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POPSNewsflash! Independents Not All Moderates! Wow! Not surprisingly, David Brooks,"Tool for the mainstream meme-ology" pushes the old notion that all independents are moderates, the swing vote. John Zogby (Co-authored by Zeljka Buturovic, PhD) writes in Huffington Post.................lays out numbers showing otherwise.
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POPSObama and The Democrats Want You to Know They Had a Good Week
During his campaign, in effect, Mr Obama promised to be the constraint: to oversee Congress and guide it with a moderating hand. That was the difference he promised to make. There were always going to be limits to what he could do, but his failure so far even to try has been total. He has let nearly every agenda be set by the Democrats’ left-leaning congressional leadership. This comes in a country in which 40 per cent of voters call themselves conservatives, 36 per cent moderates and 20 per cent liberals. Voters are confused and concerned about the policies coming forward " above all by their mounting cost " but he has made little effort to explain or reassure, let alone influence. He has chosen to act as cheerleader for whatever congressional Democrats cook up. On healthcare, Mr Obama stood aside during months of chaotic haggling in Congress. By the summer, unsurprisingly, voters opposed to reform outnumbered voters in favour " again, above all, expressing worries . . .
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POPSTop 10 GOP Moderate Moments (via Rush) As I was in the car I switched him on and he was just beginning his countdown. Yes. Either the 'moderates' form their own party or the true conservatives must. I'm tired of voting for the lesser of the 2 evils and violating my true convictions. While these 'moderate' Republicans may be very nice people with good intentions...few actually shared my values. And he's right! The #1 'moderate' revealed so much about himself.
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POPSRight Wing News: Kneecapping Barack Obama at every opportunity Knee-capping is a form of malicious wounding, often as extralegal punishment or torture, in which the victim is injured in the knee, usually using a firearm, and in some cases a power drill to damage the knee joint and kneecap. This practice was common among paramilitaries in Italy and Northern Ireland and has been reported from Gaza. Contrary to popular belief, the patella is usually not injured in these incidents; rather damage to soft tissues that include nerves and arteries is the primary target.
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POPSConstitution? Treaties? Sovereignty? The lamenting over the obstacle that is the Constitution goes on with Liberals and World-Order phony Conservatives (read: today's Republicans) alike. Puppet cable news pundits want to imprint an image of Independents as moderates - in the "middle" of either "fringe". It depends, doesn't it? Higher elites of both persuasions strive to find a way to topple the Constitution, maybe to slightly varying goals, while the Independents really want to maintain sovereignty and the Constitution. Doesn't that put Ind.'s on the Right, with Rep.'s & Dem.'s on the Left? Criticisms against Obama policies are met by Bush criticisms. Enough. That's the wrong paradigm. Isn't it ? Aren't they both the puppets for those of NO county? Of NO allegiance but to a World Gov.? Or am I all wet, here?
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POPS"McCaining" The GOP When the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy created a vacant Senate seat in Massachusetts, McCain went so far as to solicit former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling to run for the seat.
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POPSClimate Bill ‘Radioactive’ -‘More Controversial Than Health Care’ “People forget what life is in the middle of the country, and I think that’s what we’re trying to talk about.” Reuters: McCain Assails Senate Democrats' Climate Bill (09/29/09) CQ: Senate Floor Action Unlikely Until Next Year (09/29/09) Energy Daily: Dems Worry about Impacts on Economy, Manufacturing, and Employment Back Home (09/30/09) Reuters: Long Road, Little Time for U.S. Climate Bill (09/29/09) AP: Senate Climate Bill Tougher than House Version (09/29/09) Politico: “Bill Dodges Some of the Most Contentious Issues” (09/30/09) Congress Daily: Dem: "I am not committed to cap and trade at this point under any circumstances," (09/30/09) E&E News: Boxer-Kerry Bill Draws “Mixed Reviews” By Senators (09/30/09) Washington Times: Senate Climate Bill Stricter on Emissions (09/29/09) http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=0b023b35-802a-23ad-49da-f4c4f8d823a6&Issue_id=
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POPSObama's Health Caters to Incoherent What is the plan Mr. President? You condemn insurance companies and doctors, yet you want everyone to have free health care without profit? Just because members of our society are divided by the public education system into dropouts and graduates, you want equal outcomes for both. Equal outcomes for both dropouts and graduated have never worked in mankind's history.
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POPSAugust Wasn’t a Setback For Us At All, Says Gibbs Why is the White House doing this? I think there are two answers that kind of relate to each other. First, it has begun to believe its own spin that the President is good at giving game changing speeches. But he isn’t really. Nobody is. If the game could change because of a speech, the game would constantly be changing because lots of people can give a decent speech, especially when they have a TelePrompTer… Second, it does not know what else to do. It looks like Congress is at something less than square one. There is no passable compromise that has been proposed - nothing that can win enough votes in the center without losing the left flank. But now the “Gang of Six” has basically broken up, public approval has tanked, moderates are scared, and if there isn’t bad blood on the Democratic side of the aisle there is at least a lot of finger pointing. If Humpty Dumpty breaks and you don’t know how to put him back together -
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POPSBeat Me in St. Louis ~ Mark Steyn "Behave yourselves like your mom would probably tell you to do," Gibbs said when asked what piece of advice he would give to the demonstrators. Congressman Timeserver isn't my mom. And, if he were, I'd tell him to quit stealing my paper-route money. Meanwhile, inevitably, the usual "moderates" are getting suckered into denouncing "extremist" conservatives. (*Sic. I didn't know there were "Democratic town halls".)
