Vote 2010: United We Stand; Divided We ALL Fall!

When you are the leader in anything (even on Dancing with the Stars!) there is only one way to go – down.  And there are always many happily waiting to take you top spot.  America is the world leader and there are many ‘vultures’ who want us to slip so that they can be the world leader – number one.  As the lyricist Des’ree said, “You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser, you gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger, you gotta be calm and you gotta stay together!”

America – we MUST stay together.  We MUST unite or divided we will all fall.  The rest of the world is uniting against us. Wake up! Unite!!! Did you hear or read the news report on Thursday that Russia is helping to build a nuclear power station?!  Read the following articles for details:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101015/wl_nm/us_russia_venezuela_nuclear

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/10/15/russia.venezuela/

Most Americans want what’s good for America – we just have different ways we believe we should go about making America successful.  What we seem to forget is that there are more than one way to skin a cat, a deer or a gator.

If we continue to fight amongst ourselves as we are doing now, NONE of us will benefit.  Right now we are like a nation at a four way traffic intersection and we all moved at the same time. We are all in the middle of the intersection and no one wants to back up so we are all stuck. And everyone behind us is stuck and we’re backed up for miles without a solution in sight.

The top 10% of America has 90% of our wealth.  That 10% is receiving tax breaks from our government so that they will create good jobs in America and put us back to work.  But that’s not what they are doing.  They are taking the tax breaks and shipping tens of thousands of good paying jobs overseas.  This means that the top 10% are getting our tax monies from the government and they are getting more money by shipping our jobs abroad and saving millions. Why do the 10% wealthiest get to have their billion dollar cake and eat it too?  Why aren’t we screaming at them?

We have to look at who the real culprits are and rebel against THEM.  President Obama is giving these big businesses the tools they need to hire Americans.  These businesses have accepted the tools but they refuse to use it to help the middle class Americans they are suppose to help.  They are lining their pockets and sitting on their money eggs while we lose our jobs. 

America we have to unite against big business and we have to unite as a country before we drop from number one to number three or four.

We have to be smart citizen politicians.  We have to make decisions that help us; not the 10%.  We have to realize that the only way to rebuild America is for all of us to work together and get America out of the hole we’re in.  When we’re out of the hole we can debate our doctrines and personal preferences.

If we do not remain united, foreign powers will have a real opportunity to slip in and take bits and pieces of our country and businesses until they own America. Is that what we want to happen?

We can only point the fingers at ourselves if this great country collapses. 

This is not the time to snicker, bicker and point fingers.  Know is the time to set America right so we can continue to live in this great country as Americans and not become foreigners in our country.

So, what are you going to do?  Are you going to vote and unite America on November 2, 2010 and continue the work already started so we can all get jobs again?  Or are you going to vote to further divide the country and we will all fall?

United we stand. Divided we fall.

What are you going to do?

If America fails, which country do you want to rule America?  Which new language do you want to have to learn to speak?  Chinese, Russian, French?

United we stand. Divided we fall.

What are you going to do?

Peace, Love and Understanding!

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US Food Safety — Currently ONLY 5% Of Food Processing Plants & Warehouses Inspected!

The Republican Party is full of prophets. 

During his administration President George W. Bush thought that our financial institutions and corporations could and would adequately police themselves so he squashed or crippled agencies created to enforce governmental standards. Then Bush let the corporations redefine and rewrite the standards they should uphold and now it is almost impossible to prosecute these same corporations for breaking the laws because they wrote the laws and know how to get around the laws.  Now we find America in the midst of a preventable economic meltdown. 

When our country started to crumble because of lack of regulation and poor government management by the Republicans, the Republicans couldn’t see the forest from the trees and quickly and gleefully started chirping, tweeting and twittering that government does not work and government cannot do anything right – becoming self-fulfilling prophets.

By proclaiming that government does not work the Republicans were admitting loudly and publically that they believed themselves to be an across-the-board colossal failure, flop and a fiasco.

The United States is suppose to have one of the world’s safest food supplies, thanks in large part to an interlocking monitoring system that watches over our food production and distribution at every level — locally, statewide and nationally.

