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POPSWhy Winning In Iraq Is So Critical It is in Europe, not in post-Iraq Kansas, where a Turkish prime minister announces to Muslim expatriate residents that they must remain forever Turks and assimilation is a crime; it is in post-Iraq Europe, not Los Angeles, where politicians and churchmen talk of the inevitability of Sharia law; and it is in post-Iraq Europe, not the United States, where honor killings and Islamic rioting are common occurrences. Why? A number of reasons, but despite all the misrepresentation and propaganda, the message has filtered through the Middle East that the United States will go after and punish jihadists — but also, alone of the Western nations, it will risk its own blood and treasure to work with Arab nations to find some alternative to the extremes of dictatorship and theocracy. Europe, in contrast to its utopian rhetoric, will trade with and profit from, but most surely never challenge, a Middle Eastern thug. ...Read the whole thing.
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POPSEmployer Arrested after Illegal Immigrant Murders a Police Officer They're required to say that Quintero "allegedly" shot the officer, but there's no question...he was handcuffed and locked in the back seat where he pulled out a pistol and shot him in the head 4 times. Robert Rutt, ICE Special Agent in charge of Houston: ''They are economic migrants, and if you take away their ability to get employment, the immigration problem will solve itself for the most part," he said. ''Our biggest weakness is not the porous border, but employers hiring illegal aliens." Worksite arrests by ICE agents have risen dramatically, according to agency statistics, which show criminal arrests — mostly company managers and contractors — jumped from 176 in fiscal 2005 to 863 in fiscal 2007. And administrative arrests of undocumented workers in worksite raids have increased from 1,116 in fiscal 2005 to 4,077 in fiscal 2007.
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POPSIllegal Immigration Crimes on the Rise in Houston " ICE officials could not say if they would review the immigration status of anyone within the Gonzalez family. In addition to the family member that Gonzalez's mother paid to have brought to the United States, the 14-year-old kidnapping victim is himself an illegal immigrant."
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POPSSupreme Court to Decide Presidential Power There's a lot going on here, and the clip prolly doesn't do it justice. To name a few: state vs. federal, executive vs judiciary, presidential powers, foreign policy, due process and ultimately justice. I can't say I know what the answer is either, just that I feel for the parents of those girls who are living this brutal event repeatedly in court.
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POPSHigher rate of gun ownership does not mean higher violent crime rate Some more: "The reason that gun ownership doesn't correlate with murder rates, the authors show, is that violent crime rates are determined instead by underlying cultural factors. "Ordinary people," they note, "simply do not murder." Rather, "the murderers are a small minority of extreme antisocial aberrants who manage to obtain guns whatever the level of gun ownership" in their society."