Citizen grand jury in Georgia Indicts Obama

Boy, if any of these lawsuits is successful, then we as a country are in a real Constitutional crisis such as we’ve never seen or expected to happen. We will have let an unqualified person be nominated and voted in as president. You know they’ll be all kinds of riots and claims of racism from all over. Even when that’s not the case … it’s a matter of eligibility. This is not going to go away ….the lawsuits will keep on coming for years. The sooner it is address by Obama sensibly the better.

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BORN IN THE USA?

Citizen grand jury indicts Obama

Groups in 20 more states reviewing eligibility claims

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March 31, 2009
By Bob Unruh

Orly Taitz

President Obama has been named in dozens of civil lawsuits alleging he is not eligible to be president, with one man even filing a criminal complaint alleging the commander-in-chief is a fraud, and now a citizen grand jury in Georgia has indicted the sitting president.

The indictment delivered to state and federal prosecutors yesterday is one of the developments in the dispute over Obama’s eligibility to be president under the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that presidents be “natural born” citizens.

Orly Taitz, a California attorney working on several of the civil actions, also announced she has filed another Quo Warranto case in the District of Columbia, where, she told WND, the statutes acknowledge that procedure.

The Quo Warranto claim essentially calls on Obama to explain by what authority he has assumed the power of the presidency.

Georgia resident Carl Swensson, whose work is detailed on his RiseUpForAmerica.org website, told WND he got tired of the issues over Obama’s eligibility, as well as his performance in office.

“I took it upon myself to find as many patriots as I could across the state, for the purpose of seating 25 for a grand jury,” he said.

Over the weekend the jurors took sworn testimony from several sources, including Taitz, and then generated an indictment that later was forwarded to the U.S. attorney, the state attorney general and others in law enforcement across the state.

Swensson cites on his website as authority for the grand jury the Magna Carta, the bill of rights that formed the foundation of British common law on which U.S. law is based.

He said the members were chosen, sworn in and observed all of the rules of procedure. Swensson declined to elaborate on the specific allegations about Obama, telling WND that remains confidential at this point because of the possibility of a prosecution.

However, the website explanation of the procedure includes some intimidating language.

“If the government does not amend the error within 40 days after being shown the error, then the four members shall refer the matter to the remainder of the grand jury,” it says. “The grand jury may distrain and oppress the government in every way in their power, namely, by taking the homes, lands, possessions, and any way else they can until amends shall have been made according to the sole judgment of the grand jury.”

Swensson said the indictments were delivered to the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, state officials and leaders of the Georgia Senate and House.

He told WND that since the action in Georgia, he’s been contacted by groups in at least 20 other states who want to pursue a similar action.

Meanwhile, Taitz told WND she has forwarded to U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor in Washington, D.C., a request for the U.S. to relate Quo Warranto “on Barack Hussein Obama, II to test his title to president.”

Named as plaintiffs in the action are nine military or legislative leaders, including Allen C. James, currently on active duty in the U.S. Army in Iraq. Others include several retired military leaders as well as elected state representatives.

“Relators request that as U.S. Attorney, you institute a Quo Warranto proceeding against Obama under DC Code § 16-3502, and demand that Obama show clear title, proving, with clear and convincing evidence, that he had qualified as president elect,” Taitz told Taylor.

“By each relator’s constitutional oath of office, and interest above other citizens and taxpayers, relators submit that they have standing,” Taitz wrote.

“In arguendo of Respondent Obama’s burden of proof, motions are submitted requesting mandamus on Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle for evidence, and on Sec. State Hillary Rodham Clinton for evidence and to request evidence from Britain and the Republics of Kenya, Indonesia and Pakistan,” Taitz said.

She told WND the case was filed in the District of Columbia because the district recognizes the procedure. Taitz, who is working on her cases through the Defend Our Freedoms Foundation, cites a legal right established in British common law nearly 800 years ago and recognized by the U.S. Founding Fathers to demand documentation that may prove – or disprove – Obama’s eligibility to be president.

She previously submitted a similar case to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

The legal phrase essentially means an explanation is being demanded for what authority Obama is using to act as president. An online constitutional resource says Quo Warranto “affords the only judicial remedy for violations of the Constitution by public officials and agents.”

John Eidsmoe, an expert on the U.S. Constitution now working with the Foundation on Moral Law, said the demand is a legitimate course of action.

“She basically is asking, ‘By what authority’ is Obama president,” he told WND. “In other words, ‘I want you to tell me by what authority. I don’t really think you should hold the office.’

“She probably has some very good arguments to make,” Eidsmoe said.

Eidsmoe said it’s clear that Obama has something in the documentation of his history, including his birth certificate, college records and other documents, “he does not want the public to know.”

What else could be the reason for his hiring law firms across the nation to fight any request for information as basic as his Occidental College

records from the early 1980s, he asked.

According to the online Constitution.org resource: “The common law writ of quo warranto has been suppressed at the federal level in the United States, and deprecated at the state level, but remains a right under the Ninth Amendment which was understood and presumed by the Founders, and which affords the only judicial remedy for violations of the Constitution by public officials and agents.”

According to author Chester Antieau in his “The Practice of Extraordinary Remedies,” Quo Warranto is one of the oldest rights in common law.

