January 2012

Honduras Agreement Did Not Promise Return of Authoritarian Ex-President, Contrary to Earlier Press Reports

by Hans Bader on October 31, 2009 · 2 comments

in International, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual

The small country of Honduras did not agree to return its authoritarian ex-president to power after all.  Press reports said it did, but The Wall Street Journal says it merely agreed to submit a request for his return to Honduras’s Congress and Supreme Court, which previously backed the ex-president’s removal, in exchange for an end to U.S. sanctions and U.S. recognition of upcoming election results.  Under continuing U.S. pressure, they may soon allow his return to office, but it hasn’t happened yet.

The Washington Post admits that the ex-president, Manuel Zelaya, was trying to make himself into a dictator, like his mentor, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.  But the Post demands that he be returned to power anyway because he was “illegally deported” by the military after being removed from office.

But the ex-president is busy spinning the agreement as an unqualified recognition of his right to rule, which it isn’t.  And Obama Administration officials, like the State Department’s Thomas Shannon, are busy threatening Honduran legislators with sanctions and cancellation of their visas if they vote against reinstating Zelaya, in a manner seemingly at odds with the agreement itself.

Honduras removed ex-president Zelaya after he systematically abused his powers: he sought to circumvent constitutional term limits, used mobs to intimidate his critics, threatened public employees with termination if they refused to help him violate the Constitution, engaged in massive corruption, illegally cut off public funds to local governments whose leaders refused to back his quest for more power, denied basic government services to his critics, refused to enforce dozens of laws passed by Congress, and spent the country into virtual bankruptcy, refusing to submit a budget so that he could illegally spend public funds on his cronies.

By levying sanctions on Honduras, and refusing to recognize its current government, the Obama administration has destabilized the country, one of the poorest in Latin America, resulting in mass layoffs leading to 65% unemployment among workers at small and medium-size enterprises in Honduras.  Vulnerable social groups in Honduras, like orphans, have suffered especially acutely, and malnutrition has risen.

Even before the current crisis, the World Food Program noted that “One out of  four Honduran children under 5 years old falls  to chronic malnutrition. In some rural communities to the west of the country, chronic malnutrition can reach 48.5 percent.”  Since the crisis, things have gotten much worse: “A woman caring for six grandchildren can no longer afford milk. A bricklayer who used to work six days a week now is lucky to get two. A shop manager has seen his earnings evaporate.”

The Obama administration insisted that Zelaya’s removal was illegal, although many legal commentators said that Honduras’s removal of ex-president Manuel Zelaya was legal — and thus, not a coup. The ex-president’s removal was perfectly constitutional, say many lawyers and foreign policy experts, including attorneys Octavio Sanchez, Miguel Estrada, and Dan Miller, former Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes, Stanford’s William Ratliff, and The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady.  Former Secretary of State James Baker, a lawyer, says that Honduras’s removal of Zelaya from office was legal, although its exiling of him was not.

Flu Watch Oct. 31 – What swine flu ISN’T doing this week

by Michael Fumento on October 30, 2009 · 2 comments

in Health and Illness

It’s Halloween, and the monster at the door is swine flu. Or so we’re told. Yet again. And people respond accordingly. “I’ve never seen it like this,” an administrator at Dunwoody Pediatrics in suburban Atlanta told USA Today. “That name, H1N1, sends parents into a panic. We’ve had a lot of verbal abuse.” And yet there’s evidence the epidemic may have peaked!

The CDC reports that hospitalizations for the week ending October 24 barely increased while deaths are actually down from the week before. So when the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology August report said its “plausible scenario” showed 30,000 – 90,000 swine flu deaths peaking in “mid-October” it may have been part right. Though not the part everybody was worried about.

The Flu Count Website shows 1,200 U.S. deaths since the early April outbreak according to media reports. Worldwide it shows only 7,000. (Unfortunately, the site also says it provides official CDC numbers, though I verified that it does not.) That’s about the number the CDC estimates who die of seasonal flu every five days during season and worldwide the number who die of seasonal flu every seven days.

On campuses cases rose last week by a third according to the American College Health Association, but the number of cases per student isn’t dramatically higher than it was in the second week of September.

The percentage of positive tests picked up by the CDC’s surveillance laboratories is also the highest it’s been this fall at 42 percent. Yet the panic factor, as measured by the percentage of visits to emergency rooms and outpatient clinics by people worried they have the flu – and worried enough to seek medical attention – is astounding at over 8 percent. That’s the highest it’s been this century.

