National Intelligence Director Says He'll Stay On - Washington Post
Walter Pincus |
| Negroponte, the First to Hold Post, Plans to Remain Until End of Bush's Term |
Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte, who had been rumored to be going over to the State Department as deputy secretary, said last week that he plans to remain in his current position through the end of the Bush administration.
"In my own mind at least, I visualize staying . . . through the end of this administration, and then I think probably that'll be about the right time to pack it in," he told Brian Lamb in an interview done Wednesday that will be shown on C-SPAN today. |
Published: Dec. 03, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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A Soldier's Story - Nation
Major Bill Edmonds |
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| For just a minute or two, step into my life. I am an American soldier in the Army Special Forces. I have just returned from a one-year tour of duty in Iraq, where I lived, shared meals, slept and fought beside my Iraqi counterpart as we battled insurgents in the center of a thousand-year-old city. I am a conflicted man, and I want you to read the story of that experience as I lived it. In the interest of security, I have omitted some identifying details, but every word is true. |
Published: Nov. 29, 2006
Posted: Nov. 30, 2006 |
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U.S. helicopter down in Iraq - Yahoo! News
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One Marine was killed and three servicemen were missing after a U.S. helicopter with 16 people on board made an emergency landing on water in western
Iraq on Sunday, the U.S. military said on Monday.
It said the Ch-46 twin-rotor Sea Knight, the Marine version of the Chinook, was carrying 16 personnel including the crew when it came down in the volatile Anbar province, heartland of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.
Residents of Haditha, 250 km (150) northwest of Baghdad, said it came down in a lake, which had been sealed off by U.S. forces. |
Published: Dec. 04, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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Breyer: Court should aid minority rights - Yahoo! News
Hope Yen |
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Justice Stephen G. Breyer says the Supreme Court must promote the political rights of minorities and look beyond the Constitution's text when necessary to ensure that "no one gets too powerful."
Breyer, a Clinton appointee who has brokered many of the high court's 5-4 rulings, spoke in a televised interview that aired one day before justices hear a key case on race in schools. He said judges must consider the practical impact of a decision to ensure democratic participation.
"We're the boundary patrol," Breyer said, reiterating themes in his 2005 book that argue in favor of race preferences in university admissions because they would lead to diverse workplaces and leadership. |
Published: Dec. 03, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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KILLING HABEAS CORPUS - New Yorker
Jeffrey Toobin |
| Arlen Specter’s about-face |
| Article I, Section 9, states, “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Such suspensions have been rare in American history. |
Published: Nov. 27, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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The House of Death - Mail and Guardian
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Janet Padilla's first inkling that something might be wrong came when she phoned her husband at lunchtime. His cellphone was switched off. On January 14 2004, Luis had, as usual, left for work at 6am, and when he did not answer the first call Janet made, after taking the children to school, she assumed he was busy. Two weeks later she would learn the truth.
"It was love at first sight for Luis and me, and that's how it stayed, after two years dating at school and eight years of marriage," says Janet. "We always spoke a couple of times during the day and he always kept his phone on. So I called my dad, who owns the truckyard where he worked and he told me, 'he hasn't been here'. I called my in-laws and they hadn't seen him either, and they were already worried because his car was outside their house with the windows open and the keys in the ignition. He would never normally leave it like that." |
Published: Dec. 03, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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For Defense Nominee, Echoes of Old Questions - Washington Post
R. Jeffrey Smith |
| Gates Criticized on Handling of Intelligence at CIA |
When President George H.W. Bush nominated him to lead the CIA in 1991, Robert M. Gates was at 47 the youngest intelligence professional to achieve that distinction.
But during his Senate confirmation hearings, Gates -- a brilliant, smooth-operating Soviet specialist -- lost some of his luster. CIA colleagues came forward to testify that he had kowtowed to the wishes of his superiors and had manipulated intelligence to suit White House policy. Questions also arose about his involvement in the Reagan-era Iran-contra scandal. |
Published: Dec. 04, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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Panel Faults U.S.-Trained Afghan Police - New York Times
James Glanz and David Rohde |
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Five years after the fall of the Taliban, a joint report by the Pentagon and the State Department has found that the American-trained police force in Afghanistan is largely incapable of carrying out routine law enforcement work, and that managers of the $1.1 billion training program cannot say how many officers are actually on duty or where thousands of trucks and other equipment issued to police units have gone.
In fact, most police units had less than 50 percent of their authorized equipment on hand as of June, says the report, which was issued two weeks ago but is only now circulating among members of relevant Congressional committees.
