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BOOKS News: Writers, Reviews, and Literacy News: 20090213 Mitch McConnell - Economic - Emergency - Jobs - Accounting - Politics - Opinion - People - Social Security - Government - Reference - Book - Kentucky "Revisionists' blind view of New Deal." ... "[N]early eight decades after [Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt] FDR launched the New Deal, amid possibly the greatest economic emergency since the 1930s, it’s important to understand that the most sophisticated arguments seeking to demolish the New Deal are based on a misreading of the bulk of the historical evidence. University of California, Davis historian Eric Rauchway, the author of “The Great Depression & The New Deal: A Very Short Introduction,” dismantled Shlaes’ argument in a 2007 review in Slate. He showed how [right wing writer Amity] Shlaes had tried to diminish the nation’s economic growth during the 1930s using the narrow gauge of the Dow Jones Industrial Average as opposed to the gross domestic product." ... "Shlaes cited unemployment figures that excluded Americans who had New Deal-generated jobs, and she virtually ignored what Rauchway calls “the authoritative reference work Historical Statistics of the United States.” That reference book shows that during FDR’s first term, the real GDP grew by some 9 percent annually; and after the 1937-38 recession, the economy grew at an annual clip of 11 percent. By the fall of 1934, another New Deal historian, William E. Leuchtenburg, explains, “the ranks of the unemployed had been reduced by over 2 million and national income stood almost a quarter higher than in 1933.”" ... "The Shlaes-[ Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch] McConnell anti-New Deal critics tend to minimize the enduring contribution of laws such as the Wagner Act, which established workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, and the Social Security Act of 1935 that provided for unemployment as well as old-age insurance. They highlight, instead, the failure of the National Industrial Recovery Act to fuel economic growth, overlook the ways in which the New Deal alleviated people’s misery and rarely acknowledge that World War II lifted the economy and ultimately ended the Depression because the national government joined closely with the private sector to provide a massive stimulus in the form of federal wartime spending." ... "FDR’s New Deal had its share of failures, setbacks and problems. But to argue that it harmed the American people, “failed abysmally” (Shlaes’ words) to reduce unemployment, and retarded economic growth is to twist the historical evidence beyond all reasonable recognition. Such arguments are forms of revisionism that are misleading, polemical and riddled with distortions of the overwhelming facts at hand about the New Deal’s achievements as well as its real shortcomings. " -By Matthew Dallek -Politico.com 20090211 Science - Education - Book - Religious - People - Poll "On Darwin’s Birthday, Only 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution: Belief drops to 24% among frequent church attenders." ... "On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, a new Gallup Poll shows that only 39% of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution," while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don't have an opinion either way. These attitudes are strongly related to education and, to an even greater degree, religiosity." ... "Darwin's theory has been at the forefront of religious debate since he published On the Origin of Species 150 years ago. Even to this day, highly religious individuals claim that the theory of evolution contradicts the story of creation as outlined in the book of Genesis in the Bible." ... "Implications" ... "As Darwin is being lauded as one of the most important scientists in history on the 200th anniversary of his birth (on Feb. 12, 1809), it is perhaps dismaying to scientists who study and respect his work to see that well less than half of Americans today say they believe in the theory of evolution, and that just 55% can associate the man with his theory." ... "Naturally, some of this is because of educational differences. Americans who have lower levels of formal education are significantly less likely than others to be able to identity Darwin with his theory, and to have an opinion on it either way. Still, the evidence is clear that even to this day, Americans' religious beliefs are a significant predictor of their attitudes toward Darwin's theory. Those who attend church most often are the least likely to believe in evolution, and most likely to say they do not believe in it." -By Frank Newport -Gallup.com 20090210 Financial - Crisis - Government - Accounting - Politics - History - Author - Texas "Economist James Galbraith: Bailed-Out Banks Should Be Declared Insolvent." ... "With estimates of the cost of addressing the financial crisis exceeding $9.7 trillion, we speak with economist and University of Texas professor James Galbraith, author of [the book] The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too. Galbraith says rather than pouring billions into propping up troubled giant banks, the government should declare them insolvent." ... Watch - Listen JAMES GALBRAITH: ... "[W]hen you’re dealing with a bank which has already basically rendered itself insolvent by virtue of its complicity—it’s basically seeking for easy money, for big profits, out of mortgage originations and underwriting fees in the last part of this decade—then you’re dealing with a bank which is already underwater. The risk capital is already worth nothing. It’s being held up only by the expectation of a federal bailout." ... "The management is—the problem with leaving the management in place is that you cannot rely on the existing management to give you a full and fair accounting of what is in the books of the bank and what the practices of the bank are. That is why you need to bring in a new team. You need to bring in a team which is nominated by the FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation], which has as its first objective coming clean, going through the books of the bank and separating the good assets from the bad assets, the assets which are—which have a reasonable chance of continuing to earn income from the assets which need to be written down or written off. Then you can make an assessment of just how big the losses are and what has to be done, whether the bank itself should be closed, which is sometimes the case; whether it can find a merger partner, which is sometimes the case; or whether what you do is reorganize it, isolate the bad assets from the good assets and relaunch the good assets as part of a new bank. One thing or another has to be done. And when it’s done, you can begin to basically grow the economy on the basis of these new newly reconstructed credit institutions." ... "But so long as you’re dealing with the old management and so long as you’re dealing with the old practices and so long as you don’t have a clean audit of the books, the chances are that the bank is going to behave in ways which are not constructive, which do not contribute to the growth of the economy, and which leave all kinds of suspicions present in the system about the integrity of the institution and of the regulatory process. And that’s the problem the Treasury Department seems to be determined not to face." ... "And so long as it doesn’t face it, we’re not going to get out of this, and the Treasury Department is not contributing constructively to the success of the recovery plan, which the Congress is about to enact. And that will mean that the recovery plan itself will be, sort of after the fact, too small to deal the problem of unemployment, which is just growing at the rate of a half a million jobs a month. So we are—and that’s the dilemma that we’re in." AMY GOODMAN: "Professor Galbraith, are you for nationalizing banks?" JAMES GALBRAITH: "You know, I think the term is a political misleading term. I learned a few months ago that in 1982, at the time of the Latin American debt crisis, the [Republican President] Reagan administration’s FDIC had a contingency plan to nationalize the major banks in the case that a major Latin American country—let’s say Mexico or Argentina or Brazil—had defaulted outright on its debt. This was not something that administration would have wanted to do. In the end, they didn’t have to do it. But they had a plan to do it, if it was necessary because the banks were rendered insolvent by the running to ruin of a major class of assets." ... "Well, we have a major class of assets—that is to say, all of these subprime mortgage-backed securities—which have run to ruin. They should never have been issued in the first place. They are very, very highly likely to default. They were issued on terms which makes them basically unmarketable, because there is not adequate loan documentation. And when there is loan documentation, that documentation evidently indicates that the loans are likely to go bad, so that nobody outside will buy them. That’s a problem that exists in the banking system, and the regulators simply have to deal with it." ... "And I don’t think—you know, it’s not—we’re not in 1945 in Attlee’s Britain, where we are taking the commanding heights of their economy or anything like that. We are doing what regulators always have to do, in conservative and liberal administrations, when faced with major intractable insolvencies in the financial system. If you don’t deal with that, the problem of fraud and loss just gets worse. And the losses that are incurred after insolvency are losses that fall on the taxpayer, because they come against deposits that are insured. So, one way or another, until we deal with this, the taxpayers’ liability just gets bigger and bigger." AMY GOODMAN: "Professor Galbraith, I hate to ask you this last question with just about thirty seconds to go, but it’s about the title of your book and what it means, The Predator State." JAMES GALBRAITH: "Well, the Predator State refers to the takeover of state power by private interests masquerading behind conservative principle and basically acting for private clients and private profit. That was the [Republican President] Bush administration in a nutshell. The title goes back to Veblen and a bit to my father’s New Industrial State, and it’s an