Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith Interview with Barack Obama

Video time: 7 min 13 sec

President Obama Refuses To Sign Treaty Banning Landmines

One of the most insidious weapons is the land mine, that small, explosive device filled with shrapnel that burns or blinds, maims or kills. Triggered by the touch of a foot or movement or even sound, more often than not it's the innocent who are its victims -- 75 to 80 percent of the time, in fact.

As a weapon, variations of land mines have been around since perhaps as early as the 13th century, but it was not until World War I that the technology was more or less perfected, if that can be said of weapons that mangle and mutilate the human body, and their use became common.

The United States has not actively used land mines since the first Gulf War in 1991, but we still possess some 10-15 million of them, making us the third largest stockpiler in the world, behind China and Russia. Like those two countries, we have refused to sign an international agreement banning the manufacture, stockpiling and use of land mines. Since 1987, 156 other nations have signed it, including every country in NATO. Amongst that 156, more than 40 million mines have been destroyed.

Just days before Obama flew to Oslo to make his Nobel Peace Prize speech, an international summit conference was held in Cartagena, Colombia, to review the progress of the treaty. The United States sent representatives and the State Department says our government has begun a comprehensive review of its current policy.

Last year 5,000 people were killed or wounded by land mines, often placed in the ground years before, during wars long since over. They kill or blow away the limbs of a farmer or child as indiscriminately as they do a soldier. But still we refuse to sign, citing security commitments to our friends and allies, such as South Korea, where a million mines fill the demilitarized zone between it and North Korea.

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I wonder why the Nobel Peace Prize winning Barack Obama refused to sign the treaty? That would have been such a small gesture to toss to the progressive and the anti war groups that supported him. The liberals would have cheered and then Obama could have told Rahm Emanuel to pass the word along to Congress that he’d much prefer the legislators not ratify his decision.

But Obama’s too chicken to risk a gesture like that. What people are suddenly realizing is that with Obama there is a absolute disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality.

Militaristic, corrupt America increasingly resembles a Third World state

Despite a change of presidents, America remains mired in economic, institutional, and cultural purgatory, with Obama’s exalted oratory circling the stratosphere like a taunt.

Angry nationalism shouts down prudence. Disproportionate military spending threatens economic wellbeing. Industry has its hand so deep in the government’s purse that private enterprise is becoming public property. The currency falters, the infrastructure crumbles. And a supine media, once a watchdog of the powerful, happily licks the strongman’s hand.

If the picture looks familiar, that’s because we’ve seen it many times before, from Argentina to Chile to Russia. The U.S. is third worlding.

That statement may smack of hyperbole. It may also understate the phenomenon, for many of the countries that the United States increasingly resembles are not only Third World—they are authoritarian, even rogue.

This is not to say the U.S. will be indistinguishable from a Third World country any time soon. We’re clearly nowhere near Sudanese levels of violence or Bangladeshi depths of poverty. But in terms of institutional structure, financial stability, and even national spirit, the U.S. looks little like the country it was a generation ago and more like nations it has long condemned.

The turning point came on 9/11. Terrorism is now a weary concern: other issues dominate the headlines—stimulus, healthcare, climate change. Yet the attacks were a pretext for a host of foreign and domestic policies that promised to secure America against its hell-bent enemies but have instead dragged the country down, eroding the qualities that distinguished it from the rest of the world.

The Third Worlding of America is less cinematic but more serious than empire-in-decline analogies suggest. After all, Britain no longer wields global supremacy, but it is still firmly in the First World, its political class scrutinized by an independent, assertive media. And even after its post-World War II penury, it did not backpedal on political reforms at home. This is not to excuse the colonizer’s brutality abroad but rather to distinguish Britain’s imperial decline from America’s homeland decay.

The United States has transgressed her traditions in the fog of war before, only to redeem herself later. But we are now engaged in a war without borders against a self-multiplying enemy. There is no army to trounce, so no clear end to the bloodletting or bankrupting.

The patchouli-scented youth, who protest in the streets of D.C. with their towering papier-mâché effigies, may have been correct after all in highlighting the breadth of America’s all-encompassing problems—if not their remedies. Crisis has pushed the U.S. toward Third World policies with alarming swiftness. But the risk is not that Americans will bring out the pitchforks and join the protestors. Rather, citizens seem as disaffected and resigned as their Third World brethren, only occasionally roused from reality TV by their favorite pundit peddling the outrage du jour.

