Top Items:
Dan Eggen / Washington Post:
Congressional Agency Questions Legality of Wiretaps — The Bush administration appears to have violated the National Security Act by limiting its briefings about a warrantless domestic eavesdropping program to congressional leaders, according to a memo from Congress's research arm released yesterday.
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David S. Broder / Washington Post:
Gore's Challenge — Former vice president Al Gore has turned himself into a one-man grand jury, ready to indict the Bush administration for any number of crimes against the Constitution. Whether you agree with Gore's conclusions or not, the speech that the 2000 Democratic nominee …
New York Times:
Inquiry on Clinton Official Ends With Accusations of Cover-Up — WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 - After the longest independent counsel investigation in history, the prosecutor in the case of former Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros is finally closing his operation with a scathing report accusing …
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James Gordon Meek / NY Daily News:
Prober blasts Bill — Cites coverup on Cisneros — WASHINGTON - A special prosecutor's long-delayed report charges that a coverup at senior levels of the Clinton administration killed a tax fraud case against ex-cabinet member Henry Cisneros, the Daily News has learned.
Louis Charbonneau / Reuters:
Iran scorns EU trio's draft nuclear resolution — BERLIN (Reuters) - EU powers began circulating a draft resolution on Wednesday for a February 2 meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog asking it to report Iran to the Security Council, but Russia was seeking moves that stopped short of a formal referral.
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ABCNEWS:
U.S. Strike Killed Al Qaeda Bomb Maker — Terror Big Also Trained 'Shoe Bomber,' Moussaoui — Jan. 18, 2006 — ABC News has learned that al Qaeda's master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert was one of the men killed in last week's U.S. missile attack in eastern Pakistan.
Discussion:
The Counterterrorism Blog, The Washington Monthly, Captain's Quarters, RightWinged.com, The Reaction, A Blog For All, Gina Cobb, JunkYardBlog, The Heretik, Secular Blasphemy, Gina Cobb, The Jawa Report v3.0 Beta, OTB, Long story; short pier., danieldrezner.com, Point Five, Confederate Yankee, In the Bullpen, TigerHawk, PoliBlog, Sweetness & Light, Power Line, On The Third Hand, The Jawa Report v3.0 Beta, Associated Press, RIGHTWINGSPARKLE, Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, THE ASTUTE BLOGGER, TKS on National Review Online, The Strata-Sphere, bRight & Early, BrothersJudd Blog, protein wisdom and Free Thoughts
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New York Times:
U.S. Raid Killed Qaeda Leaders, Pakistanis Say — PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan. 18 - Two senior members of Al Qaeda and the son-in-law of its No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were among those killed in the American airstrikes in remote northeastern Pakistan last week, two Pakistani officials said here on Wednesday.
Discussion:
Blinq
Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post:
Democrats Unveil Lobbying Curbs — As Party Escalates Reform Push, GOP Calls Scandal Bipartisan — Congressional Democrats yesterday laid out a plan to change what they called a GOP "culture of corruption" in Washington, even as Republicans pointed to ethics lapses on their antagonists' side of the aisle.
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Steve Clemons / The Washington Note:
An Evening with the Bush Administration's Good Side and A Call for Senator Reid's Tough Side: Navigating Political Rapids As They Are, Not As We'd Like Them To Be — As I have stressed a number of times on TWN, I am not into ideological zealotry — from the right or the left.
Discussion:
Winds of Change.NET, Booman Tribune, PoliPundit.com, The American Mind and Brad DeLong's Semi …
Carl Hulse / New York Times:
Democrats Unveil Their Own Plan for Rules on Lobbying — WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 - With a stinging attack on Republican ethics, Congressional Democrats today proposed a lobbying overhaul they said far exceeds new Republican proposals in limiting the influence of monied special interests on Capitol Hill.
White House:
Press Briefing by Scott McClellan — MR. MCCLELLAN: Good afternoon, everyone. I have one announcement to begin with. The President will host Polish President Kaczynski at the White House on February 9th. President Kaczynski is making his first visit to the White House since he assumed the presidency of Poland on December 23rd.
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Howard Mintz / Mercury News:
Feds after Google data — RECORDS SOUGHT IN U.S. QUEST TO REVIVE PORN LAW — The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases. — The move is part of a government effort to revive …
Discussion:
Just a Bump in the Beltway, Scott Rosenberg's Links …, Google Blogoscoped and King of Zembla
David G. Savage / Los Angeles Times:
Supreme Court Dodges Major Abortion Ruling — WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, in a rare unanimous decision on abortion, said today that states may require girls under age 18 to take the time to tell a parent before having an abortion, so long as they also permit doctors to act fast in medical emergencies.
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Washington Post:
Diplomats Will Be Shifted to Hot Spots — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that she will shift hundreds of Foreign Service positions from Europe and Washington to difficult assignments in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere as part of a broad restructuring of the diplomatic corps …
Associated Press:
Obama Backs Clinton's Criticism of GOP — WASHINGTON — Sen. Barack Obama and other black Democrats are defending Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's description of the House of Representatives as a "plantation." First lady Laura Bush says Clinton's remark was "ridiculous."
BBC:
Iraq detainees to be freed early — Iraq's ministry of justice has told the BBC that six of the eight women being held by coalition forces in Iraq are to be released early. — The six will be freed because there is insufficient evidence to charge them, a justice ministry spokesman said.
Discussion:
Poynter Online, TalkLeft, Mia Culpa, Rantings of a Sandmonkey, The Jawa Report v3.0 Beta and Boing Boing
Washington Monthly:
Not One Dime — A radical plan to Abramoff-proof politics. — Republicans are trying to run away from the growing Abramoff scandal like the devil runs from holy water. And who can blame them? While the GOP tries lamely to pretend that the lobbying scandal is bipartisan …
