Today the House of Representatives is debating H. Res. 672, which would call on the government of Vietnam to release imprisoned bloggers and respect Internet freedom.

Here is an article or two about what is happening with Vietnamese bloggers.

And here’s the current WashingtonWatch.com vote on H. Res. 672.

Among the 40,000 earmark requests submitted by members of Congress is a $10,000,000 earmark for a medical facility in Ashdod, Israel.

This prompts a commenter to ask, “And what do U.S. taxpayers get in return for this $10,000,000 investment?”

The request is by Rep. Gary Ackerman (D) of New York’s fifth district. A 501(c)(3) group called American Friends of Ashdod Medical Center is located in Brooklyn, New York.

Ashdod is the fifth largest city in Israel, with about 207,000 inhabitants. The thing is . . . most of those people are probably not Americans. They’re likely to be, oh . . . , Israelis? The benefit to American taxpayers from such a payout is at least subject to question.

What do you think? Is spending $10,000,000 on a medical facility in Israel a good idea in your view?

Here’s the current vote on that earmark. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about it.

A pair of congressional resolutions introduced yesterday highlight the political drama going on in Honduras these days.

One would “[c]ondem[] the violence in Honduras and call[] for the return of the duly elected President.” The other would “[e]xpress[] the support of the House of Representatives for the people of Honduras.”

You can’t have both.

Much of the reporting on the Honduras story reported the ouster of Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales from the presidency as a simple military coup. But it turns out that he had been taking steps to overturn the provisions of the Honduran constitution that prevent him from seeking office a second time. He was seeking to take Honduras down the road that Venezuela has been traveling, which the Washington Post, in this moderate editorial, calls a “lawless autocracy.”

H. Res. 620 calls the ouster of Zelaya a coup and calls for his return. H. Res. 619 cites the transgressions of Zelaya and calls for a legal and constitutional resolution to the impasse. They both can’t be right . . . .

Here’s the current vote on the two resolutions. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki articles about the bills.

Update: H. Res. 630 would condemning the “coup d’etat” in Honduras. Here’s the vote on that bill.

It’s fascinating to watch developments in Iran on Twitter. Iranian activists, their supporters around the world, and supporters of the current regime are playing a cat-and-mouse game that tracks the happenings on the streets of Tehran.

The United States can do little to affect things – and perhaps should avoid doing anything to prevent making it look like U.S. influence is affecting events on the ground there.

Many bills have been introduced in Congress dealing with Iran, but they mostly have to do with nuclear non-proliferation and sanctions. You can see the bills dealing with Iran on WashingtonWatch.com’s “Subject: Iran” page.

Update: House Resolution 549, introduced yesterday, would express “support for all Iranian citizens who struggle for freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and the protection of the rule of law.”

Here’s the current vote on that bill. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

The debate about torture – or “enhanced interrogation methods,” if you prefer – has swamped the Obama administration a bit, as this Politico article discusses. Many different pieces of the fallout are covered in a Washington Post blog post, including the release of a Senate Armed Services Committee report.

Congress has seen a few bills introduced on the subject. H.R. 374, the Lawful Interrogation and Detention Act and its counterpart S. 147 would limit the use of certain interrogation techniques, prohibit interrogation by contractors, and require notification of the International Committee of the Red Cross of detainees.

H.R. 893, the American Anti-Torture Act of 2009, would bar any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations.

H.R. 591, the Interrogation and Detention Reform Act, “would improve United States capabilities for gathering human intelligence through the effective interrogation and detention of terrorist suspects and for bringing terrorists to justice through effective prosecution in accordance with the principles and values set forth in the Constitution and other laws.”

So what’s the right and wrong on torture?

S. 837 is a new bill introduced in the Senate to require that North Korea be listed as a state sponsor of terrorism, among other things.

But wait a sec. North Korea is and does a lot of bad things, but is sponsoring terrorism among them?

Well, kinda, yes. My handy Web research reveals a Salon article from May 2003 discussing North Korea’s involvement in some terrorist acts and dealings with other states that sponsor terrorism.

North Korea was added to the list in January 1988, following the bombing of a Korean Airlines plane by North Korean agents in November 1987 which killed all 115 on board. The State Department said late last year that North Korea was not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since that bombing and the country was taken off the list in October.

Now, with North Korea testing missiles and ramping up its nuclear program again, maybe it’s a terrorist again. Though I daresay that these two things are really more about conventional warmaking than terrorism. Maybe there should be a “state sponsors of war” list!

But that list would be mighty long and we might find ourselves sanctioning some countries that we like a real heckuva lot.

So there you have it. North Korean terrorism. Of a sort.

Here’s the current vote on S. 837, to require that North Korea be listed as a state sponsor of terrorism. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

By the looks of things, the meeting between President Obama and Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez was a friendly affair. Obama said as a campaigner that he would meet with Chavez, and now he has done so.

Hugo Chavez is a controversial figure, of course. He called President George W. Bush “the devil” and works with a small coterie of other Latin American leaders to promote socialism in their countries.

It’s a matter of endless debate whether the U.S. president meeting with leaders like Chavez will lead to the advancement of U.S. interests or needlessly give benefits to an opponent of U.S. power and principles like democracy and freedom.

Congress has not been silent about Chavez and Venezuela. A resolution offered in the House of Representatives would call for “free, democratic, transparent, and fair elections in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela without threats or intimidation.”

And H.R. 375 would place restrictions on nuclear cooperation with countries assisting the nuclear program of Venezuela or Cuba.

The current vote on the two bills is below. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki articles about the bills.  Comments on Chavez, the president’s meeting with him, and such are welcome below, too.

The Washington Post reports today that President Obama will lift some of the restrictions on travel and commerce with Cuba.

A decades long embargo on Cuba has been a fixture of U.S. policy toward the island nation, but it can’t be said that the embargo has done much to undermine the communist government there.

A couple of bills in Congress address the Cuba embargo issue.  H.R. 874 and S. 428 are both called the “Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act.”

Here are the current votes on the two bills. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki articles about the bills.

One of the bills that had a huge wave of popularity here on the site in the past was the Vietnam Human Rights Act of 2007. I still remember watching comments come rolling in at a pace of one every few minutes when the word went out among a group in the Vietnamese community about that bill two summers ago. Other bills have been bigger since then, but it’s still a fond memory.

Well, a new, similar bill has been introduced. H.R. 1969 is intended to promote freedom and democracy in Vietnam. I hope we can welcome back many of the visitors who came to express their support for H.R. 3096 in the last Congress.

From what I’ve seen on this site, people from foreign countries (both living inside and outside the United States) are some of the most enthusiastic participants in our democracy through online activity. That’s good to see.

Other bills dealing with issues of importance to the Vietnamese community have been highly active in the past here too, like H.R. 4007, The Amerasian Paternity Recognition Act.

Here’s the current vote on H.R. 1969. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

This past week, we saw news of a skirmish between Chinese and U.S. boats in the South China Sea. Five Chinese ships harassed and maneuvered close to a U.S. Navy ship, the USNS Impeccable.

The Impeccable sprayed one ship with water from fire hoses to force it away. Its crew members stripped to their underwear, according to news reports, and came to within 25 feet of the U.S. ship.

Not sure what’s up with the stripping down business, but Congress is weighing in on what is a serious incident on one of the world’s most important strategic waterways. H. Con. Res. 72 is a concurrent resolution introduced last week to condemn any action of the People’s Republic of China that could unnecessarily escalate tensions between China and the U.S., including the South China Sea skirmish.

Here’s the current vote on H. Con. Res. 72. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.