The far Right wallows in paranoia with its dreams of overturning an election by discovering a Kenyan birth certificate. Most on the Left seem too mesmerized by the president to hold him accountable. The media ranges from insipid to hysterical. This country may never see the reasons for—and the parallels to—its disintegration.

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Rap legend Tupac Shakur makes it on the Vatican playlist

The Vatican recently released an official music playlist -- and slipped in among the Mozart and Regina Coeli, the late Tupac Shakur made the cut.

On the Vatican's MySpace page, the playlist is described like so:

This playlist is a perfect mix of classical, world and contemporary music. The genres are very different from each other, but all these artists share the aim to reach the heart of good minded people.

The Tupac song picked is Changes. Listen to it below:

How to create millions of jobs in the U.S. imediately

By repealing NAFTA, CAFTA and renegotiating or scrapping GATT altogether.

Ban the sale of goods in America by American companies that use foreign slave/serf labor. Known as reimportation.

Ban reimportation.

Tax/tariff all imports that were produced by low paid sweatshop type labor. So that said products are forced to compete with products produced by workers who are paid a fair wage.

An American company should never again be allowed to produce a product in a foreign country then reimport it back into the US to sell it in America.

It's a sad day in America when the term "American Made" has become a foreign concept.

Is it too much to ask and expect that Dems actually act like they give a fuck about the little fella?

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In order for this to happen, we would first need politicians that will stand up and regulate the corporations and that's not happening anytime soon because too many of our politicians are bought and paid for by the Wall Street blood. corporations.

Obama and the democrats have abandoned the regular folks

Little wonder the US can’t afford health care for the uninsured and unemployed. It is far more important to finance multi-million dollar bonuses for investment bankers. I mean, what would we do without capitalism?

Of course, it is not really capitalism. It is an oligarchy or a financial plutocracy.

In a failed state, the government’s priorities are totally separate from those of the people. The US can’t afford health care or a bailout for jobless homeowners, but it can afford a pointless war and multi-million dollar bonuses for banksters who wrecked the economy.

Millions of laid-off workers lost their health insurance subsidies on December 1, the day President Obama announced a $30 billion “surge” in Afghanistan.

Why does President Obama think the US can afford a war in Afghanistan when the US economy is falling apart? Massive joblessness. Massive homelessness. Millions of Americans without medical care.

There was a time when Democratic presidents represented the little man, and Republicans represented business. Today both parties represent the moneyed interests. On December 3 at the jobs summit with business leaders, Obama said, “We don’t have enough public dollars to fill the hole of private dollars that was created as a consequence of the crisis.”

In other words, all the public’s money has been spent on the banks and the wars.

Despite Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and the ease with which Obama won the presidential election over McCain/Palin, the Democratic Party has totally collapsed. The Democrats have abandoned every constituency. Democrats have discarded the American people. Democrats, in pursuit of campaign contributions, represent the moneyed interests on Wall Street, the munitions companies, the insurance companies, the agri-businesses that have destroyed independent farmers, despoilers of the environment, unaccountable police, and the builders of detention centers. The exception is Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

The Democrats have become brownshirt Republicans.

The American people, except for the one percent of super-rich, have been abandoned.

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We are witnessing the corporate merger of the Democratic & Republican parties

Just look at all the signs:

The holdover of key cabinet and management positions. No radical rocking of policy, more continuance of same rather than change. Completely unnecessary "bi-partisan" appointments despite electoral wishes/mandates.

The hard-core remnants of both parties will be spun off as specialty shops - "Teabaggers" on one side "Old-fashioned Liberals" on the other. Makes for good theater. The stances of the candidates of the two parties will become increasingly difficult to differentiate. The bare minimum legislatively will be passed by either/both parties and they will blame the other for obstructionism. They will all grant each other plausible deniability for why we end up with the crap legislation we will get for time immemorial.

Notice how well this kabuki is working in the sham we have going on for what passes for "Healthcare Reform". We will get the barest, crappiest reform possible, in fact a great victory for profit healthcare, but it will be framed as a Herculean struggle to get the populace some crumbs - that we will celebrate and be grateful for.

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"Taxpayer March" - Real Outrage or White Angst II?