attempt to capture in two words a phenomenon that I think really has transformed our economy, much for the worse in the last several decades." -DemocracyNow.org 20090108 Dick Cheney - Douglas J Feith - "Scooter" Libby - Noteworthy - Military - Politics - History - Book - Petroleum - Money - US - Israel - Palestine -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  "Neoconservatism dies in Gaza: he recent Israeli offensive has put the final nail in the coffin of the [Republican President] Bush administration's Middle East fantasy." ... "The Gaza War of 2009 is a final and eloquent testimony to the complete failure of the neoconservative movement in United States foreign policy. For over a decade, the leading figures in this school of thought saw the violent overthrow of [Iraqi leader] Saddam Hussein and the institution of a parliamentary regime in Iraq as the magic solution to all the problems in the Middle East. They envisioned, in the wake of the fall of Baghdad [Iraq's capital], the moderation of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the overthrow of the Baath Party in Syria and the Khomeinist regime in Iran, the deepening of the alliance with Turkey, the marginalization of Saudi Arabia, a new era of cheap petroleum, and a final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on terms favorable to Israel. After eight years in which they strode the globe like colossi, they have left behind a devastated moonscape reminiscent of some post-apocalyptic B movie. As their chief enabler prepares to exit the White House, the only nation they have strengthened is Iran; the only alliance they have deepened is that between Iran and two militant Islamist entities to Israel's north and south, Hezbollah and Hamas." ... "The neoconservatives first laid out their manifesto in a 1996 paper, "A Clean Break," written for an obscure think tank in Jerusalem [Israel's capital] and intended for the eyes of far right-wing Israeli politician Binyamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party, who had just been elected prime minister. They advised Israel to renounce the Oslo [Norway's capital] peace process and reject the principle of trading land for peace, instead dealing with the Palestinians with an iron fist. They urged Israel to uphold the right of hot pursuit of Palestinian guerrillas and to find alternatives to Yasser Arafat's Fatah for the Palestinian leadership. They called forth Israeli airstrikes on targets in Syria and rejection of negotiations with Damascus [Syria's capital]. They foresaw strengthened ties between Israel and its two regional friends, Turkey and Jordan." ... "They advocated "removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq," in part as a way of "rolling back" Syria. In place of the secular, republican tyrant, they fantasized about the restoration of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq, and thought that a Sunni king might help moderate the Shiite Hezbollah in south Lebanon. (Yes.) They barely mentioned Iran, though it appears that their program of expelling Syria from Lebanon and weakening its regime was in part aimed at depriving Iran of its main Arab ally. In a 1999 book called "Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein," David Wurmser argued that it was false to fear that installing the Iraqi Shiites in power in Baghdad would strengthen Iran regionally." ... "The signatories to this fantasy of using brute military power to reshape all of West Asia included some figures who would go on to fill key positions in the Bush administration. Richard Perle, a former assistant secretary of defense under Reagan, became chairman of the influential Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, a civilian oversight body for the Pentagon. Douglas J. Feith became the undersecretary of defense for planning. David Wurmser first served in Feith's propaganda shop, the Office of Special Plans, which manufactured the case for an American war on Iraq, and then went on to serve with "Scooter" Libby in the office of [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney." ... "The neoconservatives used their well-funded think tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP, an organ of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and the Hudson Institute, among others, to promote this agenda of the conquest of Iraq as a solution of all ills." ... "The biggest danger facing the United States is that there will be no true "Clean Break" -- that the neoconservatives will somehow find a way to survive the Bush administration, and continue to influence American foreign policy." (1, 2) -By Juan Cole -Salon 20081218 Barack Obama - Gay - Politics - Religion - Book - People - Children - Girls - Schools - US - Pakistan - Palestine - British - Soviet - Military - History "Three Cups of Tea for Rick Warren." ... "Rick Warren is providing the invocation for the [Democratic President Elect Barack Obama's] presidential inauguration. As a pastor whose books have been read by tens of millions of Americans and whose voice is respected by an equal or larger number, he has tremendous influence and power. And as an open homophobe who aggressively works to wound gay people in this country (as well as pretty much anybody else who doesn’t believe with his own particular and peculiar recently-invented version of Christian theology) he should be the guy with the bull’s-eye on his back for the progressive movement." ... "But consider that metaphor for a moment. In Pakistan there are entire regions filled with people who not only hate gays but hate Americans as well, regardless of religion. We've tried bombing them (as the Soviets did, and the British before them). Three consecutive Western empires have tried threatening them, starving them, poisoning them, infiltrating them, and overpowering them - all without success." ... "And then Greg Mortenson came to one of their villages, had three cups of tea with them (a metaphor for hospitality - they nursed him back to health after a mountain climbing injury - and the title of his best-selling book), and now in dozens of these formerly Taliban-controlled villages the people are rejecting the Taliban, embracing modernity, and openly proclaiming themselves as our friends." ... "His "weapon" for this conversion? He built schools for their children, particularly their previously-banned-from-school girls." ... "We pushed the Palestinians on the West Bank to have open and democratic elections, assuming that because they were using the tool of our culture (the secret ballot) they’d vote in people reflecting the values of our culture. Instead, they voted in Hamas, a group that is openly hostile to us and our allies. Hamas’ “weapon” for winning the hearts and minds of the Palestinians? They supported schools, hospitals, and fed and clothed people." ... "You’d think that we’d have learned from these experiences - particularly those of us who call ourselves “progressives” - that you get your desired results faster when you embrace, engage, and nurture your “enemies” than when you physically or rhetorically bomb them." ... "Barack Obama has learned that lesson, and is applying it in inviting Rick Warren to perform the invocation for his inauguration. In doing so, he is reaching out a hand to those who today are - out of fear and ignorance - pushing away gays the same way their intellectual ancestors pushed away African Americans when anti-miscegenation laws were supported by most of these same “fundamentalist” Christian churches in the 1950s and 1960s." -By Thom Hartmann -ThomHartmann.com 20081020 Barack Obama - Madelyn Payne Dunham - Grandmother - Hawaii - Illinois - Kansas - Politics - Race - History - Book - 2008 Election "Obama's grandmother fights to see him elected." ... "Madelyn Payne Dunham gave young [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate] Barack Obama a place to call home while his mother traveled the world. When he needed money for school, she went without new clothes to help pay his tuition." ... "And when the Illinois Senator decided to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, Dunham provided the "Kansas heartland" pedigree he needed to appeal to conservative white voters — and a personal anecdote about racial prejudice that helped the man with the foreign name and Ivy League resume connect with the African-American experience." ... "The 85-year-old former bank executive is said to be "gravely ill" after falling and breaking her hip, and some reports suggest she might not live to see the results of the Nov. 4 election. Whatever happens, she's already lived long enough to see her "Barry" achieve what she'd wanted for him, her brother says." ... "Although he made his mark thousands of miles from the Honolulu [Hawaii's capital] apartment where she helped raise him, Obama and others credit Dunham — whose birthday is Sunday — with instilling in him an appreciation for education and hard work, and with setting an example of thrift, practicality and tolerance." ... ""I think there's nobody more important than her, except his mother, in shaping his character," said David Mendell, who interviewed Dunham in 2004 for the Chicago Tribune and later wrote the book, "Obama: From Promise to Power."" ... "While her husband [Obama's grandfather, Stanley Dunham] was away in the Army during World War II, she was home raising their daughter, Stanley Ann, and supervising a B-29 bomber assembly line at the Boeing plant in Wichita [Kansas]." -By Allen G. Breed -AP via -Google Obama's Grandmother: Madelyn Payne Dunham Obama's Grandparents: Stanley Armour Dunham and Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham Barack Obama's Grandparents 20081014 History - Book - California -US - Global "Taleb's `Black Swan' Investors Post Gains as Markets Take Dive." ... "Investors advised by ``Black Swan'' author Nassim Taleb have gained 50 percent or more this year as his strategies for navigating big swings in share prices paid off amid the worst stock market in seven decades." ... "Universa Investments LP, the Santa Monica, California-based firm where Taleb is an adviser, has about $1 billion in accounts managed to hedge clients against big moves in financial markets. Returns for the year through Oct. 10 ranged as high as 110 percent, according to investor documents. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 39 percent in the same period." ... "The S&P 500 dropped 18 percent last week, its worst week since 1933, on concern that the credit crunch would cripple the financial system and trigger a global recession." ... "As a trader turned philosopher, Taleb has railed against Wall Street risk managers who attempt to predict market movements. Even so, Taleb said he saw the banking crisis coming." ... "``The financial ecology is swelling into gigantic, incestuous, bureaucratic banks -- when one fails, they all fall,'' Taleb wrote in ``The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,'' which was published in 2007." ... "Taleb said the current crisis is a ``White Swan'', not a Black Swan, because it was something bound to happen." -By Stephanie Baker -Bloomberg 20080921 John McCain - Corporate - Government - Disaster - Politics- US_Debt - Healthcare - Social Security - Rights - Book - 2008 Election "Naomi Klein: Financial crisis part of Bush 'shock doctrine'." ... "The bailout of Wall Street’s largest players by the federal government is another example of the [Republican President] Bush administration pursuing a corporate agenda at the expense of average Americans, a prominent author argued on Friday." ... "In a Friday night interview on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Naomi Klein said President Bush’s $700 billion proposal to rescue the financial sector stems from a profiteering streak that has dominated the last eight years." ... ""The disaster is far from over," Klein said. "The disaster was on Wall Street and they have moved the disaster to Main Street."" ... "Referring to the bailout, Klein said the "bomb has yet to detonate" and that the real crisis will strike when tax payers are overwhelmed when faced with the debt from the bailouts." ... "According to Klein, the bomb will detonate if Sen. John McCain becomes president and "rationalizes" that it is necessary to privatize government programs like social security and healthcare because neither the government nor Americans can afford them." ... ""The real disaster has yet to come; the real disaster is the debt that is going to explode on American tax payers," Klein said." ... "Klein’s book, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," outlines how crises, real or perceived, have been used by governments, especially the United States under George W. Bush, to strong-arm a disoriented citizenry into accepting changes to its rights, and its government, that it wouldn't otherwise accept." -By David Edwards and Andrew McLemore -RawStory.com WATCH: Naomi Klein on Republican Bush's "Shock Doctrine" 20080805 Dick Cheney - US - Iraq - Military - Intelligence - Terrorism - Politics - History - Book "Did White House fake link between Saddam and Al Qaeda?" ... "First, former CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] Director George Tenet told the president it was a "slam dunk" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Then came efforts by the [Republican President] Bush White House to discredit critics, like ambassador Joe Wilson, who questioned the wisdom of going to war in Iraq." ... "Now comes a new book by author Ron Suskind claiming that the [Republican President Bush] White House ordered the CIA to forge and backdate a handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein to link the Iraq regime to Al Qaeda. The White House calls the assertion nonsense." ... "In “The Way of the World,” to be published today, Suskind writes:" "The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001. It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq –- thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the vice president’s office [Republican Dick Cheney] had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link." "Suskind says the order to forge such a letter was written on “creamy White House stationery” but gives no details about how it was created or how it was delivered to Iraq." -By Johanna Neuman -LAtimes Political - Terrorism - Intelligence -Crime - Noteworthy - Government - Law - US - Iraq - Military -History - Journalist "Author claims White House knew Iraq had no WMD: Journalist Ron Suskind says [Republican President] Bush ordered forgery linking Saddam, al-Qaeda." ... "President Bush committed an impeachable offense by ordering the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] to to manufacture a false pretense for the Iraq war in the form of a backdated, handwritten document linking Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, an explosive new book claims." ... "The charge is made in “The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism” by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, released today." ... "Suskind says he spoke on the record with U.S. [United States] intelligence officials who stated that Bush was informed unequivocally in January 2003 that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Nonetheless, his book relates, Bush decided to invade Iraq three months later — with the forged letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam bolstering the U.S. [United States] rationale to go into war." ... "“It was a dark day for the CIA,” Suskind told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira on Tuesday. “It was the kind of thing where [the CIA] said, ‘Look, this is not our charge. We’re not here to carry forth a political mandate — which is clearly what this was — to solve a political problem in America.’ And it was a cause of great grievance inside of the agency.”" ... "The author writes that Bush’s action is “one of the greatest lies in modern American political history” and suggests it is a crime of greater impact than Watergate." ... "The letter" ... "On page 371 of “The Way of the World,” Suskind describes the [Republican President Bush's] White House’s concoction of a forged letter purportedly from the hand of [Iraqi intelligence chief Tahir Jalil] Habbush to Saddam Hussein to justify the United States’ decision to go to war." ... "CIA officers [Bob] Richer and John Maguire, who oversaw the Iraq Operations Group, are both on the record in Suskind’s book confirming the existence of the fake Habbush letter." -By Bob Considine -MSNBC WATCH: Ron Suskind interview on TODAY show. Government - Intelligence - Secretly - Marketing - Media -Opinion - Noteworthy - Military - Terrorism - Political - History - Book - US - Iraq "Book says White House ordered forgery." ... "A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein." ... "Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war." ... "Suskind writes in his new book that the order to create the letter was written on “creamy White House stationery.” The book suggests that the letter was subsequently created by the CIA and delivered to Iraq, but does not say how." ... "The author claims that such an operation, part of “false pretenses” for war, would apparently constitute illegal White House use of the CIA to influence a domestic audience, an arguably impeachable offense." ... "Suskind writes that the White House had “ignored the Iraq intelligence chief’s accurate disclosure that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion." ... "“They secretly resettled him in Jordan, paid him $5 million – which one could argue was hush money – and then used his captive status to help deceive the world about one of the era’s most crushing truths: that America had gone to war under false pretenses,” the book says." ... "Suskind writes that the forgery “operation created by the White House and passed to the CIA seems inconsistent with” a statute saying the CIA may not conduct covert operations “intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies or media.”" ... "“It is not the sort of offense, such as assault or burglary, that carries specific penalties, for example, a fine or jail time,” Suskind writes. “It is much broader than that. It pertains to the White House’s knowingly misusing an arm of government, the sort of thing generally taken up in impeachment proceedings.”" -By Mike Allen -Politico.com 20080728 Jim David Adkisson - Terrorism - Media - Politics - Radio - TV/Channel - Tennessee - Religion - Law - Police "Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity on accused shooter's reading list: 4-page letter outlines frustration, hatred of 'liberal movement'." ... "Police found right-wing political books, brass knuckles, empty shotgun shell boxes and a handgun in the Powell [Tennessee] home of a man who said he attacked a church in order to kill liberals "who are ruining the country," court records show." ... "Knoxville police Sunday evening searched the Levy Drive home of Jim David Adkisson after he allegedly entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and killed two people and wounded six others during the presentation of a children's musical." ... "Knoxville Police Department Officer Steve Still requested the search warrant after interviewing Adkisson. who was subdued by several church members after firing three rounds from a 12-gauge shotgun into the congregation." ... "Adkisson targeted the church, Still wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets."" ... "Adkisson told Still that "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office."" ... "Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly [the latter two work for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp subsidiary Fox TV]." ... "The shotgun-wielding suspect in Sunday's mass shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was motivated by a hatred of "the liberal movement," and he planned to shoot until police shot him, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV said this morning." ... "Adkisson, 58, of Powell wrote a four-page letter in which he stated his "hatred of the liberal movement," Owen said. "Liberals in general, as well as gays."" ... "Owen said Adkisson specifically targeted the church for its beliefs, rather than a particular member of the congregation." -By Hayes Hickman with contributions by Bob Fowler, J.J. Stambaugh, Frank Munger and Amy McRary -KnoxNews.com 20080602 US - Military - Intelligence - Government - Politics - Unlawful - Iraq - Afghanistan - Torture - Prisons - History - Book "Lt. Gen Sanchez: [Republican President] Bush Administration Guilty of "Gross Incompetence and Dereliction of Duty"." ... "In [retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez's book] "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story," [General] Gen. Sanchez