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:
firedoglake, Shakespeare's Sister, The Moderate Voice, The Mahablog, The Carpetbagger Report, IntoxiNation-News …, Right Wing Nut House, WTF Is It Now??, TalkLeft, Pam's House Blend, The Heretik, 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
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.
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 …
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.
William Beutler / The Hotline's Blogometer:
2/7: Them's Fightin' Blogs — Conservative and liberal bloggers tend to have different interests, and so it should come as no surprise that they often swarm on different stories. Today, however, the two sides largely focus on the same set of issues. The 1st subject, and probably the most discussed …
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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
Jerusalem Post:
Iranian paper runs Holocaust contest — Iran's biggest-selling newspaper has chosen to tackle the West's ideals of "freedom of expression" by launching a competition to find the 12 "best" cartoons about the Holocaust, the Associated French Press reported on Monday.
Discussion:
the dissident frogman, Catallarchy, Cold Fury, The Jawa Report v3.0 Beta and This Blog Is Full Of Crap
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Michelle Malkin:
ORIGINS OF A FAKE MUHAMMED CARTOON — Dennis Nixon at NeanderNews thinks he has traced the origins of one of the bogus Muhammad cartoons disseminated by radical Danish imams in December: — The top photo was reportedly included in the Danish imams' propaganda and attributed falsely to the Jyllands-Posten.
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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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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Robin Toner / New York Times:Holding Fast to a Policy of Tax Cutting
Discussion:
The Next Hurrah, Democratic Veteran, skippy the bush kangaroo and The Carpetbagger Report
rawstory.com:
Reporter hits McClellan on taps: 'You know what happened to Nixon when he broke the law' — RAW STORY — White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan got in a heated row with a White House correspondent at Monday's press briefing over President Bush's warrantless domestic spying program, RAW STORY has learned.
Discussion:
PunditGuy, Middle Earth Journal, White House, BobGeiger.com, The Democratic Daily Blog and Suburban Guerrilla
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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:
New Sisyphus, Blinq, INDC Journal, TKS on National Review Online, AmSpec Blog, Balloon Juice, Hit and Run and USS Neverdock
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 …
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, Gateway Pundit, Mark in Mexico, Harry's Place, PoliPundit.com and Taking Aim
John Fund / Opinion Journal:
Don Young's Way — Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport and other Alaskan money pits. — Everyone seems to agree that Congress needs to clean up earmarks, the special pork projects members of Congress secure often without hearings, notice or even disclosure of the direct recipient.
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 …
MSNBC:
Because they can — If I were the kind of blogger who ran contests, I'd have an essay contest today asking people to write in and explain which of the following two stories is the more perfect representation of the Bush Administration's overall approach to the rest of the world.
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 …
