Jim DeMint's Coup?
A movie on the Honduras coup may not be the big draw that the Tom Hanks film, Charlie Wilson's War, was -- but one has to wonder whether we are seeing a remake in which a lone Member of Congress, this time a US Senator from South Carolina, drags the country into the internal affairs of another small nation.
Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has announced that he is heading down to Honduras to encourage those who helped fund and supported the coup against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to resist American pressure to return Zelaya to office.
The US Department of State has begun to revoke the visas of wealthy supporters of the military coup.
In other words, Jim DeMint is acting on behalf of, in cahoots with, and against the foreign policy of the United States of America in encouraging post-coup Honduran government officials defy the United States. He is encouraging a political leadership which has no legitimacy and which not recognized by other democracies in the region -- while the ousted President makes cell phone UN General Assembly statements from a couch-bed in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.
A US Senator alone does not make the America's foreign policy, and working against the policies of the United States in collaboration with foreign officials. . .well. . .there are words that come to mind to describe this behavior, but I want to be civil towards the Senator.
But let me be less blunt. Should we require Senator DeMint to register with the Foreign Agents Registration office at the Department of Justice?
-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note
Update: DeMint GROUNDED by Senator John Kerry and President Obama. . .
DeMint Statement on Kerry & Obama Administration Blocking Fact-Finding Trip to HondurasWASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, made the following statement after Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and President Obama's State Department blocked Senator DeMint's planned fact-finding trip to Honduras at the last minute.
"These bullying tactics by the Obama administration and Senator Kerry must stop, and we must be allowed to get to the truth in Honduras. Not a single U.S. Senator has traveled to Honduras to learn the facts on the ground. And the Obama administration won't allow Honduran officials or even businessmen to come to the U.S., either. While this administration has failed to act decisively in Afghanistan, it is has no problem cracking down on a democratic ally and one of the poorest nations in Latin America."
"Meanwhile, a thorough report from the Congressional Research Service directly contradicts President Obama's snap decision about the legality of then-President Zelaya's removal from office in June. Now, President Obama and Democrats' blind support for this would-be dictator and friend of Hugo Chavez will prevent members of Congress from learning the truth first hand."
This is not fiction. Tough to believe I know.
-- Steve Clemons
There are many things in the news today to which I want to comment, "Jesus f*#@ing Christ!" but I think this one may take the cake.
October 1, 2009 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, how's Haiti doing, 8 years after our secretive, Blackwateresque invasion?
October 1, 2009 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't the coup occur right after Zelaya tried to raise the minimum wage? What a monster.
October 1, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
A movie on the Honduras coup may not be the big draw that the Tom Hanks film, Charlie Wilson's War, was -- but one has to wonder whether we are seeing a remake in which a lone Member of Congress, this time a US Senator from South Carolina, drags the country into the internal affairs of another small nation.
Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has announced that he is heading down to Honduras to encourage those who helped fund and supported the coup against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to resist American pressure to return Zelaya to office.
================================================
Wow, you have been drinking the kool-aid!
Zelaya repeatedly broke Honduran law with regard to elections by trying to unilaterally foist an unconstitutional referndum on the country. At least if you want to believe the Honduran Supreme Court.
So in accordance with an order from the Honduran Supreme Court, the Army arrested and deported Zelaya. The Army then returned to barracks
In accordance with the Honduran Constitution, the Assembly Speaker (and member of Zelaya's own party) Micheletti was sworn in as president to complete Zelaya's term. The legislative branch of the government approves
In accordance with the Honduran Constitution, regularly scheduled elections are proceding next month. Micheletti isn't a candidate and and has promised to step down after the election.
Everything that has happened in Honduras since Zelaya's removal has been in accordance with the country's laws and constitution and doesn't fit the profile of any Latin American coup we've every seen.
If anyone is "dragging the country into the affairs of another small nation" it has been the Obama Administration by cutting off aid and yanking visas. After 150 years of sordid US meddling in Latin American politics, we finally had a chance to let a country's political crisis play out in a legal and peaceful manner. But no, we just couldn't resist
October 1, 2009 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you one of the misguided nuts who supports a coup in the US?
October 2, 2009 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
as you may or may not be aware "obama" happens to be the President of the United States of America. So i think he has some say in these issues.
but whether POTUS Obama is being fair or unfair is not the issue, as he is well within his rights here.
