Thursday, August 6, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Honduran Reality Check!
Hat Tip: Natalie Kafie
Please contact the good Senator from South Carolina and echo your appreciation here.
Constitutional Honduran President Roberto Micheletti Bain (Daylife-Reuters)Related Links:President Obama has denounced the actions taken by the Honduran Congress, Supreme Court and military, all actions taken under the rule of law -- Honduran law -- in the nonviolent arrest and removal from office of strongman (caudillo) Manuel Zelaya. President Obama's denunciation was based, using Jay D. Homnick's apt phrase, on "standard collegiate peacenik rhetoric."
Joining in this shame are the UN General Assembly that approved a resolution by consensus without a formal vote on June 30 (press release; text), and the Organization of American States (OAS) that issued a resolution by acclamation on July 5 (press release and text).
Among the supporters of Zelaya are the caudillo of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, the president of the United Nations General Assembly, and the secretary general of the OAS. Who are the latter two?
The General Secretary of the OAS is José Miguel Insulza. He is a Chilean lawyer who obtained an M.A. in political science from the University of Michigan. He was a part of the Marxist Allende government and was exiled from Chile from 1973 to 1988.
The president of the United Nations General Assembly is Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann. From 1979 to 1990 he was the Foreign Minister of the Marxist, Sandinista, Nicaraguan government. His official biography on the United Nations website, presumably one approved by d'Escoto, repeatedly states that he is a Catholic priest. The biography ignores the fact that the Vatican suspended his priestly faculties, and those of two other Sandinista priests, Ernesto and Fernando Cardenal, in the 1980s, more than 20 years ago.
In his Inaugural Address, President Kennedy issued a warning to former colonies who sought to model themselves after the Soviet Union. He warned them to defend their own freedoms and not seek power by riding the back of the Soviet tiger lest they end up inside. Today, his words serve as a warning to President Obama. Instead of supporting the Hondurans who are defending their freedom, he is riding the tigers of international socialists like Zelaya, Chavez, d'Escoto and Insulza. He will end up inside.
Senator John McCain demonstrates his foreign policy savvy
Chavez directly orchestrated Zelaya's failed attempt to land, grievously violating Honduran national air space
Enrique Florez Lanza, Zelaya's fugitive chief of staff, caught inflgrante, via video stealing over $2 million USD from official state bank
Foggy Bottom intrigue, Honduran Ambassador and staff ousted, as per Zelaya's request....what a charade
US suspends economic aid to Honduras, but not humanitarian
Massive Tegucigalpa crowds continue to back Micheletti
Honduran trade groups urge citizens to buy national products
Toncontin back to normal
Cardenal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez rejects Venezuelan and international pressures against Honduras
His Eminence Cardinal Rodriguez states that Zelaya mocked and broke the law on a plethora of occasions
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Micheletti and Zelaya Meeting Thursday
Picture montage courtesy of La Prensa Related Links:
Sen. John McCain counters Obama, supports Micheletti, excoriates Zelaya
Rep. Connie Mack and Newt Gingrich blast Obama's pro-Zelaya stance
Congress has not discussed any hypothetical amnesty for Zelaya
Monday, June 22, 2009
Neda Agha-Soltan, Revisited
Los Angeles Times reports: Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, 'was a beam of light' and not an activist, friends say. The video footage of her bleeding to death on the street has turned her into an international symbol of the protest movement.
Reporting from Tehran -- The first word came from abroad. An aunt in the United States called her Saturday in a panic. "Don't go out into the streets, Golshad," she told her. "They're killing people."
The relative proceeded to describe a video, airing on exile television channels that are jammed in Iran, in which a young woman is shown bleeding to death as her companion calls out, "Neda! Neda!"
A dark premonition swept over Golshad, who asked that her real name not be published. She began calling the cellphone and home number of her friend Neda Agha-Soltan who had gone to the chaotic demonstration with a group of friends, but Neda didn't answer.
