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POPSThe Democrats' Fairy Tale
And the improvements in Anbar could never have been sustained without aggressive American military efforts — efforts that were more effective in 2007 than they had been in 2006, due in part to the addition of the surge forces. Last year’s success, in Anbar and elsewhere, was made possible by confidence among Iraqis that U.S. troops would stay and help protect them, that the U.S. would not abandon them to their enemies. Because the U.S. sent more troops instead of withdrawing — because, in other words, President Bush won his battles in 2007 with the Democratic Congress — we have been able to turn around the situation in Iraq. And now Iraq’s Parliament has passed a de-Baathification law — one of the so-called benchmarks Congress established for political reconciliation. For much of 2007, Democrats were able to deprecate the military progress and political reconciliation taking place on the ground by harping on the failure of the Iraqi government to pass the benchmark legislation
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POPSObama Now Supports The Bush Policy?...And How 'Bout The Worshipping Media The press isn’t just acting like Obama is already president - they’re exceeding the sort of international coverage they have given the sitting president, who could barely buy a headline while in Africa and whose recent trip to Japan - which occurred during his birthday - went widely unnoted. But that’s the honest, balanced, unbiased mediating intelligence” of the modern day mainstream media. You do realize, don’t you, that if a GOP candidate with weak foreign policy was doing the same thing - making a “world tour” with dramatic backdrops - the press would be sneering about how the whole thing is a “stunt” meant to “deflect his inexperience.” I know you know it, but I had to say it, anyway. But hey, no bias here.
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POPSEmail Congress: Help Us Lower Energy Prices! Some in Congress are offering a nonsensical energy policy that would do nothing to bring down the price of fuel. This week Congress will be taking up an anti-energy package that would actually do more to increase the price of gas by imposing restrictions on leases held by energy companies as well as on Alaskan oil exportation. This legislative package misses the mark for providing our country with real energy security and its misguided policy actually does more harm than good.
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POPSBravo For Bush And Bravo For The Traders Well, if Congress moves to seal the deal, oil prices will probably keep on falling. That’s the way traders work. They discount the future. Psychology and expectations can turn on a dime. The congressional ban on offshore drilling expires September 30, so that becomes a key date. A new report from Wall Street research house Sanford C. Bernstein says that California actually could start producing new oil within one year if the moratorium were lifted. The California oil is under shallow water and already has been explored. Drilling platforms have been in place since before the moratorium. They’re talking about 10 billion barrels worth off the coast of California. There’s also a “gang of 10” in the Senate, five Republicans and five Democrats, that is trying to work a compromise deal on lifting the moratorium. So it’s possible a lot of action on this front could occur much sooner than people seem to think. Deregulate, decontrol, and unleash the American energy industry.
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POPSFeckless To Reckless, Pelosi Should Resign But she's not fooling anyone. In playing politics with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the speaker has moved beyond the incompetence and irresponsibility that have characterized her leadership to date. President Bush, however, isn't about to be suckered into releasing the reserves just long enough for pump prices to fall by Election Day, thereby saving Democrats' skins so they can carry on their drill-nothingism for an additional two years. The president needs to do two things with Pelosi's proposal: First, tell her "no," unless she comes up with a plan to open up more drilling. Second, expose it for what it is — a bid to paint Bush as the problem to distract from her own sorry record. borders on recklessness, something we cannot tolerate in such dangerous times.
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POPSTony Snow, Dies at 53 Robert Anthony Snow was born June 1, 1955, in Berea, Ky., the son of a teacher and nurse. He graduated from Davidson College in 1977 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy, and he taught briefly in Kenya before embarking on his career as a journalist. He became a nationally syndicated columnist, and in 1991 he became director of speechwriting for President George H.W. Bush. Snow had his colon removed and underwent six months of chemotherapy after he was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2005. In 2007, he announced that his cancer had recurred and had spread to his liver. He resigned from the White House weeks later and was replaced by his deputy, Dana Perino. After taking time off to recuperate, Snow joined CNN as a conservative political correspondent early this year. Snow is survived by his wife, Jill, their son Robbie and their daughters Kendell and Christie.
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POPSReid: Spending Bills Will Likely Wait Until Bush Is Gone Reid’s statement, while not unexpected, adds a note of finality to speculation that the Senate would act on the 12 annual appropriation bills. He also said that he doesn’t expect Congress to return for a post-election, lame-duck session. Under that scenario, Congress would only be in session for another six weeks this year.
