Sometimes, the whole world prefers a lie to the truth. The White House, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and much of the media have condemned the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya this past weekend as a coup d'état.

That is nonsense.

In fact, what happened here is nothing short of the triumph of the rule of law.

Please read the whole thing, and if you know anyone in the State Department, please pass it on.

Via CSM opinion editor Josh Burek.

Here, via The Examiner, is the invitation that the Washington Post sent to lobbyists for companies in the health care industries; click to enlarge:

The mind boggles: the Post wants lobbyists to bring "your organization's CEO or executive director" to a "salon" at the home of Post publisher Katharine Weymouth. If you pay $25,000, your CEO can actually participate in the discussion; or you can sponsor all 11 salons for a discounted price of $250,000. What's the purpose? "Interact with key Obama administration officials and Congressional leaders," thereby "participat[ing] in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done."

So the Washington Post is selling lobbyists access to "key Obama administration officials" for a mere $25,000 per evening. Obviously they could not have done this without arranging in advance for those "key officials" to participate. Where does the Obama administration end and the Washington Post begin? That is becoming an increasingly metaphysical question.

There is this, too: participants can "build crucial relationships with Washington Post news executives." Ask yourself: why would it be "crucial" for health sector companies to have relationships with the Washington Post's news executives? Is that a threat or a promise?

Ask yourself this: is it conceivable that the Washington Post would have imagined inviting lobbyists and CEOs to similar "salons" with "key Bush administration officials?" I don't think so.

The Post, embarrassed by disclosure of its cozy, profitable relationships with lobbyists and the Obama administration, has repudiated the "salon" program. Given that their publisher was the program's host and the paper's "news executives" were set to participate, the paper's suddenly discovering its ethical standards rings rather hollow. It's worth mentioning that the story came to light because a lobbyist who received the Post's flyer was offended by the ethics of the event and blew the whistle. It's a sign of the times, I guess.

When a public figure gets caught in a sex scandal, women naturally seem to focus on the aggrieved wife. These days, the main issue is how she will react.

It varies. Some stand next to their husband at the press conference, some don't. Some say they aren't "standing by their man," but end up doing just that. Some implore the public to respect the privacy of her family, then end up writing a book about the matter.

Jenny Sanford, wife of the disgraced governor of South Carolina, did not appear at the press conference and, as I understand it, has taken her four children and moved away from her her husband. For this she is earning high praise. But as we see moreof (and learn more about) Gov. Sanford, her response can also be viewed as a no-brainer.

I consider it misguided to pass judgment over the way aggrieved wives handle these situations, or to compare the ways in which they do so. The better response is just to feel sympathy. All marriages are different and so are all women. There is no fixed correct or (within the limits of the criminal law) incorrect response.

The urge to judge is strong, nonetheless. It stems in part from human nature and in part, I suspect, from modern feminism, pursuant to which women feel liberated relentlessly to judge the choices made by other women.

UPDATE: A reader reminds me that the Knights of Malta is a prominent Catholic group that dates back to the crusades. So the nomination stikes me as a great move by Obama -- he pleases Kmiec for services rendered without giving him anything of substance.

However, Bob Stein, a senior economist at First Trust Advisors contends that there is evidence the economy is healing, with the labor market serving as a lagging indicator that will enhance corporate profits, thus inducing more hiring down the road. And even the labor market shows a few small promising signs, Stein says. New claims for unemployment benefits are down and there is some evidence that fewer layoffs are being contemplated now than at this time last year.

In addition, labor force participation (the number of those with jobs or actively looking for jobs) has increased by 1.2 million in the past five months, though it dipped in June. Whether this reflects, in part, increased public confidence in the ability to find work or increased desperation, I don't know. However, Stein points out that without the increase in labor force participation, the unemployment rate would be 8.8 percent, not 9.5 percent. (Of course, it was never likely that there would be no increase in labor force partcipation).

Not all overseas travel is in the "junket" category, of course. But even when Congressmen piously tell us they're checking out war zones, there may be more to the story:

Often, lawmakers combine trips to war zones with visits to more tranquil spots. In February, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation of Democratic lawmakers to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a day. Before landing in Kabul, the eight lawmakers and their entourage of spouses and aides spent eight days in Italy, spending $57,697 on hotels and meals.

If you're suffering from our weak economy and hoping Congress will spend your hard-earned tax dollars wisely, Nancy Pelosi has a message for you: eat your heart out!

