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POPSThe High Price of Nuclear Waste The federal government agreed in 1982 to provide a permanent site to deposit nuclear waste...and now, just like that, it's off the table & closed. MORE incompetency. He just jerked the rug out from under the nuclear power program and the nation's utilities are in a real financial bind..
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POPSObama, Maurice Strong, Al Gore Key Players Cashing In On Chicago Climate Exchange
The nondescript Strong, nonetheless is the big cheese in the underworld of climate change and is one of the main architects of the failing Kyoto Protocol. Full credit for the expose on the business partnership of Strong and Gore in the cap-and-trade reduction scheme should go to the investigative acumen of the Executive Intelligence Review (EIR). The tawdry tale of the top two global warming gurus in the business world goes all the way back to Earth Day, April 17, 1995 when the future author of “An Inconvenient Truth” travelled to Fall River, Massachusetts, to deliver a green sermon at the headquarters of Molten Metal Technology Inc. (MMTI). MMTI was a firm that proclaimed to have invented a process for recycling metals from waste. Gore praised the Molten Metal firm as a pioneer in the kind of innovative technology that can save the environment, and make money for investors at the same time. “Gore left a few facts out of his speech that day,” wrote EIR.
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POPSCash for Clubbers The golf-cart boom has followed an IRS ruling that golf carts qualify for the electric-car credit as long as they are also road worthy. These qualifying golf carts are essentially the same as normal golf carts save for adding some safety features, such as side and rearview mirrors and three-point seat belts. They typically can go 15 to 25 miles per hour. In South Carolina, sales of these carts have been soaring as dealerships alert customers to Uncle Sam's giveaway. "The Golf Cart Man" in the Villages of Lady Lake, Florida is running a banner online ad that declares: "GET A FREE GOLF CART. Or make $2,000 doing absolutely nothing!"
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POPS US Healthcare System Wastes $800 Billion A Year It might be better off creating laws that would wring excess out of the current system. It would avoid risking hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayers money and would yield enough capital to help give insurance to the uninsured.
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POPSIt Has The Stench Of Opportunity By reducing the amount of the potent greenhouse gas released into the air, the projects also potentially could turn cow dung into dollars, if a climate bill before Congress becomes law. "Agriculture and agribusiness is what Greeley is all about," Biggi said. "We needed to take that strong traditional economic base and ... merge it with emerging renewable energy and technology." Waste may be the new energy crop in these parts. But elsewhere, communities are looking anew at power sources such as the sun and wind that may exist in their own backyards.
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POPSMedicare Waste Goes Unchecked: Thanks to Pete Stark (D-Calif) and Dave Camp (R-Mich) From wheelchairs and walkers to orthopedic shoes and needles, Medicare buys tens of thousands of products every day for elderly Americans. "There were products that we had as much as 75 percent savings. The average was 29 percent," said Mike Leavitt, the former HHS secretary who oversaw the program. "It would have saved billions if we could've actually implemented it, but Congress deferred it. In Washington speak, that means we put it off forever," he said. Leavitt blames Congressmen Pete Stark (D-Calif.) and Dave Camp (R-Mich.) for introducing legislation that terminated the contracts and postponed the program for 18 months. Leavitt says the congressional intervention helps explain why many are suspicious of claims that Washington can cut enough waste to actually pay for health care reform, as President Obama told a joint session of Congress last month . "Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan,"
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POPSPostal Employees Paid to Do Nothing I do not know about where you work, but where I work when the company does not have any work for me I do not work and I do not get paid. Unless of course I happen to qualify for unemployment benefits which pays me about 1/3 of what I would make if I actually worked. To add insult to injury, the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is now going to BAIL OUT the post office and FORCE US TO PAY these idle workers OUT OF OUR HARD EARNED MONEY. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! And then we wonder why taxes continue to climb while those of us who actually make this country work continue to have to cut back and struggle to make ends meet.
