Lately, I keep hearing the words of my favorite Talking Heads song, “Well, how did I get here?” Many here on RedState are history buffs and for good reason. We have to know where we’ve been in order to chart a course forward.

So yesterday, Obama admitted that he is considering a plan to grant refugee status for children in Honduras, as if that would help stem the flood of youths crossing into the U.S. illegally. Of course he said it would be an unbelievably small number, oops that was John Kerry on Syria. Here’s what he said:

Obama said the leaders came to a consensus on the need to address poverty and violence in the Central American countries that the leaders say are leading many child immigrants to come to the United States.

But Obama called news reports from earlier in the day about the Honduras plan “a little over-cranked.”

“As I explained to my fellow presidents, under U.S. law, we admit a certain number of refugees from all around the world based on some fairly narrow criteria,” he said. “Typically refugee status is not granted just on economic need or because a family lives in a bad neighborhood or poverty. It’s typically defined fairly narrowly.”

Obama said there may be “some narrow circumstances in which there is humanitarian or refugee status that a family might be eligible for.

Typically is the key word. Because typically, when a country follows its laws and Constitution, it can legally depose a president that is term limited and other countries don’t try to overturn the results. Yet that’s exactly what Obama and Hillary did way back in 2009.

Honduran former President Manuel Zelaya, was deposed and deported that summer after he fomented protests to support a rewrite of the Honduran constitution so he could serve a second term. After being warned several times, their Supreme Court ordered his arrest so he fled to Brazil. From the WSJ on 9/23/2009:

The U.S. has since come down solidly on the side of—Mr. Zelaya. While it has supported negotiations and called for calm, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have both insisted that Honduras must ignore Mr. Zelaya’s transgressions and their own legal processes and restore him as president. The U.S. has gone so far as to cut off aid, threaten Honduran assets in the U.S. and pull visas to enter the U.S. from the independent judiciary. The U.S. has even threatened not to recognize presidential elections previously scheduled for November unless Mr. Zelaya is first brought back to power—even though he couldn’t run again.

[snip] On Monday Mr. Zelaya said he owed his return and political survival to “the support of the international community.” He’s getting support from Nicaragua’s Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, the former guerrilla group FMLN in El Salvador, and especially from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. But let’s face it: None of that support would mean very much without the diplomatic and sanctions muscle of the U.S.

This remarkable diplomatic pressure against a small Central American ally has only reinforced Mr. Zelaya’s refusal to compromise short of a return to the presidency, with all of the instability and potential for violence that could involve.

Laws, Constitution, pffh, no matter.  That was the outcome but just a few days prior, Obama and Hillary cut off all humanitarian aid to Honduras. This from CBSNews on 9/3/2009:

The Obama administration on Thursday cut all non-humanitarian aid to Honduras over the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya, making permanent a temporary suspension of U.S. aid imposed after he was deposed in June.

The State Department made the announcement as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was meeting with Zelaya. Spokesman Ian Kelly did not say how much assistance would be cut but officials have said previously that more than $200 million is at stake. Kelly said it affected “a broad range of assistance to the government of Honduras.”

…In addition to the aid cut, he said the State Department would revoke the U.S. visas of an unspecified number of Honduran officials who are backing Micheletti. The department had previously revoked the visas of four Honduran officials allied with Micheletti.

A day later on 9/4/2009, the LA Times reported:

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton terminated more than $30 million in aid to Honduras on Thursday in an effort to increase pressure on the country’s de facto government to restore democratic rule after a coup in June.

The State Department, which had earlier suspended the aid, said it could cut off as much as $200 million more unless ousted President Manuel Zelaya and his democratically elected government were reinstated. [snip] The Obama administration has moved cautiously to cut off assistance to Honduras, a tiny and impoverished country that is heavily dependent on U.S. aid and trade.

And from Reuters on 6/29/2009:

HOW MUCH AID DOES THE U.S. GOVERNMENT GIVE HONDURAS?

