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MSNBC:
Transcript for January 1 — Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jon Meacham, William Safire & Eugene Robinson — MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this New Year's Day: What was the biggest story of 2005? What stories should we watch for in 2006? And the New Hampshire primary is only two years away.
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Newsweek:
Full Speed Ahead — After 9/11, Bush and Cheney pressed for more powerand got it. Now, predictably, the questions begin. Behind the NSA spying furor. — Jan. 9, 2006 issue - The talk at the White House in the days and weeks after 9/11 was all about suitcase nukes and germ warfare and surprise decapitation strikes.
Digby / Hullabaloo:
Shaft of Sunlight — I wrote the other day that I thought it was time for some angry Justice Department lawyers to step up and reveal what in the hell went on with the White House cherry picking and stovepiping the legal advice that allowed them to create a new commander in chief infallibility doctrine.
Discussion:
Mathew Gross
Walter Pincus / Washington Post:
NSA Gave Other U.S. Agencies Information From Surveillance — Fruit of Eavesdropping Was Processed and Cross-Checked With Databases — Information captured by the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping on communications between the United States and overseas has been passed …
Discussion:
firedoglake, Suburban Guerrilla, Captain's Quarters, The Strata-Sphere, Amygdala, AMERICAN FUTURE, Daily Kos, Betsy's Page and THE BRAD BLOG
John / AMERICAblog:
Bush now basically claiming that court wouldn't approve warrants to listen in on Osama's phone calls to Americans — That is exactly what he said today, in so many words. Read on. — Now Bush is claiming that the phone calls he was tapping were solely Al Qaeda members calling people in the US.
Discussion:
MyDD
Deb Riechmann / Associated Press:
Bush Defends Domestic Spying Program — SAN ANTONIO — President Bush on Sunday strongly defended his domestic spying program, saying it's a limited initiative that tracks only incoming calls to the United States. — "It's seems logical to me that if we know there's a phone number associated …
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Eric Lichtblau / New York Times:
Bush Defends Legality of Domestic Spy Program — WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 - President Bush today continued to defend both the legality and necessity of the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, and he denied that he had misled the public last year when he asserted that any government wiretap required a court order.
White House:
President Visits Troops at Brooke Army Medical Center — THE PRESIDENT: Happy New Year to you all. Thanks. I can't think of a better way to start 2006 then here at this fantastic hospital — a hospital that's full of healers and compassionate people who care deeply about our men and women in uniform.
Deb Riechmann / Associated Press:
Bush Contends Spying Program Vital, Legal — SAN ANTONIO - President Bush strongly defended his domestic spying program on Sunday, calling it legal as well as vital to thwarting terrorist attacks, and contended the leak making it public had caused "great harm to the nation."
Katharine Q. Seelye / New York Times:
Answering Back to the News Media, Using the Internet — Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, or so goes the old saw. For decades, the famous and the infamous alike largely followed this advice. Even when subjects of news stories felt they had been misunderstood or badly treated …
hexblog.com:
Windows WMF Metafile Vulnerability HotFix — This week a new vulnerability was found in Windows: — Browsing the web was not safe anymore, regardless of the browser. Microsoft will certainly come up with a thouroughly tested fix for it in the future, but meanwhile I developed a temporary fix - I badly needed it.
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Andrew / www.AndrewSullivan.com:
DEFENDING THE NYT: — I think I should second Shafer on the NYT NSA story. Here too. Calame's Public Editor column today seemed weak to me. The only place the NYT obviously scrwed up was in not disclosing Risen's forthcoming book. But taking a year to verify an important story …
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Glenn Reynolds / Instapundit.com:THE NEW YORK TIMES' PUBLIC EDITOR, Byron Calame, criticizes …
Discussion:
Rantingprofs, Mediacrity, PressThink, Shakespeare's Sister, AMERICAN FUTURE, The Huffington Post, PrawfsBlawg, BuzzMachine, Pandagon and The Right Coast
Larry David / New York Times:
Cowboys Are My Weakness — SOMEBODY had to write this, and it might as well be me. I haven't seen "Brokeback Mountain," nor do I have any intention of seeing it. In fact, cowboys would have to lasso me, drag me into the theater and tie me to the seat, and even then I would make every effort to close my eyes and cover my ears.
New York Times:
Muslim Scholars Were Paid to Aid U.S. Propaganda — WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 - A Pentagon contractor that paid Iraqi newspapers to print positive articles written by American soldiers has also been compensating Sunni religious scholars in Iraq in return for assistance with its propaganda work, according to current and former employees.
Discussion:
AMERICAN FUTURE
Pajamas Media:
US planning a strike against Iran? — Compiled by Pajamas Media staff in Barcelona — The speculation that a military strike against Iran might be in the works is growing after the German magazine Der Spiegel published an article in which it also quotes reports in the German and Turkish media.
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BBC:
Syria party kicks out 'traitor' — Syria's ruling Baath Party has expelled former Vice-President Abdul Halim Khaddam - a day after parliament voted to bring treason charges against him. — The moves follow remarks by Mr Khaddam implicating President Bashar al-Assad in the murder …
Discussion:
Winds of Change.NET
