Cheering for a Massive Deficit?

ObamaCare and the Press

BRENT BOZELL

A calm Sunday breakfast might have been ruined after a glance at The Washington Post's front page on June 14. A chart below the fold explained that under Obama's federal spending proposals, the United States would be required to borrow $9 trillion during the next decade. That's $9,000,000,000,000. The Post compared that, in today's dollars, to the financial burden of World War II: $3.6 trillion. That's not all of Obama's spending plan. That's only the part that's in the red.

Is it any wonder that a recent Gallup poll found more people disapprove rather than approve of Obama's handling of the deficit? But we've only just begun. Now President Obama wants to add another enormous chunk of government health-care spending. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the latest Democratic bill in the Senate would add another one trillion dollars to the budget over the next decade, and they suggest that's only a partial estimate.

Remember when the Democrats and their media allies wailed about how the Iraq war wastefully drove up the national debt? The Post's chart estimated that the Iraq war costs from 2003-2008 totaled $551 billion, a pittance compared to the massive load of debt the Democrats want to pass right now. And they want to pass it at breakneck speed, so just like the "stimulus" bill, it will become law before the public learns its manifold outrages.

Sadly, this Washington Post article notwithstanding, the news media aren't questioning the new health "reform" drive. They are enabling it.

ABC News has announced plans to put Barack Obama in prime time again from the White House to push his health-nationalizing agenda for an hour – and then another half-hour on "Nightline." ABC will broadcast live from the White House for "World News" and "Good Morning America," interviewing both Barack and Michelle Obama.

It's bad enough that NBC News just gave Obama two hours of fluffy promotion in prime time (followed quickly by two hours of prime-time fluff reruns). Now, ABC isn't going to promote how Obama buys hamburgers for the staff and has a cute puppy. They're going to help him sell his hard-left "Prescription for America."

Forget participation. ABC isn't allowing time even for any official Republican rebuttal. Republicans will have to hope they find a spot or two in the audience ABC News selects with the promise of "divergent opinions in this historic debate." ABC also promises the participation of their medical correspondent Dr. Tim Johnson, who's been a blatant cheerleader for a European-style "right" to health care.

This isn't unprecedented. ABC handed over two hours of morning air time after Columbine for Bill and Hillary Clinton to lament our country's gun culture in 1999. In 1994, NBC News offered the Clintons a two-hour special to promote Hillary-care, paid for by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a major supporter of socialized medicine. The Democrats always seem "overprivileged" when they want to sell their programs on network news.

Skepticism is warranted when ABC promises "divergent opinions," which probably means a debate between leftists, that people who want a single-payer socialist system will be granted the floor. If the past is prologue, if Charlie Gibson has any tough questions for Obama, he'll be asking him to explain why our ultraliberal president's too much of a conservative on health care. Gibson angered President Clinton during the 1999 Columbine special by insisting he wasn't enough of a gun-banner. He said a friend of Clinton's complained the Colorado high school shooting "seared the national conscience," and yet "the President had a chance to roar on gun control and he meowed."

More conservative White Houses have not been awarded a supportive network platform. Does anyone remember that ABC prime-time special that allowed President Bush to sell Social Security privatization in 2005? Or the two-hour 2006 prime-time Bush White House special promoting the War on Terror? Try not to laugh too hard at the impossibility of such a concept.

You can just hear the protests, can't you? "Why, we can't do that! We're journalists!"

In prime time, Barack Obama is overexposed and under-challenged. If ABC wants to add any sliver of credibility to all this freely offered air time, it will ask the president to defend adding ten trillion dollars to the national debt in the decade to come, and ask if the current government's priorities should really require a deficit three times the "investment" of World War II.

The Abandonment of Democracy

If democracy and human rights are high values, then all societies are not morally equal. This thought cuts sharply against Obama's multicultural sensibilities.

JOSHUA MURAVCHIK

The most surprising thing about the first half-year of Barack Obama's presidency, at least in the realm of foreign policy, has been its indifference to the issues of human rights and democracy. No administration has ever made these its primary, much less its exclusive, goals overseas. But ever since Jimmy Carter spoke about human rights in his 1977 inaugural address and created a new infrastructure to give bureaucratic meaning to his words, the advancement of human rights has been one of the consistent objectives of America's diplomats and an occasional one of its soldiers.

This tradition has been ruptured by the Obama administration. The new president signaled his intent on the eve of his inauguration, when he told editors of the Washington Post that democracy was less important than "freedom from want and freedom from fear. If people aren't secure, if people are starving, then elections may or may not address those issues, but they are not a perfect overlay."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed suit, in opening testimony at her Senate confirmation hearings. As summed up by the Post's Fred Hiatt, Clinton "invoked just about every conceivable goal but democracy promotion. Building alliances, fighting terror, stopping disease, promoting women's rights, nurturing prosperity—but hardly a peep about elections, human rights, freedom, liberty or self-rule."

A few days after being sworn in, President Obama pointedly gave his first foreign press interview to the Saudi-owned Arabic-language satellite network, Al-Arabiya. The interview was devoted entirely to U.S. relations with the Middle East and the broader Muslim world, and through it all Obama never mentioned democracy or human rights.

