Honduras and Democracy

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BTT/is_156_26/ai_82533205/

EXCLUSIVE: President Obama Defends Right to Choose Best Care
In ABC News Health Care Forum, President Answers Questions About Reform

By JAKE TAPPER and KAREN TRAVERS
June 24, 2009—

President Obama struggled to explain today whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people -- like the president himself -- wouldn't face.
The probing questions came from two skeptical neurologists during ABC News' special on health care reform, "Questions for the President: Prescription for America," anchored from the White House by Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson.
Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it's not provided by insurance.
Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn't seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he's proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.
The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if "it's my family member, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care."

>>
Of course.

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090622_iranian_election_and_revolution_test

This sucks

Obama Misses the Point With Iran Response

All hangs in the balance. The Khamenei regime is deciding whether to do a Tiananmen. And what side is the Obama administration taking? None. Except for the desire that this “vigorous debate” (press secretary Robert Gibbs’s disgraceful euphemism) over election “irregularities” not stand in the way of U.S.-Iranian engagement on nuclear weapons.
Even from the narrow perspective of the nuclear issue, the administration’s geopolitical calculus is absurd. There is zero chance that any such talks will denuclearize Iran. On Monday, President Ahmadinejad declared yet again that the nuclear “file is shut, forever.” The only hope for a resolution of the nuclear question is regime change, which (if the successor regime were as moderate as pre-Khomeini Iran) might either stop the program, or make it manageable and nonthreatening.
That’s our fundamental interest. And our fundamental values demand that America stand with demonstrators opposing a regime that is the antithesis of all we believe.
And where is our president? Afraid of “meddling.”

Sarkozy Says Burqa Violates Dignity, ‘Not Welcome’
Share Email Print A A A
By Helene Fouquet

June 22 (Bloomberg) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the country’s National Assembly should debate a ban on the burqa, the Muslim garment that conceals a woman’s face and body, saying it was “not welcome” in France
“The burqa is not a religious sign, it’s a sign of servitude,” Sarkozy said today in a speech to both houses of parliament at the Versailles Palace on the outskirts of Paris. Calling it a violation of women’s “dignity and freedom,” Sarkozy said the burqa “will not be welcome on French soil.”
A group of French lawmakers have called for a total burqa ban. Sarkozy asked them to “open a debate” on the matter. Only a small minority of women wear burqas and the Opposition Socialist Party would favor a ban “of the burqa or the nikab,” Benoit Hamon, its spokesman, told Le Monde newspaper today.
The clothing rule would come five years after France outlawed head scarves and other “ostentatious” religious symbols, including large Christian crosses and Jewish skullcaps, in state offices and schools. The 2004 law prompted protests in France and criticism from some Muslim groups, including the second-in-command of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Sarkozy’s speech today marked the first time a French president has addressed lawmakers since 1875 after a law preventing such direct communication was overturned last year.
Budget Minister Eric Woerth said yesterday the Burqa “should not exist in France.” Sarkozy characterized it today as a “fence” in front of women’s faces.
Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, the government-recognized representative of Muslims, called the use of burqas in France “extremely marginal.”
In a statement today, he expressed “profound preoccupation” about “stigmatizing Islam and French Muslims.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris at Hfouquet1@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: June 22, 2009 10:44 EDT

"Up until now, the president had very thoughtfully calibrated his remarks on Iran, but this was an uncharacteristic and egregious error," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "People are risking their lives and being slaughtered in the streets because they want fundamental change in the way Iran is governed. Our message to them shouldn't be that it doesn't make much difference to the United States."

'Those Palestinian Animals'

The Jerusalem Post reports that some Iranian dissidents claim the Tehran regime has imported Palestinian terrorists to help crush the opposition:

"The most important thing that I believe people outside of Iran should be aware of," the young man went on, "is the participation of Palestinian forces in these riots."Another protester, who spoke as he carried a kitchen knife in one hand and a stone in the other, also cited the presence of Hamas in Teheran.On Monday, he said, "my brother had his ribs beaten in by those Palestinian animals. Taking our people's money is not enough, they are thirsty for our blood too."It was ironic, this man said, that the victorious Ahmadinejad "tells us to pray for the young Palestinians, suffering at the hands of Israel." His hope, he added, was that Israel would "come to its senses" and ruthlessly deal with the Palestinians.