The question is, does a US Senator have the right to support a coup that the United States Government does not? Certainly. Does he also have the right to travel to that country and tell the people who planned and executed the coup that he supports them and they should utterly disregard his own government and President? That, dear friend, i believe, is TREASON.
maybe you should take a read of your precious constitution sometime.
October 2, 2009 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, if both you and the wingnut read the Constitution, you'll find that Article III, Section 3 provides as follows:
And, yeah,I have a serious bug up my ass about this.
The Founders grew up under a law where simple dissent (or, for that matter, having sex with the King's wife) was punishable by death as "treason" and where things as minor as wifely insolence to a husband was considered petty treason, an offense against the Crown and the state. They spent eight years under threat of hanging for that very offense. When they wrote the Constitution, there was only one crime they thought worthy of defining in the Constitution: treason. When they did so, they drew a very tight box around it, precisely because they understood, from bitter experience, how pernicious the charge of "treason!" was as a means of inhibiting dissent.
In the recent past, we spent eight long years of our own having assholes on the right shriek "treason" because we dared to disagree with them. You may even recall that that was the title of one of Coulter's screeds about us.
So howzabout we leave the "treason" accusations to the wingnuts, 'kay?
October 2, 2009 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think I agree with you on this one Steve.
Demint is a despicable partisan who should face strong sanction for this attempt to undermine the President's foreign policy in this manner. (The Logan Act is worth exploring.) His motives are clear, and his actions plummet political discourse in this country to a new low from where it was previously understood that internal politics stops at the shore.
But is it treason? No. And such hyperbole should be left as the domain of Faux News and the Glen Beck's and the Limbaugh's, et. al., where it can be appropriately and credibly disregarded as the rantings of irresponsible demagogues.
Please, God, do not let us ever lower ourselves to their level, for there is not a way out of that sewer.
October 2, 2009 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Encouraging an enemy of the US to resist the US is treason - it is adhering to the enemy and giving that enemy aid and comfort.
There is a difference between DeMint merely publicly criticizing the president and DeMint, who has no official right to represent the US in the foreign policy arena, visiting the heads of a government that the US does not recognize and publicly giving support, aid, and comfort to that leadership while encouraging it to act against the stated foreign policy interests of the US as articulated by the only US official allowed to set such foreign policy.
If a Democratic senator had gone to Iraq before the invasion and publicly encouraged Saddam to resist the Bush administration's efforts to get Iraq to comply with certain WMD reporting requirements, it would have been treason, while simply criticizing the president's policy choices in making such demands would not be.
DeMint is free to publicly criticize US policy all he wants, but he is not free to go and lend his in-person public support to a foreign government that the US does not recognize.
October 2, 2009 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I am also trying to figure out what he will do when he is there... Is he going to promise them something? Seems a long way to go to say "hi"... Additionally, would DeMint not have a total cow if Obama went to Cuba?
October 2, 2009 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe he is going to promise them single-payer health care. Oh, yeah. They already have it.
October 3, 2009 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
You make a point that is well worth remembering.
Sometime in 1804, while he was still Vice-President of the United States, Aaron Burr began plotting to detach some of the western part of the newly-acquired Louisiana Territory from the U.S. and set it up as his own personal fiefdom. Kingdom, even. He approached the British and the Spanish for support in his scheme; he also enlisted the sitting governor of the Louisiana Territory, an ex-US Senator, and numerous others of wealth and influence.
Ultimately, the scheme was exposed by one of Burr's confederates to save his own skin when he sensed it was falling apart, and Burr was arrested in 1807 and put on trial for treason. He was ultimately acquitted because Chief Justice John Marshall, who presided at the trial, took that tight box you speak of very seriously, and insisted on strict adherence on to the Constitution's very limited definition of the crime of treason. Burr's actions, egregious as they were, did not meet it.
I probably would be remiss, however, if I did not mention that Thomas Jefferson, who was president at the time, strongly supported conviction. I have to wonder if that didn't influence Marshall's determination to take the opposite position, as he and Jefferson were bitter political enemies in spite of the fact that they were cousins. Then again, as we have seen just in the last few months, taking the office of chief executive has a way of inclining the man who holds the office to a more authoritarian view of things than he might otherwise hold, and I'm sure even Thomas Jefferson was not immune to that.