A month later, announcing his plan and timetable for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, the president said he sought the "achievable goal" of "an Iraq that is sovereign, stable, and self-reliant," and he spoke of "a more peaceful and prosperous Iraq." On democracy, one of the prime goals of America's invasion of Iraq, and one toward which impressive progress had been demonstrated, he was again silent.

While drawing down in Iraq, Obama ordered more troops sent to Afghanistan, where America was fighting a war he had long characterized as more necessary and justifiable than the one in Iraq. But at the same time, he spoke of the need to "refocus on Al Qaeda" in Afghanistan, at least implying that this meant washing our hands of the project of democratization there. The Washington Post reported that "suggestions by senior administration officials . . . that the United States should set aside the goal of democracy in Afghanistan" had prompted that country's foreign minister to make "an impassioned appeal for continued U.S. support for an elected government."

In early April, former New York Times correspondent Joel Brinkley summed up the administration's initial performance:

Neither President Obama nor Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has even uttered the word democracy in a manner related to democracy promotion since taking office more than two months ago. The State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor has put out 30 public releases, so far, and not one of them has discussed democracy promotion. Democracy, it seems, is banished from the Obama administration's public vocabulary.

At a glance, Obama's motives seemed readily apparent. Former State Department official J. Scott Carpenter observed that it was "obvious and understandable" that "the Obama administration wanted to distance itself from the tone and perceived baggage of the Bush administration." But there were two reasons why this explanation did not satisfy.

For one, Obama might have put his own stamp on the issue without turning so sharply away from the goals of human rights and democracy. In 1981, Ronald Reagan came to the presidency with a mandate analogous to Obama's, namely, to undo the works of an unpopular predecessor. At first, Reagan was inclined to eschew human rights as just another part of Jimmy Carter's wooly-minded liberalism. In an early interview, Secretary of State Alexander Haig announced that the Reagan administration would promote human rights mostly by combating terrorism. But soon Reagan had second thoughts: instead of jettisoning the issue, he put his own distinctive spin on it by shifting the rhetoric and the program to focus more on fostering democracy.

In a similar vein, Obama could have faulted the Bush administration for its ineffectiveness in promoting democracy and promised that his own team would do it better. Indeed, Michael McFaul, who handled democracy issues in the Obama campaign, declared after the election that the new administration would "talk less and do more" about democratization than Bush had done. But when McFaul was appointed to the National Security Council staff, he was given the Russia portfolio rather than the job of overseeing democracy promotion. The latter task, which had been entrusted to senior staff during the Bush years, was given to no one.

The other reason why Obama's tack cannot be understood merely by his impulse to be unlike Bush is that his disinterest in democracy and human rights is global. The idea of promoting these values did not originate with Bush but with Carter and Reagan, reinforced by Bill Clinton. Bush's innovation was to apply this to the Middle East, which heretofore largely had been exempted. Repealing Bush's legacy would have meant turning the clock back on America's Middle East policy. But Obama scaled back democracy efforts not only there; he did it everywhere.

Thus for example, Clinton, on a first state visit to China, told reporters she would not say much about human rights or Tibet because "our pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis." Amnesty International declared it was "shocked and extremely disappointed" by her words. Unfazed, Clinton moved on to Russia, where she glibly presented its dictator, Vladimir Putin, with a toy "reset button" even while the string of unsolved murders of independent journalists that has marked his reign continued to lengthen.

To be sure, China and Russia are powerful countries with which Washington must do business across a range of issues, and because of their importance, all U.S. administrations have been guilty of unevenness in lobbying them to respect human rights. However, the Obama administration has downplayed human rights not only with the likes of Beijing and Moscow but also with weak countries whose governments have no leverage over America.

For example, Clinton ordered a review of U.S. sanctions against the military dictatorship of Burma because they haven't "influenced the Burmese government." This softening may have emboldened that junta to place opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on trial in May after having been content to keep her under house arrest most of the last eighteen years. The government of Sudan is even weaker and more of an international pariah than Burma's, but the Obama administration also let it be known that it was considering easing Bush-era sanctions applied against Khartoum in response to the campaign of murder and rape in Darfur. According to the Washington Post:

Many human rights activists have been shocked at the administration's apparent willingness to consider easing sanctions on Burma and Sudan. The Obama presidential campaign was scornful of Bush's handling of the killings in Sudan's Darfur region, which Bush labeled as genocide, but since taking office, the administration has been caught flat-footed by Sudan's recent ousting of international humanitarian organizations.

While it is hard to see any diplomatic benefit in soft-pedaling human rights in Burma and Sudan, neither has Obama anything to gain politically by easing up on regimes that are reviled by Americans from Left to Right. Even so ardent an admirer of the President as columnist E. J. Dionne, the first to discern an "Obama Doctrine" in foreign policy, confesses to "qualms" about "the relatively short shrift" this doctrine "has so far given to concerns over human rights and democracy."

Whether or not there is something as distinct and important as to warrant the label "doctrine," the consistency with which the new administration has left aside democracy and human rights suggests this is an approach the president has thought through. Following his meeting with the Organization of American states in April, Obama told a press conference: "What we showed here is that we can make progress when we're willing to break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies that have dominated and distorted the debate in this hemisphere for far too long." His secretary of state echoed the thought: "Let's put ideology aside," she said. "That is so yesterday."

his begs the question of exactly which ideologies are passé or whether all are equally so. Communism, which so roiled the twentieth century, is certainly on its deathbed. Democracy, on the other hand, has flourished and spread in recent decades as never before, to the point where more than sixty percent of the world's governments are chosen in bona fide elections. To lump together these "ideologies" is gratuitously to belittle democracy.

