Top Items:
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:
Vice President Exempts His Office from the Requirements for Protecting Classified Information — The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures …
Discussion:
Balloon Juice, Threat Level, Thought Theater, Sisyphus Shrugged, Blast Off!, Liberty Street, Secrecy News, The Mahablog, Shakesville, War and Piece, Donklephant, All Spin Zone, On Deadline, Obsidian Wings, Macsmind, Cliff Schecter, Salon, Hullabaloo, The Moderate Voice and The American Street
RELATED:
Justin Rood Reports / The Blotter:
Cheney Power Grab: Says White House Rules Don't Apply to Him — Justin Rood Reports: — Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted his office is not a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government, and therefore not bound by a presidential order governing the protection of classified information …
Discussion:
Scholars and Rogues, PoliBlog (TM), The Democratic Daily, The Agonist, Truthdig, AMERICAblog and TIME: Swampland
Greg Sargent / Election Central:
Rahm Emanuel To Cheney: Please Get The Heck Out Of The White House — Call it the Dick Branch of the American government. — Rahm Emanuel's office just sent out a nifty chart illustrating Veep Cheney's latest. As you may have heard by now, Cheney reportedly exempted his own office …
Discussion:
A Spork in the Drawer
Jesse Lee / The Gavel:
Oversight Committee on the Vice President and Classified Information — From the Oversight and Government Reform Committee: … * Letter from National Archives to the Attorney General (pdf) — * Second Letter from National Archives to the Vice President's Office (pdf)
Scott Shane / New York Times:
Cheney in Dispute on Oversight of His Office — For four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his office's handling of classified information, and when the office in charge of overseeing classification in the executive branch objected, the vice president's office suggested …
Associated Press:
White House near decision to close Guantanamo — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and move the terror suspects there to military prisons elsewhere, The Associated Press has learned.
RELATED:
Mark Benjamin / Salon:
The CIA's torture teachers — Psychologists helped the CIA exploit a secret military program to develop brutal interrogation tactics — likely with the approval of the Bush White House. — A detainee is escorted by military police at Camp 4 of the maximum security prison Camp Delta …
Discussion:
The Next Hurrah
Matthew Lee / Associated Press:
White House near decision to close Gitmo — WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility and move its terror suspects to military prisons elsewhere, The Associated Press has learned. — Senior administration officials said Thursday …
Marcus Mabry / Newsweek:
Poll: Bush hits lowest approval rating of presidency — President Bush registers the lowest approval rating of his presidency—making him the least popular president since Nixon—in the new NEWSWEEK Poll. — Iraq isn't the only issue dragging Bush's approval ratings down
RELATED:
Bill Roggio / The Fourth Rail:
Operation Phantom Thunder: The Battle of Iraq — Baghdad and the Belts. Red bordered units identified as active in offensive operations. Click map to view. — A status update on the operations in the Baghdad Belts and beyond — Operation Phantom Thunder, the name of the overarching operation …
RELATED:
Joe Klein / Time:
Turning on al-Qaeda in Baquba
Turning on al-Qaeda in Baquba
Discussion:
New York Times, The Moderate Voice, Hot Air, Confederate Yankee, The Strata-Sphere and FOB Tacoma
Jackie Kucinich / The Hill:
House Republican wants to restrict Pelosi's travel — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will not be permitted to use State Department funds to travel to nations that are known to have sponsored terrorism if a Republican amendment to appropriations legislation passes the House on Thursday.
RELATED:
Ulrike Putz / Spiegel Online:
A Visit to Fatah's Torture Chamber — A building formerly occupied by Fatah's intelligence service in Gaza was long notorious for torture and execution. Now Hamas is in control — and is letting former inmates visit the chamber of horrors. — The cells are small, perhaps six feet by six feet …
Discussion:
Israel Matzav, Little Green Footballs, Blue Crab Boulevard, A Blog For All, Jihad Watch, Israpundit and New York Times
Faiz / Think Progress:
Breaking: Senate Judiciary Committee Authorizes Subpoenas For NSA Domestic Spying Documents — The Senate Judiciary Committee just voted 13-3 to authorize chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to issue subpoenas for documents related to the NSA warrantless surveillance program.
RELATED:
Dan Murphy / Christian Science Monitor:
Backlash grows against British award of knighthood to Salman Rushdie — Pakistani hard-line clerics respond with an award of their own to Osama bin Laden. — The award of a knighthood to Salman Rushdie, author of "The Satanic Verses," has prompted deep criticism from Egypt's parliament …
RELATED:
Max Blumenthal:
The Film Take Back America Took Back — As a result of the attention surrounding my film about the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference-it was a YouTube hit-the liberal Campaign for America's Future asked me to produce a similar video about their annual conference, Take Back America (TBA), held in Washington.
Washington Post:
CIA to Air Decades of Its Dirty Laundry — Assassination Attempts Among Abuses Detailed — The CIA will declassify hundreds of pages of long-secret records detailing some of the intelligence agency's worst illegal abuses — the so-called "family jewels" documenting a quarter-century …
Fred Kaplan / Slate:
The Man Who Knows Too Little — WHAT RUDY GIULIANI'S GREEDY DECISION TO QUIT THE IRAQ STUDY GROUP REVEALS ABOUT HIS CANDIDACY. — If you don't read Newsday, you might not know (I didn't until this week) that Rudy Giuliani was an original member of the Iraq Study Group …
obama.senate.gov:
Obama Announces FY08 Federal Funding Requests — Discloses earmarks to improve government transparency — WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today announced that he had requested federal funding for the following projects, in the amounts designated by his constituents …