Top Items:
Ezra Klein:
Trust, But Verify — Man, this is some insanely bad polling: … And I mean bad in both senses of the word. First, as John notes, these are bad numbers. I sure as hell think the NSA should listen in on suspected terrorists! Anyone going to make the contrarian case against it? — Good.
Discussion:
Lawyers, Guns and Money, The Mahablog, The RCP Blog, Decision '08, Say Anything, Power Line and Generation Why?
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John / AMERICAblog:New domestic spying poll numbers are very bad for Bush
Discussion:
The Washington Monthly, The Carpetbagger Report, Unclaimed Territory, The Political Teen and Modulator
Glenn Greenwald / Unclaimed Territory:Public opinion & Presidential law-breaking — A few facts
Discussion:
AMERICAN FUTURE
New York Times:
Spy Agency Removes Illegal Tracking Files — By The Associated Press The National Security Agency's Internet site has been placing files on visitors' computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most files of that type.
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Sandy Levinson / Balkinization:
Judge Alito and Executive Power — Samuel Alito may turn out, perhaps fortunately for the rest of us, to be a victim of cruel fate, being the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. Here he is, a noted-and more than competent, in any conventional sense-ultra-conservative …
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Lisa Sandberg / mysanantonio.com:
Justices agree to consider hearing DeLay's money laundering case — AUSTIN — Media reports that U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay had convinced the state's highest court to hear his appeal were as widely circulated as they were, well, wrong. — Justices for the Texas Court Criminal Appeals agreed merely …
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Washington Post:
The Fast Rise and Steep Fall of Jack Abramoff — How a Well-Connected Lobbyist Became the Center of a Far-Reaching Congressional Corruption Scandal — Jack Abramoff liked to slip into dialogue from "The Godfather" as he led his lobbying colleagues in planning their next conquest on Capitol Hill.
Washington Post:
Bush Team Rethinks Its Plan for Recovery — President Bush shifted his rhetoric on Iraq in recent weeks after an intense debate among advisers about how to pull out of his political free fall, with senior adviser Karl Rove urging a campaign-style attack on critics while younger aides pushed …
Michael J. Totten / LA Weekly:
In the Land of the Brother Leader — Vacation in Libya? Totalitarian tourism and the search for truth... and a good meal — Young men who like their comforts, and a dainty table, or who wish to pass their time pleasantly in the company of women, must not go to Arabia.
New York Times:
Twenty Years Later, Buying a House Is Less of a Bite — PORTLAND, Me. - Despite a widespread sense that real estate has never been more expensive, families in the vast majority of the country can still buy a house for a smaller share of their income than they could have a generation ago.
Steven Greenhouse / New York Times:
New York Transit Deal Shows Union's Success on Many Fronts — He was excoriated on tabloid front pages and by the mayor and governor. As thousands streamed across the Brooklyn Bridge on a frigid night during last week's transit strike, someone in a car yelled out his name, prefacing it with a curse.
Lolita C. Baldor / Associated Press:
Chiefs Demoted in Pentagon Succession Line — WASHINGTON — Heading a military service isn't quite the position of power it used to be. In a Bush administration revision of plans for Pentagon succession in a doomsday scenario, three of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's …
Discussion:
firedoglake
Jim Hughes / Denver Post:
Vets get in races to fight GOP — War experience touted for Dems. Veterans for a Secure America fields candidates for Congress nationwide, including two in Colorado. — More than 30 Iraq and Persian Gulf War veterans have entered congressional races across the country as Democrats …
Discussion:
The Democratic Daily Blog
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Margalit Fox / New York Times:
Charles W. Socarides, Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst, Is Dead at 83 — Dr. Charles W. Socarides, a well-known psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who maintained publicly, long after it was considered scientifically acceptable to do so, that homosexuality was a condition amenable to treatment …
Reuters:
Focus turns to S.Korean's cloned dog claim — SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean investigation panel looking into the works of a disgraced scientist said on Thursday it could not yet reach a conclusion on whether his team produced the world's first cloned dog.
Discussion:
Donklephant
ACLU:
"President Nixon Was Not Above the Law, and Neither is President Bush," ACLU Chief Says — NEW YORK - In a full-page advertisement in today's New York Times, the American Civil Liberties Union intensified its call for a special counsel to be appointed to determine whether President George W …
Vincent J. Schodolski / Chicago Tribune:
When jail time just won't do, the judge may opt to humiliate you — LOS ANGELES — There is a song in Gilbert and Sullivan's light opera "The Mikado" in which the title character reveals that one of his goals is "to let the punishment fit the crime." It appears that a number of judges around the country share that objective.
Sabrina Tavernise / New York Times:
U.N. Observer in Baghdad Calls the Voting Valid — BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 28 - The United Nations stepped into the controversy over the Iraqi parliamentary election on Wednesday, declaring publicly that the results of the voting on Dec. 15 appeared valid, even as the vote tally continued here.