Obama seems to believe that democracy is overrated, or at least overvalued. When asked about the subject in his pre-inaugural interview with the Washington Post, Obama said that he is more concerned with "actually delivering a better life for people on the ground and less obsessed with form, more concerned with substance." He elaborated on this thought during his April visit to Strasbourg, France:

We spend so much time talking about democracy—and obviously we should be promoting democracy everywhere we can. But democracy, a well-functioning society that promotes liberty and equality and fraternity, does not just depend on going to the ballot box. It also means that you're not going to be shaken down by police because the police aren't getting properly paid. It also means that if you want to start a business, you don't have to pay a bribe. I mean, there are a whole host of other factors that people need . . . to recognize in building a civil society that allows a country to be successful.

Whether or not the President was aware of it, he was echoing a theme first propounded long ago by Soviet propagandists and later sung in many variations by all manner of Third World dictators, Left to Right. It has long since been discredited by a welter of research showing that democracies perform better in fostering economic and social well being, keeping the peace, and averting catastrophes. Never mind that it is untoward for a President of the United States to speak of democracy as a mere "form," less important than substance.

The trend of downgrading democracy and human rights has already been evident in some important actions abroad. When Venezuela's would-be dictator, Hugo Chavez, held a referendum to set aside the country's long tradition of presidential term limits, the U.S. government went out of its way to endorse the process. The Associated Press reported:

The Obama administration says the referendum that cleared the way for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to run for re-election was democratic. It was rare praise for a U.S. antagonist after years of criticism from the Bush administration. U.S State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid noted "troubling reports of intimidation." But he added Tuesday that "for the most part this was a process that was fully consistent with democratic process."

While focusing on lack of irregularities in the polling, this response studiously ignored the larger issue. Term limits have been a pillar of democracy across Latin America, where there is a lamentable history of elected leaders holding onto office by unscrupulous means.

However punctilious the procedure, this constitutional maneuver on the part Chavez, who makes no secret of his ambition to serve as president for life, posed a dire threat to the preservation of democracy in that country.

Perhaps the clearest shift in U.S. policy has been toward Egypt. By far the largest of the Arab states, and the most influential intellectually, Egypt has also been the closest to Washington. Thus, the Bush administration's willingness to pressure the government of Hosni Mubarak was an earnest sign of its seriousness about democracy promotion.

For their part, Egyptian reformers urged the U.S. to make its aid to Egypt conditional on reforms. The Bush administration never took this step, but the idea had support in Congress, and it hung like a sword over the head of Mubarak's government. Obama has removed the threat. As the Associated Press reported: "Egypt's ambassador to the U.S., Sameh Shukri, said last week that ties are on the mend and that Washington has dropped conditions for better relations, including demands for 'human rights, democracy and religious and general freedoms.'"

"Conditionality" with Egypt "is not our policy," Secretary of State Clinton said in an interview with Egyptian TV earlier this month. "We also want to take our relationship to the next level."

While promising unimpeded assistance to the regime, the Obama administration backed away from aiding independent groups, something the Bush administration had insisted on doing despite objections from the authorities. Announcing the elimination of programs directly supporting Egyptian civil-society organizations, the U.S. ambassador, Margaret Scobey, explained that this would "facilitate" smoother relations with the Egyptian government. The New York Times summarized the Obama administration's steps:

The White House has accommodated President Mubarak by eliminating American funding for civil society organizations that the state refuses to recognize, and by stating publicly that neither military nor civilian funding will be conditioned on reform. This has provoked alarm from liberals, from scholarly experts and from activists in the region.

As the popular young Egyptian blogger, "Sandmonkey," irrepressibly irreverent and scatological, put it: "Let's face it, [Obama] ain't going to push on human rights and democracy. That era is gone. We are all about diplomacy and friendship now, and that's what the American people want, even if the price is that the democracy activists in Egypt get f—ed."

This formed the backdrop to the president's much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world delivered in Cairo on June 4. Of the many thorny issues he was expected to address, the setting necessitated that he spell out his views on democracy and human rights in Middle East more explicitly than before. In the New York Times, James Traub formulated the question this way:

Egypt was the central target of President Bush's Freedom Agenda . . . . But when an opposition Islamist party did well at the polls, Egypt's security apparatus cracked down. The Bush administration, concerned about pushing a key ally too far, responded meekly. . . . President Obama's words in Cairo are presumably being framed in the context of that episode. Should Mr. Bush have pushed harder for democratic reform in Egypt and with other allies? Should his administration have spoken more softly, less publicly? Should he, like his father, have devoted less attention to the way regimes treat their citizens, and more to winning cooperation on America's national security objectives?

In the speech, Obama tackled the issue head-on, making "democracy," "religious freedom," and "women's rights" three of the seven "specific issues" that he said "we must finally confront together." On democracy, he spoke with eloquence:

All people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.

Strong as this was, its ultimate import remained elusive. Obama followed these words immediately with the caveat that "there is no straight line to realize this promise." And while he asserted his belief in "governments that reflect the will of the people," he added, "Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone."

