Top Items:
Kevin Drum / Washington Monthly:
WHAT THE TAPES WOULD HAVE SHOWN....Yesterday we learned that in 2005, despite earlier warnings from Congress, the White House, and the Justice Department, the CIA destroyed two videotaped interrogations of al-Qaeda operatives who had been captured shortly after 9/11. Why?
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Andrew Sullivan / The Atlantic Online:
Krauthammer On Fox — It's refreshing, actually. I just listened to Charles say that the torture of terror suspects in 2002 was justified because the United States was flying blind and had no knowledge of what al Qaeda was planning. He won't say "torture", of course, although the law is clear that it is torture.
Mark Mazzetti / New York Times:
C.I.A. Was Urged to Keep Interrogation Videotapes — White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.
Discussion:
CNN, The Jawa Report, The Swamp, Time, NewsBusters.org, Hot Air, Talking Points Memo, Shakespeare's Sister, Washington Post, Emptywheel, The Sundries Shack, Chuck Adkins, Prairie Weather, Macsmind, PrairiePundit, At-Largely, Gateway Pundit, Jules Crittenden, The Gavel, The Heretik, RADAMISTO and Guardian
Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters:
Tape Destruction Decision Compartmentalized — The decision to destroy the tapes of interrogations that included waterboarding two al-Qaeda terrorists came from the director of the clandestine services of the CIA and in opposition to requests from both Congress and the White House.
Discussion:
Booman Tribune
Andrew DeMillo / Associated Press:
Huckabee wanted to isolate AIDS patients — LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Mike Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could "pose a dangerous public health risk."
Discussion:
michellemalkin.com, Think Progress, The Corner, The Carpetbagger Report, Too Sense, Right Wing News, Liberal Values and Corrente
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Mike Allen / The Politico:
Huckabee called homosexuality 'sinful' — Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, surging in Iowa polls in the Republican presidential race, wrote on a questionnaire while running for U.S. Senate in 1992 that homosexuality is "aberrant" and "sinful." — "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant …
Discussion:
Chuck Adkins
Deborah Howell / Washington Post:
Refuting, or Feeding, the Rumor Mill? — Stories about rumors are tricky and easily misconstrued. A Nov. 29 story and headline that explored Barack Obama's "connections to the Muslim world" and rumors that he is Muslim were met with a swift Internet reaction that left some staffers stunned at its ferocity.
Dan / Riehl World View:
Carter Appointee Plays The Ultimate In Race Cards On Obama — Update: Bill joins Hillary in Iowa today as the campaign changes its focus to women. How fitting is that? heh! — Perhaps you remember former Atlanta Mayor and Carter Ambassador Andrew Young, he's taken to the stump for Hillary.
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Agence France Presse:
Iran drops dollar from oil deals: report — TEHRAN (AFP) — Major crude producer Iran has completely stopped carrying out its oil transactions in dollars, Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said on Saturday, labelling the greenback an "unreliable" currency.
Washington Post:
Getting Beyond Stalemate to Win a War — Congress has been entangled in a war-funding debate that pits war "supporters" against antiwar "defeatists." With all sides seemingly entrenched, a stalemate looms. The Pentagon, meanwhile, will soon begin stripping money from its training budget to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Washington Post:
Hill Close To Deal on War Funds — Plan Includes Boost In Domestic Spending — House Democratic leaders could complete work as soon as Monday on a half-trillion-dollar spending package that will include billions of dollars for the war effort in Iraq without the timelines for the withdrawal …
David Saltonstall / NY Daily News:
Rudy ducks questions on Judi's car use — Rudy Giuliani tried to ride out new questions Friday over taxpayer-funded chauffeur services that witnesses and sources said were provided to Judith Nathan before her affair to the former mayor was revealed in 2000.
Pajamas Media:
Libel Tourism, coming soon to a town near you — Last summer, Cambridge University Press announced that it would pulp all unsold copies of its 2006 book Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World by Robert O. Collins, a professor emeritus of history at the University of California …
Mark Steyn / Orange County Register:
Let's have a free market for housing and religion — Last week the Bush administration decided to "freeze" for five years the interest rates of certain types of mortgages. You've probably caught the tail end of news stories about "subprime" home loans, lots of foreclosures, etc.
Stephen F. Hayes / Weekly Standard:
All In — Fred Thompson moves to Iowa. — Des Moines, Iowa — FORMER TENNESSEE SENATOR Fred Thompson has decided to take his campaign and virtually all of its resources to Iowa in an all-or-nothing attempt to register a strong showing in the caucuses here on January 3.
Discussion:
eyeon08.com
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Thom Shanker / New York Times:
Gates Calls Iran a Threat to Regional Security — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates declared today that Iran is a grave threat to regional security, even without nuclear weapons, and called on Tehran to account for the full range of intelligence describing its support for terrorism and instability around the world.
Discussion:
Prairie Weather
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