Will Smith says it here, but we’ve got the quote below.

WILL SMITH: You know I just, I just came back from Moscow, Berlin, London and Paris and it’s the first, I’ve been there quite a few times in the past five to 10 years. And it just hasn’t been a good thing to be American. And this is the first time, since Barack has gotten the nomination, that it, it was a good thing.

Granted, its clumsy, and CAN be interpreted as HE FEELS GOOD for the first time in 5-10 years…

But a closer look at the Movie Wunderkind’s statement, while promoting Hancock, notices all the ‘it’s…

Will noticed that receptions for him in Moscow, Berlin, London and Paris were WARM AND POSITIVE… because of THEIR infatuation with Obama, not Smith’s.

No BS here… watch Hancock, for fun.

Grumpy

Think about this story next time you are tempted to call someone who is pro-border enforcement “anti-immigrant:”

The feds returned to Fair Haven a year after rounding up immigrants for deportation — but this time to save undocumented Ecuadorians allegedly working in slave-like conditions at a well-known Italian bakery.

Rather than face deportation, the six Ecuadorians are being protected in hiding. They filed a lawsuit this month against the bakery’s owners.

The complaint centers around Rocco’s Bakery on Ferry Street (pictured), where the family of Ecuadorians was working. They claim the owners failed to pay them for forced overtime, kept them trapped in apartments above the bakery, regularly threatened them, and sexually harassed the women.

snip

The Ecuadorian family says Tony DiBenedetto beckoned them to the U.S. with the promise of labor, then kept them under a form of modern slavery, forcing them to work long hours below minimum wage and demanding sexual favors from the women in exchange for rent money. They workers say they kept quiet because they were told they would be fired, evicted and deported if they told anyone of their situation.

The suit was filed on behalf of Mercedes and her daughter, as well as Mercedes’ sister Maria, her husband Nestor and their two children [last names withheld]. The suit details deplorable working conditions behind the scenes at the prim pastry shop, famous for its cannoli and cakes. It describes conditions where women and children were trafficked to the U.S., forced to haul bags of flour during 12-hour days without bathroom breaks; conditions where women endured sexual harassment and assault while on the job — all under fear of punishment if they spoke up.

“Whatever we think about the issue of illegal immigration, we can all agree that no one should be forced to work in fear of physical harm or sexual assault or in fear that they will be punished if they complain about working conditions,” wrote Jennifer Mellon, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, in a press statement.

If these allegations are true, this highlights the other side of the illegal immigrant issue - U.S. immigration laws exist, not just to protect U.S. citizens and legal immigrants, but to protect illegal immigrants from such exploitation.

Mr Obama, Mr McCain and Mrs Clinton,

You may very well have read this before, but it is probably NOT in your current campaign material for reading or quoting in your speeches.

Gleaned from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, it contains some insights that may be pertinent to America’s situation at this time, as Lincoln was leading his nation in a time of war and facing the problems, foreign and domestic, which flowed from that war.

If one of you is elected to serve the American people as president, you will have the sacred duty of protecting America from enemies at home and abroad, as did Lincoln:

While the (first) inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation.

Today we find foreign agents, terrorist apologists, Marxists, conspiracy theorists and Global Warmers INSIDE America, ‘seeking to destroy it without war‘ or ‘divide effects by negotiation‘… You must be on guard against this and forthright in your determination to prevent this from happening.

Today we find America rent by an uncivil ‘civil’ war, where we live amongst each other and refrain from shooting, but seem so divided in our understanding of America that only one group is willing to protect and carry that Union forward, and the rest seem hell-bent on destroying America, as they convince themselves that America’s vibrant life-force is the CAUSE of pathologies, parasites and death.

Lincoln, too, faced this:

Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

While no one expects you to claim America has a manifest destiny to share democracy with the rest of the world, yet it becomes more evident daily that cruel injustice reigns in the tyrannical cess-pits of nations we ignore, unwilling to intervene to lift those downtrodden people to government of the people, by the people and for the people… the light of hope will NOT be quenched by America’s tolerance of despotism, but CAN be quenched by America’s adoption of appeasement, defeatism and ‘retreat’.

