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Morning headlines brought to you by Carolyn Kay MakeThemAccountable.com Top StoryHillary Clinton says she’ll vote against funding the Iraq war!
(On Meet the Press Sunday:) “I voted against funding last spring - I understand we are going to have vote shortly about funding and I will vote against it. Because I think it’s the only way that we can demonstrate clearly that we have to change direction.”
Click through to watch the video.—Caro The Heretik
The WorldUS says Iran smuggling missiles to Iraq
BAGHDAD - The U.S. military accused Iran on Sunday of smuggling surface-to-air missiles and other advanced weapons into Iraq for use against American troops. The new allegations came as Iraqi leaders condemned the latest U.S. detention of an Iranian in northern Iraq, saying the man was in their country on official business.
Iran closes border with northern Iraq
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq - Iran closed major border crossings with northern Iraq on Monday to protest the U.S. detention of an Iranian official the military accused of weapons smuggling, a Kurdish official said.
Iran watching U.S. troops, says in missile range
TEHRAN (Reuters) - U.S. troop movements are being monitored by Iran using satellites and other technology and would be in range of Iranian missiles if an attack was launched, a top Iranian military official said.
How George Bush became the new Saddam
Its strategies shattered, a desperate Washington is reaching out to the late dictator's henchmen.
Iraq: Blackwater guards fired unprovoked
Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in a shooting last week that left 11 people dead, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case was referred to the Iraqi judiciary.
U.S. Repeatedly Rebuffed Iraq on Blackwater Complaints
BAGHDAD, Sept. 22 -- Senior Iraqi officials repeatedly complained to U.S. officials about Blackwater USA's alleged involvement in the deaths of numerous Iraqis, but the Americans took little action to regulate the private security firm until 11 Iraqis were shot dead last Sunday, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
Israelis seized nuclear material in Syrian raid
Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem. The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say.
Olmert: Don't want conflict with Syria
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday said Israel is not interested in violent conflict with Syria, adding that he is confident that recent tensions with Israel's archenemy will subside, Israeli media reported.
Riot police disperse Pakistan protesters
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police intensified a crackdown Monday that opposition parties say has left hundreds of activists in custody while the Supreme Court dismissed three challenges to the re-election bid of Pakistan's military leader.
Myanmar protesters number 100,000
YANGON, Myanmar - Some 100,000 anti-government protesters led by a phalanx of Buddhist monks marched Monday through Yangon, the largest crowd to demonstrate in Myanmar's biggest city since a 1988 pro-democracy uprising that was brutally crushed by the military. The NationSecret US air force team to perfect plan for Iran strike
THE United States Air Force has set up a highly confidential strategic planning group tasked with “fighting the next war” as tensions rise with Iran. Project Checkmate, a successor to the group that planned the 1991 Gulf War’s air campaign, was quietly reestablished at the Pentagon in June… Checkmate’s job is to add a dash of brilliance to Air Force thinking by countering the military’s tendency to “fight the last war” and by providing innovative strategies for warfighting and assessing future needs for air, space and cyberwarfare.
The brilliant thing to do would be to figure out ways not to have any war at all. Where’s the planning for that?—Caro
Report: Cheney may have mulled pushing Israel to hit Iran
Newsweek Magazine reported Sunday that Vice President Richard Cheney may have considered a plan for Israeli missile strikes against an Iranian nuclear site in an effort to draw a military response from Iran, which could in turn spark a U.S. offensive against targets in the Islamic Republic.
Military chief: 'No war' with Iran
The commander of U.S. military forces in the Middle East does not believe current tensions with Iran will lead to war and urges for greater emphasis on dialogue and diplomacy. "This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me which is not helpful and not useful," Adm. William Fallon said in an interview with Al-Jazeera television, which made a partial transcript available Sunday.
Case Dismissed?
Sept. 20, 2007 - The nation’s biggest telecommunications companies, working closely with the White House, have mounted a secretive lobbying campaign to get Congress to quickly approve a measure wiping out all private lawsuits against them for assisting the U.S. intelligence community’s warrantless surveillance programs. The campaign—which involves some of Washington's most prominent lobbying and law firms—has taken on new urgency in recent weeks because of fears that a U.S. appellate court in San Francisco is poised to rule that the lawsuits should be allowed to proceed.
Missteps in the Bunker
Three weeks after word of (nuclear warheads being flown from North Dakota to Louisiana) leaked to the public, new details obtained by The Washington Post point to security failures at multiple levels in North Dakota and Louisiana, according to interviews with current and former U.S. officials briefed on the initial results of an Air Force investigation of the incident… A simple error in a missile storage room led to missteps at every turn, as ground crews failed to notice the warheads, and as security teams and flight crew members failed to provide adequate oversight and check the cargo thoroughly.
Agent accused of tracking ex-girlfriend
SAN JOSE, Calif., 21 (UPI) -- A U.S. Commerce Department employee is accused of illegally accessing information about an old girlfriend… (Benjamin) Robinson -- who was a special agent for the U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Export Enforcement -- Bureau of Industry and Security, is accused of tracking the travel patterns of his girlfriend and her family.
