - all sitting behind an encrypted firewall.
"I have had people say, 'Oh, that's so big brother,' " said Laura Williams, EMS deputy chief of staff. "But in truth, the unique identifier is unique to the incident. It's not like you will go to the hospital, and they'll say, 'You're the one who got the flu vaccine at 10 o'clock yesterday at the Boston Public Health Commission.' "
Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.
© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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The Causes, Aftermath and Lessons of 9/11.
Anthony Gregory of the Campaign for Liberty. And here is the rest of it. (Read more inside ..)
Four Soldiers Die in Afghanistan for Sake of 150 Votes
From The Times
August 27, 2009
Michael Evans, Defence Editor
Just 150 Afghan voters dared to go to the ballot box in the area of Helmand province where British soldiers sacrificed their lives to secure a safe election day, it was revealed yesterday.
The figures were released as the British Ambassador to Kabul admitted that troops could be engaged in combat in Afghanistan for five more years.The Electoral Commission in Kabul said that early estimates of voting in the former Taleban stronghold of Babaji, north of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, indicated that few exercised their right to vote last Thursday. Several thousand people could have voted.
Four of the ten troops who died in Operation Panther’s Claw, the five-week offensive to drive the Taleban out of central Helmand before the presidential election, were killed in or around Babaji.
The ambassador, Mark Sedwill, did not deny the low vote count in Babaji, although he said that it was too early to be sure. He said: “Panther’s Claw, although timed to try to improve security for people to move around for the election, was not specifically itself about the election.”
However, the publicly stated aim of Panther’s Claw before it was launched on June 19 was to make the highly populated area between Lashkar Gah, Babaji and Gereshk safe for 80,000 Afghans to go to the polls without being intimidated by the Taleban.
Defence officials said that, if confirmed, the voting figures for Babaji would be “very disappointing”.
Mr Sedwill said that there was some anecdotal evidence that people from outlying areas travelled into more secure areas such as Lashkar Gah to vote “because they felt more confident in doing so”.
Speaking via video link from Kabul to a briefing at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, he said that turnout was expected to be lower than the last presidential election and that he accepted that Taleban intimidation had an impact.
Air Vice-Marshal Andy Pulford, Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Operations), insisted that whether the voter turnout was low or not British troops had made dramatic progress in Panther’s Claw. “British Forces know exactly what they fought for,” he said. “They have seen with their own eyes the improved quality of life that security now enjoyed by thousands of Afghans in Babaji has delivered.”
Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said: “If it’s as pathetically small as that [150 in Babaji] then one of the stated objectives [of Panther’s Claw] has not been met.”
Mr Sedwill’s prediction that the campaign could last another five years appeared to clash with the views of Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, who said ten days ago that the troops could begin to step back from the front line within “a year or so”, to be replaced by Afghan units.
The ambassador indicated that it would be between three and five years before Afghan soldiers were trained and ready to take over the security role in Helmand.
In the three years that British troops have been fighting the Taleban in Helmand, 202 members of the Armed Forces have died and about 800 have been injured in battle, 235 of them “very seriously” or “seriously”.
Mr Sedwill warned that even after the combat mission was complete troops would still be involved in dangerous tasks for many more years.
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"Iraq Security Forces Collaborated with Bombers"
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Saturday alleged there had been collaboration between Iraqi security forces and the insurgents whose massive truck bombings killed 95 people three days ago. Zebari, whose ministry lost 32 workers in the blast at its headquarters, admitted the attacks were a serious security setback and that the government had failed to protect its citizens. Wednesday's bombings at the ministeries of foreign affairs and finance culminated in the worst day of violence seen in the conflict-hit country in 18 months, with around 600 people also wounded.
"How could this truck pass unless there is collaboration?" Zebari told reporters in Baghdad.
"There was collaboration between security forces and the terrorist group to facilitate the passing of this truck through such a sensitive area."
Zebari said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had ordered the arrest of 11 senior security officers on Thursday so they could be questioned on how a four-tonne truck had entered an area where even two-tonne vehicles were barred.
He also made the first official admission that the blasts signalled that security gains made in the past year were under serious strain following a series of deadly attacks in recent months.
"They have been moving their attacks... now they have focused on their main concern, their main attention, on Baghdad and this is a dangerous and a serious development and a security setback," said Zebari.
"This has been going on for the last two months. Every week, every two weeks we see a wave of these bombings and killings of innocent people."
Premier Maliki said after Wednesday's bombings that the attacks were "a desperate attempt to derail the political process and affect the parliamentary elections," planned for January 2010.
