Genocide in Slow Motion

By Nicholas D. Kristof

Darfur: A Short History of a Long War

by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal

London: Zed Books, 176 pp., £12.00 (to be published in the US in March)

Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide

by Gérard Prunier

Cornell University Press, 212 pp., $24.00

1.

During the Holocaust, the world looked the other way. Allied leaders turned down repeated pleas to bomb the Nazi extermination camps or the rail lines leading to them, and the slaughter attracted little attention. My newspaper, The New York Times, provided meticulous coverage of World War II, but of 24,000 front-page stories published in that period only six referred on page one directly to the Nazi assault on the Jewish population of Europe. Only afterward did many people mourn the death of Anne Frank, construct Holocaust museums, and vow: Never Again.

Digby: Backing Up Murtha

This op-ed in the NY Times from yesterday by James Webb, Reagan's secretary of the Navy, in which he defends John Murtha against the latest swift boat smears, is a must read. I had occasion to bring this up with some Republican veterans recently and they were uncomfortable with the implications. Unlike Kerry, who they all agreed had joined up purely to advance his political career and was a total phony, Murtha isn't so easy to peg. And when I asked if it was reasonable that every single Bush critic who is a veteran is either lying about his war record or crazy, much hemming and hawing ensued. And when I questioned their medals, they got angry.

Digby: Muddling The Message

I am a big fan of Harry Reid. I thought his op-ed the other day was masterful.

But watching him last night on the Lehrer News Hour made me realize that we are going to fail in making it clear that the Republicans are a criminal enterprise. In fact, we are probably going to get blamed for it. In the end, I wouldn"t be surprised if the Republicans don't succeed in becoming the John McCain "party of reform" and we actually lose seats.

Digby: Innoculation

Glenn Greenwald tells me that KellyAnn "I wish I were as cute as Ann Coulter" Conway and her little dog George have started a blog in which they are recapping the Cinton scandals for the folks. Glenn's post does a smashing job of reminding us of the professional character assasins of the GOP, many of whom have been woefully underemployed since the GOP owns everything in town:

Digby: Keepers of The Flame

Garance at TAPPED writes today about the Patriots to Restore Civil Liberties and cautions the Democrats not to get too excited about guys like Grover Norquist or Paul Weyrich leaving the Republican coalition over Bush's disregard for civil liberties.

Digby: One of The Boys

Just this morning, in honor of Matthews and Imus sharing masculine chuckles over "that movie" I took a little trip down Hardball lane and relived those glorious days of yore when Tweety and the Sycophants sang their song of manly love to Commander Codpiece and Big Dick Cheney.

A commenter later pointed out that Tweety has been socializing with GOP mouthpiece Ed Rogers, celebrating the impending nuptials of objective reporter Campbell Brown and her fiance Dan Senor, former professional GOP spokesliar for Viceroy Bremer. (He had been promoted from Ari Fleischer's harem.)

Digby: Liberals Are Not Religious Fundamentalists

It's a contradiction in terms. Comparing liberals like Michael Moore to Islamic fundamentalist terrorists is calumny in every possible way. Islamic fundamentalism is the antithesis of liberalism. It's not funny and it's not cute when influential pundits try to make points by comparing the two. I'm sick of it.

Digby: Limbaugh Nation

A commenter alerted me to this article in The American Prospect that explains why the Democrats picked Tim Kaine to give the Democratic response at the State of the Union: he speaks in religious moral terms. Good to know.

But the article is interesting because it profiles a new and influential polling and analysis group that is trying to change the way the Democrats look at the electorate. And as far as I can tell, the Democrats (or maybe just the author) are taking the wrong lessons from them.

Digby: Hotshots

So Tweety introduced a new feature today called the "Hardball Hotshots" with Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson and Rita Cosby --- two wingnuts and a babbling tabloid airhead. They all agreed that bin Laden was parroting Michael Moore, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy in his tape yesterday.

The Imperium's Quarter Century

By Robert Parry
January 20, 2006

If there is a birth date for today’s American Imperium, it would be Jan. 20, 1981, exactly a quarter century ago, when Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President and Iran released 52 American hostages under circumstances that remain a mystery to this day.

The freedom of the hostages, ending a 444-day crisis, brought forth an outpouring of patriotism that bathed the new President in an aura of heroism as a leader so feared by America’s enemies that they scrambled to avoid angering him. It was viewed as a case study of how U.S. toughness could restore the proper international order.

Juan Cole - 01/21/06

Iraqi Election Results: Shiites Near Majority in Parliament

Shiite clerical leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim narrowly avoided being assassinated as the election results were announced in Iraq on Friday.

The Shiite fundamentalist coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, won 128 of 275 seats in parliament. It needs 138 for a simple majority. The Risaliyun or Message Party won 2 seats; it represents the Sadr movement of young Shiite clerical nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr, and has announced that it will vote with the UIA. So for all practical purposes, the UIA has 130 seats, 8 short of a simple majority.

Americablog: Two Times articles, two different reports on the polls on domestic spying

by Joe in DC - 1/21/2006 08:22:00 AM

One article reported on facts, not the White House spin. One article reported on the White House spin, not the facts.

From Licthblau and Risen (on page A8 of the print edition):

While the White House usually says it pays no attention to public opinion polls, Scott McClellan, the press secretary, said at a briefing Friday that recent surveys "overwhelmingly show that the American people want us to do everything within our power to protect them."

Americablog: MSNBC ratchets up attack on Iraq war opponents, compares us all to Bin Laden

by John in DC - 1/20/2006 10:11:00 PM

In a supposed effort to explain how he was "misunderstood" for yesterday comparing Osama bin Laden to Michael Moore, MSNBC's Chris Matthews joined MSNBC's Joe Scarborough in explaining to the American public tonight that Bin Laden is channeling ALL American liberals and ALL those who have a problem with how the war in Iraq is going, including specifically John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Michael Moore.

MATTHEWS: Why is [bin Laden] doing it? Why is he trying to track what he picks up in the internet and from the media as the lingo of the left in America, like Moore? Why would he start to talk like Moore? People misunderstood what I said last night. I think he’s getting some advice from people, he’s getting some lingo, some wordage that he hears working in the United States about this thing for war profiteers and he’s jumping on every opportunity. Is that what you are saying Joe?

