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POPSAre Aliens from other worlds here? Some part of this are interesting. In particular listen to Ronald Regan's speech to UN and what he says. It is somewhere around 22 minutes. Makes one think and also wish that an Alien race would land here and maybe help bring a stop to all the fighting on earth!
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POPSAn 82-year-old's perspective on the debates She says: "It’s OK. We’ve been part of the greatest generation. We had our turn. Now we get to sit back and enjoy our pie while someone else worries about the calories. The new guy has the energy and the new ideas. Senator Obama, I hope you’re up for the challenge."
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POPSConservatives Are Such Jokers "Most conservatives are more careful than Mr. Kristol. They try to preserve the appearance that they really do care about those less fortunate than themselves. But the truth is that they aren’t bothered by the fact that almost nine million children in America lack health insurance. They don’t think it’s a problem."
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POPSUS No.1 BoogieMan? A bantam Cock? Worth WAR?
"The right has decided it is at war with Iran, so a routine visit by Iran's ceremonial president to the UN GA has generated sparks. The foremost cheerleader for such a view in Congress is Sen Lieberman, who recently pressed Gen. Petraeus on the desirability of bombing Iran in order to forestall weapons smuggling into Iraq from that country. American hawks are beating the war drums loudly because they are increasingly frustrated with the course of events. They are unsatisfied with the lack of enthusiasm among the EU and UN for impeding Tehran's nuclear energy research program. While the Bush administration insists that the program aims at producing a bomb, the Iranian state maintains that it is for peaceful energy purposes. It wants tighter sanctions on Iran at the UN but is unlikely to get them in the short term because of Russian and Chinese reluctance. They may attempt to create a "coalition of the willing" of Iran boycotters outside the UN framework."
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POPSRepublicans say impeach Can't wait to see how Hannity et al tries to swift-boat this Reagan conservative. I'm seein' a Coulter/Malkin snake attack on Fox Noise any day now.
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POPSSilence That Man! He's Telling The Truth!!! "I would ask the congressman to ... tell us what he meant," said Rudy. A fair question and a crucial question. When Ron Paul said the 9-11 killers were "over here because we are over there," he was not excusing the mass murderers of 3,000 Americans. He was explaining the roots of hatred out of which the suicide-killers came. Lest we forget, Osama bin Laden was among the mujahideen whom we, in the Reagan decade, were aiding when they were fighting to expel the Red Army from Afghanistan. We sent them Stinger missiles, Spanish mortars, sniper rifles. And they helped drive the Russians out. Osama bin Laden in his declaration of war in the 1990s said it was U.S. troops on the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia, U.S. bombing and sanctions of a crushed Iraqi people, and U.S. support of Israel's persecution of the Palestinians that were the reasons he and his mujahideen were declaring war on us. (from article)
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POPSBush: Biggest Spender Ever !!! Worst EVER !!! Top WASTER Defence Under Bush it's grown on average by 5.7% a year. Under LBJ it rose by 4.9% a year. Both numbers are adjusted for inflation. "Including costs for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, defence spending under Bush has gone up 86% since 2001" Chris Hellman of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Current annual defense spending — not counting war costs — is 25% above the height of the Reagan-era buildup, he said Homeland Insecurity Spending also has soared, to about $31 billion last year, triple the pre-9/11 number. Bush's super-spending is about far more than defence and homeland security. The 2002 farm bill, 2003 Medicare, 2005 highway bill and education.
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POPSUS Intel: Iranian nuclear strike on U.S. ?
“The only explanation we can find is that Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it,” “And that’s exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3, and you wanted to explode it over the US.” "If a crude nuclear weapon were detonated anywhere between 40 kilometers to 400 kilometers above the earth, in a split-second it would generate an electro-magnetic pulse that would cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation, water, food, and other infrastructure" Asked how many Americans would die if Iran were to launch the EMP attack it appears to be preparing, Graham gave a chilling reply. “You have to go back into the 1800s to look at the size of population” that could survive in a nation deprived of mechanized agriculture, transportation, power, water, and communication. “70 to 90 percent of the population would not be sustainable after this kind of attack”.
