political nonsense

John Bolten said it was time for the White House to get it’s mojo back. “I don’t think we need to change,” he said.
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Sudanese rebels rejected a proposal to end the bloodshed in Darfur.
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Soaring gasoline pump prices are here to stay for at least the next couple of years and the government can do little in the short term to mitigate it, US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.
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Iraq’s president said on Sunday he and U.S. officials had met with insurgents and that a deal with some groups to end violence could be reached. “I believe that a deal could be reached with seven armed groups that visited me,” Talabani said.
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U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday defended the Bush administration’s Iraq war planning after her predecessor, Colin Powell, said he had made a case to send more troops to deal with the war’s aftermath.
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Iraq has accused Iranian forces of entering Iraqi territory and shelling Kurdish rebel positions in the north. Iranian troops bombed border areas near the town of Hajj Umran before crossing into Iraq, the defence ministry in Baghdad said on Sunday.
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Insurgents killed at least six security officers and one civilian today.
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A new estimate by one of Iraq’s vice presidents has put the number of families who have fled their homes at 100,000, a number far greater than recent projections by other Iraqi officials.
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Tens of thousands of protesters marched Saturday through lower Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Organizers said 300,000 people marched, though a police spokesman declined to give an estimate. There were no reports of arrests.
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The FBI secretly sought information last year on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents from their banks and credit card, telephone and Internet companies without a court’s approval, the Justice Department said Friday.
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Rush Limbaugh got arrested.
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The number of insurgent attacks on civilians in Iraq skyrocketed last year, resulting in nearly 8,300 deaths and accounting for more than 50 percent of those killed in terrorist attacks worldwide, according to a State Department report released today. Senior American counterterrorism officials insisted that the world is becoming a safer place.
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President Bush said today that the national anthem should not be sung in Spanish.
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The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has soared and may now reach $811bn, says a report by the Congressional Research Service.
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Human Rights Watch is warning a new Sudanese military offensive is increasing the risks to civilians in Darfur. UN food-rations were cut in half due to severe funding shortages.
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Five members of Congress were among 11 people arrested during a protest Friday outside the Sudanese Embassy, staged at a critical moment to call attention to genocidal violence in the Darfur region.
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Belgian researchers found that men lose their decision-making skills when exposed to an attractive woman.
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Al Qaeda figure Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has released a new video denouncing the Iraqi government and warning of further attacks. The video is the first in which Zarquawi has willingly showed his face. On the tape, Zarquawi calls the Iraqi government an American “stooge” and a “poisoned dagger” in the heart of the Muslim world. Zarqawi also addressed President Bush, saying: “Your dreams will be defeated by our blood and by our bodies. What is coming is even worse.”
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A study found that lots of Americans can’t affort medical insurance, or have medical debts.
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The Freedom Tower is finally being constructed.
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