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POPS SCOTUS Admits Blunder on UCMJ, But Says "Nevermind" 
and shows again, how Obama's model judges pull constitutional law from thin air. That was spectacularly clueless, and one of the many occasions on which Obama has demonstrated that for all his fine degrees from Columbia and Harvard Law, he's ignorant of world history. First, no one at Nuremberg was permitted to file a habeas corpus petition in the American courts. Second, the Military Commissions Act provides substantially greater procedural and substantive protection than what any of the Nuremberg defendants had. Rights for foreigners accused of being terrorists that even our own service personnel don't get. A "living, breathing" Constitution whose answers, are blowin' in the wind. You do get an indirect vote on whether that's what you want — but you have to cast it through your choices for POTUS/VPOTUS and (even less directly) U.S. Senators. Judicial appointments are just one more issue on which this year's presidential election presents you with a stark, vivid choice.
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POPSThe putsch that imperiled America "Others have been less scrupulous for reasons that do them even less credit than ideological fanaticism. Take, for example, former Pentagon general counsel William J. Haynes II. In a sworn statement, Air Force Col. Morris Davis -- the former top prosecutor in the Office of Military Commissions -- says he resigned after being pressured by Haynes to move forward with politically "sexy" prosecutions even though Morris believed the evidence against the defendants had been obtained by torture. Davis said he also told Haynes that a few acquittals at Guantanamo, if warranted, would send a message that the commissions sitting there were fair, just as the not-guilty verdicts against some Nazi defendants had done for the Nuremberg trials. Haynes' response was emphatic, according to Morris: "We can't have acquittals! We've got to have convictions! ... If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off?""
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POPSinteractive guide: Who in the Bush administration broke the law, and who could be prosecuted
Each scandal is represented by a colored circle that encompasses the people who are implicated. As it's easy to see, many of the players here are mixed up in two, three, or more of the alleged crimes. Hence all the overlapping circles (Venn-diagram heaven!). The best way to make sense of this legal tangle is to mouse over the title of an individual scandal, which will highlight everyone implicated. For example, the wiretapping bubble ensnares George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Ashcroft, John Yoo, and Alberto Gonzales. At the same time, Ashcroft and Gonzales fall into the overlapping circle for monkey business related to DoJ hiring. Mouse over a person's name for information on how each person is involved. Mouse over the title of each circle for specifics about the particular scandal. And if all else fails, fall back on this golden rule of wrongdoing in the White House: All roads lead to Gonzales.
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POPSObama's Youth: Hope, Change And Snappy Uniforms 50 hours a year. 100 hours for college students, provided their type of service is deemed acceptable by a sprawling new Federal bureaucracy. Oh, and Obama's going to double the size of the Peace Corps while quadrupling AmeriCorps. I'm curious if anyone will be left to fill all the newly vacated private sector jobs. St. Barack concluded his speech with this gem: "Loving your country must mean accepting your responsibility to do your part to change it." But what if I love my country the way it is? Throwing more kerosene on the mob's torches, Obama is moving his nomination acceptance speech to Denver's 75,000-seat outdoor stadium. And is thinking about a speech at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. Odd that he didn't choose Nuremberg. We've talked a lot about Liberal Fascism. Apparently, it wasn't a moment too soon. UPDATE: A Lizard invasion? Thanks for the LGF link, Charles!
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POPSProfoundly Superficial who were conveniently at hand. What would one more war crime matter in a record already so monstrous? At Nuremberg, the Soviet Union was invited to sit in judgment of its old partner in aggression — on a charge of waging aggressive war. To wit, the war of aggression that the Soviet Union joined with Nazi Germany to ignite in September of 1939. Barack Obama would have been on sounder ground if he had cited the proceedings at Nuremberg not as an example of justice but irony. Sen. Obama usually responds directly to the question he’s asked rather than riding off in all directions. He pays his interlocutor the courtesy of careful attention and a respectful answer. But once Barack Obama is no longer trading in some staple of his party’s appeal — identity politics, say, or class warfare — and starts messing with history, he demonstrates only the most tenuous hold on his subject. And he winds up, again like Bill Clinton, sounding profoundly superficial.