Atrios: Uh, Congressman?

This is pretty funny, and revealing:

Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett said Thursday that he'd ask Rep. Bob Ney to resign from Congress if he were indicted on felony charges.

...

"No party boss tells my constituents what to do," Ney said. "They will decide this thing."

In Bolivia, a $100 Million Question

President-Elect May End Support for U.S.-Funded Coca Eradication

By Monte Reel

Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, January 21, 2006; Page A01

ETERAZAMA, Bolivia -- At a muddy camp in the vast tropical lowlands known as the Chapare, about 150 Bolivian soldiers and policemen responsible for destroying the area's illegal coca plants have done little in recent weeks but kill time. They chat outside crude tents built of tree limbs and sagging tarps, haul water from a nearby river and sweat through the fatigues the U.S. government bought for them.

"We're not doing anything these days," one soldier said, ignoring the mosquitoes alighting on his exposed forearms. "We're just waiting to hear what's going to happen next."

Reference to Sonar Deleted in Whale-Beaching Report

By Marc Kaufman

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 20, 2006; Page A09

Documents released under a court order show that a government investigator studying the stranding of 37 whales on the North Carolina coast last year changed her draft report to eliminate all references to the possibility that naval sonar may have played a role in driving the whales ashore.

The issue of sonar's effects on whales is a sensitive topic for the U.S. Navy. It has clashed with environmentalists in several court suits seeking to limit use of the technology because of its possible effects on marine mammals and other sea creatures.

VA Care Is Rated Superior to That in Private Hospitals

By Rob Stein

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 20, 2006; Page A15

The Department of Veterans Affairs medical system once epitomized poor-quality care. But after a series of changes, the system has been hailed in recent years as a model for health care reform.

Now, survey results released this week indicate that those improvements have translated into a high level of satisfaction among veterans getting treated by the rehabilitated VA.

Iran shifts billions from banks in Europe amid fears of UN sanctions

· Tehran's nuclear stand-off intensified by transfers
· British invite to Afghan talks irks wary Americans

Ewen MacAskill and Jill Treanor
Saturday January 21, 2006
The Guardian

The Iranian government has started moving billions of pounds in assets from Britain and the rest of Europe in case international sanctions are imposed over the nuclear crisis.

Ebrahim Sheibani, the governor of the Iranian Central Bank, confirmed Tehran had started shifting funds, according to Iranian news agency ISNA.

NYT Editorial: Fishing in Cyberspace

Published: January 21, 2006

Enough is never enough, not when the government believes that it can invade your privacy without repercussions. The Justice Department wants a federal judge to force Google to turn over millions of private Internet searches. Google is rightly fighting the demand, but the government says America Online, Yahoo and MSN, Microsoft's online service, have already complied with similar requests.

This is not about national security. The Justice Department is making this baldfaced grab to try to prop up an online pornography law that has been blocked once by the Supreme Court. And it's not the first time we've seen this sort of behavior. The government has zealously protected the Patriot Act's power to examine library records. It sought the private medical histories of a selected group of women, saying it needed the information to defend the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in the federal courts.

Medicare Woes Take High Toll on Mentally Ill

By ROBERT PEAR

Published: January 21, 2006

HILLIARD, Fla., Jan. 16 - On the seventh day of the new Medicare drug benefit, Stephen Starnes began hearing voices again, ominous voices, and he started to beg for the medications he had been taking for 10 years. But his pharmacy could not get approval from his Medicare drug plan, so Mr. Starnes was admitted to a hospital here for treatment of paranoid schizophrenia.

Mr. Starnes, 49, lives in Dayspring Village, a former motel that is licensed by the State of Florida as an assisted living center for people with mental illness. When he gets his medications, he is stable.

Molly Ivins: Not. Backing. Hillary.

01.20.06 - AUSTIN, Texas --- I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone. This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

The Meltdown of the Middle Class

Jerry Landay
January 20, 2006

Here's one of the net outcomes of the radical-right agitprop machine:

There's bankruptcy and there's bankruptcy. We learn that in 2005, more than two million Americans filed for bankruptcy -- one in every 53 American households -- many having fallen prey to excessive medical costs, and/or maxed out on their credit cards. It's the highest number of bankruptcies on record. It coincided with Congressional passage of legislation misleadingly labeled The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Law. Some protection. Simon Legree would love it. The law toughens the ground rules for declaring bankruptcy, as well as hoisting the bar to get out of it. Now, many Americans may never escape the clutches of indebtedness. We may yet re-establish the Dickensian poorhouse, where debtors can spend cold days breaking rocks while their mates and offspring shiver inside.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 01/20/06

"This is almost as good as being an Oprah book," said William Blum, after Osama bin Laden pimped his book, "Rogue State," rocketing it onto Amazon.com's top-seller list. Last week the U.S. government denied Blum a travel visa to Cuba to appear at the Havana Book Fair.

Kerry added that "If the administration had done the job right in Tora Bora we might not be having discussions on 'Hardball' about a new Bin Laden tape." Plus: Kerry does Kos.

Terrorism analyst and author Peter Bergen, who was just interviewed by the American Prospect about "The Osama bin Laden I Know,' spoke at a forum earlier this week with "Ghost Wars" author Steve Coll, who characterized Iraq as the training ground for "the Osama bin Laden of the 2030s."

Former U.S. diplomat John H. Brown, who resigned in protest over the invasion of Iraq and recently predicted that the American public will eventually reject what he calls "Bushprop," suggests viewing the War on Terror "as a twenty-first century continuation of ... the American Indian wars, on a global scale."

Reps. Louise Slaughter and Brian Baird air allegations of day-trading inside the offices of Sen. Bill Frist and Rep. Tom DeLay. Baird has sent a letter to the House Ethics Committee, which is said to have been all but "defunct for the past year."

A church secretary who wrote freelance articles praising former HealthSouth Corp. CEO, Richard Scrushy, during his trial, claims that Scrushy secretly paid her $11,000, with the payments funneled through a PR firm that is run by the founder of the Birmingham Times, where the articles appeared. Plus: Scrushy's "Amen Corner."

