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POPSHere's what WON'T happen in 2010 Obama will stop blaming George W. Bush for his failures. Liberals will stop blaming George W. Bush for him failing to get them a date on eHarmony.com. After admitting that human behavior might not be causing global warming, Al Gore will get a real job. California will become a national model for state budgeting. The New Jersey Nets will waltz their way to an NBA championship. General Motors will become the world's most profitable carmaker. Despite Democrats' massive spending, taxes in America will fall. Huge new taxes to pay for ObamaCare will spur investors to pour billions into new businesses, igniting a wild economic boom overnight. Obama, America's first postpartisan president, will actually include Republican ideas in his agenda. The mainstream media will treat Sarah Palin fairly. and pundits will finally stop making stupid predictions.
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POPSTop 25 Censored Stories for 2009/10 "Project censored is one of the organizations that we should listen to, to be assured that our newspapers and our broadcast outlets are practicing thorough and ethical journalism." — Walter Cronkite
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POPSBackdoor Legislation: Obama Signs Hate Crimes Bill with Defense Bill How to Pass Unpopular Legislation 101: Attach them to Defense Spending. This is how Bush administration got through REAL ID. This is contrary to the purpose of Congress which should read and debate ONE BILL AT A TIME, instead of this fraudulent manipulation through "must pass" Defense bills. As for the bill itself, while a woman could slap a man for being too forward in a bar now normal men cannot do the same to a pressing homosexual who might "hit on them" without being charged with a new Federal "Hate Crime". Some are just "more equal than others" now and have Special Protection of the Federal government ABOVE all other U.S. citizens.
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POPSLying for the warmongers pays well Let's not jump to conclusions. Blair and Bush and their teams are suspects in committing crimes against humanity and crimes must be established beyond reasonable doubt in Court of Law, in full and undeniable meaning of this democratic society's institution.
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POPSBlair Iraq war admission sparks fresh outrage Blair is due to give evidence to the inquiry into the war, led by former civil servant John Chilcot, early next year, and the commentator in the Sunday Telegraph said the investigation's focus must now change. "Mr Blair's game-changing admission gives them a licence to be tougher and more prosecutorial," he wrote, a call echoed by campaigners at Stop the War Coalition, who urged Chilcot's inquiry to recommend legal action against Blair. Professor Philippe Sands, a leading international lawyer, said he believed Blair's comments had left him vulnerable to legal proceedings. "The fact that the policy was fixed by Tony Blair irrespective of the facts on the ground, and irrespective of the legality, will now expose him more rather than less to legal difficulties," Sands told The Sunday Herald.
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POPSBritish Court Issued Gaza Arrest Warrant for Former Israeli Minister Tzipi Livni It is the second time in less than three months that lawyers have gone to Westminster magistrates court asking for a warrant for the arrest of an Israeli politician. In September, the court was asked to issue one for the arrest of Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minster, under the 1988 Criminal Justice Act, which gives courts in England and Wales universal jurisdiction in war crimes cases. According to Israeli sources, ministers who wish to visit the UK in a personal capacity have begun asking the Israeli embassy in London to arrange meetings with British officials. These, offer legal protection against arrest, and can be attended if the officials do face any threat of arrest. Livni, crucially, cannot enjoy any such immunity as she is an ex-minister. Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, is in the same position.
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POPSF-35 Squabble Could Kill Hate Bill Perfect, we need to get behind this and use it destroy the Totalitarian hate crimes bill, which is something even Bush would have shied away from. "The best way to assist veto of the defense/hate bill combination is to revive grassroots protest of the hate bill. We must convince Obama and Democrats in Congress that Americans hate the hate bill. They must know that Obama’s signature will result in even more town hall-style outrage against Democrats–and certain revenge in midterm elections next year Here’s how you can help
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POPSDangerous Opinions Are nearly half of Americans out of touch with the civilized world? Read this and judge for yourself.
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POPSblistering indictment leveled against obama over his handling of bush-era war crimes yep- no accountability here- seems like- just set the tolerance level a whole lot lower- so we can cover up- hide and presumably get away with all the b.s. we are planning to do and are doing now- charging the past with accountability- opens a window into what the administration is working on now- i imagine.........and if they ok bush's war crimes- well we must really be up to no good.....and no! "i don't feel safer from the threat of terrorism- by means of torture-etc.......not anymore now than i did during the "daze" of bush"
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POPSAmerica's regression Pew Poll, today: Public opinion about the use of torture remains divided, though the share saying it can at least sometimes be justified has edged upward over the past year. Currently just over half of Americans say that the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can either often (19%) or sometimes (35%) be justified. This is the first time in over five years of Pew Research polling on this question that a majority has expressed these views. Another 16% say torture can rarely be justified, while 25% say it can never be justified.
