Fausta’s Blog

Thank you to the Watchers Council for honoring my post in their Fourth of July selection.

Palin to Quit as Alaska Governor, Won’t Seek Re-Election

Sarah Palin said Friday that she won’t run for a second term as governor of Alaska and will transfer her responsibilities to the state’s lieutenant governor.

Here is her statement:

“I am determined to take the right path for Alaska even though it is not the easiest path,” said Governor Palin after the announcement. “Once I decided not to run for re-election, I also felt that to embrace the conventional ‘Lame Duck’ status in this particular climate would just be another dose of ‘politics as usual,’ something I campaigned against and will always oppose. It is my duty to always protect our great state. With that in mind, my family and I determined that it is best to make a difference this summer, and I am willing to change things, so that this administration, with its positive agenda, its accomplishments, and its successful road to an incredible future, can continue without interruption and with great administrative and legislative success. I look forward to helping others – to fight for our state and our country, and campaign for those who believe in smaller government, free enterprise, strong national security, support for our troops, and energy independence.”

Look, I sure hope she has a huge ace up her sleeve because from here it sure looks like a Perot-like maneuver. In Jonah Goldberg’s words, “You’re blowing it”.

Her political career is not going to recover from this.

The Anchoress basically agrees.

Gateway Pundit has the video:

UPDATE
Instapundit mini-roundup.

Liberals never learn, do they? Doug has the back story on that.

Francis is heartbroken but takes no prisoners.

GM Roper ponders Palin derangement syndrome.

Ace:

It’s over. You can’t resign from a governorship and then run for higher office. Barring some strong reason, like needing treatment for cancer.

A contrarian view: No, Of Course Palin’s Political Career Isn’t Over

The other day I was at the hairdresser’s and started reading TIME Magazine. The content was awful enough I dropped it and picked up a bridal magazine instead, which considering I have no one involved in wedding preparations and find the subject insipid, is a lot to say. Since I had not brought a book with me the other choice was to sit there under the hair dryer staring at space.

Reason is 100% on the money when they said, You Know The Real Reason Why Time Mag Is Going Down the Drain? The Content!

Reason asks,

In any case, what can Obama learn from FDR? Plenty. Especially what not to do during an economic downturn. Just watch below.

10:15 PM Update
As expected, Honduras rejects OAS appeal to restore president

Earlier today:

Demonstrators clashed with police and the army in Honduras (link in Spanish), and the country (as I posted yesterday) has suspended Constitutional protections on freedom of assembly during the curfew. Noticias 24 (see prior link for photos) also reports that Congress authorized detaining people for more than 24 hours. A member of the opposition party Unificación Democrática (UD) claims there have been 700 detentions, of which 20 are still under arrest. According to La Prensa, the curfew was scheduled to end tonight at 5AM. If any of the readers in Honduras can verify, please enter links in the comments section.

In today’s WSJ, Honduras Takes Control of Some Media

The country’s Channel 36, run by a close associate of expelled Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, was shut down following Mr. Zelaya’s ouster and remained off the air this week, with only a blank signal showing up on Honduran televisions.

Channel 8, a state-owned network that had also supported Mr. Zelaya, went off the air on Sunday and then returned with a new cast of anchors, largely delivering news friendly to the government’s interim president, Roberto Micheletti.

Radio Globo, a network that spent much energy criticizing Mr. Micheletti before he took power, remains under military guard, according to its owner, Alejandro Villatoro. When it broadcast the first Honduran interview with Mr. Zelaya Wednesday from exile, in which he was addressed as “Mr. President,” soldiers turned off the station’s transmitter, Mr. Villatoro said.

Other outlets less closely allied with Mr. Zelaya said they had no complaints.
…
The shutdown of Channel 36, for example, has left some newsmen ambivalent, because of what they see as the station’s commitment to attacking Mr. Zelaya’s adversaries when he was in power. Channel 36 owner Edras Lopez, was a close supporter of Mr. Zelaya and last year took aim at Mr. Micheletti, accusing him in a series of commercials of bribery and corruption, according to members of the Honduran media and congressmen. Mr. Lopez could not be reached for comment.

The WSJ quotes Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group for press freedom based in France, said Wednesday that some stations “have resumed broadcasting but their coverage of the coup is either closely controlled or nonexistent.” It also said international news outlets including U.S.-based CNN and Venezuela’s Telesur — which is run by the government of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and strongly supports Mr. Zelaya — were no longer available on TV stations and could only be seen on the Internet.