Yet, all too often in this electoral season, Americans are speaking publicly in apparent ignorance of Lincoln’s -and America’s!- understanding of the REALITY of the Civil War:

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether’.

Demagogues and race-hustlers around you are striving daily to redefine and belittle our American Civil War, pretending that 600,000 American dead and millions of maimed and wounded in the struggle to banish human enslavement, in all its forms, from American soil and the American heart was somehow NOT VALID, somehow NOT REALLY SINCERE…

And THIS, Dear Candidates, is one of the central issues you must courageously and unequivocally deal with, as supreme servant of the American public.

Yes, there are white supremacists yet in our midst, and black supremacists, pouring their hateful racist poison into the ears of all they can find to listen, ignorant of the Principle of the Oneness of Humankind, and spewing hatred even as a wright crafts a vessel… but vessels full of ignorance, ugliness and fear!

You, all of you separately and each of you publicly, must take a principled stand FOR America, trusting in the good that beats in the American heart, praising the ideals which unite America and, cognizant of areas of the American life which can improve or be developed, LEAD the way, legally and morally, within the framework of American unity of purpose and harmony of intent.

You can do this, with God’s help, so help me God.

Via the Brussels Journal we learn this about the UK:

White teenagers are significantly less likely to go to university than their peers from ethnic minority groups, even when they have the same qualifications at A level, research suggests.

The difference between races is most pronounced among men from deprived households and suggests the emergence of an underclass of white working-class men who risk being locked out of higher education and marginalised over jobs. (emphasis added)

The Brussels Journal also leads us to a report by Manchester University that contains some disturbing facts:

White working-class boys are under-performing badly but they do not get the grants immigrant groups receive…

The figures come as research by Manchester University confirms that poor white pupils are losing out in the battle for funding. The Manchester academics conducted a detailed case study in an unnamed, deprived inner city, which received a “disproportionate” level of funding to tackle inequality. Money was being targeted at pupils with English as an additional language, but “white learners from highly disadvantaged backgrounds were reportedly often overlooked”, they said…

Cameron Watt, deputy director of the Centre for Social Justice and a key figure involved in a report on the subject published recently by former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, said: “There’s a political lobby highlighting the issue of underachievement among black boys, and quite rightly so, but I don’t think there’s a single project specifically for white working-class boys. I don’t want to stir up racial hatred, but that is something that should be addressed.” (emphasis added)

Here’s an idea - how about restructuring the funding to address “underachievement” and leaving race out of it?

And the U.S. is willingly following in their footsteps…WHY?

Finally, someone grows a pair and smacks down the union mafia:

A labor-backed California law that barred companies from using funds from the state to campaign against union organizing drives violates federal labor law by limiting employers’ free expression, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday. [That's not quite what the law did - see the bold print in paragraph 5. -ed.]

The same federal law that protects workers’ right to join a union also favors “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open debate in labor disputes,” the court said in a 7-2 ruling.

Employers are entitled to speak against unionization as long as they don’t use threats or coercion, said Justice John Paul Stevens in the majority opinion. He also said employees have a right to receive information opposing unions.

Dissenting justices said the California law left employers free to use their own funds to oppose union organizing.

The state law, signed in 2000 by then-Gov. Gray Davis, was the first of its kind in the nation. It barred state contractors and other companies that receive at least $10,000 from the state in a year from using any of that money to support or oppose union organizing.

Or in other words, the law said that, if any company wanted to do business with the state, they had to bow down to the unions - amounting to government sponsorship of unions! What right does the government have to tell anyone, be it an individual or a business, how to spend their hard earned money? What right does the government have to keep strings attached to the money it pays for a job done?

Smacking down this law doesn’t level the playing field, but at least it ensures employers their First Amendment rights.

