political nonsense

Hundreds of federal riot police officers and soldiers took up positions outside this besieged tourist city in southern Mexico over the weekend. President Vicente Fox, in his final month in office, on Saturday ordered federal troops in after three people, including a New York photographer, were killed in Oaxaca the evening before.
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Israeli President Moshe Katsav faced the strongest pressure yet to step down on Sunday, when Israel’s attorney general urged him to take leave while an indictment on rape and other serious charges is taking shape.

Though Attorney General Meni Mazuz’s recommendation cannot force Katsav from office, it adds an influential voice to the growing chorus of officials who have called for the president to resign.
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NATO and Afghan troops killed 70 suspected militants who attacked a military base in southern Afghanistan, while a roadside blast killed one NATO soldier and wounded eight others, the alliance said Sunday.
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Suspected Sunni Arab gunmen killed 23 policemen Sunday, including 17 in one attack in the predominantly Shiite southern city of Basra, signaling the possible start an insurgent campaign against Iraq’s predominantly Shiite Muslim security forces.
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Even if Democrats win control of Congress in elections next week, an immediate change of course in Iraq policy is unlikely, the party’s chairman said on Sunday.
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Global warming will cost the world up to seven trillion dollars in the next decade unless governments take drastic action soon, according to a major new British report.
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A federal judge decided exit polling was legal.
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White House budget officials are only planning on asking for $121 billion dollars for the Army next year.
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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and a Catholic religious order have agreed to pay $10 million to settle claims made by seven victims of sexual abuse by clergy members, lawyers for the parties involved said Friday.
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Mid-term elections are slated to be the most expensive in US history.
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Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he is ”not America’s man in Iraq.”
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Democrats didn’t know what they would do with Iraq, if they had the power to do anything.
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Republicans pointed out that they don’t let gays get married.
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Democrats are worried that black people might not vote.
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A new report from the monitor group ElectionLine.org is warning ten states are at risk of major voting problems in next month’s mid-term elections.
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More than one hundred active duty service members have now signed an appeal formally asking Congress to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The appeal was launched this week on their website It says:

“As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq. Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.”

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A Massachusetts elementary school banned tag.
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The Maine National Guard has begun offering life-size cardboard cutouts of deployed service members to families waiting for their loved ones to return.

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The United States Coast Guard announced plans to mount 7.62 mm, M-240B machine guns on official boats in the Great Lakes. Rear Adm. John E. Crowley Jr. said, “I don’t know when or if something might happen on the Great Lakes, but I don’t want to learn the hard way.”
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One in five Americans believes the United States is winning the war in Iraq.
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