Why Stanford prof is suing Bush over NSA spying

U.S. AGENCY POSSIBLY WATCHING HIS WORK
By Lisa M. Krieger
Mercury News

Every day on the Stanford University campus, Larry Diamond teaches his students that the president of the United States is not above the law.

Which is why Diamond decided to sue President Bush when he learned that the president had authorized spying on Americans without consent of Congress or the courts. Diamond believes he is among the targets of surveillance.

``I'm disturbed,'' said Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who has studied and taught democracy for more than 30 years. He is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union suit against Bush, the National Security Agency and the heads of other major agencies. ``I'm not afraid. I don't feel that I'm in danger. I don't expect retribution.''

David Sirota at Huffington Post: What They Won't Tell You Corruption Is Really All About

If you read the headlines these days, you are led to believe that the most serious consequences of our corrupt political system are the nefarious schemes of individuals like Duke Cunningham, Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay. And while the scandals surrounding these guys are all outrageous, the narrow focus on them masks the much more severe consequences of corruption that no one in the media/political Establishment really wants to talk about - the consequences that are at the heart of my upcoming book Hostile Takeover due out in April/May (and, for those interested, available for pre-order today at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powell's Bookstore, among others). Beyond the brazen vote-buying/bribery that our money-drenched political process periodically is afflicted with is the far more systematic way America's entire political debate is artificially limited to ensure an outcome favorable to Big Money interests.

Yahoo admits it let White House access its databases

By Jenny Both and Agencies

Yahoo has admitted that it granted the US Government access to its search engine's databases this summer, as a battle develops over the right to privacy in cyberspace.

Google, by contrast, promised last night to fight vigorously the Bush Administration’s demand to know what millions of people have been looking up on the internet.

It emerged this week that the White House issued subpoenas to a number of US-based search engines this summer, asking to see what information the public had accessed in a two-month period. It said that it needed the information in order to help create online child protection laws.

Paul Wolfowitz Busy Neo-Conning the World Bank: Staff Rebellion Brewing

Paul Wolfowitz, architect of America's failing foray into Iraq as Rumsfeld's former Deputy at the Pentagon, now heads the World Bank and finally seems like his true self is coming out of the closet.

In recent months, picking up steam in recent weeks, there has been a massive exodus of top talent from the World Bank. According to reports, the senior Ethics Officer at the Bank has departed. Also on the exit roster are the Vice President for East Asia & Pacific, the Chief Legal Counsel, the Bank's top Managing Director, the Director of Institutional Integrity (which monitors internal and external corruption), the Vice President for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development, and the head of ISG (Information Solutions Group).

Richard Clarke on Iran

The first time I met Richard Clarke, I was role-playing the president of the United States during a weekend war game hosted by the Security Studies Program at the Fletcher School. That game, held annually and dubbed "SIMULEX," is run by staff from the nation's military graduate schools, such as the National War College and the Army War College. This particular year, 1997, Clarke was observing the progress of the game, as he had a special interest in the scenario.

Long-Declining Union Membership Levels Of

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer
Sat Jan 21, 5:55 AM ET

Long-declining union membership leveled off last year at 12.5 percent of the work force, the Labor Department said Friday in a report labor leaders called encouraging.

Union membership was about a third of the work force a half-century ago, and was one in five, 20 percent, in 1983, when the Labor Department started keeping such data.

The department said 15.7 million workers were union members in 2005. Blacks were more likely than whites, Hispanics or Asian workers to be members of a union. Men were more likely than women to be in unions and those in the public sector were four times as likely as those in the private sector to be in unions.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Ahmadinejad?

Reader, do you have a solution to the Iranian nukes dilemma?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, Jan. 19, 2006, at 7:04 PM ET

What to do about Iran? The mullahs seem intent on acquiring a nuclear arsenal. Everything they've been doing lately—enriching uranium, spinning centrifuges, really just about anything they could do short of actual bomb production—is legally permitted under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (a serious problem with the NPT these days). The Bush administration is pushing the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions. But Russia and China would likely veto the motion, owing to the former's massive investment in Iranian reactors and the latter's heavy dependence on Iranian oil. The entire industrialized world is leery of economic confrontation for this same reason; Western Europe and Japan get 10 percent to 15 percent of their oil imports from Iran. As for a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, two objections stand out, among several others: It would be very difficult (the facilities are scattered, some buried deep underground), and it would be widely regarded as premature at best (even the most pessimistic intelligence estimates don't foresee an Iranian bomb for at least a few years).

Michael Kinsley: Why Lawyers Are Liars

They don't want to: It's their ethical obligation!
By Michael Kinsley
Posted Friday, Jan. 20, 2006, at 12:06 AM ET

As a loyal member—well, as a member—of the District of Columbia Bar for more than a quarter of a century, I was aware of the tension between advocacy and honesty. But until the recent controversies over Supreme Court nominees, I was unaware of the scope and depth of my professional obligation to avoid telling the truth. Sometimes this merely means evasion, but often it encourages or even requires outright lying. In other lines of work—journalism, for example—the truth is a standard that is not always met. But judging from the arguments made successfully for John Roberts and Samuel Alito, and unsuccessfully for Harriet Miers, the truth is something a good lawyer must constantly struggle to overcome.

The Unitary Executive: Is The Doctrine Behind the Bush Presidency Consistent with a Democratic State?

By JENNIFER VAN BERGEN
----
Monday, Jan. 09, 2006

When President Bush signed the new law, sponsored by Senator McCain, restricting the use of torture when interrogating detainees, he also issued a Presidential signing statement. That statement asserted that his power as Commander-in-Chief gives him the authority to bypass the very law he had just signed.

This news came fast on the heels of Bush's shocking admission that, since 2002, he has repeatedly authorized the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance without a warrant, in flagrant violation of applicable federal law.

And before that, Bush declared he had the unilateral authority to ignore the Geneva Conventions and to indefinitely detain without due process both immigrants and citizens as enemy combatants.

Democrats want ethics committee to probe 'day trading' allegations

John Byrne
Published: January 19, 2006

After a comment by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) on Air America's Majority Report Wednesday evening, RAW STORY has learned that House Democrats are pushing the ethics committee to investigate allegations of congressional offices providing privleged information to Wall Street investors.