But Zebari went further and called for a re-appraisal of the country's entire security apparatus as it was not, he said, obtaining sufficient intelligence to counter the enemy threat.
"The Iraqi government and security forces are doing their best but our enemy is mobile so we know how hard it is," he said.
"Sometimes you can't fight these people with checkpoints. You should be mobile. You should go after them you, disrupt and penetrate their network to get human information. This is the key," he added.
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
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The Alternative Right
By Kevin Deanna, via TakiMag.com
It’s 1964. A stranger approaches and tells you two political movements will arise in the near future, the New Left and the New Right. One of these movements will dominate American politics for a good quarter century. Indeed, political scientists will define the entire period in terms of the ascendancy of this group; historians will write books naming this age after the movement’s most successful leader. Politicians, scholars, and activists on right and left will go so far as to call it a “Revolution.” Read the full article here.
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The Immorality of Taxpayer Funded Abortion
By Ron Paul
Healthcare continues to dominate the agenda on Capitol Hill as House leadership and the administration try to ram through their big government healthcare plan. Fortunately, they have been unsuccessful so far, as there are many horrifying provisions tucked into this massive piece of legislation. One major issue is the public funding of elective abortions. The administration has already removed many longstanding restrictions on abortion, and is unwilling to provide straight answers to questions regarding the public funding of abortion in their plan. This is deeply troubling for those of us who do not want taxpayer dollars funding abortions.Forcing pro-life taxpayers to subsidize abortion is evil and tyrannical. I have introduced the Taxpayer’s Freedom of Conscience Act (HR 1233) which forbids the use of any taxpayer funds for abortion, both here and overseas.
The most basic function of government is to protect life. It is unconscionable that government would enable the taking of it. However this is to be expected when government oversteps its constitutional bounds instead of protecting rights. When government supercedes this very limited role, it cannot help but advance the moral agenda of whoever is in power at the time, at the expense of the rights of others.
Free people should be left alone to follow their conscience and determine their own lifestyle as long as they do not interfere with other people doing the same. If morality is dictated by government, morality will change with every election. Even if you agree with the morality of the current politicians and think their ideas should be advanced, someday different people will inherit that power and use it for their own agendas. The wisdom of the constitution is that it keeps government out of these issues altogether.
Many say we must reform healthcare and treat it as a right, because that is the moral thing to do. Poor people should not go without healthcare in a just society. But too many forget the immorality of stealing from others in order to make this so. They also forget the morality and compassion that naturally exists in communities when government is not fomenting class warfare with wealth redistribution programs.
Many doctors willingly volunteer, accept barter or reduced payment from patients who can’t pay, or give away services for free. Many charities help the poor with food, housing and healthcare. These charities are much more responsive and accountable for helping people in need than government ever could be. This is the moral way that private individuals voluntarily deal with access to healthcare, but government intervention threatens to pull the rug out from this sort of volunteerism and replace it with mandates, taxes, red tape, wealth redistribution, and force.
The fact that the national healthcare overhaul could force taxpayers to subsidize abortions and may even force private insurers to cover abortions is more reason that this bill and the ideas behind it, are neither constitutional, moral, nor in the American people’s best interest.
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Will the Republicans Save Us?
by Laurence M. Vance
Now that the Democrats have regained complete control of the government, many conservatives are looking to the Republicans in Congress to save us from the socialism and fascism of the Democrats. As we saw when Clinton was president, many Republicans have started talking, and some have started acting, like the conservative advocates of liberty and less government they claim to be. Will the Republicans save us?
Don’t count on it.So why am I so pessimistic? Because I actually check how the Republicans in Congress vote instead of just listening to their free-market, limited government, and anti-Democratic rhetoric, that’s why.
The New American magazine’s "Freedom Index" for the new 111th Congress has just been released. The higher the number on this index, the stronger a congressman’s "adherence to constitutional principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, national sovereignty, and a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements." Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) scored a perfect 100 on the House version of the index, as he consistently does. This time, however, two other Republicans in the House (John Duncan of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona) also scored a 100. The high scorer in the Senate was Tom Coburn (R-OK), with a 100.
The composition of the 111th Congress in the House is 256 Democrats and 178 Republicans (there is one vacancy). In the Senate, there are 58 Democrats, 2 Independents, and 40 Republicans.