Antieau noted the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled, “Quo warranto is addressed to preventing a continued exercise of authority unlawfully asserted, rather than to correct what has already been done. …”

Its first recognized purpose, he said, is “to determine the title of persons claiming possession of public offices and to oust them if they are found to be usurpers.”

Among those who are subject to its demands, under court precedent, are chief executives in other U.S. governmental positions, including governors and sheriffs.

As WND has reported on several occasions, none of the so-called “evidence” of Obama’s constitutional eligibility produced thus far is beyond reasonable doubt nor as iron-clad as simply producing an authentic birth certificate, something Americans are required to do regularly but the president still refuses to do.

Adding fuel to the fire is Obama’s persistent refusal to release documents that could provide answers. While his supporters cite an online version of a “Certification of Live Birth” from Hawaii, critics point out such documents actually were issued for children not born in the state.

Obama officials repeatedly have declined comment, relenting only one time to call such allegations “garbage.”

“If Mr. Obama is not constitutionally eligible to serve as president of the United States, then no act that he takes is, arguably, valid, the laws that he signs would not be valid, the protective orders that he signs would be null and void, and every act that he takes would be subject to legal challenge, both in courts of the United States of America, and in international courts, and that, therefore, it is important for the voters to know whether he, or any candidate for president in the future, is eligible to serve in that office,” the case explained.

Read entire article at Worldnet Daily.com

CFR Unveils Global Government Agenda

I’ve posted this article as an addition to this one recently posted: State sovereignty must be altered in globalized era

CFR Unveils Global Governance Agenda

Old-Thinker News

By Daniel Taylor

The Council on Foreign Relations, often described as the “real state department”, has launched an initiative to promote and implement a system of effective world governance.

The program, titled “The International Institutions and Global Governance Program,” utilizes the resources of the “…David Rockefeller Studies Program to assess existing regional and global governance mechanisms…” The initial funding for the program came with a $6 million grant from the Robina Foundation, which claims that the grant is “…one of the largest operating grants ever received in Council history.”

The IIGG program, launched on May 1st, 2008, is the latest manifestation of an agenda that has existed since and before the founding of the Council on Foreign Relations. Former CFR member, Rear Admiral Chester Ward, stated regarding the group,

“The most powerful clique in these elitist groups have one objective in common – they want to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty and the national independence of the United States. A second clique of international members in the CFR comprises the Wall Street international bankers and their key agents. Primarily, they want the world banking monopoly from whatever power ends up in the control of global government.”

The International Institutions and Global Governance Program identifies several “global issues” that require a system of world governance. Environmental issues, terrorism, the global economy and energy are all mentioned. (what a coincidence that all these require global government are happening now at the same time.) The project then states that a system of “universal membership” could be pursued, or alternatively a regional organization, such as the European Union model.

“In each of these spheres, the program will consider whether the most promising framework for governance is a formal organization with universal membership (e.g., the United Nations); a regional or sub-regional organization; a narrower, informal coalition of like-minded countries; or some combination of all three.”

The program calls for the “Re-conceptualizing” of national sovereignty, citing the European Union’s “pooling” of sovereignty as a model. The CFR project recognizes that historically, the United States has been resistant to the ideals of global governance. The project states, “Among the most important factors determining the future of global governance will be the attitude of the United States…”

The IIGG program continues, “…few countries have been as sensitive as the United States to restrictions on their freedom of action or as jealous in guarding their sovereign prerogatives.” The program then states that the separation of powers as stated in the Constitution, along with the U.S. Congress, stand in the way of the United States assuming “new international obligations.”(Tommy Franks said the Constitution won’t stand another WMD attack, in that case the Constitution won’t stand in the way then, because there could be martial law declared.)

As stated,

“…the country’s longstanding tradition of liberal “exceptionalism” inspires U.S. vigilance in protecting the domestic sovereignty and institutions from the perceived incursions of international bodies. Finally, the separation of powers enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress a critical voice in the ratification of treaties and endorsement of global institutions, complicates U.S. assumptions of new international obligations.”

The actions of the Military Industrial Complex under the Bush Administration have served globalist interests well. “Global structures” are now presented as the mechanism to prevent such atrocities. America’s demonization is central to building a system of world governance. Patrick M. Stewart, who is currently the director of the CFR IIGG program, is anticipating the Obama administration “…to seek to turn the page on what many perceived to be ‘cowboy unilateralism’ of the Bush years, by embracing multilateral cooperation, re-kindling U.S. alliances and partnerships, and engaging in sustained diplomacy within the UN framework,” as reported by Xinhua. The IIGG project itself stated in May of 2008 that, “Regardless of whether the administration that takes office in January 2009 is Democratic or Republican, the thrust of U.S. foreign policy is likely to be multilateral to a significant degree.”

Globalist forces are hard at work in the economic and political realms in an attempt to shape the future of the world, furthering the dominance of the global elite. Calls for a global currency in response to the economic crisis are regularly occurring, drawing the tacit support of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, speaking to the CFR.

Henry Kissinger, a CFR member, anticipates that President Obama will, “…give new impetus to American foreign policy partly because the reception of him is so extraordinary around the world. I think his task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a new world order can be created. It’s a great opportunity, it isn’t just a crisis.“

(Here is a video of Kissinger saying this..it starts around 2:05 minutes into the video)

The Council on Foreign Relations global governance program will undoubtedly be pursued under the Obama administration, which is filled with CFR members. President of the CFR, Richard Haass, is serving as a top adviser to the Obama administration. As the IIGG program admits, regardless of who sits in the White House, the globalist agenda moves forward full speed ahead.