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POPSWho is Culpable? At the end of this clip I've included a comment made by a reader. The reader brings up a good point about the idea that even "moderate" theists are responsible for in some way for tragedies like this because they enable more extreme theists to justify their religious delustions.
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POPSCBO deals new blow to health plan On his White House blog, Orszag – who served as CBO director in 2007 and 2008 – downplayed the office's small probable savings number in favor of the proposal's more speculative long-term benefits. "The point of the proposal, however, was never to generate savings over the next decade. ... Instead, the goal is to provide a mechanism for improving quality of care for beneficiaries and reducing costs over the long term," Orszag wrote. "In other words, in the terminology of our belt-and-suspenders approach to a fiscally responsible health reform, the IMAC is a game changer not a scoreable offset." But scoreable offsets are the immediate savings that fiscally conservative Blue Dogs and other Democratic moderates have been pushing for precisely because they will help offset the bill's cost. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25415.html#ixzz0MNI5cCXd
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POPSGOP Lawmakers Confirm Dem's Health Bill Promotes Euthanasia "Section 1233 of the House-drafted legislation encourages health care providers to provide their Medicare patients with counseling on ‘the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration’ and other end of life treatments,'" the pair say. Henry Waxman today announced that the health bill may skip committee if the so-called moderates do not accept the deal democrats worked out. Posted by Gateway Pundit
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POPS Iran Uprising Live-Blogging 27 June, 2009 Jose Aznar, who was voted out of office in 2004, writes in today's Wall Street Journal: President Obama has said he refuses to "meddle" in Iran's internal affairs, but this is a poor excuse for passivity. If the international community is not able to stop, or at least set limits on, the repressive violence of the Islamic regime, the protesters will end up as so many have in the past -- in exile, in prison, or in the cemetery. And with them, all hope for change will be gone. Delayed public displays of indignation may be good for internal political consumption. But the consequences of Western inaction have already materialized. Watching videos of innocent Iranians being brutalized, it's hard to defend silence. More recently, it based a collection office in Los Angeles to take advantage of the Iranian expatriate community there. None of it, however, is a substitute for having CIA staff actually on the ground, says former CIA official Bob Baer.
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POPSRebuilding the Republican Party And what about moderates? I know this won’t make me popular with the Republican base, but we have to make every effort we can to get as many moderates into the Republican Party as possible. Let’s bend on any issue necessary and soften our rhetoric to get every squish behind us. Let’s even invite Arlen Specter back; we can tell him we were wrong and trillions in wasteful spending is a great idea right now. We need all the moderates we can get to join us, because when everything goes to hell, they’ll be a great source of cheap labor and — in a worse case scenario — food. So for the future survival of the party, moderates are very important.
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POPSThe Future of the Republican Party In the post-apocalyptic wasteland, resources will be scarce and the strong will crush the weak — and frankly, those are conditions in which Republicans should thrive. The Republican Party will need to cement its rule through force, destroy the weak, and take their resources. Back to basics for the party, really. I know this won’t make me popular with the Republican base, but we have to make every effort we can to get as many moderates into the Republican Party as possible. Let’s bend on any issue necessary and soften our rhetoric to get every squish behind us. Let’s even invite Arlen Specter back; we can tell him we were wrong and trillions in wasteful spending is a great idea right now. We need all the moderates we can get to join us, because when everything goes to hell, they’ll be a great source of cheap labor and — in a worse case scenario — food. So for the future survival of the party, moderates are very important.
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POPSEven the Palestinians are worried about Obama... "Funding a government that consists of Hamas ministers means, in many ways, that the money will eventually end up in the hands of those who are planning rocket and suicide attacks. If Hamas is permitted to join any government without meeting the conditions of the international community, it will be seen by many Arabs and Muslims as a victory for violence. And such a move will only invite more terrorism. Appeasing Hamas means appeasing Osama bin Laden and the enemies of all the moderate Arabs and Muslims, as well as modern civilization. The terrorists will change, if at all, only once they realize that they are increasingly being isolated and have no chance of prevailing. "
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POPSOneVioce Movement to end Israeli - Palestinian Conflict The OneVoice Movement is an international mainstream grassroots movement with over 640,000 signatories in roughly equal numbers both in Israel and in Palestine, and 1,800 highly-trained youth leaders. It aims to amplify the voice of the overwhelming but heretofore silent majority of moderates who wish for peace and prosperity, empowering them to demand accountability from elected representatives and work toward a two-state solution guaranteeing an end to occupation and violence, and a viable, independent Palestinian state at peace with Israel.
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POPSEarmarks of Scandal There’s plenty of questions to answer. The firm was led by Paul Magliocchetti, a former appropriations staffer and Murtha protégé who wined and dined his former bosses and comrades with abandon. These raucous dinners and big expense-account tabs should be vetted for ethics violations. Of course, it didn’t stop with steaks and fine wines. PMA funneled more than $40 million in donations to members of Congress since 1998, including $2.4 million to Mr. Murtha and $7.8 million to members of his committee. Congress, in turn, rewarded PMA clients with rarely debated earmarks. Last year, the firm was able to marshal more than 100 lawmakers to earmark $300 million in contracts for the lobbyist’s clients. Ms. Pelosi cannot ignore this sorry churn of taxpayer money. Newcomers and moderates are right in warning that if the House majority doesn’t police itself, it will lose credibility all the way to the next election.