Top Items:
Los Angeles Times:
A Donor Who Had Big Allies — DeLay and two others helped put the brakes on a federal probe of a businessman. Evidence was published in the Congressional Record. — WASHINGTON — In a case that echoes the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, two Northern California Republican congressmen used …
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Time:
Bush and DeLay: Never A Texas Two-Step — The Bush Administration sees the former House majority leader as a necessary burden — When legal and ethical questions began spinning around House majority leader Tom DeLay last year, President George W. Bush was publicly supportive.
Carl Hulse / New York Times:
DeLay Ends Bid to Regain Post as G.O.P. Leader — WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 - Representative Tom DeLay, under pressure from colleagues and swept into an election-year lobbying scandal, abandoned his effort to remain House majority leader on Saturday. The move touched off a battle …
Washington Post:
Ethics Issues Snared GOP's Champion — DeLay's Focus on Fundraising Powered Party Gains But Led to Problems — Standing before a crowd of applauding House Republicans in the Capitol Hill Club last March, then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) inscribed $1.8 million on a giant check and signed …
Washington Post:
A Search for Order, an Answer in the Law — Since his youth, Samuel Alito Jr. has been drawn to conservative ideas. On the eve of confirmation hearings, the first of two articles looks at the forces that shaped the nominee. — It was May 3, 1971, the crest of the antiwar movement …
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Robert Kuttner / Boston Globe:
Alito may be the worst choice — AT THIS moment in American history, it would be hard to find a worse Supreme Court nominee than Samuel A. Alito Jr. His ideology captures everything extremist about the Bush administration. If confirmed, Alito would serve as Bush's enabler.
New York Times:
Judging Samuel Alito — Judicial nominations are not always motivated by ideology, but the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito certainly was. President Bush's previous choice to fill Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, was hounded into withdrawing by the far right …
David Espo / Associated Press:GOP List Includes Alito's Fellow Jurists
Discussion:
Betsy's Page, A Chequer-Board of Nights …, Bench Memos …, The Political Pit Bull and Captain's Quarters
ThreatsWatch.Org:
The Easy Way — The Washington Post makes simple corrections but does not address the real issues — The Washington Post has printed corrections to the article Bloggers, Money Now Weapons in Information War - U.S. Recruits Advocates to the Front, Pays Iraqi TV Stations for Coverage:
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Donald Sensing / One Hand Clapping:
US Army gets on the blog train — Interesting discussion at Instapundit about the MSM, blogs and the military. The Bill Roggio-Washington Post kerfuffle is still alive and well. But here I comment upon an email from an Army colonel Glenn Reynolds quotes. Writes the colonel,
Glenn Greenwald / Unclaimed Territory:
Several matters — There are a couple of posts I wanted to finish today but won't be able to until tomorrow. Until then, here a few interesting things of note: — (1) The AP poll reporting that 56% of Americans already believe that the Bush Administration should be required to obtain warrants …
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Harvey Mansfield / Weekly Standard:The Law and the President — EMERGENCY POWER FOR SUCH UNDERHANDED …
Steven Erlanger / New York Times:
With Sharon Ill, Palestinians Face Own Travails — JERUSALEM, Jan. 7 - The sudden political disappearance of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, struggling for life after a massive stroke, has thrown the future of any peace process with the Palestinians into question.
Discussion:
Mediacrity
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Ibrahim Barzak / Associated Press:Hamas Talks of Possibly Forming Government
Discussion:
Jihad Watch
Smash / The Indepundit:
SMASH vs. Filner — SATURDAY AFTERNOON, I attended an "Out of Iraq" forum at a local church, featuring a keynote address by anti-war Congressman Bob Filner. After his speech, Filner opened up the floor for questions. He fielded a few softballs from the largely friendly crowd. — Then he called on me.
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice
Zbigniew Brzezinski / Washington Post:
The Real Choice in Iraq — "Bring 'em on." — President Bush on Iraqi insurgents, summer 2003 — The insurgency is "in its last throes." — Vice President Cheney, summer 2005 — " . . . there are only two options before our country: victory or defeat." — President Bush, Christmas 2005
Richard Goldstein / New York Times:
Hugh Thompson, 62, Who Saved Civilians at My Lai, Dies — Hugh Thompson, an Army helicopter pilot who rescued Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai massacre, reported the killings to his superior officers in a rage over what he had seen, testified at the inquiries and received a commendation …
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Nicholas Wapshott / Independent:
Get out of MySpace, bloggers rage at Murdoch — Angry members of MySpace, the personal file-sharing website for young adults, are accusing Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation of censoring their postings and blocking their access to rival sites. — The 38 million subscribers to MySpace …
Discussion:
Brilliant at Breakfast
Patrick Quinn / Associated Press:
American Journalist Kidnapped in Iraq — BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen kidnapped a female American journalist and killed her Iraqi translator Saturday in western Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said. — Maj. Falah Mohamadawi said the translator told police before he died that the abduction took place …
Discussion:
Rantingprofs
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Mark Steyn / Chicago Sun Times:
U.S. shouldn't have to do tap dance over bugging — Here's a Reuters headline from New Year's Day: "CIA May Need Decade To Rebuild Clandestine Service." — A decade, huh? Circa 2016, you mean? The last time I checked the job-completion estimates was back in spring 2004 …
Discussion:
The Strata-Sphere
Miriam Pawel / Los Angeles Times:
Farmworkers Reap Little as Union Strays From Its Roots — The movement built by Cesar Chavez has failed to expand on its early successes organizing poor rural laborers. As their plight is used to attract donations that benefit others, services for those in the fields are left to languish.
Joe Gandelman / The Moderate Voice:
A Blogger Gets A "Death Threat" (UPDATED II) — A blogger gets a "death threat" which again underscores how some people who don't agree with what other people write truly need to get a life. Can you just dismiss a seeming death threat when it's made in what tries to be humor — especially when you've got a wife and a kid?
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Washington Post:
Robertson and Ahmadinejad — CHRISTIAN television evangelist Pat Robertson and the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have a well-established affinity for the outrageous. This time their mutual embrace of indecency places them in a category all to themselves.
Anne Hull / Washington Post:
When Mom Is Over There — A Family Learns to Stay the Course and Prays for a Safe Return From Iraq — I am driving a hulking Expedition with a yellow ribbon on the bumper that says "Support Our Troops." In the grocery store parking lot, a man nods at me. I'm walking to the shopping carts when it hits me.