If any of my readers in Honduras can verify that CNN is no longer available on cable I would be much obliged.
UPDATE
In the comments section, La Gringa:

I have watched CNN 18-20 hours a day HERE IN HONDURAS since 7:30 am Sunday morning when I woke up.

(end update)

In yesterday’s ‘Aló Presidente Hugo Chávez used his typical alarmistic rethoric by warning Honduras that “a bloodbath is about to happen” (video in Spanish, via commenter Spartan)

Of course Chávez didn’t miss the opportunity to blame the USA for everything while calling the US government’s reaction “weak.”

Carlos Alberto Montaner, writing at the WaPo blog, confirms that the US had “tried very hard to keep Honduras’s Congress from ousting President Manuel Zelaya” and sheltered Zelaya’s son last Sunday. Montaner is worried about a bloodbath, too, and suggests,

The solution is to move forward with the general elections planned for November. It’s a solution within everyone’s reach: the candidates are already there, freely elected in open primaries, and both enjoy much popularity. Why plunge this society irresponsibly into a maelstrom of violence? Once the new government is selected, a government that enjoys the legitimacy generated by a democratic process, the Honduran people can push this lamentable episode into the past.

Micheletti has gone on the record saying that he would be willing to hold elections ahead of schedule if that would ease the standoff. As of the writing of this post Insulza is scheduled to arrive in Honduras today

The LA Times also says

After Zelaya was seized, his wife, Xiomara Castro, and their youngest son took refuge at the home of the U.S. ambassador, where they remain. The U.S. Embassy has a no-contact policy with the Micheletti faction.

This article from El Salvador.com states that Xiomara Castro de Zelaya had said that she had been with her mother and doesn’t mention anything about the US Embassy.

Libertad Digital has in PDF form the Honduran Supreme Court’s Timeline of Events also available at their official website, the Honduran Supreme Court Arrest Warrant against Manuel Zelaya ordering the Armed Forces to capture Zelaya on Sunday June 26 for “acting against the government, treason, abuse of authority and usurpation of power,” and the Honduran Attorney General’s arrest warrant against Zelaya dated Saturday June 25 (all in Spanish, of course).

Opinion at Counterterrorism Blog: Honduras and the Bolivarian Revolution.

Updates later today.

I changed the title of the post after reconsidering

———————————————
More commentary
A ‘coup’ in Honduras? Nonsense.
Don’t believe the myth. The arrest of President Zelaya represents the triumph of the rule of law.
Who cares about Honduras?
Obama ‘meddles’ in Honduras — and chooses the wrong side
Is this why Obama supports Zelaya?

10:45AM
Miami Herald: Top Honduran military lawyer: We broke the law

In an interview with The Miami Herald and El Salvador’s elfaro.net, army attorney Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza acknowledged that top military brass made the call to forcibly remove Zelaya — and they circumvented laws when they did it.

It was the first time any participant in Sunday’s overthrow admitted committing an offense and the first time a Honduran authority revealed who made the decision that has been denounced worldwide.

”We know there was a crime there,” said Inestroza, the top legal advisor for the Honduran armed forces. “In the moment that we took him out of the country, in the way that he was taken out, there is a crime. Because of the circumstances of the moment this crime occurred, there is going to be a justification and cause for acquittal that will protect us.”

6PM
La Gringa comments,

Our constitutional rights have not been revoked. We simply have a curfew which is only necessary because of the violence and vandalism being committed by pro-Zelaya protesters, assisted by thugs being imported from Nicaragua and Venezuela. Just last night they bombed a KFC in Tegucigalpa.

According to independent public polls, anywhere from 87 to 92% of the population are in favor of continuing the curfew.

Read also her post on the demonstrations.

Via Anchor Rising, Zero Sheep examines the Constitution.

A few headlines for this Thursday afternoon:

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza was planning to travel to Honduras on Friday, but says “we’re not going to negotiate”, and warned about sanctions.

El Salvador has reopened its border with Honduras.

The Honduran government has issued arrest warrants on Mel Zelaya and requested that Interpol arrest Zelaya. He is charged with treason, usurping power, abuse of authority, corruption and 14 other crimes.

Mel Zelaya is in Panama, where he attended the presidential inauguration yesterday.

Gateway Pundit: Honduran Democracy Protesters Bash Obama & CNN

My latest post, Taliban Purchasing Their Future Jihadis, is up at RightPundits. Please read it and leave a comment if you may.

