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POPSPerino: Jobless should just return to the workplace The Bush administration’s refusal to extend a helping hand to those punished by the economy it created is nothing new: Last month, the White House threatened to veto a second stimulus package over opposition to an expansion of food stamps benefits.
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POPSS&M Porn Illegal-Real Life Torture-OK! But for our highest government officials, including the ones responsible for this prosecution, we have a different story altogether. In 2002, the Bush DOJ radically re-defined "torture" and illegal treatment of detainees to exclude anything that falls short of "the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." The DOJ's John Yoo even decreed that the President could legally order "'scalding water, corrosive acid or caustic substance' thrown on a prisoner" and possibly even "slitting an ear, nose or lip, or disabling a tongue or limb."
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POPSBanking on Dodd - Hardly I swear these lousy Democrats are slicker than Gotti ever was - nothing, absolutely nothing sticks to the Teflon Dodd
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POPSMoscow calls for anti-U.S. alliance While Russia has insisted it was not intending to supplant NATO, Mr Medvedev made it clear that the US-dominated alliance was partly responsible for the war in the Caucasus by its failure to rein in Georgian "aggression". This is the result of the U.S. throwing its weight around the world for far too long. It is human nature that if one person is constantly directing policy onto everyone else then that person is going to be knocked down for being perceived as a bully. The time has come for the U.S. to relax its role as self appointed world police and let other nations handle their own affairs or we will be “uninvited to the party”. Hopefully, future U.S. presidents will bury this old school ‘might is right’ mentality that Bush/Cheney revitalized when they took office.
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POPSMaliki Blames Bremer; and the Larger Story continued; "The Iraqi administration and all government offices are suffering the consequences of Paul Bremer's mistakes," he said. Following the 2003 war on Iraq, Bremer served as the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority and exercised power over the civil administration. He is widely criticized over the insurgency in Iraq that has partly resulted from his reportedly unilateral decision to formally dissolve the Iraqi army in May 2003. The comments by al-Maliki came after Time magazine reported that Bremer had embezzled $9 billion of the oil-rich country's reconstruction budget.
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POPSChange you can believe in - change for the worse Do you like paying taxes, then watch government become bigger and more incompetent? Do you like discovering your family doesn't have enough income and start looking for a second job, only to find there are none? Do you really want a health care system like Canada's (ask any Canadian what they think of their health care - they wait over a year for an MRI, for example..) Did you like Carter's sky high inflation with a downward spiraling productivity? Then you will LOVE the change Obama brings you.
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POPSPro-life Victims There is no sympathy for the women who must live and sometimes die with this Bush - McCain decision. The consequences of any cause must be considered before you blindly support it.
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POPSGitmo release order angers Bush But no evidence suggests these Uighurs are terrorists - they are from China's Xinjiang province, where China wars against separatists. Were detained by Pakistanis, turned over to USA years ago; now, no one will take them.
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POPS"World needs a vacation from USA" He called for immediate technology transfer from the West to the Third World, to allow development based on clean technology — stressing the need to “reject intellectual property rights”. funds should not be distributed through the World Bank, which was trying to regain legitimacy by portraying itself as a “climate bank” while continuing to push fossil-fuel-driven development. Confronting global poverty and climate change means confronting US power. “I don’t think the world needs US leadership”, he said. “They should be more humble.” Whether the US achieves its goals “is where we, as civil society come in”, Bello said, suggesting that, by making intervention costly for the US, civil society could encourage a “new US isolationism”. The struggle is, he stressed, global. “The world needs a vacation from the messaianism of the US … A few decades of a self-absorbed US would be very good for the world.”
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POPSPalin sued over private e-mails This behavior shows she thinks it is okay to ignore state law. This is an indication of how she will behave as Vice President. Dick Cheney must be proud.
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POPSJudge Orders Gitmo Prisoners Released!
Thank God. Seeing my country involved in arresting people without cause, not allowing them legal representation, communication with family, no visits from the International Red Cross, not giving them their day in court, holding them for 'indefinite detention," keeping them imprisoned -- in this case -- for seven years -- and documented torture and abuse of such prisoners -- it's all pretty disgusting. And more disgusting that these prisoners were also used for propaganda about how these alleged evil men were out to harm us. And disgusting that thick-headed rednecks, neocon neofascist, and other warmongers went around waving flags about all this and claiming "God was on their side." -- and accusing us as the one's being 'unpatriotic,' when we were the most patriotic of all. What sickness! What lies! DEFEAT ALL REPUBLICANS is now Step #1 Step #2 is seeing Bush and Cheney in jail; and all those who aided and abetted their crimes. The good news? -- this can be done.