In its most significant finding, the report said that no effective field training program had been established in Afghanistan, at least in part because of a slow, ineffectual start and understaffing. |
Published: Dec. 04, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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'Fear took over' in Baghdad raid - Los Angeles Times
Solomon Moore |
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BURSTS of AK-47 fire hissed past them from several directions at once, showering the U.S. and Iraqi soldiers with pulverized cement and slapping spider-web fractures into their Humvees' bullet-resistant glass turret-guards.
The joint security forces, undertaking what officials described as a major counterinsurgency operation, were in pursuit of 70 "high-value targets" in Baghdad's crowded Fadhil quarter, a Sunni Arab neighborhood of multistory tenements along the east bank of the Tigris River.
Instead, the soldiers of the Iraqi army's 9th Mechanized Division and their American trainers had walked into a deadly ambush Friday. From upper-story apartments, insurgents stopped the soldiers' advance with grenades and shoulder-fired rockets. Others launched coordinated mortar strikes, hitting one of two nearby Iraqi field posts. |
Published: Dec. 04, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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Iraq war has cost US 350 billion dollars - Yahoo! News
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The war in Iraq has cost the United States more than 350 billion dollars since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP review of Congress figures.
About 290 billion dollars, including 254 billion for military operations, were allocated for the war in fiscal year 2006, which closed on September 30, according to a September 22 report by the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The Congressional Research Service estimated the cost at 319 billion dollars, representing 73 percent of US spending for the "war on terror" launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. |
Published: Dec. 03, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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As the Talks on Iraq Conclude, Arabs Wonder, Is That All? - New York Times
Hassan M. Fattah |
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For days, Arab governments lobbied against any American opening to Iran, Jordanians planned protests against President Bush and politicians braced for a possible announcement of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.
But as the summit meeting between President Bush and Prime Minister Kamal Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq concluded Thursday morning, the Arab world was left dumbfounded that nothing had come of it.
“I am baffled by what I saw,” said Abdel Moneim Said, director of the Ahram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo. “This was an expression of the Americans in deep trouble, but Bush’s approach to dealing with the Iraqi problem also bore the signs of someone out of touch with what is going on.” |
Published: Dec. 01, 2006
Posted: Dec. 02, 2006 |
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GOP pays $135K in N.H. call jamming suit - Yahoo! News
David Tirrell-Wysocki |
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State and national Republicans will pay $135,000 to settle a suit involving a scheme to jam Democratic get-out-the-vote calls on Election Day 2002, officials said Saturday.
"Although we believed our case was very strong, the cost of the trial as well as expected appeals by the New Hampshire Democratic Party would have easily matched or exceeded the present value of the settlement," state Republican Chairman Wayne Semprini said.
Republicans had hired a telemarketing firm to place hundreds of hang-up calls to phone banks for the Democratic Party and the Manchester firefighters union, a nonpartisan group offering rides to the polls. Service was disrupted for nearly two hours. |
Published: Dec. 02, 2006
Posted: Dec. 03, 2006 |
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Blowing the Whistle on Big Oil - New York Times
Edmund L. Andrews |
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DURING a 22-year career, Bobby L. Maxwell routinely won accolades and awards as one of the Interior Department’s best auditors in the nation’s oil patch, snaring promotions that eventually had him supervising a staff of 120 people.
He and his team scrutinized the books of major oil producers that collectively pumped billions of dollars worth of oil and gas every year from land and coastal waters owned by the public. Along the way, the auditors recovered hundreds of millions of dollars from companies that shortchanged the government on royalties. |
Published: Dec. 03, 2006
Posted: Dec. 03, 2006 |
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Keith Olbermann Proves That Dissent Has An Audience - Nation
Daphne Eviatar
Seen at: AlterNet |
| MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has become the first cable news host in years to tell it like it is, and his soaring ratings prove the American public does have a taste for real news and honest dissent. |
| Olbermann, who decried the new law as a shameful moment in American history, went on to proclaim that the Military Commissions Act -- which he did name -- will be the American embarrassment of our time, akin to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 or the 1942 executive order interning Japanese-Americans. |
Published: Dec. 02, 2006
Posted: Dec. 02, 2006 |
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Dreyfuss campaigns for civics curriculum - Yahoo! News
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| Richard Dreyfuss wants to show Americans how to be better citizens. |
"The teaching of civics presently in the United States is dismal and startling," the Oscar-winning actor said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday.