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POPSInternal World Bank Study: Biofuel Caused Food Crisis The news comes at a critical point in the world's negotiations on biofuels policy. Leaders of the G8 industrialised countries meet next week in Hokkaido, Japan, where they will discuss the food crisis and come under intense lobbying from campaigners calling for a moratorium on the use of plant-derived fuels. It will also put pressure on the British government, which is due to release its own report on the impact of biofuels, the Gallagher Report. The Guardian has previously reported that the British study will state that plant fuels have played a "significant" part in pushing up food prices to record levels. Although it was expected last week, the report has still not been released. The leaked World Bank study disputes that: "Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases."
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POPSA Clear Majority Of Americans Want To Drill Here Al Gore, philanthropist, Climate activist, and winner of the Nobel Peace prize, is the single greatest advocate in the war against humanity. Millions of innocent lives, people whose only crime is being poor. We need to protect not only others wellbeing, but our own freedoms, our own rights. We need to defend ourselves from Eco-Terrorist ideas, perpetuated by cheap theatrics and scaremongering. We need to defend ourselves against Eco Evangelist Al Gore. Energy Independence: President Bush asks Congress to lift the 1981 drilling ban on offshore oil. The no-drill Democrats will call it flip-flopping. We call it change you can believe in. The Democratic response to Republican determination to end our dependence on foreign oil has been to call for more taxes on oil companies and to pressure, even sue, OPEC. A group of 10 Democratic senators on Tuesday called for Bush to file a complaint against OPEC. http://www.smartgreenusa.com/
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POPSBush Calls Out the Dems Next was ANWR, which can be exploited with "virtually no impact on the land or local wildlife." Finally, refining capacity: It has been 30 years since a new refinery was built in our Nation, and lawsuits and red tape have made it extremely costly to expand or modify existing refineries. The result is that America now imports millions of barrels of fully refined gasoline from abroad. This imposes needless costs on American families and drivers. It deprives American workers of good jobs. Finally, Bush laid the problem once again at the Dems' door: I know Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past. Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I ask them to reconsider their positions. If congressional leaders leave for the Fourth of July recess without taking action, they will need to explain why $4-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act. Excellent stuff. We need to do this every single day.
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POPSUS Diplomacy On Iran Amid Reported Israeli Attack Exercise "I can certainly understand that, given the fact that the president of Iran has talked about wiping Israel off the map," he said. "So Israel does see Iran as an existential threat. But again, I am going to have to kick any questions about what was intended by this exercise, what its purpose was, what they hoped to accomplish, to the Israeli government. They're the competent officials to talk about those issues." Israel staged a long-range air strike to destroy an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1980, and last September it bombed a facility in northern Syria said by some analysts to have been a reactor being built with North Korean help. Iran insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, but Israel and key Bush administration officials, among others, believe it is seeking a weapons capability.
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POPS President Bush Discusses Energy The problem is that Congress has restricted access to key parts of the OCS since the early 1980s. Since then, advances in technology have made it possible to conduct oil exploration in the OCS that is out of sight, protects coral reefs and habitats, and protects against oil spills. With these advances -- and a dramatic increase in oil prices -- congressional restrictions on OCS exploration have become outdated and counterproductive. Republicans in Congress have proposed I call on the House and the Senate to pass good legislation as soon as possible. This legislation should give the states the option of opening up OCS resources off their shores, provide a way for the federal government and states to share new leasing revenues, and ensure that our environment is protected. There's also an executive prohibition on exploration in the OCS. When Congress lifts the legislative ban, I will lift the executive prohibition.
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POPSBush To Press Congress On Offshore Oil Drilling Bush also will reiterate his call for development of oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, Perino said. McCain has opposed drilling in the refuge, maintaining that the pristine areas in northeastern Alaska should be protected from energy development. On Monday, McCain made lifting the federal ban on offshore oil and gas development a key part of his energy plan. The Arizona senator said states should be allowed to pursue energy exploration in waters near their coasts and receive some of the royalty revenue. Bush has made clear in recent weeks that the drilling moratorium in coastal waters should end to allow for more domestic oil production and help "take the pressure off the price of gasoline." Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for president, opposes lifting the ban on offshore drilling and says that allowing exploration now wouldn't affect gasoline prices for at least five years.
