Top Items:
Stephen Farrell / Times of London:
Give us guns - and troops can go, says Iraqi leader — Listen to the interview with Nouri al-Maliki — America's refusal to give Baghdad's security forces sufficient guns and equipment has cost a great number of lives, the Iraqi Prime Minister said yesterday.
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Joshua Partlow / Washington Post:
Maliki Stresses Urgency In Arming Iraqi Forces — Need for U.S. Troops Could Drop 'Dramatically' — The Iraqi government's need for American troops would "dramatically go down" in three to six months if the United States accelerated the process of equipping and arming Iraq's security forces …
Sabrina Tavernise / New York Times:
Shiite Fighters Arrested in Crackdown, Iraq Says — Facing intense pressure from the Bush administration to show progress in securing Iraq, senior Iraqi officials announced Wednesday that they had moved against the country's most powerful Shiite militia, arresting several dozen senior members in the past few weeks.
Discussion:
Firedoglake, The Jawa Report, Andrew Sullivan, The Moderate Voice and Middle Earth Journal
New York Times:
Court to Oversee U.S. Wiretapping in Terror Cases — The Bush administration, in a surprise reversal, said on Wednesday that it had agreed to give a secret court jurisdiction over the National Security Agency's wiretapping program and would end its practice of eavesdropping without warrants on Americans suspected of ties to terrorists.
Discussion:
Slate, The Moderate Voice, TPMmuckraker, Captain's Quarters, Outside The Beltway, Bloomberg, Right Wing Nut House, The Volokh Conspiracy, Balkinization, Unclaimed Territory, The Carpetbagger Report, PoliBlog (TM), CorrenteWire, Patterico's Pontifications, Brilliant at Breakfast, PBD, The Heretik, Defense Tech, Shakespeare's Sister, Political Animal, Sister Toldjah, The Democratic Daily, Kiko's House, Washington Post, TalkLeft and JustOneMinute
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Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post:
Republicans Halt Ethics Legislation — Senate Republicans scuttled broad legislation last night to curtail lobbyists' influence and tighten congressional ethics rules, refusing to let the bill pass without a vote on an unrelated measure that would give President Bush virtual line-item-veto power.
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Robert Bluey / Examiner:
How bloggers took on Harry Reid and won on earmark reform
How bloggers took on Harry Reid and won on earmark reform
Discussion:
Instapundit.com
Heidi Przybyla / Bloomberg:
Bush Faces Deepening War Opposition, Demand for Congress to Act — Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) — President George W. Bush failed to rally public support with his nationally televised speech announcing plans to send more soldiers to Iraq, as most Americans say they want Congress to find a way to stop the troop increase.
Discussion:
CNN Political Ticker
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Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Congressional Procession of Iraq Proposals Likely to Lead Nowhere — "You cannot run a war by committee," Vice President Cheney said over the weekend. — Oh? Just watch them. — Lawmakers were introducing Iraq legislation at a mad pace yesterday, at one point in the afternoon scheduling news conferences in half-hour intervals.
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Ryan Keith / Associated Press:
Obama's Past Offers Ammo for Critics — SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may have a lot of explaining to do. — He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive. He supported allowing retired police officers to carry concealed weapons …
Frank Ahrens / Washington Post:
Area Readers Get the Joke — The Onion, the Gen-X satiric newspaper, is coming to Washington and will partner with The Washington Post, which will print the paper and sell local ads. — The Onion, which also maintains a Web site, will be distributed free in news boxes and by hawkers in Washington beginning the first week in April.
The Big Trunk / Power Line:
NEIL SHER: CONSIDER THE SOURCE — Last month I noted the accusation by Neil Sher that Jimmy Carter had once lobbied the Justice Department on behalf of a former SS concentration camp guard who had been deported. Today Lucianne is featuring the Israel National News story by Ezra HaLevi …
Media Matters for America:
O'Reilly: Abducted child "liked ... his circumstances," had "a lot more fun" than usual — On the January 15 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly said of Shawn Hornbeck — who was abducted at the age of 11, held for four years, and recently found in Missouri — that …
Will Hutton / Guardian:
Mao was cruel - but also laid the ground for today's China — The crimes of communist China's founder shouldn't blind us to achievements which paved the way for its current modernisation — Nobody wants to be an apologist for Mao. Even the Communist party, five years after his death …
Nora Boustany / Washington Post:
Arab World Outraged Over Hangings in Iraq — Beirut's daily an-Nahar newspaper ran a caricature Tuesday of the Iraqi flag adorned with three nooses. At the center of the red, white and black banner, the outline of the coiled ropes appears similar to the word "Allah" in Arabic script.
Patricia Sullivan / Washington Post:
Newspaper Columnist Art Buchwald Dies at 81 — Art Buchwald, 81, the newspaper humor columnist for more than a half-century who found new comic material in the issues that come up at the end of life, died of kidney failure last night at his son's home in Washington, his family announced today.
Discussion:
FishBowlDC
Brett Arends / Boston Herald:
McCain no longer rocks in Granite State — As Mitt, Hillary, Barack and a dozen others jump into the presidential stampede, something interesting is happening in New Hampshire. — For seven years, conventional wisdom has said that the state's pivotal independent voters would line …
Discussion:
Reason Magazine