Republican heavyweights Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert inserted a provision into a bill in the dead of night that was worth billions to vaccine makers. Roll Call said the move was unprecedented.
Favorable publicity surrounding Al Gore’s new global warming movie has contributed to the buzz that the former VP has his sights set on the White House in 2008. A former aide tells the WSJ that he’s been talking about it.
The facts are these: Singles are the fastest-growing demographic group in the U.S., and marital status is not a determinant of happiness. Psychology Today magazine examines these findings and says singlehood is rapidly becoming “a satisfying destination rather than an anxiety-ridden way station.”
(Reg. req’d for Psy. Today.) Check out the Salon summary and analysis for more.
The nonprofit TV network demanded that popular video hosting sites Youtube and iFilm remove clips of Stephen Colbert’s roast of President Bush--because of alleged copyright infringement.
(Google Video made a deal with C-SPAN to host the video.)
The N.Y. Times Magazine delivers a devastating, in-depth report on Christian conservatives who “believe that having sex without the intent to procreate is a very, very bad thing"--and on their efforts to make all forms of contraceptives much harder to obtain.
These biblical literalists are truly frightening; their Iron Age views on sexual morality are actually helping to increase the numbers of unwanted pregnancies and abortions in America.
The crash of a British helicopter in the southern Iraqi city of Basra led to a crackdown by British soldiers and five Iraqi deaths. A melee ensued--stone-throwing, Molotov cocktails.... A BBC correspondent called the worsening situation a “dramatic change in attitude” toward the British presence.
The presumed next head of the CIA, Gen. Michael Hayden, once ran the National Security Agency. Fine. It’s got a cartoon picture that leads to a kid-friendly site called Cryptokids: America’s Future Codemakers and Codebreakers. It’s filled with decryption games and NSA employment resources.
Huh? Cartoons appeal to 7-year-olds. How many of them are going to be surfing the NSA’s website? And if the agency is trying to recruit high school students, why use a cartoon turtle as a roper?
Michael Hayden, who will probably replace outgoing CIA chief Porter Goss, told Congress in 2002 that all domestic surveillance was consistent with the FISA law--knowing full well of Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program.
The Cause, a progressive media development organization, kicks off its pre-launch with a film clip called ”Show US the War,” a teaser for what it calls a “collaborative real-time documentary news project.”
Resigning unexpectedly 19 months after taking the job, Porter Goss leaves the spy agency in a “free fall,” according to earlier comments by one congresswoman. The CIA has been plagued with personnel losses and criticism by former officers.
The results of a big European study of the artificial sweetener confirm those of a huge U.S. study released last month, which found no link to cancer.
Go ahead, pop that Diet. Mr Pibbs.
If you want an idea of America’s image in the world, consider this: Of the 32 official buses transporting teams competing in soccer World Cup, only America’s will not bear its national flag--for security reasons.
While almost all media organizations reported that CIA veteran Ray McGovern publicly clashed with Rumsfeld, most labeled him a “heckler” or a “hostile war critic.” Few bothered to mention that McGovern was indisputably correct: Rumsfeld’s 2003 comments on Iraqi WMD were flat-out false.
Ray McGovern, the retired CIA veteran who sharply challenged Rumsfeld’s war rationales, angrily swatted away CNN’s Paula Zahn’s questions about McGovern’s motives. This was “not a matter of axes to grind. Its a matter of telling the truth.”
New Yorker staff writer and Berkeley professor Mark Danner has a new book exploring America’s scandalous indifference to the Downing Street Memo--the “smoking gun” that all but proves Bush was set on going to war in Iraq eight months before the actual invasion.
Ray McGovern, a retired 27-year veteran of the CIA, leaves Donald Rumsfeld sputtering as he pulls apart the secretary of defense’s flawed rationale for the Iraq war--on live television.
The Republican senator announced the move in the wake of news that Bush used “signing statements” to assert his supposed right to circumvent more than 750 laws passed over the last five years.
Legal scholars say the breadth of Bush’s use of “signing statements” is unprecedented.
In a new book, Salon senior writer Eric Boehlert chronicles “one of the great journalistic collapses of our time”: the media’s failure to sufficiently challenge the president in the run-up to the Iraq war. Check out the extended excerpt.
In a last-minute about-face, the Mexican president will not OK a bill that would have greatly loosened penalties on possession of personal amounts of drugs. It’s apparently the result of U.S. pressure.
Bailout or Bust: How to Save the Big Three From Themselves