October 2, 2009 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Everything that has happened in Honduras since Zelaya's removal has been in accordance with the country's laws and constitution and doesn't fit the profile of any Latin American coup we've every seen."
Again, you seem to conveniently leave out this part:
"However, removal of President Zelaya from the country by the military is in direct
violation of the Article 102 of the Constitution . . ."
Thus, not everything that has happened was in accordance with the country's laws.
Talk about drinking the koolaid . . .
October 2, 2009 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Even the Congressional Research Service agrees
-The Honduran Congress appears to have acted properly in deposing President Manuel Zelaya. Unlike in the United States, the Honduran Congress has the last word when it comes to interpreting the Constitution. Although there is no provision in Honduras's Constitution for impeachment as such, the body does have powers to disapprove of the president's official acts, and to replace him in the event that he is incapable of performing his duties. Most importantly, the Congress also has the authority to interpret exactly what that means.
-The Supreme Court was legally entitled to ask the military to arrest Zelaya. The high court, which is the constitutional venue for trials of the president and other high-ranking officials, also recognized the Congress's ouster of Zelaya when it referred his case back down to a lower court afterward, on the grounds that he was "no longer a high-ranking government official."
-The military did not act properly in forcibly expatriating Zelaya. According to the CRS report and other news stories, Honduran authorities are investigating their decision, which the military justified at the time as a means of preventing bloodshed. In fact, Zelaya should have been given a trial, and if convicted of seeking reelection, he would have lost his citizenship. But he is still a citizen now, and the Constitution forbids the expatriation of Honduran citizens by their government.
-The proper line of succession was followed after Zelaya's ouster. Because there was no Vice President in office when Zelaya was removed (he had resigned to run for president), Micheletti was the proper successor, as he had been president of the Congress.
http://media.sfexaminer.com/documents/2009-002965HNRPT.pdf
October 1, 2009 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
If they hadn't deported him, and had had a fair trial, it wouldn't have been a coup! And if that b***h had pulled a gun on me, then it would have been self-defense, not murder!
Kinda collapses when Micheletti said in a recent interview:
"Was it the corruption, the Constitutional Convention, or the attempt at social change that brought the coup?
We kicked Zelaya out for his leftism and corruption. He was president, as a Liberal [Party member], like me. But he made friends with Daniel Ortega, Chávez, Correa, Evo Morales.
Pardon?
He went left, he put in all Communist people, we got worried."
Yep. Clear evidence that he was constitutionally removed for trying to extend his term. And the suspension of rights and raids on opposition media from this week are just the normal actions of a newly-installed TOTALLY CONSTITUTIONAL president.
October 1, 2009 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
BTW he was constitutionally removed for refusing to provide a budget for 2009 (constitutionally required by Sept 15, 2008) and placing himself above the law by announcing that he would do whatever he wanted regardless of Supreme Court rulings. A constituent assembly as proposed in his 4th ballot box is unconstitutional in Honduras (and the USA actually).
Folks have speculated that the reason he would do all these things is to extend his term. That isn't the point of law that was used to remove him.
October 1, 2009 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure, the arrest order from the supreme court was legitimate. But then the military deports Zelaya, congress removes him ("implicitly used their inherent power to interpret the word 'disapprove' to include actual removal" - wow, there's a bulletproof legal argument) right after unquestioningly reading a forged resignation letter, they illegally raid opposition media, and then LATER they suspend constitutional rights, kill some people, beat some heads, and raid opposition media again (now with the "law" on their side)... That kinda sorta makes it a coup. (And the supreme court's full complicity with all those steps kinda sorta shows it may not have been the most impartial body to begin with.)
October 1, 2009 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most violent encounters between the police and the opposition were preceded by the opposition torching businesses and vehicles with Molotovs. The opposition has destroyed and/or looted dozens of businesses and at least one police station. It is a flat out misrepresentation to describe the demonstrators in most of the situations that resulted in violent encounters as peaceful. If we threw rocks and Molotovs at the police from behind burning barricades here in America we'd be shot quicker than you can say police state. There have been many, many opposition marches and demonstrations that didn't result in busted heads.
