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POPS Thug Ed Markey (D-MA) Tried to Launch Investigation on Climate Bill Opponent!
… Our witnesses… have every right to expect that in exchange for their honesty with us, they will not be subjected to sanction, retribution and vengeance simply because the facts and opinions they offer do not square with those of the Committee’s members. Exercising the power of the Majority requires a special responsibility to protect witnesses. … As the hearing was still under way, however, Mr. Sokol and his company became the focus of apparent intimidation when Chairman Markey by letter dated the day of the hearing, asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to answer specific questions about investment and transmission-related activities of MidAmerican Energy and its parent, investor Warren Buffett… … An after-the-fact rationalization, however, does not change the appearance that Chairman Markey’s June 9 letter to FERC was intended to badger and harass a witness whose offense was merely daring to disagree with Mr. Markey
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POPS Patterns of Force * The language used in the announcement has creepy echoes of every rationalization used by the government to take away human rights (free speech in this case.) These are “extraordinary circumstances,” and for the good of the nation, we can’t allow any speech that would threaten economic recovery; it’s like when the Iranian mullahs shut down the opposition press, or Hugo Chavez shut down the only remaining opposition television station. (And the American left cheered!) And we are only four months into this Chicago thug’s regime. What more is to come?
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POPS Doubting Der Spiegel " is a direct echo of Russian rationalization to go into Chechnya," says Goltz. "But it is also the basis of virtually any country's decision to re-establish control over breakaway pieces of real estate and mafia dens, ranging from the U.S. South in 1861 to Italian efforts to trim the mob in Sicily." Goltz also has concerns about the article's information quality, including what he called the "burying" of Russia's distribution of passports to separatists halfway into the story, which served as the immediate cassus belli for Russian intervention. He also notes that the cell phone intercepts which point to Russian military movement well before originally acknowledged went unmentioned. The leak itself might also be reason for pause.
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POPSObama to Let the Torturing Thugs Off It's as disgusting as something gets: let the criminals go Scott free. Obama intends to let off those CIA officials who tortured others during the George Bush regime. The reason? Because these thugs were told their acts were legal by the Bush administration. It's Nuremberg defense all over again. Apparently, as long as you believe you are following a lawful order, you have no obligation to check the law for yourself, much less employ your conscience or have one. There has never been a tyrant and his henchmen in the history of humanity that hasn't employed the same rationalization for their brutalities.
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POPSTragedy of Falun Gong The Chinese government “used the Olympics’ security as a pretext to apprehend, torture, and murder people who had already suffered prolonged human rights violations in China. The U.S. continues to ignore China's humans rights violations in deference to its own economic interests. Every time we buy something marked with 'made in China' we are contributing to the worsening human rights violations that directly violate pre-Olympics promises. “Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Christians, and human rights lawyers and defenders have been victimized and lost their freedom because of their refusal to conform to the abusive regime,” the report ends “But those who choose to be in the same boat and rise and fall with such an abusive regime have lost their conscience.”
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POPSHealthcare Solutions Blog to provide information & suggestions on different healthcare business solutions. The blog also helps and guides visitors on how to select the best healthcare solution providers in the industry and the points visitors should keep in mind before selecting a healthcare solutions provider.
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POPSTentative Senate Deal on Stimulus The piece goes on: said the package now includes $45.5 billion for infrastructure projects, $6 billion for special education, $4.4 billion to improve electricity transmission and $87 billion in "targeted temporary increases" in the federal Medicaid matching rate to help states avoid deep cutbacks in health care coverage. Among the expenditures that the negotiators deleted was $870 million for pandemic flu preparedness, which Collins said was an example of a needed program but one that "doesn't belong in a stimulus package." See, that's one of the things I don't get about GOP objections -- if things are needed, why don't they belong in the stimulus? Why trim out things that you later expect to pass anyway? It's not like the senate gets paid by the hour. It's all been a rationalization for obstructionism. A cheap political stunt to score points with the wingnut crowd.
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POPSInternal Perceptions / External Perceptions Within a particular cultural system, you always have to entertain second opinions from interested parties. It is not a contraversial statement that Stalin was evil, internationally. However! In Russia there are still many invested in Stalin and Nationalism who will try to rationalize it. Similarly, internationally, it is not a controversial statement that Bush was a monstrous, hostile, and unjust President. But in America there will people that will argue and try to justify torture and persecution that Bush perpetrated. An apologist is an apologist. If we cannot take responsibility for our own moral lapses, how can we possibly find our moral compass? People who refuse to look beyond their narrow world view discredit themselves.
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POPSDangers of "Group Think" Evident in March to War These are characteristics of most all groups, especially highly charged political parties which are easily recognized here. Note the silence of individuals plays a key role in conformity. Speak up! Collective Rationalization reminds me of the "group think" that led America to war against Iraq (per the neoconservatives preconceived plans), even though it did not harbor terrorists or attack the U.S., just because Bush and Cheney, after 9/11, said so. This same "group think" is within the entire story of 9/11 and the Collective Rationalization for a continued "war on terrorism" to invade other countries at will. GROUP THINK MUST BE CHALLENGED TO PREVENT UNJUST WARS. Number 8 (did not have room to clip) is here: Mindguards: Some members appoint themselves to the role of protecting the group from adverse information that might threaten group complacency.
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POPSLearning from Dr. King "...And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. You died when you refused to stand up for right. You died when you refused to stand up for truth. You died when you refused to stand up for justice." -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. From the sermon "But, If Not" delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967.
