Free Republic

When Congressman Louie Gohmert filed a lawsuit against Vice President Mike Pence to compel him to accept the alternate electors from contested states on January 6th, I did what I often lambaste the left for doing. I didn’t read the lawsuit and hoped for the best. It’s not that I didn’t think it was worthwhile, but I figured any important details about it would come out shortly after the suit was filed.The important detail didn’t emerge until last night, and it’s exactly what I feared the most. Apparently, attorneys for the Vice President questioned Pence’s ability to object to contested...

The political crisis in Honduras appears to be closer to a resolution after negotiators reached a deal. However few details are known of the deal which has yet to be approved by ousted President Manuel Zelaya and interim President Roberto Micheletti. Mr Zelaya was sent into exile in June, but has been inside Brazil's embassy since secretly returning in September. He wants to be reinstated before 29 November elections, but the interim leaders have resisted his demands. They say he was legally removed from office as he had violated the Honduran constitution. Mr Zelaya's lead negotiator Victor Meza said the...

n Honduras the Obama administration seeks the restoration to power of a lawfully deposed Chavista thug. Among other things, in pursuit of this objective, the administration has cut off aid and yanked visas from Honduran officials who supported the thug Manuel Zelaya's removal. These officials (reportedly include) the fifteen justices of the Honduran Supreme Court and Jose Alfredo Saavedra, president of the Honduran Congress. According to (Mary Anastasia O'Grady:) "The lesson, presumably, is that judges in small foreign nations are required to accept America's interpretation of their own laws." O'Grady rightly observed: "The upshot is that the U.S. is trying...

As I suspected, this Honduran news director was a supporter of the would-be usuper Mel Zelaya. Who is buddies with Chavez. Who is buddies with Iran's Ahmadinejad. Who wants Israel wiped off the map. From Ynet News: "The US Ambassador in Honduras has condemned anti-Semitic remarks by a local radio news director who has been an outspoken opponent of the coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya." [NOTE, it was not a coup!] "Ambassador Hugo Llorens sent a letter to Radio Globo owner Alejandro Villatoro expressing "astonishment and incomprehension" over the September 25 remarks by station director David Romero." "Commenting on...

The Anti-Defamation League has raised the alarm over the use of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric by supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya: "From President Zelaya himself down to media pundits and political activists, there has been a troubling undercurrent of anti-Semitism in the situation in Honduras," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "We know from history that at times of turmoil and unrest, Jews are a convenient scapegoat, and that is happening now in Honduras, a country that has only a small Jewish minority." These statements include Zelaya's unsubstantiated claim that Israeli mercenaries were attacking the Brazilian embassy...

Gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying Honduras' top prosecutor, but neither he nor his bodyguards were harmed, police said Sunday. Police spokesman Orlin Cerrato said Attorney General Luis Alberto Rubi was riding on a northern highway when assailants opened fire Saturday night. Cerrato said no one was hurt. One car was damaged. He did not give a motive for the attack or say whether it was related to Honduras' four-month political crisis. But he speculated the attack could be an attempt to "provoke unease in the country." After the June coup, it was Rubi who filed criminal charges against ousted President...

EGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Former President Manuel Zelaya has arrived in Honduras, ending a long political crisis caused by his ouster in a military-backed coup almost two years ago. Zelaya's flight from Nicaragua landed on Saturday at Tegucigalpa's airport where he was greet by thousands of supporters who had set up a tent camp nearby. Zelaya's comeback paves the way for Honduras to re-enter the international community, which rejected the June 2009 coup that forced him from office and out of the country.

There is wide agreement that last week’s presidential election in Honduras, won by the conservative leader Porfirio Lobo, was clean and fair. But it doesn’t settle the country’s political crisis, nor the question of how the world should treat Honduras. snip Despite all the missteps, Honduras’s military and militaries across the region need to know that coups will not be tolerated. Hondurans need to be able to move on and rebuild their democracy.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Where does Manuel Zelaya go now? Congress slammed the door on restoring the ousted Honduran leader to power, ignoring intense international pressure to reverse Central America's first coup in 20 years. He faces arrest if he leaves the Brazilian Embassy, where he stays up into the night talking on the phone, sleeps until noon and fires off letters to world leaders, urging them not to forget him. Seeking asylum would return him to the exile he faced when soldiers ejected him from the country in his pajamas. He vows not to do that — for now. His...

The final tally in favor of a motion against Zelaya's reinstatement was 111 to 14.

A wealthy rancher was due to be declared Honduras's new president today after a tumultuous election dogged by the overthrow of his predecessor. Preliminary results gave Porfirio Lobo 56% of votes, prompting cavalcades of cheering, honking supporters in the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa. His nearest rival, Elvin Santos of the ruling Liberal party, conceded defeat. Lobo, from the centre-right National party, promised to unify a country polarised by the military-led coup against Manuel Zelaya in June, a political shock which rattled Latin America and left Honduras isolated and stripped of aid and investment.... The Supreme Electoral Tribunal said 61%...

TEGUCIGALPA — A top US envoy said Wednesday that Honduran elections were key to resolving the crisis set off by the June 28 coup, despite the rejection of the polls by ousted leader Manuel Zelaya. "The elections are an important part of the solution in order to advance," said US deputy assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere Craig Kelly, in comments to journalists 11 days before the presidential polls. Zelaya, who has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy since his surprise return home on September 21, has called on his supporters to boycott the polls after the latest crisis...

Americas: The U.S. hit Honduras with harsh new sanctions last Thursday, slashing $30 million in aid. Nothing new, but the timing's strange, given that the rest of the world is starting to normalize ties with the tiny state.The June 28 ouster of Honduran President Mel Zelaya is rapidly shaping up as a never-ending crisis for the Obama administration. The more it tries to punish Honduras for getting rid of its would-be dictator, the more the freedom-loving Hondurans dig in to keep their democracy. That isn't going to be good for us in the long run. Back in June, Zelaya launched...

This would be the same “coup” that was ordered by the country’s supreme court pursuant to its constitution and carried out with the support of the legislature, including members of Zelaya’s own party. Hillary’s held off on using that terminology until now because by law she’ll have to cut funding to Honduras once the formal assessment is made, but it looks like the moment of truth is at hand. It’s a travesty, but what do you expect? Obama’s hot to prove to the world’s tyrants that, unlike his cowboy predecessor, he’s a man they can do business with. And he’s...

Diplomacy: The U.S. revoked visas of four Honduran officials, claiming that a coup occurred there. But if they could travel, the Hondurans could educate Americans otherwise. So why are we trying to silence them?Nobody pushes "dialogue" or "citizen diplomacy" more than the U.S. Department of State. So how can it justify revoking the visas on these Hondurans in what a department spokesman confirmed Tuesday as "a turning of the screw." The Hondurans targeted are the very ones whose presence would be valuable to the U.S. if it means to understand the constitutional action that necessitated the removal of President Mel...

In reviewing the events which took place this weekend in Honduras, we feel the need to add somewhat of a clarification to the post previous to this one, in which we mentioned that U.S. President Barack Obama seemed willing only to offer rhetoric in the defense of an ousted national leader (Honduran President Mel Zelaya). In making that observation, we appear to have made an error in judgment which we feel compelled to correct. It seems — as our friends at Power Line (the estimable Scott Johnson) have observed — that the military coup that took place occurred at the...