Top Items:
Insight:
Rove counting heads on the Senate Judiciary Committee — The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation of the administration's unauthorized wiretapping.
Discussion:
Shakespeare's Sister, firedoglake, The Moderate Voice, The Mahablog, IntoxiNation-News …, WTF Is It Now??, The Carpetbagger Report, TalkLeft, The Heretik, Right Wing Nut House, Pam's House Blend, The American Street, War and Piece, AMERICAblog, Tennessee Guerilla Women, State of the Day, Prairie Weather and Booman Tribune
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Katherine Shrader / Associated Press:
Gonzales Answers Tough Questions on Spying — WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed skepticism Monday about the legality of President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program and suggested it be reviewed by a special federal court.
Discussion:
Fox News, Right Wing News, Villainous Company, ScrappleFace, PJ NSA Files and Say Anything
Adam Liptak / New York Times:
In Limelight at Wiretap Hearing: 2 Laws, but Which Should Rule? — It is the sort of problem that judges confront every day. One law forbids a certain activity. The other may allow it. Which one counts? — Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales made the case to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday …
Charles Babington / Washington Post:
Activists on Right, GOP Lawmakers Divided on Spying — Despite President Bush's warnings that public challenges to his domestic surveillance program could help terrorists, congressional Republicans and conservative activists are split on the issue and are showing no signs of reconciling soon.
Julie Bosman / New York Times:
Protesters at Philadelphia Paper Ask It to Apologize for Cartoon — The Philadelphia Inquirer became the first major American newspaper to publish any of the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad on Saturday, prompting a small protest outside the newspaper's offices yesterday morning.
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New York Times:
Those Danish Cartoons — Cartoons making fun of the Prophet Muhammad that were published in a Danish newspaper last September are suddenly one of the hottest issues in international politics. Muslims in Europe and across the Middle East have been holding protests with growing levels of violence and now loss of life.
Associated Press:
Protests Against Cartoon Flare in Afghanistan — KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO peacekeepers exchanged fire with protesters who attacked their base Tuesday in the second straight day of violent demonstrations in Afghanistan over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, Afghan officials said.
John Dickerson / Slate:
Where's My Subpoena? — Valerie Plame, Scooter Libby, and me. — In Washington, the only thing worse than having to testify before a grand jury is not being asked to. I never wanted to go to prison or make hard choices about protecting my sources, but I thought I'd get more out of my bit part …
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ReddHedd / firedoglake:
Dickerson Speaks...And Drops Some Bombshells — Well, well, well...can you say concerted effort to discredit Wilson, planned carefully by folks at the White House, executed with precision planning, and...conspiracy? John Dickerson, formerly of Time Magazine, has a doozy of a two-part story on Slate.
Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post:
Budget Plan Assumes Too Much, Demands Too Little — President Bush's budget blueprint would bring the federal government's budget deficit under control by decade's end. But to do that without raising taxes, the White House would need a sweeping tax reform that it has avoided proposing and a swift end to the war in Iraq.
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Eli Lake / New York Sun:
Congress's Secret Saddam Tapes — The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is studying 12 hours of audio recordings between Saddam Hussein and his top advisers that may provide clues to the whereabouts of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. — The committee has already confirmed through …
Chicago Tribune:
Text of the letter from Sen. McCain to Sen. Obama — WASHINGTON — Following is the text of the letter from U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), as released by McCain's press secretary, Andrea Jones: — The Honorable Barack Obama — United States Senate — SH-713
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worldpublicopinion.org:
Global Poll Finds Iran Viewed Negatively — US Continues to Get Low Marks — Views of China, Russia, France Down Sharply — Europe and Japan Viewed Most Positively — A major BBC World Service poll exploring how people in 33 countries view various countries found not a single country …
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Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff / Washington Post:
Tolerance Toward Intolerance — Last week the publication I work for, the German newsweekly Die Zeit, printed one of the controversial caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. It was the right thing to do. — When the cartoons were first published in Denmark in September, nobody in Germany took notice.
Discussion:
Blinq, INDC Journal, New Sisyphus, TKS on National Review Online, AmSpec Blog, Balloon Juice, USS Neverdock and Hit and Run
tcsdaily.com:
The American Social Model — American capitalism really is a harsh taskmaster, isn't it? Those excessively long hours that everyone works, so different from the ease and leisure that applies in Europe along with our whiskey fountains, lakes of stew and the big rock candy mountain.
Digby / Hullabaloo:
Process Talk — Via Armando over at Kos I see this statement from Tom Vilsack today: … There are many things about this statement that are bulls**t. I don't have to lay them all out for you. But I would like to expound on one aspect of this statement that drives me crazy: it's a process answer.
Richard Beeston / Times of London:
Hawks have warplanes ready if the nuclear diplomacy fails — IT IS the option of last resort with consequences too hideous to contemplate. And yet, with diplomacy nearly exhausted, the use of military force to destroy Iran's nuclear programme is being actively considered by those grappling …
Associated Press:
Duo hogs top prize in pig-squealing contest — Father-son team oinks way to victory in French cult competition — TRIE-SUR-BAISE, France - Yohann and Olivier Roussel's performance climaxed in a cacophony of oinks and grunts, unleashing an explosion of applause.
Discussion:
neandernews.com, Mark in Mexico, Gateway Pundit, Harry's Place, PoliPundit.com and Taking Aim
Robert W. Welkos / Los Angeles Times:
Lawyer to Celebrities Is Subject of Inquiry — The names cited in an indictment of private eye Anthony Pellicano read like a road map leading to Bertram Fields and his famous clients. — His name is nowhere in Monday's 60-page indictment of celebrity gumshoe and alleged wiretapper Anthony Pellicano.
Antonia Zerbisias / Toronto Star:
Hate behind right-wing blogburst — No need to publish offensive cartoons — Feb. 7, 2006. — Well that didn't take long. — While Muslim religious extremists are rioting in the streets of Beirut, Gaza City and Kabul, Scandinavian embassies are being torched and Jordanians are deprived …
Eric Eyre / wvgazette.com:
Soldier pays for armor — Army demanded $700 from city man who was wounded — The last time 1st Lt. William "Eddie" Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood. — A field medic tied a tourniquet around Rebrook's right arm …
