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POPSYoung Voters They can't drink when they are 18 but they can vote at 18. Please let them drink at age 18 and vote at age 21. They will do less damage during presidential elections.
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POPSDemocratic Donors Rewarded With White House Perks
Presidential aides said there has been no systematic effort to use the White House complex to aid fundraising, though they acknowledge the DNC has paid for some events at the presidential mansion. Many guests at the White House not only had fundraising connections, but also have personal friendships with the president, Mr. Obama's aides said. "Contributing does not guarantee a ticket to the White House, nor does it prohibit the contributor from visiting," said Dan Pfeiffer, deputy White House communications director. • See White House response to story: White House touts ethics in rewards for fundraisers Presidential aides said there has been no systematic effort to use the White House complex to aid fundraising, though they acknowledge the DNC has paid for some events at the presidential mansion. Many guests at the White House not only had fundraising connections, but also have personal friendships with the president, Mr. Obama's aides said.
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POPS Afghan War Units Begin Two New Efforts The moves underline the military's efforts to remake itself in response to the Afghan war despite the Obama administration's signals that it is far from committed to the current counterinsurgency approach. President Barack Obama met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates Monday as part of the ongoing White House review of Afghanistan policy, which is being re-evaluated in light of the country's flawed presidential elections and the Taliban's recent gains. A senior military official acknowledged that the Afghan Hands initiative, the most important of the new efforts, could be modified or scaled back if the White House decides on a new strategy. "None of this is inflexible or set in stone," the official said. The strategic review comes amid worsening violence across Afghanistan. At least 16 U.S. troops have already been killed in October, matching the entire American death toll for October 2008. Mr. Gates, speaking to an Army gathering on Monday . . .
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POPSGore Vidal Quotes By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over. Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just aspirin. Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little. Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half. Gore Vidal I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults. It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
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POPSThe Mystique of 'Free-Market Guy' Obama
Read the rest for the full value... Recent U.S. history shows that you can't serve corporate interests at the same time you're seeking reform - of healthcare or Wall Street or any other sector. Not when big corporations are the problem . . . and the major obstacles to change. Placating big business en route to social reform is like downing a flask of whiskey en route to kicking alcoholism. Yet there was the Obama White House this summer entering into secret deals with the pharmaceutical lobby protecting that industry's outsized profits. That's why he received more Wall Street funding than any candidate in history and why - before he was a front-runner in early 2007 - he was raising more money from the biggest Wall Street banks than even Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, presidential candidates from New York. That's why - as soon as Hillary left the race - he went on CNBC and assured big business: "Look: I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market." That's w
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POPS President Interdum Fidelis Let's include the stated reason for the review: Obama is shocked - shocked! - to learn that there is corruption in Karzai's government: But the Afghan presidential elections, widely marred by allegations of fraud, undermined the administration’s confidence that it had a reliable partner in President Hamid Karzai. Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden already had raised doubts about Mr. Karzai, which were only exacerbated by the fear that even if he emerges from a runoff election, he will have little credibility with his own people. “A counterinsurgency strategy can only work if you have a credible and legitimate Afghan partner. That’s in doubt now,” said Bruce O. Riedel, who led the administration’s strategy review of Afghanistan and Pakistan earlier this year. “Part of the reason you are seeing a hesitancy to jump deeper into the pool is that they are looking to see if they can make lemonade out of the lemons we got from the Afghan election.”
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POPSParty of Hope, Change and Beatdowns • Obama discussing ACORN support: "I don't want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I'm angry!" • Obama to his paid ACORN mercenaries (on the taxpayer dime, no less): "Hit Back Twice As Hard" Consider: this is happening now, a little more than a year before the midterm elections and three years from the Presidential election. And the precedent for tolerating voter intimidation at the polls has been set. Folks, I'll be frank. I don't have a good feeling about this.
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POPSHonduran President Makes Offer to End Political Standoff One complication involves allegations that Mr. Zelaya took several million dollars from Honduras's Central Bank before leaving the country. The Micheletti proposal would leave Mr. Zelaya vulnerable to prosecution on those charges, Mr. Corrales said. The official told Reuters that $215 million in grants from the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corp. -- of which $80 million has been disbursed -- would be at risk. The U.S. earlier this week restricted visas for Hondurans to visit the United States. Mr. Micheletti has refused a proposal by Mr. Arias that would have allowed Mr. Zelaya to return to office and scheduled new presidential elections in November. Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC
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POPSAppeal for a worldwide reading for Democracy and Freedom in Iran But the men of God had hardly seized power when they began liquidating a large section of the opposition, executing thousands of dissenters and destroying the indigenous culture in favour of so-called Islamisation, downgrading women as second-class citizens and subjecting art and literature to strict censorship. With the exception of brief uprisings by individuals or small groups, the population remained patient for a long time – for thirty years. But now the scandalous manipulation of the Presidential elections of June 12th has proved too much to bear.