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POPSSaudis Pushing U.N. Démarche Against Israel The dispute over oil appears to be part of a larger rift between the two countries, with a London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi reporting recently that relations have reached their lowest point in years. The Saudis seek strong American backing against Iran," Mr. Gold, a former Israeli U.N. ambassador who has written extensively on the kingdom, said. "They don't want to hear from Condi Rice about diplomatic progress between Abbas and Israel. They want to know what America is doing about Iran." The Saudis, he said, base their policies on their strong alliance with America — or on Arab consensus. When the Israeli government earlier this month announced that it was planning to build nearly 900 new housing units in Jerusalem, ecretary-General Ban issued a strong statement: Israel's "continued construction in settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory" violates international law and Israel's obligations under the road map and the Annapolis process.
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POPSWhat Phase Two Senate Intelligence Report Says About Saddam's Hospitality Postwar information supports prewar assessments and statements that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad and that al Qaeda was present in northern Iraq. But now, even in a partisan report designed to attack the Bush administration's credibility, the Senate Intelligence Committee has admitted that Bush and his officials were right to argue that Saddam was harboring al Qaeda fugitives. Both prewar and postwar intelligence assessments confirm their view. And while the Senate Intelligence Committee got this issue right, it got many others wrong. The report is not even internally consistent and the committee simply ignored numerous pieces of information that got in the way of some of its conclusions. Iraq and al Qaeda did not have a cooperative relationship. ommittee ignored the best evidence-Iraqi intelligence documents discovered in postwar Iraq.
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POPS Change "He Should Believe In" He would become a responsible voice within his party by challenging his constituents to embrace progress in Iraq. Using his considerable influence to rein in the reflexive and poisonous antiwar rhetoric that has become the Democratic party’s standard rallying cry against Republicans, he would seek to alleviate the bitter divisions that plague our country. Unfortunately, Sen. Obama has not been that kind of candidate. Instead, he has chosen the far easier path of exploiting the existing currents of public opinion for political gain. In his speeches, he downplays the gains achieved through the surge and dismisses as “spin” all evidence of progress, all the while repeating his call for a withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops within sixteen months of becoming president, no matter the conditions on the ground. Even worse, Sen. Obama’s rhetoric on the Iraq war is beginning to jeopardize his stated goal of repairing alliances that he claims are in tatters.
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POPS The Party of Defeat: Unfit To Lead into supporting the war is itself the biggest lie of the war. The Democrats changed their views on the war for one reason and one reason alone: In June 2003, a far-left Democrat named Howard Dean was poised to win the Democratic Party presidential nomination by running on the claim that America was the bad guy in the war in Iraq, and he would get us out. That’s why in February 2002, a year before the war in Iraq, Al Gore was saying that “Iraq is a virulent threat in a class by itself” and that President Bush should “push the limit” to do what was necessary to deal with Saddam Hussein. But the most self-serving and deceptive of the lies told by the Democratic leadership is this: you can support the troops and not support the war. No you can’t. Such a party is unfit to lead this nation in war. To place it in a position to do so would be to invite a tragedy of epic proportions.
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POPSMcClellan On Valerie Plame On page 173 McClellan first mentions my Plame leak, but he does not identify Armitage as the leaker until page 306 of the 323-page book, then only in passing. Armitage, anti-war and anti-Cheney, cannot fit the conspiracy theory When Armitage after two years publicly admitted he was my source, the life went out of Wilson's campaign. In "What Happened," McClellan dwells on Rove's alleged deceptions as if the real leaker were still unknown McClellan writes that Rove told him this about his conversation with me after I called him to check Armitage's leak: "He (Novak) said he'd heard that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. I told him I couldn't confirm it because I didn't know." Rove told me last week he never said that to McClellan. McClellan writes, "I don't know" whether the leaker -- he does not specify Armitage -- committed a felony. Fitzgerald's long, investigation found no violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, if only because Plame was not covered.
