Top Items:
CNN:
Marshals', witnesses' accounts differ on jet bomb threat claim — Man suffered from bipolar disorder, relative says … MIAMI, Florida (CNN) — As investigators try to piece together the final moments before two air marshals shot and killed an American Airlines passenger, questions are arising about whether he made a bomb threat.
Discussion:
Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, Balloon Juice, Macsmind and New England Republican
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Dr. Rusty Shackleford / The Jawa Report v3.0 Beta:
Terrorists Announce Murder of American Hostage Ronald Schulz — Reports have begun circulating that Ronald Schulz has been murdered. The website used by The Islamic Army in Iraq, though, has not carried this message. Instead, it was posted at an Islamic bulletin board.
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MSNBC:
U.S. hostage killed, Iraq militant group says — U.S. has no confirmation; statement follows video of an American captive … MSNBC TV — BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi insurgent group said Thursday in an Internet posting that it killed a U.S. security consultant it had taken hostage.
AMERICAN DIGEST:
The Day We Killed John Lennon — You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. — Photograph by Ethan Russell — Ed Moltzen @ Late Final notes that today is December 8 and remembers John Lennon (October 30, 1940 -Dec. 8, 1980) was shot to death on this date and then asks: "Where were you when you found out he had died?"
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Shelley K. Wong / Associated Press:
Heckling causes Coulter to cut UConn speech short — STORRS, Conn. — Conservative columnist Ann Coulter gave up trying to finish a speech at the University of Connecticut on Wednesday night when boos and jeers from the audience became overwhelming. — Coulter cut off the talk after 15 minutes …
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John B. Judis / The New Republic:
Chair Lift — Howard Dean is being vilified again—not only by Republicans in the White House and Congress, but by his fellow Democrats as well. And once again it's for making a critical comment about the administration's conduct of the Iraq war. In an interview Monday with a San Antonio radio station …
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Suzanne C. Ryan / Boston Globe:
At 87, Wallace still tells it like it is — Mike Wallace and his hard-hitting brand of journalism have been synonymous with ''60 Minutes" since CBS introduced the program in 1968. Now 87 years old, Wallace, who has interviewed everyone from Malcolm X to Johnny Carson, has written his second memoir.
Paul Hughes / Reuters:
Iran's president questions Holocaust — TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday expressed doubt that the Holocaust occurred and suggested Israel be moved to Europe. — His comments, reported by Iran's official IRNA news agency from a news conference he gave …
NY Daily News:
Rummy exit rumored; Lieberman eyed for job — WASHINGTON - White House officials are telling associates they expect Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to quit early next year, once a new government is formed in Iraq, sources said yesterday. — Rumsfeld's deputy, Gordon England …
Josh Gerstein / New York Sun:
How the CIA Blew Its Prisons Cover — WASHINGTON - While Secretary of State Rice fends off questioning in Europe over CIA-run air flights of prisoners in the war on terror, some analysts outside the CIA are asking how the flights were exposed so easily. — The CIA's legendary capacity for stealth …
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Peter Savodnik / The Hill:
NRSC plans multi-state attack tying Democrats to Abramoff — The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is planning a public-relations offensive tying leading Democrats to lobbyist Jack Abramoff in an effort to neutralize accusations that Republicans have been embroiled in a "culture of corruption."
Judd / Think Progress:
Washington Ignores Bush's Evite — The Washington Post reports that, at yesterday's speech for the Council on Foreign Relations, President Bush had trouble filling the room: … It wasn't for lack of effort. We were forwarded this desperate plea the Council sent out late Tuesday …
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Burt Prelutsky / Townhall.com:
The Jewish Grinch who stole Christmas — I never thought I'd live to see the day that Christmas would become a dirty word. You think it hasn't? Then why is it that people are being prevented from saying it in polite society for fear that it will offend?
Jesse J. Holland / Associated Press:
House, Senate Reach Deal on Patriot Act — WASHINGTON - House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement Thursday to extend the USA Patriot Act, the government's premier anti-terrorism law, before it expires at the end of the month. But a Democratic senator threatened a filibuster to block the compromise.
Ken Silverstein / Los Angeles Times:
Pentagon Memo on Torture-Motivated Transfer Cited — A court filing describes a classified proposal to send a detainee away for information extraction. — WASHINGTON — Although Bush administration officials have denied that they transfer terrorism suspects to countries where they are likely to be abused …
Colum Lynch / Washington Post:
U.N. Official Faults U.S. Detentions — Terrorism Fight Hurts Torture Ban, Human Rights Chief Says — UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 7 — The U.S.-led fight against terrorism is eroding the time-honored international prohibition of torture and other forms of cruel or degrading treatment of prisoners …
Peggy Noonan / Opinion Journal:
The American Way — What does it mean that your first act on entering a country is breaking its laws? — As Congress considers the Bush administration's guest-worker plan, as Republicans try to figure out what their immigration philosophy is, and as political observers parse the implications …
Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post:
House Passes 3 Tax Cuts, Plans a 4th — Cost Would Outstrip Recent Action on Deficit — The House passed three separate tax cuts yesterday and plans to approve a fourth today, trimming the federal revenue by $94.5 billion over five years — nearly double the budget savings that Republicans muscled through the House last month.