Read the full IIGG project report here

Read at Old-Thinker News.com

Obama pick favors international law

Gosh, Obama is doing so much on so many fronts, you can hardly keep up with what the right and left hands are doing.

by David Limbaugh

As usual, President Barack Obama is multi-tasking the dismantling of the American system on so many fronts that not all of the outrages can be properly monitored. So while you should be mortified by his dictatorial power grab with General Motors, please don’t miss his recent nomination of former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as legal adviser for the State Department.

In his new position, Koh not only would represent the United States before international bodies, such as the U.N. and the International Court of Justice, but also would influence the degree to which laws of other countries should influence American jurisprudence.

After reading an alarming piece by Meghan Clyne in the New York Post (Obama’s Most Perious Legal Pick) concerning the Koh nomination and the degree to which Koh believes it’s appropriate for courts to consider other nations’ laws in interpreting our Constitution, I read a number of Koh’s legal writings and speeches.

Clyne reported that New York lawyer Steven Stein said that Koh, in addressing the Yale Club of Greenwich in 2007, claimed that “in an appropriate case, he didn’t see any reason why Shariah law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States.”

It turns out that on March 21, 2007, Carol Iannone, on Phi Beta Cons blog, published a letter from Stein to Dean Koh about his Yale Club remarks. Stein wrote, in part, “In your discussion of ‘global law’ I recall at least one favorable reference to ‘Shariah,’ among other foreign laws that could, in an appropriate instance (according to you) govern a controversy in a federal or state court in the U.S.”

Whether or not Koh ever responded to Stein’s letter, Stein’s representations of Koh’s remarks are certainly consistent with Koh’s writings that I reviewed.

In Fordham Law Review, Koh asserted that the U.S. “Supreme Court is divided between two judicial camps: the transnationalists and the nationalists.” Koh considers himself a transnationalist and justices Roberts, Scalia and Alito nationalists.

In other words, nationalists don’t believe that it’s appropriate to look to foreign law in interpreting our Constitution. They believe that only the political branches, not the courts, can adopt provisions of international law, and they don’t believe in slavish deference to global legal authorities, such as the International Criminal Court.

Transnationalists clearly believe in an ever-changing, living Constitution and reject originalism (interpreting the Constitution according to its original understanding(Which IMO is what the founding fathers intended.)). They are obviously globalists, not overly concerned with American’s national sovereignty. They see the international community, in the words of Koh, as a “community of reason” and believe that American judges, in interpreting our Constitution, can resort to this “community of reason” (foreign laws) to choose between two “plausible” legal positions. Indeed, Koh wrote approvingly of United States Supreme Court decisions acknowledging “evolving standards of decency” and that we may look to this global community of reason to determine what those standards are.

If any of this is too legalistic, let me quote from Koh’s “Jefferson Memorial Lecture on Transnational Legal Process After September 11,” published in the Berkeley Journal of International Law.

In his introductory remarks, Koh said the United States, along with North Korea and Iran, form “the axis of disobedience,” that is, those nations “whose disobedience with international law has attracted global attention after Sept. 11.” Are you beginning to see the picture here?

If not, try his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 16, 2008, in which he lamented that the Bush administration forfeited the “universal sympathy” America enjoyed as a victim of the 9/11 attacks with a “series of unnecessary, self-inflicted wounds, which have gravely diminished our global standing and damaged our reputation for respecting the rule of law,” including Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, torture, indefinite detention of enemy combatants, military commissions, warrantless wiretaps, evasion of the Geneva Conventions and international human rights treaties, excessive government secrecy, attacks on the United Nations, and others.

It’s no surprise to me that President Obama seeks to install as assistant State Department legal counsel a man who, like George Soros and a host of ultra-left-wing bloggers, believes America is always the bad guy and that we should rehabilitate ourselves through following the wisdom of foreign nations and international bodies.

Read at Worldnet Daily.com

Does it surprise you?

Read at Worldnet Daily.com

President effectively becomes CEO-in-chief

Here’s are two very interesting,chilling  and truthful commentary I ran across.

Commentary: Daniel Howes

President Obama says he wants to save America’s auto industry. He says General Motors Corp., under a new CEO, has 60 days to sharpen its restructuring or submit to bankruptcy. He’s giving Chrysler LLC 30 days to complete an alliance with Fiat SpA of Italy lest Detroit’s No. 3 carmaker find itself in a federal court.

But what the president didn’t say Monday, as he detailed his administration’s prescription for Detroit’s two sickest automakers, is what he actually did — oust a sitting CEO, GM’s Rick Wagoner, and begin the process of remaking a board of directors deemed to have done too little, too late to prevent GM’s slide into the arms of the federal government.

The terror of Wall Street, disgraced New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, would love it.

In one swift act, the president effectively overruled the oversight and fiduciary responsibilities of GM’s directors, duly elected by the automaker’s shareholders, because he could — and the federal government, officially a lender of $13.4 billion to GM, doesn’t own a single share of the automaker.