The ten issues that members of the 111th Congress in the House are being rated on this time are TARP funding, reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), economic stimulus spending, national service, federal funding of more police, the $3.56 trillion federal budget, hate crimes legislation, supplemental appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, TSA use of body imaging screening, and the "cash for clunkers" program.
In the Senate, the issues are TARP funding, the Mexico City Policy on abortion funding, SCHIP reauthorization, economic stimulus spending, District of Columbia congressional voting rights, the Fairness Doctrine, national service, the federal budget, funding for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and supplemental appropriations.
The average House score on the "Freedom Index" is 38; the average Senate score is 34. The average Republican score in the House is 71; the average Republican score in the Senate is 76. (The Republican average in the Senate should actually be less since Arlen Specter [D-PA] was a Republican for the first seven of the ten Senate votes tracked by the "Freedom Index.") Obviously, the Democratic averages are less than the overall averages.
Okay, so the Republicans don’t look too bad – if we compare them with the Democrats. And that’s the problem. When the Republicans look good, it is usually because they are being compared with the Democrats. Even when they look bad, they end up looking good because they are said to be the lesser of two evils.
But judged by the standards of liberty and the Constitution, the Republicans in the House only get a C–, while those in the Senate get a C. This is not good for a party whose members take an oath to uphold the Constitution and profess to believe in free markets and limited government. Who praises their kids for having a C average on their report card?
Another reason I am not excited about these Republican scores is that their numbers in previous editions of the "Freedom Index" are much, much lower. For example, the last "Freedom Index" gave the cumulative scores for forty key votes in the 110th Congress. The Republican average in the Senate was a pathetic 47. But shouldn’t we still be happy about the higher scores for the Republicans in the 111th Congress? Yes and no. I rejoice that many Republicans have started acting like the defenders of liberty and less government they claim to be. But I am not dumb enough to think that they are doing it for any other reason than they are opposing the Democrats. Almost half of the Republicans in the House and over two-thirds of the Republicans in the Senate voted for the bailout bill (H.R. 1424) last year. What a difference a Democratic president makes.
Am I being too hard on the Republicans? I think not.
When we dig a little deeper into the legislation tracked by the "Freedom Index" we see that it’s not just a few bad grapes that are corrupting the Republican vine. The Republicans show themselves to be against liberty and limited government on certain key issues. On the issue of national service, 70 Republicans in the House and 22 in the Senate voted for The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act (H.R. 1388). On the supplemental appropriations bill (H.R. 2346) that funneled another $84.5 billion to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and authorized another $10 billion in foreign aid, only 9 Republicans in the House and 1 in the Senate voted no. A House vote authorizing the federal government to spend $1.8 billion a year to hire local law-enforcement officers through the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program (H.R. 1139) was supported by 94 Republicans. There were 59 House Republicans that voted for the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act (H.R. 2751), known as the "cash for clunkers" program. This authorizes the federal government to give consumers rebates of up to $4,500 for trading in their old cars for more fuel-efficient ones. I am still trying to find authorization for that one in the Constitution.
I applaud the Republicans for overwhelmingly rejecting Obama’s economic stimulus (The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act [H.R. 1]) and bloated federal budget. But where were these born-again fiscal conservatives during the Bush years? Is there any doubt that a McCain stimulus and a McCain budget would be strongly supported by most of the Republicans in Congress? How can anyone look at the Republican track record and think otherwise?
So, can we look to the Republicans to save us? Obviously not. So many of them violate the Constitution without even blinking, the vast majority of them still support billions more in spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so few of them are even close to being Ron Paul Republicans.
As I have said on several occasions, I rarely bother to write about the evils of the Democratic Party. The socialist and statist policies of the Democratic Party are well known and expected. The Democrats don’t masquerade as advocates of more liberty and less government. They openly preach the redistribution of wealth, draconian environmental laws, the nanny state, and massive increases in government intervention in the economy and society. The only thing surprising about the Democrats turning this country into a socialist/fascist paradise
Find this article at:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/riggenbach3-1.html
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Republicans Embrace Ron Paul on Domestic Policy
Dr. No's moment
By: Daniel Libit
July 18, 2009 06:22 PM EST
“He hasn’t bombed Iran yet,” says Ron Paul, when asked to assess the best and worst characteristics of President Barack Obama’s six months in office.
“The worst thing is he is probably still thinking about it.” No sooner does the representative from Texas’ 14th Congressional District, nicknamed “Dr. No” by his detractors, find himself embraced by mainstream Republicans (and even some Democrats) on domestic policy issues, then he pivots his focus to foreign affairs.