With the Obama Administration declaring a national emergency and New York’s governor declaring a state emergency, panic begat panic. The perpetual motion machine of fear drives on.

Greider: $1.4 Trillion Deficit Isn’t Enough!

by Marc Scribner on October 30, 2009 · 1 comment

in Economy, Stimulus to Nowhere

I’ll admit it: William Greider is an easy target. The former Rolling Stone reporter and current national affairs correspondent at The Nation has a habit of making a fool out of himself, to the delight of the right and to the chagrin of the brighter segments of the left. Left-wing economist Paul Krugman, reviewing his 1997 anti-globalization book One World, Ready or Not, said that “the main lesson one really learns from [Greider's book] is how easy it is for an intelligent, earnest man to trip over his own intellectual shoelaces.”

In his latest Nation column, Greider takes those concerned about the $1.4 trillion budget deficit to task, claiming that their concerns are “grounded in ignorance and discredited nineteenth-century bromides.” Funny from a man who claims that economics is “not really a science so much as a value-laden form of prophecy,” and one who as recently as 2007 was referring negatively to the Reagan administration’s “exploding deficits” in the 1980s. He goes on to cite massive deficits during World War II as proof that spending a lot of money we don’t have necessarily produces fantastic results:

In an October 21 editorial arguing against just such additional spending, the Post warned citizens to disregard progressive commentators (like myself) who offer the example of World War II, when the government ran deficits many times larger than the current one. “In the deficit debates to come,” the Post insisted, “Mr. Obama should heed the hawks.”

Wrong. The mobilization for World War II produced one of the most remarkable success stories in US economic history. War production not only overcame lingering weaknesses from the Great Depression but transformed the economic system into the modern powerhouse that became the platform for our long-running postwar prosperity. All this was achieved by the government, largely with borrowed money. By war’s end Washington had piled up federal debt totaling around 120 percent of annual GDP (nearly double today’s debt level).

During the wartime emergency the government took charge of the economy and rapidly shifted the industrial system to armaments while suppressing domestic consumption. Deficit spending force-fed the rapid development of new technologies and new basic industries. In a few short years, economic output expanded by about 75 percent. Despite rationing and wage and price controls, Americans at large were replenished: per capita income rose by almost 70 percent (with industrial jobs opened to women and blacks), and since people could not consume much, the savings rate reached extraordinary levels–23 percent of incomes. The government borrowed these savings and spent them in the national interest. The store of personal savings fueled the pent-up consumer demand driving postwar prosperity.

What Greider can’t seem to understand–and what his dime store Keynesian worldview won’t allow–is that the post-war United States did so well because nearly every other major developed economy was literally bombed out. It is easy to do comparatively well when your international competition is a pile of rubble and/or under the thumb of a totalitarian superpower. The Bretton Woods system established in 1945 required member states, among other things, to accept the dollar as the reserve currency and the United States spent decades providing liquidity to war-torn Western Europe. Furthermore, this system–which assumed U.S. economic hegemony–coupled with the reckless fiscal policies of future American administrations, was largely responsible for the severe economic problems experienced during 1970s. Great, right?

But it gets worse. Here’s his advice for the Obama administration:

Let’s hope President Obama and the political community brush aside the deficit hysteria and do what they need to do to restore the economy: that is, spend more money–a lot more money–and run up even larger deficits for some years to come. [original emphasis, original italics bolded due to formatting limitations]

Unfortunately, Greider probably doesn’t have to worry about not getting his wish (PDF).

Under U.S. pressure, impoverished Honduras may allow authoritarian ex-president to return to power

by Hans Bader on October 30, 2009 · 2 comments

in International, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

Under U.S. pressure, Honduras’s leader has reportedly agreed to return to power its authoritarian ex-president, Manuel Zelaya, in exchange for an end to U.S. sanctions and U.S. recognition of its upcoming election results, and Zelaya’s agreement to turn over control of the military to a tribunal. It is not absolutely certain, however, that Honduras’s Supreme Court or Congress will approve the agreement, which appears to violate Honduran law.