A chilling message? It should be if you run a bank recapitalized with Treasury money, lead an auto supplier likely to tap into a new $5 billion federal fund, are considering a pitch for a government bailout or are Fritz Henderson, the GM president-turned-CEO who has two months to accelerate the automaker’s restructuring.

“Firing a CEO is usually what a board does,“ says Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University who worked in the enforcement division of the Securities and Exchange Commission. “We now have a CEO-in-chief … overseeing large sectors of the economy. We are certainly in a brave new world.”

And it looks like this: the federal government, in a bid to “save” companies determined crucial to the economy, is prepared to use whatever thin financial connections it has to them to broom management, void employment contracts, reload boards of directors and, if necessary, force bankruptcies.

Monday, the president’s people — the president himself — amped the threat of bankruptcy because without it there can be no deal between GM, its bondholders and the United Auto Workers. Should GM be forced into bankruptcy, as seems increasingly likely, White House pressure to replace the CEO and GM’s directors could enable the president’s allies to influence the shape and priorities of a new, leaner and smaller GM.

In the Detroit-based auto industry, a crisis crystallized by $4-a-gallon gas, the credit crunch and plunging consumer confidence offers a Democratic White House with close ties to the environmental wing of its party a golden opportunity to turn the General “green” – even if doing so means beggaring the retiree health care promises of hourly workers.

The argument here isn’t whether Wagoner should have been pressured to resign to speed a concessionary deal with bondholders and the UAW that would keep GM out of bankruptcy. GM’s massive problems — $82 billion in losses this decade, a collapsed credit rating, massive outstanding debt made worse by its borrowing from the government — will partly define Wagoner’s legacy.

The issue is principle and the lengthening arm of government into commerce. How can corporate governance and the fiduciary responsibility of directors to shareholders be so easily usurped to satisfy the political exigencies of the day? Stunning is too mild a word to describe the precedent set here.

“Certainly they have a large investment in General Motors,” says spokesman Steve Harris, referring to the $13.4 billion-and-counting federal lifeline to GM. “We certainly knew that would involve a certain amount of oversight and involvement of government in our activities.”

They just didn’t know how much. Not since World War II, with the arguable exception of President Harry S. Truman’s brief control of the steel industry, has a president exercised such forceful unilateral control over firms in the private sector. And the double-standards? Towering, as if that makes any difference.

What does it say that on the same day President Obama made nice at the White House with the nation’s leading bank CEOs – none of whom have lost their jobs despite sitting on vastly larger sums of taxpayer dough — the head of the president’s auto task force was urging Wagoner to “step aside?”

“There is no standard,” Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Livonia, told me. “You cannot look at what happened to Rick Wagoner and draw any policy certitude about what happened to the Wall Street CEOs. How do you reconcile the two images on Friday?”

You don’t because you can’t.

Read at DetroitNews.com

Editorial: Plan amounts to a de facto government takeover

The Detroit News

General Motors couldn’t possibly have imagined this outcome when it made the calculated decision last fall to ask for survival loans from the federal government instead of taking its chances on a bankruptcy filing. Now, GM may get the bankruptcy anyway, and its future will apparently be dictated by a White House whose vision for the company is driven more by ideology than the marketplace.

Chrysler has been told it must merge or else.

President Barack Obama tore up the turnaround plans of both automakers Monday and handed them plans of his own. While the president said repeatedly that he “has no interest” in running a car company, he appears to be very much running GM.

Obama placed both companies on very short notice for coming up with even tougher plans to revive their business. That means deeper and harsher cuts, which will impact most heavily the very autoworkers the president praised so effusively during his speech.

But the administration may not be done meddling in GM’s governance. A reshuffle of the GM board of directors is expected and we assume that will be directed by the White House, and not shareholders.

The government critique said GM is a “generation behind” Toyota in advanced, “green powertrain” development. And the administration said GM is still too heavily reliant on trucks and SUVs for its revenues, making it difficult for it to pivot to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.

James Harbour, founding editor of the respected Harbour Report on auto firm productivity and a tough critic of the domestic industry in the past, disputes the administration’s finding. “Nobody is lagging anybody” on technology, Harbour says.

GM, it is true, must learn to turn more of a profit on smaller vehicles, as have the Japanese automakers. But the administration has to be careful not to push the firm too far too fast in the direction of smaller cars. One of the key requirements for continued aid for GM is that it become more profitable more quickly.

Curiously, the task force also dinged GM for devoting too much of its alternative-vehicle resources to the battery powered Volt, a vehicle developed almost solely to please the company’s Washington critics.

Chrysler, meanwhile, was ordered to complete a merger with the Italian automaker Fiat, or be prepared to shut its doors. Imagine the impact that threat will have on near-term Chrysler sales.

What was put on the table Monday goes well beyond a lender insisting on strict oversight of how borrowed money is used. In GM’s case, it is a de facto takeover by the government.(Fascism IMO) In Chrysler’s case, it is a shotgun wedding.

Obama has been harshly critical of the way Detroit’s automakers run their businesses. We’ll see now if he can run GM any better.

Also read at Detroit News.com

I’m Not Racist Because I Disagree With Obama

Well here we go again…….when Bush was in office if you disagreed with him you were unpatriotic ……..now if you disagree with Obama your a racist? I don’t think so…….we’re losing our minds and reasoning abilities here in the US.