This, alas, is very much the claim advanced by many authoritarian regimes, including the absolute monarchy of Saudi Arabia, which Obama had visited the day before. Nowhere did the president make the critical point that elections are the only known way to determine the will of the people. That, apparently, would have been "presumptuous."

When he turned to women's rights, Obama's strongest words were that women should be educated and free to choose whether or not to live in a traditional manner. Here, too, he was at pains to avoid sounding as if America had a worthier record than the nations he was addressing or had something to teach them. To the contrary: "Women's equality [is] by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, we've seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world."

At three different points in the speech, Obama defended a woman's right to wear the hijab, apparently as against the restrictions in French public schools or Turkish government offices or perhaps in the U.S. military, which insists on uniform headgear. But he said not a word about the right not to wear head covering, although the number of women forced to wear religious garments must be tens of thousands of times greater than the number deprived of that opportunity. This was all the more strange since he had just arrived from Saudi Arabia, where abbayas—head-to-toe cloaks put on over regular clothes—are mandatory for women whenever they go out. During Obama's stop in Riyadh the balmy spring temperature was 104 degrees; in the months ahead it will be twenty or thirty degrees hotter. The abbayas must be black, while the men all go around in white which, they explain, better repels the heat.

Nor did Obama mention either directly or indirectly that all Saudi women are required to have male "guardians," who may be a father, husband, uncle or brother or even a son, without whose written permission it is impossible to work, enroll in school or travel, or that they may be forced into marriage at the age of nine. Speaking on women's rights in Egypt, he might—but did not—also have found something, even elliptical, to say about genital mutilation, which is practiced more in that country than almost anywhere else.

On religious freedom, Obama invoked Islam's "proud tradition of tolerance." In one of his more prodding passages, he declared that "the richness of religious diversity must be upheld—whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt." One of the two institutions co-hosting his speech was Al-Azhar University, which Obama saluted in his opening paragraph as "a beacon of Islamic learning." This may be so, but Al-Azhar admits only Muslims. Foreign as well as native adherents to the message of the Prophet may attend, but Egyptian Christians are excluded. Perhaps this could be understood if it were only a school of Islamic learning (although, even then, why?), but today Al-Azhar offers degrees in medicine, engineering, and a panoply of subjects. Its tens of thousands of students are subsidized by state funds provided by Egyptian taxpayers, ten percent of whom are Copts, barred from Al-Azhar.

In these passages, as throughout the speech, Obama's method was to induce his audience to swallow a few perhaps-unwelcome truths by slathering them over with a thick sauce of soothing half-truths, distortions, omissions and false parallels.

Thus, the Cairo oration was a culmination of the themes of Obama's early months. He had blamed America for the world financial crisis, global warming, Mexico's drug wars, for "failure to appreciate Europe's role in the world," and in general for "all too often" trying "to dictate our terms." He had reinforced all this by dispatching his Secretary of State on what the New York Times dubbed a "contrition tour" of Asia and Latin America. Now he added apologies for overthrowing the government of Iran in 1953, and for treating the Muslim countries as "proxies" in the Cold War "without regard to their own aspirations."

Toward what end all these mea culpas? Perhaps it is a strategy designed, as he puts it, to "restor[e] America's standing in the world." Or perhaps he genuinely believes, as do many Muslims and Europeans, among others, that a great share of the world's ills may be laid at the doorstep of the United States. Either way, he seems to hope that such self-criticism will open the way to talking through our frictions with Iran, Syria, China, Russia, Burma, Sudan, Cuba, Venezuela, and the "moderate" side of the Taliban.

This strategy might be called peace through moral equivalence, and it finally makes fully intelligible Obama's resistance to advocating human rights and democracy. For as long as those issues are highlighted, the cultural relativism that laced his Cairo speech and similar pronouncements in other places is revealed to be absurd. Straining to find a deficiency of religious freedom in America, Obama came up with the claim that "in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation." He was referring, apparently, to the fact that donations to foreign entities are not tax deductible. This has, of course, nothing to do with religious freedom but with assuring that tax deductions are given only to legitimate charities and not, say, to "violent extremists," as Obama calls them (eschewing the word "terrorist").

Consider this alleged peccadillo of America's in comparison to the state of religious freedom in Egypt, where Christians may not build, renovate or repair a church without written authorization from the President of the country or a provincial governor (and where Jews no longer find it safe to reside). Or compare it to the practices at the previous stop on Obama's itinerary, Saudi Arabia, where no church may stand, where Jews were for a time not allowed to set foot, and where even Muslims of non-Sunni varieties are constrained from building places of worship.

In short, while it may be possible to identify derogations from democracy and human rights in America, those that are ubiquitous in the Muslim world are greater by many orders of magnitude. If democracy and human rights are held as high values, then all societies are not morally equal. This is a thought that cuts sharply against Obama's multicultural sensibilities.

America not only embodies these values, it is also more responsible than any other country for their spread. Many peoples today enjoy the blessings of liberty thanks to the influence of the United States, thanks to its aid, its example, and its leading role in bringing down the Axis powers, the Soviet Union and European colonialism. Moreover, the advancement of human rights and democracy requires the exercise of American influence and in turn may serve to strengthen that influence—neither of these, it seems, processes to be welcomed by apostles of national self-abnegation.