Continual monitoring is to be provided by food inspectors, microbiologists, epidemiologists, and other food scientists working for city and county health departments, state public health agencies, and various federal departments and agencies. Their precise duties are dictated by local, state and national laws, guidelines and other directives. Some monitor only one kind of food, such as milk or seafood. Others work strictly within a specified geographic area. Others are responsible for only one type of food establishment, such as restaurants or meat-packing plants. Together they make up the U.S. food safety team. The Clinton administration’s Food Safety Initiative which began in 1997 strengthened the efforts of all the members of the United State’s food safety team in the fight against food-borne illness, which badly affects between 6.5 million and 33 million Americans every year.

In 1988 a major initiative by the Department of Health and Human Services which includes FDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency signed a memorandum of understanding to create a Food Outbreak Response Coordinating Group, or FORC-G. This great initiative was taken apart piece by piece under the mismanagement and negligence of the George W. Bush administration and Americans found our self in the midst of crisis after crisis with new and emerging threats to the U.S. from China — from toys to pet food to baby formula.  We also learned that it wasn’t just Chinese food and drug imports that could kill us — many of those bargain priced products (baby furniture, baby clothes, toothpaste, etc.) you and I picked up at WalMart, Target or Sam’s Club could hurt us or cause serious accidents. It seems to me that George W. Bush was criminally negligent because he gave his unqualified buddies these very important government jobs.  He gave his cronies jobs to govern these life altering agencies that are vital to the well-being of every American and his incompetent friends screwed up royally.

During the George W administration we also learned that arsenic, a poison and a carcinogen (a substance that produces cancer) commonly found in groundwater, is strongly linked with the onset of diabetes in adults.  Arsenic increases the risk of bladder cancer, lung, kidney, skin, and possibly prostate cancer.

Dr. Navas-Acien and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found a “relatively strong” association between levels of arsenic commonly found in the urine of patients with type-2 diabetes in a study of adult Americans.

Navas said that there can be no safe level of arsenic.  20% of the nearly 800 participants in the John Hopkins study who had more arsenic in their bodies are 3.6 times more at risk of developing diabetes later in life than those in the 20% with the less amount of arsenic in their bodies.

Arsenic levels are 26% higher in people with diabetes or late development of type-2 diabetes than people without the disease the study found.

The U.S. government sets a limit of 10 micrograms of arsenic per liter (about the size of an individual bottle of spring water) in water Americans consume but that level is exceeded by about 13 million Americans plus arsenic accumulates in our bodies.  The accumulation of arsenic in our body ruins the body’s ability to use insulin and perform the vital task of converting blood sugar into energy.

President Obama is a thinking President who believes in social, economic and political reform that will make United States live up to its promises to the American people that are outlined in the Declaration of Independence and made legal in The Constitution of America.  The first sentence of our constitution states:

We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

President Obama is striving to fulfill the promises of our constitution and shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon and Republicans obviously can’t keep up with him.  If Republicans are unable to keep up with President Barack Obama then we as Americans who love our country should help Republicans find another line of work by voting them out of office in 2010. 

I am so pleased that Barack Obama is our President. For eight years we were paying taxes without any representation. Once again we have a President who is working for the people of America.

 

Don’t Make President Obama Angry — Meet The Rock Obama!!!

 

What’s President Obama like when he’s angry?  “Stronger and more impulsive,” according to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who guest-hosted Saturday Night Live and parodied the President.

The skit was pretty funny and had me fantasizing that our sophisticated and distinguished President would really throw some of the Republican idiots out the Oval Office’s window! 🙂

I think that both Fred Armisen’s and Andy Samberg’s portrayal of President Obama and Rahm Emanuel are weak.  Rahm is constantly fidgeting and restless – Samberg showed none of those tendancies.  I also believe that Armisen is morphing the Obama and Paterson voices.

Click the link below to watch the skit.

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/the-rock-obama/1056126/

Pictures – President Obama Goes To The Wizards v Bulls Basketball Game

 On Friday, February 27 President Obama and friend Marty Nesbitt watched the Washington Wizards play the Chicago Bulls at the Verizon Center in Washington.