On Air America, Slaughter alleged that "day traders" in the offices of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) had aided such investors. She mentioned as a specific example that individuals got advance notice that an asbestos bill was not going to emerge from the Senate

ACLU rebukes Justice Department findings on wiretaps as 'spin'

RAW STORY
Published: January 19, 2006

The American Civil Liberties Union today strongly rebuked analysis provided by the Justice Department that argues that there is a legal basis for the warrantless domestic surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency as authorized by President Bush in a release to RAW STORY.

The release follows.
#

House Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are scheduled to hold a forum on the issue tomorrow, where the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Director Caroline Fredrickson will testify. On Tuesday of this week, the ACLU filed a legal challenge to the NSA program on behalf of a group of prominent journalists, nonprofits, terrorism experts and community advocates. The ACLU has also called for the appointment of an independent special counsel to investigate the matter and has requested, through the Freedom of Information Act, information about the NSA's program of warrantless spying on Americans.

US university spying scandal prompts resignations

Agencies
Friday January 20, 2006

A former US Republican congressman has resigned from the advisory board of a university alumni group after it emerged the latter was offering students money to police "liberal" professors at the University of California, Los Angeles.

James Rogan, who served two terms in office, sent an email on Wednesday to Andrew Jones, the head of the Bruin Alumni Association, saying he did not want his name connected to the group. Mr Rogan's resignation follows those of the Harvard historian Stephan Thernstrom and the UCLA professor emeritus Jascha Kessler, who both resigned from the board once they learned of the group's activities.

Ominous sign / The president's growing disregard for the law

Friday, January 20, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

President Bush's latest tool for disrespecting the Constitution, Congress and the American people, used more than a hundred times so far, is the presidential signing statement.

That statement is normally a few words that a president says when he signs a bill passed by Congress. In the past it was an occasion for the president to congratulate legislators who had been particularly active in passing the bill and to praise the new legislation generously, even if he himself had been unsympathetic to it.

'Reverse' tanning process could revolutionize leather industry

Every little bit helps the environment...--Dictynna

A new 'greener' and cleaner chemical process* could revolutionize the leather-tanning industry, according to a report in the Feb. 15 issue of the American Chemical Society’s journal Environmental Science & Technology. ‘Reverse’ leather tanning, which essentially works backward from the point where conventional tanning ends, saves time, money and energy while drastically slashing water use and pollution, say researchers at the Central Leather Research Institute in Adyar, India.

From pre-tanning to finishing, conventional leather tanning requires about 15 steps, which produce enormous amounts of wastewater and pollutants, including sulfides, chlorides, sulfates and other compounds. The new approach flips the process around and eliminates some of the steps, which results in multiple and substantial production efficiencies, the researchers say.

Study: Men Enjoy Seeing Bad People Suffer

Do conservatives play to this trait, which is not limited to men? Of course, the 'evildoers' may not always merit the label.--Dictynna

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science WriterWed Jan 18, 4:29 PM ET

Bill Clinton said he felt others' pain. But a new brain-scanning study suggests that when guys see a cheater get a mild electric shock, they don't feel his pain much at all. In fact, they rather enjoy it.

In contrast, women's brains showed they do empathize with the cheater's pain and don't get a kick out it.

It's not clear whether this difference in schadenfreude — enjoyment of another's misfortune — results from basic biology or sex roles learned during life, researchers say. But it could help explain why men have historically taken charge of punishing criminals and others who violate societal rules, said researcher Dr. Klaas Stephan.

Stephan, a senior research fellow at the University College London, is co-author of a study led by Tania Singer at the college and published online Wednesday by the journal Nature.

Dead whale left outside embassy

A huge beached whale has been dumped outside the Japanese embassy in Berlin. in a Greenpeace anti-whaling protest.

The controversial environmental activists hauled the fin whale to Berlin from the Baltic coast after finding it beached on a sandbank.

The dead whale measured 17m (56ft) long and weighed 20 tonnes.

Feds after Google data

RECORDS SOUGHT IN U.S. QUEST TO REVIVE PORN LAW
By Howard Mintz
Mercury News

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.

In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.

BusinessWeek's Javers Hints That More Paid Pundit Stories May Be Coming

By Dave Astor

Published: January 18, 2006 2:25 PM ET

NEW YORK People interested in journalism certainly know a lot these days about Doug Bandow and Michael Fumento, who lost their columns after BusinessWeek revealed they took money from Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff (Bandow) and agribusiness giant Monsanto (Fumento). But less is known about the reporter who exposed these previously undisclosed payments.

He is Eamon Javers, 33, who joined BusinessWeek just last April after stints with CNBC and then Congressional Quarterly. Javers works as Capitol Hill correspondent for BusinessWeek out of the magazine's Washington bureau.

The congressman & the hedge fund

By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY

One day after a New York investment group raised $110,000 for Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis, the House passed a defense spending bill that preserved $160 million for a Navy project critical to the firm. The man who protected the Navy money? Lewis.

Molly I vins: Time to Go Long

Posted January 17, 2006.

What matters here is not what the Republicans or the Democrats do -- it's what you do before November.

It takes a Texas Republican to get that fine hairline reading on the ethical sensitivity scale we all prize so highly. Thus, it comes as no surprise that a couple of six-packs of Texas Republican congressmen have signed up to endorse Rep. Roy Blunt, Tom DeLay's chosen successor, in the House leadership fight. Glad to see they're taking this ethical stuff seriously.

Why else support a man of whom the director of CongressWatch observes, "[His] tenure in Congress has been marked by exchanges of favors between himself and special interests, and a deep embrace of lobbyists. He is an architect of today's sleazy, big-money politics, not the agent of change that Congress so desperately needs right now to regain credibility with the public." Just the man for our delegation.

Roberts Questions McCain-Feingold Limits

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Chief Justice John Roberts expressed doubts Tuesday about legal restrictions on political ads by outside groups as the Supreme Court took up a new challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

Questioning Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, who was defending the law, Roberts raised a hypothetical case in which a group runs an issue ad every month. Does the ad, he asked, become illegal in the months before an election?

Loophole in Lobbying Bill Leaves Wiggle Room

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 18, 2006; Page A04

Lawmakers are about to bombard the American public with proposals that would crack down on lobbyists. Several prominent plans, including one outlined yesterday by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), would specifically ban meals and privately paid travel for lawmakers.