Constitutional rights were suspended just this week - in response to calls for a "final showdown". A part of the harsh reaction was based on the interception of a MAJOR weapons shipment being smuggled in from El Salvador this week (and rumors of others in the El Salvadoran press). They showed video of the haul yesterday ... it's a scary situation.
People behave as if the Honduran government is acting in some sort of vacuum where anyone who supports Zelaya - or even Zelaya himself can do whatever the hell they want and aren't judged but when the authorities react it's proof of a coup. Of course, that's the idea - it's why the trained agitators burn shit and instigate throwing rocks ... to provoke a police reaction that can be called brutality. The authorities can either let Tegucigalpa burn or be condemned.
October 1, 2009 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
You forgot to "justify" congress's actions (I know they didn't mention the resignation letter when they deposed Zelaya - but it had just been read uncritically. If you think that neither that, nor the recent illegal deportation of the president by the army, constitutes a coercive atmosphere, then at least say so). You also forgot to justify the July 28th raids on media, another part of the irregularity of that day's events which invalidate the Congressional actions EVEN IF you accept the BS post-hoc legal justifications for what they did.
October 1, 2009 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, while I do live "here in America", I don't think it's the "America" you mean. And your logic would justify just about any repression anywhere - against the American Revolution, Tienamen Square, the ANC, Solidarity, you name it, they all could plausibly be associated with some property damage and unwillingness to submit to illegitimate authority. Even if the authority weren't illegitimate, it would only justify specific arrests, not suspending the right of free speech.
As Gandhi said, what has been taken by force can only be maintained by force. So the police had to crack heads and kill people, it's not their fault at all.
October 1, 2009 11:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dozens? Come on, how many, really?
Let's subtract the grocery store lootings from your list of subversive activities. Michelleti, that champion of law, order, freedom and democracy had the country on 24hour curfew last week for several days. People were literally locked up in their own homes, and didn't have advanced notice to allow them to buy groceries. THEY WERE HUNGRY, they couldn't even go to work, they had little money. So they looted grocery stores. This had no connection to the organized united front against the coup. Zero.
So what's left over? Five or Six fast food stores being torched. Who did it? Who was arrested? Where is there any evidence that this the work of the organized front, which is using non-violent demonstrations as a political tool.
That case of molotov cocktains they allegedly found at the university looked like military issue to me. 6 bottles in a case, with manufactured wicks, and wrapped in some sort of a silver casing. What self-respecting grass roots Bolshevik would ever be caught dead throwing one of those? ;-)
Hey kgb, Lanny just called...says he's got a job for you.
October 2, 2009 12:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah. And I totally agree that from a strictly legal standpoint Zelaya's removal was proper. But there are really good reasons why the way Obama has played this make sense. He totally undercut a year or more worth of preconditioning the "resistance" - who have been hyped to focus on America as the bad guy when the call was made to take to the streets. This is a big reason why there hasn't been too much oxygen in the protests: we didn't play bogyman.
Diplomacy and the national interest are a bit more nuanced than the bull in a china shop approach preferred by republicans. In Honduras, at this point Chavez is seen more as a meddler than America. Now Cantor and that ditz who hung up on the phone on Obama, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, are going to fuck the whole strategy up.
I hate republicans. They could fuck up getting laid in a whorehouse.
October 1, 2009 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um, I think you mean that, from a strictly legal standpoint, Zelaya's ARREST was DEFENSIBLE. Nothing proper at all about his removal from the country, as both Micheletti and the military's own top lawyer have both admitted (in interviews which are fascinating for their inability to admit that a leftist can ever be a legitimate leader of anything).
October 1, 2009 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's pretty much a universal opinion that he shouldn't have been removed from the country. I was referring to his removal from the presidency.
October 1, 2009 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, he was still commander-in-chief when he landed in San Jose in his pyjamas? Too bad he didn't just catch the same airplane back, then. Maybe he could have appeared at the congressional session which stripped his powers.
October 1, 2009 11:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, I would like to see you show the legal basis for the removal.
October 2, 2009 6:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's called "lex talionis" Karl. The law of the talon...anything is legal that you have the power to enforce.
