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Musharraf Releases Highest Ranking Taliban Ever Captured — Parvez Musharraf needs more militants to militate against in order to affirm the presence of his totalitarian military in Pakistan's civilian sphere. As I noted in my article Pakistan, Prince of Denmark, this means that Musharraf …
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While Pakistan Burns — If you think Musharraf's wrong to free jailed Taliban members while he busts dissidents, wait until you hear who's back on the loose. — Pakistani lawyers, human-rights activists and opposition-party members can scarcely ignore the irony of their situation …


Obama and Clinton Duel for Iowa Democrats — In back-to-back speeches Saturday before thousands of Iowa Democrats, Senator Barack Obama pointedly suggested that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was running a "poll-driven campaign" out of fear of what Republicans might say about her in a general election.
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Abdicate and Capitulate — It is extraordinary how President Bush has streamlined the Senate confirmation process. As we have seen most recently with the vote to confirm Michael Mukasey as attorney general, about all that is left of "advice and consent" is the "consent" part.
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This Is Your Brain on Politics — This article was written by Marco Iacoboni, Joshua Freedman and Jonas Kaplan of the University of California, Los Angeles, Semel Institute for Neuroscience; Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania …

Innocent mistakes — So there's a campaign on to exonerate Ronald Reagan from the charge that he deliberately made use of Nixon's Southern strategy. When he went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1980, the town where the civil rights workers had been murdered, and declared that …


The surprising truth about Rage Boy, America's hated poster-boy of Islamic radicalism — Don't you hate Islamic Rage Boy? 'MoBlows', writing on the Jihad Watch website, certainly does. — "I just want to put my fist down his throat," he says. The 'boy' in question rose to prominence earlier …

Spooks refuse to toe Cheney's line on Iran — WASHINGTON - The US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran has been held up for more than a year in an effort to force the intelligence community to remove dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear program.


Definition changing for people's privacy — WASHINGTON - As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy. — Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr …

Romney, Clinton ahead, vulnerable in N.H. poll — Race still open, analysts say — Republican Mitt Romney and Democrat Hillary Clinton remain the clear front-runners in the New Hampshire presidential primary, but both have vulnerabilities that could erode their support among voters in the weeks ahead …
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Pollster.com


Giving Climate Change a Kick — CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS—Top climate scientists have cautiously endorsed the need to study schemes to reverse global warming that involve directly tinkering with Earth's climate. Their position on geoengineering, which will likely be controversial …

Another Question Planted by Team Hillary? — From Major Garrett, a Fox News Exclusive: — In a telephone interview with Fox, Geoffrey Mitchell, 32, says he was approached by an operative for the Clinton campaign to ask a planted question about standing up to President Bush on Iraq war funding.
Discussion:
Doug Ross, Don Surber, The Strata-Sphere, JammieWearingFool, NewsBusters.org and ABCNEWS


The uninvited guest: Chinese sub pops up in middle of U.S. Navy exercise, leaving military chiefs red-faced — When the U.S. Navy deploys a battle fleet on exercises, it takes the security of its aircraft carriers very seriously indeed. — At least a dozen warships provide a physical guard …

"Pure Islam" and Michael van der Galiën — Michael van der Galiën is a 23-year-old American Studies student at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in the Netherlands, and correspondent in the Netherlands for Pajamas Media. In a post entitled "Islamic Law and Violence," …
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