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POPSLiving in the Future Some info and videos about how technology might change daily life in the future: the house of tomorrow, a supermarket of the future and a robotic restaurant.
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POPSObama : "Bin Laden must not be a martyr" "What would be important would be for us to do it in a way that allows the entire world to understand the murderous acts that he's engaged in and not to make him into a martyr, and to assure that the United States government is abiding by basic conventions that would strengthen our hand in the broader battle against terrorism," Obama said. Obama was questioned about bin Laden after he met with a new team of national security advisers. The meeting came after rival John McCain's campaign said Obama had a pre-9/11 mind-set for promoting criminal trials for terrorists. "I refuse to be lectured on national security by people who are responsible for the most disastrous set of foreign policy decisions in the recent history of the United States," Obama said in opening remarks that in part referred to the Iraq war.
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POPSSalt Lakers confront Preznut Bush Anderson helped organize the rally and not only denounced the war in Iraq, but spoke out against further military action. "There is a substantial risk, especially with the complacent citizenry, the president will order an attack against Iran, having continued the case for another illegal, tragic war of aggression against a people who largely stood in sympathy and solidarity with us on 9/11," he said. Some high school students who are not old enough to vote were there, believing their voices can still make a difference. Rose Nelson told us, "No matter how old you are, you can still exercise your First Amendment right, and that's the right to protest, to assemble. We've got to say something because we can."
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POPSand China is Worse than this? What a perversion of justice. And all for ONE trial with a 9 month sentence so far. Out of nearly 700 POWs there may be only 80 cases after all the torture that they will even bring to their kangaroo court show trail. What a system. What an advert for American 'democracy'. Were the Nazis as unjust as this never mind China. I know one thing for absolute certainty; one country is moving forward while the other is racing backwards. Most countries make at least a pretence at dispensing justice to its foes while Bush appears to intend to deliberately offend normal basic standards and to goad even more terrorism to justify his misnomer 'War on Terror'.
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POPSGermany in shock: a polar bear eats a fish "The Frankfurter Allgemeine news website reports that Knut "senselessly murdered the carp", fishing them out, playing with them and then leaving the remains." Doh. It's a polar bear. It has a natural instinct. It is SUPPOSED to kill fish. Hand-rearing it may mess with its head, but it will not remove instinct. And nor should it. Also, anyone who thought the carp would be left alone to eat algae and remain intact is stupider than those who succumbed to "Knut-mania" int he first place. And if somebody put the carp in there to show that the polar in question was a wild animal and not some sort of vegetarian celebrity then good on them! An animal is an animal. Full stop.
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POPSPolar Bear Cub Flocke Pictures of polar bear cub Flocke (Snowflake) born by polar bear Vera at the zoo in Nuremberg Jan. 21, 2008.
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POPSBaby Polar Bear website The cub is at the Nuremberg zoo, so the page is in German but was translated by Google. It was born before Christmas, but was taken away from the mother because she was stir crazy. There are pictures, videos. They are trying to decide on a name, and are asking for suggestions. The link "Eisbarname"goes to the suggestion page
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POPSVote for Change? Atrocity-Linked U.S. Officials Advising Democratic, GOP Presidential Frontrunners
AMY GOODMAN: Are you saying that there’s no difference between these candidates? ALLAN NAIRN: Well, fundamentally, there’s no difference on the basic principle of, are you against the killing of civilians and are you willing to enforce the murder laws. If we were willing to enforce the murder laws, the headquarters of each of these candidates could be raided, and various advisers and many candidates could be hauled away by the cops, because they have backed various actions that, under established principles like the Nuremberg Principles, like the principles set up in the Rwanda tribunals, the Bosnia tribunals, things that are unacceptable, like aggressive war, like the killing of civilians for political purposes. So, in a basic sense, there is no choice. But there is a difference in this sense: the US is so vastly powerful, the US influences and has the potential to end so many millions of lives around the world, that if, let’s say, you have two candidates that are 99% the same—t
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