Today the Right Wingers are having a march on Washington, DC today. The crowd will be filled with all the right wing wackos like the Tea Baggers, Birthers, Town Hall Screamers, Deathers and other racist fucks across the country. I always ask, where were these right wing nuts when the Bush Gang was looting the country? Most people have figured it out, it's not about policy with these clowns instead it is about the man residing in "their" White House. Brian Ross hit the nail on the fucking head with an article on The Huffington Post about this "astro turf" outrage from these people and the motive behind it. Here is what he had to say:

The "Taxpayer March" that is expected to draw between 2,000 and 200,000 people to the streets of Washington, D.C. represents a hodge-podge of interests from Birthers to Bailout Bashers to Health Care Hysterics.

Like those aerial cam shots of schools of sharks swarming off of some eastern seaboard town, today cameras will get to watch what happens when the GOP scrapes up a smorgasbord of screw-loose-sharks and dumps a bucket of political blood from the Wilson nonsense on to the streets of Washington, D.C. to stir them into a feeding frenzy.

If the events leading up to the "march" are any indication, they will be white, largely middle and lower-middle income and angry.

Politico calls into question whether they represent a movement, or they are just the scrapings of the bottom of the Reactionary Right's Tea Party movement scam.

They are John McCain's people. His contribution to American politics. Yes, the white angst and anger that both the dyed-in-the-wool and the closet racists share was always there. McCain, though, in the final days of his campaign, wheeled in the microphones and the cameras in for a close-up on a small part of society that is seldom heard.

They gave that white angst about a black man running the country shape and form, molding a Joe the Plumber out of that racist, xenophobic clay, and dropped Sarah Palin, Miss White Angst of 2008, into his team to capitalize on it.

These are indeed Joe Wilson's people - Ignorant 99% white Americanists who somehow feel that they are losing "their country." They are easily manipulated, as they will believe just about anything that is dropped in front of their face that affirms their world view.

They have bought into the Birther business. They turned out for tea parties. They are the tiny, louder, more radical fraction of the 57% of white voters who voted for McCain.

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What I see is pathetic: A rag-tag band of political puppets performing for unseen neo-con masters who pull their angst-strings, manipulated political Punch-and-Judys, dancing for the cameras with their placards and their angry white faces, screaming out childish cries like "Liar liar pants on fire" at yesterday's "rally."

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This is not about a black man in office for the white men behind the scenes. It is about throwing human debris in the path of change. They are the pawns of a corporate America which has profited from complacency and ignorance, which apparently fears the return of regulation and accountability that they have spent, since the days of Ronald Reagan, billions to employ the right people in government to aid in its dismantling.

I couldn't have said the shit better myself.

United States of Morons

Not much has changed since 1922 when H. L. Mencken described the United States as "the commonwealth of morons." The majority of Americans are under-educated, pathetically misinformed, generally lacking critical thinking skills, and apparently incapable of fact-based analysis. Indeed, American ignorance about current events, their own culture, history and government, as well as international current events, cultures and history, is well documented. For further evidence, simply talk to your neighbors, read comments on political blogs or listen to call-ins on talk radio. You will be astounded and even frightened.

In addition to being uninformed and incapable of connecting the dots, many Americans actually take pride in their ignorance and lack of civility. Currently we are subjected to the unmitigated ignorance of "birther" morons and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin making the ludicrous assertion that health care proposals include a "death panel." The media whores on television and braying jackasses on talk radio actually report these inanities as newsworthy of serious discussion.

Meanwhile, organized right wing efforts disrupt attempts at informed health care discussion by Democratic members of Congress with their home constituencies. These disruptions are supported by many Republicans and receive financial support from the health care industry. The spittle-screaming thugs at recent town meetings are reminiscent of the goose stepping brown shirts in the latter days of the WeimarRepublic.

Anti-intellectualism, Bible thumping ignorance and thuggish behaviors have become patriotic hallmarks. Anyone who is reasonably educated, reasonably informed and behaves in a reasonably civilized manner is branded an elitist.

In the 1980s voters agreed with Reagan that "government is the problem" and entrusted their jobs, homes, health, retirement and future of their children to corporate America. The overturning of the Glass-Steagall Act and other government regulations transformed the corporate exploitation of America in the 1980s and 1990s into the savage rape of the 21st century.

American morons are suckers for any scam as long as they are manipulated with proper flag waving, Jesus praising and fear mongering. Other effective strategies include declaring any government assistance program "socialism" and calling for more tax cuts despite national insolvency and the obscene tax breaks already scammed by corporations and the wealthy. Perhaps we should cease funding Social Security, Medicare, public school education and other such "socialist" abominations.