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POPSRationalization drives the culture war "According to Dr. Jack Kevorkian, for example, all those reluctant to participate in his rationalization for killing people (including, it turns out, some who are not even ill) are the real problem; the judicial system is "corrupt," the medical profession is "insane," and the press is "meretricious." Of the coroner who found nothing medically wrong with several of his victims, Dr. Kevorkian said that he is a "liar and a fanatical religious nut."
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POPSCulture of Vice - Robert Reilly "Entrenched moral aberrations then impel people to rationalize vice not only to themselves but to others as well. Thus rationalizations become an engine for revolutionary change that will affect society as a whole. "
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POPSOlbama's Tax Plan Designed To Appeal To Class Envy That $40 billion tax hike alone is twice as much as all the federal taxes paid by the 39 million Americans in the bottom quintile. We're sure that Obama's camp would address our concerns by pointing out that raising the tax bill for the top 1% eases the tax burden on the rest of America. But that's a superficial rationalization designed to appeal to class envy. First, increasing the burden on the top taxpayers will not make the poor rich, but instead make the rich poorer. There will be 131 billion fewer dollars in the private sector for investments that create businesses and jobs. Second, squeezing the federal tax burden onto an ever smaller group is not smart. The Marxist appetite for radically progressive taxation is both unfair and dangerous. Third, the large majority that pays little or no taxes will make excessive demands on the small group that is saddled with the burden because the non- and low-paying group is insulated from the pain.
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POPSPolitical Junkies: Why it Feels Good to Be an Extremist In The Political Brain , psychologist Drew Western summarizes fMRI experiments exploring the neuro-psychology of systematic bias and rationalization in the brains of political extremists. Finding ways to dismiss contradictory evidence triggers pleasant emotional releases in partisans' brains, eventually becoming a pleasurable, learned behavior. Once partisans had found a way to reason to false conclusions, not only did neural circuits involved in negative emotions turn off, but circuits involved in positive emotions turned on. The partisan brain didn't seem satisfied in just feeling better. It worked overtime to feel good, activating reward circuits that give partisans a jolt of positive reinforcement for their biased "reasoning." These reward circuits overlap substantially with those activated when drug addicts get their "fix," giving new meaning to the term political junkie.
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POPSSmoking ban hits French cafe culture
Now smokers will be confined to sealed smoking room. I'm sure it won't be long before they will have to be 'decontaminated' before they come out. The idea seems particularly dictatorial, with the rationalization based on contrived statistics. What pollutes and damages more Smoking, or car exhaust and industrial pollution. The biggest advantage car exhaust has is that it doesn't seem as offensive, because people seem to love the smell of gasoline, even though it rots the lungs. How many of the detrimental effects of car exhaust have been attributed to passive smoking? Because the statisticians. weren't looking. Car exhaust is loaded with Carbon Monoxide We cannot detect Carbon Monoxide. This fact can make it one of the most deadly substances. It can kill because the system is unaware that the oxygen levels are depleted. Breathing isn't triggered by a lack of oxygen. It is triggered by a surplus of carbon dioxide. Something inhalation if CO does not create. We forget to breathe.
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POPSTrust Me "I do not draw attention to these facts to chastise the candidates but to chastise the public. The idea that anyone would base his or her vote on a candidate's "trustworthiness" is absurd. But the idea that fence-sitting voters would or should withhold their votes from Clinton because she is, God forbid, not trustworthy implies that this is somehow an aberrant characteristic for a presidential candidate. Of all the things I have read about this never-ending campaign, this is by far the most hilarious. If you can't stand the sight of Hillary Clinton because she's too liberal, too rich, too haughty, went to Wellesley or simply because she's a woman, at least be man enough to come out and admit it. Don't hide behind some bogus "trustworthiness" rationalization."
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POPSReligion/Science - Oil/Water No matter what mental rationalization you've thought up the bottom line is that science and religion are at odds with one another. Ask anyone who has waded through the tortured reasoning of theists to reconcile their beliefs with scientific facts knows that believing in talking snakes, burning bushes, Jewish zombies, or virgin births has to forgo reality and enter a world of myth and fairy tales. Ordinarily this could be viewed as simply a character quirk. But unfortunately it has wider reaching consequences. We are dumbing down our children because of irrational belief in a bronze age culture's view of the world. In our society, ignorance is thought charming while intelligence is "elitism". How ass backwards is this?
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POPSRFK. Jr. Endorses Clinton--Damn!
Hirschorn continues: Here is my take: Hillary Clinton represents the worst of the Democratic contenders. She is totally committed to take all the corporate money she can get. She really is a hawk when it comes to the Iraq war and even voted the wrong way recently when it comes to Iran. She is incredibly dishonest and phony. The reason why there are millions of Hillary haters is that she inspires distrust. A Hillary presidency would pursue corporate globalization and the terrible trade policies of her husband that has done so much to destroy America’s middle class. Her views on universal health coverage do not seem focused on getting rid of all the insurance industry involvement. Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary just shows how the status quo political establishment can rig the system to get what it wants. What has Bobby been promised? Head of the US EPA? Support for replacing Hillary in the Senate? Who knows? But his endorsement stinks and puts a big blemish on his credibility
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POPSIslamic group to help America's poorest Any person who can support a political party who can turn it's back on the poorest in our nation should be nominated to the HALL OF SHAME. But, as usual these unfeeling types, come equipped with a backpack full of rationalizations to ease their consciences. I can understand we all need a good rationalization from time to time but come on ... supporting a political party who can so easily dismiss the poor, or react as though, anyone living in poverty chooses so...that's beyond unfeeling and is apathy, to the point of pathetic...
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