Honduras removed ex-president Zelaya after he systematically abused his powers: he sought to circumvent constitutional term limits, used mobs to intimidate his critics, threatened public employees with termination if they refused to help him violate the Constitution, engaged in massive corruption, illegally cut off public funds to local governments whose leaders refused to back his quest for more power, denied basic government services to his critics, refused to enforce dozens of laws passed by Congress, and spent the country into virtual bankruptcy, refusing to submit a budget so that he could illegally spend public funds on his cronies.

By levying sanctions on Honduras, and refusing to recognize its current government, the Obama Administration has destabilized the country, one of the poorest in Latin America, resulting in mass layoffs leading to 65% unemployment among workers at small and medium-size enterprises in Honduras.  Vulnerable social groups in Honduras, like orphans, have suffered especially acutely, and malnutrition has risen.  Even before the current crisis, the World Food Program noted that “One out of  four Honduran children under 5 years old falls  to chronic malnutrition. In some rural communities to the west of the country, chronic malnutrition can reach 48.5 percent.”  After it, things have only gotten worse: “A woman caring for six grandchildren can no longer afford milk. A bricklayer who used to work six days a week now is lucky to get two. A shop manager has seen his earnings evaporate.”

The Obama Administration insisted that Zelaya’s removal was illegal, although many legal commentators said that Honduras’s removal of ex-president Zelaya was legal — and thus, not a coup. The ex-president’s removal was perfectly constitutional, say many lawyers and foreign policy experts, including attorneys Octavio Sanchez, Miguel Estrada, and Dan Miller, former Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes, Stanford’s William Ratliff, and the Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady.  Former Secretary of State James Baker, a lawyer, says that Honduras’s removal of Zelaya from office was legal, although its exiling of him was not.

While attacking Honduras’ democratically-elected Congress and Supreme Court for their role in removing and replacing the country’s ex-president and would-be dictator, the Obama Administration has paid little attention to human-rights abuses in countries ruled by dictatorships.  Those countries include Guinea, where troops recently committed mass rapes against women in broad daylight; Niger, where the president recently turned himself into a dictator; Iran, where vast numbers of pro-democracy demonstrators have been tortured or killed; and Nicaragua, right next door to Honduras, where the unpopular president, who routinely engages in vote fraud, is busy trampling on constitutional term limits in order to turn himself into a president-for-life.

CEI Weekly: CEI Testifies Against Cap and Trade

by Charles Huang on October 30, 2009

in Economy, Energy, Environment, Features, Zeitgeist

CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blog posts from CEI’s fellows and associates sent out via e-mail every Friday. Also included in the Weekly newsletter is a brief description of CEI’s weekly podcast and a feature on a major CEI breakthrough made during the week. To sign up for CEI Weekly, go to http://cei.org/newsletters.


CEI Weekly
October 30, 2009


>>Iain Murray Testifies in Senate About Cap-and-Trade Failures in Europe
Iain Murray testified on Thursday, Oct. 29th, in front of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works concerning the “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.” His testimony recounts his experience with European countries which have similar cap-and-trade policies like the one proposed in the act.

-Read his testimony at CEI.org.

-Read Marlo Lewis’ Written Testimony on the national security risks involved in passing the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.


>>Shaping the Debate
The Administration’s Flu Fear-Mongering
Michael Fumento’s op-ed in the Investor’s Business Daily

Let the State Choose Your TV
William Yeatman’s op-ed in the Orange County Register

Sure, Just What We Need: Yet Another Regulatory Government Agency
Jonathan Moore’s Letter to the Editor in the Boston Globe


>>Best of the Blogs
My Power Company Wants to Sell Me Climate Indulgences
by Ivan Osorio
The scheme appears simple enough. The mailer says, “When you sign up for Dominion Green Power, you add a little extra to your monthly bill which Dominion will use to purchase certified renewable energy certificates on your behalf.” And what does the consumer get in return? Well, that’s a good question. Dominion’s Green Power Web page features a video that features a family that “pays an extra 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour, and the money is used to purchase renewable energy certificates to support green energy development through a vendor called 3 Degrees.” And what does 3 Degrees actually do?

“Saving” Jobs Isn’t Always Good
by Michelle Minton
The Obama administration is patting itself on the back for saving the jobs of thousands of educators by doling out stimulus funds earlier in the year. . . When it comes to your child’s education, does that really seem like such a bad thing-should every teacher good or bad continue to teach? That is what the White House and the Dept. of Education assert when they pat themselves on the back for “creating” and saving 250,000 education jobs. Not only are they retaining many school-workers who, perhaps, deserve to be let go, but they are also preventing the emergence of a private market for education.

