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POPSWe Don't Need No Stinkin' Trial! A famous movie line is from a Mexican bandit who is asked for his badge (he had claimed his gang to be lawful police). "Badges!? Badges!?" the bandit says. "We don't need no stinkin' badges!" Bang. Bang. It seems we just can't afford any 'stinkin' trial,' for this accused terrorist, KSM. I mean, opponents say, What if he's found innocent? (one problem) What if he uses the trial to say something? (2nd problem) What if having a trial makes us a target? (another problem) Can we afford a trial? But he's already been in jail 8years, isn't it a little late? He's been tortured a lot, which we can't admit? Trial? We don't need no stinkin' trial. Bush tried to set up fake kangaroo court military tribunals. They failed Maybe we should just cut his tongue out, break all his fingers and encase him in an Iron Mask. The Sheikh in the Iron Mask -- like that French story. Then the mystery would be forever: Who is this guy? What did he do? Any evidence? We
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POPSU.S.Troop Funds $2.6 Billion Taken From Guns and Ammunition For "Pet Projects"
Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, called the transfer of funds from Pentagon operations and maintenance "a disgrace." "The Senate is putting favorable headlines back home above our men and women fighting on the front lines," he said in a statement. RELATED STORIES: • Michigan town lobbies for Gitmo transfers • Top Treasury posts stay empty in financial crisis • VA Dept. hospitals botched treatments Mr. Wheeler, who conducted the study, compared the Obama administration's requests for funds with the $636 billion spending bill that the Senate passed. He discovered that senators added $2.6 billion in pet projects while spending $4 billion less than the administration requested for fiscal 2010, which began Oct. 1. Mr. Wheeler said that senators took most of the cash for the projects from the "operations and maintenance" or O&M accounts. "These are the accounts that pay for troop training, repairs, spares and supplies for vehicles, weapons, ships and planes,
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POPSSkewed Priorities Raise Their Ugly Heads. Blackwater/Xe is one of the dirtiest companies around. They murder, lie, steal and cheat. They have defrauded U.S. taxpayers of MILLIONS of dollars and have refused to be accountable, not only for the money but also for well documented murder and rape among other crimes. And we just let it ride and keep on paying them more. Meanwhile, li'l ole Acorn hires a couple of idiots who appear to hand out questionable advice to a couple of ringers, and man, are we all over it! Instantaneous cut-off of funding and front page rants and raves. In the immortal words of Yakov Smirnoff, "What a country"!
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POPSHonduras This is appalling, our government is showing its support for a socialist dictator that was overthrown by a country upholding its constitution.
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POPSU.S. Aid to Honduras Moves Toward Formal Cut Off Where's The Thanks? Posted 08/21/2009 INVESTOR.com Allies: Tiny Honduras last week handed over a Syrian death merchant to face justice in the U.S. That's right: The same 'coup-government' the Obama administration reviles is one of the very few helping us fight terror. As shadowy moneymen in the terror underworld go, not many are as unsavory as Jamal Yousef, an ex-Syrian military man turned terrorist arms supplier. Three years ago in Honduras, undercover U.S. agents caught him trying to sell 100 AR-15 assault rifles, 100 M-16 assault rifles, 10 M-60 machine guns, C-4 explosives, 2,500 hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and as many as 18 surface-to-air missiles to Colombia's FARC Marxist narcoterrorists. His price? A ton of cocaine, something he knew how to "move." Honduran cops put him away for petty charges, but he did only three years in prison that ended this week. Instead of letting him walk, the Honduran government put him on a plane bound for New York
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POPSDo You Approve of American Nuclear Disarmament Poll Russian Into Trouble Lance Thompson Barack Obama is the most authentically anti-war president since Jimmy Carter. While a student at Columbia, he wrote a paper called “Breaking the War Mentality,” which favored a unilateral nuclear freeze, advocated shifting spending from military to social needs, and supported other campus anti-military organizations. During the presidential campaign, he advocated immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and was widely known as the anti-war candidate of his party. Upon taking office, his administration has cut funding for new jet fighters, missile defense systems for the United States and Eastern Europe, and Obama himself has pledged never to “weaponize space.” Obama seems completely against war and the military. Obama advocated increasing our forces in Afghanistan and since taking office, has supported continued efforts to attack the Taliban in that desolate region. I did not understand why, . . . .
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POPSU.S. frees 5 Iranian diplomats held since 2007 Two and a half years in prison without any charges being filed, without any evidence being presented, without any rights to a lawyer, no chance to defend yourself from accusations, all contact with family, friends, your own government or agencies like the Red Cross cut off No clearing of their name. This is classic injustice, another example of USA hypocrisy and cruelty, phony face and double-standards. Why all the concern on the media about Iranian election results and almost zero coverage about USA violations of its own principles? The answer, of course, is strong forces of neocon conservatives, warmongering Republicans and Zionist extremist are once against pushing for war against Iran.