Monday, March 30, 2009
By Hollie McKay

Angie Harmon:

I’m Not Racist Because I Disagree With Obama

Angie Harmon-AP

Angie Harmon: I’m Not Racist Because I Disagree With Obama

Angie Harmon: I’m Not Racist Because I Disagree With Obama

Angie Harmon is not afraid to come out and say she doesn’t like how President Obama is handling the job — but she’s sick of having to defend herself from being deemed a racist.

“Here’s my problem with this, I’m just going to come out and say it. If I have anything to say against Obama it’s not because I’m a racist, it’s because I don’t like what he’s doing as President and anybody should be able to feel that way, but what I find now is that if you say anything against him you’re called a racist,” Harmon told Tarts at Thursday’s Los Angeles launch of the new eyelash-growing formula, Latisse. “But it has nothing to do with it, I don’t care what color he is. I’m just not crazy about what he’s doing and I heard all about this, and he’s gonna do that and change and change, so okay … I’m still dressing for a recession over here buddy and we’ve got unemployment at an all-time high and that was his number one thing and that’s the thing I really don’t appreciate. If I’m going to disagree with my President, that doesn’t make me a racist. If I was to disagree with W, that doesn’t make me racist. It has nothing to do with it, it is ridiculous.”

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Speaking of dislikes, the starlet has also had enough of the double-standards in the media.

“I do think McCain would have done a better job, only because I think he has more experience. I also think if W or John McCain or Reagan would have gone and done a talk show, the backlash would have been so huge and in his face, and ‘What is our president doing? How unclassy!’ But Obama does it and no one says anything,” Harmon said.

However Harmon is definitely in the Hollywood minority when it comes to her criticism of Obama as other lasses at the Latisse party were quick to advocate their unequivocal support.

“The sort of criticism over the last couple of weeks is a bit unfounded, he’s been in office for barely any time and I think he inherited a lot on his plate and he’s doing a pretty remarkable job,” quipped Mandy Moore. “I think it’s cool that he went on Leno and I watched the “60 minutes” interview as well last week. The guy is just so articulate and he is so well versed in something that is so new to him and I think he has a good team around him. It sounds cliché, but he makes me feel proud to be an American.”

Debra Messing (The Starter Wife)  also told Tarts that our new President is not only meeting her expectations, but going far beyond.

“He is thoughtful and considerate and he gets all the information before he speaks which I think is a wonderful quality for the ruler of the free world to have,” she explained.

The ladies of “Entourage” certainly showed their Obama-loyalty too.

“It’s not an over night process. It’s going to get worse before it gets better; we’re all kind of in the same boat now. Everybody’s broke and everybody’s struggling and he makes me feel like I know him and that I know Michelle and that they’re like us and they’re out to try to save the USA. It’s just an amazing period to watch him take on these challenges and everyday in the news to hear about AIG or possibly global currency changing, it’s incredible. He’s facing big challenges and he’s got a lot of support and I’m just praying things get better,” Debi Mazar said, while co-star Perrey Reeves added that Obama is a “wonderful leader” and she’s looking forward to his future endeavors.

Obama Forcing Management Decisions on Corporate America

When government no longer represents the interests of the people, but instead represents the interests of corporations, it is a Fascist state. Despite what the American Supreme Court says, Corporations are merely legal agreements that are formed to generate profit, not people. When corporations infiltrate and dictate the agenda of a government, then that country can be said to be a fascist state. Communist, democratic, dictatorships, and socialist countries can all fall into the trap of fascism. And by “trap” I  mean that when a country becomes fascist, it is usually the beginning of the end of that country.

So what is fascism ? Lawrence Britt, writing in Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 2, summarizes fourteen common traits of a fascist society.

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause

4. Supremacy of the Military

5. Rampant Sexism

6. Controlled Mass Media

7. Obsession with National Security

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined

9. Corporate Power is Protected

10. Labor Power is Suppressed

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption

14. Fraudulent Elections

Monday, March 30, 2009
By Philip Elliott, Associated Press

In this June 26, 2008 photo, then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama appears with General Motors Chairman Rick Wagoner during an economic discussion in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)

Washington (AP) – Neither General Motors nor Chrysler submitted acceptable plans to receive more federal bailout money, the Obama administration said as it set the stage for a crisis in Detroit that would dramatically reshape the nation’s auto industry.

President Barack Obama raised the possibility that two of Detroit’s teetering carmakers could be forced into bankruptcy today, blasting General Motors and Chrysler for failed leadership, unrealistic business plans and a slow rate of reform.

The White House pushed out GM’s chairman and directed Chrysler to move quickly to forge a partnership with Fiat if it expects to receive additional government assistance

President Barack Obama and his top advisers have determined that neither company is viable and that taxpayers will not spend untold billions more to keep the pair of automakers open forever.

In a last-ditch effort, the administration gave each company a brief deadline to try one last time to convince Washington it is worth saving, said senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to more bluntly discuss the decision.

Frustrated administration officials said Chrysler cannot function as an independent company under its current plan. They have given Chrysler a 30-day window to complete a proposed partnership with Italian automaker Fiat SpA, and will offer up to $6 billion to the companies if they can negotiate a deal before time runs out.

If a Chrysler-Fiat union cannot be completed, Washington plans to walk away, leaving Chrysler destined for a complete sell-off. No other money is available.