The Washington Madam is a newspaper:

Washington Post sells access, $25,000+

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to “those powerful few”: Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

Words fail me, but No Sheeples has a few choice comments on the presstitutes.

UPDATE
James Joyner was wondering,

There are two obvious stories here. First, the Post is going down a very steep, slippery slope to losing all journalistic credibility. Second, the Post’s management seems to think that they have senior White House staff at their beck and call. If there’s merit to this, it may be a bigger story than the first.

As it turns out, Howard Kurtz anwered the first question: Post Publisher Cancels Plans for Off-the-Record ‘Salons’.

For now, the second issue, whether the Post’s management “seems to think that they have senior White House staff at their beck and call” can only be surmised, considering that the “off-the-record dinner and discussion” were to take place at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth.

But then,
Was anyone really surprised?

The pressure on the Honduran government continues:

Spain has recalled its Ambassador to Honduras “for consultations” and “to show the EU’s firmness,” according to Spain’s foreign minister. France and Italy followed suit. Hugo Chavez didn’t waste any time and praised their actions.

US suspends military relations with Honduras, but (at least for now) the US Ambassador has not been withdrawn.

Al Jazeera video:

Economic impact:
Following the OAS ultimatum, yesterday froze economic aid to Honduras “a resolution of the present crisis.”
Honduras Credit Rating May Be Cut on Political Risk, S&P Says

Honduras’ sovereign rating may be cut should a prolonged political crisis and strained public finances erode foreign-exchange reserves, Standard & Poor’s said.

The credit assessor yesterday placed the nation’s foreign- and local-currency debt on creditwatch “with negative implications” after the Honduran military ousted President Manuel Zelaya in a coup on June 28. Police used tear gas and water canons to break up protesting backers of Zelaya the following day, while thousands rallied to support the newly installed interim President Roberto Micheletti.

“The current political crisis comes at a time of economic contraction at home and abroad, weakening the government’s ability to adjust fiscal and monetary policies,” S&P’s New York-based analysts Joydeep Mukherji and Roberto Sifon Arevalo said in a statement.

The $12.3 billion economy, the third smallest in Central America, may expand 1.5 percent in 2009, according to the International Monetary Fund, compared with a forecast for a 1.5 percent contraction for all of Latin America. The nation’s international reserves have dropped 13 percent from a record $2.7 billion reached in June 2006, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
…
The economy would be devastated should Central American neighbors extend a trade ban implemented after the coup, Roque Rivera, president of the Honduran banking association said yesterday. No U.S. banks have shut lines of credit with local lenders and it’s unlikely they will, Rivera said.

UPDATE
Commenter Einar points out

“Please note that Manuel Zelaya seized power in January 2006 and has thus spent a huge amount of the record international reserves.”

News from the country:
In a telephone interview with Honduran Supreme Court Justice Rosalinda Cruz asserted that Honduras’s military acted under judicial orders:

The arrest order she cited, approved unanimously by the court’s 15 justices, was released this afternoon along with documents pertaining to a secret investigation that went on for weeks under the high court’s supervision
…
Cruz said the military decided to shuttle Zelaya out of the country for his safety and that of other Hondurans because riots would’ve erupted had he been held for trial.

“If he had been allowed to stay in the country, there would’ve been blood on the streets,” she said.

Although lawmakers were moving toward impeachment proceedings against Zelaya for trying to conduct the poll, the ouster allows him to portray himself as a “victim,” said Rafael Lopez, a senior Honduras adviser to the Washington-based International Foundation for Electoral Systems.
…
David Matamoros, a member of Honduras’ Supreme Electoral Tribunal, also defended the military’s action.

He said Zelaya originally called the vote a plebiscite, then, when that was barred, shifted to describing it as a poll, creating uncertainty as to its legal standing and his intent. No government agency was willing to conduct the vote, he said. All the ballots and equipment for the illegal poll were flown in on a Venezuelan plane, he said. The court ordered the materials confiscated.

In San Pedro, Honduras, La Prensa has side-by-side photos of the demonstrations. The photo on the left is titled “For the Constitution and the new government”; on the right “For Mel [Zelaya]”

Opinion and commentary
James Taranto replies to Simon Romero’s statement that “Mr. Obama’s nonconfrontational diplomacy seems to have caught Mr. Chávez off balance”:

Zelaya’s ouster is no “coup” but a lawful transition of power made necessary by his own defiance. As our colleague Mary O’Grady points out, the Honduran Supreme Court had ordered a halt to his unconstitutional efforts to extend his term, and the military arrested him for defying the court’s order. It’s as if the Angry Left’s paranoid fantasy had come true and George W. Bush refused to leave office this January.