goes into detail about various military blunders that led to where we are today." ... "In one excerpt, published by TIME, Sanchez explains why there were inadequate troop levels in Iraq for a time:" [From retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez's book, "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story:] ""CENTCOM had originally called for twelve to eighteen months of Phase IV activity with active troop deployments. But then CENTCOM had completely walked away by simply stating that the war was over and Phase IV was not their job."" ... ""That decision set up the United States for a failed first year in Iraq. There is no question about it. And I was supposed to believe that neither the Secretary of Defense nor anybody above him knew anything about it? Impossible! Rumsfeld knew about it. Everybody on the NSC [National Security Council] knew about it, including Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and Colin Powell. [Republican] Vice President Cheney knew about it. And [Republican] President Bush knew about it."" ... ""There's not a doubt in my mind that they all embraced this decision to some degree. And if it had not been for the moral courage of [General] Gen. John Abizaid to stand up to them all and reverse Franks's troop drawdown order, there's no telling how much more damage would have been done."" ... ""In the meantime, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."" "In an excerpt published on NPR's website, Sanchez writes[:]" [From retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez's book, "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story:] ""In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I watched helplessly as the [Republican President] Bush administration led America into a strategic blunder of historic proportions. It became painfully obvious that the executive branch of our government did not trust its military. It relied instead on a neoconservative ideology developed by men and women with little, if any, military experience. Some senior military leaders did not challenge civilian decision makers at the appropriate times, and the courageous few who did take a stand were subsequently forced out of the service...I saw the cynical use of war for political gains by elected officials and acquiescent military leaders. I learned how the pressure of a round-­the-­clock news cycle could drive crucial decisions. I witnessed those resulting political decisions override military requirements and judgments and, in turn, create conditions that caused unnecessary harm to our soldiers on the ground..."" ... ""Over the fourteen months of my command in Iraq, I witnessed a blatant disregard for the lives of our young soldiers in uniform. It is an issue that constantly eats away at me.["]" "And regarding Abu Ghraib, Sanchez writes -- according to Eli Lake of the New York Sun -- that the [United States] U.S. was torturing prisoners." ... "A remarkable admission." [From retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez's book, "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story:] "During the last few months of 2002, while the highest levels of the U.S. government were sparring with Saddam Hussein and setting up the case for an invasion of Iraq, there is irrefutable evidence that America was torturing and killing prisoners in Afghanistan...In retrospect, the Bush administration's new policy triggered a sequence of events that led to the use of harsh interrogation tactics against not only al Qaeda prisoners, but also eventually prisoners in Iraq—in spite of our best efforts to restrain such unlawful conduct."" -By Jake Tapper -ABCNEWS.com Dick Cheney - Humor?-( - Family - Lineage - History - Book - West Virginia - "Dick Cheney's Incest Joke Irks West Virginian Lawmakers." ... "[Republican Vice President Dick] Cheney explained that during the course of researching his family lineage for Lynne's memoir "Blue Skies, No Fences" last year, he learned there were Cheneys on both his father's and his mother's side of the family. There was a Richard Cheney on his mother's side, the vice president said." ... ""So I had Cheneys on both sides of the family and we don't even live in West Virginia," Cheney quipped." ... "[West Virginia Democratic Representative Robert Byrd later responded:] "That a man who has ascended to the seat of vice president of the United States would openly display such contempt and astounding ignorance toward his own countrymen is an insult to all Americans. Now that he or the administration he represents no longer needs their vote, Mr. Cheney apparently feels that he is now free to mock and belittle the people of West Virginia."" -By Mary Ann Akers -WashingtonPost WATCH Republican Cheney make West Virginia incest joke. 20080530 Barack Obama - John McCain - Accounting - People - Families - US - Iraq - Military - Book - MT - Arizona - Wisconsin - 2008 Election - "Obama slams McCain on Iraq facts." ... "[2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack] Obama isn't expected to speak until 7:45 pm ET at a rally in Great Falls, MT [Montana]. But his campaign has released excerpts of his remarks, which go right after [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate John] McCain's "pre-surge levels" misstatement yesterday. They also invoke Scott McClellan's new book." ... "[Barack Obama:] "There are honest differences about how to move forward in Iraq, just like there were honest differences about whether or not we should go to war," Obama is supposed to say. "John McCain was for the invasion of Iraq; I opposed it. John McCain wants to continue George Bush’s war in Iraq indefinitely; I want to end it. So there’s going to be a clear choice for the American people this November."" ... ""But that’s not what John McCain’s been talking about the last few days. He’s been proposing a joint trip to Iraq that’s nothing more than a political stunt. He’s even been using it to raise a few dollars for his campaign. But it seems like [Arizona Senator] Sen. McCain’s a lot more interested in my travel plans than the facts, because yesterday – in his continued effort to put the best light on a failed policy – he stood up in Wisconsin and said, 'We have drawn down to pre-surge levels' in Iraq."" ... ""That’s not true, and anyone running for commander-in-chief should know better. As the saying goes, you’re entitled to your own view, but not your own facts. We’ve got around 150,000 troops in Iraq -- 20,000 more than we had before the surge. We have plans to get down to around 140,000 later this summer -- that’s still more troops than we had in Iraq before the surge. And today, Sen. McCain refused to correct his mistake. Just like George Bush, when he was presented with the truth, he just dug in and refused to admit his mistake. His campaign said it amounts to 'nitpicking.'"" ... ""Well, I don’t think tens of thousands of American troops amounts to nitpicking. Tell that to the young men and women who are serving bravely and brilliantly under our flag. Tell that to the families who have seen their loved ones fight tour after tour after tour of duty in a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged."" ... ""It’s time for a debate that’s based on the truth, and I can’t think of anything more important than how many Americans are in harm’s way. It’s time for a debate that’s based on how we’re going to end this war -- not a debate that’s based on raising a few dollars for John McCain’s campaign."" ... ""The American people have had enough spin. Just this week, we were reminded by President Bush’s own former spokesman of how it was deception -- not straight talk -- that misled the American people into war. It’s time to cut through the tough talk so that we can be straight with the American people about a war that’s cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars without making us safer. It’s time to end the political game-playing so that we can finally end this war. That’s what I’ll do in this campaign. And that’s what I’ll do when I’m President of the United States."" -From Mark Murray and Athena Jones -MSNBC Scott McClellan - Books - Counterterrorism - US - Iraq - Military - Intelligence - Politics - Marketing - "Scott McClellan Apologizes for Bashing Richard Clarke." ... "In an encounter last night in the lobby of a New York hotel, former [Republican President Bush] White House press secretary Scott McClellan apologized for denouncing a former White House colleague, Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism adviser, after Clarke wrote a book ["Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror"] highly critical of the Bush administration in 2004." ... "Now McClellan is facing a similar denunciation from the White House for his own highly critical book." ... "In 2004, McClellan said Clarke's book, asserting the Bush administration failed to take timely action against al Qaeda, was "flat-out wrong." He told reporters at a March 22, 2004 briefing, "Ask yourself why, one and a half years later, after he left the administration, he's all of a sudden, coming forward with these grave concerns? If he had such grave concerns, why didn't he come out with them sooner?"" ... "Now White House aides are saying much the same thing about McClellan's assertions, in his book "What Happened," that President Bush waged a deceitful propaganda campaign to promote the war in Iraq. " ... "Clarke appeared Thursday night on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" to talk about his new book, "Your Government Failed You," and was asked about McClellan's criticism of him in 2004. "I think there is a box in the White House that, if anyone escapes and tells the truth, they break open for talking points about what to say," Clarke told Stewart." (1, 2) -By Brian Ross with contributions by Mark Mooney -ABCNEWS.com  20080528 Scott McClellan - Book - Noteworthy - US - Iraq - Corporate - Media - Military - Government - Politics - Marketing - Television - History - Gore - Obama - McCain - Russert - Cheney - "Scott McClellan on the "liberal media"." ... "In a minimally rational world, this extraordinary passage, from the new book by Scott McClellan, would forever slay the single most ludicrous myth in our political culture: The "Liberal Media":" "If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the [Republican President