The State Department said it could not immediately provide a figure for total U.S. government aid.

The State Department has requested $68.2 million in aid for fiscal year 2010, which begins on October1, up from $43.2 million in the current fiscal year and $40.5 million a year earlier.

This covers development aid, funds to purchase U.S. arms as well as military training, counter-narcotics and health funding but does not include Defense Department aid, a U.S. official said. Most of the increase for 2010 is for development aid.

So maybe the current Honduran president is correct in saying the United States created the situation where the people want to flee their own country. Yes, Obama did build this mess by interfering with the election of Honduras! There was no military coup. The president wanted to change their Constitution so he could serve a second term. And President Manuel Zelaya was Obama and Hillary’s friend of Hugo Chavez and wanted to keep him in power.

Nonsense some will say. There is a plethora of articles written that describe how Obama and Hillary supported a dictator instead of a president elected by the rule of law. The people protested in the street, just like in Iran, and this admin stood on the wrong side of history, as usual. On 7/2/2009, the Washington Times wrote this:

Obama stands with tyrants- Dictators and demagogues can rest easy  on President Obama’s watch.  When thousands of Iranians flooded the streets of Tehran protesting a rigged election and were beaten and shot down by pro-regime thugs, the president bided his time before making a series of noncommittal statements. He seemed to hope it would all just go away. However, when a socialist demagogue was ejected unceremoniously from Honduras on Sunday by his own government for trying to establish a presidency for life, Mr. Obama instantly sprang to his defense.

[snip] Whatever the outcome of the crisis in Honduras, Mr. Obama has failed another key test of international leadership. The United States is in an increasingly perilous position in Latin America and needs solid allies to stem the anti-American tide being led by Venezuela. Mr. Obama should think twice before rushing to stand beside the likes of dictators such as Mr. Chavez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. They support Mr. Zelaya because he is a fellow traveler, a socialist in good standing, a member of their anti-gringo alliance. There’s no reason for America to support him.

And where did Mr. Zelaya flee to? El Salvador, one of the three countries in the news.

I haven’t researched what happened to US Aid between 2009 and 2012, but I do know that Honduras was pleading for the U.S. to stop cutting off aid due to human rights violations in 2012. And, Democrats were still insistent on cutting off the funding.

Headline from 3/15/2012:

They have included police killings of peasants and unpunished murders of journalists, according to critics of the Honduran government.

At least 19 journalists have been murdered in Honduras since President Porfirio Lobo took office in January 2010. In addition, 45 peasants and seven security guards were killed in property disputes in the Lower Aguan area of Honduras.

The letter from the congressmen was partly a response to the murder this week of radio host Fausto Valle in northern Honduras. His assailants killed him with machetes.

The letter, authored by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, says, “While it’s unclear how suspending U.S. security aid to Honduras would help the Honduran system of government suddenly become more capable and efficient, given that its problems are deep-rooted and go back generations, the threat of suspending the aid may have the effect of scaring the Lobo administration to try and be more responsive.”

I’m not a reporter, but I like to play one on RedState. If I can dig up facts that President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and many Democrats intentionally cut off aid to Honduras, for nefarious reasons, so can the media.

Yet, now they all want to tell Americans we must help the illegal immigrants that are flooding our country, primarily from Honduras, because they are fleeing violence. Violence that they may have helped to enable due to their actions from their first year in office. And this is the country he wants to start his test pilot of allowing refugees to be identified in-country before they get a one-way ticket to the U.S.A.

Today Obama said he wanted to find a way that would “prevent smugglers from making money on families that feel desperate.” Now we know the answer to, how did we get here?

End note: If you prefer videos, search YouTube.com for “Hillary on Honduras”. Here is one more link that lays out a timeline and is worth reading about the actions of Obama and Hillary: http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/009/honduras.htm

All thoughts are welcome, even if they don’t pertain, because thinking is always a relished commodity in a free society even if some don’t comprehend the First Amendment but are allowed to speak their mind. Yet freedom isn’t free.