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POPSObama May Allow US Soldiers to be Tried in the Hague 
Because Kabul in 2003 ratified the Rome Statute—the ICC’s founding treaty—all soldiers on Afghan territory, even those from nontreaty countries, fall under the ICC’s oversight, Mr. Ocampo told me. And the chief prosecutor says he is already conducting a “preliminary examination” into whether NATO troops, including American soldiers, fighting the Taliban may have to be put in the dock. Because Kabul in 2003 ratified the Rome Statute—the ICC’s founding treaty—all soldiers on Afghan territory, even those from nontreaty countries, fall under the ICC’s oversight, Mr. Ocampo told me. And the chief prosecutor says he is already conducting a “preliminary examination” into whether NATO troops, including American soldiers, fighting the Taliban may have to be put in the dock. Taking up his inquiry of Allied soldiers, he added, “there are different reports about problems with bombings and there are also allegations about torture.” Tuesday, December 01, 2009 http://bit.ly/6ljUDk
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POPSU.N. on Israeli War Crimes
The Goldstone Report now has been approved overwhelmingly by the UN General Assembly. The report calls for Israel to investigate it's war crime accusations...and for the Palestinians to investiage theirs -- and says the slow starvation of over a million and half people in the Gaza Strip should stop. Now, it seems it goes to the Security Council. Which means, if things go as usual, the USA will veto it and it will end there. The USA has does similar actions at the UN for decades, protecting Israel, no matter what. The USA House of Congress has even gone on record, this week, opposing this war crimes report. Israel yesterday seized a ship with weapons and said they come from Iran and this was a war crime...also pointing out that Russia, the USA, China, etc. are all guility of war crimes. The conclusion appears to be that war is a war crime. Everybody's guilty. And let's just forget it. ...um, except when talking about the Nazi's of WWII or the Bosnian Serbs curre
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POPSAll Politicians Are Alike With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so.
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POPSRule-of-law extremism engulfs primitive Eastern Europe Last month, newly elected President Dalia Grybauskaite said she had "indirect suspicions" that the CIA reports might be true, and urged Parliament to investigate more thoroughly. * Continue Reading What sort of a newly elected President would get into office and then start demanding that actions From the Past -- rather than the Future -- be investigated, just because they might be "criminal"? This deeply irresponsible Lithuanian leader apparently doesn't care about inflaming partisan divisions, and worse, appears blind to the dangers of criminalizing policy disputes. Even more outrageously, Lithuania faces one of the steepest recessions in all of Europe; obviously, this is a time, more than ever, that Lithuanians should be Looking to the Future, Not the Past.
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POPSJustice and Guantanamo Bay
Two of the three detainees convicted of war crimes have served their sentences and today they are free men back in their home countries. But the more than 200 that remain inside the detention center have never been convicted, or in most cases even faced charges. The day after his inauguration, Mr. Obama ordered an evaluation of all the detainees to determine who should face criminal prosecution. Administration officials estimate that roughly a quarter of the remaining detainees will be recommended for trial in criminal courts. In a preliminary report submitted to Mr. Obama in July, the Detention Policy Task Force recommended the approval of evaluation criteria developed by the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice. The task force stated its preference for trials in the federal courts, but added the decision would be based in part on "evidentiary issues" and "the extent to which the forum would permit a full presentation of the accused's wrongful conduct."
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POPSCase Review: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld Stevens addressed the issue of whether military commissions can try conspiracy charges. He argued that military commissions are not courts of general jurisdiction, which are able to try any crime; that the court has traditionally held that offenses against the law of war are triable by military commission only when they are clearly defined as war crimes by statute or strong common law precedent (cf. Quirin). Finally, he found that there was no support in statute or court precedent for law-of-war military commissions trying charges of "conspiracy," either in the Geneva Conventions, in the earlier Hague Conventions or at the Nuremberg Trials. On June 5, 2007, Hamdan and Canadian youth Omar Khadr, had all charges against them dismissed.