Bush] White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq." "The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. . . . In this case, the "liberal media" didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served." "Just consider how remarkable that is. [Republican President] George Bush's own Press Secretary criticizes the American media for being "too deferential" to the Government. He lays the blame for Bush's ability to propagandize the nation on the media's uncritical dissemination of the Republican administration's falsehoods. And most notably of all, McClellan actually uses cynical scare quotes when invoking the phrase which, in conventional political discourse, is deemed the most unassailable truth of all: The Liberal Media." ... "How much longer can this preposterous myth be sustained when even the White House Spokesman not only mocks the phrase but derides the media for being "too deferential" to the right-wing Government "in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during [his] years in Washington"? If one were to set about with the goal of debunking the "Liberal Media" myth -- as Eric Alterman specifically did four years ago and other media critics have more generally done before that -- one couldn't dream up evidence more conclusive than McClellan's admissions." ... "Blindingly conclusive evidence which would -- for any rational person -- forever negate the "Liberal Media" myth has been piling up for years. The extraordinary (though woefully incomplete) 2004 mea culpa from The New York Times acknowledged that not just Judy Miller, but the paper as a whole, re-printed pro-war government claims that were "allowed to stand unchallenged." The Washington Post's own media critic, Howard Kurtz, documented that anti-war views were systematically buried at that paper. The NYTrecently exposed that network and cable news shows for years continuously allowed Pentagon-controlled operatives to masquerade as "independent analysts" spouting the pro-government line with virtually no challenge. And the media's pathological fixation on the Clinton sex scandals -- which led to his impeachment -- stood in stark contrast to the widespread indifference among the citizenry." ... "Beyond all that, are there any reporters left who deny that the campaign-covering media in 2000 was gushingly enamored of [Republican] George Bush and oozing with contempt for [Democratic] Al Gore? Identically, their intense affection for [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] John McCain is something they openly proclaim; as they shamelessly acknowledge, they're his "base." And while some journalists undoubtedly harbor admiration for [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate] Barack Obama, the non-stop coverage of one anti-Obama narrative after the next -- Jeremiah Wright, lapel pins, patriotism "questions," "Bittergate," "problems" with Jewish and white voters -- simply has no parallel in any coverage of McCain." ... "Beyond that objective evidence, just look at the claims which "Liberal Media" complainers make to support their grievance. As examples of "liberal" journalists, they'll cite people like Chris Matthews -- who voted for [Republican] George Bush, and did more than anyone to prop up his image as our Great War Leader and demonize Bush critics. One of the leading examples of a biased "liberal" journalist is therefore someone who actually went on television in late 2005 and said this:" "I like [Bush]. Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left -- I mean -- like him personally." "Or they'll point to "liberal" Tim Russert -- Tim Russert -- about whom [Republican Vice President] Cheney press aide Cathy Martin said: "I suggested we put the vice president on 'Meet the Press,' which was a tactic we often used. It's our best format, as it allows us to control the message." That's the same "liberal" Tim Russert who confessed that he operates by the defining law of the Government propagandist: "When I talk to senior government officials on the phone, it's my own policy -- our conversations are confidential. If I want to use anything from that conversation, then I will ask permission."" ... "Or look at the recent "controversy" reported by the Associated Press over whether NBC News' reputation as an objective news outlet is being tainted by virtue of the "liberal" commentators MSNBC features. Nobody questioned whether CNN's objectivity was imperiled by featuring the likes of [right-wing commentators] Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs, nor, for that matter, did anyone raise these questions about NBC when, for years, MSNBC shows were hosted by the likes of Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough and Michael Savage." ... "But a single unapologetic Bush critic appears on the TV -- Keith Olbermann -- and this rarest of occurrence suddenly leads to controversy over whether the "respectability" of television news can survive while allowing a single "liberal" voice to be heard." -By Glenn Greenwald -Salon 20080527 Barack Obama - History - Author - Foreign - Military - Terrorism - Torture - Guantanamo - Cuba - Iraq - US - 2008 Election - "Fukuyama backs Obama for US presidency." ... "He is one of America's most famous neo-conservatives and his ideas on the spread of democracy have informed the [Republican President] Bush administration's foreign policy." ... "But Francis Fukuyama, the author of The End of History and Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, is now a sharp critic of US President George W Bush and has even come out as a supporter of [2008 Election] Democrat frontrunner Barack Obama for president." ... "ELEANOR HALL: So what advice do you have for the next president of the United States on foreign policy?" ... "FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: I think that the US as a result of Iraq has really alienated itself from a good deal of the global public. Not just people in the Middle East where anti-Americanism is at an all-time high but from its European allies, from a lot of publics in places where there ought to be a lot of sympathy." ... "So I think the United States needs to reconnect with the world. It needs to do some symbolic things like, we shouldn't torture people, so as a first symbolic gesture I think the new president ought to close Guantanamo [Cuba] and I think in general what you need is a shift." ... "There needs to be great downplaying of the whole war on terrorism. To call it a war I think has over-militarised our objectives and the means that we have used to prosecute it, and I think there has to be a greater shift to the use of soft power in projecting American influence and then there are large areas of the world where we have kind of neglected thinking about things like east Asia where you have obviously got some very big changes going off. " -By Eleanor Hall -Yahoo  20080521 John McCain - John Hagee - Terrorism - Racism - Politician - Military - Religion - History - Germany - Israel - Palestine - Book - Arizona - US - 2008 Election - "McCain Backer Hagee Said Hitler Was Fulfilling God's Will (AUDIO)." ... "[Republican televangelist] John Hagee, the controversial evangelical leader and endorser of [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator] Sen. John McCain, argued in a late 1990s sermon that the Nazis [Germany] had operated on God's behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine. According to the Reverend, Adolph Hitler was a "hunter," sent by God, who was tasked with expediting God's will of having the Jews re-establish a state of Israel." ... "Going in and out of biblical verse, Hagee preached: "'And they the hunters should hunt them,' that will be the Jews. 'From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.' If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the holocaust you can't see that."" ... "He goes on: "Theodore Herzl is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew who at the turn of the 19th century said, this land is our land, God wants us to live there. So he went to the Jews of Europe and said 'I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel.' So few went that Hertzel went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the holocaust." ... ""Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says -- Jeremiah writing -- 'They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,' meaning there's no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don't let your heart be offended. I didn't write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel." (Listen to the audio below.)" ... "The sermon, which was first posted by Bruce Wilson on his site, Talk To Action, adds another element to Hagee's controversial stance on the state and history of Israel." ... "Since McCain secured the endorsement, both his campaign and Hagee have been pressed to explain a series of derogatory remarks the Reverend made about the Catholic Church, including his reference to the institution as "the Great Whore."" ... "As Wilson notes, in his 2006 book "Jerusalem Countdown", Hagee proposed the theory that "anti-Semitism, and thus the Holocaust, was the fault of Jews themselves -- the result of an age old divine curse incurred by the ancient Hebrews through worshiping idols and passed, down the ages, to all Jews now alive." He also wrote that "Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews."" -By Sam Stein -HuffingtonPost.com (Audio) "McCain Endorser Hagee: God Sent Hitler, Jews Have Dead Souls" McCain Hagee: McCain's endorser Hagee, "They [Jews] are physically alive but they're not spiritually alive." 