Obama, Paul told POLITICO during a sit-down in his office this week, “has talked a little better than his action, but he has already expanded [the number of troops] in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He became the peace candidate: ‘Yeah, we’re going to end that war in Iraq.’ But it’s not sincere. I don't think they had any intention, never did.”
It’s a unique time for Paul. With the economy in the tank, the same cable news shows that spurned him during the election now keep asking him on to talk monetary policy. Republican House members are finally voting with him on spending measures.
But following his exhilarant, if quixotic, quest for the presidency, Paul finds himself simultaneously gratified and frustrated by his return to the friendlier-than-before confines of the House of Representatives. He thinks he’s well situated in Congress to push for his libertarian causes, but then claims he doesn't "pay a whole lot of attention" to the activity on the House floor these days, adding, "I don't think it's relevant to the big picture.”
“A lot of this is just tinkering, bailing out, more money, more spending, no shift of direction and it's a little bit frustrating," he says.
Asked if he feels more embraced by the Republican Party establishment, Paul shrugs and says, "half and half.”
"I think there's respect. But they don't call me in and say, ‘What we need to find out from you is how you reach the young people.’"
As for another presidential run in 2012, “I don’t think that’s likely,” Paul says.
But in the next breath, he admits that he would have made the same prediction three years before his last run for the party’s banner. And he questions whether the names being bandied about as possible Republican nominees will connect to his supporters.
“The one thing that is characteristic about anybody who joins us is that they are energized and everybody recognizes that," Paul says. "We also know that it is the energy in a small group of people that really leads nations.”
"Let's say I have 15 percent of Republicans and [Mitt] Romney has 30 percent. If his people aren't energized, our guys might stand for three of his."
As for soon-to-be departing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Paul dismisses her supporters as "more establishment, conventional Country-Club type of Republicans.”
"I wonder whether she's energizing the 15-20 year olds," Paul muses. "That would be a question I would have. Because she doesn't talk about the Federal Reserve and some of these issues. She doesn't talk too much about personal liberties, civil liberties, getting rid of drug laws, attacking the war on drugs, punishing people who torture."
Worse still, he adds, Palinites are partisans: “If Obama was the only one who was guilty, they would be on his case all the time, but there is a lot of partisanship and I am probably less partisan and therefore she is going to appeal to partisan Republicans better.”
As Paul sees it, such partisanship is the rough equivalent of an old Onion headline, “"Our local area sports team is superior to your local area sports team," Or as he puts it, “I think when it comes to foreign policy and monetary policy on big spending and watching out for the big corporations, Republicans are Democrats.”
And then he reverses again crediting Obama for restoring, however unintentionally, Republican principles.
“Republicans now are conservatives again” since the election, he says. “They are more consistent in voting against all these spending [measures]. And I kid them, I say, ‘are you guys voting with me now or am I voting with you?’
“Of course, they would always complain when I voted against Republican spending.“
Looking back at his presidential run, Paul seems sincerely surprised: He’s stayed the same, but suddenly the young folk who were whistling past him for years stopped to listen, even as the party’s other candidates did their best to ignore him.
“Some people say, ‘Oh, that was a good strategy,’” Paul says. “It was no more strategy than a man on the moon. It was just that I knew what I believed in, I kept talking about it, knew the problems were coming. I really assumed I would probably be back in medicine or something when the crisis hit.”
The Campaign for Liberty, the grass-roots organization that grew out of Paul's presidential campaign, has raised over $3 million since last June, attracting some 200,000 members.
“It just sort of baffles me," says Paul, shrinking, as he tends to do, when the notion of his star quality is raised.
And as of last week, 271 members of the House – about one-third of them Democrats – have signed onto HR-1207; a measure Paul introduced last February to audit the Federal Reserve.
When the Campaign for Liberty had a petition drop in support of the measure some six weeks ago, members were informed the night before that there would be a photo-op with Paul. Even with such late notice, 11 showed up to have their picture taken with "Dr. No," including Tom Cole, the former chair of the NRCC.
At the same time, Paul shrugs off his role in the House. “So I don’t work here so much. I didn’t get many signatures, because I have sort of twisted arms or put on pressure. Plus, I have nothing to trade, I am not a committee chairman and don’t have any clout, but because we have grassroots support, they got energized, and that’s how we have [271 members]…on the bill.”
© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC
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The Surveillance State Threatens All of Us
By By Philip Giraldi
When you hear the word "security" or "safety" watch out. They are the two buzz words that are most often used by the government, whether federal or local, to fearmonger. Fear can be used to drive bad policies that otherwise would be rejected. It has consequences, internationally, nationally, and locally. Around the world Americans fight wars because they are afraid that if they do not do so they will be attacked by terrorists. Nationally, the Department of Homeland Security grows and grows, compiling extensive data bases on citizens who have done no wrong. Locally, police forces grow larger and larger in spite of falling crime rates. What is certain about the consequence of fear is that those who sell it to increase government powers do so in the full knowledge that it will cost lots of taxpayer money and will also wind up infringing on civil liberties. Make no mistake, the post 9/11 United States is moving gradually towards becoming a police state-lite and no one seems to care very much. But don't worry, it is all happening to make you more safe and secure.
The creep of government and the march of surveillance technology go hand in hand. In Maryland and other states, the push to use ostensibly innocuous technology to enable police to monitor the public has accelerated. There has been some debate in the Washington area about the increasing use of speed cameras, but those who are opposed are usually silenced by the "safety" argument. It is reported that Montgomery County in Maryland has deployed hundreds of cameras and is raking in $53,000 a day in fines. The cameras are sited on busy roads and record the license plates of vehicles going a pre-set speed over the posted limit. Many are located where the speed limit drops, making them electronic speed traps. The fine is mailed to the owner of the car automatically and there is no appeal and no way to determine if the camera was malfunctioning. If the fine is not paid, penalties are added on to it and the offending vehicle has its re-registration blocked.
Governments use "safer" to justify anything and have done so in the past to curtail constitutional rights through abominations like the Patriot Acts and the Military Commissions Act. Burgeoning technologies like speed cameras raise serious personal liberties issue that no one is choosing to address. Why should the government have the ability to monitor the movements of a vehicle belonging to a citizen under any circumstances? Does anyone know for sure that the speed cameras are not sending their information to some data base at the Department of Homeland Security? Maybe they already are. It is difficult to know as there is no real oversight to the process and it is easy to connect data bases. If the cameras are not being multi-tasked yet just wait until someone figures out what a wealth of information they might be collecting. And when they begin recording information on law abiding citizens the government will claim that it is for everyone's safety and security.
Those who might argue that collecting traffic data electronically is not threatening might want to consider that information only has meaning when someone figures out how to use it. The employment of apparently innocuous data bases to police the public has been around for a while. Shortly after 9/11, CIA was sending officers all over the world, many traveling on authentic US passports issued in false names. An officer I know who was returning from Asia presented his passport to the immigration officer at Dulles Airport. The airport flipped through it, slid it through a scanner, punched a couple of numbers and then asked "What kind of car do you own?" All of the fake passports apparently had some linked data bases that were provided to make them appear more authentic, which is referred to as backstopping. In this case, the immigration officer was able to pull up additional information from state of Virginia records relating to the traveling officer who, unaware of the DMV link, was arrested, and spent a few uncomfortable hours in the slammer before being bailed by CIA security. That was in 2002. The all-information all-the-time security state has been much empowered and improved since then and it is to be presumed that there now exists an electronic data base on every citizen.
Local governments have an interest in developing ingenious ways to fine the citizenry to raise money but the more important issue is the government's willingness and ability to electronically monitor people's lives. The National Security Agency already has the technical capability to monitor all telephone calls taking place within the United States in real time. To judge how close we Americans are to complete surveillance it is helpful to look at the example of Europe, where state intrusion has been a fact of life for many years. The United Kingdom, which is now the most constantly and thoroughly technically surveilled country on earth, provides some hint of what the United States might become in a few years. The British government routinely monitors telephone calls and e-mail messages. Cameras provide continuous coverage of the centers of most cities and there is monitoring of all major roads and bridges by CCTV linked to monitors.
To cite only one example, back in March the British media was reporting the disappearance of Claudia Lawrence. Lawrence was working as a chef at a university in York when she disappeared. A BBC report included the following: "It was initially thought Miss Lawrence had disappeared after setting off on the three-mile walk from her home to work the following morning. But she does not appear on any CCTV footage from her normal route."
On the basis of the CCTV, the police ruled out her having walked to work, which means that they were able to reconstruct a three mile route through the city with reasonable assurance that they had not missed Lawrence on the CCTV footage. That the police would be able to do that and no one bats an eyelash for privacy reasons is astonishing, a level of government surveillance that is several generations beyond speed cameras. It is reminiscent of Winston Smith in 1984 whose television was watching him while he was doing exercises in front of it. Maybe George Orwell knew what was coming.
