Top Items:
Amit R. Paley / Washington Post:
Heralded Iraq Police Academy a 'Disaster' — A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found.
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Patrick Quinn / Associated Press:
Iraq terror leader recruits scientists — CAIRO, Egypt - In a new audio message Thursday, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq called for explosives experts and nuclear scientists to join his group's holy war against the West. He also said that more than 4,000 foreign insurgent fighters …
Discussion:
siteinstitute.org, Hot Air, The Fourth Rail, Counterterrorism Blog, QandO, Hyscience and Blue Crab Boulevard
Bryan Bender / Boston Globe:
Cost of Iraq war nearly $2b a week — WASHINGTON — A new congressional analysis shows the Iraq war is now costing taxpayers almost $2 billion a week — nearly twice as much as in the first year of the conflict three years ago and 20 percent more than last year — as the Pentagon spends …
Barry Schweid / Associated Press:Poll: Iraqis back attacks on U.S. troops
Discussion:
QandO, TAPPED, All Spin Zone, Democracy Project, Gateway Pundit, Decision '08 and Flopping Aces
New York Times:
Rushing Off a Cliff — Here's what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans' fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism …
Discussion:
Taylor Marsh, Confederate Yankee, Hullabaloo, The American Street, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES, The Next Hurrah, The Huffington Post, Big Brass Blog, The Smirking Chimp, Bring it On!, Democrats.com, Balkinization, Obsidian Wings, Don Surber, Preemptive Karma, TalkLeft, The Democratic Daily, Crooks and Liars, Think Progress, Jesus' General, DownWithTyranny!, The RBC and Bark Bark Woof Woof
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Bruce Ackerman / Los Angeles Times:
The White House Warden — Congress may give the president the power to lock up almost anyone he thinks is a terror threat. — BURIED IN THE complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress.
Dan Froomkin / Washington Post:
Bush Rules — Today's Senate vote on President Bush's detainee legislation, after House approval yesterday, marks a defining moment for this nation. — How far from our historic and Constitutional values are we willing to stray? How mercilessly are we willing to treat those we suspect to be our enemies?
Discussion:
The Huffington Post
New York Times:
House Passes Detainee Bill as It Clears Senate Hurdle — Congress took major steps on Wednesday toward establishing a new system for interrogating and trying terror suspects as the House approved legislation sought by President Bush and the Senate defeated efforts to alter the measure.
Sabrina Tavernise / New York Times:
Cleric Said to Lose Reins of Parts of Iraqi Militia — The radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has lost control of portions of his Mahdi Army militia that are splintering off into freelance death squads and criminal gangs, a senior coalition intelligence official said Wednesday.
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Fouad Ajami / Opinion Journal:
Infidel Documents — Intelligence, jihadists and the Iraq war debate. — The scaffolding of the Iraq war is under renewed attack. So there had been no meeting between Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence operative Ahmad al-Ani in Prague; and Saddam's regime was "intensely secular" while al Qaeda was steeped in religious doctrine.
Michelle Malkin:
How not to argue about Islam — This post by Dean Esmay, "calling out Michelle Malkin," is what is known in the business as traffic bait. — So go ahead and click it and give Esmay more of the traffic he wants. I highly recommend you read his post as the classic blogospheric example of how not to argue about Islam.
The Star-Ledger / nj-community:
Menendez Dumps Key Adviser Caught On Tape Seeking 'Favors' — U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez's closest political adviser was secretly recorded seven years ago boasting of political power and urging a Hudson county contractor to hire somone as a favor to Menendez, according to a transcript obtained by The Star-Ledger.
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Michael D. Shear / Washington Post:
Webb Denies Ever Using Word as Epithet — Racial Slur Overshadowing All Else in Contest — Democratic Senate candidate James Webb on Wednesday sought to explain remarks he had made a day earlier, in which he refused to say whether he had used the "N-word," but he insisted he has never used it as a racial epithet aimed at anyone.
Discussion:
Captain's Quarters, The Allen Blog, Swords Crossed, Right Wing News, Sister Toldjah, Wonkette and Virginia Centrist
CBS News:
Bob Woodward: Bush Misleads On Iraq — Tells 60 Minutes' Wallace That Kissinger Is Regular Visitor To White House — (CBS) Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward tells Mike Wallace that the Bush administration has not told the truth regarding the level of violence, especially against U.S. troops, in Iraq.
David S. Broder / Washington Post:
Arnold's Turnaround — A GOP Governor Finds the Key: Independence — SACRAMENTO — The Terminator has rescued himself from political ruin by reinventing his approach to government, thus demonstrating in the most dramatic way possible the value of political independence.
Associated Press:
Poll: Lieberman Leads Lamont in Conn. — HAMDEN, Conn. (AP) - Sen. Joe Lieberman has a 10-point advantage over Democrat Ned Lamont among likely Connecticut voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday. — Lieberman, a three-term Democrat running as an independent …
Keith Olbermann / MSNBC:
Threatening letter no joke — Keith Olbermann responds to the New York Post's report — The Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper, The New York Post, may have just impeded an FBI investigation into terroristic threats. — I know this because I was a recipient.
Lorie Byrd / Examiner:
Hard to sort out the truth in mainstream media — WASHINGTON - How can we know what to believe? That is what a neighbor asked me several weeks ago over dinner. We were discussing the fact that she no longer believes everything she sees in the news and often wonders what is the truth.
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