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POPSOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!!!! This is why the taxpayers are fed up with the President and the congress! This English teacher (ESL) has phrased it very well. Tomatoes and Cheap Labor CHEAP TOMATOES? This should make everyone think…be you Democrat, Republican or Independent. From a California school teacher As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of:
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POPSReid gives GOP direct warning on healthcare Boy! He's put a lot on everyone's plate. How many other things has he & his Dems. pressed through in a whirlwind leaving the tax payers with waste, slush, and heads spinning. I guess he wants to get this accomplished before Sen. Byrd leaves the Senate and Reid loses his next election.
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POPSA Masterpiece Of Charlatanry For The Naive By Thomas Sowell should ask themselves where he is going to conjure up the additional doctors, nurses and hospitals needed to take care of millions more patients. If he can't pull off that miracle, then government-run medical care in the United States can be expected to produce what government-run medical care in Canada, Britain and other countries has produced " delays of weeks or months to get many treatments, not to mention arbitrary rationing decisions by bureaucrats. Obama can deny it in words, but what matter are deeds " and no one's words have been more repeatedly the direct opposite of his deeds " whether talking about how his election campaign would be financed, how he would not rush legislation through Congress, or how his administration was not going to go after CIA agents for their past efforts to extract information from captured terrorists. President Obama has also declared emphatically that he will not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations "
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POPSShimkus walked on Obama: 'Frustrated' More should have "walked" because the speech was a waste of time since everyone knew what he was going to say anyway. Time better spent reading bills or reading to his kids.
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POPSHow Obama Can Make Healthcare Better Without Congress This is the same sort of silliness that President Bush suggested when he was pushing immigration reform "If Congress passes my immigration reform bill, I will start enforcing existing laws regarding immigration." In both these examples, the duty of the president is to execute the laws and run the executive departments faithfully. That includes stopping fraud, criminality, and waste -- regardless of what Congress does. Without waiting for congressional approval, which he does not need to end fraud in Medicaid, push our schools to bring back physical education, or streamline the process of FDA approval of drugs, President Obama could begin to make healthcare in America better and less costly right now. But that assumes that President Obama actually wants to improve healthcare in America. In fact, all the countless speeches, all the vastly complex congressional bills, all the relentless insistence that America is in crisis, are all intended to accomplish just one thing:
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POPSTime For Bickering Is Over Obama said the legislation he seeks would guarantee insurance to consumers, regardless of pre-existing medical conditions, as well as other protections. "As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most," he added. The president assured those with insurance that "nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have." Obama also said the legislation he seeks would help those who lack insurance to afford it. "These are not primarily people on welfare," he said in a line that appeared aimed at easing concerns among working-class voters. "These are middle-class Americans."
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POPSHey, stupid! Fix health care This is a common sense article. It's practical, fair and do-able. His suggestions won't please those who want all things for all people but it's sensible. His ideas for "free clinics" and "free health care" are, again, reasonable. Even the ideas about getting doctors and hospitals to participate are reasonable and appropriate. It really isn't that complicated if Congress is willing to take some common sense approaches instead of trying to throw out our entire healthcare system for the sake of special interest groups. And his bottom line: "There definitely is no provision in there (the Constitution) for a federal takeover of health care."
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POPSThe Obama Hustle Their blithe leader, Barak Obama, with a glance, a smile and a lot of helium-inflated rhetoric, was suppose to dazzle Americans -- dazzle them long enough to complete the stealthy process of transforming the nation into a reasonable replica of a European socialist state. Whether modern France or Russia (circa, 1950) is your call. Now to finish the nation's transformation from red, white and blue to institutional gray, they may have to use a crowbar to pry open the window. The crowbar is also known as "reconciliation." Co-opting the nation's financial and automotive sectors is no mean feat. Mussolini must be smiling from somewhere. The absurdly named economic stimulus would be better coined "The Democrats' Pig Trough.") The "trade" part falls squarely on the shoulders of most every American not considered elite. Americans are expected to trade prosperity and their standards of living for the satisfaction of helping 1) restore the Garden of Eden;
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POPSGovernment watchdogs fear bill undermines them They remain puzzled about why Congress is moving to shift their status. “The question is: how is making someone political going to make them more independent?” said a source within the IG community. Combined with the Walpin firing, the legislation has left several IGs anxious about their positions in the Obama administration as they move forward with investigations of government waste and fraud. If the bill is enacted, there is concern in the IG community that if the IGs pushed too hard with ongoing probes, Obama would not appoint them to their current positions. “You put the two together and people get really nervous,” said the source.
