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POPSKeep the government out of the news business
Turning to Washington for help to save the declining news business says much about the mentality of mainstream journalism leaders, an attitude that we and the government are on the same side. This is the mentality that led to the news establishment’s acceptance of the Iraq War. Go to the clip to learn what happened to Mother Jones after becoming a tax exempt non-profit after it reported on lobbying in Washington. Once you allow the government or private corporation to have any controlling link to the media you lose independence. Editors become fearful of criticizing the hand that feeds it. Publishers and benefactors become cozy and unbiased reports become fewer and fewer. Journalism becomes a de facto advertisement for consumer products. We hope in the future we’ll see more I.F. Stones, more guerrilla warriors on the Web, in print and on the air. Because of them—and not because of a government handout—great reporting will survive, as it always has.
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POPSSurprise spectator at Garrido hearing More: Hall was a blackjack dealer in South Lake Tahoe when Garrido kidnapped her in November 1976 and drove her to a storage unit in Reno that he had stocked with pornography, sex devices and a mattress. He raped her repeatedly over the course of several hours. He was convicted of federal kidnapping charges and of rape in Nevada. Under sentencing guidelines now in place, Garrido would have been behind bars for more than two decades - and wouldn't have been free in 1991 when Dugard was snatched off the street in South Lake Tahoe. But under 1970s-era sentencing laws, Garrido was eligible for federal parole after just 10 years, and he was set free in 1988. "I intend to be at as many (hearings) as I can," Hall said. "I'm not going to shut up and go away like the parole board told me to do 21 years ago. I have my own personal reasons for wanting to see him put away."
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POPSSenate Shot Down Czar-Defunding Amendment..But Good News…
“It is unfortunate that a procedural tactic” was used to prevent an up-or-down vote on the amendment, Collins said. Under the amendment, no funds would have been provided for the White House policy coordinators unless the President allows them to appear before congressional panels and that they submit biannual reports to committees with jurisdiction over their policy issues. (CongressDaily, Sept. 25, 2009) But, Tapper reports that the Senate will hold hearings on the constitutionality and history of czars on October 6, thanks to Russ Feingold, who has been pushing for it. Earlier this month the liberal lawmaker asked the White House to identify the czars’ “roles and responsibilities, and provide the judgment(s) of your legal advisors as to whether and how these positions are consistent with the Appointments Clause” in Article II, section 2 of the Constitution, which states that the President “shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate,
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POPSU.S. Health Insurance Price Fixing!
Like the bank scams on Wall St. and elsewhere much of it happen when lawmakers, like George Bush especially, removed rules and regulations that allowed banks to sell products that had no real value or sell default insurance when they didn't have the cash to pay off. Like a lot of politics it's not Left vs. Right -- it's the SuperRich exploiting the taxpayers and middle classes and getting special advantages for themselves. Now this has been revealed in the U.S. Health Care Insurance business. It's been revealed --- after months and months of discussion (and previous years of efforts) that this business has an exemption from laws about price fixing and other business collusions.! Dang! It took us this long to find out! It's been like this for all our lifetime! (most of us). They make the biggest bucks --- they make the greatest profit of any USA business -- and they have and keep this exemption to fair play rules that would require fair play competition! We need to restore f
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POPSWhy is Marijuana Illegal? Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You’ll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate.
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POPS500,000 Troops Will Be Required Over Five Years in Afghanistan Congress should immediately convene hearings to discuss alternatives to General McChrystal's proposal for such a massive escalation of the war in Afghanistan. It is time for the administration and Congress to demilitarize U.S. policy in Afghanistan and strike out in a new, sustainable, direction.
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POPSIntroducing The Swiftboat Network A new ploy to hide behind the corporate curtain to allow wealthy individuals unlimited expenditure in spinning any election. Sickening. See all the details at the source. Democratic elections are dead, and the sheeple will be baying low. Of course, were a protest to be mounted, we could count on the Pittsburgh Police to bring law to the land in a hurry.
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POPS9 Questions for Ben Bernanke This is very sharp. A lot of commentary on the Fed quickly devolves into conspiracy theory and pumping gold portfolios, and so it's refreshing to see some substantive ideas.
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POPS Listening to a Liar by Thomas Sowell If this is such an urgently needed program, why wait for years to put it into effect? And if the public is going to benefit from this, why not let them experience those benefits before the next Presidential election? If it is not urgent that the legislation goes into effect immediately, then why don't we have time to go through the normal process of holding Congressional hearings on the pros and cons, accompanied by public discussions of its innumerable provisions? What sense does it make to "hurry up and wait" on something that is literally a matter of life and death? If we do not believe that the President is stupid, then what do we believe? The only reasonable alternative seems to be that he wanted to get this massive government takeover of medical care passed into law before the public understood what was in it. Moreover, he wanted to get re-elected in 2012 before the public experienced what its actual consequences would be.
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POPS9/11 Commission Members Doubt Official Story Cleland, speaking with Democracy Now, said, “One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up”. In 2006 the Washington Post reported that several members of the 9/11 Commission suspected deception on part of the Pentagon. As reported, “Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.” 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerry also has unanswered questions. As reported by Salon, he believes that there are legitimate reasons to believe an alternative version to the official story.
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POPSFormer Regent University Asst. Dean, Wife Plead Guilty On Child Sex Abuse Charges Court records show Stephen McPherson repeatedly molested two of the sisters under his supervision and manipulated them by citing Bible verses that he said justified the abuse. Melina McPherson engaged in sexual acts with the third sister, cited Bible verses to justify her actions and told the victim that “they had a special relationship,” according to court records. Stephen McPherson already is serving time on related sex abuse charges. He pleaded guilty in January to sexually abusing the two girls in Chesapeake. The McPhersons moved to Chesapeake in 2000 and took the three sisters there after adopting them, records show.
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POPS Busted! WH Confirms Using Contractor to Send Axelrod E-mails "This is yet another ominous chapter in the administration's rabid campaign to jam its radical health care scheme onto an unwilling public by any means necessary," Rep. Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan said in a statement. Govdelivery sent hundreds of e-mails from senior adviser David Axelrod asking supporters to help rebut criticism of Obama's health care plan circulating on the Internet. It also sent e-mails highlighting Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo and the announcement of Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court nominee . So we have an outfit using your taxpayer money to send unsolicited emails to opponents of Obama's government takeover of our healthcare system. And these people have the audacity to accuse others of Astro-turfing. If the GOP did this there'd already be hearings underway.
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POPSCare vs. control "The idea is even more absurd than the idea that you can add millions of people to a government medical care plan without increasing the costs. It is also more dangerous."
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