In Cairo, once again, President Obama criticized the Bush administration for having acted "contrary to our ideals" when it infringed rules of due process in the course of the war against terror and authorized "enhanced interrogation techniques" that many believe are tantamount to torture. At worst, these infringements were bad answers to questions to which there were no good ones. Some of these practices may have been wrong, but there has not been a single serious allegation that any official employed them for any ulterior purpose, that is, for anything other than the goal of protecting our country in a time of war and national peril.

To dwell on this subject, as Obama has done, is to place great emphasis on humane values. How odd, then, to remove human rights and democracy from the agenda of our foreign policy. This is not the place to enter the debate about torture, but even if Khaled Sheikh Mohammed—the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks who was the main victim of waterboarding—and others were abused, there is little doubt that they were up to evil. It is hard to understand vociferating over their treatment even while silencing America's voice on behalf of such brave liberals as Ayman Nour and Sa'ad Edin Ibrahim, persecuted by the government that hosted Obama in Cairo for the peaceful advocacy of democracy. In this can be found neither strategic nor moral coherence.

Joshua Muravchik is a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. His new book, The Next Founders: Voices of Democracy in the Middle East, has just been released by Encounter.

The Law Triumphs in Honduras

Many foreign observers are condemning the ouster of Honduran President Mel Zelaya, a supporter of Hugo Chavez, as a "military coup." But can it be a coup when the Honduran military acted on the orders of the nation's Supreme Court, the step was backed by the nation's attorney general, and the man replacing Mr. Zelaya and elected in emergency session by that nation's Congress is a member of the former president's own political party?

Mr. Zelaya had sacked General Romeo Vasquez, head of the country's armed forces, after he refused to use his troops to provide logistical support for a referendum designed to let Mr. Zelaya escape the country's one-term limit on presidents. Both the referendum and the firing of the military chief have been declared illegal by the Honduran Supreme Court. Nonetheless, Mr. Zelaya intended yesterday to use ballots printed in Venezuela to conduct the vote anyway.

All this will be familiar to members of Honduras' legislature, who vividly recall how Mr. Chavez in Venezuela adopted similar means to hijack his country's democracy and economy. Elected a decade ago, Mr. Chavez held a Constituent Assembly and changed the constitution to enhance his power and subvert the country's governing institutions. Mr. Zelaya made it clear that he wished to do the same in Honduras and that the referendum was the first step in installing a new constitution that would enhance his powers and allow him to run for re-election.

No one likes to see a nation's military in the streets, especially in a continent with such painful memories of military rule. But Honduras is clearly a different situation. Members of Mr. Zelaya's own party in Congress voted last week to declare him unfit for his office. Given his refusal to leave, who else was going to enforce the orders of the nation's other branches of government?

--John Fund

Spitzerism Revisited

Scalia invites assaults on national banks.

Eliot Spitzer has departed the national stage in ignominy, but the damage he did as an unrestrained state Attorney General lives on, notably in a dubious 5-4 victory yesterday before the Supreme Court.

The case is Cuomo v. Clearing House Association, but it was Mr. Spitzer, New York AG Andrew Cuomo's promiscuous predecessor, who brought the suit in 2005. At issue was whether New York's AG could demand mortgage data from federally chartered banks to fish for evidence of discrimination under the state's fair lending laws. Mr. Spitzer was running for Governor, and he wanted to play the racial lending card even as he now denounces the same banks for lending too much to the same people.

We'll defend federalism as staunchly as anyone, but the National Bank Act dates all the way back to the Lincoln Administration, and over the years the courts, including the High Court, have been clear about its intent: A national bank should be regulated by federal overseers and not subject to harassment by states for the way it conducts banking. As recently as two years ago, in Watters v. Wachovia, the Supreme Court upheld precisely this principle. But now a five-Justice majority, improbably led by Antonin Scalia, who was joined by the Court's entire liberal wing, has opened the gates of state regulation against national banks.

Justice Scalia's opinion distinguishes between "visitorial" and "prosecutorial" power over national banks. By visitorial he means the power to demand whatever information may be necessary to regulate an institution. Mr. Scalia argues that while the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has sole visitorial power over federal banks, state AGs may nonetheless "prosecute" those banks for violations of state law.

There's nothing wrong with this argument as it pertains to, say, state employment law, fraud or other laws of general applicability. No one argues that a national bank should be immune from a state sexual harassment investigation simply because its banking activities are regulated by the OCC.

But as Justice Clarence Thomas points out in his dissent, lending, including mortgage lending, is a core banking activity authorized by the 1864 National Bank Act and already regulated by the OCC. It is exactly the kind of banking that national banks are supposed to have the freedom to do under a law designed to create a uniform regulatory environment across the entire country.

Justice Scalia argues that prosecutorial pursuit of a national bank is fundamentally different from a bank regulator's visitorial powers because prosecutors are subject to judicial checks and balances. The Justice must not have been paying attention to Mr. Spitzer, whose career is a living testament to the ways that an unscrupulous AG can twist the power to prosecute into the power to "visit" and regulate and legislate. Justice Scalia's opinion may well expose national banks to the depredations of 50 state AGs, making a mockery of "national" bank regulation.

When the political progeny of Mr. Spitzer crank up their fishing expeditions against national banks, we doubt those banks will take much comfort because they are being "prosecuted," rather than "visited."

"Appalled and Outraged"

Madoff's Evil

Moral clarity on his crimes, but who else is guilty?