20080519 Entertainment - Political - Humor - Corporate - Government - Military - Halliburton - Blackwater - Foreign - Law - Noteworthy - Women - Journalists - Writers - US - Iraq - "John Cusack: Outsourced Warfare Represents a "Radical, Dangerous, Disgusting Ideology": An interview with Cusack about his latest film, War Inc., which takes the outsourcing of military operations to the absurd." ... "Joshua Holland: Tell me a little bit about your new project." ... "John Cusack: Well, we thought of it as an incendiary political cartoon that would hopefully put America's current imperial adventures in Iraq into a kind of a larger context. And maybe put a different lens on what privatization means; what this plan has been and what it's been like when people try to privatize the very core things it means to be a state. And what it means to spread an ideology like that across the globe." ... "There are 180,000 contractors in Iraq and about 160,000 troops, right? And if one just takes that trend to its logical conclusion, well that's where "War, Inc." is set. It takes place at a time in the near future when warfare us an entirely corporate affair." ... "Holland: As a political nerd, it struck me as a highly referential film. I felt like your character, to some extent, was loosely patterned maybe on John Perkins, who wrote Confessions of an Economic Hit Man." ... "Cusack: You know, that book came out when we were already making the film, I believe. And I know we were writing it when Naomi Klein's groundbreaking piece called "Baghdad Year Zero" came out in Harper's. She's a journalist I've always greatly admired and respected. And then as we were making the movie, she was writing the Shock Doctrine. I remember being aware of it while we were writing it. And I remember talking about it. But you know, this character was also based on [former U.S. Envoy to Iraq] Paul Bremer flying in while Baghdad [Iraq's capital] was still burning and literally ruling by Fiat. Sitting down in Saddam's old palace and banging out 50 or 60 new laws that would allow 100 percent foreign ownership of previously state-owned industry by these outside corporations. And he was running around in those Brooks Brothers suits and the military boots when he did it." ... "Holland: I thought that I saw a lot of Naomi Klein in Marisa Tomei's character." ... "Cusack: Yeah, I think it wasn't Naomi straight up, but I think it was Katrina Vanden Huevel. It was Lara Logan and it was Naomi. It was, you know, any of the great journalists out there who are women ... Christiane Amanpour." ... "Holland: Now, the film presents kind of a dystopian vision of where we're at or where we're heading -- tell me a little bit more about this central theme, this idea of outsourcing warfare to this kind of Halliburton-like mega corporation." ... "Cusack: Well, it was an ideological viral disaster -- that's what this war was. It wasn't Paul Bremer, although a lot of people would like to paint him as the fall guy. It's the entire system of thinking that is insane. The Shock doctrine does a great job chronicling what's essentially been a 35-year campaign to destroy the New Deal and privatize everything, and the use of disasters and wars to justify "shock therapy" -- to pass legislation that would never get passed in any country that wasn't reeling from trying to bury their dead or stop from being tortured or killed or trying to get water or food." ... "So I think it's really about the entire system and that entire ideology. There seems to be these companies that helped create a new market by creating a war, and then they bar the competitors from entering into the clean up. In the meantime, they've privatized the entire country, which is basically strip mining it. Basically, it's a land-grab. So not only are we looking at a murder scene, but it's the scene of an armed robbery." ... "And that's the version of democracy ... the version of a free market that we're not only supposed to worship, but into which we're also supposed to keep feeding bodies. We have to kill to feed this kind of twisted version of their free market. And [American political leaders] seem entirely unconcerned that Halliburton and Bechtel -- and Parsons and KPMG and Blackwater and the rest -- are kind of madly gorging off of this protectionist racket." ... "If you really think about outsourcing all the essential things it means to be a state, like armies, disaster relief, interrogation, border patrol -- all of these functions -- then I don't really know what's left in terms of the sovereignty of a country. I don't really know what's left." ... "So it's not even about free markets. I mean, if these [corporations] want to just go invade a country and take it over, and take their chances on the open market, that's one thing. But to use the U.S. military and our Treasury Department as their ATM to do it -- that's ... that's cause for revolt." (1, 2, 3, 4) -By Joshua Holland -AlterNet.org WATCH Movie Trailer: "WAR, INC." 20080518 WATCH - John McCain - Iraq - Military - Disaster - Hurricane Katrina - New Orleans - Louisiana - US - Economy - Politics - Author -  - Media - 2008 Election - "McCain's YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare." [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain] [John McCain] [YouTube Video] "According to Cliff Schecter, author of The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him And Why Independents Shouldn't: "It is dangerous for a democracy when a presidential candidate can lie with impunity, change positions on a whim, and physically and verbally threaten others and virtually none of it is reported by a besotted media eagerly awaiting the next moment when he might slap their backs in friendship." -TheRealMcCain.com -BraveNewFilms.org 20080505 Bernard Kerik - Corporate - Police - US - Iraq - Military - History - Book - "Former Iraq Commander: Bernard Kerik was 'a waste of time' in Iraq." ... "The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq took aim at Bernard Kerik in an exclusive interview with the Daily News Sunday, calling his efforts to train Iraqi police in 2003 "a waste of time and effort."" ... "Retired [Lieutenant General] Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top military leader in Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004, blasted the former police commissioner for failing to produce results while Kerik was the interim minister of interior in 2003." ... ""I would be hard-pressed to identify a major national-level success that his organization accomplished in that time," Sanchez told The News a day before his new memoir, "Wiser in Battle" hits bookstores nationwide." ... "Sanchez, who was in charge during Saddam Hussein's capture and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, said Kerik put U.S. [United States] soldiers in danger many times by not telling the Army about his police operations." ... "Sanchez said when Kerik left Iraq, after just 90 days, he checked the Interior Ministry's inventory to see what equipment was bought for the Iraqi police. Sanchez said he was "shocked" to find out that the only thing on the books was 50,000 Glock pistols." ... ""When I was informed of the exorbitant prices that were being paid for these pistols, my first reaction was that there had to be some impropriety, but I had no evidence to substantiate it," he wrote. " -By Stephanie Gaskell -NYDailyNews.com 20080503 People - Health - Environment - Trees - Global - Earth - Science - Politics - Book - North Carolina - "Caring for planet increasingly tied to faith groups." ... "Abraham sits at the oaks. Deborah holds court under a palm tree. Moses speaks to a bush." ... ""I would say connecting this to the Bible is important for some people," said Dr. Matthew Sleeth, a former hospital chief of staff who couldn't shake the faces of patients with seemingly increasing environment-related illnesses. So he quit his job, gave away half his belongings and began spreading the word on the urgency of people paying more attention to the environment." ... "Pointing out the symbolism of trees in Scripture has helped Sleeth link faith with personal responsibility. His book, "Serve God and Save the Planet: A Christian Call to Action," is in its seventh printing. Sleeth also has a prominent role in the publication of an upcoming "green Bible."" ... ""The change has come when people who are strong in their faith, who might be against it," Sleeth says of the deterioration of the Earth, "then go look at the Bible with this in mind and they see a different story."" ... "The statewide faith and environment conference that Sleeth will co-headline at Catawba College in Salisbury [North Carolina] this month grew out of a meeting among Greensboro [North Carolina] houses of worship at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. Participants tried to broaden the conversation between the scientific and faith-based communities." ... ""When people realize that there is this direct tie between our own faith and being good stewards of this Earth," said John Wear, founding director of Catawba's Center for the Environment, "then it gives them a purpose that didn't exist before."" -By Nancy McLaughlin -News-Record.com CenterForTheEnvironment.org 20080502 Ron Paul - John McCain - Barack Obama - US - Iraq - Foreign - Military - Federal - Dollars - Law- Book - 2008 Election - Texas - Arizona - Illinois - "Paul: Not ready to endorse McCain, likes Obama's foreign policy." ... "Having a Republican win the upcoming presidential election is “secondary” for [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Texas Representative Ron] Paul who is more interested in defending the Constitution, having the country go in what he considers the right direction, having a sound currency, and achieving balanced budgets. Paul parts ways with [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator John] McCain over McCain’s support for the Iraq war, his approach to U.S. [United States] foreign policy in the Middle East and his willingness to spend federal dollars to support military operations in Iraq." ... "Instead, Paul favors [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate and Illinois Senator] Sen. Barack Obama because of positions on foreign policy. “But that’s doesn’t mean that’s an endorsement,” Paul quickly added." ... "Paul recently released a new book titled “The Revolution: a Manifesto.” “Unfortunately, it is revolutionary to talk about obeying the Constitution,” Paul said of the book’s title." -CNN 20080501 John McCain - Politics - Book - 2008 Election - Woman - "McCain fields audience question on whether he called wife an expletive." ... "A member of the audience, identified as Marty Parrish of Clive [Iowa], asked [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate John] McCain during the event at the [Iowa] Polk County Convention Complex about a rumor that McCain had once used a profane word referencing female genitalia to describe his wife." ... "A book, “The Real McCain” by Cliff Schecter, accuses McCain of using the word in an exchange with his wife, Cindy, in 1992." ... "Audience member: This question goes to mental health and mental health care. Previously, I've been married to a woman that was verbally abusive to me. Is it true that