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POPSJudging Candidates by Their Logos Let’s talk campaign logos, shall we? Tiny, simple and usually ignored, these logos contain the very essence of the candidates, distilled into their purest form. In these logos we view their souls. Overwrought? yes; but they are still our subject, mainly because it’ll be fast and easy to do. So! Onward and upwards!
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POPSGlad I'm Not Republican In a mere 6 yrs. (although it no doubt started earlier) the Repubs have been co-opted by the neo-con warmongering corporatists...it's a shameful chapter in Amurrikan politics.
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POPSObama's Minister Committed "Treason" But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero My dad's books denouncing America and comparing the USA to Hitler are still best sellers in the "respectable" evangelical community and he's still hailed as a prophet by many Republican leaders. When Mike Huckabee was recently asked by Katie Couric to name one book he'd take with him to a desert island, besides the Bible, he named Dad's Whatever Happened to the Human Race? a book where Dad also compared America to Hitler's Germany. We Republican agitators of the mid 1970s to the late 1980s were genuinely anti-American in the same spirit that later Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (both followers of my father) were anti-American when they said God had removed his blessing from America on 9/11, because America accepted gays. Falwell and Robertson recanted but we never did.
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POPSPeggy Noonan on Obama: "bulletproof" Reagan's speechwriter points out that Obama's charisma and personality will make negative campaigning and dirty tricks by Republicans look even lower than they are. Clinton will be "easier for Republicans" to go after in the nastiest way possible.
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POPSAnd the rich get richer.... Irksome.... One of these days "We the People" might get pissed at the system we've allowed our representatives to create and vote to bring a little equality back to the country... Ironically, Gates and Buffett would probably support it....
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POPSFinancial crisis the result of Reaganomics A brief history of economic policies since the New Deal, and why we've had crises like this ever since Reagan. "Obama is correct that the best opportunity for making the economy work for all Americas is to fire those who made up the current rules of the game."
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POPSOld Man Yells at Clouds - Again In a performance reminiscent of Ronald Reagan in his later years as Alzheimer's was taking hold, McCain appears to confuse Spain and Mexico. Or maybe it's just the case of his talking points getting garbled.
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POPSMerle Haggard has left the Republican Party - Sorry n2
More: The thing that gets under my skin most about George W. is his intention to install fear in people," he said, after walking me down a hallway lined with gold and platinum records "This is America. We're proud. We're not afraid of a bunch of terrorists. W is all about terror alerts and scaring us at airports. We're changing the Constitution out of fear. We spend all our time looking up each other's dresses. Haggard sensed reluctance among the Hillarians to embrace his endorsement—in part, I imagine, because he's not shy about saying that one of the biggest things Hillary has going for her is Bill, who ranks up with Reagan in the Haggard pantheon and not only because the former President used to have a pickup truck with Astroturf in the back. "He cared about this country, about our problems," Haggard said, with a twinkle. "And I figure that whatever she doesn't know, he does." When Al Gore wins the Nobel and Merle Haggard leaves the party, it's a bad day for Republicans.
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POPSUS Presidents subverting US Laws isn't unique to Bush
NED was created in 1983, ostensibly as a non-profit-making organisation to promote human rights and democracy. In 1991 its first president, the historian Allen Weinstein, confessed to The Washington Post: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA" The funded organisations sometimes managed to weaken and even eliminate opposition to friendly governments, while creating a climate favourable to US interests. Although legally an NGO, the NED was funded from the State Department budget, subject to congressional approval. As well as allowing the government to disclaim any formal responsibility, this offered a further strategic advantage. As former State Department official William Blum said: "Notice the non-governmental - this helps to maintain a certain credibility abroad that an official US government agency might not have." NED's talent for channelling money, establishing NGOs, electoral manipulation and media brainwashing was due to the CIA, the State
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POPSPAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Calls for Impeachment Further crumbling of the conservative base. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Sec. of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan. A former WSJ editor and columnist; Business Week and Investor's Business Daily columnist, he is highly regarded internationally in both political and economic circles.
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POPSThe last 26 years in 4 sentences. At first I thought it was overly simplistic, but for a sweeping overview, it's kind of frighteningly on the mark. Longish article by Salon ed-in-chief Joan Walsh reviewing Matt Bai's new book (about how the Democratic Party went to hell in a handbasket during the Bush years). Lots of interesting ideas; well worth a read.