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POPSThe Network Behind The Bush-Bashing Book “after Bernardine’s return from Cuba,” where she had “a warm meeting with members of the Viet Cong.” That was before she and Ayers finished their bombing campaign, which included a blast that killed a San Francisco policeman, and helped launch Barack Obama’s political career. Osnos is the key to understanding the network that is working behind-the-scenes. A former national news editor of the Post, Osnos was an assistant to I.F. Stone in the 1960s. Stone was exposed as a Soviet agent in the transcripts of Soviet messages known as the Venona intercepts and by other sources. Former Soviet KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin had identified Stone as a Soviet agent, but under pressure from the media later backed away from that precise description. However, in his book, The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West, Kalugin still identified Stone as a “fellow traveler” of the Soviet Union who “made no secret of his admiration for the Soviet system”
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POPS The Nut Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree which he claimed called in an outstanding loan he had with the bank in an effort to bankrupt his law practice. In 2003, long after the deaths of Johnson, Clark and the rest of the gang, McClellan wrote a book, "Blood Money & Power", in which he lays out a conspiracy theory of how Johnson and Clark had President John F. Kennedy assassinated as well as other people who got in their way. A number of the Texas oilmen alleged to have had a role in the Kennedy assassination were big supporters of the Bushes in Texas politics. Aside from his family problems, he performed the job as ineptly as any White House press secretary I can recall. The Bushies now claim McClellan was fired from his job, but Bush kept the incompetent press secretary on for nearly three years before unloading him. It looks like he's determined to become for Bush what Dick Morris has become for the Clintons.
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POPSCongress Shows How Clueless It Is, Once Again [continued[ or offshore, where another 30 billion await. If you think Congress' decision-making on energy couldn't get any worse, think again. While Bush was in Riyadh urging the Saudis to pump more oil, congressional Democrats were busy undercutting him, threatening to halt arms sales to our Mideast ally. If we don't sell arms to Saudi Arabia, Russia will. The result would be a loss of American leverage with the Saudis, who, like many, feel threatened by a nuclear Iran and the menace of al-Qaida. At least Bush convinced the Saudis to boost output 300,000 barrels a day. That helps. But we still have to do more ourselves. The U.S. uses about 21 million barrels of oil a day. But only 8 million come from our own sources. That leaves a 13-million-barrel-a-day deficit that, at $126 a barrel, will cost us $600 billion to plug this year. That's more than two-thirds of our total trade deficit.
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POPSWar Funding Bill Jettisons Immigrant Labor Work Permits The bill before the Senate would add more than $28 billion to Bush's budget request for this year and next, with almost $50 billion more after those two years for a big expansion of veterans benefits under the GI Bill from 2010-2018. Reid faces enormous procedural headaches in getting the war funding bill - and its various add-ons - passed this week. Democrats have divided the war funding bill into two components: non-war add-ons and Iraq funding-policy restrictions. Reid has signaled he wants the non-war extras to get a vote before the war funding itself, but it's a high-wire strategy. The new GI Bill and Democratic priorities like extending unemployment benefits are among the big-ticket add-ons, both of which have drawn veto threats. There's also $50 million to track down child predators, $400 million to help rural schools and $350 million to fight Western wildfires, just for starters.
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POPSObama Owns Appeasement Update: Newt Gingrich calls this a study in guilt: Instead, he got volcanically defensive, which suggests that even Obama sees the parallels between his everything’s-on-the-table approach and the Chamberlain diplomacy which resulted in dismantling Czechoslovakia. And if Obama considers discussion of foreign policy “divisive”, then he should hide himself right back to Academia. Guess what, Senator? Presidential elections focus on foreign-policy principles, and if you can’t defend yours, then you have no business running for office.
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POPSBattle Of the Proxy Incumbents Fiction can be fun! Ultimately though, this fanciful bit of twaddle is unlikely to stick, what with McCain's voting record so thoroughly refuting it. And in a lot of ways, that's too bad. If only we could look back at McCain's votes and comments on the wildly effective investment income tax cuts and find a man who embraced pro-growth fiscal policy as eagerly as Bush, we might be better assured of the continuity of certain beneficial policies that Obama so laments.
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POPSOil Prices Require More Than Congressional Accusations He was correct to remind Americans that if we want to lower the cost of energy we must be willing to use our own resources, whether they are natural or those we can build, rather than rely upon others to provide for our needs. After all, isn’t self-reliance part of the American spirit. We should not recontributely on foreign governments, many of which are volatile, to supply our energy needs, nor should our large farmers rely on Federal Government handouts to prop up their financially lucrative businesses. President Bush was correct to note that Congressional support for farm subsidies will do little other than contribute to the rising prices of food. He was correct to remind Americans that if we want to lower the cost of energy we must be willing to use our own resources, whether they are natural or those we can build, rather than rely upon others to provide for our needs.
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POPSOil-Rich States Starve the World Food Program The OPEC total amounts to roughly one minute and 10 seconds worth of the organization’s estimated $674 billion in annual oil revenues in 2007 — revenues that will be vastly exceeded in 2008 with the continuing spiral in world oil prices. This year, the U.S. had contributed $362.7 million to WFP just through May 4, according to the website. That figure does not include another $250 million above the planned yearly contribution that was promised by President George W. Bush in the wake of WFP’s April warning that a “silent tsunami” of rising food costs would add dramatically to the world population living in hunger. Nor does it include another $770 million in food aid that President Bush has asked Congress to provide as soon as possible. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, with oil revenues last year of $164 billion, does not even appear on the website donor list for 2008.