It is plausible that Saddam presented the false appearance of having a potent stock of WMD in order to look strong to his adversaries, including Iran. It is much less plausible that he was prepared to seek an agreement with the U.S. To my knowledge, there is no evidence that he ever attempted to do so, and such a move would have undercut the image of a strong Arab leader he worked so hard to project.

The former tyrant also told the FBI that he had no dealings with al Qaeda. The Post's Glenn Kessler interprets this as contradicting suggestions that "Iraq had significant links to al Qaeda." But the words Kessler reports -- that Saddam never met Osama bin Laden and that the two did not have the same beliefs or vision -- do not mean that al Qaeda and Iraq were not talking and/or working together.

The Post, in short, is spinning.

Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the nation's employers, both private and public. This morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy shed another 467,000 jobs in June. The job loss was worse than expected and drove the unemployment rate to 9.5%, the highest in 26 years. Even governments--contrary to Obama's assurance about teachers and firefighters--cut over 50,000 jobs.

This graphic shows how effective the "stimulus" bill and other Obama administration measures have been in curbing unemployment:

President Bush was widely, albeit unfairly, ridiculed for delivering a speech on board a ship in front of a banner that said "Mission Accomplished." It strikes me that Obama's counterfactual proclamation that the pork-laden stimulus bill has succeeded deserves at least equal derision.

Was it Schmidt, as Kristol and Randy Scheunemann allege? I don't know. But, as I noted, Mark Hemmingway presents good reason to believe that "Schmidt is not above anonymously leaking damaging information about the campaign." And Schmidt's silly, irrelevant attacks on Kristol (e.g., Kristol's from Washington, I'm from Northern Calfornia and Kristol was once Dan Quayle's chief of staff) cast him in a poor light.

Will no one ask about why we have released an Iran-backed terrorist who is responsible for the 2007 abduction/murder of our troops (five murdered, four of them after being kidnapped) in Karbala?

Why are we still in negotiations with an Iran-backed terror network to release the network's leaders? Even if that were not a stupid idea on its face, have we learned nothing from the last go-round? In exchange for the terrorist described above, we got back two dead bodies of British hostages -- i.e., not even the five live British hostages whose freedom we were foolishly hoping to secure.

Finally, why is this being done at a time when the Iranian regime is not only murdering and repressing its own population but, as Michael (Ledeen) pointed out yesterday, is continuing to support and train terrorists to kill American military personnel in Iraq?

This morning's Washington Times story by Sara Carter and Eli Lake reports that Senators Sessions and Kyl have sent a letter to President Obama expressing concern over reports that the administration negotiated "directly or indirectly" with terrorists for the release of British hostages in Iraq. The White House has denied negotiating with terrorists and repeated that denial Wednesday, though McCarthy contended otherwise in his long June 24 column on the matter.

McCarthy concluded his June 24 column with another question: "Where is Congress?" It appears that Senators Sessions and Kyl have at least begun to answer that question.

JOHN adds: The timing of this disclosure, which McCarthy calls "the most shocking story we have had in a steady stream of shock since the start of the Obama presidency," is unfortunate. It coincides with the news that the Taliban has captured an American soldier in eastern Afghanistan. If these terrorists murder their captive and our troops apprehend them, will Obama let this gang go, too? It's time to man up, Barack.

Meanwhile, our prayers are with the captured soldier, who has not been identified, and his family.

Michael Barone devotes a superb column to Justice Alito's concurring opinion in Ricci. Barone notes that the concurrence provides "a riveting lesson in political sociology" demonstrating "how a combination of vote-hungry politicians and local political agitators -- you might call them community organizers -- worked with the approval of elite legal professionals like [Judge Sonia] Sotomayor to employ racial quotas and preferences in defiance of the words of the Civil Rights Act."

Enter Boise Kimber. Barone writes:

One of the chief actors was the Rev. Boise Kimber, a supporter of Mayor John DeStefano. The mayor testified for him as a character witness in a 1996 trial in which he was convicted of stealing prepaid funeral expenses from an elderly woman. DeStefano later appointed Kimber the head of the board of fire commissioners, but Kimber resigned after saying he wouldn't hire certain recruits because "they just have too many vowels in their name."

After the results of the promotion test were announced, showing that 19 white and one Hispanic firefighter qualified for promotion, Kimber called the mayor's chief administrative officer opposing certification of the test results.

The record shows that DeStefano and his appointees went to work, holding secret meetings and concealing their motives, to get the Civil Service Board to decertify the test results. Kimber appeared at a board meeting and made "a loud, minutes-long outburst" and had to be ruled out of order three times.