Shawn Morgan, a Chrysler spokeswoman, said the company wants to work with the Treasury Department and Obama’s auto task force but declined to comment on the White House’s plans.

“With the administration’s announcement on the restructuring of the automotive industry imminent, it would be inappropriate to comment on speculation,” Morgan said in a statement early Monday.

For GM, the administration offered 60 days of operating money to restructure. A frantic top-to-bottom effort began Sunday after chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner stepped aside under pressure from the White House.

In a major management shake-up, new directors will make up the majority of GM’s board, the automaker said.

“The board has recognized for some time that the company’s restructuring will likely cause a significant change in the stockholders of the company and create the need for new directors with additional skills and experience,” Kresa said in a written statement.

Officials said GM had failed to make good on promises made in exchange for $13.4 billion in government loans, although there are currently no plans to call in those loans.

Administration officials still believe GM’s chances are good, given its global brand and its research potential. Officials say they are confident GM can put together a plan that will keep production lines moving in the coming years. They planned to send a team to Detroit to help with that restructuring.

Chrysler, meanwhile, has survived on $4 billion in federal aid during this economic downturn and the worst decline in auto sales in 27 years.

In progress reports filed with the government in February, GM asked for $16.6 billion more and Chrysler wanted $5 billion more. The White House balked and instead started a countdown clock.

Administration officials acknowledged the short turnaround time was harsh; one described it as a nanosecond in a business cycle.

Two people familiar with the plan said officials will demand further sacrifices from the automakers and bankruptcy would still be possible if the automakers failed to restructure. Those officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to make details public.

GM and Chrysler, which employ about 140,000 workers in the U.S., faced a Tuesday deadline to submit completed restructuring plans, but neither company was expected to finish its work. The White House’s plan renders them, as well as a potential discussion about the companies’ borrowed money, moot.

GM owes roughly $28 billion to bondholders. Chrysler owes about $7 billion in first- and second-term debt, mainly to banks. GM owes about $20 billion to its retiree health care trust, while Chrysler owes $10.6 billion.

An exasperated administration official noted that the companies had not done enough to reduce debt; in some cases, it actually increased during this restructuring and review process.

Under the terms of a loan agreement reached during the last administration, GM and Chrysler are pushing the United Auto Workers to accept shares of stock in exchange for half of the payments into a union-run trust fund for retiree health care. They also want labor costs from the union to be competitive with Japanese automakers with U.S. operations.

Little progress has been made between the companies and the union.

Entire article at CNS news.com

State sovereignty must be altered in globalized era

This article is written by Richard Haass, the current president of the Council on Foreign Relations. According to Haass, a system of world government must be created and sovereignty eliminated in order to fight global warming and terrorism. “Some governments are prepared to give up elements of sovereignty to address the threat of global climate change,” writes Haass. “The goal should be to redefine sovereignty for the era of globalization, to find a balance between a world of fully sovereign states and an international system of either world government or anarchy.”

I’m reminded of what James Madison said, “If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy”

By Richard Haass

For 350 years, sovereignty — the notion that states are the central actors on the world stage and that governments are essentially free to do what they want within their own territory but not within the territory of other states — has provided the organizing principle of international relations. The time has come to rethink this notion.

The world’s 190-plus states now co-exist with a larger number of powerful non-sovereign and at least partly (and often largely) independent actors, ranging from corporations to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), from terrorist groups to drug cartels, from regional and global institutions to banks and private equity funds. The sovereign state is influenced by them (for better and for worse) as much as it is able to influence them. The near monopoly of power once enjoyed by sovereign entities is being eroded.

As a result, new mechanisms are needed for regional and global governance that include actors other than states. This is not to argue that Microsoft, Amnesty International, or Goldman Sachs be given seats in the UN General Assembly, but it does mean including representatives of such organizations in regional and global deliberations when they have the capacity to affect whether and how regional and global challenges are met.

Less is more

Moreover, states must be prepared to cede some sovereignty to world bodies if the international system is to function. This is already taking place in the trade realm. Governments agree to accept the rulings of the WTO because on balance they benefit from an international trading order even if a particular decision requires that they alter a practice that is their sovereign right to carry out.

Some governments are prepared to give up elements of sovereignty to address the threat of global climate change. Under one such arrangement, the Kyoto Protocol, which runs through 2012, signatories agree to cap specific emissions. What is needed now is a successor arrangement in which a larger number of governments, including the US, China, and India, accept emissions limits or adopt common standards because they recognize that they would be worse off if no country did.

All of this suggests that sovereignty must be redefined if states are to cope with globalization. At its core, globalization entails the increasing volume, velocity, and importance of flows — within and across borders — of people, ideas, greenhouse gases, goods, dollars, drugs, viruses, e-mails, weapons and a good deal else, challenging one of sovereignty’s fundamental principles: the ability to control what crosses borders in either direction. Sovereign states increasingly measure their vulnerability not to one another, but to forces beyond their control.

Globalization thus implies that sovereignty is not only becoming weaker in reality, but that it needs to become weaker. States would be wise to weaken sovereignty in order to protect themselves, because they cannot insulate themselves from what goes on elsewhere. Sovereignty is no longer a sanctuary.(Benjamin Franklin:They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.)

This was demonstrated by the American and world reaction to terrorism. Afghanistan’s Taliban government, which provided access and support to al-Qaeda, was removed from power. Similarly, the US’ preventive war against an Iraq that ignored the UN and was thought to possess weapons of mass destruction showed that sovereignty no longer provides absolute protection.