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POPS15,000 Dead, 30,000 Missing After Catastrophic Myanmar Cyclone "The combination of the cyclone and the referendum within a few days of each other makes an angry population angrier and vulnerable and makes the political situation more volatile" than it has been since last year's massive pro-democracy demonstrations, said Monique Skidmore, a Myanmar expert at Australian National University. At least 31 people were killed and thousands more were detained when the military cracked down on peaceful protests in September led by Buddhist monks and democracy advocates.
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POPSThe Axis of Evil: An Idiot's Guide: David Frum Joseph Cirincione, the man most widely identified as Obama's top nuclear-affairs adviser, last September pooh-poohed as "far-right" "nonsense" the early rumors that the Syrian nuclear facility was indeed a nuclear facility. Cirincione wrote on the Foreign Policy blog: "This appears to be the work of a small group of officials leaking cherry-picked, unvetted 'intelligence' to key reporters in order to promote a pre-existing political agenda. If this sounds like the run-up to the war in Iraq, it should. This time it appears aimed at derailing the U.S.-North Korean agreement that administration hardliners think is appeasement. Some Israelis want to thwart any dialogue between the U.S. and Syria." Cirincione seems to have been so determined to avert what he regarded as the threat of U.S. over-reaction--so eager to promote dialogue with Syria--that he blinded himself to the reality of a nuclear threat.
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POPSLadies and Gentlemen! Comrades! In the absence of classical Marxist preconditions for the Revolution - global crisis of capitalism combined with massive poverty and despair - Global Warming stands out as the most convenient, non-denominational replacement thereof. It provides both the means to manipulate the masses - and a moral justification for doing so. As such it replaces the previously promising but failed agitprop tools as "Overpopulation," "Ozone Holes," "Global Famine," and "Ice Age 2." Until the time when it gets replaced by another convenient agitprop tool, Global Warming must remain an unquestionable dogma in all political discussions (you shall be notified of changes, if any, by the NPR, the New York Times, and other progressive media organs.) The importance of Global Warming for the Revolution is too great to leave it in the hands of scientists. The masses must have faith in Global Warming whether it can be proven or not. http://www.thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=1096
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POPSPelosi To President Bush On Gas Prices Your support is the more critical as your Administration has failed to persuade OPEC to increase their oil production, despite your influence with OPEC nations. The New Direction Congress is providing forward-looking leadership that will fuel America’s energy future, save Americans’ money, create good jobs, improve our national security, and preserve our planet for our children. This critical issue needs Presidential leadership and I urge you to please join us to address the skyrocketing price at the pump. best regards, NANCY PELOSI House GOP challenges Pelosi for gas price plan House Republican leaders on Tuesday challenged Nancy Pelosi to release a plan to lower gas prices that they say Democrats touted when they were in the minority. (Press release dated April 24, 2006, Pelosi said, “Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices.....) http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/house-gop-challenges-pelosi-for-gas-price-plan-2008-04-22.html
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POPSThe ‘Useful Idiots’ Of Militant Islam Saudi-funded publications admonish Muslims in America “to dissociate from infidels, hate them for their religion, never to rely on them for support, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.” The question: how was it that among the estimated five million Muslim Americans with hugely varied institutions, the president’s advisors picked a Saudi Islamofascist ghetto as a venue? A major New York Times Magazine article argued fervently on behalf of “Islamic democrats” singing the praises of a reborn Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. An essay in Foreign Affairs, a weighty establishment publication titled “The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood.” Mild Islamism is an oxymoron. Sharia law, which sanctions beating of wives and stoning for adultery, is irreconcilable with human rights. The Muslim Brotherhood founded Hamas, calls suicide bombings a good thing, and is the 21st-century version of the organized fascism of Hitler and Mussolini in the last century.
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POPSBush Raises Temp On Global Warming Granted, President Bush doesn't intend for his simple decision to offer legislation to regulate carbon emissions to have such catastrophic consequences. But then, by this point, he should be quite familiar with the concept of unintended consequences. And he needs to recognize that he cannot pass "sensible" legislation. (I have serious doubts that any legislation on this topic could be sensible.) All he can do is set the stage for next year's legislation by giving away the rhetorical store and weakening the already modest backbone of Republican legislators. The liberal world order will not let go of their global warming assault on free economies until hell freezes over -- by which point, obviously, the global warming theory will be visibly disproved.
