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POPSNo Political Sermons?
The good old days when powerful politicians could stomp all over free speech. "The debate over Jones’s bill and Johnson’s amendment reveals once again how confusing and confused church-state jurisprudence is and has always been and will always be. Both sides claim that the other is violating the separation of church and state. Barry Lynn, a minister who is executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argues that “We just can’t have sermons converted into political advertisements for candidates,” and he warns against using “church collection plate money on an ad telling people” to vote for one candidate rather than another. " Oh come on. Seperating church and state is one thing. Stopping the clergy from making political statements is a whole different and very dangerous ballgame. Are you going to stop the clergy from speaking on immigration? How about speaking out about the plight of the poor? Should they stop making speeches about genocide? I
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POPSCanadian Extremist A stunning example that hate does not borders respect. It is universal. At least some are taking this seriously and beginning an investigation. I'm all for free speech but this goes beyond the limits of even the loosest interpretation.
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POPSRep. Ron Paul speech before Bail-out vote Some far sited economists have been saying for years that the artificial economic bubble will break, with results possibly worse than the Great Depression. Interesting comments by Dr. Paul.
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POPSUS Senate passes Wall Street bailout bill "Majority Leader Reid, a Nevada Democrat, exercised his authority to attach the bailout plan to an unrelated piece of legislation already on the Senate calendar, a bill that mandated equal treatment by healthcare insurers for mental and physical illnesses. This parliamentary maneuver allowed the Senate to evade the constitutional requirement that all spending legislation originate in the lower house."
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POPSObama Takes Careful Aim at Contractors Government Executive story covers a recent Obama speech on his approach to government contracting. Further down in the story, there's cautious approval from trade groups representing government contractors. "It's certainly not a harsh assault on the public-private relationship," said one. Welcome words, no doubt, to many companies on our Forbes Beltway Index http://www.forbes.com/fdc/beltway/fbi.html.
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POPSNo Statutory Protection for Bloggers (cont.)The will of Congress was to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act to exclude Internet communications from the Act's definition of "public communication." The bill is commonly regarded as the "blogger protection" bill since it addresses concerns that bloggers who regularly engage in mass public communications will become subject to federal campaign finance regulations—- especially if they reference a federal candidate 30 days before a primary election or 60 days before a general election. Of course, all restrictions on speech content offend the Constitution, but protecting bloggers will be a good first step. In the wake of the Congressional debate two years ago, and the ensuing outrage online, the FEC moved to enact rules the give bloggers the protections envisioned in the Blogger Protection Act. But FEC rules are a ffar cry from legislative protection for the internet.
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POPSBush: "Taxpayers Will Happily Agree to Bailout Financial Fat Cats." "America needs my help," Says recently unemployed auto worker Cliff Tonwsend. "So I'm going to dig deep and help her out. It will be a sacrifice for my family and the entire next generation to pay for the excess of the last eight years year, but as an American I am proud to do it. And I know my kids and their kids will be proud to pay as well. The poor and middle class have always supported the rich in this country, so I don't see how this time is any different." The President and The Republican Party should be glad that Americans are greeting the plan with an open mind. The bailout plan is expected to create an additional 2 trillion dollars of debt for future generations to pay off.
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POPSSoftware for Politics "'Anonymous,' best known for its jousts with Scientology, has apparently hacked Sarah Palin's private Yahoo email account. Contents, including sample emails, an index, and family photos, have been posted by Wikileaks, which calls them evidence that the GOP vice presidential candidate has improperly used private email to shield government business from public scrutiny." Note that there is no easy way to tell if the material on Wikileaks is genuine or a hoax. Update by J : Genuine. privacy, politics, usa, slashdotted, haha (tagging beta)
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POPSFascists Never Die- Palin-Pegler-Propaganda Written by a speech writer for Bush!!! The same old lame, but effective, propaganda repeated by people who just seem "so nice and affable" like Palin makes the fascist Propaganda more effective today. Plus, look at the history books in your schools-empty propaganda for empty minds in desperate lives. It will work this time better then under Hitler
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POPSPalin's Favorability Ratings Begin to Falter so as not to sully this positive first impression. Advertisement The polls reflected the early success of her strategy. In the three days after Palin joined Team McCain--Aug. 29-31--32 percent of voters told the pollsters at Diageo/Hotline that they had a favorable opinion of her; most (48 percent) didn't know enough to say.
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POPSIntolerance on the Left
If book banning is such a life-and-death issue to these celebrity foot soldiers for free speech, where were they four years ago when John Kerry and his rabid minions were pressuring Regnery Publishing to withdraw Unfit for Command from bookstores? Where were they when members of the Borders Books Employee Union were openly advocating sabotaging book sales? A message on the union’s members-only website urged: You guys don’t actually HAVE to sell the thing! Just “carelessly” hide the boxes, “accidentally” drop them off pallets, “forget” to stock the ones you have, and then suggest a nice Al Franken or Michael Moore book as a substitute . . . I don’t care if these Neandertals (sic) in fancy suits get mad at me, they aren’t regular customers anyway. Other than “Left Behind” books, they don’t read. Anything you can do to make them feel unwelcome is only fair. They are the people pushing retailers to cut costs, don’t forget. And they would censor your speech, your books,
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POPSNew U.S. Air Force Tanker Six Years Away? Via govexec.com. Story quotes another U.S. Air Force general, who says it's "unconscionable to ask people to fly in combat in 50-year-old airplanes." Note: as of 3:22pm, Northrop Grumman shares were down 2.5%. They've fallen 15% thus far in 2008.
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POPSBanner fiasco. AU responds with reason. This is a great take on this banner issue. The judge shouldn't allow the banner, but the judge was justified because the school allows other 'personal religious' messages. Answer, the school needs to ban ALL religious messages, save for social study classes. This (and the main) article is being discussed here; http://www.atheistthinktank.net/thinktank/index.php?topic=5162.0 Please join in the discussion.
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POPSVery Perceptive Column by Deepak Chopra cont.--virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of 'the other.' For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.) I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palinʼs message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision. Read the rest, pls, for details...
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POPSWhen Barack's Berserkers Lost The Plot
'I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion,' she said as she deftly detached journalists from their readers and viewers. 'I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country.' In Britain, the most snobbish attacks on Margaret Thatcher did not come from aristocrats but from the communist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who opined that Thatcherism was the 'anarchism of the lower middle classes'. George Osborne, of the supposedly compassionate Conservative party, revealed himself to be a playground bully when he derided Gordon Brown for being 'faintly autistic'. In an age when politics is choreographed, voters watch out for the moments when the public-relations facade breaks down and venom pours through the cracks. Their judgment is rarely favourable when it does. Obama knows it. He was warning American liberals to stay away from the Palin family. He understands better than his supporters that it is not a politician's enemies who lose elections, but his friends.
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