Hugo Chavez

Reason’s Michael Moynihan on the SEIU Chavistas

by Ivan Osorio on July 10, 2009

in Economy, Labor, Regulation

At Reason Hit & Run, Michael C. Moynihan looks at the Service Employees Internatinoal Union’s harassing of broadcasters who air ads opposing the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

According to this letter obtained by TPM, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is threatening television stations broadcasting this anti-card check advertisement produced by the Employee Freedom Action Committee. In the letter (viewable here), SEIU lawyer Dora V. Chen tells stations in Arkansas and Nebraska that they should “immediately cease airing this false and deceitful advertisement.” Says Ms. Chen, “political organizations do not have a ‘right to command the use of broadcast facilities’”—i.e., airing third party political advertisements television stations are not bound by the First Amendment—reminding station executives that they are under “no legal obligation to air the advertisement” but it they do the affiliate “bears responsibility for its content.” If the Chavista implications of these threats are still unclear, the SEIU puts it in sharper relief, obliquely threatening the station’s broadcast licenses…

Moynihan aptly describes SEIU’s tactics as “Chavista,” but it shouldn’t be surprising. Under Andy Stern, its current head, SEIU has a long history of bullying not only its opponents, but also other unions, its own employees, and officials of its own local unions. The only thing that could make Stern’s (purple) reign worse would be for him to start making five-hour marathon speeches while wearing a  beret.

For much more on SEIU, see here.

For the ad SEIU hates (and I like), click below:

Will Obama Blackmail Honduras Into Installing Would-Be Dictator?

by Hans Bader on July 5, 2009 · 3 comments

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

Last Sunday, Honduras removed its would-be dictator, Mel Zelaya, who flouted court rulings by using intimidation to try to get Hondurans to change their constitution to allow him to extend his tenure in office. The country’s Supreme Court issued a warrant for Zelaya’s arrest, which the military enforced by removing Zelaya from office. The country’s legislature then voted almost unanimously to replace him with a legislative speaker, in accord with the country’s constitution.

Now, Obama, who knows nothing about Honduran law, is ignorantly claiming that Zelaya’s removal was “illegal,” and demanding that Zelaya be reinstated as president. His demand is joined in by the Organization of American States, many of whose leaders, like Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, have either violated their own countries’ constitutions, or likewise seek to eliminate term limits contained in their own countries’ constitutions. (“A senior Obama administration official said the United States would probably move to suspend economic development and military assistance” to Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere).

Obama is quite wrong to claim that the removal of Zelaya was “illegal.” The Honduran president forfeited his right to rule under Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution, which bans presidents from holding office if they even propose to alter the constitutional term limits for presidents. And the Honduran military, which acted on orders of the Honduran supreme court, expressly had the right to remove the president for seeking to alter the constitutional term limit, under Article 272 of the Honduran Constitution, as even left-leaning commentators have now admitted. The Honduran military’s role in enforcing the court order does not make it a “coup” anymore than federal troops’ role in enforcing the court-ordered integration of the Little Rock public schools in 1957 constituted a military occupation or takeover.

(Zelaya was a corrupt ruler who so mismanaged his country’s finances so badly that it recently failed to pay many of its bills. His violations of his country’s constitution were criticized by human rights groups and the Catholic Church as well as the legislature and judiciary).

What happened in Honduras was not illegal, much less a coup, agrees the Honduran lawyer and former Minister of Culture Octavio Sanchez in his July 2 column in the Christian Science Monitor. He notes that under Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution, the President automatically lost his right to remain in office by seeking to extend his term in office: “According to Article 239: ‘No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform [emphasis added], as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.’ Notice that the article speaks about intent and that it also says ‘immediately’ – as in ‘instant,’ as in ‘no trial required,’ as in ‘no impeachment needed.’ Continuismo – the tendency of heads of state to extend their rule indefinitely – has been the lifeblood of Latin America’s authoritarian tradition. The Constitution’s provision of instant sanction might sound draconian, but every Latin American democrat knows how much of a threat to our fragile democracies continuismo presents. In Latin America, chiefs of state have often been above the law. The instant sanction of the supreme law has successfully prevented the possibility of a new Honduran continuismo. The Supreme Court and the attorney general ordered Zelaya’s arrest for disobeying several court orders compelling him to obey the Constitution. He was detained and taken to Costa Rica. Why? Congress needed time to convene and remove him from office. With him inside the country that would have been impossible. This decision was taken by the 123 (of the 128) members of Congress present that day. Don’t believe the coup myth. The Honduran military acted entirely within the bounds of the Constitution. The military gained nothing but the respect of the nation by its actions.”