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POPS"Defund Acorn Act" May Be Unconstitutional Rachel does her usual superb job of muckraking. A little more from the article below: The GOP smear machine tries to link ACORN to prostitution. Beyond the hypocrisy of Republicans denouncing prostitutes (long history of using them), do they really want talk of prostitution? One former Blackwater employee recently stated in a sworn declaration that Blackwater owner Erik Prince "failed to stop the ongoing use of prostitutes, including child prostitutes, by his men." Another former employee described "having young girls provide oral sex to Enterprise members in the 'Blackwater Man Camp' in exchange for one American dollar." Even if ACORN did provide inappropriate tax advice to a prostitute, is that really on the same level as this conduct being conducted on a huge U.S. government contract? If you think these are just the allegations of disgruntled employees, read the Justice Department’s perspective on Blackwater’s crimes and how its
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POPSGates Bars Torture Photos' Release 
The administration first sought to change FOIA in June, shortly after deciding to contest a ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that ordered the photos' release. The resulting bill, championed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), was specifically designed to nullify the effect of the appeals court's ruling. Since the court had ruled that the photos couldn't be withheld under an existing FOIA exemption, the Obama administration simply asked Congress to carve out a new exemption. Despite objections from liberal members of the House, Congress obliged. The new exemption's requirements are stunningly lax. In order to withhold the photos, Gates simply had to certify, as he did in the court filing, that "public disclosure of these photographs would endanger citizens of the United States, members of the United States Armed Forces, or employees of the United States Government deployed outside the United States." In other words, their release had to endanger someone, somewhere. And i
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POPS800,000 Americans Busted Annually for Pot
They argue the drug war “is doing far more harm than marijuana itself ever will,” because * it diverts hundreds of thousands of police agents from serious crimes “to the pursuit of harmless tokers”; * it costs taxpayers at minimum $10 billion a year to catch, prosecute, and incarcerate marijuana users and sellers; * it enables government to snatch the cars, money, computers and other properties of people caught up in drug raids even if they have had no charges filed against them; and * it allows “police agents at all levels to trample our Bill of Rights in their eagerness to nab pot consumers.” The drug war has also unleashed a torrent of racism in the form of unjust sentencing, which confines crack-cocaine users who are mostly black to prison for longer terms than powder snorters, who are mostly white. Hightower and Frazer say authorities have perverted the infamous “Patriot Act” of 2001 for use in non-terrorism cases, allowing “sneak-and-peak” search warra
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POPSNUKE GAZA: A WORLD GONE MAD "Not since 1948 has this enclave of extremists mounted such a public relations offensive. Christian Zionist President Harry Truman trusted Jewish Zionist lobbyists when he solicited assurances that they would not become what they immediately became: a racist theocratic state with an expansionist agenda destined to create serial crises in the region. The merciless global agenda pursued by Colonial Zionists is the single greatest threat to world peace, as confirmed yet again by Lieberman’s warning. As the primary remaining ally of these Jewish nationalists, the risks to the U.S. increase with each passing day as Tel Aviv works behind the scenes to catalyze yet another conflict. This entangled alliance was destined to provoke resentments that would eventually endanger their super power ally and foremost arms provider. "
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POPSNidal Hasan Terrorist Threat 'Not That Big a Deal'....Matthew Yglesias I think a pretty good case can be made that this kind of situation actually is the main face of the terrorist threat. Not a big well-thought-out plot centrally directed from a “safe haven” in South Asia and undertaken by brilliant covert operatives, but the desperate violent act of a clearly disturbed individual. It’s going to be very hard to prevent this sort of thing. As long as the United States remains a country in which firearms are widely available"for the foreseeable future, in other words"we’re going to be unusually vulnerable to mentally ill spree killers of various kinds, including spree killers who nod in the direction of Islamist thinking. But the larger point is that while these incidents are serious crimes and major tragedies for the victims, they hardly rise to the level of a major macro-level social crisis. They’re certainly not a first-order national security threat. And even put in the lower-stakes context of violent crime in America
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POPSOpium, Rape and the American Way
Truth from the women in Afghanistan: (read the whole article for the real story) "In eight years less than 2,000 Talib have been killed and more than 8,000 innocent civilians has been killed," she went on. "We believe that this is not war on terror. This is war on innocent civilians. Look at the massacres carried out by NATO forces in Afghanistan. Look what they did in May in the Farah province, where more than 150 civilians were killed, most of them women and children. They used white phosphorus and cluster bombs. There were 200 civilians on 9th of September killed in the Kunduz province, again most of them women and children. You can see the Web site of professor Marc Herold, this democratic man, to know better the war crimes in Afghanistan imposed on our people. The United States and NATO eight years ago occupied my country under the banner of woman's rights and democracy. But they have only pushed us from the frying pan into the fire. They put into power men who are photocopies o
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POPSUS House: UN report on Gaza 'war crimes' is biased The Goldstone report lambasted both sides in the war, which killed up to 1,387 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, but was harsher toward Israel. It gave Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants six months to mount credible investigations or face possible prosecution in the Hague. Both Israel and Hamas have denied committing any war crimes. Israel has criticized the report as unbalanced and says the 47-nation Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, which commissioned the report, is biased against the Jewish state. (Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau in New York; editing by Todd Eastham)
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POPSEmergency! Congress Debates Burying the Goldstone Report! "TELL CONGRESS TO RESPECT US AND INTERNATIONAL LAW!" "What message are we sending to the rest of the world when we grant Israel complete impunity? This legislation has very important implications beyond the war crimes committed in Gaza. Israel has responded to the report by demanding the Western powers rewrite international and US law, warning that acceptance of the Goldstone report will mean that the US’ military campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will be subject to similar scrutiny. (Judge Goldstone has drawn a distinction – stating that his report finds that Israel deliberately targeted civilians). This legislation also ignores serious allegations that Israel has violated the US Arms Export Control Act."
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