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POPSEmail President Bush To Grant Executive Pardon To Border Agents for drug smuggling. The Washington Times quotes T. J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, as being critical with the timing of the indictment against Aldrete Davila. "Osvaldo Aldrete Davila should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for these felonies two years ago," said Mr. Bonner, whose group represents more than 12,000 Border Patrol agents. "This deliberate and unconscionable delay directly resulted in the wrongful incarceration of two innocent law-enforcement officers." According to Drug Enforcement Administration documents obtained by The Times, DEA investigators believed they had sufficient evidence to indict Aldrete Davila in late 2005, but their requests to do so were denied by Mr. Sutton's office.
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POPS ACORN Is A Bad Seed In a letter to ACORN, the State Board of Elections reported that 56% of the voter registration applications ACORN turned in were ineligible. Further, a full 35% were not submitted in a timely manner, as required by law. The State Board of Elections also commented on what appeared to be evidence of intentional voter fraud. "Additionally,” they wrote, “information appears to have been altered on some applications where information given by the applicant in one color ink has been scratched through and re-entered in another color ink. Any alteration of a voter registration application is a Class 5 Felony in accordance with § 24.2-1009 of the Code of Virginia." WA 2007 Three ACORN employees pleaded guilty, and four more were charged, in the worst case of voter registration fraud in Washington state history. More than 2,000 fraudulent voter registration cards were submitted by the group during a voter registration drive.
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POPSWasn't the smoking ban going to destroy bars? Guess what?
From the 6/11/08 East Bay Express: "Even the Bush administration's own surgeon general has concluded that there are no risk-free levels of secondhand smoke, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency considers it to be among the most lethal carcinogens. According to a 2006 report by the California EPA, secondhand smoke kills more than 50,000 people nationwide every year, including 3,400 deaths from lung cancer and 46,000 from heart disease. The costs to society are also staggering. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States spends more than $167 billion each year in smoke-related healthcare costs. That's a price tag of $3,702 per adult smoker. A recent study found that smoking outdoors poses risks to nonsmokers, too. Stanford University researchers discovered that under certain conditions, such as sitting near a smoker on a park bench or in an outdoor dining area, the dangers of secondhand-smoke exposure are essentially equal to those ind
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POPSAlaska Becomes 9th State to Outlaw REAL ID Tyrannical federal legislation sparked another Civil War against federal despotism, and the states are seceding from REAL ID continually, essentially using the doctrine of Nullification based upon the 10th amendment of the Constitution. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Any state that respects the Constitution and freedom for its citizens will do the same.
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POPSHillary Clinton Gushes Over Oregon's Green Leadership Clinton praised Portland for cutting its greenhouse emissions from 1990 levels. And she said she wants to get 25 percent of the nation's electricity from renewable energy such as solar and wind by 2025 -- which is called for in Oregon law. "Oregon is already doing it," she said. Michael Grainey, director of the state Department of Energy, said the 2005 federal law "clearly pre-empts" Oregon's authority to decide on an LNG project. But the state does have some ability under the coastal law to challenge the projects, such as the one proposed near Astoria.
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POPSMcCain's Treasury Sec. pick tied to Subprime Meltdown More: For his work, Gramm and two other lobbyists collected $750,000 in fees from UBS’s American subsidiary. Wall Street firms are increasingly under scrutiny for contributing to the economic downturn by packaging and selling risky mortgage securities. When the home loans tied to the mortgages defaulted, investors and the banks lost billions, contributing to a widespread credit crunch. UBS has written down more then $18 billion in exposure to subprime loans and other risky securities and is considering cutting as many as 8,000 job Now, some housing experts and economists see Gramm’s thinking in the recent housing proposal from McCain, the Republican Party’s presumed presidential nominee. Gramm is often a surrogate for the Arizona senator, particularly in meetings focused on the economy. And McCain has hinted he’d consider the former Texas senator for Treasury secretary in a McCain administration.
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POPSLamar Alexander R-Tenn Sees Chance To Nix Real ID Act
“Congress created Real ID, and they can do away with Real ID,” said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute and the author of a book on identification laws and technology. “Not a single state is going to be in compliance with the law by May, and the program has been failing from the start.” Citing the law’s unfunded costs and big-government approach, Alexander told Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at a March 4 subcommittee meeting about his plans for the amendment. Like many critics, one of Alexander’s biggest concerns is cost. He points out that while some estimates of the implementation of Real ID come to $4 billion, federal officials have appropriated only $60 million and distributed only $6 million. At least 19 states have passed measures stating their opposition. “If you pass a bill without hearings, you’re going to miss stuff. And the authors of Real ID missed a lot,” Harper, of the Cato Institute said.
