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POPSWaPo's Colbert King Implies PUMAs Are Racist A Suicidal Choice for Clinton Supporters: Colbert I. King: Op-Ed Columnist Her reversal in fortunes was stunning. She lost her front-runner status in the Iowa snows, and she didn't see it coming. And yet, through pure grit and with a single-minded focus on winning, Hillary Clinton nearly pulled it off. So there is a rawness to her defeat, a feeling that Obama snatched what didn't belong to him, a belief that she was horribly mistreated in the process. The anger of some Clinton supporters over her defeat and what they perceive as her snubbing for a spot on the Democratic ticket may be clouding their judgment. So what's drawing Hillary Clinton's die-hard fans to John McCain? Is the attraction only skin-deep? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/29/AR2008082902891.html?sub=AR
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POPSGorbachev on Georgian conflict Clips from Gorbachev's op-ed piece in NY Times Russia has long been told to simply accept the facts. Here’s the independence of Kosovo for you. Here’s the abrogation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, and the American decision to place missile defenses in neighboring countries. Here’s the unending expansion of NATO. All of these moves have been set against the backdrop of sweet talk about partnership. Why would anyone put up with such a charade? There is much talk now in the United States about rethinking relations with Russia. One thing that should definitely be rethought: the habit of talking to Russia in a condescending way, without regard for its positions and interests.
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POPSUS News Participation Drop This is interesting, because obviously you have to wonder how US News will keep this up without people filling in the survey? Forbes put out its own ranking: http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/08/13/best-colleges-ratings-oped-college08-cx_ha_mn_de_0813best_land.html This Georgetown alum, that's US News #23, Forbes #76 (?!), is skeptical of all of it, because I know the truth. Georgetown = #1.
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POPSVoight Ignites A Blog Storm In Hollywood If I were a producer and I had to make a casting decision about hiring Voight or some older actor who hadn't pissed me off with an idiotic Washington Times op-ed piece, I might very well say to myself, ‘Voight? Let him eat cake.'" Voight seemed particularly taken aback by Wells’ blog postings, which many have interpreted as a call for blacklisting the actor. “It’s out of line to insinuate that we should blacklist people for speaking their minds,” Voight told Politico. “It’s a strange thing when people in this country can’t express their opinions without being attacked.” Voight also told Politico that his op-ed “speaks for itself” and he didn’t have much interest in getting on a soapbox or becoming a poster boy for right-wing Hollywood. “Listen,” he said, “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this. I made some very strong points, and you do expect that people are going to respond to it in a variety of ways. And that’s how it should be.”
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POPSTime Horizon???? Is the President going soft? Maybe soft in the head? Is it a new strategy or just a change in strategy to help elect McBush? Delay, delay and non committal. Propaganda, Propaganda.
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POPSDinosaur Media March Deeper Into The Tar Pit Barry O is on his preemptive victory lap around the world and he steadfastly refuses to take questions from the foreign press. I wonder why? it's not like he isn't great reading off a prompter ?off the cuff?answering tough questions right? What would our media say if it was the Maverick dodging tough questions? I kinda doubt they would let it slide, but the Obama slinks along unmolested by any serious scrutiny from our self-selected watchdogs of the Fourth Estate. It is refreshing as a member of the newest type of new media to know that every day the solons of the liberal e-light who make up the dinosaur media march ever deeper into the tar pit.
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POPSFacts matter The Iraqis most enthusiastic about Obama’s plan surely are al-Qaeda members, Sadrists, Iranian agents and sectarian killers of every stripe. The prospect of an American president suddenly letting up on them has to be the best cause for hope they’ve had in months. Obama’s withdrawal would immediately embolden every malign actor in Iraq, and increase their sway in Iraqi politics. In his oped, Obama sticks to the badly dated contention that Iraqis “have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.” In fact, roughly 15 of 18 political benchmarks have been met by the Iraqis — progress Obama threatens to reverse.
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POPSAnother Leftist Icon Comes to His Senses This is a great article about the transformation of David Mamet from Liberal to Conservative. I do not know who David Mamet is but I find the story rather familiar in my own transformation and in the natural maturity of many as they gain wisdom and perspective. It gets frustrating at times seeing and hearing comments that are based on such lack of clarity. This is more evidence that the natural growth and transformation is toward a Libertarian stance founded in clear-mindedness, Conservative stance on constitutional intent, and Incrementalism as the wisest approach to societal advance in the face of fascist-progressivism.
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POPSWind-Subsidy Land: T. Boone-Doggle's Plan Will Pickens' plan reduce our dependence on foreign oil? Doubtful. Even if the fleet of natural gas-powered vehicles is enlarged, the bulk of existing and new vehicles will continue to depend for the foreseeable future on gasoline. Americans currently own about 260 million vehicles, a total that grows by more than 3 million new vehicles every year. Turnover is low as about 60 percent are owned for more than seven years. But all is not well in Wind Subsidy-land. Since Congress didn't renew the wind subsidy as part of the 2007 energy bill, it will expire at the end of this year unless reauthorized. Subsidies are perhaps more important to the wind industry that wind itself. Without them, wind can't compete against fossil fuel-generated power. As pointed out by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (July 9), "In 1999, 2001 and 2003, when Congress temporarily killed the credits, the number of new turbines dropped dramatically."
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POPSIt Must Suck Being Joseph "Yellow-Cake" Wilson IV Now! In his speech, Ambassador Joseph Wilson described himself as the investigator sent to Niger by the government and says the government sent him there and not the CIA (a lie). Wilson said there was nothing to the uranium story (another lie), described the US as "occupiers" of Iraq (a shocking statement at the time), and described a conspiracy to help Israel dominate the Palestinians. Joe Wilson repeated the lie for several years that the Iraq was not seeking uranium from Niger even though five days after Wilson's NYT op-ed, George Tenet put out a statement describing how the person the CIA sent to check out the Niger story (Joe Wilson) found that the Iraqis had indeed tried to open up trade talks, which were interpretted by government officials in Niger as an attempt to purchase uranium ore. AP Exclusive: US removes uranium from Iraq http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107ap_iraq_yellowcake_mission.html
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POPSThe Political Establishment and Telecom Immunity — Why It Matters
The Senate is dragging its feet because the compromise bill’s opponents — mostly Democrats — want also to punish the telecommunications companies that answered President Bush’s order for help with his illegal, warrantless wiretapping program. That is the wrong target. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the White House directed telecommunications carriers to cooperate with its efforts to bolster intelligence gathering and surveillance — the administration’s effort to do a better job of “connecting the dots” to prevent terrorist attacks. In its review of the effort, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that the administration’s written requests and directives indicated that such assistance “had been authorized by the president” and that the “activities had been determined to be lawful.” We now know that they were not lawful. But the companies that followed those directives are not the ones to blame for that abuse of presidential power. Contrary to what the Nancy Soderbergs
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POPSBush praises McCain for GI Bill McCain opposed McCain vehemently opposed this (Webb) bill, yet here's Bush thanking him for helping pass it! What is with these guys? McCain offered a skimpier version, insisting that paying college for Iraq vets would encourage them to leave the service when they could (better to offer them worse benefits so they'll stay, I guess, is the old soldier's plan). 32 Second video at link.
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POPSObama Wins, Savor The Moment Bob Herbert, wrote such a poignant Op-Ed piece in the New York Times called Savor The Moment. We have been through some unimaginable times in the last 40 years plus and this short article takes you on a brief historic trip through some of those times. Now with Barack Obama's historic win let us finally say after all these years, LET THE HEALING BEGIN. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/opinion/07herbert.html