you called your wife a (expletive)?" ... "[2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate John] McCain: Now, now. You don't want to... Um, you know that's the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don't, there's people here who don't respect that kind of language. So I'll move on to the next questioner in the back." ... "Parrish, a 45-year-old Baptist minister and technology business owner, said he attended the event specifically to confront McCain about the rumor." ... "“This is about character,” Parrish said, when reached by telephone afterward. “And in a moment of intemperance, he called his wife the most despicable name a person can call a woman." -DesMoinesRegister 20080417 Psychological - Health - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - Science - Monograph - US - Iraq - Afghanistan - Military - "Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery." ... " Since October 2001, approximately 1.64 million U.S. troops have been deployed for Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) in Afghanistan and Iraq. Early evidence suggests that the psychological toll of these deployments — many involving prolonged exposure to combat-related stress over multiple rotations — may be disproportionately high compared with the physical injuries of combat. In the face of mounting public concern over post-deployment health care issues confronting OEF/OIF veterans, several task forces, independent review groups, and a Presidential Commission have been convened to examine the care of the war wounded and make recommendations. Concerns have been most recently centered on two combat-related injuries in particular: post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. With the increasing incidence of suicide and suicide attempts among returning veterans, concern about depression is also on the rise." ... " The study discussed in this monograph focuses on post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, and traumatic brain injury, not only because of current high-level policy interest but also because, unlike the physical wounds of war, these conditions are often invisible to the eye, remaining invisible to other servicemembers, family members, and society in general. All three conditions affect mood, thoughts, and behavior; yet these wounds often go unrecognized and unacknowledged. The effect of traumatic brain injury is still poorly understood, leaving a large gap in knowledge related to how extensive the problem is or how to address it." ... [full 499 page monograph available at Rand] "Not only is a higher proportion of the armed forces being deployed,but deployments have been longer,redeployment to combat has been common,and breaks between deployments have been infrequent (Hosek,Kavanagh,and Miller,2006). At the same time,episodes of intense combat notwithstanding,these operations have employed smaller forces and have produced casualty rates of killed or wounded that are historically lower than in earlier prolonged wars,such as Vietnam and Korea.Advances in both medical technology and body armor mean that more servicemembers are surviving experiences that would have led to death in prior wars (Regan,2004;Warden,2006). However,casualties of a different kind are beginning to emerge —invisible wounds,such as mental health conditions and cognitive impairments resulting from deployment experiences.These deployment experiences may include multiple deployments per individual service member and exposure to di ?cult threats,such as improvised explosive devices (IEDs)." ... "As with safeguarding physical health,safeguarding mental health is an integral component of the United States ’ national responsibilities to recruit,,prepare,and sustain a military force and to address Service-connected injuries and disabilities.But safeguarding mental health is also critical for compensating and honoring those who have served our nation." -Edited by Terri Tanielian and Lisa H. Jaycox -Rand.org  References        Hosek,J.,J.Kavanagh,and L.Miller.How Deployments Affect Service Members .Santa Monica, Calif.:RAND Corporation,MG-432-RC,2006.As of March 13,2008: http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG432/        Regan,T.Report:High survival rate for US troops wounded in Iraq.Christian Science Monitor, November 29,2004.        Warden,D.Military TBI during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation ,Vol.21,No.5,2006,pp.398 –402. 20080403 Medical - Database - Abortion - Science - Literature - Family - Education - Government - Search Engine - Funding - Maryland - US - International - Politics - "U.S. Funded Health Search Engine Blocks 'Abortion'." ... "A U.S. [United States] government-funded medical information site that bills itself as the world's largest database on reproductive health has quietly begun to block searches on the word "abortion," concealing nearly 25,000 search results." ... "Called Popline, the search site is run by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Maryland. It's funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, the federal office in charge of providing foreign aid, including health care funding, to developing nations." ... "The massive database indexes a broad range of reproductive health literature, including titles like "Previous abortion and the risk of low birth weight and preterm births," and "Abortion in the United States: Incidence and access to services, 2005."" ... "But on Thursday, a search on "abortion" was producing only the message "No records found by latest query."" ... "Stephen Goldstein, a spokesman for Johns Hopkins, said he wasn't aware of the censorship, and couldn't immediately comment. " -By Sarah Lai Stirland -Wired  20080402 John Yoo - Gonzales - Haynes - Addington - Criminal - Torture - Lawyers - Military - Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Politics - History - Book - US - International - Guantánamo - Cuba - Iraq - "The Green Light." ... "Yesterday the public finally got to see the full text of an infamous Department of Justice memorandum from March 2003 designed to authorize torture. I will have some more comments on this odious document authored by John Yoo, a man who (amazingly) teaches at a prominent law school. But this disclosure serves as a fitting introduction for the publication today of Philippe Sands’s article “The Green Light” in Vanity Fair. The article is a teaser for Sands’s forthcoming book, set for release later this month, The Torture Team." ... "We’ve all heard ad nauseam the [Republican President Bush] Administration’s official torture narrative. This is a different kind of war, they argue. Each invocation of “different” is to a clear point: the [Republican President Bush] Administration wishes to pursue its war unfettered by the laws of war. Unfettered, indeed, by any form or notion of law. But Sands’s work is important because he has looked carefully at the chronology: what came first, the decision to use torture techniques, or the legal rationale for them?" "[Alberto] Gonzales and [William] Haynes laid out their case with considerable care. The only flaw was that every element of the argument contained untruths. The real story, pieced together from many hours of interviews with most of the people involved in the decisions about interrogation, goes something like this: The Geneva decision was not a case of following the logic of the law but rather was designed to give effect to a prior decision to take the gloves off and allow coercive interrogation; it deliberately created a legal black hole into which the detainees were meant to fall. The new interrogation techniques did not arise spontaneously from the field but came about as a direct result of intense pressure and input from Rumsfeld’s office. The Yoo-[Jay]Bybee Memo was not simply some theoretical document, an academic exercise in blue-sky hypothesizing, but rather played a crucial role in giving those at the top the confidence to put pressure on those at the bottom. And the practices employed at Guantánamo [Cuba] led to abuses at Abu Ghraib [Iraq]." ... "The fingerprints of the most senior lawyers in the administration were all over the design and implementation of the abusive interrogation policies. [David] Addington, Bybee, Gonzales, Haynes, and Yoo became, in effect, a torture team of lawyers, freeing the administration from the constraints of all international rules prohibiting abuse." "Sands notes the focal role that the torture lawyers saw for the Attorney General’s opinion power. It was, as Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith suggested in a recent book, a device that could be used to give a sort of pardon in advance for persons undertaking criminal acts." "And of course, the torture lawyers fully appreciated from the outset that torture was a criminal act. Most of the legal memoranda they crafted, including the March 2003 Yoo memorandum released today, consist largely of precisely the sorts of arguments that criminal defense attorneys make–they weave and bob through the law finding exceptions and qualifications to the application of the criminal law. But there are some major differences: these memoranda have been crafted not as an after-the-fact defense to criminal charges, but rather as a roadmap to committing crimes and getting away with it. They are the sort of handiwork we associate with the consigliere, or mob lawyer. But these consiglieri are government attorneys who have sworn an oath, which they are violating, to uphold the law." ... "They have dragged the Department of Justice, as an institution, straight into the gutter. " -By Scott Horton -Harpers.org See Also: [United States v. Altstoetter] via: [Google Search] 20080401 Secret - Fashion - Book - Government - Military - Tech - Money - Politics - Calif - Dick Cheney - "Inside the Black Budget." ... "Skulls. Black cats. A naked woman riding a killer whale. Grim reapers. Snakes. Swords. Occult symbols. A wizard with a staff that shoots lightning bolts. Moons. Stars. A dragon holding the Earth in its claws." [Secret Military Intelligence Patches.] [Secret Mil Intel Patches] "It is, according to a new book, part of the hidden reality behind the Pentagon’s classified, or “black,” budget that delivers billions of dollars to stealthy armies of high-tech warriors. The book offers a glimpse of this dark world through a revealing lens — patches — the kind worn on military uniforms." ... "“It’s