memeorandum: Iraq insurgency: People rise against al-Qa'eda (Damien McElroy/Telegraph)

10:45 AM ET, October 9, 2007

Top Items:

Leak Severed a Link to Al-Qaeda's Secrets — Firm Says Administration's Handling of Video Ruined Its Spying Efforts — A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month …

Discussion: Hot Air, Firedoglake, The Jawa Report, Think Progress, Captain's Quarters, The Lede, The Strata-Sphere, AMERICAblog, The Liberal Avenger, The Van Der Galiën Gazette, MyDD, PrairiePundit, The American Street, First Draft and Rising Hegemon

Eli Lake / New York Sun:

Qaeda Goes Dark After a U.S. Slip — Enemy Vanishes From Its Web Sites — WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda's Internet communications system has suddenly gone dark to American intelligence after the leak of Osama bin Laden's September 11 speech inadvertently disclosed the fact that we had penetrated the enemy's system.

Discussion: Take Our Country Back, Don Surber and Gateway Pundit

The Big Trunk / Power Line:

AL QAEDA GOES DARK — Eli Lake has the story of the day in today's New York Sun: "Qaeda goes dark after a U.S. slip." Lake reports that the September 7 Osama bin Laden video (the one with the funny looking black beard) was picked up by Rita Katz's SITE Institute and provided to the National Counterterrorism Center:

Opinion Journal:
Tortured Arguments — Giving al Qaeda an interrogation-resistance manual.

Discussion: PrairiePundit

The Corner:

The new poor — Over the weekend, I posted a couple of things re Graeme Frost, the Democratic Party's 12-year old healthcare spokesman. Michelle Malkin reports that the blogospheric lefties are all steamed about the wingnuts' Swiftboating of sick kids, etc. — Sorry, no sale.

Discussion: PrairiePundit, small dead animals, Toronto Star, Whiskey Fire, Daily Kos, Sadly, No!, Blue Crab Boulevard, five feet of fury., TBogg and Flopping Aces

Christy Hardin Smith / Firedoglake: What Is Wrong With You?!? — The difference between …

Faiz / Think Progress:
Right Wing Launches Baseless Smear Campaign Against 12 Year Old Recipient Of SCHIP

Digby / Hullabaloo:
Fetid Compost Where Their Hearts Should Be

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, CBS News, Dependable Renegade, Left in the West, Obsidian Wings and Norwegianity

John Yoo / Opinion Journal:

The Real Clarence Thomas — His fidelity to the Constitution often leads to results liberals like. — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas again finds himself in the crosshairs of liberals. After 16 years of diligently avoiding the press, he has written a memoir, "My Grandfather's Son …

Discussion: Real Clear Politics, Betsy's Page and Bench Memos

Robert Barnes / Washington Post:

Political Parties, Under Challenge, Seem to Have Justices' Sympathy — There is a place, after all, where political party leaders still get a little respect, and it's called the Supreme Court. — The justices last week heard two cases that challenge the authority of party bosses and the freedom …

New York Times:

Democrats Seem Ready to Extend Wiretap Powers — Two months after insisting that they would roll back broad eavesdropping powers won by the Bush administration, Democrats in Congress appear ready to make concessions that could extend some crucial powers given to the National Security Agency.

Discussion: Salon, The Swamp, Brilliant at Breakfast, Outside The Beltway, PoliBlog (TM), Prairie Weather, QandO, Sister Toldjah, TalkLeft, The Sideshow and The Reaction

Christopher Toothaker / Associated Press:

Venezuela's Chavez on moral crusade — CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez is on a moral crusade in Venezuela, preaching against vices from alcohol to cholesterol, vowing to curb whisky imports and ordering beer trucks off the street. — His government announced increased taxes …

Discussion: Fraters Libertas

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters: Ernesto Is Not A New Man — Hugo Chavez has decided to direct …

Newsday:

British pullout in Iraq leaves Basra in chaos — BY TIMOTHY M. PHELPS.timothy.phelps@newsday.com; This story was supplemented with wire reports. — WASHINGTON - The British troop pullout from Iraq announced yesterday leaves Basra, Iraq's second largest and most strategically important city …

Lydia Saad / Gallup Poll:

Bush's Approval Rating Returns to Low 30s — Matches his average rating since July — PRINCETON, NJ — According to a new Gallup Poll, conducted Oct. 4-7, 2007, President George W. Bush's job approval rating from the American public is an anemic 32%. That is slightly below his previous reading …

Discussion: Think Progress

Noel Sheppard / NewsBusters.org:

Court Identifies Eleven Inaccuracies in Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' — Here's something American media are virtually guaranteed to not report: a British court has determined that Al Gore's schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth" contains at least eleven material falsehoods.

Discussion: Flopping Aces and Right Wing News

Mark Silva / The Swamp:

Looking for the union label: All over the party — Looking for the union label isn't always easy in the campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Union rank and file, or at least their leaders, are as split as the party now. — The AFL-CIO's inability to rally early around …

Discussion: CNN Political Ticker

Jesse J. Holland / Associated Press:
SEIU won't endorse for Dem primary

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, MyDD, The Agonist and Taylor Marsh

Jane Gross / New York Times:

Aging and Gay, and Facing Prejudice in Twilight — Even now, at 81 and with her memory beginning to fade, Gloria Donadello recalls her painful brush with bigotry at an assisted-living center in Santa Fe, N.M. Sitting with those she considered friends, "people were laughing and making certain kinds …

Discussion: TalkLeft and Bark Bark Woof Woof

Damien McElroy / Telegraph:

Iraq insurgency: People rise against al-Qa'eda — Damien McElroy spent a week in the heart of the insurgency in Anbar province in Iraq. In the second of seven exclusive reports he describes how peace and prosperity have returned to a town formerly riven by sectarian killings.

Discussion: The Strata-Sphere, A Chequer-Board of Nights …, PrairiePundit, Dean's World and Theo Spark

Frank Newport / Gallup Poll:

Giuliani Still on Top as Republicans Prepare to Debate in Michigan — Latest Gallup Poll shows Thompson in second place, followed by McCain — PRINCETON, NJ — As the Republican presidential candidates square off in the latest in a series of debates — this time in Dearborn, Mich. tonight …

Jeffrey H. Birnbaum / Washington Post:

Buyout Firms to Avoid a Tax Hike — Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has told private-equity firms in recent weeks that a tax-hike proposal they have spent millions of dollars to defeat will not get through the Senate this year, according to executives and lobbyists.

Discussion: Comments from Left Field, The Carpetbagger Report, The Atlantic Online and Washington Monthly

Martin Kady II / The Politico:
Democrats turn to traditional issues

Discussion: Jules Crittenden

Elizabeth Ames Jones / Washington Post:

Energy Security 101 — Americans burn 490 million gallons of gasoline and diesel every day and import 65 percent of the oil used to make those products. Worldwide energy consumption is expected to increase 40 percent in the next 25 years, and widespread adoption of alternative energy sources is decades away.

Discussion: Blue Crab Boulevard and PrairiePundit