EugeneDebs Says:
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Zelaya had six months more left in his term. Do you have evidence that Honduran constitution gives their Supreme Court the right to just demand the President vacate? WAS he impeached? Why no he wasnt. It was a coup

First you never read my other posts. But my contacts in Honduras state that the Supreme Court is anxiously awaiting the return of Mel. If he dares he will be arrested at the airport and the corruption charges are knee deep in documentation. One Communist tyrant down, four more to go!

Can you provide another reference for your claim that President Chavez wants to control all the media in his country? I don’t read Spanish so one in English would help. There should be English news stories on the same subject since we have a free press and one ideologically opposed to Chavez. Certainly such a story line would sell ad space in the capitalist, corporate media.

It is not a question of whether Constitutional violations and other heinous US crimes receive media attention, it is one of emphasis and frequency as Glenn Greenwald illustrates here.

Yea! Good to see you man.

I’m not sure at what fork in the road you took this discussion south. Do you really believe that any sitting president who refused to vacate the white house would not be forcibly removed?
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Zelaya had six months more left in his term. Do you have evidence that Honduran constitution gives their Supreme Court the right to just demand the President vacate? WAS he impeached? Why no he wasnt. It was a coup.

tim.ned Says:

If any American President was ordered by the Supreme Court, either democrat or republican, to surrender power based upon constitutional law and they refused, than they would be physically removed if such action called for. The process was in place for Richard Nixon before he resigned.

July 1st, 2009 at 2:32 pm
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Which article of the Constitution gives the Supreme Court the authority to order the removal of a sitting U.S. President?
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None. He is an idiot. Only impeachment can remove a President. The SC has no such authority.

To be quoting a member of Accion Democratica of former kleptocrat president Carlos Andres Perez is nothing less than ridiculous. Perez’s party is currently running at around 3% of the Venezuelan electorate.

Of course, how can the American people know about these things. Misinformation is part of the American Way of Life!

Is the pope Catholic?

Outstanding post! I agree and perhaps with your first paragraph I was the one that took the wrong fork in the road as we both hope that such a scenario is ridiculous. We will definitely disagree with the facts of your other paragraphs as there seems to be definitely differences in opinion. Zelaya weeks before continued to disobey the law. He called for a national constitutional convention which the Supreme Court stated could only be called by congress. And when his military commander disobeyed his orders to enforce it anyways, Zelaya tried to dismiss him. He has taken on many similar tactics as Chavez. Mob intimidation. I believe the story will definitely be different once more facts come out.

Are you serious? We can’t talk about something bad happening because something worse is also happening? And when we deal with the poor’s plight, will someone complain that we’re not talking about the killings in the Congo? And when we do, someone will complain that we’re not talking about the millions of people dying of AIDS in Africa.

Preaching to the choir assumes knowledge of individual singer’s songs that I do not have.

Well, let’s check the songs on our playlist then:

- The US government jails “suspected terrorists” and “enemy combatants” without due process or constitutional protections,
- it wiretaps its citizens without warrants,
- it tortures,
- it murders “terrorists” while in custody.
- The US government provides trillions in bailouts and bonuses for the wealthiest Wall Street bankers
- we, the people, can’t even get a single payer health care plan on the table for discussion.

All of these stories have appeared time and again here in TP. I can get you links to the corresponding threads, even.

July 1st, 2009 at 3:57 pm

Donated 100 gallons of free heating oil to 200,000 U.S. families last year through Citgo.

I agree with you about the press not being completely free of ideology in many countries. Maybe “free press” is a little bit hard to find in this world, but at least there are many options available (to one degree or another), and that’s better than having only one voice (the President’s) in your country’s media.

July 1st, 2009 at 3:47 pm
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I didn’t say he accomplished it. I just said he attempted it. It was a failed attempt to get himself some good press and make President Bush look foolish.

Do you really think Chavez’ motivation was to help the poor suffering United Statesians? There are plenty of poor people in Venezuela or Cuba or Bolivia or Ecuador who are MUCH more in need.

Preaching to the choir assumes knowledge of individual singer’s songs that I do not have.

July 1st, 2009 at 2:53 pm
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Moot point. He can’t. It would take a Constitutional Amendment to do that, which must be ratified by the state legislatures. It’s not something he could overturn by executive order or national referendum.

July 1st, 2009 at 2:53 pm
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Okay, if we want to go off on a ridiculous, hypothetical tangent, your point might be valid. True, if a sitting U.S. President were to somehow refuse to leave the White House at 12:01 on January 20th, then there would likely have to be some involvement by the Secret Service to remove him/her by force. However, the actual transfer of power would happen regardless. The old president would no longer control the football or be able to issue executive orders or travel in Marine One or command troops. So even in your ridiculous hypothetical, it would merely be a trespassing issue.

All of which is completely irrelevant to the situation in Honduras, in which an unpopular one-term President was trying to hold a non-binding referendum to gauge support for the idea of amending the Constitution to allow him to run for a second term.

That in itself is not undemocratic. It’s not a power grab. A reckless publicity stunt, yes, but not a power grab. The Supreme Court and the legislature weren’t having it. No problem. The President then tried to fire the Armed Forces chief, who also wasn’t having it and got the Supreme Court to reject that decision. Also no problem – that’s just due process duly processing.

When the sitting, democratically-elected President is yanked from his house in his pajamas by eight men carrying high-powered rigles, that is a problem. No matter how unpopular the President, no matter what kind of political scheming he was doing. It is a removal from office without due process, and it is inherently undemocratic. Such actions deserve the condemnation of the world.

1. republicans hate facts Says:
B*LLSH*T. Only the CONGRESS can do that – MORON. That’s why we have an IMPEACHMENT process! The Constitution decided that the SCOTUS wasn’t able to sit in judgment over the President.
You KKKons are such ILLITERATE MORONS

You missed 45 before you went on your rant! I don’t know the process as I am not as smart as you, as the eloquence in your post points out. The point is that the facts from Honduras are coming out and the picture is quite different today than a week ago.

I can very damn well criticize the press censorship in Venezuela while commending Chavez on helping the poor people. It’s not an “either/or” scenario. I don’t see why you can’t have free press and also a socialist country, at the same time.

“free press” is definitely a good thing.

But I’m not so sure how “free” most countries’ press is in general. Who owns the newspapers and tv outlets? What are the interests of those owners, whether they be financial or ideological?