Top Items:
Los Angeles Times:
Top general may propose pullbacks — Petraeus is expected to tell Congress that Iraqis can assume duties in some areas, freeing U.S. troops for other uses. — WASHINGTON — Intent on demonstrating progress in Iraq, the top U.S. general there is expected by Bush administration officials …
Discussion:
Horses Mouth, Associated Press, Captain's Quarters, The Huffington Post, The Carpetbagger Report, Redstate, Crooks and Liars, Wake up America, RADAMISTO, Confederate Yankee, DownWithTyranny!, The Raw Story, Say Anything, Outside The Beltway, The Impolitic, Balloon Juice, Cliff Schecter, Taylor Marsh, Eschaton, Donklephant, Jules Crittenden, AMERICAblog, Washington Monthly, Middle Earth Journal, Corrente, PoliBlog (TM), Sister Toldjah, Kiko's House, Daily Kos, TIME: Swampland, Central Sanity, Alternate Brain, Shakespeare's Sister and The Next Hurrah
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Faiz / Think Progress:
Petraeus' September Report Will Be Written By The White House — The Los Angeles Times reports that Gen. David Petraeus' upcoming Sept. 15 report on Iraq will be authored by the White House: … In other words, the Sept. 15 report promises to be much like the July mid-term report which purported to show …
Discussion:
My Two Sense
Leila Fadel / McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Political impasse key to Iraq security — BAGHDAD — Despite U.S. claims that violence is down in the Iraqi capital, U.S. military officers are offering a bleak picture of Iraq's future, saying they've yet to see any signs of reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite Muslims despite the drop in violence.
Confederate Yankee:
Going to the Well Once Too Often — Photographer Wissam al-Okaili has had quite an interesting summer in Iraq, and apparently made quite a few friends. — In July, he published a picture carried in media around the world, as an elderly Sadr City woman held up a object that she claimed …
Discussion:
Hot Air, minx.cc, Wake up America, Done With Mirrors, protein wisdom, Gateway Pundit and The Atlantic Online
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Pundit Review Radio / BLACKFIVE:
HMMMM EVEN LESS RIGHT. — From the previous post, reader Hoefer remembers and tracks down something veddy intahrezting … Here are the two pics and it sure looks like the same lady, and the same idiotic claim. Heh. … Anyone know the photog or official agency and caption for this one?
Rocco DiPippo / THE AUTONOMIST:
Terrorist Propaganda Picture of the Week — What follows is a caption from the AFP, and below that, the picture that accompanies it: … The only way those bullets hit her house was if someone threw them at her house. — You see, they've never been fired.
Discussion:
Captain's Quarters, Little Green Footballs, The Jawa Report, Neptunus Lex and A Blog For All
Brent Budowsky / The Hill:
Democrats Need a Karl Rove — What follows here is an op-ed I wrote for The Hill newspaper today that makes the case for Democrats to adopt a conviction politics of principle, courage and tenacity.
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Will / Attytood:
A prelude to war: What's really behind Bush's Iran move — Last night's carefully managed leak from the White House that Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is being designated as a global terrorist group is a story that — while in a sense you could see it coming for months — seemed to also catch a lot of the major news media off guard.
Discussion:
The Newshoggers, The Poor Man Institute, The Impolitic, Counterterrorism Blog, Dymaxion World, Shakespeare's Sister, The Next Hurrah, Alternate Brain, State of the Day, Flopping Aces, Captain's Quarters, Power Line, Comments From Left Field, At-Largely, Gateway Pundit, WTF Is It Now??, New York Times, The Moderate Voice, Dependable Renegade and Unfogged
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Robert Block / Wall Street Journal:
U.S. to Expand Domestic Use Of Spy Satellites — The U.S.'s top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range of federal and local authorities who can get access to information from the nation's vast network of spy satellites in the U.S. — The decision, made three months ago …
Discussion:
The Newshoggers, TPMmuckraker, Secrecy News, The Atlantic Online, My Left Wing, The Swamp, Amygdala and Brian Beutler
Michael J. Totten:
Balance of Terror — BAGHDAD - The American soldier sitting next to me flipped open his Zippo lighter and gloomily lit a cigarette. "Do you know why this base isn't attacked by insurgents?" he said. — I assumed it was because his area of operations, in the Graya'at neighborhood …
David Neiwert / Orcinus:
Our newest war — [Our newest Patton.] — by Dave — According to Newt Gingrich, we're now not just at war in Iraq, and at war against terrorists, but now we're also at war with illegal immigrants: … Gingrich is obviously trying, as have so many nativists before him, to blame immigrants for bringing crime to our shores.
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The Atlantic Online:
The Giuliani Doctrine — Rudy Giuliani's Foreign Affairs essay really is a bit of a revelation. To understand it, I think you need to understand the broader context of the political dilemmas he's facing. One is the simple dilemma all the Republican contenders face …
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Sara Carter / Washington Times:
U.S. agents accused of aiding Islamist scheme — A criminal investigations report says several U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees are accused of aiding Islamic extremists with identification fraud and of exploiting the visa system for personal gain.
Discussion:
protein wisdom, Captain's Quarters, JammieWearingFool, Hot Air, The Jawa Report, Don Surber and Iowa Voice
Brian Beutler:
Gerson for cap and trade? — Readers probably know that I think a pundit's ideas are only influential inasmuch as they're useful to people who actually control stuff. Thomas Friedman, for instance, is the brunt of heaps of opprobrium for being "an influential pundit" who supported the Iraq war …
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Simon Romero / New York Times:
Chávez to Propose Removing His Term Limits — President Hugo Chávez will unveil a project to change the Constitution on Wednesday that is expected to allow him to be re-elected indefinitely, a move that would enhance his authority to accelerate a socialist-inspired transformation of Venezuelan society.
Discussion:
Captain's Quarters, Liberal Values, Ankle Biting Pundits, Redstate, QandO, Cato-at-liberty and JammieWearingFool
MEMRI:
Online Islamist Forum Hosted in Texas Posts Guide for Kidnapping Americans — The popular Islamist-jihadist forum www.alhesbah.org, hosted by RealWebHost in Texas, U.S., recently posted an anonymously written document from 2003 titled "The Excellent Summary of the Rules of the Art of Kidnapping Americans."
David Postman / Postman on Politics:
A newsroom reprimand at The Times — Seattle Times Executive Editor Dave Boardman wrote today in one of his morning notes to staff that there had been "an awkward moment at yesterday's news meeting." That's the meeting where editors and other staff from throughout the newsroom talk about the stories planned for the next day's paper.
Discussion:
NewsBusters.org
Chris Michaud / New York Post:
HAPPY DAYS HERE AGAIN — A surprising 94 percent of Americans say they are satisfied with their lives - although far fewer in New York and other Eastern states think they're better off than they were five years ago, according to a new survey. — The Harris Poll of more than 1,000 people reported …
Kristin Roberts / Reuters:
Rumsfeld resigned before election, letter shows — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Rumsfeld, architect of the unpopular Iraq war, resigned as defense secretary before last year's November election but his decision was not announced until after the voting, according to his resignation letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.