U.S. Attorney in Minnesota Faces Probe
Immediately upon arriving in Minneapolis last year as the nation's youngest U.S. attorney, Rachel K. Paulose made little secret of her political views or her desire to focus on key Bush administration initiatives, such as pushing for "righteous sentences" in child pornography cases, according to current and former employees… Now, the 34-year-old Yale University Law School graduate is the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel into allegations that she mishandled classified information, retaliated against those who crossed her, and made racist remarks about a support staff employee, said multiple sources in Minnesota and Washington.
Bush: Kids' health care will get vetoed
WASHINGTON - President Bush again called Democrats "irresponsible" on Saturday for pushing an expansion he opposes to a children's health insurance program.
Senate to devote $1B to fight gangs
WASHINGTON - The Senate Friday agreed to devote $1 billion over the next five years to combat street gangs and protect witnesses of gang violence.
CEOs, Bush Rangers Rebuff Republicans on War, Widening Deficit
Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Dozens of corporate executives who backed President George W. Bush for re-election in 2004, including some of his top fund-raisers, are now helping Democrats running for president. John Mack, chief executive officer of Morgan Stanley, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., and Terry Semel, chairman of Yahoo! Inc., are among some 60 executives writing checks to Democrats such as Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, a review of U.S. Federal Election Commission records shows. MediaPermanent link to MTA daily media news
No moving on from 'General Betray Us' story; NYT admits mistake, MoveOn issues new challenge
(Sunday), Times public editor Clark Hoyt reported that the newspaper admits it made a mistake by not charging MoveOn the "standard" rate of slightly more than $142,000. And, Hoyt wrote, the Times also (in his opinion) violated "an internal advertising acceptability manual that says, 'We do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature.' "… MoveOn issued a statement this afternoon saying that it will send the Times a check for $77,083 to cover the difference between what it was charged and the higher rate that it should have paid. MoveOn executive director Eli Pariser challenged the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani to do the same. Giuliani has run a full-page ad of his own in the Times (paying the discount rate) and has been critical of both the group and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (for not condemning MoveOn).
Okay, fellow progressives, our mission—should we choose to accept it—is to find out whether the New York Times ran any of the Swift Boat Liars’ ads that personally attacked John Kerry.—Caro
Hard Lessons from MoveOn Fiasco
The Right’s powerful ideological media – stretching from newspapers, magazine and book publishing to talk radio, TV networks and the Internet – is arguably the most intimidating force in modern American politics. There is nothing remotely comparable – in size, reach or funding – on the Left. Indeed, this asymmetry in U.S. media not only has contributed mightily to the existence of George W. Bush’s presidency and the Iraq War, but may be viewed by future historians as a key factor in what doomed the American Republic, as propaganda, fear-mongering and intimidation substituted for fact, reason and balanced debate.
David Brooks Wins Wanker Of The Week On This Week
Despite being consistently wrong in his cheerleading of the war, consistently clueless in his support of neo-con ideologies that are negatively affecting everything they touch (the economy, our reputation on the world stage, everything but CEO’s bottom lines), David feels that anyone who doesn’t see things his way can’t be serious.
Newt's Vision Thing
Sycophantic prose permeates Broder's latest salvo of dubious campaign analysis, in which he observes that "if there is any politician of the current generation who has earned the label 'visionary,' it is probably the Georgia Republican" Newt Gingrich… But a key part of Gingrich's "vision" is absent from Broder's piece: One of his major contributions to public debate has been consistently vengeful and distorted attacks on the specter of "liberal elite media"—then again, this fits right in with Broder's own propensity for deceitful attack journalism.
The Chris Matthews Show: Bloggers’ Influence on Politics
Welcome to the big time, bloggers. According to Chris Matthews–taking cues from Bush, natch–we’re in charge of the Democratic Party… He calls MoveOn’s anti-war efforts (and let’s be clear, they are anti-Iraq occupation, not reflexively anti-war in general) indicative of the far left and turns around and immediately agrees with (Andrew) Sullivan that 80% of the population are anti-war now… 80% of the population being far left is one hell of a strange bell curve, Tweety.
Click through to watch the video.—Caro
News media's reluctance to use L word appears to be eroding
That's lie (not liberal). Jack Shafer looks at the political fact checking departments just started by the Washington Post and Poynter's St. Petersburg Times. Both "hand out harsh grades to fabricators," he says. Media prof Mark Feldstein sees the features as an example of the press adapting to a more competitive environment, noting that "bloggers are not loath to call people liars."
Grisham: Bushies are ‘bad people with evil intent.’
On Thursday, best-selling author John Grisham said in an interview with the Des Moines Register that the Bush administration is built around “bad people with evil intent.” “The war is an immoral abomination that we’ll pay for for decades to come,” added Grisham. “We’re paying for it now at the rate of 100 kids a month while Bush plays politics with it.”