City officials ignored the inconvenient fact that they had hired an independent and experienced firm -- this is a thriving business -- to draw up a bias-free test and paid a competing firm to draw up another test. Its head testified that the first firm's test was biased without seeing it. The board capitulated and decertified the test. DeStefano was prepared to overrule it if it had gone the other way.

Barone comments: "Such is governance these days in a liberal university town. It may remind some of us old enough to remember of the machinations and contrivances of Southern white officials and agitators employed to prevent blacks from registering and voting."

You will want to read the whole thing, but don't miss Justice Alito's concurring opinion either.

At PJTV, Glenn Reynolds has a new show called InstaVision. Today he interviewed Texas governor Rick Perry. It was a fascinating conversation, in which Perry explained the "secret" behind Texas' economy and denounced the Obama administration's cap-and-tax bill. Glenn and Governor Perry talked about the tea party movement and upcoming festivities in Dallas, too. Go here to watch the interview.

InstaPundit has lots of tea party coverage, too; contrary to some predictions, the tea party movement is going strong.

The greedy Congressman Frank apparently can't bear the idea of taxpayers getting their money back, so he has proposed to divert the money to a more politically appealing purpose. York explains:

[N]ow Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before they can be returned to the taxpayers. Last Friday, Frank introduced the "TARP for Main Street Act of 2009," a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats. ...

The original TARP legislation required that money made from the program "shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt."

But now Frank wants to spend the money before it can be used to pay down anything. First, the "TARP for Main Street" proposal would take $1 billion "from dividends paid by financial institutions that have received financial assistance provided under...the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and apply it to a trust fund that Frank has long wanted to create for low-income rental housing. (The measure, unfunded, was part of last year's bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.) Next, Frank would take $1.5 billion from TARP dividends for a so-called "neighborhood stabilization" fund. Republican critics have charged that both measures might allow federal dollars to be distributed to activist groups like the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, or ACORN.

The "TARP for Main Street" bill would also spend $2 billion, apparently from remaining TARP funds, to subsidize people who are delinquent on their mortgages, and another $2 billion to "stabilize multifamily properties that are in default or foreclosure."

So TARP would be transmuted into another slush fund for pet Democratic Party projects and constituencies. Phone or email your Congressman and Senators.

Within a few months of taking office, however, Obama was demanding unconditionally that Israel stop all new construction in its settlements even though the U.S., during the Bush administration, had informally assured Israel that natural growth construction was not objectionable. Israelis were thus told by Obama not to build homes for their children in their communities based on the hope that a Palestinian govenment capable of negotiating with Israel might one day emerge from the present chaos, and that this govenment might deign to recognize Israel's right to exist and really mean it.

This week, Wexler was in Israel for the third time this year attempting to gloss over Obama's one-sided hostility towards Israel -- and in particular towards the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu -- while trying to persuade Israel to bend to the will of his patron. Recognizing that there is no Palestinian "peace partner," Wexler argued that Israel stood to gain the normalization of relations with "22 Arab states" if only it would freeze all settlement construction. Recognizing that this result is implausible, a desperate-sounding Wexler said:

I want to see, if Israel makes substantial movement toward a credible peace process, whether [the Arab states] are willing to do it. And if they are not, better that we should find out five or six months into the process, before Israel is actually asked to compromise any significant position.

In other words, the settlement freeze is only the first, and least significant, in a series of demands Obama intends to make on Israel.

Wexler then tried to signal that the freeze would not be absolute:

I don't see an equation where it is in Israel's interest to say no, so I believe Israel will say yes, under a certain set of qualifications that Israel will agree to. This is one hundred percent in Israel's national security interest. Any process of discussion requires compromise, particularly amongst friends and allies if they are coming from different points.

Wexler would not identify the "qualifications" to the settlement freeze the Obama administration might agree to. In any event, Secretary of State Clinton has made it clear that President Obama is demanding a total freeze, without exception or qualification. A month ago, she stated "[President Obama] wants to see a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not 'natural growth' exceptions. That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly." To my knowledge, neither the president nor anyone in his administration has backed away from that position.

Wexler then criticized the Israeli press for playing up Obama's demands on the Israelis without stressing his demand that Arab states normalize relations with Israel. But Wexler acknowledged that Obama expects Israel to meet his demands not only in advance of any actual steps towards normalization by any Arab state, but also in advance of any indication that any Arab state will take such steps if Israel adopts the total freeze. Wexler dismissed Israel's desire to see something positive from its adversaries before it impairs the rights of its own citizens as "childish."

Wexler may or may not feel like an idiot. But Israelis should feel like idiots if they take him seriously.