October 2, 2009 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just about everything you've written about this is wrong, Campesino, but let's just take the Congressional Research Report. It's author, Norma Gutierrez, consulted with one "authority" only, in spite of the fact that there are several experts in the field of the Honduran constitution who have written on the subject and were not consulted by Ms. Gutierrez. Her expert was former Honduran Supreme Court Justice Guillermo Pérez-Cadalso, who is also a member of the group who pulled off the coup d'etat. Neither Gutierrez or Perez-Cadalso realized that the Honduran Supreme Court declared in UNCONSTITUTIONAL for the congress to interpret the constitutional, by virtue of a verdict issued on May 7, 2003. I'm sure you can see the sense in this: allowing congress to interpret the constitution rather than the Supreme Court erodes the separation of powers.
Therefor, the Congressional Research Report is fatally flaws, since its findings are based on the mistaken belief that the Congress had this power to interpret the constitution. It follows that Michelleti's appointment as President was also unconstitutional. The Report erroneously refers to the congressional session as an "ordinary session" and it was in fact an "extraordinary session" which several Honduran congress members were not notified of, and as such required deal with only subjects specified on the agenda for the call. There was no mention of "constitutional interpretation" on this agenda, undoubtedly because members KNEW that they did not have the power to interpret the constitution.
Once again, the broke the law, and abused the Honduran constitution, as they had done every step of the way in the course of this coup d'etat.
October 1, 2009 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks a lot, that's good info.
October 1, 2009 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
homunq, I actually blogged the story of the report here on the 25th - it sort of slipped under the radar here at the café. Here's the link, and the blog contains links to the sources of my info.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/neoboho/2009/09/schock-and-awe-at-the-library.php#comments
October 1, 2009 10:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's only partly right ... the whole "gas attack" situation happened before we got into it on your thread of the same topic. Ultimately this analysis hinges on the incorrect assertion that the legislature's action was one of interpretation when it was really an execution of their constitutional duties/powers. Unless I'm missing something, using this definition of "interpretation" it seems even passing a bill would be prohibited.
It is also important to note that the analysis you are using was produced by someone who is unabashedly biased - more so than a staff member at the Library of Congress. I'm pretty sure the former justice you refer to is only "involved" in the coup in so much as his opinion is that the removal was legal and therefore recognizes the current government as lawful. I'll check again, but I don't think he was on the panel that approved the charges against Zelaya.
All that said, I have some minor quibbles of my own with the Library of Congress report.
October 1, 2009 10:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, you are missing something. The congress DID NOT HAVE the power of interpretation, by an explicit supreme court decision. To understand "disapproval" to mean "removing from office" is, at a minimum, an act of interpretation. To understand "pass legislation" to mean "pass legislation" is not.
Is that clear?
October 1, 2009 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nonsense, kgb. The "analysis" was written by Armando Sarmiento, formerly the director of the Dirección Ejecutiva de Ingresos (DEI) - Honduran IRS. Where is your evidence that he is "unabashedly biased?" Also, I don't think that Norma Gutierrez was necessarily biased - she simply had no expertise in Honduran constitutional law and relied on the advice of Guillermo Pérez-Cadalso. He is #35 on the "These are the coup leaders" list.
http://ellibertador.hn/Nacional/Avance/3102.html
As for "interpretation," I think you know that "interpreting the constitution" has a specific legal meaning, not to be confused with "interpreting the tea leaves."
October 2, 2009 12:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wouldn't it be logical for Norma Guitterez to consult with the State Department for advice on such a matter? If so, it would have opened up a channel to Lanny Davis (the coup lobbyists) with obviously strong connections inside state. Lanny is the one publicizing all of these legal arguments since the coup.
October 2, 2009 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really don't know what Gutiertez did - but the reason I said she was not "necessarily" biased is interesting in and of itself. The Law Library of Congress has a very good collection of Honduran legal and constitutional documents, but the specific Supreme Court decision in 2003 that destroys her thesis was never published in that collection, so she wouldn't have been aware of it unless she discovered it through her other sources, which in this case is just one person who is leader of the coup. The fact of the matter is that congress in 2003 refused to publish the Supreme Court ruling on the unconstitutionality of Article 205 of the 1982. But unlike laws, Supreme Court rulings go into effect immediately, whether they are published in La Gaceta (The Honduran official law report) or not. So Gutierrez reads article 205, and believe congress has the power to interpret the constitution.
October 2, 2009 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
You seem to have (unsurprisingly) left something relevant out:
"However, removal of President Zelaya from the country by the military is in direct
violation of the Article 102 of the Constitution . . ."