Now Americans stare like deer in headlights as the United States plunges into cultural and economic free fall. Homes are foreclosed and millions are unemployed while manufacturing and high tech job are lost permanently overseas. Health care bankruptcy, depleted retirement savings and a bleak future for the next generation is the new American reality.

Government was never the problem. The problem was and is American morons and the corrupt corporate stooges they elect and re-elect to public office. The commonwealth of morons deserves its fate.

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Clinton and Obama -- The Worst and Best Thing to Happen to the Democratic Party in Years

Bill Clinton was the worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party and to progressives since that racist warmonger Woodrow Wilson won the presidency and dragged the U.S. into the utterly pointless and incredibly bloody First World War.

Clinton, by posing as a progressive, confused and undermined, and ultimately betrayed the liberal/progressive wing of the party, shattering what was left of the New Deal coalition and leaving the American left adrift and riven by the conflict between those who thought the Democratic Party was the only viable vehicle for progressive reform and those who thought it was hopelessly in the grip of corporate interests.

Barack Obama offers the hope of bringing that era of debilitating confusion to an end.

Not because he is the Great Black Hope of progressives, but because he has taken the concept of selling out to corporate interests and compromising with Republicans to such remarkable heights that progressives hopefully can no longer be confused about the irretrievably corrupted nature of the Democratic Party.

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Last fall, I and many progressives urged voters to elect Obama, not because we thought he was a progressive, but because we hoped that his background -- community organizer, raised by a single mother, experience living in a third world country (Indonesia), multi-racial -- would lead him to make at least some right decisions. We, or certainly I, hoped too that the energized young and working class electorate that came out for him in the fall would continue to press him aggressively to do the right thing on war, environment, civil liberties, and the economy.

I was wrong on the first count: Obama has been a corporatist through and through on all the major issues that matter. And I was wrong on the second. Most of the left in the U.S., from the labor movement to the environmentalist movement to the anti-war movement, has to date remained glumly quiescent as Obama has sold them out on each of their key issues.

But here is the silver lining: The sellout this time is so much more blatant, and so much more serious, than it was with Clinton, and for all the talk about Obama's ability to string words together, he is so much less of a charismatic figure than the gregarious Bill Clinton, that he is unlikely to hang on to the ardent support that propelled him to his victory last November. The disappointment and sense of betrayal among progressives this time is palpable, especially because, while Clinton, by 1994, had the excuse that he was working with a Republican, or partially Republican Congress, Obama has solid control of both houses, but refuses to use it. If, as I expect, the recession continues to deepen, with more and more people losing jobs and homes, if, as I predict, health care continues to be unaffordable and inaccessible, if, as I know will happen, evidence of deadly climate change continues to pile up, and if, as I am equally certain, Iraq explodes and the war in Afghanistan continue to worsen, the left is going to see Obama and the Democrats in Congress as the failures and corrupt frauds they are, and will abandon them.

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OH police forward Air Force One N166ER image from work

Two Ohio Police dispatchers have been caught forwarding from their places of work racist emails depicting Air Force One with an aircraft registration number that spelled out the word nigger as N166ER. This was reported on Daily Kos back in March and it appears the emailed smears have only grown and are spreading among those who are supposed to serve and protect with fairness and impartiality.

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Michael Jackson's Plastic Surgeon Tells All

Allure has done an exhaustive retrospective on Michael Jackson's face with the help of Steven M. Hoefflin, his plastic surgeon through the 1980s and '90s, and his dermatologist/suspected sperm donor, Arnold Klein.

Here are a few of the reference points from his metamorphosis:

1979: Jackson falls and breaks his nose. This gives him an opportunity to change the feature he has come to detest, thanks to merciless teasing. He will later tell Oprah Winfrey, "I'd hide my face in the dark." The results of Steven Hoefflin's surgery are visible on the Off the Wall album cover.

1990: Jackson's skin tone here is much lighter, the result of skin-bleaching creams, pale makeup, or both. There is no sign of the blotchy pigment caused by vitiligo, but as a friend points out, "You'll notice that Michael often wore long sleeves and military high collars to hide his neck." What he can't cover with clothing and wigs, he covers with makeup. The tip of his nose seems narrower, more pointed, and upturned.

2009: Jackson's gaunt look reflects a loss of fat in the face. Klein has said he was using injections of Restylane, a temporary tissue filler, to build up some areas and even out others. Previous steroid injections in the nose have likely made the skin there so thin that the tissue-filling gel injected by Klein seems visible underneath. One expert says the indentation on the side of his nose may be from a recent skin-cancer biopsy.

