Top Items:
Jennifer Loven / Associated Press:
Bush Defends Secret Spying in the U.S. — WASHINGTON - Facing angry criticism and challenges to his authority in Congress, President Bush on Saturday unapologetically defended his administration's right to conduct secret post-Sept. 11 spying in the United States as "critical to saving American lives."
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Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute:Bush And The "Secret" Eavesdropping
Discussion:
SoCalPundit, AMERICAN FUTURE, Decision '08, Gateway Pundit, USS Neverdock and INTEL DUMP
Seneca the Younger / YARGB:Opening Act — President Bush in today's radio address …
Discussion:
The Corner on National …, Let Freedom Ring, Silent Running, Stop The ACLU, Confederate Yankee and Atlas Shrugs
BBC:
Powell raps Europe on CIA flights — Ex-US Secretary of State Colin Powell has indicated that Europeans are being disingenuous when they deny knowledge of the rendition of terror suspects. — Mr Powell said the recently highlighted practice of moving people to places where they are not covered …
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Herald Sun:
White House 'never told' of WMD doubts — THE US administration was never told of doubts about the secret intelligence used to justify war with Iraq, former secretary of state Colin Powell told the BBC in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday night. — Mr Powell, who argued the case …
Mark / Mark in Mexico:
Now Colin Powell comes out swinging — In a stunning statement during an interview on the BBC, Colin Powell says that the White House was never told of doubts about WMD intelligence by the CIA. … While admitting that he had been bypassed on occasion by some of the White House hawks …
Washington Post:
Pushing the Limits Of Wartime Powers — In his four-year campaign against al Qaeda, President Bush has turned the U.S. national security apparatus inward to secretly collect information on American citizens on a scale unmatched since the intelligence reforms of the 1970s.
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Hindrocket / Power Line:BUSH SLAMS CRITICS, SENATE DEMOCRATS
Discussion:
Ezra Klein, Carol Platt Liebau, The Political Pit Bull, The Right Coast, Solomonia, TBogg and Tammy Bruce
Los Angeles Times:
Planted PR Stories Not News to Military — U.S. officials in Iraq knew that a contractor was paying local papers. Discretion was the key. — WASHINGTON — U.S. military officials in Iraq were fully aware that a Pentagon contractor regularly paid Iraqi newspapers to publish positive stories …
Patricia Sullivan / Washington Post:
Investigative Journalist Jack Anderson, 83, Dies — Pulitzer-Prize Winner Exposed Corruption in Washington in His Decades-Long Column — Jack N. Anderson, 83, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who for years was America's most widely read newspaper columnist, died Dec. 17 at his Bethesda home.
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Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Bush's Fumbles Spur New Talk of Oversight on Hill — After a series of embarrassing disclosures, Congress is reconsidering its relatively lenient oversight of the Bush administration. — Lawmakers have been caught by surprise by several recent reports, including the existence …
Discussion:
Hullabaloo
CNN:
THE SITUATION ROOM — Spying on Americans wihout Court Approval; Burbank Airplane Incident; Morgan Freeman on Black History Month; Howard Stern Signs Off — THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. — WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks very much, Kitty.
Ezra Klein:
FISA — On the wiretapping, I want to be crystal clear on one issue: the issue here isn't the espionage, it's the secrecy. Of course law enforcement agencies will need to gather intelligence on domestic elements. They do it to drug dealers, mob bosses, militia men, and gang lords.
RELATED ITEM:
Glenn Greenwald / Unclaimed Territory:Bush's unchecked Executive power v. the Founding principles of the U.S.
Discussion:
firedoglake, The Heretik, Eschaton, Middle Earth Journal, Brilliant at Breakfast and Mathew Gross
Houston Chronicle:
TV: Bandits Kill Iranian President's Guard — TEHRAN, Iran — Bandits killed a guard of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hours before the leader visited southeastern Iran this week, state-run television reported Saturday. — The broadcast said another guard and a driver were wounded …
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New York Times:
Louisiana's Deadly Storm Took Strong as Well as the Helpless — NEW ORLEANS - More than 100 of them drowned. Sixteen died trapped in attics. More than 40 died of heart failure or respiratory problems, including running out of oxygen. At least 65 died because help - shelter, water or a simple dose of insulin - came too late.
Jill Crouch / Washington Post:
Ombudsman 'Briefing' — I was dismayed by ombudsman Deborah Howell's Dec. 11 column, "The Two Washington Posts." — Without providing any examples to make her case, other than to mention the opinion of John F. Harris, The Post's political editor, Howell claims that Dan Froomkin's …
Discussion:
Discourse.net
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Philip P. Pan / Washington Post:
Chinese Evade Censors To Discuss Police Assault — HONG KONG, Dec. 16 — At first glance, it looked like a spirited online discussion about an essay written nearly 80 years ago by modern China's greatest author. But then again, the exchange on a popular Chinese bulletin board site seemed a bit emotional, given the subject.
Abby Goodnough / New York Times:
Tensions Rise as More Flee Cuba for U.S. — MIAMI, Dec. 17 - The number of Cubans intercepted at sea while trying to reach the United States is at its highest level since tens of thousands took to the Florida Straits on makeshift rafts and in small boats in the 1994 exodus sanctioned by President Fidel Castro.
Discussion:
EU Rota
Washington Post:
The GOP's Missed Lesson — JERRY W. KILGORE'S stinging defeat in last month's Virginia gubernatorial race has provoked a venomous debate within his Republican Party: How did things go so badly wrong that a Republican candidate in a solidly red state could lose by 113,000 votes?
Associated Press:
U.N. Investigator Names Syria in Murder — BEIRUT, Lebanon — The chief U.N. investigator into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said in remarks published Saturday that he believed Syrian authorities were behind the killing. — It was the first time that Detlev Mehlis …