October 2, 2009 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
More information that Campesino has left out:
Also from the CRS:
Also from the CRS:
Yep, no coup here; just look away and drink the conservative koolaid . . .
October 2, 2009 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just a small point to protect the prestige of the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Although Rep. Schock and WSJ called this report a CRS product, it isn't. It was written under the auspices of the Law Library of Congress, not the CRS.
October 2, 2009 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Campesino, you have no idea what you are talking about. All the ranting and raving in the world can't make up for the fact that Zelaya was arrested and deported by the Military. Case closed.
October 2, 2009 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's my letter today to H. Clinton. Feel free to copy it.
Dear Secretary Clinton:
When you met with Dianna Ortiz, the Ursuline nun who was kidnapped, raped, and tortured in Guatemala in 1989, she told you her story. She probably told you how U.S. officials at the embassy helped besmirch her name, spreading vicious rumors that the hundreds of cigarette burns on her back were the result of a lesbian tryst. When that happened, you surely did not imagine that the unprintable responsible for spreading these rumors would one day work for you.
W. Lewis Anselem, the Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States, is that man, if you can call him a man.
And yet, that is not the main reason you should fire him.
Am I advocating a witch hunt for all those functionaries complicit with cold war atrocities? If criminal guilt is unprovable, as is the case here, I am not. The reason you should fire him is what he did last Monday.
On a day when the coup government in Honduras had raided the two largest opposition media, he said "The return of Zelaya absent an agreement is irresponsible and foolish ... He should cease and desist from making wild allegations and from acting as though he were starring in an old movie." This egregious insult was seen as support for the coup, and was trumpeted on the remaining, coup-friendly, media in Honduras. This directly undermines your efforts, with your friend Oscar Arias, to facilitate a negotiated solution to the crisis.
In Tuesday's regular briefing, your colleague Mr. Crowley was forced to implicitly dissociate himself from this statement by calling attention to the name of it's author and archly saying "mm-hmmm".
Lew Anselem is a bad diplomat. He is a bad subordinate. And he is a very, very bad person. He should be fired immediately, or, at the very least, reassigned as deputy vice assistant sub-consul to Antarctica.
Thank you very much for your attention to this matter,
Sincerely,
xxxxxx xxxxxxx
October 1, 2009 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
imagine had legislators from foreign countries travelled to this florida to provide moral support to al gore in 2000.
this is freaking unbelieveable -- and that it's relatively ignored by the media magpies is obscene. however, watching overnight abc -- their top story was david letterman (and the chatterbunny actually posing the question: 'Did David Letterman do the right thing by telling the truth'.
October 2, 2009 7:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Although the ongoing debate about Honduran constitutional law is fascinating, it misses the point. The point is that DeMint wants to travel to a foreign country to explicitly oppose the position of our government in the matter. I understand (thanks to Rachel Maddow) that there is a law which prohibits people from negotiating with foreign governments (the Logan Act). This is a potential felony.
DeMint is also blocking Obama appointments to the State Department. His only purpose is to put the Obama administration in a bad light. He is a treasonous grandstander and a consummate Republican, interested only in regaining power.
October 2, 2009 7:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, it's more than just being a typical Republican. This asshole is clearly planning on running for president.
October 2, 2009 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can only agree with you to a point, Randy. The constitutional law issue is obviously the deciding factor it determining what is legal or illegal, which is a fundamental aspect of US foreign policy. There is a reason that the US Department of State pulled the visas of every single member of the Honduran Supreme Court, yet every entity that I've seen that holds that the coup was legal under Honduran law fails to address, or even speculate, why State pulled those visas. The Schock report is a "cooked book" and Demint wants to run with it, pretending that the Honduran constitution backs up his folly.
October 2, 2009 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is another example, secession being the most glaring, of the hypocrisy of Southern politicians.
Why do the Southern boys, who love to wrap themselves in the flag, always seem to be ready and willing to place other loyalties, usually rooted in reactionary ideology, above their supposed loyalty to their country?
Southern white conservatives. The more things change....
October 2, 2009 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
The US Constitution defines treason:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
In 2006, an indictment of treason was issued against Adam Yahiye Gadahn for videos in which he spoke supportively of al-Qaeda. If a video is treason, what do we call a trip trip to give support? Perhaps the technicality is that the military coup isn't officially an enemy of the US? Is there a process for defining who is an enemy?