Dreyfuss is launching a campaign to develop a civics curriculum for the nation's schools.
When he was a child, Dreyfuss said, civics classes taught not only the checks and balances in government but also the reasons behind the creation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. |
Published: Dec. 03, 2006
Posted: Dec. 03, 2006 |
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Scientist Fights Church Effort to Hide Museum's Pre-Human Fossils - Yahoo! News
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Famed paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey is giving no quarter to powerful evangelical church leaders who are pressing Kenya's national museum to relegate to a back room its world-famous collection of hominid fossils showing the evolution of humans' early ancestors.
Leakey called the churches' plans "the most outrageous comments I have ever heard."
He told The Daily Telegraph (London): "The National Museums of Kenya should be extremely strong in presenting a very forceful case for the evolutionary theory of the origins of mankind. The collection it holds is one of Kenya's very few global claims to fame and it must be forthright in defending its right to be at the forefront of this branch of science." Leakey was for years director of the museum and of Kenya's entire museum system. |
Published: Dec. 03, 2006
Posted: Dec. 03, 2006 |
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Arctic Ice Shelf Broke Off Canadian Island - New York Times
Andrew C. Revkin |
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A 25-square-mile shelf of floating ice that jutted into the Arctic Ocean for 3,000 years from Canada’s northernmost shore broke away abruptly in the summer of 2005, apparently freed by sharply warming temperatures and jostling wind and waves, scientists said yesterday.
The Ayles ice shelf, as the ancient 100-foot-thick slab was called, drifted out of a fjord along the north coast of Ellesmere Island when the jumbled sheath of floating sea ice that tended to press against the coast there even in summers was replaced by open waters because of the warming, the scientists said.
The change was first noticed by Laurie Weir of the Canadian Ice Service as she examined satellite images taken of Ellesmere and surrounding ice on and after Aug. 13, 2005. In less than an hour, around midday that day, a broad crack opened and the ice shelf was on its way out to sea. |
Published: Dec. 30, 2006
Posted: Dec. 31, 2006 |
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Foley Keeps Pension Despite Scandal - Blotter
Anna Schecter |
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| Congressman Mark Foley may have stepped down in disgrace, but he will be eligible for his congressional pension no matter what, even if he faces jail time, according to Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayer's Union, a non-partisan taxpayer advocacy group |
Published: Oct. 20, 2006
Posted: Dec. 02, 2006 |
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Generous Pensions for Convicted Former Members of Congress - Blotter
Dana Hughes |
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Disgraced former Congressman Duke Cunningham is going to prison for taking huge bribes. But all the while he will still collect a generous Congressional pension.
Yesterday the House passed legislation taking pensions away from members convicted of bribery and corruption.
But the new law isn’t retroactive. So former members already convicted, like Cunningham, will keep their pensions, all at taxpayers' expense, of course.
"He could start out with an annual retirement of $64,000 that would grow with the cost of living each year," says Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union" |
Published: May. 04, 2006
Posted: Dec. 02, 2006 |
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He's The Worst Ever - Washington Post
Eric Foner |
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Ever since 1948, when Harvard professor Arthur Schlesinger Sr. asked 55 historians to rank U.S. presidents on a scale from "great" to "failure," such polls have been a favorite pastime for those of us who study the American past.
Changes in presidential rankings reflect shifts in how we view history. When the first poll was taken, the Reconstruction era that followed the Civil War was regarded as a time of corruption and misgovernment caused by granting black men the right to vote. As a result, President Andrew Johnson, a fervent white supremacist who opposed efforts to extend basic rights to former slaves, was rated "near great." Today, by contrast, scholars consider Reconstruction a flawed but noble attempt to build an interracial democracy from the ashes of slavery -- and Johnson a flat failure." |
Published: Dec. 03, 2006
Posted: Dec. 03, 2006 |
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Senator-Elect Webb Not to Be Toyed With - MSNBC
Eleanor Clift |
| No Pandering Here: Virginia Senator-elect Jim Webb is the rare Washington figure who doesn't suck up to power. |
| Every so often a politician comes along who doesn’t pander to the president. Fresh off a nasty campaign that centered on the war in Iraq, Virginia Senator-elect Jim Webb had no interest in a picture of himself with President Bush, and he didn’t want to exchange small talk with the man whose war policies he opposes. So he skipped the receiving line at a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress, creating the first of what we should all hope will be many ripples in Washington. |
Published: Dec. 04, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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This could kill New Orleans - first-draft
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| This is disasterous to the recovery of New Orleans |
St. Paul Travelers Cos. Inc., Louisiana's largest commercial insurance provider, plans to cancel all its commercial property policies in the New Orleans area next year, sparking fears that other insurers will follow and slow the region's economic recovery.