Or would they?

Cursor's Media Patrol - 01/18/06

'Scandalology 101' "Consider the Abramoff scandal," writes Patricia Goldsmith, in which "the Democrats are blameless only because they were ruthlessly cut out of the action, but it's still a treat watching Wolf Blitzer trying to twist the facts to fit the bipartisan scenario demanded by the RNC talking points of the day."

'Does the President Really Know Best?' asks Elizabeth de la Vega, while Robert Parry's analysis of a recent presidential appearance finds Bush offering a "fictional account of the run-up to war in Iraq," and apparently unable to remember "important events in which he played a leading role."

David Corn envisions how "Karen's Rules" might help to spin a CIA missile attack on a Pakistani village, that was "off the front pages by Monday and competing for time on national cable news broadcasts with runaway convicts and other local crime news."

Baghdad Burning's Riverbend presents a photo essay documenting successful Iraqi reconstruction efforts after the 1991 war, when foreign expertise was unavailable, in the time before the 'Parade of Weasels.'

FAIR profiles 'CNN's "Cordial" Hire' of "a great addition to our 'Headline Prime' line-up."

The White House was reportedly "disappointed at the decision" by the Supreme Court on Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, which Justice Scalia linked with "polygamy or eugenic infanticide" in his dissent, in a case said to show "the Administration's true colors."

Army Orders Soldiers to Shed Dragon Skin or Lose SGLI Death Benefits

By Nathaniel R. Helm

Two deploying soldiers and a concerned mother reported Friday afternoon that the U.S. Army appears to be singling out soldiers who have purchased Pinnacle's Dragon Skin Body Armor for special treatment. The soldiers, who are currently staging for combat operations from a secret location, reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action.

The soldiers asked for anonymity because they are concerned they will face retaliation for going public with the Army's apparently new directive. At the sources' requests DefenseWatch has also agreed not to reveal the unit at which the incident occured for operational security reasons.

Paul Krugman: First, Do More Harm

It's widely expected that President Bush will talk a lot about health care in his State of the Union address. He probably won't boast about his prescription drug plan, whose debut has been a Katrina-like saga of confusion and incompetence. But he probably will tout proposals for so-called "consumer driven" health care.

So it's important to realize that the administration's idea of health care reform is to take what's wrong with our system and make it worse. Consider the harrowing series of articles The New York Times printed last week about the rising tide of diabetes.

Murtha and the Mudslingers

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006; Page A17

I underestimated the viciousness of the right wing.

Last November, Rep. John Murtha, a Democrat and a decorated Marine combat veteran, came out for a rapid American withdrawal from Iraq. At the time, I wrote: "It will be difficult for Bush's acolytes to cast Murtha, who has regularly stood up for the military policies of Republican presidents during his 31 years in Congress, as some kind of extreme partisan or hippie protester."

Official US agency paints dire picture of 'out-of-control' Iraq

· Analysis issued by USAid in reconstruction effort
· Account belies picture painted by White House

Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday January 18, 2006
The Guardian

An official assessment drawn up by the US foreign aid agency depicts the security situation in Iraq as dire, amounting to a "social breakdown" in which criminals have "almost free rein".

The "conflict assessment" is an attachment to an invitation to contractors to bid on a project rehabilitating Iraqi cities published earlier this month by the US Agency for International Development (USAid).

A Natural History of Peace

By Robert M. Sapolsky

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006

---

Summary: Humans like to think that they are unique, but the study of other primates has called into question the exceptionalism of our species. So what does primatology have to say about war and peace? Contrary to what was believed just a few decades ago, humans are not "killer apes" destined for violent conflict, but can make their own history.

Robert M. Sapolsky is John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biological Sciences and Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University. His most recent book is "Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals."

THE NAKED APE

The evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky once said, "All species are unique, but humans are uniquest." Humans have long taken pride in their specialness. But the study of other primates is rendering the concept of such human exceptionalism increasingly suspect.

Some of the retrenchment has been relatively palatable, such as with the workings of our bodies. Thus we now know that a baboon heart can be transplanted into a human body and work for a few weeks, and human blood types are coded in Rh factors named after the rhesus monkeys that possess similar blood variability.

Global Warming - The Blame Is not with the Plants

International scientific team reacts to misinterpretation of their research results and provides the correct perspective

In a recent study (Nature, 12 January 2006), scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Utrecht University, Netherlands, and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development for Northern Ireland, UK, revealed that plants produce the greenhouse gas methane. First estimates indicated that this could account for a significant proportion of methane in the atmosphere. There has been extended media coverage of this work with unfortunately, in many instances, a misinterpretation of the findings. Furthermore, the discovery led to intense speculations on the potential relevance of the findings for reforestation programs in the framework of the Kyoto protocol. These issues need to be put in the right perspective.

The most frequent misinterpretation we find in the media is that emissions of methane from plants are responsible for global warming. As those emissions from plants are a natural source, they have existed long before man’s influence started to impact upon the composition of the atmosphere. It is the anthropogenic emissions which are responsible for the well-documented increasing atmospheric concentrations of methane since pre-industrial times. Emissions from plants thus contribute to the natural greenhouse effect and not to the recent temperature increase known as ‘global warming’. Even if land use practices have altered plant methane emissions, which we did not demonstrate, this would also count as an anthropogenic source, and the plants themselves cannot be deemed responsible.

Two Groups Planning to Sue Over Federal Eavesdropping

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 - Two leading civil rights groups plan to file lawsuits Tuesday against the Bush administration over its domestic spying program to determine whether the operation was used to monitor 10 defense lawyers, journalists, scholars, political activists and other Americans with ties to the Middle East.

The two lawsuits, which are being filed separately by the American Civil Liberties Union in Federal District Court in Detroit and the Center for Constitutional Rights in Federal District Court in Manhattan, are the first major court challenges to the eavesdropping program.

Both groups are seeking to have the courts order an immediate end to the program, which the groups say is illegal and unconstitutional. The Bush administration has strongly defended the legality and necessity of the surveillance program, and officials said the Justice Department would probably oppose the lawsuits on national security grounds.