And then there is the real ID. Janice Napolitano, Director of Homeland Security, has backed off from the real ID concept that would have united all relevant data bases on the federal, state, and local levels to create an identity card that would be required for all US citizens and resident aliens. Reportedly, a number of states balked at the expense of integrating their data bases, but there is a fundamental civil liberties issue that is much more important. A huge data base on all citizens incorporating detailed personal information is a formula for control by the state that essentially renders null and void the US constitution. Can Napolitano make a case that the creation of the real ID will end terrorist threats? Of course not. The sponsors of Real ID might be well intentioned and honorable, but they should understand that in the wrong hands electronic invasion of privacy can become another tool taking away individual rights and liberties and transferring control to the government. No one really knows whether a national ID it would really make anyone safer or more secure. Many European countries already have identity documents that are similar to the proposed real ID, yet they have suffered from terrorist attacks and continue to have thousands of illegal immigrants.
The creep towards the technological control of the entire US population continues. It is particularly dangerous because it is largely unregulated, free of any judicial process. There is no sign that the Obama Administration will do anything to stop the development of new technologies and policing imperatives because more government in everyone's lives is really what the Democratic Party is all about. When government officials start talking about everyone's safety the people should be aware that those promises are essentially empty and that exchanging liberty for the promise of security will eventually lead to the loss of both.
Copyright © 2009 Campaign for Liberty
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ID Cards for 1.1 Billion Citizens
Project leader: Nandan Nilekani has been chosen to lead the ambitious project
India is planning to provide its 1.1 billion-plus citizens with ID cards.
Entrepreneur, Nandan Nilekani has been chosen to lead the ambitious project which will be the second largest citizens' database in a democracy, with China being the biggest.The government believes the scheme, which will be finalised over three years, will aid the delivery of vital social services to the poorest people who often lack sufficient identification papers.
It also sees the scheme as a way to tackle increasing amounts of identity fraud and theft and, at a time of increased concern over the threat of militant violence, to boost national security and help police and law officials.
Like Britain's £5billion ID cards plan, due to roll out in 2011/12, India's scheme is not without controversy.
Observers have raised questions including how the cards will actually improve the delivery of services and also concerns that the scheme could be disruptive.
In an interview in The Independent today associate fellow of the Asia programme at Chatham House, Charu Lata Hogg, said: 'It cannot be denied that the system of proving identity in India is complicated and confusing.
'But a system of national ID cards can technically introduce a new route to citizenship.
'This could be used as a security measure by the government which leaves migrant workers, refugees and other stateless people in India in limbo without access to public services, employment and basic welfare.'
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"Uncelebrating the Fourth"
by Harry Browne
July 4, 2003
Unfortunately, July 4th has become a day of deceit.
On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress formally declared its independence from Great Britain. Thirteen years later, after a difficult war to secure that independence, the new country was open for business. It was truly unique — the first nation in all of history in which the individual was considered more important than the government, and the government was tied down by a written Constitution.
It was the one nation where you could live your life secure in the knowledge that no one would ask for your papers, where you weren't identified by a number, and where the government wouldn't extort a percentage of your income as the price of holding a job.
And so each year July 4th has been a commemoration of the freest country in history.
False Celebration
But the America that's celebrated no longer exists.
The holiday oratory deceitfully describes America as though it were the unique land of liberty that once was. Politicians thank the Almighty for conferring the blessings of liberty on a country that no longer enjoys those blessings. The original freedom and security have disappeared — even though the oratory lingers on.
What made America unique is now gone, and we are much the same as Germany, France, England, or Spain, with:
confiscatory taxes,
a Constitution and Bill of Rights that are symbolic only — merely documents used to justify governmental actions that are in fact prohibited by those documents,
business regulated by the state in the most minute detail,
no limits on what Congress or the President might decide to do.
Yes, there are some freedoms left, but nothing like the America that was — and nothing that you can't find in a few dozen other countries.
The Empire
Gone, too, is the sense of peace and security that once reigned throughout the land. America — bound by two huge oceans and two friendly neighbors — was subject to none of the never-ending wars and destruction that plagued Europe and Asia.
Now, however, everyone's business is America's business. Our Presidents consider themselves the rulers of the world — deciding who may govern any country on earth and sending Americans to die enforcing those decisions.
Whereas America was once an inspiration to the entire world — its very existence was proof that peace and liberty really were possible — Americans now live in fear of the rest of the world and the rest of the world lives in fear of America.