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Thousands Line Up for Promise of Free Health Care

They came for new teeth mostly, but also for blood pressure checks, mammograms, immunizations and acupuncture for pain. Neighboring South Los Angeles is a place where health care is scarce, and so when it was offered nearby, word got around.

For the second day in a row, thousands of people lined up on Wednesday — starting after midnight and snaking into the early hours — for free dental, medical and vision services, courtesy of a nonprofit group that more typically provides mobile health care for the rural poor.

Like a giant MASH unit, the floor of the Forum, the arena where Madonna once played four sold-out shows, housed aisle upon aisle of dental chairs, where drilling, cleaning and extracting took place in the open. A few cushions were duct-taped to a folding table in a coat closet, an examining room where Dr. Eugene Taw, a volunteer, saw patients.

When Remote Area Medical, the Tennessee-based organization running the event, decided to try its hand at large urban medical services, its principals thought Los Angeles would be a good place to start. But they were far from prepared for the outpouring of need. Set up for eight days of care, the group was already overwhelmed on the first day after allowing 1,500 people through the door, nearly 500 of whom had still not been served by day’s end and had to return in the wee hours Wednesday morning.

The enormous response to the free care was a stark corollary to the hundreds of Americans who have filled town-hall-style meetings throughout the country, angrily expressing their fear of the Obama administration’s proposed changes to the nation’s health care system. The bleachers of patients also reflected the state’s high unemployment, recent reduction in its Medicaid services for the poor and high deductibles and co-payments that have come to define many employer-sponsored insurance programs.

Many of those here said they lacked insurance, but many others said they had coverage but not enough to meet all their needs — or that they could afford. Some said they were well aware of the larger national health care debate, and were eager for changes.

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Why wasn't the network news cameras at this free health care event instead of giving so much attention to those screaming right wing clowns at the the town hall event. -Fraze2K

The Democratic Party is Fucking Worthless!

I've had it. I'm done. I have reached my limit on capitulation, corporatism, cronyism, and stupid.

The Democratic Party is facing a do-or-die moment. It has a supermajority control of the legislature, and, oh yeah, the White House. There is nothing the Democratic Party should not be able to accomplish.

If it wants to.

National, socialized -- yeah, socialized -- health care meets every supposed ideal of the Democratic Party:

Affordable, Quality Health Care Coverage for All Americans?

We believe that quality and affordable health care is a basic right - THE 2008 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL PLATFORM

But instead of delivering its promises, the Democratic party is now being held hostage by the insurance industry, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the mouth-breathing, half-literate, flat-earther wingnut screamers who want government to stay out of their Medicare.

And I have fucking had it.

You told us you needed control of Congress in order to stop the Republicans. Fine. We gave it to you.

But that wasn't enough, because then you said you needed 60 seats in the Senate. Fine. We gave that to you too.

Never mind that George Bush was able to completely remake America with a fucking minority in Congress, and then a tiny little sliver of a majority. You need huge numbers to be able to stand up to those oh-so-scary Republicans? Fine. You got 'em.

But now? Now you have to take your marching orders from the idiots who literally think "end of life care" means "kill granny"? Are you fucking kidding me? Do you not realize that this ridiculous capitulation gives them all the power and further motivation they need to keep calling you with death threats, vandalizing your offices, and screaming in your faces?

Stop pretending the opposition has valid points to make. It doesn't. Stop pretending that their lies and distortion have any place in this discussion. They don't. Stop acting as if continued sacrifices to the screamers will end with a bipartisan bill. It won't.

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'Racist' Baby Doll Pulled From Stores

Wholesale giant Costco is pulling thousands of dolls from its store shelves after parents complained that the toys are racist.

The "Cuddle with Me" doll features an African-American baby that comes packaged with a plush monkey. A cap on the baby doll has the words "lil' monkey" on it.

Many parents expressed disbelief that the doll was being sold.

"Somewhere along the production line of this doll, whether it was in the store, at the manufacturer or somewhere, someone should have noticed that this was potentially going to be a problem," said Gendolyn Bookman, a concerned mother.

A Costco spokesman said he regrets that the product offended anyone.

The store said it's pulling the dolls from all of its stores.

Brass Key, the company that makes the toy, has also apologized, saying the offensive meaning was not within their company's "realm of thinking."

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