In Desperation, Gonzales Smears Gore

Here’s Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the Larry King Live show last night:

I would say that with respect to comments by the former vice president it’s my understanding that during the Clinton administration there was activity regarding the physical searches without warrants, Aldrich Ames as an example.

I can also say that it’s my understanding that the deputy attorney general testified before Congress that the president does have the inherent authority under the Constitution to engage in physical searches without a warrant and so those would certainly seem to be inconsistent with what the former vice president was saying today.

The issue with the Bush’s warrantless domestic wiretapping program is that it violates a federal criminal law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Despite what Gonzales is implying, the Clinton administration never violated FISA and never claimed they could violate FISA.

Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends

By LOWELL BERGMAN, ERIC LICHTBLAU, SCOTT SHANE and DON VAN NATTA Jr.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 - In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month.

But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans.

A Constitutional Crisis

By Al Gore, AlterNet. Posted January 17, 2006.

The former vice president warns us what can happen without congressional oversight over a defiant White House.

Editor's Note: Following is the text of a speech delivered by Al Gore in Washington, D.C. on January 16. Gore was introduced by former Republican congressman Bob Barr, an arch-conservative advocate of privacy rights.

Congressman Barr and I have disagreed many times over the years, but we have joined together today with thousands of our fellow citizens -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- to express our shared concern that America's Constitution is in grave danger.

In spite of our differences over ideology and politics, we are in strong agreement that the American values we hold most dear have been placed at serious risk by the unprecedented claims of the Administration to a truly breathtaking expansion of executive power.

Exclusive: Selling the Amazon for a Handful of Beads

By Kelly Hearn, AlterNet. Posted January 17, 2006.

In the midst of an Amazonian oil boom, classified documents reveal deep links between oil companies and Ecuador's military.

Scanning bookshelves in his tiny law office in Quito, Ecuador, Bolivar Beltran's disdain for Big Oil is as legible as the contracts that map their nefarious ways.

"These were all negotiated in secret," says the soft-spoken attorney and Ecuadorian congressional aide, explaining how he used a lawsuit last year to obtain pages of once-classified contracts between the Ecuadorian military and 16 multinational oil companies.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 01/16/06

10,000 chant "Death to America" in Karachi to protest a "precise attack" in northern Pakistan, as Sen. John McCain offers apologies, while a Democratic colleague tells CNN's Wolf Blitzer that "it's a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do?"

Two Reuters journalists, who had been held for several months without charge, were among 509 Iraqi detainees freed from three prisons in Iraq, after all were "cleared of terror-related charges."

'Bush Has Crossed the Rubicon,' writes Paul Craig Roberts, and "in effect ... is vetoing the bills he signs into law" by "asserting the powers that accrued to Hitler in 1933." And Leon Hadar warns that 'The Age Of W Is Not Over,' while Al Gore calls for appointment of a special counsel.

NSA whistleblower Russell Tice calls for "some adult supervision of these programs," offers up a theory as to why the FISA court was bypassed, and says that in "State of War," James Risen "has come across, and basically reported, a crime." Risen also tells the story of 'The yes man and the thug.'

Reviewing "Women Who Make the World Worse," Ana Marie Cox concludes that without feminism, "Kate O'Beirne would have been unlikely to have this book published -- and most women would not have their own money to waste on it."

Warning that 'The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years,' the "sweet old man" who originally propounded the Gaia hypothesis, now says that 'We are past the point of no return.' Plus: 'The boiling point.'

Translator's Conviction Raises Legal Concerns

Trial Transcripts Show Lack of Evidence

By Michael Powell and Michelle Garcia
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, January 16, 2006; A01

NEW YORK -- For three years federal agents trailed Mohammed Yousry, a chubby 50-year-old translator and U.S. citizen who worked for radical lawyer Lynne Stewart. Prosecutors wiretapped his phone, and FBI agents shadowed and interviewed him. They read his books and notepads and every file on his computer.

This was their conclusion:

"Yousry is not a practicing Muslim. He is not a fundamentalist," prosecutor Anthony Barkow acknowledged in his closing arguments to a jury in federal district court in Manhattan earlier this year. "Mohammed Yousry is not someone who supports or believes in the use of violence."

The Truth Behind The Iraq Invasion And A Possible US Conflict With Iran

It is now openly obvious why the US (and its 'coalition of the willing') invaded Iraq (without UN backing) in 2003 under the banner ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’. It wasn't for the reasons the Bush administration maintained at the time (suspected WMD, a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda, etc. etc.) but to do with the petrodollar. Many people suspected that oil was the underlying reason but few were aware of the more important need to maintain the 'petrodollar recycling' system.

Petrodollar recycling was introduced by the US in the early 70's, when Middle Eastern countries were beginning to produce oil of their own under the OPEC group of nations. Previously, most of the worlds oil was supplied by the US and all trading in this market was carried out using US dollars. When OPEC came into competition with the US oil giants, the Americans struck a deal with their Middle Eastern counterparts in which they would supply Saudi Arabia, etc. with arms as long as OPEC traded their oil in dollars. This meant that if a country wanted oil, for example Japan, they had to sell to the US their home-produced products (Toyota cars for example) in order to raise the necessary dollars to buy their oil from an OPEC country. These dollars were then invested back into the US by, for example, Saudi Arabia and this left the US in a great position. As long as they could print enough dollars to meet demand they would continue to dominate the worlds oil markets and would (and did) make a fortune doing so. This is what ultimately has made the US into the worlds only superpower, with the ability to afford the necessary military might to match.

lowkell at Daily Kos: Awesome Slam of "Marriage Amendment" by Freshman Delegate

Sun Jan 15, 2006 at 10:04:50 AM PDT

This speech, by freshman Virginia Del. David Englin (D-45), is so good it deserves to be broadcast all over the Commonwealth. For that matter, David Englins' words deserve to be distributed anywhere state or national legislatures are discussing "defense of marriage" measures. In reality, as we all know, these are nothing but pandering to homophobic bigotry and far right-wing social "conservatives" (aka, the bedroom police). Here, Del. Englin - a strong Progressive and "fighting Dem" if I've ever met one - takes it right to the hypocrites and moral cowards. Good for you, David. I'm proud that I worked to help send you to Richmond; you ROCK! Now here's the speech (bolding added for emphasis):

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this resolution. I'm not going to talk about same-sex marriage. I'm no fool -- although others might make a different judgement about a freshman delegate rising in this chamber on the third day of session. But I understand that on the issue of marriage, I'm in the minority, perhaps even in my own caucus. I also sleep very well at night knowing that at some point in the future of this great Commonwealth, those of us of my opinion will be judged to have been on the right side of history. But let's for a moment forget about the question of same-sex marriage, because this amendment addresses much more than that. We need to be clear and honest: This amendment also outlaws civil unions and domestic partnerships and other similar private legal arrangements.

