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