Top Items:
Daniela Deane / Washington Post:
Former FEMA Chief Blames DHS — Michael Brown, the embattled former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, testified before a Senate committee today that he told a top White House official on the day Hurricane Katrina struck that "our worst nightmares" had come true in New Orleans.
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CNN:
Brown says he's been made Katrina scapegoat — Ex-FEMA chief blames Homeland Security for slow response — WASHINGTON (CNN) — Former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown told a Senate panel Friday that he feels he's been made a scapegoat for the government's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina.
New York Times:
Brown Asserts He Alerted White House Quickly on Katrina — Michael D. Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, testified today that he let senior White House staffers know as soon as he had heard that flooding had begun in New Orleans on the day Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
Joe Gandelman / The Moderate Voice:
White House Faces Renewed Credibility Problems On Katrina — A new storm is gathering. Right now it looks like a tropical storm...a political tropical storm...but it has the potential of morphing into a full-fledged political hurricane. — The White House house is facing renewed questions …
Stephen Brook / Guardian:
Political magazine pulls cartoon after police warning — Politics magazine the Liberal has followed the Spectator in publishing then hastily withdrawing from its website one of the controversial Danish cartoons featuring the prophet Muhammad. — The independent title …
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BBC:
Sweden shuts website over cartoon — The Swedish government has moved to shut down the website of a far-right political party's newspaper over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. — The site's host, Levonline, pulled the plug on the website of the Swedish Democrats' SD-Kuriren newspaper after consulting with the government.
Toni Locy / Associated Press:
Libby Says Leaks Authorized, Papers Show — WASHINGTON - A former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney told a federal grand jury that his superiors authorized him to give secret information to reporters as part of the Bush administration's defense of intelligence used to justify invading Iraq, according to court papers.
Discussion:
JustOneMinute, NewsHog, Power Line, Transterrestrial Musings, truthout.org, Prairie Weather, Birmingham Blues and Outside The Beltway
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Juan / Informed Comment:Cheney Authorized Libby to Disclose Classified Documents
Discussion:
firedoglake
Washington Post:
Steele Apologizes for Holocaust Remarks — Compared Stem Cell Research to Nazi Medical Experiments — Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele apologized this morning for telling a Baltimore Jewish group yesterday that he believes stem cell research could be comparable to Nazi medical testing on Jews during World War II.
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Jennifer Skalka / Baltimore Sun:
Steele's words at meeting faulted … Discussing his position on embryonic stem cell research with Baltimore Jewish leaders yesterday, Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele said he is "concerned about the destruction of human life" and made a comparison between the controversial science and experiments done on Jews during the Holocaust.
Discussion:
AMERICAblog
Anthony Loyd / Times of London:
Murder of sheikh provokes Sunnis to turn on al-Qaeda — Ramadi, stronghold of the insurgents, has turned against al-Zarqawi — REGARDED as untouchable by the Sunni populace, Sheikh Naser Abdul Karim al-Miklif believed that he had no need for bodyguards. — Leader of the huge al-Bu Fahad tribe …
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New York Times:
Bush Gives New Details of 2002 Qaeda Plot to Attack Los Angeles — WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — President Bush offered new information on Thursday about what he said was a foiled plot by Al Qaeda in 2002 to fly a hijacked airplane into the tallest building west of the Mississippi …
Discussion:
Time, The Huffington Post, TalkLeft, Unclaimed Territory, Los Angeles Times, White House and Media Blog on National …
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Joseph Carroll / Gallup:
Bush Approval Steady at 42% — Approval ratings show essentially no change since late November 2005 — PRINCETON, NJ — President George W. Bush's State of the Union address on Jan. 31 did little to move his overall job approval rating, according to a new Gallup Poll.
tcsdaily.com:
Stop Worrying About the Trade Deficit — America's trade deficit — in December reaching a near-record $64.7 billion — is unfortunate, right? — Wrong. Contrary to popular opinion, this so-called "deficit" is a blessing. — Consider that if Americans export lumber, sheetrock …
Rebecca MacKinnon / RConversation:
Microsoft's new Chinese blog censorship policy cranks into gear — Roland Soong at ESWN reports that Chinese blogger Wang Ning is one of the first targets of Microsoft's new and improved Chinese blog censorship policy. If you visit Wang Ning's MSN Spaces blog from the U.S. or anywhere else outside …
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
Blackmail — So now we see where this is leading. The head of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, … And he essentially made a threat: … People keep talking about avoiding conflict. They are in denial. The conflict is already here. It is outrageous to be informed by a crowd …
Paul R. Pillar / Foreign Affairs:
Intelligence, Policy,and the War in Iraq — Summary: During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, writes the intelligence community's former senior analyst for the Middle East, the Bush administration disregarded the community's expertise, politicized the intelligence process …
Captain Ed / Captain's Quarters:
Freedom's Just Another Word At Yahoo! — Internet giant Yahoo! joins Microsoft and Google in bending to the Chinese autocracy, only this time they helped jail an activist for freedom in the nominally Communist nation. The London Times reports that Yahoo! coughed up records used to send a dissident to prison for ten years:
Atlas Shrugs:
THE MOHAMMAD CARTOON TEE SHRT BROUHAHAHA — It's funny, when I saw this tee shirt on metro spy earlier in the week, I ordered it immediately. Little did I know that it too would create a brouhaha (love that word). I even used it as a graphic in a prior post here.
Jennifer Loven / Associated Press:
Update 19: Bush Reveals Rationale Behind Surveillance — President Bush defended his warrantless eavesdropping program Friday, saying during what he thought were private remarks that he concluded that spying on Americans was necessary to fill a gap in the United States' security.
alternet.org:
A Journalism Manifesto — By G. Pascal Zachary, Dvorak Uncensored. — A Time and Wall St. Journal vet says it's time to admit to biases, dump the 'objectivity' and start getting it right. — Tools — Mainstream journalists are being torn apart. Conservatives long have accused reporters …
Discussion:
David E's Fablog, Media Blog on National …, tapscottscopydesk.blogspot.com and News Blog
keloland.com:
SD House Approves Abortion Ban — The South Dakota House has passed a bill that would nearly ban all abortions in the state, ushering the issue to the state Senate. — Supporters are pushing the measure in hopes of drawing a legal challenge that will cause the US Supreme Court to reverse its 1973 decision legalizing abortion.