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POPSU.S.Treasury's Kashkari to Lead Bank Bailout Office (Update1) ``We need to think through what's the best for securities, for loans, to help strengthen the balance sheet of the institutions.'' Anthony Ryan, the Treasury's acting undersecretary for domestic finance, said in an interview today on CNBC. ``We are focusing on the broader issues, the mortgage- related assets.'' Senate confirmation is required to fill the position for which Kashkari will be nominated. The Treasury hasn't specified the length of Kashkari's tenure, or whether the White House would nominate him officially. The Bush administration remains in office until January. Ben Dover, "Dewey Screwem and Howe" via tom mcguire
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POPSLIHOP: Let It Happen On Purpose
(cont.)In effect, taking the hit on 9-11-2001 -- or more accurately, having several thousand innocent people take the hit -- would then allow a fanatical response, which would be politically acceptable to the American public. Thus the initiation of what might best be described as Bush Wars -- a variation of a theme of Oil Wars. An extremely credible and interesting article in this regard is by a member of the British Parliament, entitled The War on Terrorism is Bogus. This article has the advantage of basing its argument on what has been learned over the last two years -- but almost never publicized in the mainstream Media. In essence, it explains that the evidence is extremely convincing that the high level neo-conservatives in the US government were aware of the impending strike and took great pains to ensure that it was successfully accomplished. The latter includes making sure every member of the government was immediately unavailable to deal with the crisis as it unfolded o
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POPSDebt Soars under Bush Maybe the dems are big spenders and taxers, but this huge spend and cut taxes policy of the last few Republican administrations is disgraceful. "I will veto any bill with pork"-well you voted for one with pork, does that not count Senator?
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POPSOnce Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes
Real Estate Agent as top of the State Division of Agriculture? Sounds a heckuva lot like "Your doin a fine job brownie". Of course that was when another rebubbacan, George Bush, appointed Michael Brown head of FEMA, our governments emergency response division to natural disasters and other emergencies. What was Michael Brown's qualifications? Before joining the DHS/FEMA, Brown was the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association, (IAHA), from 1989-2001. After numerous lawsuits were filed against the organization over disciplinary actions , Brown was forced to resign Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records. Dick Cheney anyo
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POPSGlobal Stock Markets Going Down. BadNews Bush Again Bush didn't cause the real estate agents and banks to make bad and fraudulent loans -- but neither has he caused any recovery. Maybe, in fact, there is no quick fix to boom and bust speculation. But another fact is that this $700-billion does nor demands NOTHING that will directly help people with the predatory mortgages they were suckered into - nor guarantee more jobs -- nor make credit available again. It's only claim is "to inspire confidence." in the banks. It doesn't seem to be working and it's doubtful if anything a failed president, working with a failed Congress, could do with helping out a failed Wall Street. The SuperRich (the 1% of our population that now owns 20% of our wealth), the SuperRich still get all the breaks and loopholes and the Middle Class gets the screws put to them. Wall Street walks away with all their profits and all their bad debts are sold to the taxpayers -- Why didn't we buy stock in the banks instead? Or 100 other ways to do this bett
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POPS Thomas Sowell Opines --- Do Facts Matter? So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, five years ago. Yet, today, what are we hearing? That it was the Bush administration "right-wing ideology" of "de-regulation" that set the stage for the financial crisis. Do facts matter? We also hear that it is the free market that is to blame. But the facts show that it was the government that pressured financial institutions in general to lend to subprime borrowers, with such things as the Community Reinvestment Act and, later, threats of legal action by then Attorney General Janet Reno if the feds did not like the statistics on who was getting loans and who wasn't. Is that the free market? Or do facts not matter? Then there is the question of being against the "greed" of CEOs and for "the people." Franklin Raines made $90 million while he was head of Fannie Mae and mismanaging that institution into crisis. Who in Congress defended Franklin Raines?
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POPSThe Spies who love Obama The world is a very complicated place and there are not always easy solutions to a lot of the problems out there," says John Brennan, a top Obama intelligence advisor and former senior CIA official who co-founded the Terrorist Threat Integration Center and the National Counterterrorism Center, a post-9/11 effort to integrate the US government's terror threat intelligence. "If you look at the world in black and white, you miss a lot of the subtleties out there. 'Either with us or against'—the world is not divided into good and evil a lot of time. Despite America's military might, a lot of these problems do not lend themselves to kinetic solutions"—i.e. the use of force. And world dynamics are likely to get more complicated and nuanced, not less, by 2025. "It's time to update our national security strategy to stay one step ahead of the terrorists," Obama said at Indiana's Purdue University. "It's time to look ahead—at the dangers of today and tomorrow rather than those of yesterday.
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POPSThe Real Culprits - Part One And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory." Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the '90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck. And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi-governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the real estate market in America.
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POPSPalin's Alternate Universe “Say it ain’t so, Joe! There you go pointing backwards again ... Now, doggone it, let’s look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I’m glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and God bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? Aw-shucks, darn-right, I’m-just-a-hockey-mom governor of Alaska mouthing something completely devoid of meaning? If Governor Palin didn’t like a question, or didn’t know the answer, she responded as though some other question had been asked. She made no bones about this, saying early in the debate: “I may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you want to hear.”
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POPSDo Facts Matter? "We also hear that it is the free market that is to blame. But the facts show that it was the government that pressured financial institutions in general to lend to subprime borrowers, with such things as the Community Reinvestment Act and, later, threats of legal action by then Attorney General Janet Reno if the feds did not like the statistics on who was getting loans and who wasn’t. Is that the free market? Or do facts not matter?"
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POPSWorld wants Obama as president: poll Will Americans choose to lead the world, or will they once again squander the goodwill that the world would love to heap on the USA. What will they do? The countries most optimistic that an Obama presidency would improve relations were America's NATO allies, including Australia (62 per cent).
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