A Times news story reports that the OAS–the group to which Obama is turning “for a multilateral solution”–has issued an “ultimatum to Honduras that it would be suspended from the organization if Mr. Zelaya was not returned to power.” Obama and the OAS, thus are all on the wrong side–Chavez’s side. It seems awfully credulous to say Obama outmaneuvered Chavez. It’s more like the other way around.

James Kirchick, in Commentary:

Though his [Obama's] public opposition to the “coup” might have thrown Chavez off for a day or so, it didn’t take long for the caudillo of Caracas to reorient himself, and now Obama is playing directly into Chavez’s hands. Ranting about American imperialism just a few days ago, Chavez — evidently delighted by his newfound friend in the White House — now says that Zelaya should score a meeting with Obama when he’s in Washington as such a photo-op would “deliver a major blow” to the interim government in Tegucigalpa, Honduras’ capital. Indeed, it would.

So let’s concede Romero’s point that Obama has “outmaneuvered” Chavez by escaping the traditional role of the president serving as a pinata for an anti-American leader. That’s very good for Obama’s self-esteem (recall the president’s relief, expressed in a speech at the April Summit of the Americas following an hours-long tirade from Daniel Ortega, that the Nicaraguan strongman “did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old”) but what have we gotten in return? U.S. interests in the region are not being served by continued international isolation of Honduras’s interim government, nor would they be served by restoring to power an anti-American authoritarian like Zelaya, who has approval ratings of less than 30%. Yet that’s what American policy supports. Instead of leading on this issue, we’re following, and following the likes of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez at that. But, hey, it’s nice to have these guys saying nice things about us for once, no?

William Jacobson (also at Instapundit): “Honduras gets condemnation from Obama, while Chavez gets hugs and Ahmadinejad gets deference.”

———————————
I’ll be updating this post with news during the day.

There will be no podcast today due to scheduling conflicts.

———————————-
11:35AM update:
Yesterday the Honduran Congress suspended the Constitutional guarantees to freedom of assembly and circulation during the curfew.

Costa Rica’s president Óscar Arias is opposed to Zaleya’s return. Arias, Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe and Guatemala’s Alvaro Colom all are opposed to Zaleya’s reinstatement.

Yesterday Zelaya was saying that he will return to Honduras with Chilean president Michelle Bachelet; this was denied by Chilean chancellor Mariano Fernández, who disapproved of Zelaya’s removal but also deplored the OAS’s ultimatum as “extremely severe.”

La Prensa has reports on the pro-democracy, pro-government demonstrations in Puerto Cortés, Choluteca and La Ceiba.

Florida International University professor Eduardo Gamarra: Zelaya’s ‘poll’ more than that.

Washington Times op-ed: Obama stands with tyrants: Honduras is part of a pattern.
IBD: Honduras Defiant:

As the world follows Chavez’s lead in trying to force Honduras to accept a lawless man as its leader, disasters for Honduras loom.

The tiny country is impoverished. Its seven million people have a per capita income of just $1,635 a year. Its economy has been enfeebled by Zelaya himself. He has fixed prices and wages, and opened the door to drug traffickers, creating a burgeoning narcostate.

It seems impossible that Honduras could withstand new draconian pressure and isolation over taking Zelaya back.

Yet evidence shows that Hondurans consider the latter fate worse. If Zelaya is restored as president, he will resume his dictatorial ambitions while Hondurans lose their future freedoms. Oh, the OAS will tell them “dialogue” will solve it.

But Hondurans know better: If the rule of law won’t dissuade Zelaya from being dictator, why would sweet talk work?

Cartoon via Adam and Get Liberty

My friend Kate has an excellent post with opinion and analysis, Some brief thoughts on Honduras, that you should read.

Via Small Dead Animals, Is Obama becoming more and more like a Canadian?

12:25PM
While Zelaya says he’s heading to Honduras with the OAS’s Insulza, the WSJ reports:

OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza is seeking to meet in a third country with a delegation of Honduras’s new leaders to demand Mr. Zelaya’s reinstatement, according to U.S. officials. Mr. Insulza is to report to the OAS members by July 6.

After marrying Carla, Sarko had to get into perineal shape.

WARNING: Not really suitable for work
Read the rest of this entry »

Horse flu? Bird flu? Swine flu?

How about the dog flu?

Are we done with the list of animals yet?