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I ran AdAware, removed the cookie, and the pop-ups still pop up when I go to drudge and newsmax.

You need something to stop the pop-ups. I use Ad/Subtract Pro but there are a lot of others. Earthlink provides something free for their customers. There are lots of other software (freeware and shareware and purchase). Ad/Subtract Pro gives you very good control over cookies and the ability to selectively delete them. It can block all ads and a lot of other stuff. If you have Zone Alarm Pro for a firewall it will also block most pop-ups/unders (it's in the custom settings for the privacy options and needs to be turned on. It will also block some other ads). Ad/Subtract regularly updates it’s database of ads which is an important feature in continuing to block ads.

You also need to remove all the spyware from your system. Ad-Aware is free and a great start and it’s free. By itself it’s not enough. To supplement it get Spy-bot which is also free. It finds other types of spyware and nasties (Trojans, dialers, other bots, etc.). They do overlap a bit but they do enough that’s different that you should have both. I also have the paid version of Pest Patrol (the free version will just locate the pests but won’t remove them. You have to do it manually. The paid version cleans them.). This software overlaps both Spybot and Ad/Aware. I have all three and it’s really a bit of over kill. The only advantage is that Pest Patrol has a memory resident function that constantly scans your system to catch spyware and other more serious pests before they can do much.

All of these need to be kept current. I run them in this order: Ad/Subtract to clear unwanted cookies, history and material in my cache. Then Ad-Aware to find cookies that were missed by Ad-Subtract (some are pretty sneaky). Then I run either Spy-bot or Pest Patrol. Usually Spy-bot. I run those weekly. Once a month I run all 3. The reason for running them in this order makes it easier to determine what you want to keep. Ad/Subtract protects the cookies you want to keep (FreeRepublic’s for example since it keeps you logged in. If you wipe it out you have to log in to post.)

AdAware doesn't prevent pop-ups. It's supposed to find and get rid of spyware the pop-ups create. I had a problem with Xupiter spyware, and AdAware wasn't effective.

SpyBot Search and Destroy did the trick and much more.

http://www.cnet.com/software/0-806181-1204-20848563.html

To prevent pop-ups I've been using panicware.

http://www.panicware.com/

Both of these downloads are free and definately worth it.