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POPSHouse to consider resolution demanding Obama apologize to Crowley Oh please. While I believe the officer acted appropriately and the President regrets his words, this is ridiculous. Surely there are much more pressing issues to be dealt with and resolved than to waste time on this stupid stuff. Whether Dem/Rep, this is a waste of taxpayers money when time could be better spent on more serious stuff. Or maybe they can't deal with the more serious stuff.
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POPSAMA signs its members up to be civil servants I have not met a single person who is not completely worried about this healthcare issue. No one argues that there are a lot of things that need to be fixed or altered. But the *rush* factor is very puzzling. Better to intelligently deal with one portion at a time than to throw over the entire system when parts of it are working well.
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POPSSticker Shock Threatens To Stall Health Care Overhaul even if that means it will take longer for the economy to recover." costs are "a boulder no one can move." The White House has said "it it can save $622 billion in health care costs over the next 10 years by paring hospital subsidies to the uninsured, changing how certain Medicare payments are made to providers, and cutting waste and fraud from Medicare and Medicaid." The rest would likely be paid for in tax increases. The Congressional Budget Office analyzed the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which would subsidize people to help them pay for insurance premiums, and found that "those subsidies alone would cost an estimated $1.28 trillion." "Tanner warned"and CBO officials agreed"that such initial estimates are the 'floor, not the ceiling' on costs" (Lightman and Douglas, 6/19). Republicans and Democrats alike are questioning those costs, The Los Angeles Times reports. On ABC's "This Week”, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.,
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POPSDemocrats Continue to Protect ACORN 
ACORN and its estimated 270 corporate affiliates comprise a complex organizational and financial spiderweb with all the appearance of a criminal enterprise. ACORN is facing charges of voter fraud and tax violations, yet it has received over $53 million in taxpayer funds. Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and his liberal friends have opened the taxpayers’ wallet to as much as an additional $8.5 billion that could be accessed by ACORN. The interlocking financial connections between ACORN and its affiliate organizations are ripe with waste, fraud and abuse, yet ACORN has never been investigated because it is protected by its cronies in Congress. President Obama, a former ACORN employee, has hired ACORN to “partner” with the Census Bureau to complete the 2010 census. Justice demands that Congress cut off ACORN’s access to taxpayer dollars and put an immediate end to ACORN’s involvement in the 2010 census, but Democrats refuse to allow a vote, let alone cut off ACORN’
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POPSCongress's Travel Tab Swells Spending on Taxpayer-Funded Trips Rises Tenfold; From Italy to the Galápagos Lawmakers frequently bring along spouses on congressional trips. If they take commercial flights, they have to buy tickets for spouses. If they fly on government planes -- as they usually do -- their spouses can fly free. Paris Air Show In mid-June, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D., Hawaii) led a group of a half-dozen senators and their spouses on a four-day trip to France for the biennial Paris Air Show. An itinerary for the event shows that lawmakers flew on the Air Force's version of the Boeing 737, which costs $5,700 an hour to operate. They stayed at the Intercontinental Paris Le Grand Hotel, which advertises rooms from $460 a night. The lawmakers were invited to a dinner party at the U.S. Embassy and had cocktails at a private party at the Eiffel Tower. Mr. Inouye attended a dinner sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association, a U.S. trade group. Another senator on the trip, Alabama Republican Sen. Ri
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POPSFactory farms get a pass on reporting greenhouse gas emissions
A lot of us question why Americans should care about livestock poop, particularly in the context of greenhouse gas emissions. Animal manure and livestock produce methane and nitrous oxide, which are about 23 and 300 times respectively stronger than carbon dioxide. According to the EPA GHG Inventory, manure is the 5th largest source of methane and the 4th largest source of nitrous oxide in the U.S. It results in more than twice as many emissions as waste incineration and natural gas systems in the U.S. The way in which CAFOs pool their manure is a large part of the problem. When stored in pits and lagoons as is typical on factory farms, the manure breaks down anaerobically, in the absence of oxygen, which exacerbates methane emissions. The EPA has acknowledged that when manures are distributed on pastures as would be typical in a grass-fed animal system, methane production is limited. Thus, there are proven ways to reduce methane emissions in manure management.
