Honduras Coup, Act III, Day 53

[snark]Still nothing going on in Honduras[/snark]

Update: On both Radio Globo and Channel 36, people are still exulting over the lifting of Adolfo Facusse’s visa.  If they think that hurts the “turcos,” as the wealthy are called in this charged environment, they should watch their faces if bank accounts get frozen. But there’s no doubt the visa situation has worried the rich.  This forces them to consider what will happen to them, personally, if the country tanks. So Chancellor Lopez Contreras has asked for an audience with Hillary and Senator Lugar, in Panama if desired, to discuss the situation.

Supposedly today over 124 people had their visas lifted.

The pretend-Chancellor of Government Carlos Lopez Contreras

Leonardo Villeda of the Foro Nacional de Convergencia

111 unnamed people (however, note that an average of 79 Hondurans are deported daily), who complained of unspecified “bad treatment” from Immigration

Journalist Yadira Bendaña wrote a moving piece explaining her complicity in supporting the oligarchy in her work at Televicentrol. She was assaulted by a man who called her a coupista. On reflection, she decided that that word was justified for her silence at so many years of watching the Constitution being trashed, seeing corruption, seeing so many injustices. She said that she had watched a woman die of starvation, heard many women who had been abandoned and they and their children deprived of their right to an education, seen the lack of medicine at hospitals, and the cockroaches walking over the wounds of a burned child, seen children gaunt to the point of being walking skeletons, seen innocent people jailed, and criminals walking free. She indicts us all.
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Which must be why the State Department has nothing to say on the topic.

It’s a very busy time, so I won’t be able to post as much as I’d like. Brother John informs us in comments below that he has confirmation that Father Tamayo has been offered a parish post. Magbana at Honduras Oye links a Reuters article by Robert Evans detailing a snarling confrontation between the coupistas and the UN, with Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Cuba challenging the credentials of coup-envoy Delmer Urbizo to attend the human rights council as an observer. Guards were called to ensure he left quietly. Interpol’s Office of Legal Affairs is blackholing the coupista’s requests to “publish red notices” of Vice-President Aristides Mejía, Minister of Finance Rebeca Santos, and Minister of Energy Rixi Moncada. They are being “studied” to see if they are political in nature. Since Interpol has already rejected a demand to arrest Zelaya, it seems rather likely they will find that the coupista’s request was political.

From Tiempo:

* Spain has barred the entry of coupistas.

* The influential human rights group FIDH has agreed that the UN should exclude Honduras from the human rights council.

*Candidates vying to participate in the pretend-presidency will meet with Oscar Arias.

*Adolfo Facusse will reveal the details of his ignominious deportation from the US.

*Evidently, Hondurans have a different idea of a boycott than I do. I thought the idea of a boycott was to stay away. The resistance planned a “boycott” of an Elvin Santos event in La Ceiba by showing up, only to be blocked by the army (see image from Tiempo below.).

Evidently their idea of a boycott is to make sure that other people stay away, too. Four thousand of Elvin’s supporters showed up and the event went off as planned. Interestingly, Santos said that Congressman Rene Chavez, who was locked up, may have committed “an error” but is with the Liberal Party. The implication is that Chavez is going to discover his “error” or stay in jail.

*Julio Cabrera, president of the Permanent Forum on Civil Society, asked the Supreme Electoral Council if he could get observers for the sham elections.

Vos El Soberano cites Aporrea to say that the UN has pulled any assistance for elections.

CBO: Public Option Would Reduce Premiums for Everyone

As reported in Truthout, a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Senator Michael Enzi (R-Insurance Lobby) has detailed its conclusion that offering a Public Plan for health insurance would help to control costs for everyone:

…it would add some competitive pressure in
many insurance markets that are currently served by a limited
number of private insurers. That competitive pressure would
probably lower private premiums in the insurance exchanges to a
small degree.

The CBO’s analysis assumes a “revenue-neutral” public plan, that is, a plan in which all the costs are covered by enrollees’ premiums, not by tax revenue. The public plan wouldn’t increase our taxes or use anybody’s tax dollars. It would just make it possible for people to get health care who can’t afford it now or who have been refused coverage by private insurance companies. And that’s the point of health-care reform: guaranteeing that everyone who needs medical care gets it. Without a public option, there is no such guarantee.