Top Items:
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
King on Holder: 'You wonder which side they're on' — A “furious” Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a “disgraceful” Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Townhall.com, Weekly Standard, Hot Air, Ta-Nehisi Coates, INSTAPUTZ, Anne Schroeder's Blog, TPMDC and Salon
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Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
What every American should be made to learn about the IG Torture Report — (updated below - Update II - Update III) — I wrote earlier today about Eric Holder's decision to “review” whether criminal prosecutions are warranted in connection with the torture of Terrorism suspects …
Discussion:
The TrogloPundit, JustOneMinute, New York Times, The Washington Independent, Newshoggers.com, BuzzFlash.org, Atlantic Correspondents, Pacific Views, At-Largely, MoJo Blog Posts, Washington Post, Blog of Rights, Firedoglake, Shakesville, Chris Floyd, Obsidian Wings, Boing Boing, Power Line, Dennis the Peasant and Mudville Gazette
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
The Evidence Mounts Still Further — I'll write at more length when I'm back off my summer bloggatical, but the question of torture - and the United States' embrace of inhumanity as a core American value under the presidency of George W. Bush - remains, in my view, the pre-eminent moral question in American politics.
Discussion:
New York Times
Spencer Ackerman / The Washington Independent:
CIA Documents Provide Little Cover for Cheney Claims — Former Vice President Dick Cheney (Associated Press) — For months, former Vice President Dick Cheney has said that two documents prepared by the CIA, one from 2004 and the other from 2005, would refute critics of the Bush administration's torture program.
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Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
CNN Gets Snookered By Cheney's Masterful Obfuscation — I've noted this before, but Dick Cheney is as masterful as any Washington hand at using precise languate to obfuscate. And today the old master completely had his way with poor, hapless CNN. — Look at how CNN is now reporting Cheney's claims of vindication today:
Stephen F. Hayes / Weekly Standard:
Cheney Statement on CIA Documents/Investigation
Cheney Statement on CIA Documents/Investigation
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The Atlantic Politics Channel, Swampland, Washington Post, Ben Smith's Blog, McClatchy Washington Bureau, TPMMuckraker, Wall Street Journal, Politics Daily, The Washington Independent, No More Mister Nice Blog, Gateway Pundit, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, Wake up America, Washington Monthly, Hot Air, Taylor Marsh, The Note, The Daily Dish and Think Progress
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
CIA docs: EITs worked
CIA docs: EITs worked
Discussion:
neo-neocon, theblogprof, Betsy's Page, YID With LID, Salon, The Mahablog, Wizbang, Associated Press, Balloon Juice and Wake up America
Bloomberg:
Obama Increases 2010 Deficit Forecast 19% to $1.50 Trillion — Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) — U.S. unemployment will surge to 10 percent this year and the budget deficit will widen to $1.5 trillion next year, reflecting a “deeper recession” than previously expected, White House budget chief Peter Orszag said.
Discussion:
James Pethokoukis, Washington Post, The White House, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, American Prospect, Row 2, Seat 4, Hot Air, Blue Crab Boulevard, The Greenroom, Pundit & Pundette, RedState, Don Surber, Commentary, Pajamas Media, Right Wing News, Dennis the Peasant, Gateway Pundit and Wake up America
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Bloomberg:
Nemazee Is Arrested in $74 Million Citibank Fraud — Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) — Hassan Nemazee, chairman of Nemazee Capital Corp. and a fundraiser for President Obama and Hillary Clinton, was arrested on charges that he tricked Citigroup Inc. into lending him as much as $74 million using phony documents.
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New York Times:
Fund-Raiser for Obama and Clintons Charged With Fraud — A prominent Democratic party fund-raiser for Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton was arrested in Manhattan on Tuesday on charges that he lied about his assets to obtain a $74 million loan from Citibank, the United States Attorney's office said.
Discussion:
The Atlantic Politics Channel
Faiz Shakir / Think Progress:
Angry right boos John McCain for stating that Obama ‘respects the Constitution of the United States.’ — Today in a town hall forum in Arizona, an elderly woman asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) whether President Obama knows “that we still live under a Constitution.”
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Matt Corley / Think Progress:
Comparing Obama to ‘Hitler,’ Grassley constituent says he'd ‘take a gun to Washington’ if crowd supported him. — Earlier this month, police detained a man at a health care town hall meeting held by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) because he was carrying a sign declaring “Death to Obama” and “Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids.”
Discussion:
Vanity Fair
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Chris Harris / Media Matters Action Network:
Sen. Grassley On Health Care: “I Don't Think It's Going To Be Possible To Work It Out With The Administration” … ALL OVER THE BALL PARK — During a conference call with Iowa reporters, Sen. Chuck Grassley was asked: … Grassley's response is almost incomprehensible: … You read that right.