At midnight, as the city continued to smolder, Golshad drove to the Agha-Soltan residence in the eastern Tehran Pars section of the capital.
As she heard the cries and wails and praising of God reverberating from the house, she crumpled, knowing that her worst fears were true.
"Neda! Neda!" the 25-year-old cried out. "What will I do?"
Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, was shot dead Saturday evening near the scene of clashes between pro-government militias and demonstrators who allege rampant vote-count fraud in the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The jittery cellphone video footage of her bleeding on the street has turned "Neda" into an international symbol of the protest movement that ignited in the aftermath of the June 12 voting.
To those who knew and loved Neda, she was far more than an icon. She was a daughter, sister and friend, a music and travel lover, a beautiful young woman in the prime of her life.
"She was a person full of joy," said her music teacher and close friend Hamid Panahi, who was among the mourners at her family home on Sunday, awaiting word of her burial. "She was a beam of light. I'm so sorry. I was so hopeful for this woman."
Security forces urged Neda's friends and family not to hold memorial services for her at a mosque and asked them not to speak publicly about her, associates of the family said. Authorities even asked the family to take down the black mourning banners in front of their house, aware of the potent symbol she has become.
But some insisted on speaking out anyway, hoping to make sure the world would not forget her.Neda Agha-Soltan was born in Tehran, they said, to a father who worked for the government and a mother who was a housewife. They were a family of modest means, part of the country's emerging middle class who built their lives in rapidly developing neighborhoods on the eastern and western outskirts of the city.
Like many in her neighborhood, Neda was loyal to the country's Islamic roots and traditional values, friends say, but also curious about the outside world, which is easily accessed through satellite television, the Internet and occasional trips abroad.
The second of three children, she studied Islamic philosophy at a branch of Tehran's Azad University, until deciding to pursue a career in the tourism industry. She took private classes to become a tour guide, including Turkish language courses, friends said, hoping to some day lead groups of Iranians on trips abroad.
Travel was her passion, and with her friends she saved up enough money for package tours to Dubai, Turkey and Thailand. Two months ago, on a trip to Turkey, she relaxed along the beaches of Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast.
She loved music, especially Persian pop, and was taking piano classes, according to Panahi, who is in his 50s, and other friends. She was also an accomplished singer, they said.
But she was never an activist, they added, and she began attending the mass protests only because of a personal sense of outrage over the election results. (Read entire article)
Video H/T: C4P
Monday, May 4, 2009
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Future VP?
In this April 22, 2008 file photo, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist talks about health care issues during a news conference in Tallahassee, Fla.The Memorial Day weekend guest list at McCain's Arizona retreat runs to at least three Republicans mentioned as potential vice presidential running mates, but a top aide said Wednesday that vetting possible veeps is not on the agenda. Crist, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a McCain rival in the primary, were invited to a weekend gathering at the senator's place in Sedona.
(AP Photo/Phil Coale)
Friday, December 21, 2007
Christmas in VietNam...Sen. McCain
My Christmas Story:
As a POW, my captors would tie my arms behind my back and then loop the rope around my neck and ankles so that my head was pulled down between my knees. I was often left like that throughout the night.
One night a guard came into my cell. He put his finger to his lips signaling for me to be quiet, and then loosened my ropes to relieve my pain. The next morning, when his shift ended, the guard returned and retightened the ropes, never saying a word to me.
A month or so later, on Christmas Day, I was standing in the dirt courtyard when I saw that same guard approach me. He walked up and stood silently next to me, not looking or smiling at me.
After a few moments had passed, he rather nonchalantly used his sandaled foot to draw a cross in the dirt. We stood wordlessly looking at the cross, remembering the true light of Christmas, even in the darkness of a Vietnamese prison camp. After a minute or two, he rubbed it out and walked away.
That guard was my Good Samaritan. I will never forget that man and I will never forget that moment. And I will never forget that, no matter where you are, no matter how difficult the circumstances, there will always be someone who will pick you up and carry you.
May you and your family have a blessed Christmas and Happy Holidays,
John McCain