Click through to listen to the interview.—Caro
'Accountability Journalism,' AP Style
Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier writes that “a political attack doesn’t need to be right to work,” but Barrett counters that "one thing a political attack does need to work—whether it’s right or wrong—is for reporters to give it a thorough airing, to ensure that it gets proper traction with voters." Fournier's campaign analysis "regurgitates many of oppo(sition candidate) research’s greatest hits on John Edwards before, ultimately, leaving it to 'discerning voters' to judge 'whether (Edwards is) a man of the people or not.'"
The 'too much information' campaign (by Steve Benen at Talking Points Memo)
The New York Times laments the fact (Sunday) that today's presidential candidates are sharing too much information about themselves. “Barack Obama gets morning breath. Elizabeth Edwards felt her rib pop during some good loving with her husband, John. And Rudolph W. Giuliani, by the testimony of no less than his third wife, is a really-high-testosterone guy. Must we go there?”… I couldn't agree more. Given that the NYT has run lengthy reports on Hillary Clinton's cleavage and John Edwards' hair, are we to assume that today's piece is something of a mea culpa? That trivial revelations about candidates' personal lives won't get lengthy treatments from the paper anymore?
RUDY THE BUFFOON....
Rudy Giuliani told a crowd today that he'd like to lower taxes on the rich by eliminating the AMT, but that the only fair way to do this is if we also lower taxes on the rich by making the Bush tax cuts permanent… Nobody forces Rudy to say this stuff. He just flatly doesn't know what he's talking about. He's a buffoon. It's time for the press corps to take notice and quit giving him a pass on this stuff.
Pay for a tax cut with another tax cut. Yeah, that’s the ticket.—Caro
Starbucks to give away free iTunes songs
SEATTLE - Starbucks Corp. plans to give away 50 million free digital songs to customers in all of its domestic coffee houses to promote a new wireless iTunes music service that's about to debut in select markets. Technology & ScienceNew service eavesdrops on Internet calls
NEW YORK - A startup has come up with a new way to make money from phone calls connected via the Internet: having software listen to the calls, then displaying ads on the callers' computer screens based on what's being talked about.
Laptop project set for 2 weeks in Nov.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The project that hopes to supply developing-world schoolchildren with $188 laptops will sell the rugged little computers to U.S. residents and Canadians for $400 each, with the profit going toward a machine for a poor country.
Xerox: Color at a B&W Price
Black-and-white printers may rule the market, but a new Xerox offering aims to put color into more paper at a similar cost
Software That Fills a Cellphone Gap
Software radio could offer an elegant solution to a vexing problem: how to have a single handset communicate across multiple networks.
Have Scientists Discovered Intuition?
Whenever humans recognize a mistake, a mysterious wave of electricity passes through the brain. Researchers think the signal could explain addiction, error correction and even the sixth sense.
Teenage Drinking Can Spell Lasting Trouble
The earlier kids abuse alcohol, the more likely it is to persist, experts say
NASA Plans Black Hole Finder
A NASA mission to find black holes in our local universe has been restarted after cancellation early last year. The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, is expected to expand scientists' understanding of the origins and destinies of stars and galaxies. The project was canceled in February 2006 due to lack of funding.
Hidden Galaxies Detected
Deer can't see cars at night because of blindingly bright headlights. And until now, astronomers couldn't see foreground galaxies outshined by the dazzling quasars behind them.
Search is on for Hot Young Stars
On average, at least three gamma-ray bursts occur somewhere in the heavens each day. Shri Kulkarni has trained his eyes up to these new wonders with his latest research in this emerging field. Kulkarni’s studies focus on long duration gamma-ray bursts. These bursts occur when a young massive star burns through its hydrogen core. EnvironmentRising Sea Levels to Flood U.S. Historical Sites
Ultimately, rising seas will likely swamp the first American settlement in Jamestown, Va., as well as the Florida launch pad that sent the first American into orbit, many climate scientists are predicting. In about a century, some of the places that make America what it is may be slowly erased.
Ozone deal called boost to fighting climate change
OTTAWA (Reuters) - A deal by 191 nations to eliminate ozone-depleting substances 10 years ahead of schedule is a "pivotal moment" in the fight against global warming, Canadian Environment Minister John Baird said on Saturday.
New Low Cost Solar Panels Ready for Mass Production
Colorado State University's method for manufacturing low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels is nearing mass production… Produced at less than $1 per watt, the panels will dramatically reduce the cost of generating solar electricity and could power homes and businesses around the globe with clean energy for roughly the same cost as traditionally generated electricity.
Regulation key to greener buildings
Regulation is the most effective means to achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions from buildings, a sector which accounts for some 30-40 % of global energy use. Regulatory and control instruments such as building codes and appliance standards are the most effective way to increase energy efficiency, and so mitigate the industry's impact on global warming. For more headlines, visit MakeThemAccountable.com. |
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