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POPSKeep Obama's Military Budgets Clean! The President and the Secretary of Defense are calling to cut wasteful weapons and invest in things that make us truly strong. But some of your colleagues want to add over $2 billion in funding to the President's supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan. The extra money is to be used for things we don't need - like C-17 cargo planes Secretary of Defense Gates specifically asked to CUT from the budget. As your constituent, I ask you to oppose any add-ons that increase the cost of President Obama’s Iraq/Afghan funding bill, and keep future military funding bills clear of pork-barrel spending. We’ve got a chance to change America’s priorities, let's use it.
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POPSCertify Congo Tin? Lydia Polgreen's story on a Congolese mine is a fantastic piece of reporting that deserves to be read in its entirety. Towards the end she raises an interesting question: U.S. politicians have suggested certifying the source of minerals from Congo, in an effort to avoid funding conflicts. I'm not totally sold on such labeling programs -- diamond-certifying schemes have been another popular one. Money being money, won't military groups cut off from one resource just move on to another? Are there strong examples of commodity certification schemes that have actually stopped a conflict? If so I'd love to hear about it.
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POPS Obama And Frank: A Farwell To Arms Caucus for Priorities is a campaign of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Its mission is to “change U.S. budget priorities to reflect a national commitment to education, healthcare, energy independence, job training and deficit reduction — at no additional taxpayer expense — by eliminating funding for unneeded Cold War-era weapons systems.” That will certainly deter a rearming and expansionist Russia, an ambitious China and a dangerous Iran. If Obama wins, the “obsolete Cold War weapons” to be done away with, to Russian and Chinese glee, include the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the F/A-22 Raptor to replace our aging F-15s, the wings of which are literally falling off. The Raptor can fly to and from Iranian nuclear facilities undetected should the need arise, as it very well may at some point.
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POPSSome of the smears
Palin only supports abstinence to be taught in sex-ed!" This claim is usually followed by a super classy comment about her daughter and the use of contraception, but the premise is false. Palin hasn't said she doesn't want condoms discussed in sex-ed, calling their discussion "relatively benign." "I'm pro-contraception, and I think kids who may not hear about it at home should hear about it in other avenues. So I am not anti-contraception. But, yeah, abstinence is another alternative that should be discussed with kids. I don't have a problem with that," Palin said. Hers is hardly an extreme point of view in America today. "If she cares about children with special needs, then why did she cut spending on them by 62 percent?" Actually, Palin almost tripled their funding in only three years from $26,900 per student to $73,840 per student. Incidentally, the amount of government money you spend on a specific group doesn't equal the amount you care for that group, but that's an
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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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POPS A Failure To Lead The list of Congress's failures grows each month. No energy bill. No action on health care. No action on the mortgage crisis. No immigration reform. No progress on renewing No Child Left Behind. Precious little action on judges and not enough on reducing trade barriers. The Democratic victory in 2006 was narrow. They won the House by 85,961 votes out of over 80 million cast and the Senate by a mere 3,562 out of over 62 million cast. A party that wins control by that narrow margin can quickly see its fortunes reversed when it fails to act responsibly, fails to fulfill its promises, and fails to lead. Democrats had a moment after the 2006 election, but now that moment has passed. They've squandered it. They have demonstrated both the inability and unwillingness to govern. Instead, they reflexively look for short-term partisan advantage. Now that Democrats have the reins of congressional power, their true colors are coming out and the public doesn't like what it sees.
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POPS'Blood' rubies bankroll Burmese junta If you buy a ruby, chances are you're funding the oppressive military regime in Burma. According to CNN, the U.S. government does not ban the import of rubies which have been cut and processed in countries other than Burma, which apparently all of them are. Therefore, the ban is technically meaningless.
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POPSOur Troops Are Officially Being Used as Pawns So, finally the White House is showing its real hypocrisy when they talk about supporting our troops. Their way of supporting them is to make sure they are rushed into harms way before Congress can possibly act to cut off the funding necessary to put them there in the first place. This is an ugly and cynical policy that is nothing short of disgusting. Impeachment is too good for this president. He is nothing short of a total war criminal even when it comes to our own troops well-being is concerned.
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POPS"Welfarizing" the VA: the GOP attack on veterans' benefits An editorial from the Marine Corps League by Navy veteran Robert E. McNulty, explaining how the Bush administration has been systematically gutting the mission and funding of the VA by positioning it as a "bloated" welfare bureaucracy, cutting budgets and programs, claiming that the "core constituency" of the VA represents only "disabled and indigent" veterans (rather than all vets), raising enrollment fees for vets ... and, true to Bush administration form, firing officials who object.
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