The Future
Because the education of our children was turned over to government in the 19th century, generations of Americans have been taught that freedom means taxes, regulations, civic duty, and responsibility for the whole world. They have no conception of the better life that could exist in a society in which government doesn't manage health care, education, welfare, and business — and in which individuals are free to plot their own destinies.
Human beings are born with the desire to make their own decisions and control their own lives. But in most countries government and social pressures work to teach people to expect very little autonomy.
Fortunately, in America a remnant has kept alive the ideas of liberty, peace, and self-respect — passing the concepts on from generation to generation. And so today millions of Americans know that the present system isn't the right system — that human beings aren't born to serve the state and police the world.
Millions more would be receptive upon being shown that it's possible to have better lives than what they're living now.
Both groups need encouragement to quit supporting those who are taking freedom away from them.
You and I may not have the money and influence to change America by ourselves, but we can keep spreading the word — describing a better society in which individuals are truly free and government is in chains (instead of the opposite).
And someday we may reach the people who do have the money and influence to persuade tens of millions of Americans to change our country for the better.
I don't know that it's going to happen, but I do know it's possible. I know that the urge to live one's own life is as basic in human beings as the will to live and the desire to procreate. If we keep plugging away, we may eventually tap into that urge and rally the forces necessary to restore the real America.
And then the 4th of July will be worth celebrating again.
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Harry Browne was the Libertarian Party presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000, and is now the Director of Public Policy for the American Liberty Foundation. You can read more of his articles at HarryBrowne.org.
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"Fight Them Over There Vs. Over Here" a False Choice
Ron Paul
The Washington Times
There is no area in which Republicans have further strayed from our traditions than in foreign affairs.
Generations of conservatives followed the great advice of our Founding Fathers and pursued a restrained foreign policy that rebuffed entangling alliances and advised America, in the words of John Quincy Adams, not to "go abroad looking for dragons to slay."
Sen. Robert Taft, the stalwart of the Old Right, urged America to stay out of NATO. Dwight Eisenhower was elected on a platform promising to get us out of the conflict in Korea. Richard Nixon promised to end the war in Vietnam.There is no area in which Republicans have further strayed from our traditions than in foreign affairs.
Generations of conservatives followed the great advice of our Founding Fathers and pursued a restrained foreign policy that rebuffed entangling alliances and advised America, in the words of John Quincy Adams, not to "go abroad looking for dragons to slay."
Sen. Robert Taft, the stalwart of the Old Right, urged America to stay out of NATO. Dwight Eisenhower was elected on a platform promising to get us out of the conflict in Korea. Richard Nixon promised to end the war in Vietnam.
Republicans were highly critical of Bill Clinton for his adventurism in Somalia and Kosovo. As recently as 2000, George W. Bush campaigned on a "humbler" foreign policy and decried nation-building.
But our foreign policy today looks starkly different.
Neoconservatives who have come to power in both the Democratic and Republican parties argue that the U.S. must ether confront every evil in every corner of the globe or risk danger at home. We need to "fight them over there" they say, so we don't have to "fight them over here." This argument presents a false choice. We do not have to pick between interventionism and vulnerability. The complexity of our world is exactly why the lessons of our past should ring true and demand a return to a traditional, pro-American foreign policy: one of nonintervention.
Moving forward, I suggest that we as Americans adhere to these five principles:
1. We do not abdicate American sovereignty to global institutions. The purpose of the United States is to protect the liberty of the American people. We should never allow the WTO, NAFTA, the U.N. or the Law of the Sea Treaty to transfer power from America to an international body.
2. We provide a strong national defense, but we do not police the world. America should be armed with defensive weapons capable of repelling any attack. We should spend all appropriate money to make sure that no country in world can credibly threaten us.
Unfortunately, our foreign policy is undermining our security. We have more than 700 military installations in 135 countries around the globe. We have 50,000 troops in Germany, 30,000 in Japan, and 25,000 in South Korea. Worse, we have our brave men and women bogged down occupying Iraq and Afghanistan in the midst of ethnic strife and civil war.
We spend more than $1 trillion per year on our foreign policy, and our military is stretched thin. We can no longer afford to be the world's policeman. We must bring our troops home from around the world, cut overseas spending and strengthen our national defense.
3. We obey the Constitution and follow the rule of law. The Constitution clearly states that only Congress can declare war. Congress abandoned that responsibility during the buildup to the Iraq war and must never make that mistake again. When wars are undeclared, they drag on with no clear plan or exit strategy. If we must fight, we should do so with overwhelming force, win as quickly as possible and promptly withdraw.