While the St. Paul, Minn., company refused to say how many commercial policies will be affected or specify where the cuts will be in South Louisiana, two insurance brokers who were briefed by the company this week say Travelers will not renew any property insurance for businesses in Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard and eastern St. Tammany parishes. Cuts will also affect individual businesses in other parts of South Louisiana, including St. Charles and St. John the Baptist parishes. |
Published: Dec. 02, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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Commercial insurer to pull out of area - nola.com
Rebecca Mowbray |
| Businesses fear Travelers' move will put the brakes on recovery |
| St. Paul Travelers Cos. Inc., Louisiana's largest commercial insurance provider, plans to cancel all its commercial property policies in the New Orleans area next year, sparking fears that other insurers will follow and slow the region's economic recovery. |
Published: Dec. 02, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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Like Hitler and Brezhnev, Bush is in denial - Independent
Robert Fisk |
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| More than half a million deaths, an army trapped in the largest military debacle since Vietnam, a Middle East policy already buried in the sands of Mesopotamia - and still George W Bush is in denial. How does he do it? How does he persuade himself - as he apparently did in Amman yesterday - that the United States will stay in Iraq "until the job is complete"? The "job" - Washington's project to reshape the Middle East in its own and Israel's image - is long dead, its very neoconservative originators disavowing their hopeless political aims and blaming Bush, along with the Iraqis of course, for their disaster. |
Published: Dec. 01, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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Bush Rejects Troop Reductions, Endorses Maliki - Washington Post
Michael Abramowitz and Sudarsan Raghavan |
| President Calls Prime Minister 'the Right Guy for Iraq' |
President Bush on Thursday dismissed calls for U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq as unrealistic, saying American forces would "stay in Iraq to get the job done, so long as the government wants us there."
Speaking after a summit here with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Bush also offered a strong endorsement of the embattled leader, calling him "the right guy for Iraq." |
Published: Dec. 01, 2006
Posted: Dec. 02, 2006 |
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Well-known GOP activist held in sex-predator sting - Seattle Times
Christine Clarridge |
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Larry Corrigan, a well-known activist in local Republican politics as a backer of U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert and King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng, was arrested Wednesday in an Internet sting for allegedly trying to arrange sex with a 13-year-old girl.
Corrigan was the director of financial operations at the prosecutor's office for more than 25 years and was deputy treasurer in Reichert's 1997 and 2001 runs for King County sheriff. He was also a supporter without an official role in Reichert's congressional campaigns. |
Published: Dec. 01, 2006
Posted: Dec. 01, 2006 |
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Not So Pearly Gates - ZWire
Gilbert Garcia |
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Texas A&M President and Secretary of Defense nominee Robert Gates bridges two Republican administrations that have served only to destabilize the Middle East.
Last week marked the 20th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s worst Thanksgiving. On Tuesday, November 25, 1986, as Huxtable-era America prepared for a long weekend of turkey, cranberry sauce, and college football, Attorney General Edwin Meese announced that administration officials had covertly sold weapons to avowed enemy Iran. In addition, they had funneled millions of dollars from those sales to the Contra rebels of Nicaragua, to aid their fight against that country’s Sandinista government. |
Published: Nov. 28, 2006
Posted: Dec. 02, 2006 |
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Election glitches impede voters nationwide - Stateline.org
Pauline Vu |
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Voting in the 2006 midterm elections went relatively smoothly nationwide, but at least 17 states experienced major glitches, according to a new report released on Wednesday (Nov. 29) by electionline.org.
The nonpartisan research group that tracks states’ voting procedures found that long lines, machine malfunctions and human error resulted in people choosing not to vote, or votes being counted incorrectly nationwide. On top of that, voter fraud and intimidation and the occasional freak occurrence – including bomb threats and invasive squirrels – stymied voters. |
Published: Nov. 30, 2006
Posted: Dec. 01, 2006 |
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1 in 32 Americans in jails, on parole - Yahoo! News
Kasie Hunt |
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A record 7 million people — or one in every 32 American adults — were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, according to the Justice Department. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year, according to a report released Wednesday.