We have heard from the other side that this constitutional amendment is necessary to protect conventional marriage. I am blessed with a beautiful and brilliant wife who is the love of my life. In June, Shayna and I will celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary, and I would fight with every ounce of my strength anything that would threaten my marriage. So I would like to know, how exactly civil unions and domestic partnerships and other similar arrangements threaten my marriage?

Darksyde at Daily Kos: Know Your Creationists

Sun Jan 15, 2006 at 09:22:57 AM PDT

DR. Jonathan Wells is a Senior Fellow at The Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture who holds two Ph.D's, one in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkley, and one in Religious Studies from Yale.

Wells is perhaps best known to the antievolution Intelligent Design Creationist (IDC) movement for his book Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? published in 2000. The title refers to the format in which Wells attacks biology, choosing what he claims are central pillars of the concepts underlying modern evolutionary biology and exposing them as fraudulent or highly suspect. For a break from current politics and a little disturbing insight into one the forces behind the neo-religious right, follow me below.

Talking Points Memo: Summa Abramoffica.

For a lot of you this will cover old ground. But there have been a number of questions on this. So let me try to briefly sort out some of the main points and make a couple key distinctions.

Did Jack Abramoff give money pretty much equally to both parties? Or did he only give to Republicans?

You can hear people saying both on the web and the airwaves. And in almost every case the seeming contradictions stem from the fact that the people talking -- either intentionally or otherwise -- are comparing apples and oranges.

Political Animal: Iran And The Bomb....

Niall Ferguson pretends to be a future historian looking back on today:

The devastating nuclear exchange of August 2007 represented not only the failure of diplomacy, it marked the end of the oil age. Some even said it marked the twilight of the West. Certainly, that was one way of interpreting the subsequent spread of the conflict as Iraq's Shi'ite population overran the remaining American bases in their country and the Chinese threatened to intervene on the side of Teheran.

New Method for Flagging Vote Miscount Released -- Specific Type of Statistical Analysis Can Indicate Vote Count Errors in Past and Future Elections

The National Election Data Archive (NEDA) has developed a new sophisticated statistical method for indicating whether reported vote counts in any particular election race has, or has not, been counted correctly. The new scientific method is being made publicly available for analyzing exit poll data may help restore faith in U.S. democracy. The method will be used to Analyze the 2004 Ohio Presidential Election Data.

(PRWEB) January 16, 2006 -- After over a year of research, the National Election Data Archive (NEDA) has developed a new sophisticated statistical method for indicating whether reported vote counts in any particular election race between two candidates have, or have not, been counted correctly. The method is being made publicly available on the Internet "Vote Miscount or Exit Poll Error? New Mathematical Function for Analyzing Exit Poll Discrepancy", is publicly available. at http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit-Poll-Analysis.pdf and will enable independent analysts to objectively evaluate the validity of any past or future election results.

Groups Vow to Step Up Anti-U.S. Protests

By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 3 minutes ago

Islamic groups vowed Monday to step up anti-American protests over a purported CIA airstrike that Pakistani officials say killed innocent civilians instead of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, meanwhile, condemned the strike that killed at least 17 people in a village near the Afghan border, but he said he would go ahead with a planned trip Tuesday to the United States to build business ties.

Thousands of Pakistanis poured into streets in cities across the country on Saturday and Sunday chanting "Death to America" and demanding U.S. troops leave neighboring Afghanistan. No protests were reported Monday, but Islamic groups promised more rallies later this week.

"There will be more ... bigger protests," said Shahid Shamsi, spokesman for an alliance of Islamic groups.

Islamists gain ground from American push for Mideast democracy

Monday, January 16, 2006 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

By Warren P. Strobel
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Call it a case of why you should be careful what you wish for.

President Bush's efforts to spread democracy to the Middle East have strengthened Islamists across the region, posing fresh challenges for the United States, according to U.S. officials, foreign diplomats and democracy experts.

Islamist parties trounced secular opponents in recent elections in Iraq and Egypt.

Cronkite: Time for U.S. to Leave Iraq

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television WriterSun Jan 15, 6:47 PM ET

Former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite, whose 1968 conclusion that the Vietnam War was unwinnable keenly influenced public opinion then, said Sunday he'd say the same thing today about Iraq.

"It's my belief that we should get out now," Cronkite said in a meeting with reporters.

Now 89, the television journalist once known as "the most trusted man in America" has been off the "CBS Evening News" for nearly a quarter-century. He's still a CBS News employee, although he does little for them.

Cronkite said one of his proudest moments came at the end of a 1968 documentary he made following a visit to Vietnam during the Tet offensive. Urged by his boss to briefly set aside his objectivity to give his view of the situation, Cronkite said the war was unwinnable and that the U.S. should exit.

If You Don't Know K Street, You Don't Know Jack

The Progress Report. Posted January 16, 2006.

To understand the culture of corruption that infects Washington, DC, it's important to understand the origins of the K Street Project.

In 1994, the right wing gained control over the House of Representatives on the strength of a series of reforms embodied in the so-called "Contract with America." The contract ostensibly "aimed to restore the faith and trust of the American people in their government" and end the "cycle of scandal and disgrace" in government. A year later, then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) was already plotting to breach that contract by undertaking a project to develop cozier relations with Washington, D.C. lobbyists.

High-minded policy goals would take a backseat in DeLay's pay-to-play system where the success of lobbyists would be dictated not by how compelling a case they could make, but rather by how willing they would be to line the pockets of DeLay and his colleagues. Conceptualized as a tool for the right-wing preservation of power, the "K Street Strategy," as it became known, created the culture in which Jack Abramoff's criminal activity was encouraged and rewarded.