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POPSBush To Speak On Reducing Greenhouse Emissions (continued)_Net emissions rise. There also isn't any viable legal instrument that will significantly alter the rate of warming. The Kyoto Protocol, which is pretty much moribund, would reduce surface warming by 0.07 degrees Centigrade every fifty years, an amount too small to measure. Kyoto failed because, by and large, no nation could meet its modest emission reduction targets."
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POPSUS Supremes To Bush "Don't Mess With Texas" President George W. Bush urged that Medellin be allowed new hearings and sentencing. The President's decision came after an international consulate determined that Medellin was improperly denied access to his consulate before his original prosecution, which is a violation of a treaty signed by the United States during the 1963 Vienna Convention. The 6-3 vote means the pending execution of Medellin can proceed. He faces lethal injection for two slayings. Chief Justice John Roberts voted for the execution. Roberts was supported in his position by Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito. Justice Stephen Breyer, Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted in the negative At age 18, Medellin participated in the June 1993 gang rape and murder of two Harris County, Texas, girls: Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16. He was convicted of the crimes and sentenced to death. He has been on death row in Texas ever sin
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POPSExpenses At U.N. Balloon 25 Percent U.S. Demands on Body Help Drive Up Budget The additional funds in the latest request would be used to renovate the landmark U.N. headquarters in New York, fund war-crimes investigators in Lebanon and pay $100 million to build a reinforced, attack-resistant U.N. headquarters building in Baghdad. But they would also be used to pay nearly $7 million for a 2009 anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa, which Washington believes would serve as a forum to bash Israel. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, insists that the organization will have to find savings or live without its new programs. On the eve of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Bush spoke before the U.N. General Assembly and challenged the institution to enforce the resolution requiring Saddam Hussein to disarm, suggesting that the institution's reason for being was at stake: "Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?"
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POPSBush's Letter Puts Putin In A Good Mood Two Cold War-era agreements -- The Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which Russia suspended last year, and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expires next year -- will also be addressed. A source in the Defense Ministry said progress was only likely if Rice and Gates "bring with them new proposals that take into account Moscow's concerns," Itar-Tass reported. But the Pentagon's Morrell reiterated on the sidelines of Monday's meeting that nothing new was on the table. "We come armed with no new proposals," he said, adding that the purpose of this visit was to demonstrate that the United States planned to "stand by its proposals. We are not going to sweeten them." Putin's guardedly positive statement Monday came in contrast to efforts by both sides ahead of the talks to dampen expectations for any significant progress on the missile-defense issue. U.S. officials stressed that they would not make any new offers, while Moscow said new overtures were necessa
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POPSObama's Very Close With Racist Preacher Rev.Wright In light of the criticism of Bush’s injecting “too much religion” in his presidency or that his administration is just like a ”Christian Taliban”, it is also a legitimate question to ask, where are those same accusers when this 2007 speech by Barack Obama is so filled with religious fervor? Where are the anti-religious left and the so-called separation of Church and Staters at now? In fact, this entire speech is filled with nothing but class warfare, expansions of social programs, raising the minimum wage, typical great society type junk all couched squarely as a civic responsibility enmeshed with Obama's view of Biblical precepts. But, that boiler plate aside, there was two very interesting segments in Obama's remarks concerning his racist "spiritual mentor," Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. that are not getting the press it deserves. (See the video at Channel 2 News Chicago) http://cbs2chicago.com/video/?id=33004@wbbm.dayport.com
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POPSBipartisan Crimes Against The Constitution But it was not treated as a treaty in the U.S. Clinton submitted NAFTA as an agreement, requiring only a majority of votes in both Houses of Congress for passage, and not a treaty, requiring a two-thirds vote in favor in the Senate. NAFTA passed by votes of 234-200 in the House and 61-38 in the Senate. Clinton did it this way because he didn't have the votes to pass NAFTA as a treaty (requiring 67 votes) in the Senate. But how did he pull off such a blatantly illegal and unconstitutional move? Although the strict text of the U.S. Constitution includes the treaty clause as the only means by which the U.S. can enter into such international agreements, there's a growing body of mostly liberal-left "legal opinion" that holds that "congressional-executive agreements" like NAFTA can serve as substitutes for treaties.
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