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POPSConservatives At Odds With McCain But perhaps more importantly, he has long been an advocate of entitlement reform. He was early an ardent support of personal accounts for Social Security, and has pushed for serious Medicare reform, including means-testing. Almost alone among Republicans, he opposed the disastrous Medicare prescription drug benefit. "On domestic policy, he has shown a disturbing predilection for elevating every personal pet peeve, from steroids in baseball to airplane service quality, to a federal issue. And, he has embraced heavily regulatory environmental policies and compulsory national service. Like George W. Bush, he tends to support federal power over federalism, executive authority over legislative, and generally leans toward the imperial presidency. For believers in individual liberty and limited government, it's a decidedly mixed bag. But, then again, aren't they all?"
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POPSObama's Okie Doke Obama voted against a ban on partial birth abortions. Americans support a ban by a margin of 66% to 28%. Obama supports affirmative action in public employment, contracting and university admissions. Americans oppose giving an advantage in these areas on the basis of race by a margin of 82% to 14%. Obama voted against a ban on partial birth abortions. Americans support a ban by a margin of 66% to 28%. Obama opposed the Induced Birth Infant Liability Act while in the Illinois state legislature, to prevent abortion providers from withholding medical care and sustenance from infants born after surviving an abortion attempt. Despite his equivocal statements regarding the recent Supreme Court decision striking down the D.C. gun ban, Obama has never met a gun ban he didn't like. While in the Illinois state legislature, Obama voted against parental notification requirements for abortions for minors. Americans support parental notification laws by a margin of 79% to 17%.
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POPSBush breaks from the past? 
On the domestic front, Bush broadly expanded federal spending on education, signed campaign finance reform and orchestrated a huge expansion of health-care entitlements with his prescription drug benefit. Whatever the merits of those policies, it’s unlikely historians will see them as a radical, right-wing break from the Clinton years. much as Obama’s own foreign policy advisors have for a while — that his foreign policy promises will not survive contact with post-election reality. Already, Obama is changing his tune from his old, irresponsibly heated rhetoric about “immediate” withdrawal to talking about the need for policies that would adapt to the improving conditions in Iraq. Given Obama’s ideological leanings and inexperience, there’s clearly plenty of potential for him to make costly mistakes. But odds are he, too, would come to realize that America needs to win the war on terror and succeed in Iraq. Hence the greatest irony. A successful Obama presidency would have the u
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POPSUnabashadly Unprincipled "Normally, flip-flopping presidential candidates have to worry about the press. Not Obama. After all, this is a press corps that heard his grandiloquent Philadelphia speech — designed to rationalize why “I can no more disown (Jeremiah Wright) than I can disown my white grandmother” — then wiped away a tear and hailed him as the second coming of Abraham Lincoln. Three months later, with Wright disowned, grandma embraced and the great “race speech” now inoperative, not a word of reconsideration is heard from his media acolytes." "Remember his pledge to stick to public financing? Now flush with cash, he is the first general-election candidate since Watergate to opt out." "When it’s time to throw campaign finance reform, telecom accountability, NAFTA renegotiation or Jeremiah Wright overboard, Obama is not sentimental. He does not hesitate. He tosses lustily." Why, the man even tossed his own grandmother overboard
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POPSCould McCain be a victim of McCain Feingold? First it was Obama refusing "public funds" which allows him to raise as much money from as many people as he wants without limitations, and now the Supes have ruled that a multi-billionaire can in effect purchase a political office. It would appear from this 'casual observer' McCain Feingold was an attempt to 'fix' elections by controlling which candidate actually has enough money to let their voice be heard while drowning out anyone else. This is the adverse to what the intent of the law was meant to do, but in all reality I believe it is exactly what the laws sponsors actually intended. McCain therefore may fall victim to his own sponsored bill.
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POPSPelosi Climate Ad May Have Violated Campaign Laws, Experts Say
-- the degree to which a candidate's campaign can work with an independent group for a commercial is limited. The rules are set on content and conduct for any political commercial. Content rules can apply to the use of a candidate's name, for instance, while conduct is determined by what role the candidate had, if any, in planning the production of the commercial. The last run date of the ad came less than 30 days before the June 3 Democratic primary in California where Pelosi faces a primary challenge. Judicial Watch will file a complaint to the Federal Election Commission about the commercial, said Tom Fitton, president of the conservative watchdog group. He said that even if the ad was not intended to skirt campaign finance laws, it resulted in skirting those laws. "Those who are in this business ought to know what the rules are," Fitton told Cybercast News Service . "It's a major issue to have candidates appearing in ads for any reason."
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POPSJohn McCain global warming tour? I just love how McCain embraces the left with such enthusiasm, no matter how absurd their ideas are. I just wish he'd "reach across the aisle" to the Conservatives every once in a while!
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POPSA Conservative Crisis Of Followership: David Frum
So, 2008 is not 1988. The problems are different and so must the solutions be. The Reagan themes do not carry the power they once did. The conservative voting majority is not a majority any more. To compete and win this year Republicans have to adapt and change, not revert and revive. The country has changed since 1988. Polls capture a shift to the left on economic issues. The once decisive tax issue has faded altogether, and no wonder: 80 per cent of Americans now pay more in payroll taxes than in federal income taxes. Americans care less about taxes than healthcare and fuel prices, issues where Republicans offer few solutions and speak with something less than passionate urgency. Americans are expressing a new pessimism about upward mobility and their children’s chances of leading a better life – an understandable reaction to the stagnation of median wages since 2000. Even on the signature issue of the war on terror, Americans are turning away from Republican ideas.