Reps. Maloney and Adler Push True Bipartisan Stimulus – Sarbanes Oxley Relief
by John Berlau
Led by Democratic Reps. Carolyn Maloney of New York and John Adler of New Jersey, two amendments will likely be introduced to the Investor Protection Act that would truly stimulate the economy by partially liberating investors, entrepreneurs and innovators from the shackles of a seven-year-old “investor protection” law that has added billions in costs while providing little if any benefits to investors and doing nothing to prevent the recent financial crisis: the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.


>>Liberty Week Podcast
Episode 66: The War on Commerce
We start with the lobbying war over net neutrality rules, Sen. Kerry’s search for a cap-and-trade legacy and a campaign finance scandal from Japan. We then move on to the White House’s War on Commerce and the allegedly immoral profits in the healthcare insurance industry.


>>Support CEI
Like what you read?

The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 25-year record of success is made possible by our over 3,000 supporters. Make sure to stop by www.cei.org/support and make a donation to continue your support or become a supporter. Curious about all the possible ways to donate to CEI? Contact Al Canata at acanata@cei.org or 202-331-2280 to find out more.

Charles Huang

Web and Media Associate

Competitive Enterprise Institute

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NY Guv orders state of panic over swine flu

by Michael Fumento on October 29, 2009

in Health and Illness

Emulating the Obama Administration, New York Gov. David Paterson has “declared a state of emergency, saying a recent rise in swine flu cases has created a ‘disaster,’” according to the Associated Press.

The executive order suspends state law and allows more health care professionals to administer vaccines.

The emergency? AP says at least 75 residents have died of swine flu in the last seven months. By comparison, given its population size we’d expect over 2,200 New York residents to die annually of seasonal flu.

Total reported New York cases are 2,738 cases according to Flucount; whereas again going by its population and CDC estimates New York probably has over 12,000 seasonal flu hospitalizations each year.

So where’s the fire, governor?

Yet the underlying reality is that, as I noted in my IBD article “Obama Administration’s Flu Fearmongering,” emergency rooms are being swamped with the worried well and the slightly ill. But it’s precisely because of such things as emergency proclamations.

As it happens, there are plenty of people who can administer vaccines, just very little vaccine to distribute. What the governor should do is to tell his constituents the truth about swine flu, that data from New York City show that at worst swine flu kills only a tenth the percentage of people as seasonal flu.

But the truth just makes government look bad, as opposed to being the peoples’ savior. So instead, the governor injects another dose of hysteria.

Halloween treat: Top ten scariest movies

by Fran Smith on October 29, 2009

in Culture, Odds & Ends

night-of-the-living-dead

Okay — it’s almost Halloween, so I should be forgiven for a non-policy posting on the Top Ten Scariest Movies.  I’ve picked a sample of top ten listings to check out any unanimity in the selections.  Not really, ‘though several films appear on almost every list – Psycho (1960), Night of the Living Dead (1968), Halloween (1978).  Most of the scariest are horror or sci-fi films, with lots of gore and special effects, but a significant number of the top ones are psychological thrillers.  Here are some links to the lists here, here, here and here.

There’s also a list of the 10 Top Terrifying Non-Horror movies here. Two of my own favorites in that category – but not listed – are Brazil (1985) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975).

Here’s my compilation of the 10 scariest:

Psycho (1960)

The Exorcist  (1973)

The Shining (1980)

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Halloween (1978)

Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Alien (1979)

Rosemary’s Baby (1979)

Silence of the Lambs (1991)

With truly scary things happening on Capitol Hill — government takeover of the health care system, attempts to suppress the use of energy through diabolical cap-and-trade schemes, more government controls on private markets together with expansion of government enterprises, and higher and higher taxes to finance the largess — maybe these films won’t seem so scary at all.

Senator seeks to cover up report showing Honduras acted legally in removing authoritarian ex-president

by Hans Bader on October 29, 2009

in Features, International, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

The Obama administration and congressional allies like Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) are seeking to silence government lawyers who point out their mistakes and misinterpretations of the law:

“A month ago, the Law Library of Congress reviewed the removal of Manuel Zelaya from his post as President of Honduras, an act that the Obama administration called a ‘coup’ and demanded reversed for its illegality.  To the embarrassment of the White House and State Department, the Congressional body determined that Honduras acted lawfully in removing Zelaya for his crimes against their constitution, although they determined that his exile broke Honduran law.  Now John Kerry wants the Law Library to retract its findings, apparently trying to rewrite history to hide the facts of the case.”