Obama earned cool points for watching the game from a courtside seat rather than in a luxury box. The Wizards and Bulls took the court for the opening tip but were sent back to the bench because a large crowd of cameramen had spilled onto the court as they waited for the President to enter.  After a three-minute delay President Obama entered from a nearby tunnel to a thunderous standing ovation from the crowd of 18,114 and took his seat.  The Wizards and Bulls joined in the applause and Washington’s Nick Young and JaVale McGee stood on their seats to get a better look at number 44.

 He sat next to 5 year old DC native Nicholas Aiello. Obama and Aiello chatted several times during the game.

 Obama wore a black collarless shirt and a black sport coat and remained in his courtside seat until just before halftime and returned just after the start of the third quarter.

President Obama entertained his hometown Bulls at the White House on Thursday and received a Number 44 jersey from the team.

President Obama left with 4:26 to go in the 4^th quarter with the Wizards up 103-86. As he left the crowd gave him another standing ovation.

   

Entertainment: Wonderful Wednesdays At The White House

  Obama is proving that he can ‘walk and chew gum’ at the same time.  President Obama and his team are truly working hard and finding time for entertaining without compromising their work on behalf of the American people.  Balance – what a great thing to have in the White House.

The White House is the place to be on Wednesdays!

Since the presidency changed political hands less than six weeks ago, a burst of entertaining has taken hold of the iconic, white-columned home of America’s head of state. Much of it comes on Wednesdays.

The stately East Room, where portraits of George and Martha Washington adorn the walls, was transformed into a concert hall as President Barack Obama presented Stevie Wonder with the nation’s highest award for pop music on Wednesday.

A week before that, it was the foot-stomping sounds of Sweet Honey in the Rock, a female a cappella group, that filled the East Room for a Black History Month program that first lady Michelle Obama held for nearly 200 sixth- and seventh-graders from around the District of Columbia.

Cocktails were sipped during at least three such receptions to date, all held on Wednesdays.

Bookending the midweek activity were a Super Bowl watch party for select Democratic and Republican lawmakers and a dinner for governors, the new administration’s first black-tie affair. It was capped with a performance by the 1970’s pop group Earth, Wind & Fire, and a conga line.

The flurry of entertaining is in keeping with the promise by the Obamas to make the White House a more open place for everyone.

The governors’ dinner was “a great kickoff of what we hope will be an atmosphere here in the White House that is welcoming and that reminds everybody that this is the people’s house,” Obama told the state chief executives after they had dined on Maryland crab, Wagyu beef, Nantucket scallops and citrus salad.

“We are just temporary occupants. This is a place that belongs to the American people and we want to make sure that everybody understands it’s open,” he said.

At the dinner in the State Dining Room, the Obamas looked comfortable, chatting and smiling with their guests. Afterward, they escorted the governors down the hall to the East Room, which had been arranged with few tables and chairs to encourage dancing to “September,” “Boogie Wonderland” and other hits from a musical group Obama listened to growing up.

The conga line formed after the media were escorted out and, apparently, after Obama had called it a night.

“Thank you also for waiting until I had left before you started the conga line,” the president told the governors the next morning. “I hear it was quite a spectacle.”

Some Obama guests say he immediately puts them at ease. He indulges them and serves cookies, too.

“People like me felt comfortable in his presence,” said Rep. Mike Honda, D-Campbell, a self-described “poor country boy” who said he felt like a “freshman going to the senior prom” when he attended a White House reception for leaders of the congressional caucuses.

“Sometimes when you’re in the presence of the most powerful person in the world, in the most powerful democracy in the world … I was in awe that I was comfortable,” said Honda, chairman of the Asian Pacific American Caucus. “I think that’s his style and how he grew up, who he is.

“He’s down to earth and engaging,” Honda said.

Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., was among those invited for the Super Bowl. He said Obama, an avid sports fan, joined his guests for most of the game between the Arizona Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers.

“It wasn’t a circumstance where he came in and said ‘Hi’ and then left,” Franks said. “He actually stayed and watched the game.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn, said Obama was very cordial, and he and the first lady made everyone feel comfortable. The president talked to everyone before the game started, she said, including a 12-year-old boy who asked Obama where the bathroom was.

“My favorite part was when he personally served us cookies — oatmeal raisin — when we were watching the game,” she said.