Life Imitates the Onion

"Black Guy Photoshopped In"--headline, Onion, Dec. 6, 2000

"City Digitally Adds Black Guy to Fun Guide Cover to Make It More 'Inclusive' "--headline, National Post (Canada), June 10, 2009

Eddie Albert

Prior to World War II, and before his film career, Albert toured Mexico as a clown and high-wire artist with the Escalante Brothers Circus, but secretly worked for U.S. Army intelligence, photographing German U-boats in Mexican harbors.^[3] On September 9, 1942, Albert enlisted in the United States Navy and was discharged in 1943 to accept an appointment as a lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve. A genuine war hero, he was awarded the Bronze Star with Combat "V" for his actions during the invasion of Tarawa in November, 1943, when, as the pilot of a U.S. Coast Guard landing craft, he rescued 47 Marines who were stranded offshore (and supervised the rescue of 30 others), while under heavy enemy machine-gun fire.^[4]

Taranto

Scenes From an Arab Occupation

In an item yesterday, we faulted President Obama and his Cairo speech for ignoring Arab states' responsibility for the continuing plight of the Palestinians. One point we made was that the president had conflated the Palestinian "dislocation" following the birth of Israel and the Arabs' war on it with the Israeli "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza after the Six Day War, two decades later--not even mentioning that the disputed territories were under Jordanian and Egyptian occupation during the interim.One reader wrote to us and gamely insisted that since Obama had not stipulated which occupation he was talking about, his comments should be read as referring to the Arab occupation as well. Maybe, but we'd be less surprised to learn that he doesn't know about the Arab occupation, which is usually left out of the popular narrative. In any case, the Jerusalem Post has an enlightening op-ed by "veteran journalist" Eliezer Whartman, who visited Gaza just after the Israelis took over and "encountered a territory that bore stark witness to Egyptian aggression, callousness and inhumanity." He describes the conditions that prevailed under Egyptian rule:
There were no elections. A puppet government automatically ratified all legislation that the governor brought before it. In 1965, even this façade of local autonomy collapsed when the Egyptian army dismissed the legislature.The secret police probed everywhere. No one was immune from sudden arrest and unlimited imprisonment without trial or, at best, a secret trial. The jails were always full and torture was common. There was official censorship of the press and mail, and telephone lines were regularly tapped.For nearly 19 years, the inhabitants of the Strip were prohibited from leaving their homes from 9 p.m. until dawn on pain of death. This curfew was enforced by roadblocks. Men between 18 and 40 were prohibited from traveling to Egypt unless they were fortunate enough to secure permits. If they failed to return at the expiration of their permit, the military authorities took steps against their families.The Egyptians seized property at will, while refugees were prohibited from owning land.
Of course, this was a long time ago--but the founding of Israel was even longer ago, and those who style themselves "pro-Palestinian" are happy to nurture grievances from that era while excusing Arab regimes for perpetuating rather than seeking to ameliorate the Palestinians' plight. Whatman quotes from an interview Egypt's deputy Gaza governor gave to a Danish newspaper in February 1967:

Question: Why not send the refugees to other Arab countries? Syria would no doubt be able to absorb a vast number of them. Are you afraid that national bonds with Palestine will be loosened, that the hatred against Israel will vanish if they become ordinary citizens?
Answer: As a matter of fact, you are right. Syria could take all of them, and the problem would be solved. But we do not want that. They are to return to Palestine.UNRWA [the U.N. Relief and Works Agency] reported in 1956: "One of the obstacles to the achievement of the General Assembly's goal of making the refugees self-supporting continues to be the opposition of the governments in the area." Ralph Galloway, an UNRWA official who quit in frustration, observed bitterly: "The Arab states don't want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don't give a damn whether the refugees live or die."
Plus ça change. President Obama, like many before him, is deluding himself if he think he can resolve the problem without acknowledging the Arab dictators' interest in perpetuating it.

Grasshopper