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.
Discussion:
The Carpetbagger Report, Right Wing Nut House, Booman Tribune, Generation Why?, Unclaimed Territory, The Counterterrorism Blog, AMERICAN FUTURE, Donklephant, Lean Left, Say Anything, Wonkette, Confederate Yankee, Centerfield, The Corner on National …, War and Piece, Mathew Gross and Politics in the Zeros
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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 …
Discussion:
Middle Earth Journal
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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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 …
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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Robert F. Turner / Opinion Journal:
FISA vs. the Constitution — Congress can't usurp the president's power to spy on America's enemies. — In the continuing saga of the surveillance "scandal," with some congressional Democrats denouncing President Bush as a lawbreaker and even suggesting that impeachment hearings may be in order …
Discussion:
Power Line
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 …
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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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
Donald Lambro / Washington Times:
Centrist Democrats hit anti-Bush tactics — Some centrist Democrats say attacks by their party leaders on the Bush administration's eavesdropping on suspected terrorist conversations will further weaken the party's credibility on national security. — That concern arises from recent moves …
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 …
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
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
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.
Associated Press:
Judge tosses Letterman restraining order — Woman had claimed host caused her 'mental harassment' — SANTA FE, New Mexico (AP) — A state judge has lifted a restraining order granted to a Santa Fe woman who accused talk-show host David Letterman of using coded words to show that he wanted to marry her and train her as his co-host.
Discussion:
IMAO
Jamie Glazov / Front Page Magazine:
Al-Qaeda in Gaza — Frontpage Interview's guest today is David Keyes, who assisted a former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. and specialized on terrorism at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He recently returned from the Middle East where he co-authored academic papers …
Discussion:
Power Line