The gathering over hot dogs and hamburgers was one of several get-to-know-the-members-of Congress events Obama held as he lobbied lawmakers to support the nearly $800 billion tax-and-spend economic package he recently signed into law. His efforts produced no Republican votes in the House and just three in the Senate, but Franks said he still appreciated the Democratic president’s efforts to reach out to the opposing party.

“I think the value of social interaction like this is not so much that it co-opts anyone in any way. It certainly didn’t in my case,” said Franks, who said he had a substantive conversation with Obama at the party, “I think it humanizes and personalizes opponents. We can diminish politics and try to work together for what’s right for the country.”

Obama played the role of “first fan” at the Wonder tribute, where he opened up about his and his wife’s common enjoyment of Wonder’s music.

“As Stevie knows, I’m a huge fan. And he has been a great supporter,” Obama said before presenting the award-winning, singer-songwriter with the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress.

He said Wonder’s songs “became the soundtrack of my youth” and that in them he “found peace and inspiration, especially in difficult times.”

Obama presented the medal to Wonder, and then wrapped the singer in a bear hug. As the media were led out of the room, Wonder struck up “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours,” which was a staple of Obama’s campaign rallies.

Original post at: http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_11796961

 

 

 

 

President Obama’s Diplomacy At Work

I am so impressed with the amount of work that’s being accomplished simultaneously for the American people by the Obama administration.  This team have only been office for 5 weeks and look at all they have accomplished – impressive!

President Obama’s management style and approach has already made a world of difference in the way America is viewed, feared and respected. 

Three years ago President George W. Bush could barely get the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan to be polite to each other. When Bush pressured Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Hamid Karzai of Afghan to pay a visit to the White House they came kicking and screaming and wouldn’t shake hands!

 Yesterday night it was very different story.  Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi of Pakistan and his Afghan counterpart, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, had a ‘nice’ dinner together and assured each other that they were committed to fighting extremists in both countries. The objective of the talks was to produce a new strategy for the region – the two Ministers camps in the same room talking about a common approach was definitely a step in the right direction.

In the same way the Bush administration spent three years urging the Egyptian government to free Ayman Nour, the country’s most prominent political dissident, to no avail. But last week, in a move that many interpreted as a goodwill gesture, the Egyptian government abruptly released Nour, citing “medical reasons.”

Likewise, two weeks ago, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia dismissed two powerful religious figures — including the head of the cane-wielding hard-core religious police known as the mutawa — as part of a government shuffle that appeared aimed at reforming the kingdom’s hard-line religious establishment.

While it might be a stretch to think that King Abdullah, who has been slowly inching toward modest reform, suddenly cast out the head of his religious police to suck up to the Obama administration, the new cooperation coming from the Egyptian, Afghan and Pakistani governments however is a clear-cut confirmation that these three governments want to work with President Obama.

“I think the Ayman Nour release is definitely connected to Obama,” said George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It was a fairly simple thing for the Obama administration to say to the Egyptians that if you want Mubarak to see our guy, this has to happen.”

As for “Afpak” — the new shorthand for Afghanistan/Pakistan being popularized by Richard Holbrooke, the new high-level American envoy for the two countries — Perkovich says that both governments are trying to put their best foot forward. They expect demands from the Obama administration for the Afghan government to do more to fight corruption and drug trafficking, which many in the West believe has helped to fuel the resurgent Taliban and for Pakistan to do more to crack down on extremists in the border region.

Holbrooke is a veteran diplomat known for dragging reluctant Serbs to the peace table during the Balkans conflict. Perkovich suggests that the prospect of being put under any kind of judicial scrutiny by President Obama may have scared the Afghan and Pakistani delegations into making nice. “Some of this is them saying, ‘O.K., these guys mean business, and Holbrooke is going to be coming out here every month, so let’s see if with little gestures we can turn down the pressure.’ “

The United States wants Pakistan to focus more on insurgents and a little less on its long-running fight with India, which Washington believes is occupying the Pakistani Army, whose time would be better spent — in America’s view — on Afpak, instead of what might be called Indiapak.

Pakistan‘s foreign minister said Wednesday that his country has asked the United States to provide unmanned aircraft that would allow Pakistan to strike extremists hiding in rugged terrain along the Afghan border.  Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in an interview that Pakistan, and not the United States, should have control of the missile strikes that have killed high-level extremists but also civilians.