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POPSGot a Billion? Buy a President Merit and honor no longer are the deciding factors in a Presidential election. Who has the biggest war chest seems to be the deciding factors anymore. If you got a billion go be president. So much for looking out for the little guy.
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POPSMcCain's Ethics: From Keating Five to Iseman McCain has a pattern of unethical operations on behalf of favored lobbyists while feigning to be a policeman for good government against corruption. This is why he is entirely untrustworthy and why his public image as a reputable maverick is without merit.
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POPSFormer House Speaker Hastert:::McCain 'Allied With Democrats' The former House speaker has not had a lot of good to say about McCain in recent years. He contended that on agenda items under the Republican-controlled Congress, “it just seems like everything we did, John was someplace else.” “It was McCain-Kennedy, it was McCain-Lieberman, it was McCain-Feingold on campaign finance reform,” Hastert said, noting Democratic co-sponsors. “He was against us on tax cuts and his form of immigration reform was to open the gates and let everybody in.” “He is a moderate,” the former speaker said. “In almost everything he’s done, he’s done (things) against what mainstream Republicans thought and he’s allied with Democrats. He was always the undependable vote in the Senate.” McCain's campaign thinks they can smooth things over. "We look forward to the Speaker's support in the general election," said Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to McCain.
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POPSThis Is Quite A Record For A "Straight Talker" Super Tuesday may be the voters’ last chance to bring the so-called “straight talk express” to a screeching halt. It should be called the “sell-out express” because McCain has sold out not only with amnesty for illegal aliens but also sold out the First Amendment with the McCain-Feingold “campaign finance reform” bill that was supposed to take big money out of political campaigns, but blatantly has not. McCain also sold out on judicial nominations by making his own side deal with the Democrats,undercutting Republican attempts to stop Democrats from filibustering judicial nominees instead of voting them up or down. Let’s talk sense. Benedict Arnold was a war hero but that did not exempt him from condemnation for his later betrayal. Being a war hero is not a lifetime get-out-of-jail-free card. And becoming president of the United States is not a matter of rewarding an individual for past services.
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POPSAnd The Wink Says,"I Just Lied" "...and I'm a true conservative" WINK,WINK! With a sly grin. Right in front of the world. Review the victory speech in Florida. ....also.....Mitt has to inject some fresh catch phrases and become more spontaneous and touch some hearts and minds in the next week or he is TOAST.
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POPSThe Reform Institute Is McCain's Achilles Heel McCain, long a proponent of a la carte pricing, urged federal regulators in May 2004 to support the idea, quoting Dolan's testimony before the Commerce Committee in May 2003. McCain denied there was any conflict of interest. Federal campaign records examined by U.S. News show that Cablevision Systems' pac gave $10,000 to McCain's Senate re-election committee in February 2003—just a month before the senator urged other cable companies, in writing, to follow Cablevision's lead on a la carte pricing. Shortly after the AP story, McCain stepped down as chairman of the Reform Institute's advisory board in March 2005.
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POPSIndependeny Media Power vs. The Corporate Coup We now live in a country run by corporations. Its about time we take it back. Here is group bring minds together, give speeches and preach to the choir but to get together and and talk strategies. Its time Corporations end having the power to send lobbyists with pockets of cash to buy our rights from our Government. Its time we end allowing Countries to outsource jobs and reward them for it. Its time our government tells us to go out shopping to fix the economy. Its time we stop be gentle consumers and take back America before its too late.
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POPSMexican president lashes out at U.S. candidates Although he did not single out any candidate by name, Calderón made his comments on the same day Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, a Republican who has made immigration reform the centerpiece of his presidential campaign, released an incendiary ad linking immigrants to terrorism and violence in the streets. Mexican politicians regularly criticize U.S. immigration policies, but it is highly unusual for the president of the republic to directly address the U.S. political process. But Calderón said the situation had become intolerable. “We are respectful of the internal processes and decisions of the Americans,” he said, “but we also demand respect for Mexico and for Mexicans.”
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POPS7 years later: I told you so! We're no longer hearing much about third parties in Amerika. What happened to them? Why don't we hear from them anymore? It's because they can no longer legally raise enough money to get their word out. The misnamed `campaign finance reform' actually outlawed the ability of all challengers to effectively raise funds for their campaigns. A better name for this heinous law would be `the Incumbent Protection Act', since that's precisely what it really does. And it does NOTHING to stop corruption in campaign financing. Rather, it has increased it, if anything. I warned about it years ago here: http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2002/022002/02152002/524933 So now that enough time has passed for everyone to see the results of this law, I can honestly say: I told you so!
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POPSObama Hype? I have no reason to challenge the grass roots support that Obama claims. Still, this would seem to suggest that there is a certain amount of hype in the "record" pace. I also see a big loophole here in all the campaign finance reform alarmism of recent years. Could I buy 10,000 Brownback for president t-shirts after already maximizing my legal donations for the cycle? Seems to demonstrate the silliness of such laws.