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POPSAfghanistan...no end in sight The explosion was the first major attack in Kabul since February, when eight Taliban suicide bombers struck three government buildings, killing 20 people. The new attack was clearly aimed at the heart of the Western presence in the capital. The Nato headquarters – where the US military commander, General Stanley McChrystal, is based – is next to the US Embassy in the same street as the presidential palace and Afghanistan's transport ministry.
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POPSWhy Obama Isn't Necessarily Dead Articles like this are a necessary counterweight to media coverage that forgets that the next election isn't being held today. I disagree with the author's third reason for skepticism, though. Basically, presidential elections are referenda on the national mood, in which little about the opposition matters. If things aren't going well enough, the incumbent party loses. Frankly, unless the Republicans run somebody with bipartisan charisma or a national hero in 2012, the identity and platform of Obama's opponent won't matter. I'm not sure we have any universal national heroes out there, and this "partisan age" doesn't produce people with bipartisan charisma.
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POPSLA Times: Iran's nuclear aspirations threaten the world "But they're wrong, just as they have been from the start. Indeed, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about sticking to engagement. The main one is that it has already been tried -- and utterly failed. Iran has consistently used the West's willingness to engage as a delaying tactic, a smoke screen behind which Iran's nuclear program has continued undeterred and, in many cases, undetected."
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POPSAlan Keyes: Government Will Stage Terror, Declare Martial Law “The minute they think they can get away with it, they will end this system of government and that is their intention,” added Keyes, noting that everyone acting as if the time we are in was just “business as usual” reminds him of the attitude of politicians in the Weimar Republic when Hitler was rising to power or eastern Europe when the Communists were taking over after the second world war."
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POPSYank Tourist on Kurd-Iran Border Arrested!?
In the news it says (all propaganda distortions) : "Tourist? "Self-ruled Kurdish region? Iran seeking to build nuke weapons? Criticized Iran's disputed elections? The Guardian? Of course (sarcasm mode) we have to start off believing that the war torn Iraq-Iran northern border is a prime spot for backpacking tourist. Then we have to accept that this Kurdish region is "self-ruled." - i.e. that Iraq is broken into pieces already when this would be a Civil War issue. (part of a 'divide and conquer Master Plan, no doubt) Then I suppose there are some "U.S. officials," who say Iran is trying to build nukes but this is Zionist extremist and Republican warmongering and the Obama administration is trying hard, in the face of non-stop international lies - to make a distinction between nuclear Power and nuclear Weapons. Finally, there has been no official U.S. criticism of Iran elections and a deliberate attempt to indicate we should "not meddle." The Guardian? - g
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POPSNeda's Murder Was Not Staged
But, according to Iran's Press TV, police chief Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqadam declared Wednesday that the shooting was a "prearranged scenario" — a "premeditated act of murder" that could not have been committed by Iranian police. The White House called that allegation part of Iran's "ongoing campaign of misinformation" about the country's widely-disputed June 12 presidential elections, which returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office and sent hundreds of thousands into the streets in fury over what they claim was a stolen election. "I think the notion that the death of an innocent woman would be staged is — even with them — it's shocking," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday. Moqadam led the investigation following an order from Ahmadinejad inquiring about the "suspicious" nature of the shooting. The Iranian president said even before the investigation that anti-government "elements" were behind the killing — presumably fingering either foreign agents or even the
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POPSHard-Line Force Extends Grip Over a Splintered Iran “It is not a theocracy anymore,” said Rasool Nafisi, an expert in Iranian affairs and a co-author of an exhaustive study of the corps for the RAND Corporation. “It is a regular military security government with a facade of a Shiite clerical system.” The corps has become a vast military-based conglomerate, with control of Iran’s missile batteries, oversight of its nuclear program and a multibillion-dollar business empire reaching into nearly every sector of the economy. It runs laser eye-surgery clinics, manufactures cars, builds roads and bridges, develops gas and oil fields and controls black-market smuggling, experts say. Its fortune and its sense of entitlement have reportedly grown under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Since 2005, when he took office, companies affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards have been awarded more than 750 government contracts in construction and oil and gas projects, Iranian press reports document.
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