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POPS Secret memo shows Israel knew Settlements were illegal The argument that the settlements are illegal, stated in successive UN resolutions, and by the International Court of Justice advisory opinion condemning the separation barrier in 2004, is reinforced by such an authoritative source. It strengthens the political case in any "final status" negotiations on borders with the Palestinians for genuinely equitable land swaps of Israeli territory to a future Palestinian state if Israel is to retain settlement blocks.
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POPSDept. of You Can't Make this $%&! Up! Presents: Karl Rove I mean really, of all the people to say something like this, Karl Rove? And please spare me the "Armitage said it first!" bull. Just because somebody commits a crime does not open the way for others. Armitage cooperated with investigators, Rove and Libby obstructed justice.
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POPSEasing of laws that led to torture hatched in secret And why did they do this? "Only one of the five War Council lawyers remains in office: David Addington, the brilliant but abrasive longtime legal adviser and now chief of staff to Cheney. His primary motive, according to several former administration and defense officials, was to push for an expansion of presidential power that Congress or the courts couldn't check."
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POPSMore Headaches for McCain’s Camp CONT: NEWSWEEK has learned that UBS is also currently the focus of congressional and Justice Department investigations into schemes that allegedly enabled wealthy Americans to evade income taxes by stashing their money in overseas havens, according to several law-enforcement and banking officials in both the United States and Europe, who all asked for anonymity when discussing ongoing investigations.
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POPSBlood Money: Chiquita Banana Pays Paramilitaries Protection Money Of course, Chiquita has a bad record South of the border, just as the Guatemalans. They have operated in these countries for decades, they knew what was what. When the Army failed them, they called in the AUC. The CEO of Chiquita admitted on camera that if they had not "volunteered" the info, nothing would have happened. And the State and Justice Departments are not investigating, even after a former AUC leader volunteered to turn state evidence.
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POPSRev. Jeremiah Wright isn't the problem It's not surprising that the right is using Wright to paint Barack Obama as a closet Farrakhan, trying to let the air out of his trans-racial balloon by insinuating that he's a dogmatic race man. But beyond the fake shock and the all-too-familiar racial politics, what the whole episode reveals is how narrow the range of acceptable discourse remains in this country. This is especially true of anything having to do with patriotism or 9/11 -- which have become virtually interchangeable. Wright's unforgivable sin was that he violated our rigid code of national etiquette. Instead of the requisite "God bless America," he said "God damn America." He said 9/11 was a case of chickens coming home to roost. Now we must all furrow our brows and agree that such dreadful words are anathema and that no presidential candidate can ever have been within earshot of them.
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POPSMusharraf will not resign. Will Pakistan be the next country to be "liberated" by U.S. forces? I mean they have a bloody dictator, WMDs and its a hotbed of terrorism, what more do you need?
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POPS19th March, 5th Anniversary Of The Iraq Invasion- Blogswarm From the article: "Q. How do I become involved? Go to the swarm homeblog march19-blogswarm.blogspot.com and- Post a comment with your blog’s title and URL. If you join up by the fifth anniversary of mass actions against the war, February 15, 2008, you will be included in the listing of “Charter Blogs” displayed on the home blogs menu." I already joined, you can do the same! Get involved!
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POPSThe Democratic Congress has failed It has abandoned its Constitutional obligations to feed from the breadcrumbs of a faltering White House. As power begets power, injustice begets injustice.
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POPS Ayatollah Huckabee Condemns US Constitution with new Fatwa But as the author notes, another Ayatollah beat him to the punch: "Article 2 The Islamic Republic is a system based on belief in: 1.the One God (as stated in the phrase "There is no god except Allah"), His exclusive sovereignty and the right to legislate, and the necessity of submission to His commands; 2.Divine revelation and its fundamental role in setting forth the laws; 3.the return to God in the Hereafter, and the constructive role of this belief in the course of man's ascent towards God; 4.the justice of God in creation and legislation . Guess who....
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POPSCellphones & Privacy: Who Cares? From the article: ""Most people don't realize it, but they're carrying a tracking device in their pocket," said Kevin Bankston of the privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Cellphones can reveal very precise information about your location, and yet legal protections are very much up in the air."
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POPSHow Blackwater Sniper Fire Felled 3 Iraqi Guards Of course the U.S. goverment made a half hearted counterclaim. From the article: "The U.S. government reached a different conclusion. Based on information from the Blackwater guards, who said they were fired upon, the State Department determined that the security team's actions "fell within approved rules governing the use of force," according to an official from the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Neither U.S. Embassy officials nor Blackwater representatives interviewed witnesses or returned to the network, less than a quarter-mile from Baghdad's Green Zone, to investigate."
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POPSBlackwater mercenaries promised immunity Immunity is rarely give, for the reasons stated above, yet read what the article says below: "Three senior law enforcement officials said all the Blackwater bodyguards involved — both in the vehicle convoy and in at least two helicopters above — were given the legal protections as investigators from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security sought to find out what happened. The bureau is an arm of the State Department."
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POPSAnother Bush Lie: On Torture From the article: "Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it."
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POPSI will fight back! The Brando Mayfield's story From the article: "Almost the only vaguely exotic thing about Brandon Mayfield is his religion: He is a Muslim convert and belongs to a local mosque. But like Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th-century French writer whom he likes to quote and who helped define the American spirit, Mayfield worries that in a democratic system, the tendency of government will be to augment its power at the expense of minorities. “I’m suspicious of government anyway,” he said in an interview last week. And it's not hard to conclude that Mayfield's one deviation from the norm, the thing that makes him a minority, explains why, for a few weeks in 2004, he was one of the most famous people in the world." This is what happens when in the name of security, the goverment is given free reign.