Imagine how the world would react if some government were known to be planning to use or transfer a nuclear device or had already done so. Many would argue — correctly — that sovereignty provides no protection for that state.

Necessity may also lead to reducing or even eliminating sovereignty when a government, whether from a lack of capacity or conscious policy, is unable to provide for the basic needs of its citizens. This reflects not simply scruples, but a view that state failure and genocide can lead to destabilizing refugee flows and create openings for terrorists to take root.

The NATO intervention in Kosovo was an example where a number of governments chose to violate the sovereignty of another government (Serbia) to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide. By contrast, the mass killing in Rwanda a decade ago and now in Darfur, Sudan, demonstrate the high price of judging sovereignty to be supreme and thus doing little to prevent the slaughter of innocents.

Conditions needed

Our notion of sovereignty must therefore be conditional, even contractual, rather than absolute. If a state fails to live up to its side of the bargain by sponsoring terrorism, either transferring or using weapons of mass destruction, or conducting genocide, then it forfeits the normal benefits of sovereignty and opens itself up to attack, removal or occupation.

The diplomatic challenge for this era is to gain widespread support for principles of state conduct and a procedure for determining remedies when these principles are violated.

The goal should be to redefine sovereignty for the era of globalization, to find a balance between a world of fully sovereign states and an international system of either world government or anarchy.

The basic idea of sovereignty, which still provides a useful constraint on violence between states, needs to be preserved. But the concept needs to be adapted to a world in which the main challenges to order come from what global forces do to states and what governments do to their citizens rather than from what states do to one another.

Richard Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Opportunity: America’s Moment to Alter History’s Course.

Read at Taipei Times.com

CAPE CORAL, Fla Tea Party Cancelled by Government

Funny I don’t recall a single word in the constitution that says you have to have insurance and a permit to have a public gathering. I thought the Constitution was our permit!

1st amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Cape “tea party” canceled; City fears too many attendees

By WINK News

CAPE CORAL, Fla. – A tea party to protest government spending and taxing is canceled. Canceled by the government.

Why? They feel too many people could show-up

.

Lynn Rosko planned to hold a tax payer tea party at Jaycee Park in Cape Coral on April 1st. The idea was announced at a Cape Coral City Council meeting, then an e-mail blast by the Republican Party and it was mentioned in the local media.

With all of that attention, the City of Cape Coral felt there could be more than 500 people attending the tea party.

Therefore Rosko needed to get a permit and insurance for the event. Rosko says she’s not willing to get insurance and accept liability for something that a stranger could do. Rosko told WINK News, “I have rescinded any organizing or supervision or what ever you want to call it over this tea party on April 1st.”

WINK News spoke to the director of parks for Cape Coral. He says that even now if Rosko is willing to get insurance for the event he’ll likely re-authorize it.

For now Rosko’s event is canceled, she’s encouraging people to attend the April 15th Tax Payer Tea Party in Centennial Park in Fort Myers.

Read at WINKnews.com

Are Weapons from the US going to Mexico?

According to the experts on the ground the “military” weapons are not coming from the US..you’ll be surprised where some of them are coming from. Also the Mexican government while accusing the US for the weapons coming there will not give out serial numbers from the guns! Why not? Maybe because they’re not coming from the US?

At the bottom of the page I’ve included some Congressional testimony links on this as well.

Narcotics traffickers are acquiring firepower more appropriate to an army — including grenade launchers and antitank rockets — and the police are feeling outgunned.

By Ken Ellingwood and Tracy Wilkinson
March 15, 2009

Reporting from Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and Mexico City — It was a brazen assault, not just because it targeted the city’s police station, but for the choice of weapon: grenades.

The Feb. 21 attack on police headquarters in coastal Zihuatanejo, which injured four people, fit a disturbing trend of Mexico’s drug wars. Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals.

Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semiauto- matic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

The proliferation of heavier armaments points to a menacing new stage in the Mexican government’s 2-year-old war against drug organizations, which are evolving into a more militarized force prepared to take on Mexican army troops, deployed by the thousands, as well as to attack each other.

“There is an arms race between the cartels,” said Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government.

“One group gets rocket-propelled grenades, the other has to have them.”

Grenades or military-grade weapons have been reported in at least 10 Mexican states during the last six months, used against police headquarters, city halls, a U.S. consulate, TV stations and senior Mexican officials. In a three-week period ended March 6, five grenade attacks were launched on police patrols and stations and the home of a commander in the south-central state of Michoacan. Other such attacks occurred in five other states during the same period.

At least one grenade attack north of the border, at a Texas nightclub frequented by U.S. police officers, has been tied to Mexican traffickers.

How many weapons have been smuggled into Mexico from Central America is not known, and the military-grade munitions are still a small fraction of the larger arsenal in the hands of narcotics traffickers. Mexican officials continue to push Washington to stem the well-documented flow of conventional weapons from the United States, as Congress holds hearings on the role those smuggled guns play in arming Mexican drug cartels.(But Mexico refuses to give serial numbers!)

But four days after the assault on the Zihuatanejo police station, four of the city’s officers were slain in a highway ambush six miles from town on the road to Acapulco. In addition to the standard AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles, the attackers fired at least six .50-caliber shells into the officers’ pickup. The vehicle blew up when hit by what experts believe was a grenade or explosive projectile. The bodies of the officers were charred.