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POPSGerald Walpin speaks: The inside story of the AmeriCorps firing The Inspector General is supposed to be a watchdog for the Tax payers. Why is Obama firing him? I thought Obama wanted to find waste in gov't and eliminate it. I thought Obama wanted transparency. Nice to know that with Billions of taxpayer money that the Taxpayers watchdogs are being neutered or eliminated.
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POPS0bama Executive Order Limits Federally Funded Construction Spending to Union Shops The Stimulus was a payoff to the union bosses. It directly harmed the U.S. taxpayer to benefit Democrat cronies. Now that's change we can believe in. The combination is a festival of waste, fraud and mismanagement, topped off with a wonderful return-on-investment for the union bosses. The Porkulus package was not temporary, was not targeted, and it certainly didn't create any jobs. That's why even *Joe Biden admits that it's a failure. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) puts current unemployment (U-6) at a shocking 16.4%. http://www.onepennysheet.com./?p=19938 *When serial gaffer Joe Biden reports that our government brain trust "guessed wrong" relative to said recovery, then we all know there is trouble in Dodge City. http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/06/even-biden-notes-stimulus-not-really.html
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POPSObama Broke Law Firing AmeriCorps IG The text of Grassley’s letter to the President: Dear Mr. President: I was troubled to learn that last night your staff reportedly issued an ultimatim to the Americorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin that he had one hour to resign or be terminated. As you know, Inspectors General were created by Congress as a means to combat waste, fraud, and abuse and to be independent watchdogs ensuring that federal agencies were held accountable for their actions. Inspectors General were designed to have a dual role reporting to both the President and Congress so that they would be free from undue political pressure. This independence is the hallmark of all Inspectors General and is essential so they may operate independently, without political pressure or interference from agencies attempting to keep their failings from public scrutiny.
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POPSObama Says Mountain Crimes Can Be Regulated--Will Gore, Carter or Congress Intervene Now? "Mountaintop removal is a crime--and ought to be treated as a crime." --Al Gore, April 28, 2008 "Mountaintop removal is a crime against local people, nature, our children, and our planet." --Dr. James Hansen, NASA Consider this: Over 3.5 million pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives rip across the most diverse and oldest mountains in America--and rain down silica dust and heavy metals on residents--in West Virginia alone EVERY DAY. Consider this: Mountaintop removal provides less than 5-7% percent of our national coal production, at a time when coal demand is down, and mountaintop removal coal could EASILY be replaced by energy efficiency, conservation, renewable energy sources or underground coal. Consider this: Not one person in the Obama administration involved in this outrageous decision has ever set a foot on a mountaintop removal site.
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POPSDoctor critical of Baucus promotes single-payer plan The fight to get Congress to consider a single-payer health provider system is as much an indictment against the press as it is against Congress. Congress refuses to look at what many doctors say is better alternative because the private health insurance system would require too many reforms to make it more accessible to the very people they are supposed to be helping. Adopting single-payer system would cut too deeply into their piece of the pie, or possibly eliminate it. For the press to take its lead from the president and congress negates freedom of the press. Sure they have Freedom of the Press to print whatever they want, unfortunately they print only what they want. They don’t report everything the public wants to know about. This underscores my main complaint against the press.
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