
August 18th, 2011
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| On this day in 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest during a coup by high-ranking members of his own government, military and police forces. Since becoming secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 and president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1988, Gorbachev had pursued comprehensive reforms of the Soviet system. Combining perestroika (“restructuring”) of the economy–including a greater emphasis on free-market policies–and glasnost (“openness”) in diplomacy, he greatly improved Soviet relations with Western democracies, particularly the United States. Meanwhile, though, within the USSR, Gorbachev faced powerful critics, including conservative, hard-line politicians and military officials who thought he was driving the Soviet Union toward its downfall and making it a second-rate power. On the other side were even more radical reformers–particularly Boris Yeltsin, president of the most powerful socialist republic, Russia–who complained that Gorbachev was just not working fast enough. MUAHAHAHAHA. |
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| While other candidates are dominating headlines in the Republican presidential campaign, Ron Paul is quietly commanding a campaign that’s showing a level of maturity in fundraising and performance that was lacking four years ago. The 12-term congressman from Texas has raised nearly double the amount of campaign cash he had at this point in 2007, and in his second-place showing in the Ames, Iowa, straw poll, he garnered nearly four times the support he had last time, falling just shy of knocking off Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota in her own backyard. FOR OUR COUNTRY TO SURVIVE, HE MUST WIN. |
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