“These are really weapons of war,” said Alberto Fernandez, spokesman for the Zihuatanejo city government. “We only know these devices from war movies.”

The enhanced weaponry represents a wide sampling from the international arms bazaar, with grenades and launchers produced by U.S., South Korean, Israeli, Spanish or former Soviet bloc manufacturers. Many had been sold legally to governments, including Mexico’s, and then were diverted onto the black market. Some may be sold directly to the traffickers by corrupt elements of national armies, authorities and experts say.

Read at LA Times.com

I also found this interesting article from a blog with info compiled from several testimonies to Congress about weapons going to Mexico.

Testimony on Violence in Mexico

This Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee had a hearing on “Law Enforcement Responses to Mexican Drug Cartels“  Some of the testimony is frankly, surprising.  I first heard these clips on Cam & Company on Tuesday, but now present them here for those of you who didn’t catch the show.  You may have to disable your popup blocker to view some of these video clips.

• Question from Durbin to ATF about drug smuggling in Mexico
  Durbin claims smuggling into Mexico is in the thousands, and asks ATF for their sense of how big the problem is.  ATF retorts “I would not say it’s in the thousands, sir.  I would say it’s probably in the hundreds.” Durbin pretty clearly didn’t like that answer.
• Lindsey Graham questions the panel about the need for changes in gun laws
  Short of is, no one on the panel says we need more gun control.  The Arizona AG answers that he’d like to see tighter regulation of money transfers, but that’s all anyone agrees on.
• Diane Feinstein asks what new gun laws we need.
  Senator Feinstein wants to know what laws she can push to make smuggling guns into Mexico even more illegal.  The laws we have now are “pretty clearly not enough,” according to the Senator.  The response from the panel is that we don’t even really know the scope of the problem, and have been using current laws effectively.
• Senator Feingold asks about smuggling of military hardware across the border.
  The gist of it is that the military hardware isn’t coming from the United States, but from other sources.
• Senator Sessions says we have plenty of guns on this side of the border, and don’t have Mexico’s levels of violence.  ATF responds with the fact that most FFLs are law abiding. Sessions says we need to build a fence.

So the people on the ground aren’t calling for changes in our country’s gun laws in order to deal with the Mexican problem, apparently much to the dismay of Senators Feinstein and Durbin.  We also now know those on the ground don’t believe that military grade weapons are coming from the United States, and certainly not from US gun shows.  So one wonders whether the media in the United States are going to continue to blame the US for the proliferation of miltiary weapons into Mexico.  I suspect that the media will ignore this testimony, but let’s hope that Congress won’t.

See at snowflakesinhell.com

Simple Solution to Solving the Border Problem

Simple Solution for Mexico Border Violence: Send in the Military, Tancredo Says

By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer

Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) said the solution to ending the violence along the U.S.-Mexico border would require only one order from the new commander-in-chief, President Barack Obama: send in the troops.

“You can absolutely secure the border with the military,” Tancredo said in a conference call on Thursday with reporters and Roy Beck, president of the immigrant reduction advocacy group, NumbersUSA.

Tancredo said he observed a two-week operation a few years ago along the Canadian border with Idaho where 100 U.S. Marines were stationed along the 100-mile stretch of rugged wilderness, along with the use of three unmanned aerial vehicles and three radar stations. The operation was a joint effort among the Marines, the U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. Forest Service.

“I assure you that for the two weeks that that was in operation, nothing came across that northern border that we did not see,” Tancredo said. “You can secure the border.”

But, he said, the Bush administration abandoned the idea of using the military to secure the nation’s borders, an idea Tancredo said is necessary now not only to stop the flow of drugs, humans, and weapons but for the safety and security of the American people – especially if the Mexican government fails and millions of people flee north to escape the violence.

The conference call was held to respond to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to Mexico and her claim that the United States is culpable for the violence along the country’s border with Mexico. Clinton largely blamed high drug consumption by Americans and American weapons smuggled south to arm drug cartels as the culprits.

“I have no doubt that there are firearms that make their way into Mexico, but the extent to which that is happening is really a debatable point,” Tancredo said. “The huge caches of arms that have been found – the AK-47s and some of the grenade launchers – have not come from the United States.”

“We’ve asked Mexico for the serial numbers, and they’ve refused to give them to us because, in fact, they are not from the United States,” Tancredo said.

“This issue of ‘It’s our fault just as much as their fault’ is a lot of crap, to tell you the truth,” he said. “It’s just another way to go after guns by this administration and also to let Mexico save some face.”

Tancredo said that in addition to securing the border, Congress needs to mandate the E-Verify legislation that requires employers to confirm the legal status of potential employees.

E-Verify “has worked better than anything we’ve ever come up with, which is why the Democrats are a little leery about continuing it,” Tancredo said.

Rather than granting a five-year extension of the program, Congress okayed a five-month extension “with the hope of using it as a hook and get some sort of leverage to get Republicans to back off  of their opposition – especially in the Senate – to any sort of amnesty.”

Using the military to secure the border and extending E-Verify for five years are what’s called for, Tancredo said, to solve not only the violence of the drug cartels but the flow of illegal aliens into the United States.

Read at CNSnews.com