More than 4.1 million people were on probation and 784,208 were on parole at the end of 2005. Prison releases are increasing, but admissions are increasing more. |
Published: Dec. 04, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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Son also rises in testy Webb-Bush exchange - Hill
Emily Heil |
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President Bush has pledged to work with the new Democratic majorities in Congress, but he has already gotten off on the wrong foot with Jim Webb, whose surprise victory over Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) tipped the Senate to the Democrats.
Webb, a decorated former Marine officer, hammered Allen and Bush over the unpopular war in Iraq while wearing his son’s old combat boots on the campaign trail. It seems the president may have some lingering resentment.
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Published: Dec. 04, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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Gitmo Justice Is a Joke - Washington Post
Andrew Cohen |
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| The same legal scholars who established beyond doubt earlier this year that the vast majority of Guantanamo Bay detainees are not threats to our national security after all are back with comprehensive new findings -- again from our own military's official records -- that obliterate the main premise of the White House's efforts to block judicial review for the terror suspects being held in Cuba. |
Published: Nov. 30, 2006
Posted: Dec. 01, 2006 |
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W.House will defy Democrats on security: Republican - Reuters
David Morgan |
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The Bush administration is unlikely to allow the incoming Democratic majority in Congress to learn details about its domestic spying program and interrogation policy, a Republican senator said on Thursday.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who has criticized the Bush White House's secrecy about national security issues, said he would welcome detailed congressional oversight of the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping. |
Published: Nov. 30, 2006
Posted: Dec. 01, 2006 |
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Disembowelled, then torn apart: The price of daring to teach girls - Independent
Kim Sengupta |
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The gunmen came at night to drag Mohammed Halim away from his home, in front of his crying children and his wife begging for mercy.
The 46-year-old schoolteacher tried to reassure his family that he would return safely. But his life was over, he was part-disembowelled and then torn apart with his arms and legs tied to motorbikes, the remains put on display as a warning to others against defying Taliban orders to stop educating girls. |
Published: Nov. 29, 2006
Posted: Dec. 01, 2006 |
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Security Of Electronic Voting Is Condemned - Washington Post
Cameron W. Barr |
| Paper Systems Should Be Included, Agency Says |
Paperless electronic voting machines used throughout the Washington region and much of the country "cannot be made secure," according to draft recommendations issued this week by a federal agency that advises the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
The assessment by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one of the government's premier research centers, is the most sweeping condemnation of such voting systems by a federal agency. |
Published: Dec. 01, 2006
Posted: Dec. 01, 2006 |
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FEMA Told to Resume Storm Aid - Washington Post
Spencer S. Hsu |
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The Bush administration unconstitutionally denied aid to tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita and must resume payments immediately, a federal judge ordered yesterday.
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said the Federal Emergency Management Agency created a "Kafkaesque" process that began cutting off rental aid in February to victims of the 2005 storms, did not provide clear reasons for the denials, and hindered applicants' due-process rights to fix errors or appeal government mistakes. |
Published: Dec. 04, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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Dual bombing in central Baghdad kills 57 - Yahoo! News
Thomas Wagner and Qais AL-Bashir |
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Two car bombs targeting day laborers looking for work exploded within seconds of each other Tuesday on a main square in central Baghdad, killing at least 57 people and wounding more than 150, police said.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a member of Iraq's Shiite majority, condemned the attack and blamed it on Sunni extremists and supporters of Saddam Hussein.
In the northern city of Mosul, a television cameraman working for The Associated Press was shot to death by insurgents while covering clashes — the third AP employee killed in the Iraq war.
The coordinated attack in Baghdad's Tayaran Square involved a suicide attacker who drove up to the day laborers pretending to want to hire them, then set off his explosives as they got into his minibus, Lt. Bilal Ali said. At virtually the same time — 7 a.m. — a bomb exploded in a car parked some 30 yards away. |
Published: Dec. 12, 2006
Posted: Dec. 12, 2006 |
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Reinforcements denied in Afghanistan - Chicago Sun-Times
William J. Kole |
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In a show of solidarity, NATO leaders agreed Wednesday to come to one another's aid in emergencies anywhere in Afghanistan, but their summit failed to muster significant reinforcements for operations in Taliban strongholds.
Officials said all 26 NATO members will lift national restrictions on rushing to help fellow allies in trouble. NATO's top soldier, Canadian Gen. Ray Henault, said the move sent ''a strong message of unity, determination and certainly solidarity'' and would greatly enhance the alliance's first mission outside Europe. |
Published: Nov. 30, 2006
Posted: Dec. 01, 2006 |
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U.S. rates travelers for terror risk - Yahoo! News
Michael J. Sniffen |
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Without their knowledge, millions of Americans and foreigners crossing U.S. borders in the past four years have been assigned scores generated by U.S. government computers rating the risk that the travelers are terrorists or criminals.
