Top Items:
Insight:
Rove counting heads on the Senate Judiciary Committee — The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation of the administration's unauthorized wiretapping.
Discussion:
Shakespeare's Sister, firedoglake, TAPPED, The Moderate Voice, The Mahablog, IntoxiNation-News …, WTF Is It Now??, The Carpetbagger Report, TalkLeft, The Heretik, Pam's House Blend, War and Piece, The American Street, AMERICAblog, Right Wing Nut House, Tennessee Guerilla Women, State of the Day, Prairie Weather and Booman Tribune
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Charles Babington / Washington Post:
Activists on Right, GOP Lawmakers Divided on Spying — Despite President Bush's warnings that public challenges to his domestic surveillance program could help terrorists, congressional Republicans and conservative activists are split on the issue and are showing no signs of reconciling soon.
Adam Liptak / New York Times:
In Limelight at Wiretap Hearing: 2 Laws, but Which Should Rule? — It is the sort of problem that judges confront every day. One law forbids a certain activity. The other may allow it. Which one counts? — Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales made the case to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday …
Discussion:
NewsHog, Washington Post, THE ASTUTE BLOGGER, Election Law, Left in the West and JoeTrippi.com
John Byrne / rawstory.com:
Bush 2007 budget quietly omits impact of policies on deficit — President George W. Bush's fiscal year 2007 budget quietly omits a table included in previous years which lays out the impact of the Administration's proposed policies on the deficit, RAW STORY has learned.
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Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post:
Budget Plan Assumes Too Much, Demands Too Little — President Bush's budget blueprint would bring the federal government's budget deficit under control by decade's end. But to do that without raising taxes, the White House would need a sweeping tax reform that it has avoided proposing and a swift end to the war in Iraq.
Discussion:
firedoglake, Democrat Taylor Marsh …, The Blogging of the President, TAPPED and Daily Kos
Nasser Karimi / Associated Press:
Iranian Paper Plans Holocaust Cartoons — TEHRAN, Iran - A prominent Iranian newspaper said Tuesday it would hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West extends the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
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Associated Press:
Protests Against Cartoon Flare in Afghanistan — KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO peacekeepers exchanged fire with protesters who attacked their base Tuesday in the second straight day of violent demonstrations in Afghanistan over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, Afghan officials said.
John Dickerson / Slate:
Where's My Subpoena? — Valerie Plame, Scooter Libby, and me. — In Washington, the only thing worse than having to testify before a grand jury is not being asked to. I never wanted to go to prison or make hard choices about protecting my sources, but I thought I'd get more out of my bit part …
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ReddHedd / firedoglake:
Dickerson Speaks...And Drops Some Bombshells — Well, well, well...can you say concerted effort to discredit Wilson, planned carefully by folks at the White House, executed with precision planning, and...conspiracy? John Dickerson, formerly of Time Magazine, has a doozy of a two-part story on Slate.
Eli Lake / New York Sun:
Congress's Secret Saddam Tapes — The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is studying 12 hours of audio recordings between Saddam Hussein and his top advisers that may provide clues to the whereabouts of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. — The committee has already confirmed through …
obama.senate.gov:
Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain Exchange Letters on Ethics Reform — Dear John: — Thank you for inviting me to participate in the meeting yesterday to discuss lobbying and ethics reform proposals currently before the Senate. I appreciate your willingness to reach out to me and several …
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Reuters:
Gaza shopkeeper stocks up on Danish flags to burn — GAZA, Feb 6 (Reuters) - When entrepreneur Ahmed Abu Dayya first heard that Danish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad were being reprinted across Europe, he knew exactly what his customers in Gaza would want: flags to burn.
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worldpublicopinion.org:
Global Poll Finds Iran Viewed Negatively — US Continues to Get Low Marks — Views of China, Russia, France Down Sharply — Europe and Japan Viewed Most Positively — A major BBC World Service poll exploring how people in 33 countries view various countries found not a single country …
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Antonia Zerbisias / Toronto Star:
Hate behind right-wing blogburst — No need to publish offensive cartoons — Feb. 7, 2006. — Well that didn't take long. — While Muslim religious extremists are rioting in the streets of Beirut, Gaza City and Kabul, Scandinavian embassies are being torched and Jordanians are deprived …
Discussion:
Instapundit.com, ++ relapsed catholic …, Right Wing Nut House, Sister Toldjah, azerbic, Daimnation! and Ace of Spades HQ
tcsdaily.com:
The American Social Model — American capitalism really is a harsh taskmaster, isn't it? Those excessively long hours that everyone works, so different from the ease and leisure that applies in Europe along with our whiskey fountains, lakes of stew and the big rock candy mountain.
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff / Washington Post:
Tolerance Toward Intolerance — Last week the publication I work for, the German newsweekly Die Zeit, printed one of the controversial caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. It was the right thing to do. — When the cartoons were first published in Denmark in September, nobody in Germany took notice.
Discussion:
Blinq, INDC Journal, New Sisyphus, TKS on National Review Online, AmSpec Blog, Balloon Juice, USS Neverdock and Hit and Run
Julie Bosman / New York Times:
Protesters at Philadelphia Paper Ask It to Apologize for Cartoon — The Philadelphia Inquirer became the first major American newspaper to publish any of the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad on Saturday, prompting a small protest outside the newspaper's offices yesterday morning.
Digby / Hullabaloo:
Process Talk — Via Armando over at Kos I see this statement from Tom Vilsack today: … There are many things about this statement that are bulls**t. I don't have to lay them all out for you. But I would like to expound on one aspect of this statement that drives me crazy: it's a process answer.
ABCNEWS:
EXCLUSIVE: Is CIA Leak Probe a 'Witch Hunt'? — Director Launches Internal Investigation Into Who Gave Sensitive Information to the Media — Feb. 7, 2006 — The director of the CIA has launched a major internal probe into media leaks about covert operations.
Robert W. Welkos / Los Angeles Times:
Lawyer to Celebrities Is Subject of Inquiry — The names cited in an indictment of private eye Anthony Pellicano read like a road map leading to Bertram Fields and his famous clients. — His name is nowhere in Monday's 60-page indictment of celebrity gumshoe and alleged wiretapper Anthony Pellicano.
Eric Eyre / wvgazette.com:
Soldier pays for armor — Army demanded $700 from city man who was wounded — The last time 1st Lt. William "Eddie" Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood. — A field medic tied a tourniquet around Rebrook's right arm …
Richard Beeston / Times of London:
Hawks have warplanes ready if the nuclear diplomacy fails — IT IS the option of last resort with consequences too hideous to contemplate. And yet, with diplomacy nearly exhausted, the use of military force to destroy Iran's nuclear programme is being actively considered by those grappling …