On sentencing 71-year-old Bernard Madoff yesterday to 150 years, federal Judge Denny Chin said, "Here the message must be sent that Mr. Madoff's crimes were extraordinarily evil."

"Evil" is a word that has fallen out of political fashion, suggesting as it does intent or action that is irredeemable. Politicians, especially now, prefer to routinely insinuate vaguely defined moral failure against individuals, corporations and entire industries for opposing an equally vague standard of the public good.

No such problem attends Bernard Madoff, who himself yesterday described a personality willing to defraud and debase all who came in contact with him. Madoff's sentence and Judge Chin's remarks fit the crime. They are a rare exercise in moral clarity.

It is possible to make too much of the lessons of the Madoff affair. Ponzi schemes come and go because it is not possible to outlaw credulousness and greed. Bernie Madoff ran his scheme for at least 15 years, with high rates of return that floated his investors contentedly on a sea of financial unreality. The scale of Madoff's crime, however, ensures an overdue reality check on several levels.

The Securities and Exchange Commission may not be able to catch every real crook, but we hope this embarrassment will sharpen its staff antenna to outright fraud. Standards of due diligence and oversight at legitimate financial institutions are likely to be tightened. Spain's Banco Santander cannot be pleased to have paid $235 million to the Madoff trustee for defrauded investors. Anyone living inside the luxurious orbit of high-flying investment funds shouldn't fail to notice the legal pursuit now of Madoff's feeder firms such as Cohmad Securities and even members of families who benefited from their Madoff association.

Ruth Madoff will be allowed to keep $2.5 million, but the rest of the Bernie and Ruth lifestyle -- homes, boats, furs, jewelry -- is being stripped. Even the Madoff investors who redeemed "profits" must now contend with clawback statutes which make clear that Madoff's fraud does not distinguish between winners and losers. All lost.

What remains is for a legal accounting of who else participated in Madoff's scheme. There may be a fine legal line between active complicity in Madoff's fraud and silent acquiescence in its preposterous returns. Bernie Madoff is headed for a deserved personal end-game in the slammer, but until the cops catch his accomplices or explain why they can't, the Madoff case remains open.

China Can't Save The World

Stocks Slump as Quarter Ends

A shaky consumer-confidence reading that aggravated investors' fears of weak profits and a prolonged recession pushed stocks lower on Tuesday.

New housing data were also glum, though the market managed to hold steady at the open following their release. The losses in major indexes began to pile up about a half-hour after the bell, when the Conference Board said its index of consumer confidence for June fell to 49.3, from a revised 54.8 in May, which was originally reported as 54.9.

Market Data Center >

Real Time Econ: A Look at Case-Shiller Numbers, by Metro Area

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was recently down about 97 points, or 1.1%. The S&P 500 declined 1%, hurt by declines in every sector. The Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 0.6%. The Russell 2000 was off 0.4%.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange's Volatility Index, which uses option prices to gauge investors' level of nervousness about upcoming market swings, recently rose 6.5% to 27. The gain pushed it back above the psychologically important 25.66 level, where it closed immediately prior to last September's meltdown of Lehman Brothers, which marked the start of full-blown crisis on Wall Street.

Market analyst Art Hogan, of Jefferies & Co., said it was particularly worrisome that the confidence index in June again fell below the 50 level. Readings above 50 signal expanding optimism among U.S. consumers, whose purchases constitute more than two-thirds of gross domestic product.

Any reading below 50 would tend to be bearish for stocks. But it was particularly disappointing to get an above-50 report followed by a below-50 one, effectively undermining Wall Street's recent consensus that major economic yardsticks are due to level off and then gradually improve in the months ahead.

"That kind of news is all you really need to get the market down in the sort of environment we're in," said Mr. Hogan. "You don't have a lot of conviction in this market, so there's really not much underpinning for a rally to begin with."

With the quarter ending at Tuesday's closing bell, traders are also looking for signs of window dressing, the phenomenon of fund managers buying winners in a bid to show clients that they picked the right stocks for their portfolio. Energy, consumer, industrial and financial stocks have been among the period's top performers.

Heading into the final day of the second quarter, major indexes had put in impressive gains. The Dow as up 12.1%, the S&P 16.2%, the Nadaq Composite 20.6%, and the Russell 2000 up 20.8%.

However, strategist Jim Paulsen, of Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis said that the S&P and other major indexes are almost unchanged since early May. He believes that could prove to be a blessing in disguise, since traders may have used the daily back-and-forth action in the market during that period to get their window dressing and quarterly profit taking out of the way.

"A lot of people are looking for some consolidation in this market," with many analysts calling for a 10% pullback that fits the traditional definition of a bull-market correction, said Mr. Paulsen. "But it's possible that we could also be seeing consolidation just through the passage of time."

Crude futures were off $1.15 at $70.34 a barrel in New York as traders placed bets ahead of inventory due from the American Petroleum Institute, which is expected to report rising U.S. stockpiles of oil. The Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index dropped 2.4%.

The dollar rose against the euro and yen and Treasury prices fell. The 10-year note's yield was 3.521%.

Se agudiza la crisis en Honduras

TEGUCIGALPA

Al menos 15 personas resultaron heridas el lunes durante los enfrentamientos entre los seguidores del depuesto presidente Manuel Zelaya y las fuerzas armadas y policiales, que dispersaron a los manifestantes y lograron el control total de los tres accesos a la residencia presidencial.