4. We do not engage in nation-building. Conservatives know government is a poor tool to solve problems. It then makes no sense that we would think that our government could build civil societies and solve the tremendously complex problems of a developing country. Nation-building does not work. It places a tremendous burden on our military and takes directly from the pockets of the American taxpayer. The best thing we as Americans can do is offer friendship while setting a good example of what a free and prosperous society looks like. Ronald Reagan wanted America to be a "shining city on the hill." We should make that our goal.
5. We stay out of the internal affairs of other nations. America should conduct trade, travel and diplomacy with all willing nations. Intervention, however, always has unintended consequences and almost always gets us in trouble. For example, in 1953, our CIA helped overthrow Mohammad Mosaddeq, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran and installed the Shah of Iran, a ruthless dictator. The blowback from our actions was in large part responsible for the extremist Iranian Revolution of 1979, the taking of our hostages and the many problems we have had with Iran ever since. So much of our intervention makes no sense. We backed Saddam Hussein for much of the 1980s, and then twice went to war against him. In the 1990s, we bribed North Korea not to pursue atomic weapons with nuclear technology, and Kim Jong-il used that assistance to build several nuclear bombs.
Intervention simply does not serve our long-term interests.
The world is a dangerous place and we should be concerned, but intervention and militarism cannot solve our problems. The answers to our foreign policy problems lie in defending our soil, scaling back our global military footprint and trading with all willing partners. We have strayed far from this philosophy, but we can get back on track by looking to our Constitution, our traditions and the example of our Founding Fathers.
Ron Paul, a Pittsburgh-born obstetrician and Republican House member from Texas, campaigned for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination on a limited-government platform..
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The "Coup" in Hondorus Was a Good Thing
Military disregards orders from a power hungry President looking to disregard the Constitution.
Honduras Defends Its Democracy
Fidel Castro and Hillary Clinton object.
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
Hugo Chávez's coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation's constitution.
It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking.But Honduras is not out of the Venezuelan woods yet. Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States, having ignored Mr. Zelaya's abuses, also wants him back in power. It will be a miracle if Honduran patriots can hold their ground.
That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.
But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.
The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.
Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.
The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.
It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya's next move will be. It's not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.
Mrs. Clinton has piled on as well. Yesterday she accused Honduras of violating "the precepts of the Interamerican Democratic Charter" and said it "should be condemned by all." Fidel Castro did just that. Mr. Chávez pledged to overthrow the new government.
Honduras is fighting back by strictly following the constitution. The Honduran Congress met in emergency session yesterday and designated its president as the interim executive as stipulated in Honduran law. It also said that presidential elections set for November will go forward. The Supreme Court later said that the military acted on its orders. It also said that when Mr. Zelaya realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his illegal behavior, he agreed to an offer to resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Mr. Zelaya denies it.
Many Hondurans are going to be celebrating Mr. Zelaya's foreign excursion. Street protests against his heavy-handed tactics had already begun last week. On Friday a large number of military reservists took their turn. "We won't go backwards," one sign said. "We want to live in peace, freedom and development."
Besides opposition from the Congress, the Supreme Court, the electoral tribunal and the attorney general, the president had also become persona non grata with the Catholic Church and numerous evangelical church leaders. On Thursday evening his own party in Congress sponsored a resolution to investigate whether he is mentally unfit to remain in office.
For Hondurans who still remember military dictatorship, Mr. Zelaya also has another strike against him: He keeps rotten company. Earlier this month he hosted an OAS general assembly and led the effort, along side OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, to bring Cuba back into the supposedly democratic organization.
The OAS response is no surprise. Former Argentine Ambassador to the U.N. Emilio Cárdenas told me on Saturday that he was concerned that "the OAS under Insulza has not taken seriously the so-called 'democratic charter.' It seems to believe that only military 'coups' can challenge democracy. The truth is that democracy can be challenged from within, as the experiences of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and now Honduras, prove." A less-kind interpretation of Mr. Insulza's judgment is that he doesn't mind the Chávez-style coup.
The struggle against chavismo has never been about left-right politics. It is about defending the independence of institutions that keep presidents from becoming dictators. This crisis clearly delineates the problem. In failing to come to the aid of checks and balances, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Insulza expose their true colors.
Write to O'Grady@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A12
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Ron Paul & the Federal Reserve in Legos
And here is the rest of it. (Read more inside ..)
