Top Items:
Eric Lichtblau / New York Times:
Bush Again Defends Spy Program — WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 - President Bush continued on Sunday to defend both the legality and the necessity of the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, and he denied that he misled the public last year when he insisted that any government wiretap required a court order.
Discussion:
Unclaimed Territory, The Left Coaster, AMERICAblog, A MOCKINGBIRD'S MEDLEY, Hullabaloo and Roger L. Simon
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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 …
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.
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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Kevin Drum / The Washington Monthly:JOHN ASHCROFT: WEAK ON TERRORISM?....Look, if even John Ashcroft …
Discussion:
The Talent Show
Digby / Hullabaloo:Shaft of Sunlight
Discussion:
firedoglake, AMERICAN FUTURE, THE BRAD BLOG, Washington Post, Mathew Gross, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES and Pandagon
Newsweek:Full Speed Ahead
Discussion:
Hullabaloo, The Moderate Voice, Democrat Taylor Marsh …, Daily Kos, Middle Earth Journal, Taegan Goddard's …, TalkLeft and TBogg
BBC:
Gas row sends shiver through EU — Russia's decision to cut gas imports to Ukraine is causing dismay across Europe, where supplies in a number of countries have been disrupted. — The US has also expressed concern, saying the move raised "serious questions about the use of energy to exert political pressure".
Discussion:
The Brussels Journal
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Andrew E. Kramer / New York Times:
Russia Cuts Off Gas to Ukraine in Cost Dispute — MOSCOW, Jan. 1 - Russia cut off the natural gas intended for Ukraine on Sunday as talks over pricing and transit terms unraveled into a bald political conflict that carried consequences for Ukraine's recovering economy and possibly for gas supplies to Western Europe.
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.
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 …
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
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Tabassum Zakaria / Reuters:Bush defends eavesdropping amid calls for testimony
Discussion:
WTF Is It Now??
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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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.
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
David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times:
Alito Supporters Portray Nominee as Less Polished — WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 - As Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. enters his final week of dress rehearsals for his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, participants say his performance has already made one thing clear: he will never be as polished …
Associated Press:
Florida weirdness spawns three books — TALLAHASSEE, Florida (AP) — How weird is Florida? So weird that not one, not two, but three different books have been titled "Weird Florida." — The first, written by Palm Beach Post reporter Eliot Kleinberg, hit stores in 1998 and detailed years of strange news stories.
Discussion:
Ang's Weird Ideas
John M. Broder / New York Times:
States Take Lead in Push to Raise Minimum Wages — Despite Congressional refusal for almost a decade to raise the federal minimum wage, nearly half of the civilian labor force lives in states where the pay is higher than the rate set by the federal government.
Discussion:
Tim Worstall