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POPSChinese Man Sentenced In Aegis Secrets Case Investigators said they found three encrypted CDs in the couple’s luggage that contained documents on a submarine propulsion system, a solid-state power switch for ships and a PowerPoint presentation on the future of power electronics. Mak’s wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, pleaded guilty last year on the eve of her trial to one count of acting as a foreign agent without registering with the U.S. government. She is serving three years in federal prison and will be deported upon release. His brother, Tai Mak, pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to violate export control laws in exchange for a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Tai Mak’s wife, Fuk Li, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the violation of export control laws and received three years of probation. Yui “Billy” Mak, the son of Tai Mak and Fuk Li, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the violation of export control laws and was sentenced to time already served. The three will also be deported.
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POPSBiometric Speed Passes Promoted to Ignorant Americans What is being implemented in Iraq under Martial Law is being sold to the public as "voluntary" (for now) here. Will Americans trade their privacy and freedom for convenience? (Answer: the stupid ones will). REAL ID will employ this eventually too. "Membership has its privileges".
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POPSBi-Partisan Opposition in Pennsylvania to REAL ID Seeks to Block Implementation Pennsylvania also, like West Virginia, presently has bi-partisan legislation pending against REAL ID to prevent its implementation. As the article points out this unusual bi-partisan coalition is mirrored at the national level where groups as diverse as the ACLU and American Center for Law and Justice (as well as National Rifle Association) are all finding common ground in the Constitution to defend their rights to privacy and state's rights versus government intrusion. Any governor that does not see the strength and broadness of this movement, or is blind to what the Constitution limits government from doing, will probably find bipartisan opposition to their re-election as well. Note the legislative bills from Pennsylvania are linked in the clip below.
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POPSEvolutionary Politics: Does it matter what Presidential Candidates believe about Evolution? I absolutely LOVE this quote, & agree whole-heartedly: My favorite response from any candidate about the evolution/creationism debate was from former Sen. Mike Gravel (Alaska). When LiveScience asked the senator if he thought creationism should be taught in public schools, Gravel replied, ""Oh God, no. Oh, Jesus. We thought we had made a big advance with the Scopes monkey trial....My God, evolution is a fact, and if these people are disturbed by being the descendants of monkeys and fishes, they've got a mental problem. We can't afford the psychiatric bill for them. That ends the story as far as I'm concerned."
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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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POPSGood News on NCLB--Maybe Beyond the issue of not paying, however, is the actual value of this test-driven curriculum that is being forced onto teachers and students. Add to that the real reasons behind NCLB, providing all the student records to military recruiters, the destruction of public education system and increasing privatization– subtext in the program. And how many parents actually know that they can REFUSE TESTING???
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POPSAn Investigation, A Conviction and A Pardon. Durham, who has served with the Justice Department for 25 years, has a reputation as one of the nation's most relentless prosecutors. He sent former FBI agent John Connolly to prison."Nobody in this country is above the law... " Durham said in 2002. --- Here we go again, no one's above the law or so they say. But I am not holding my breath on this one. To me, it's just another investigation, another (MAYBE) conviction and another pardon. I would like to get my hands on the guy who first sputtered the words... NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW and tell him, in his ear, very loudly "YOU HAVEN'T MET GEORGE W. BUSH and his MERRY BAND OF MACHIAVELLIAN NEO-CON-ARTISTS, HAVE YOU?" :shock: --- How the Neocons Misread Machiavelli By FIRMIN DeBRABANDER The now notorious Neo-Cons owe much to that dark prince of political theory, Machiavelli. Indeed... Read More At: http://www.counterpunch.org/debrabander06132007.html
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POPSOne Million Ways to Die Driving off the road... as in being IED'ed? Falling... as in falling in battle in an illegal war? Accidental poisoning... as in D.U. munitions? Dying from work... as in US Military? (Or more like David Kelly?) Walking down the street... as in being "disappeared"? Accidental drowning... as in waterboarding? Hmm... well thank heavens at least the billions of $$$ spent have made us safe from "terrorists".:)
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POPSScandal at christian Oral Roberts University - Lawsuit Pending
More: Richard Roberts, according to the suit, asked a professor in 2005 to use his students and university resources to aid a county commissioner's bid for Tulsa mayor. Such involvement would violate state and federal law because of the university's nonprofit status. Up to 50 students are alleged to have worked on the campaign. The professors also said their dismissals came after they turned over to the board of regents a copy of a report documenting moral and ethical lapses on the part of Roberts and his family. The internal document was prepared by Stephanie Cantese, Richard Roberts' sister-in-law. Roberts' home has been remodeled 11 times in the past 14 years. University and ministry employees are regularly summoned to the Roberts' home to do the daughters' homework. Mrs. Roberts spent $39,000 at one Chico's clothing store in less than a year, and had other accounts in Texas and California. repeatedly said, "As long as I wear it once on TV, we can charge it off."
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POPSMore... You read it and make up your mind based on the facts.
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