Bay Area priests began blessing the partnerships of gay and lesbian couples at least three decades ago, but often in clandestine gatherings.

Fearing rebuke, priests and parishioners sometimes hid from public view or church hierarchies. The early 1970s was a time when gays and lesbians feared losing their jobs or having their gatherings raided by police, even without the stickier issue of seeking sanction before God.

But the secret blessings became revolutionary acts, redefining the very notion of marriage and paving the way for what will take place across the state this week. When county clerks around the state issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, they will be capping a movement that was shaped by some of this region’s churches.

This post is not intended to ignite a debate over whether homosexuals SHOULD be able to marry either under the law or in faith services, but only to point out that Christians have actually helped lead the way in obtaining those rights for them - a point often overlooked (or supressed) as ALL Christians are painted as bigoted Bible-wavers in the debate. Personally, I think this oversight is as fatal to any real debate about homosexuals in America as is the overlooking of all the white people who helped free the slaves is to any real debate about race in America.

“Bigot” - I don’t think it means what you think it means…

“a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.”

Pledging to “take them on big-time,” Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, sharply criticized the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency Friday and declared she would push for measures to reduce the fear she said agents have caused East Bay immigrant families.

The Oakland Democrat told a packed North Oakland church that she wants to “ensure that ICE is following the rules and that those rules are well-known and publicized — especially when it comes to actions at schools, hospitals, religious centers and other critical community institutions.”

Her comments followed a furor in Oakland and Berkeley last month when federal operations to arrest illegal immigrants, which ICE says were routine, caused panic because agents were seen in the vicinity of public schools.

But was ICE to blame for the panic?

Berkeley High senior Chase Stern said he was taking an Advanced Placement test May 6, when he noticed that his classmates were fidgeting in their seats and seemed distracted.

He soon found out that the Latino students were receiving text messages and phone calls from family members, warning them that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were nearby, and that they should be cautious and find their way home because family members could not pick them up.

Scores of undocumented parents began to panic as early as 7:30 a.m. May 6, as word got around that ICE vehicles were parked near schools in East Oakland and South Berkeley.

ICE agents “seen in the vicinity” caused people admittedly breaking the law to panic, and they themselves spread the disinformation.

And who was it that ICE was after?

ICE fugitive operations teams arrested four adults from a residence in Berkeley and one adult from a business in Oakland on May 6…The fugitive operations teams were looking for specific individuals who were named in administrative warrants, she said.

ICE’s Fugitive Operations Teams are tasked with identifying and arresting foreign nationals who have ignored final orders of deportation or have returned to the United States illegally after being removed. The teams prioritize cases involving immigration violators who pose a threat to national security and community safety. These include child sex offenders, suspected gang members, and those who have convictions for violent crimes.

It should be noted that we found no reports that the individuals arrested in Oakland and Berkeley on May 6 were violent offenders. However, given that ICE is tasked with arresting immigration violators who pose a threat to the community, why would Lee choose to risk the safety of immigrant children just to avoid causing them fear - fear caused, not by the ICE agents doing their jobs, but by paranoid immigrants?

It should also be noted that the “well-known rules” Rep. Lee claims ICE is violating may not exist:

What remains unclear is whether ICE has the sort of rules about sensitive locations that Lee said she wants to make sure are followed.

ICE’s predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, had a written policy expressly stating that the service “attempt to avoid apprehension of persons and to tightly control investigative operations on the premises of schools, places of worship, funerals and other religious ceremonies,” according to copies of agency memorandums from the 1990s.

But Kice said that past policies were not necessarily transferred to ICE when it formed under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.

I spent a couple of hours trying to verify the rules in this regard pertaining to ICE raids, but was unable to confirm or deny their existence.

I call BS on Rep. Lee’s unfounded claims of broken rules and her attempts to obstruct federal agents from doing their lawful work! Congresspeople have a duty to verify the facts and not make unfounded accusations! I challenge Rep. Lee or any of her supporters to specify any rules or laws that ICE broke in this matter!