The U.S. missile strikes are one of the most sensitive issues in U.S.-Pakistan ties. Qureshi said they are making it harder for his government to persuade infuriated Pakistanis along the frontier to support the fight against militants. “We feel that if the technology is transferred to Pakistan, Pakistan will be in a better position to determine how to use the technology and, without alienating people, achieve the objective,” Qureshi said.

“Pakistan is a willing partner with the U.S. in this fight,” he said. “Let us exercise that judgment.”  The Bush government, Qureshi said, “had a point of view, and it was like the approach was, ‘This is it; take it or leave it.'”

The Egyptians want the United States to do a little more to press Israel on settlements in the West Bank. And in Afghanistan, where the presidential election season will be getting under way soon, Karzai has been striking increasingly anti-American tones, in a move to distance himself from the United States at a time when America is viewed with increasing hostility in that country.

“At the end of the day, we have some very significant policy differences with all of these countries,” Pollack said.

 On Tuesday President Obama continued with his diplomacy push and met with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso. Obama told Aso that the United States wanted to strengthen ties with Japan, a country Obama described as the cornerstone of U.S. security policy in East Asia and a major economic partner. Aso, who is struggling to stay in power, was the first foreign leader to visit the Obama White House, and the president called the prestigious invitation “a testimony to the strong partnership between the United States and Japan.”

“The friendship between the United States and Japan is extraordinarily important to our country,” Obama told reporters. “We think that we have an opportunity to work together, not only on issues related to the Pacific Rim but throughout the world.”

The Japanese leader, sitting next to Obama in the Oval Office before their private meeting, said the world’s top two economies “will have to work together hand in hand” to solve the “very critical, vital issue of the world.”

First Dog Will Arrive In April And Might Be A Portuguese Water Dog

  It’s (almost) official: The Obamas are getting a rescued Portuguese water dog.  Or, rather, Michelle Obama told People magazine that the family was on the lookout for a dog who fit that description, was “old enough” and was a “match” for the family dynamic. 

The primary rationale behind the choice of a Portuguese water dog is, of course, its allergy-friendly coat (a trait also found in poodles, soft-coated wheaten terriers and other breeds).  The breed’s temperament and “middle of the road” size were also factors, according to Mrs. Obama, who added: “And the folks that we know who own them have raved about them.  So that’s where we’re leaning.” 

Our colleague Johanna Neuman at the Top of the Ticket blog explains that one of those “folks we know” Mrs. Obama references is another Washington mover-and-shaker:

The choice is also likely to delight Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, an early Obama supporter who has two Portuguese water dogs himself and has never been shy about lobbying for his causes.

(One of Kennedy’s dogs, Splash, is the narrator of his children’s book, “My Senator and Me: A Dog’s Eye View of Washington, D.C.“)

The timeline for the new addition?  Look for its arrival after spring break, says the first lady. 

From People:

Here’s a sample of a typical family conversation on the matter: “So Sasha says, ‘April 1st.’ I said, ‘April.’ She says, ‘April 1st.’ It’s, like, April!” Mrs. Obama recalls. “Got to do it after spring break. You can’t get a new dog and then go away for a week.”

The Obamas’ one dog-related sticking point, now that the breed is decided, is the new pet’s name, People reports:

“Oh, the names are really bad. I don’t even want to mention it, because there are names floating around and they’re bad,” Mrs. Obama says with a laugh. “You listen and you go -– like, I think, Frank was one of them. Frank! Moose was another one of them. Moose. I said, well, what if the dog isn’t a moose? Moose. I’m like, no, come on, let’s work with the names a little bit.”

The level of interest nationwide in the first family’s dog search has been surprising, Mrs. Obama told People.  But it’s “all great and gracious attention. People are just being as helpful as you can imagine.”  The interview will appear in the issue of People due on newsstands this Friday.

“The Portuguese water dog is a fun-loving dog with a lot of energy,” Michelle Barlak of the AKC told the Baltimore Sun. “It’s a great family dog, but they have to understand the dog will require quite a bit of exercise…. Two young girls who are very active are good companions for the dog.”

What do you think of the Obamas’ choice?  Will an energetic water retriever be a good match for the first family? 

 

Original article:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2009/02/obama-portugues.html