La entrada sur hacia el recinto presidencial --una zona de restaurantes, bancos y hoteles-- quedó con abundantes neumáticos quemados, y al menos una docena de edificios mostraban ventanales rotos.

El socorrista Cristian Vallejo de la Cruz Roja dijo que su unidad había trasladado a 10 heridos, en su mayoría por balas de goma. Un fotógrafo de Associated Press vio a otros cinco heridos en uno de los accesos.

Los reporteros observaron que los militares y policías lograron dispersar a unos 3,000 manifestantes que protestaban en favor de Zelaya y que habían tomado el control de cada uno de los tres accesos al palacio presidencial.

Las autoridades utilizaron gases lacrimógenos y camiones que disparan chorros de agua, mientras los manifestantes lanzaron piedras y botellas contra los uniformados. Escenas en que policías y soldados apuntaban sus armas a civiles eran frecuentes en el lugar.

Varios helicópteros de la policía sobrevolaban la casa presidencial en la zona sur de la ciudad y se podían escuchar las sirenas de las ambulancias en los alrededores de la zona.

El presidente designado, Roberto Micheletti, hizo el lunes un llamado para resistir las presiones internacionales que buscan reinstalar al depuesto mandatario por un golpe de Estado.

"Aquí no hubo golpe de Estado porque los hondureños siguen regidos por la Constitución, a la que el anterior gobierno quiso reformar sin ningún fundamento y de manera ilegal'', dijo Micheletti a la radioemisora HRN.

"Respetamos a todo el mundo y sólo pedimos que nos respeten, y nos dejen en paz porque el país se encamina a elecciones generales libres y transparentes en noviembre'', agregó.

Estados Unidos cree que la situación en Honduras "ha desencadenado en un golpe'', dijo el lunes la secretaria de Estado Hillary Clinton, mientras gobiernos de América Latina y Europa condenaban el derrocamiento del presidente Manuel Zelaya y pedían que el conflicto en ese país centroamericano se resuelva por la vía democrática.

Los simpatizantes de Zelaya se concentraron frente a la presidencia y corearon consignas como ‘‘el pueblo unido jamás será vencido'', "que venga Mel [el diminutivo familiar del ex mandatario]'', "Micheletti traidor'', "Recuerden militares que Mel les ayudó, no sean traidores''.

Cada vez más personas se sumaban a la manifestación, formada particularmente por obreros, taxistas, campesinos e indígenas.

Micheletti ingresó a la Casa Presidencial por una puerta posterior, sin que se dieran cuenta los manifestantes. Luego procedió a juramentar a su gabinete de gobierno.

"A esos protestantes les digo que tienen el derecho a protestar, pero que lo hagan en paz (...) Si ellos golpean a un soldado, éstos actuarán'', advirtió.

La capital y las principales ciudades del país continúan con apagones, mientras han sido desconectados de los sistemas privados de cable algunos canales de la televisión internacional.

El mandatario designado afirmó que no teme las amenazas del presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez de enviar tropas a Honduras para instalar en el poder a Zelaya.

"Nos amenazan con invadir nuestro territorio, pero cada hondureño es un soldado que defenderá su patria. Esas son especulaciones... y nadie nos atemorizará'', apuntó.

Micheletti fue designado el domingo por el congreso para concluir en enero del 2010 el mandato de Zelaya, a quien soldados arrestaron la víspera a punta de pistola y lo pusieron en un avión que lo llevó a Costa Rica.

Los poderes judicial y legislativo decidieron deponer a Zelaya debido a que consideraron ilegal la pretensión del mandatario de llevar a cabo una consulta popular para que la población definiera si en las elecciones de noviembre se ponía una urna para convocar a una constituyente.

Zelaya participaba el lunes en Managua en reuniones de los presidentes de Centroamérica, de la Alternativa Bolivariana para los Pueblos de las Américas (Alba) y del Grupo de Río, que buscan la reinstalación de del mandatario.

El nuevo canciller Enrique Ortez Colindres afirmó que la comunidad internacional debe respetar la decisión de Honduras de deponer a Zelaya para salvar la democracia en el país.

La iniciativa de la consulta de Zelaya era rechazada también por los empresarios y diferentes sectores sociales.

El Consejo de la Empresa Privada declaró el lunes en un comunicado que "Zelaya salió por violar sistemáticamente la Constitución, a pesar de los múltiples llamados a la reflexión que le hizo la ciudadanía''.

Señaló que "el Congreso y las fuerzas armadas actuaron con el propósito de restablecer la amenazada institucionalidad del país y garantizar que todos los hondureños elijamos, libre y democráticamente a las autoridades que legítimamente emanen de la soberanía popular en los próximos comicios''.

Los militares, que no se han pronunciado sobre la situación en el país, se mantuvieron 18 años en el gobierno entre 1956 y 1982 en Honduras luego de derrocar a tres presidentes elegidos democráticamente.

Martinelli se prepara para gobernar Panamá

PANAMA

Ricardo Martinelli, un empresario que con su mensaje de cambio ganó la presidencia panameña el 3 de mayo, pondrá término a la alternabilidad en el poder del Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD) y del Partido Panameñista, desde la caída del dictador Manuel Noriega en diciembre de 1989.

Martinelli asumirá la presidencia el miércoles para un período de cinco años como abanderado del movimiento de Cambio Democrático que fundó hace una década.