Earlier, the Obama administration overruled career justice department lawyers in voting rights and voter intimidation cases, to give a green light to unconstitutional legislation, and protect an Obama poll-watcher and Democratic Party official from being held accountable for wrongdoing.  Obama also fired an inspector general for uncovering wrongdoing by a prominent Obama supporter.

Contrary to what Senator Kerry claims, there are many legal commentators who say that Honduras’s removal of ex-president Manuel Zelaya was legal — and thus, not a coup.

The ex-president’s removal was perfectly constitutional, say many lawyers and foreign policy experts, including attorneys Octavio Sanchez, Miguel Estrada, and Dan Miller, former Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes, Stanford’s William Ratliff, and The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady.

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, a lawyer, says that Honduras’s removal of Zelaya from office was legal, although its exiling of him was not.

Honduras removed ex-president Zelaya after he systematically abused his powers: he sought to circumvent constitutional term limits, used mobs to intimidate his critics, threatened public employees with termination if they refused to help him violate the Constitution, engaged in massive corruption, illegally cut off public funds to local governments whose leaders refused to back his quest for more power, denied basic government services to his critics, refused to enforce dozens of laws passed by Congress, and spent the country into virtual bankruptcy, refusing to submit a budget so that he could illegally spend public funds on his cronies.

Journalists nonsensically refer to Honduras’s removal of its ex-president as a “coup” even while admitting that it was approved by the country’s supreme court. But if it was legal, by definition, it cannot be a coup, since a coup is defined as “the unconstitutional overthrow of a legitimate government by a small group.”

Moreover, the ex-president’s removal was not a “coup” because it was not committed by a “small group,” as the definition of “coup” requires. The removal of Honduras’s president was supported by the entire Honduran Supreme Court, an almost unanimous Honduran Congress, and much of Honduran society. Honduras did not lose its government, but merely replaced one illegitimate part of it: its overbearing president. And his removal from office (as opposed to his subsequent exile) was clearly legally justified.

Law professors like James Lindgren, Jonathan Adler, Glenn Reynolds, and William Jacobson have also criticized the administration’s position on Honduras.

By levying sanctions on Honduras, and refusing to recognize its current government, the Obama administration has destabilized the country, one of the poorest in Latin America, resulting in mass layoffs leading to 65% unemployment among workers at small and medium-size enterprises in Honduras.  Vulnerable social groups in Honduras, like orphans, have suffered especially acutely, and malnutrition has risen.

While attacking Honduras’ democratically-elected Congress and Supreme Court for their role in removing and replacing the country’s ex-president and would-be dictator, the Obama administration has paid little attention to human-rights abuses in countries ruled by dictatorships.  Those countries include Guinea, where troops recently committed mass rapes against women in broad daylight; Niger, where the president recently turned himself into a dictator; Iran, where vast numbers of pro-democracy demonstrators have been tortured or killed; and Nicaragua, right next door to Honduras, where the unpopular president, who routinely engages in vote fraud, is busy trampling on constitutional term limits in order to turn himself into a president-for-life.

Here’s the House health care reform bill, catering to the public’s right to know

by Michael Fumento on October 29, 2009 · 1 comment

in Healthcare

Everything you need to know, right here. And the best part is, it’s only 1,990 pages long! Print it out and read it during a coffee break.

Seriously, with a document this long do you think anyone really knows what’s in it? Doesn’t that thought spook you?

Washington and Wall Street: Best Kept Separate

by Ryan Young on October 29, 2009

in Bailout Watch, Economy, Politics as Usual

Russ Roberts’ testimony in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is superb. Read it (it’s short). Wall Street deserves plenty of blame for the financial crisis. But Washington deserves more:

When your teenager drives drunk and wrecks the car, and you keep giving him a do-over—
repairing the car and handing him back the keys—he’s going to keep driving
drunk. Washington keeps giving the bad banks and Wall Street firms a do-over. Here are
the keys. Keep driving. The story always ends with a crash.

I’m mad at Wall Street. But I’m a lot madder at the people who gave them the keys to
drive our economy off the cliff.

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