If Richard Nixon had been impeached and convicted for Watergate, and then refused to leave office, until being forced out by the military, would that have been a “military coup”? Of course not. But Obama and many in the press are taking essentially that position in demanding the reinstatement of Honduras’s would-be dictator.

The fact that the military carried out the Honduran Supreme Court’s orders in removing a would-be dictator, after he flouted the court’s rulings, does not make it a “military coup.” When court orders are defied by powerful government officials, troops are sometimes called out to enforce them, as happened in the U.S. in 1957 when federal troops forced Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus to stop blocking the court-ordered integration of Little Rock’s public schools.

Indeed, Article 272 of the Honduran Constitution gives the military the power to remove a president even without a court order, if he seeks to violate the term limits prescribed in the Honduran Constitution. Even a legal commentator, Litho, at the leading liberal blog Daily Kos, which is run by a leftist Latin American immigrant, admits that the military’s action was “legal” in a “technical sense” under the Honduran Constitution.

LibertyWeek 42: Hugo Chávez, Robber Baron

by Richard Morrison on May 12, 2009 · 1 comment

in CEI Projects, Podcast

Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist bring back special guest co-host Jeremy Lott to create the work of art known as Episode 42. We start with the continuing buzz over the Supreme Court’s next member, President Obama’s trillion dollar healthcare plan, and an update on how Hugo Chávez is turning Venezuela’s petroleum reserves into his personal piggybank. We add good news from East Texas for beer drinkers, bad news from Europe for technophiles and sad news from Philly for basketball fans.

Listen to the episode HERE.

Neither carrots nor sticks II

by Ivan Osorio on October 6, 2008

in International

Further to my earlier post on Latin America, The Wall Street Journal‘s Mary O’Grady points to a good way for the U.S. to deal with loudmouth thugs like Hugo Chavez:

Hugo Chávez provoked nary a peep from the Bush administration when he recently welcomed Russian fighter jets to an air base in the state of Aragua. For a man desperate to prove his importance, nothing could have been more insulting than the yawn in Washington when the Russians touched down in Venezuela.

Indeed, which makes the American politicians who choose to pal around with Chavez’s lackeys all the more pathetic.

Neither carrots nor sticks

by Ivan Osorio on October 6, 2008 · 1 comment

in International

Few things are as exasperating as watching two sides argue — and neither rise above being half-right, at best. Still, the resulting exchange in this case is thought-provoking.

Today, the left-liberal Center for American Progress responded to a Washington Post editorial calling for a tougher stance on the part of Washington against Latin American autocrats like Hugo Chavez and his cronies in Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador. While the Post editorial is right on more counts than is the CAP piece, they both seem to buy into the notion that the internal policies of Latin American countries are any of American policy makers’ business.

Yes, the United States wields enormous influence in the region as the biggest economic and political player, but the biggest contributions it can make to the well-being of Latin America  countries are — and should be — limited to maintaining open trade and immigration policies (I know, easier said and done) and changing America’s Sisyphean drug policy.

CAP author Stephanie Miller rightly mentions “drug consumption” in the U.S. as an important factor affecting Latin America, but she fails to develop even this important point. Moreover, she doesn’t even identify it properly — it is drug prohibition that is driving Latin America’s rising crime wave. No amount of drug laws can ever kill off demand itself. Moreover, drug prohibition is causing great damage in Latin America, but the enormous damage it is already causing in the U.S. is enough reason to change policy, independently of any foreign policy implications.

Regarding the Post editorial, it rightly emphasizes the importance of trade. However it seems to imply that trade preferences for countries with hostile regimes somehow constitute “subsidies,” even though trade preferences usually entail the removal of trade barriers (however selectively).

Meanwhile, CAP’s Miller argues that, “Trade is important, but it is clearly not the magic bullet that promoters of the Washington consensus of the 1990s believed it would be.” Magic bullet? This is clearly a straw man. It’s a big jump to go from saying that trade is crucial — which it is — to it being a panacea to societies’ ills — which it is clearly not. Many development factors are necessary; none are sufficient on their own.

Finally, regarding what American policy should be, both the Post and CAP argue for interventions of different sorts. Miller argues that, “the United States must very proactively engage with civil societies in all of these countries at the grassroots level.” The Post contends that, “Sooner or later [Latin Americans] must be forced to choose between Mr. Chávez’s half-baked socialism and the democracy of the 21st century.”

What about just stepping back and let Latin American countries solve their own problems — and deal with the consequences of their own decisions? Contra Miller, development in foreign countries is not something the American government is well suited to promote. And contra the Post, the U.S. cannot save people in other countries from themselves, no matter how bad their choices.

Next Entries →