Top Items:
New York Times:
Rushing Off a Cliff — Here's what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans' fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism …
Discussion:
Confederate Yankee, Hullabaloo, The American Street, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES, The Huffington Post, Big Brass Blog, Bring it On!, The Smirking Chimp, Balkinization, Democrats.com, Obsidian Wings, Don Surber, Preemptive Karma, TalkLeft, The Democratic Daily, Crooks and Liars, DownWithTyranny!, Jesus' General, Think Progress, Bark Bark Woof Woof and The RBC
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Dan Froomkin / Washington Post:
Bush Rules — Today's Senate vote on President Bush's detainee legislation, after House approval yesterday, marks a defining moment for this nation. — How far from our historic and Constitutional values are we willing to stray? How mercilessly are we willing to treat those we suspect to be our enemies?
Discussion:
The Huffington Post
Christy Hardin Smith / Firedoglake:Truth And Patriots — I'm paraphrasing on this, as I take notes during …
Discussion:
Democrats.com
Sabrina Tavernise / New York Times:
Cleric Said to Lose Reins of Parts of Iraqi Militia — The radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has lost control of portions of his Mahdi Army militia that are splintering off into freelance death squads and criminal gangs, a senior coalition intelligence official said Wednesday.
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Fouad Ajami / Opinion Journal:
Infidel Documents — Intelligence, jihadists and the Iraq war debate. — The scaffolding of the Iraq war is under renewed attack. So there had been no meeting between Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence operative Ahmad al-Ani in Prague; and Saddam's regime was "intensely secular" while al Qaeda was steeped in religious doctrine.
Pamela Constable / Washington Post:
In Tribal Pakistan, an Uneasy Quiet — Pact Fails to Deter Backing for Taliban — Three weeks after Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, announced a peace pact with Taliban radicals in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, recent visitors say there is now pin-drop silence in a territory …
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James Bone / Times of London:Bin Laden is alive and hiding in Afghanistan, insists Musharraf
Discussion:
OxBlog
Amit R. Paley / Washington Post:
Heralded Iraq Police Academy a 'Disaster' — A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found.
The Star-Ledger / nj-community:
Menendez Dumps Key Adviser Caught On Tape Seeking 'Favors' — U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez's closest political adviser was secretly recorded seven years ago boasting of political power and urging a Hudson county contractor to hire somone as a favor to Menendez, according to a transcript obtained by The Star-Ledger.
Discussion:
Blue Crab Boulevard
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Robin Toner / New York Times:
New Hope for Democrats in Bid for Senate — Six weeks before Election Day, the Democrats suddenly face a map with unexpected opportunities in their battle for control of the Senate. — In Virginia, a state that few expected to be seriously competitive, Senator George Allen, a Republican …
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Rachel Kapochunas / CQPolitics.com:Ford Pulls Even With Corker in Tennessee Senate Contest
Discussion:
TPMmuckraker
Michael D. Shear / Washington Post:
Webb Denies Ever Using Word as Epithet — Racial Slur Overshadowing All Else in Contest — Democratic Senate candidate James Webb on Wednesday sought to explain remarks he had made a day earlier, in which he refused to say whether he had used the "N-word," but he insisted he has never used it as a racial epithet aimed at anyone.
Dean / Dean's World:
Question for Michelle Malkin: Does the Conscience of a Conservative Still Exist? — I'm publicly calling out Michelle Malkin, someone whom I often disagree with but usually respect. I hope she will think about it and respond thoughtfully and not angrily or flippantly.
Discussion:
Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, Pundit Review, The Glittering Eye, INDCJournal, One Hand Clapping and The Peking Duck
Patrick Quinn / Associated Press:
Iraq terror leader recruits scientists — CAIRO, Egypt - In a new audio message Thursday, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq called for explosives experts and nuclear scientists to join his group's holy war against the West. He also said that more than 4,000 foreign insurgent fighters …
Discussion:
Hot Air, siteinstitute.org, The Fourth Rail, QandO, Counterterrorism Blog, Hyscience and Blue Crab Boulevard
David S. Broder / Washington Post:
Arnold's Turnaround — A GOP Governor Finds the Key: Independence — SACRAMENTO — The Terminator has rescued himself from political ruin by reinventing his approach to government, thus demonstrating in the most dramatic way possible the value of political independence.
Bruce Ackerman / Los Angeles Times:
The White House Warden — Congress may give the president the power to lock up almost anyone he thinks is a terror threat. — BURIED IN THE complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress.
Keith Olbermann / MSNBC:
Threatening letter no joke — Keith Olbermann responds to the New York Post's report — The Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper, The New York Post, may have just impeded an FBI investigation into terroristic threats. — I know this because I was a recipient.
John Riley / Newsday:
Pirro bugged over tap flap — FBI probing AG candidate's spy try on hubby she thought was cheating; she says it's nobody's business — In a jaw-dropping disclosure that could shatter her campaign to become New York's attorney general, Jeanine Pirro said yesterday she is under investigation …
Bryan Bender / Boston Globe:
Cost of Iraq war nearly $2b a week — WASHINGTON — A new congressional analysis shows the Iraq war is now costing taxpayers almost $2 billion a week — nearly twice as much as in the first year of the conflict three years ago and 20 percent more than last year — as the Pentagon spends …
Media Matters for America:
Worst of the Web Today: Taranto cited 1998 bin Laden PDB as evidence of Pres. Clinton's "inaction" … In his September 27 "Best of the Web Today" column, Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal.com editor James Taranto responded to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) September 26 claim that …
Discussion:
TBogg
Barry Schweid / Associated Press:
Poll: Iraqis back attacks on U.S. troops — WASHINGTON - About six in 10 Iraqis say they approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces, and slightly more than that want their government to ask U.S. troops to leave within a year, a poll finds. — The Iraqis also have negative views of Osama bin Laden …
Discussion:
TAPPED, QandO, Democracy Project, All Spin Zone, Gateway Pundit, Decision '08, Flopping Aces and History News Network
Lorie Byrd / Examiner:
Hard to sort out the truth in mainstream media — WASHINGTON - How can we know what to believe? That is what a neighbor asked me several weeks ago over dinner. We were discussing the fact that she no longer believes everything she sees in the news and often wonders what is the truth.
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