Digby: Grover's Eunuchs

Wolcott says:

I was traveling the cable dial this afternoon where I came upon a panel on CNBC's Kudlow & Company just as Lanny Davis, his insipid, ingratiating grin firmly in place, was saying that he hoped Democrats wouldn't "politicize" the Jack Abramoff situation but simply let the facts of the case emerge.

[...]

Beltway Dems like Davis and the DLC crowd don't want to politicize the Iraq war, or the Alito hearings, or the Katrina clusterfuck, or the NSA spying scandal; they shy away from every prospective fight and prevent any ongoing debate or controversy from gaining traction. Just as Jack Murtha's bombshell was gaining momentum, in droops Joe Lieberman to back up the president with a gift-wrapped testimonial. Yes, I know Lanny Davis is not an elected official but he was representing the Democratic side along with Harold Ford against John Fund of WSJ and Arizona congressman Jeff Flake (R). Given how Davis was fawning over Flake (who was making mild reformist noises about the need to clean house)--saying that he wished he could vote for someone so bright and sensible--and how Ford was prudently urging us to stay the course in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was more of a barbershop quartet than a doubles match. Kudlow, of course, couldn't have been more pleased by the civility and consensus shown by the fab four. Lanny Davis and Harold Ford were his kind of Democrats--reasonable, moderate, mainstream, and completely housebroken. They were good little guests.

Alito Hearings: Democrats' 'Katrina'

By Robert Parry

January 14, 2006

For a constitutional confrontation at least five years in the making, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee looked as prepared to confront Samuel Alito as FEMA chief Michael Brown did in responding to Hurricane Katrina.

As with the hurricane that zeroed in on New Orleans days before coming ashore, there should have been no surprise about Judge Alito. He was exactly what the Republican base had long wanted in a Supreme Court nominee, a hard-line judicial ideologue with a pleasant demeanor and a soft-spoken style.

Frank Rich: Is Abramoff the New Monica? (via donkey o.d.)

January 15, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist

THERE'S nothing this White House loves more than pictures that tell a story - a fictional story. And so another mission was accomplished when President Bush posed with the 13 past secretaries of state and defense he hustled into the Oval Office 10 days ago: he could pretend to consult on Iraq with sages of all political stripes - Madeleine Albright, yet - even if the actual give-and-take, all 5 to 10 minutes of it, was as substantive as the scripted "Ask the President" town hall meetings of the 2004 campaign.

But this White House, cunning as it is, can't control all the pictures all the time. That photo op was quickly followed by Time's Jack Abramoff cover and its specter of other images more inopportune than op. Mr. Bush's aides, the magazine reported, were busy "trying to identify all the photos that may exist of the two men together." Translation: Could a Bush-Abramoff money shot as iconic as Monica on the rope line be lurking somewhere for a Time cover still to come?

NYT Editorial: The Imperial Presidency at Work

You would think that Senators Carl Levin and John McCain would have learned by now that you cannot deal in good faith with a White House that does not act in good faith. Yet both men struck bargains intended to restore the rule of law to American prison camps. And President Bush tossed them aside at the first opportunity.

Mr. Bush made a grand show of inviting Mr. McCain into the Oval Office last month to announce his support for a bill to require humane treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay and other prisons run by the American military and intelligence agencies. He seemed to have managed to get Vice President Dick Cheney to stop trying to kill the proposed Congressional ban on torture of prisoners.

Army Dropped Abuse Probe, Records Show

By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer

January 13, 2006, 8:39 AM EST

WASHINGTON -- The Army closed a criminal investigation of abuse allegations by an Iraqi detainee last year, finding no reason to believe his claims, even though no Americans involved in the case were questioned, according to Pentagon records made public Thursday.

Internal Army documents about the Iraqi's capture on Jan. 4, 2004, and his subsequent interrogation at an unspecified facility at or near Baghdad International Airport were not reviewed, the records show, because investigators were told they had been lost in a computer malfunction.

Scorched Earth

By ROBERT L. PARK

College Park, Md.

NASA has quietly terminated the Deep Space Climate Observatory, citing "competing priorities." The news media took little notice. Few Americans, after all, had even heard of the program. But the entire world may come to mourn its passing.

Earth is growing warmer. Even the most strident global-warming deniers have taken to saying that a little warming is a good thing. If the trend continues, however, it will have catastrophic consequences for life on this planet. Correctly identifying the cause could be the most important problem facing humanity.

Most scientists link global warming to unrestrained burning of fossil fuels, which shrouds Earth in a blanket of carbon dioxide, trapping the Sun's energy. Others, backed by industries that spew pollutants into the atmosphere, insist that greenhouse emissions are not the problem. They prefer to attribute warming to natural variations in solar output. Scientists are skeptical, but they don't deny the possibility. The issue cries out to be resolved.

Knight Ridder's Alito story: Factual and fair

By Clark Hoyt
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - On Dec. 1, Knight Ridder's Washington bureau sent a story analyzing the record of Judge Samuel Alito to our 32 daily newspapers and to the more than 300 papers that subscribe to the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. Written by Stephen Henderson, Knight Ridder's Supreme Court correspondent, and Howard Mintz of the San Jose Mercury News, the story began:

"During his 15 years on the federal bench, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito has worked quietly but resolutely to weave a conservative legal agenda into the fabric of the nation's laws."

Iraq Soldiers Speak Out Supporting Murtha...

Posted January 14, 2006 02:17 PM

On January 5, 2006, Congressman Murtha held a town hall meeting with Cong. Jim Moran (D-VA 08).

The soldier who asked the first question served in Afghanistan and said that morale among troops is high and that he would gladly serve in Iraq today. His comment was the only one replayed by Fox News the next day.

But the majority of soldiers in attendance spoke out against the current policy. Fox News did not broadcast their remarks.

Global warming to speed up as carbon levels show sharp rise

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 15 January 2006

Global warming is set to accelerate alarmingly because of a sharp jump in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Preliminary figures, exclusively obtained by The Independent on Sunday, show that levels of the gas - the main cause of climate change - have risen abruptly in the past four years. Scientists fear that warming is entering a new phase, and may accelerate further.