political nonsense

The Bush administration intensified its campaign against Iran with a new round of sanctions against its military and leading companies.
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It was reported that there are now more than three quarters of a million names on the U.S. government’s terrorist “watch list,” and a government report raised concerns the list may be becoming too large.
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Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, waived several environmental laws to resume building the Mexico border fence; meanwhile President Bush announced he will ask Congress to approve a $500 million package to help Mexico fight drug cartels, the largest international anti-drug effort by the United States in nearly a decade.
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A British think tank concluded that the War on Terror has been a disaster.
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The Department of Homeland Security announced that the completion of a $20 million “virtual fence” pilot project along the Mexican border near Tucson would be delayed because its cameras and radar were unable to distinguish people and vehicles from bushes and cows.

[not a mexican]
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The board of the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network voted to remove its president after doubts were cast as to whether she was a survivor at all.
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A federal judge ruled two provisions of the USA Patriot Act allowing secret wiretapping and un-substantiated searches are unconstitutional.
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A Government official was charged with stalking his ex-girlfriend using homeland security data.
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Al-Sadr’s movement announced it would withdraw from the largest political bloc in Parliament- a coalition of Shiite parties, a group of gunmen killed a leader from Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in west Baghdad, while the militia retaliated by killing four Iraqis and causing scores of families from the region to be displaced, new figures showed that the number of displaced Iraqis his risen by about fifty-thousand since July, the US security firm Blackwater has resumed limited operations in the Iraqi capital Baghdad four days after a deadly shootout involving the company, and the Senate has overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would cut off funding for combat operations in Iraq by next June as well as a measure that would haven given U.S. troops longer rest periods in between deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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General David Petraeus said he wasn’t sure if the War in Iraq has made America safer. “I don’t know,” he said. He later changed his mind and said yes.
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Rudy Giuliani said every day is the anniversary of 9/11. “For me every day is an anniversary of Sept. 11,” he said after reviewing emergency response equipment at the Pinellas Sheriff’s Office.

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A new Zogby International poll finds a majority of Americans still await a Congressional investigation of President Bush’ and Vice President Cheney’s actions before, during and after the 9/11 attacks. Over 30% also believe Bush and/or Cheney should be immediately impeached by the House of Representatives.
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The CIA’s inspector general released a report recommending that former CIA director George Tenet and other senior officials be held accountable for failing to prepare for the threat of Al Qaeda before the September 11 attacks.
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Texas is preparing to execute a thirty-year old African American for a crime he’s openly known not to have committed.
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Cuban President Fidel Castro said the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay is occupied ‘illegally’ and the US must hand it over to Cuba.
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Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Friday that he misspoke when he said he spent as much time, if not more, at ground zero exposed to the same health risks as workers combing the site after the Sept. 11 attacks. “I think I could have said it better,” he said.
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A federal intelligence court judge ruled earlier this year that a key part of the wiretap effort is illegal. The judge ruled the administration had violated its authority in trying to monitor overseas communication routed through the United States.
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According to current and former intelligence officials, the Bush administration has been arming Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states covertly since “at least” 2004, a year after the US-led invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. Arming Saudi Arabia in a 10-year, $20 billion dollar arms sale is a “done deal,” officials said.
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The Bush administration’s proposal to secure the nation’s borders with a high-tech “virtual fence” is likely to cost far more than the $2 billion that industry analysts initially estimated, possibly up to $30 billion, a government watchdog agency warned yesterday.
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The nation’s top intelligence official confirmed the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping was only one part of a broader surveillance program.
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