El PRD, antiguo brazo político de los militares, llegó a la presidencia mediante los votos con Ernesto Pérez Balladares en 1994 y con Martín Torrijos en el 2004. El arnulfismo lo hizo con Mireya Moscoso en 1999.

Martinelli, hijo de un inmigrante italiano, se convertirá en el primer empresario sin tradición política en llegar a la silla presidencial. Su amplia victoria con una alianza de partidos conservadores y de derecha contrastó con las victorias de líderes de izquierda en otros países América Latina.

En una entrevista con The Associated Press antes de los comicios, el magnate aseguró que lo ideológico no era una cuestión importante sino resolver los viejos problemas heredados por los políticos tradicionales.

''Un político tradicional no se mete la mano en el bolsillo para regalarle nada a nadie'', indicó en la entrevista. ``Un político tradicional se sirve él primero y a su partido, después sirve el pueblo''.

Martinelli alcanzó el poder una década después que comenzó su aventura política con Cambio Democrático, tras cuya fundación apoyó a Moscoso en los comicios de 1999. Martinelli, dueño de una cadena de supermercados, se lanzó como candidato presidencial en el 2004, pero quedó cuarto con apenas el 5.3 por ciento de los votos.

No se cruzó de brazos, comenzó a recorrer el país y mediante una fundación dirigida por su esposa Marta Linares otorgó millares de becas a estudiantes de bajos recursos, en tanto que enfilaba con su propuesta del cambio.

Hondureños en Miami apoyan golpe a Zelaya

Protesta frente a la embajada de Honduras en Miami

Activistas pidieron respeto a las leyes en la nacion centroamericana...

El Nuevo Herald

Protesta frente a la embajada de Honduras en Miami

En el pasado, las reuniones de los hondureños en Miami por lo general eran manifestaciones discretas que pedían reformas a las leyes de inmigración y recaudaciones de caridad.

Pero la separación del poder a la fuerza, respaldada por los militares, del presidente hondureño Manuel Zelaya el domingo galvanizó a los hondureños que viven en Estados Unidos.

"Somos un grupo fuerte en el sur de la Florida y nuestra voz debe apagar toda la negatividad que se está diseminando'', dijo Francisco Portillo, presidente del grupo Francisco Morazán, que ayuda a los inmigrantes hondureños en muchas cosas, desde llenar documentos de inmigración hasta inscribirse para votar.

En el sur de la Florida hay una de las poblaciones hondureñas más numerosas de Estados Unidos: 49,200 hondureños viven en Miami-Dade según los cálculos del 2007, y hay otros 4,000 en Broward.

En su mayoría vinieron durante los años 80, huyendo de la pobreza y agitación política que agobiaba a países vecinos centroamericanos como El Salvador y Nicaragua.

Otra ola de inmigrantes siguió en 1998 después del huracán Mitch, que acabó con la infraestructura del país y cuyos efectos todavía son visibles. Fue debido a Mitch que muchos hondureños pudieron quedarse en Estados Unidos con la ayuda de un estatus temporal.

La mayoría se asentó en comunidades obreras como La Pequeña Habana, Allapattah y Hialeah. Sus influencias se ven especialmente en segmentos de la Calle Ocho y Flagler, donde tiendas y restaurantes hondureños llevan carteles con la bandera azul y blanca de Honduras.

Fue en restaurantes como Los Paisanos, en 824 W. Flagler St., que los hondureños se enteraban de las últimas noticias por CNN en Español durante del almuerzo.

"Todos estamos entusiasmados'', dijo Mauricio Andino, quien vino hace 15 años de Tegucigalpa. ‘‘Somos un pequeño país que demuestra al mundo que no toleraremos el comunismo y que no nos dejaremos intimidar por nada de lo que esos otros comunistas tengan que decir sobre nosotros''.

Durante la presidencia del presidente Manuel Zelaya, mientras estrechaba sus relaciones con otros líderes latinoamericanos de izquierda como el presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez, muchos en la comunidad hondureña del sur de la Florida comenzaron a establecer paralelos entre las dos mayores comunidades exiladas del sur de la Florida: cubanos y venezolanos.

"Una vez que vi cómo se estaba amigando con Chávez y con Castro, me preocupé de que nos llevaría por el mismo camino de miseria'', dijo Rosmery Alonzo Roques mientras almorzaba en Los Paisanos. "Hay demasiada pobreza en el país para que ande viajando todo el tiempo para fotografiarse con Chávez y con Fidel Castro. Se debía haber preocupado por su propio pueblo''.

Incluso en una marcha celebrada el lunes por la tarde en Coral Way, junto a la bandera de Honduras se agitaban banderas cubanas, mientras numerosos exiliados cubanos expresaban su apoyo por la manera en que las fuerzas armadas de Honduras manejaron la separación de Zelaya del poder.

"Yo estoy aquí para apoyar a mis hermanos hondureños porque ellos hicieron lo que los cubanos debieron hacerle a Fidel Castro hace mucho tiempo'', dijo el exiliado cubano Sergio Ríos, quien cargaba sobre el hombro una gran bandera cubana.

"Ellos se aseguraron de romper cualquier vínculo con el comunismo. Ojalá que otros sigan su ejemplo''.

THE LIBERTARIAN

Tuesday, June 30, 2009