Top Items:
Jane Hamsher / firedoglake:
Wingnut Welfare — One of the big stories of 2005 has to be the extent to which the media turns out to have been bought and paid for, bullied and manipulated by an elaborate right wing money machine. Each new week brings some shocking revelation about how the White House kept its illegal activities …
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Washington Post:
Chalabi Lacks Votes Needed to Win Spot in Iraqi Assembly — BAGHDAD, Dec. 26 — Unexpectedly low support from overseas voters has left Ahmed Chalabi — the returned Iraqi exile once backed by the United States to lead Iraq — facing a shutout from power in this month's vote for the country's …
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Evelyn Nieves / Washington Post:
S.D. Makes Abortion Rare Through Laws And Stigma — Out-of-State Doctors Come Weekly to 1 Clinic — SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The waiting room at the Planned Parenthood clinic was packed by the time the doctor arrived — an hour late because of weather delays in Minneapolis.
Deborah Howell / Washington Post:
The Whole Story on Military Recruiting? — Numbers aren't just facts. They can be interpreted in many ways, even if they come from the same or similar sources. — Ann Scott Tyson, a respected military reporter just back from Iraq, wrote in a front-page story Nov. 4 that …
Eugene Robinson / Washington Post:
Power That Bush Can't Just Take — Since the holiday season is a time of generosity and goodwill toward all — even those who torture the Constitution and hoodwink the nation into ill-advised wars — let's do a little thought experiment. — Let's assume that George W. Bush's claim …
Discussion:
IntoxiNation-News …, The Heretik, Bark Bark Woof Woof, Booman Tribune, The Sundries Shack and Froth Slosh B'Gosh
Thomas Sowell / Townhall.com:
Cheap politicians — I don't make a million dollars a year but I think every member of Congress should be paid at least that much. It's not because those turkeys in Washington deserve it. It's because we deserve a lot better people than we have in Congress.
James Q. Wilson / Opinion Journal:
Faith in Theory — Why "intelligent design" simply isn't science. — When a federal judge in Pennsylvania struck down the efforts of a local school board to teach "intelligent design," he rightly criticized the wholly unscientific nature of that enterprise.
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James Bone / Opinion Journal:
Where Is the Car? — Why Kofi Annan said I'm not a "serious journalist." — UNITED NATIONS—Kofi Annan, U.N. secretary-general and Nobel peace laureate, is normally the meekest of diplomats. He is so accommodating he once described Saddam Hussein as a man "I can do business with."
Shankar Vedantam / Washington Post:
A Political Debate On Stress Disorder — The spiraling cost of post-traumatic stress disorder among war veterans has triggered a politically charged debate and ignited fears that the government is trying to limit expensive benefits for emotionally scarred troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Discussion:
Rantingprofs, DIRELAND, the talking dog, Debsweb, Mia Culpa, Politics in the Zeros and Donklephant
Juan / Informed Comment:
Top Ten Myths about Iraq in 2005 — Iraq has unfortunately become a football in the rough and ready, two-party American political arena, generating large numbers of sound bites and so much spin you could clothe all of China in the resulting threads. — Here are what I think are the top ten myths …
USA Today:
Iraq debate eclipses heroic acts — This season, 155,000 of our men and women in uniform will spend the holidays fighting in Iraq. Though this period is traditionally a time for celebration and hope, our U.S. troops are being confronted with a message of a different sort emanating from the home front …
Discussion:
Gateway Pundit
Jim VandeHei / Washington Post:
White House Press Room To Be Closed For Makeover — The White House spokesman will spin on a new stage next summer. — With the administration moving ahead with plans to renovate the dirty and decaying press room off the West Wing of the White House, spokesman Scott McClellan …
Aljazeera:
'My kidnappers were not criminals' — A former German hostage who spent 24 days in the hands of unknown captors in Iraq has said her kidnappers are not criminals and have demanded humanitarian aid for Sunni Arab regions. — Speaking to Aljazeera satellite channel, Susanne Osthoff …
Discussion:
Rantingprofs, Right Wing News, Say Anything, Moonbattery, damnum absque injuria and Davids Medienkritik
Washington Post:
Policy Adrift on Darfur — For two years the Bush administration has made commendable efforts to improve the lives of people in Darfur. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick has become personally invested in the crisis, recently completing his fourth trip to the region in the past seven months.
Paul Martin / Washington Times:
Torture jails force ouster of Iraq chief — LONDON — Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, whose ministry is accused of operating clandestine prisons where some detainees were tortured, will vacate his job shortly, security and political sources in Baghdad said yesterday.
Brian McGuire / New York Sun:
Schumer, Clinton Earmark Funds For Contributors — WASHINGTON - Senators Clinton and Schumer are asking the Pentagon to spend $123 million of its wartime budget for New York projects that the Department of Defense didn't ask for - but that in many cases are linked to the senators' campaign contributors.