The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years. |
Published: Dec. 01, 2006
Posted: Dec. 01, 2006 |
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US furious at official's shame over Bush and Blair - Yahoo! News
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The US government furiously rejected comments by a senior State Department analyst that he was "ashamed" of how
President George W. Bush treated British Prime Minister
Tony Blair.
The official, Kendall Myers, set off a diplomatic embarrassment by also reportedly saying US-British relations were "totally one-sided" and London's political bridge between Europe and the United States was falling down. |
Published: Nov. 30, 2006
Posted: Dec. 01, 2006 |
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Bob Gates & Locking You Up Forever - Consortiumnews.com
Robert Parry |
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| As the next Defense Secretary, Robert M. Gates will be in charge of a new star-chamber legal system that can lock up indefinitely “unlawful enemy combatants” and “any person” accused of aiding them. Yet, despite these extraordinary new powers, his confirmation is being treated more like a coronation than a time for tough questions. |
Published: Dec. 04, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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On Calling Bullshit - Niemanwatchdog.org
Dan Froomkin |
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Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do.
What is it about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert that makes them so refreshing and attractive to a wide variety of viewers (including those so-important younger ones)? I would argue that, more than anything else, it is that they enthusiastically call bullshit. |
Published: Dec. 04, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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Analysis: Old Gates memo raises questions - United Press International
Pamela Hess
Seen at: United Press International
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My understanding is Mr. Gates has a couple of other obligations," said Pentagon spokesman Eric Ruff.
Ruff said Gates, now the president of Texas A & M University, has promised to be at graduation ceremonies in mid-January.
However, Gates is scheduled to face the Senate Armed Services Committee next week for his nomination hearing. Presuming the committee approves him, the entire Senate would be able to approve him shortly thereafter. |
Published: Dec. 04, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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The ultimate act of self-sacrifice that no one noticed - Guardian
Emine Saner |
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| To motorists on Chicago's Kennedy expressway on the morning of November 3, the fire was just an annoyance, slowing their journey into work. It appeared as if someone had set the city's sculpture of a giant flame, which stands by the road, on fire. Most of those commuters didn't hear for some time that it wasn't the sculpture on fire, but a 52-year-old anti-war protester, Malachi Ritscher. Many probably never heard about it. |
Published: Nov. 30, 2006
Posted: Dec. 01, 2006 |
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Why Media Avoided 'Civil War' Term - MSNBC
Jonathan Alter |
| The media is finally referring to the Iraq conflict as a ‘civil war.’ It shouldn’t have taken so long. |
| To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, Now we are engaged in a great—or at least major—civil war, testing whether this nation (of Iraq), or any nation (in the Middle East), can long endure. On Monday, NBC News announced that “after careful consideration,” it decided that “the situation in Iraq with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas can now be characterized as a civil war.” The Los Angeles Times made the same decision, and within a few days most of the mainstream news media (with the exception, no doubt, of Fox News) will likely follow suit. |
Published: Nov. 28, 2006
Posted: Dec. 04, 2006 |
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Faith groups urge cuts to AIDS fund - Boston Globe
John Donnelly |
| Allege opposition to Christian efforts |
Some leading Christian conservatives, angry over the Global Fund to Fight AIDS's promotion of condoms and its perceived lack of support for faith-based programs, are pushing Congress to cut US support for the AIDS initiative, which was initiated by President Bush in a Rose Garden ceremony five years ago with a $200 million commitment.
The fund -- whose full name is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria -- has become one of the pillars of the international effort to fight infectious diseases, growing into a $6.6 billion organization that supports programs in 136 countries. |
Published: Dec. 01, 2006
Posted: Dec. 01, 2006 |
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George Will Distorts WaPo's Own Reporting To Smear Jim Webb - TPMCafe
Greg Sargent |
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| This is one of the rankest displays of journalistic dishonesty I've seen in some time. In today's Washington Post column, George Will assails Dem Senator-elect Jim Webb over his now-well-known confrontation with President Bush at a White House reception. To do so, Will badly distorts the reporting his own paper did on the episode, and it's quite clear his distortions were entirely deliberate. |
Published: Nov. 30, 2006
Posted: Dec. 01, 2006 |
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