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Kevin Sack / New York Times:
Calm, but Moved to Be Heard on Health Care — MONTEZUMA, Ga. — Until Thursday evening, nothing in Bob Collier's 62 years had stirred in him the slightest desire to take a stand — about anything — in public. — He skipped the antiwar protests of his college years, took a job …
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, JustOneMinute, Swampland, MoJo Blog Posts, Corrente, BAGnewsNotes and AMERICAblog News
Michael Lynch / New York Times:
‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy — REMEMBER “peak oil”? It's the theory that geological scarcity will at some point make it impossible for global petroleum production to avoid falling, heralding the end of the oil age and, potentially, economic catastrophe.
Zaid Jilani / Think Progress:
Coburn tells weeping victim of broken health care system that government isn't the solution. — Yesterday CNN's Rick Sanchez aired a segment from a health care town hall where a weeping constituent explained to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that her husband's health insurer refuses to cover his treatment for a traumatic brain injury.
Glenn Thrush / Glenn Thrush's Blog:
Dixie Dem won't vote for Pelosi — Freshman Rep. Parker Griffith (D-Ala.) — who has bucked Dem leadership on the stimulus and climate change — told a town hall back in north Alabama that he doesn't plan to back Nancy Pelosi as speaker again, saying she's too divisive. — “I would not vote for her.
Discussion:
Weekly Standard
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Founding Bloggers:
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Political Terrorism In The Heartland - Inside the Quincy Tea Party Cell — Recently, Founding Bloggers was tipped off to the existence of a regional “political terrorist” cell calling itself the Quincy Tea Party. — When we learned that this group of Tea Party fundamentalists …
Discussion:
American Power
Jonah Goldberg / The Corner on National Review Online:
Will There Be Outrage? — By: Jonah Goldberg — I haven't read the IG report yet, I've just seen a few write ups and excerpts around here and other places. Without getting into the substance of the controversy, I'm doubting that there will be a lot of popular outrage over any of the allegations of abuse.
Danny Hakim / New York Times:
Giuliani, Seeing Opening, Mulls a Governor Bid — ALBANY — Nineteen months after ending his disastrous run for the presidency, Rudolph W. Giuliani is clearing a path for a possible race for governor in 2010, believing public anger at an ineffectual Albany and unease over the economy …
Discussion:
NY Daily News, New York Post, D-Day, Politics Daily, Mediaite, msnbc.com, Hot Air, Scorecard's Blog, The Daily Politics, Gawker, Democratic Strategist and Gothamist
Laura Crimaldi / Boston Herald:
Cons cash in on stimulus money — Federal economic stimulus cash was handed out to cons behind bars in Bay State prisons after a bureaucratic snafu resulted in $250 checks being sent to some inmates - and now red-faced feds want it back. — “Taxpayers already believe the inmates are running …
Discussion:
Townhall.com
Paul Demko / Minnesota Independent:
Bachmann: Prayer and fasting will help defeat health care reform — On Wednesday Rep. Michele Bachmann was part of a star-studded “teletownhall” meeting to discuss health-care reform. The event, billed “Keeping Faith with the Unborn,” was sponsored by the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion advocacy group.
Jamie Satterfield / Knoxville News-Sentinel:
Torture-slaying trial, Day 8: Cobbins guilty; jurors to consider death penalty — The jury will now consider the death penalty in the Channon Christian, Chris Newsom torture slayings. — KNOXVILLE - Jurors this morning convicted Letalvis Cobbins of first-degree murder in the torture-slaying …
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
STEELE REDISCOVERS HIS OPPOSITION TO MEDICARE.... I really don't understand how Michael Steele is in a position to head a major political party. — Yesterday, the confused RNC chairman wrote an op-ed insisting that Democrats are trying to undermine Medicare.
Discussion:
TPMDC, Think Progress, Matthew Yglesias, Media Matters Action Network, Wonkette and Ezra Klein
Tyler Cowen / Marginal Revolution:
Were the bailouts a good idea? — Following the renomination of Bernanke, it is worth revisiting this question. Here is a recent report: — With the FTSE World Banks index up 130 per cent since its lows of early March, the paper losses that governments in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany are sitting on have also shrunk.
Discussion:
The Atlantic Business Channel, Financial Times, Matthew Yglesias, Salon, Liberal Values, EconLog and Real Time Economics
Charles Murray / The Enterprise Blog:
The White House and the Pauline Kael Syndrome — The late New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael famously said after Nixon's landslide reelection, “How can he have won? Nobody I know voted for him.” My proposition for today is that the entire White House suffers from the Kael syndrome.
James Fallows:
Will it never end? McCaughey v. Ezekiel Emanuel — Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel should need no introduction to Atlantic readers. Among his many pursuits is writing a number of interesting articles for our “Food Channel,” under Corby Kummer's auspices. He should need no introduction to anybody …
John Stossel / John Stossel's Take:
Every Critic a Racist — During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama's supporters promised that his election would allow America to “transcend race.” Among the headlines: — The Boston Globe: “Obama shows an ability to transcend race” — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Obama's success suggests we can transcend race”
Rebecca Camber / Daily Mail:
Foreign GPs who commute to Britain: £100-an-hour Poles and Lithuanians fly in for shifts our doctors won't do — The huge extent to which the NHS needs foreign doctors to treat patients out of hours is revealed today. — A third of primary care trusts are flying in GPs from as far away as Lithuania …