October 2, 2009 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Enemy" = "people in armed opposition to the United States" not "people we kinda sorta don't like." That's not a "technicality."
October 2, 2009 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
They are in armed opposition to the US: by virtue of arms they removed an ally of the US and replaced him with a leader, supported by those arms, not recognized by the US. Armed opposition to an ally is armed opposition to the US.
October 2, 2009 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
no. armed opposition to any ally of the US is not equal to armed opposition to the US. particularly where treason is concerned. honduras is not a member of NATO.
October 2, 2009 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Honduras is a signatory, as is the US, of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, a mutual defense treaty:
"The central principle contained in its articles is that an attack against one is to be considered an attack against them all; this was known as the 'hemispheric defense' doctrine."
Oops. I guess NATO is not the only treaty the US is a signatory to. Who would've thought . . .
Keep drinking the koolaid.
October 2, 2009 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even worse for your position . . .
"In 2001, the United States invoked the Rio Treaty [aka, Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance] after the September 11 attacks . . ."
October 2, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
fair point about the rio pact.
of course your example of 9/11 only proves that the treaty you are citing isn't actually in force, since the very next sentence in the wikipedia article you quote from continues: "...but all Latin American democracies, with the exception of four Central America countries, did not join the "War on Terror" actively." as if the falklands hadn't already proved that the rio pact is null (though certainly the falklands presents an example of conflicting treaties).
and while i completely overlooked the rio pact in my comments, the rio pact doesn't apply to internal coups. and 'treason' still doesn't apply to allies. even those allied by mutual-defense treaty. your comment was still silly.
October 12, 2009 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not that I'm one for conspiracy theories, but having recently read Jeff Sharlet's pretty well-researched book "The Family," I have to wonder whether there exist any ties -- social, political, religious -- between DeMint and the Honduran coup leaders.
October 2, 2009 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kerry should let this asshole go. And then charge him with treason!
October 2, 2009 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nobody from the GOP leadership or back bench has condemned this or Perry's veiled Newsmax threat of a military coup, so their silence must mean that the GOP officially supports military coups when the results of an election aren't in their favor. They don't always need a military option. Sometimes the Supreme Court will do it for them if the results are close enough.
Republicans are the Undemocratic party in more ways than one.
October 2, 2009 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
DeMint lives in the famous C Street house owned by the Family. He's also spoken in interviews of being "sent" by the family on foreign trips (his words, not mine). Isn't it entirely conceivable that the purpose of his trip is "Family" related and note for any other purpose??
What's the connection, if any?
October 2, 2009 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nobody from the GOP leadership or back bench has condemned this or Perry's veiled Newsmax threat of a military coup, so their silence must mean that the GOP officially supports military coups when the results of an election aren't in their favor. They don't always need a military option. Sometimes the Supreme Court will do it for them if the results are close enough.
Republicans are the Undemocratic party in more ways than one.
October 2, 2009 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
From CRS:
Not surprisingly, it is the Rightist coup that has suspended constitutional rights, hypocritically after taking over on the alleged charge that the Leftist was going to violate the constitution . . .
The lips of the coup's supporters are stained with the koolaid of self-righteous hypocrisy.
October 2, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
From the CRS:
Yep, DeMint has picked a real winner to back.
But, then, that's exactly what conservatives would like to see happen here in the US - suspension of constitutional rights and allowing government officials to search anything and anywhere without a warrant - oh, yeah, that already happened during the Bush administration - nevermind.
October 2, 2009 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whether or not any one of us may think that the coup plotters may have a legal leg to stand on in their own country or whether or not CRS says that they may or may not is utterly beside the point and irrelevant. The official foreign policy opposes the coup and the government currently in power. No American, much less an American Senator, is free to make his own foreign policy. To do so is a prima facie violation of the logan Act and, in fact, is the very offense which the Logan Act was specifically designed to prosecute (Senator Logan attempted, in 1798, to engage in unauthorized diplomacy in contradiction with the foreign policy of President Adams). The Act reads:
"§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments.
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects. 1 Stat. 613, January 30, 1799, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953 (2004)"
October 2, 2009 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Simple: if he goes - arrest him as he gets off the plane on his way back in.
October 3, 2009 8:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
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