Top Items:
New York Times:
Defense Lawyers in Terror Cases Plan Challenges Over Spy Efforts — WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 - Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.
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ReddHedd / firedoglake:
Meet the Fan — In a NYTimes article that should come as no surprise to the legal minds in the audience, defense counsel for a number of charged and convicted terrorism suspects are planning to challenge cases based on the latest revelations on the NSA spying domestically.
Discussion:
Rising Hegemon
Wall Street Journal:
Pro-War Group Takes to the Airwaves — Move America Forward Ads Aim to Lift — Bush's Approval Rating by Backing WMD Claims — WASHINGTON — The television commercials are attention-grabbing: Newly found Iraqi documents show that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction …
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Tom Lasseter / Knight Ridder:
Kurds in Iraqi army proclaim loyalty to militia — KIRKUK, Iraq - Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul …
Francis Turner / L'Ombre de l'Olivier:
FUD and the MSM — The WaPo has hit piece on Bill Roggio which is, at first sight, an example of the usual "blogger falls foul of stuck up MSM hack" article that have become all too common over the last couple of years. But this one is a little different, IMO.
Discussion:
Gates of Vienna
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Carrie Johnson / Washington Post:
Enron Executive Agrees to Plea Deal — Prosecutors Gain Witness Against Lay and Skilling — Enron Corp.'s former chief accountant agreed to plead guilty today to criminal conduct that preceded the company's collapse into bankruptcy, according to sources familiar with the negotiations …
Discussion:
Houston's Clear Thinkers, David Corn, Off the Kuff, Middle Earth Journal and Sentencing Law and Policy
Blaine Harden / Washington Post:
A Shared Uncertainty — Hurricane Unites Evacuees on Both Sides Of New Orleans's Divide of Race and Class — NEW ORLEANS Joseph and Kesa Williams have come home once since Hurricane Katrina chased them off to Atlanta. Once was all they could bear. — Inside their ruined house …
Matthew Yglesias / TAPPED:
THE RULE OF LAW. Bill Kristol doesn't really care: … This is honestly just dumb. The story we're all talking about isn't a story about how, in September and October 2001, the president authorized some kind of illegal program on a temporary emergency basis before getting things sorted out.
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John / AMERICAblog:
Now Bush says he was only spying on people with "a history of blowing up trains, weddings and churches" — From Reuters: … Wow, very bad people who have a history of blowing up commuter trains, weddings and churches, yet Bush never sought a court order to conduct the snooping because he thought a court wouldn't let him?!
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Matthew Yglesias / yglesias.tpmcafe.com:
Matthew Yglesias — Gifted Children Left Behind? — A Washington Post op-ed complaints that with No Child Left Behind forcing schools to focus more attention on their worst-performing students, the "gifted" are being left out of the picture. Paul Glastris says "Progressive-minded folks ought …
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Ian Fisher / New York Times:
Limbo, an Afterlife Tradition, May Be Doomed by the Vatican — ROME, Dec. 27 - It may seem half a shame to get rid of a church tradition, however cruel and antiquated, if it can inspire poetry like "The Inferno" or spooky lines like these from Seamus Heaney: "Fishermen at Ballyshannon/Netted an infant last night/Along with the salmon."
Discussion:
Althouse
Katherine Shrader / Associated Press:
CIA Probes Renditions of Terror Suspects — WASHINGTON - The CIA's independent watchdog is investigating fewer than 10 cases where terror suspects may have been mistakenly swept away to foreign countries by the spy agency, a figure lower than published reports but enough to raise some concerns.
Robert Fisk / Los Angeles Times:
Telling it like it isn't — I FIRST REALIZED the enormous pressures on American journalists in the Middle East when I went some years ago to say goodbye to a colleague from the Boston Globe. I expressed my sorrow that he was leaving a region where he had obviously enjoyed reporting.
Michelle Malkin / Townhall.com:
The New York Times vs. America — 2005 was a banner year for the nation's Idiotarian newspaper of record, The New York Times. — What's "Idiotarian"? Popular warblogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs and Pajamas Media coined the useful term to describe stubborn blame-America …
Discussion:
Power Line
Joseph Kahn / New York Times:
When Chinese Sue the State, Cases Are Often Smothered — SHIQIAO, China - The peasants surrounded the clerk in the busy court anteroom, badgering him to let them sue the officials who had seized their land. — No, no, the clerk said, shaking his head and waving his hands, as the peasants recalled it.
Discussion:
The Peking Duck
Raymond Hernandez / New York Times:
Frustration Over Iraq Vote Unlikely to Trouble Clinton — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's support for the war in Iraq has outraged many liberal activists in the Democratic Party, who are warning of retribution, including a primary challenge to her re-election campaign next year.
Discussion:
The Corner on National …
Kathleen Parker / Townhall.com:
Lord of the blogs — Of all the stories leading America's annual greatest-hits list, the one that subsumes the rest is the continuing evolution of information in the Age of Blogging. — Not since the birth of the printing press have our lives been so dramatically affected by the way we create …
Kristen Philipkoski / Wired News:
2005's 10 Sexiest Geeks — Some people say the term "sexy geek" is an oxymoron. Here at Wired News, we say it's redundant. With so many accomplished and delectable nerd types to choose from, picking 10 of the sexiest geeks of 2005 was no easy task. But after much deliberation, here …
Lyle Denniston / SCOTUSblog:
Padilla tells Court of "manipulation" — Attorneys for terrorism suspect Jose Padilla put before the Supreme Court Tuesday a full account of the shifting strategy of the Bush Administration in dealing with Padilla, seeking to persuade the Justices that the government is blatantly attempting …