a fresh approach to secret government,” Steven Aftergood, a security expert at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, said in an interview. “It shows that these secret programs have their own culture, vocabulary and even sense of humor.”" ... "The classified budget of the Defense Department, concealed from the public in all but outline, has nearly doubled in the [Republican President] Bush years, to $32 billion." ... "The book’s title? “I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me,” published by Melville House. [Author Trevor Paglen] Mr. Paglen says the title is the Latin translation of a patch designed for the Navy Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 4, at Point Mugu, Calif. [California] Its mission, he says, is to test strike aircraft, conventional weapons and electronic warfare equipment and to develop tactics to use the high-tech armaments in war." ... "“The military has patches for almost everything it does,” Mr. Paglen writes in the introduction. “Including, curiously, for programs, units and activities that are officially secret.”" ... "He said contractors in some cases made the patches to build esprit de corps. Other times, he added, military units produced them informally, in contrast to official patches." ... "What sparked his interest, Mr. Paglen recalled, were [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney’s remarks as the Pentagon and World Trade Center smoldered. On “Meet the Press,” he said the nation would engage its “dark side” to find the attackers and justice. “We’ve got to spend time in the shadows,” Mr. Cheney said. “It’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.”" (1, 2) -By William J. Broad -NYTimes 20080323 US - Iraq - Chile -  - Military - History - Book - "U.S. Pushed Allies on Iraq, Diplomat Writes: Chilean Envoy to U.N. [United Nations] Recounts Threats of Retaliation in Run-Up to Invasion." ... "In the months leading up to the U.S.[United States]-led invasion of Iraq, the [Republican President] Bush administration threatened trade reprisals against friendly countries who withheld their support, spied on its allies, and pressed for the recall of U.N. envoys that resisted U.S. pressure to endorse the war, according to an upcoming book by a top Chilean diplomat." ... "The rough-and-tumble diplomatic strategy has generated lasting "bitterness" and "deep mistrust" in Washington's relations with allies in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, Heraldo Muñoz, Chile's ambassador to the United Nations, writes in his book "A Solitary War: A Diplomat's Chronicle of the Iraq War and Its Lessons," set for publication next month." ... ""In the aftermath of the invasion, allies loyal to the United States were rejected, mocked and even punished" for their refusal to back a U.N. resolution authorizing military action against Saddam Hussein's government, Muñoz writes. " -By Colum Lynch -WashingtonPost

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20080311
• John McCain - Dick Cheney - US - Iraq - Military - Media - Politicians - History - Book - Arizona - 2008 Election - "The Iraq Follies: Eighteen things you've already forgotten about the media's flawed coverage of Iraq." ... "In putting together my [Greg Mitchell] new book, So Wrong for So Long, on Iraq and the media, I revisited the good, the bad, and the ugly in war coverage from the run-up to the invasion through the five years of controversy that followed. Even though I monitored the coverage closely all along, I was continually surprised to come across once-prominent names, quotes, and incidents that had faded to obscurity. Here is a list of 18 of those nearly forgotten episodes, in roughly chronological order." ... "1) The day before the invasion, Bill O'Reilly said, "If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation; I will not trust the Bush administration again, all right?"" ... "3) After the fall of Baghdad [Iraq's capital], MSNBC's Chris Matthews declared, "We're all neocons now."" ... "4) The same day, Joe Scarborough, also on MSNBC, said, "I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians, and Hollywood types."" ... "5) The New York Times' Thomas Friedman wrote, "As far as I am concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war.... Mr. Bush doesn't owe the world any explanation for missing chemical weapons."" ... "14) On March 27, 2007, [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] John McCain, referring to the supposed calm settling on Baghdad, said, "General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed Humvee." This turned out to be pure bunk, but McCain quickly visited Iraq to try to prove his overall point. There, the Arizona senator went from the ridiculous to the maligned, touring a Baghdad market and claiming all was safe—while troops surrounded him and helicopters twirled overhead." ... "18) Also in July 2007, an old clip of a C-SPAN interview with [Republican] Vice President Cheney from 1994 surfaced, in which he defended the decision not to depose Saddam Hussein during Gulf War I: "Once you got to Iraq and took it over…then what are you going to put in its place?…It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq." He explained, "And the question for the president…was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right."" -By Greg Mitchell -MotherJones.com

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20080228
• Barack Obama - Tim Russert - John McCain - John Hagee - Religious - Homosexual - Woman - Racist - Book - History - Media - Politics -  - 2008 Election - Illinois - Arizona - Arkansas - Texas - US - Israel - Germany - "Will MSNBC devote as much coverage to McCain's embrace of Hagee's support as it did to Obama's rejection of Farrakhan?" ... "Summary: On February 27, MSNBC devoted significant coverage to an exchange from the most recent Democratic presidential debate in which NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert repeatedly questioned [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate and Illinois Senator] Sen. Barack Obama about praise he received from controversial minister Louis Farrakhan, whose statements Obama has denounced. The same day, Pastor John Hagee -- who has made controversial comments about homosexuality, Islam, Catholicism, and women -- endorsed [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator] Sen. John McCain, who embraced Hagee's support. Hagee's endorsement and McCain's response to it raise the question of whether MSNBC will report on them as extensively as it did on Farrakhan's praise." ... "A March 7, 1996, article (accessed via the Nexis database) in the San Antonio Express-News reported that Hagee was going to "meet with black religious leaders privately at an unspecified future date to discuss comments he made in his newsletter about a 'slave sale,' an East Side minister said Wednesday." The Express-News reported:"
"Hagee, pastor of the 16,000-member Cornerstone Church [in Texas], last week had announced a "slave sale" to raise funds for high school seniors in his church bulletin, "The Cluster."" ... "The item was introduced with the sentence "Slavery in America is returning to Cornerstone" and ended with "Make plans to come and go home with a slave.""
"A July 27, 2006, Wall Street Journal article about Hagee noted the incident:"

"To help students seeking odd jobs, his church newsletter, The Cluster, advertised a "slave" sale. "Slavery in America is returning to Cornerstone," it said. "Make plans to come and go home with a slave." Mr. Hagee apologized but, in a radio interview, protested about pressure to be "politically correct" and joked that perhaps his pet dog should be called a "canine American.""

"A December 23, 2007, Reuters news article on former Arkansas [Republican Governor and 2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Gov. Mike Huckabee's (R) visit to Hagee's church reported that "some Catholics were angry about the visit." The article noted:"

"In his recent book "Jerusalem Countdown," Hagee wrote: "Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews.""

... "Investigative journalist Sara] Posner also noted that in another Hagee text, "Bible Positions on Political Issues," (John Hagee Ministries, 1992) Hagee wrote, "[T]he feminist movement today is throwing off authority in rebellion against God's pattern for the family."" -MediaMatters.org

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• US - Iraq - Military - Intelligence - Torture - Prison - Psychology - Book - Political - History - "How Good People Turn Evil, From Stanford to Abu Ghraib." ... "[Psychologist Philip] Zimbardo conducted a now-famous experiment at Stanford University in 1971, involving students who posed as prisoners and guards. Five days into the experiment, Zimbardo halted the study when the student guards began abusing the prisoners, forcing them to strip naked and simulate sex acts." ... "His book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, explores how a "perfect storm" of conditions can make ordinary people commit horrendous acts." ... "Wired: You were an expert defense witness in the court-martial of Sgt. Chip Frederick, an Abu Ghraib guard. What were the situational influences in his case?" ... "Zimbardo: Abu Ghraib was under bombardment all the time. In the prison, five soldiers and 20 Iraqi prisoners get killed. That means automatically any soldier working there is under high fear and high stress. Then the insurgency starts in 2003, and they start arresting everyone in sight. When Chip Frederick [starts working at Abu Ghraib] in September, there are 200 prisoners there. Within three months there's a thousand prisoners with a handful of guards to take care of them, so they're overwhelmed. Frederick and the others worked 12-hour shifts. How many days a week? Seven. How many days without a day off? Forty. That kind of stress reduces decision-making and critical thinking and rationality. But that's only the beginning." ... "He [complained] to higher-ups on the record, "We have mentally ill patients who cover themselves with [excrement]. We have people with tuberculosis that shouldn't be in this population. We have kids mixed with adults."" ... "And they tell him, "It's a war zone. Do your job. Do whatever you have to do."" ... "Wired: How did what happened at Abu Ghraib compare to your Stanford prison study?" ... "Zimbardo: The military intelligence, the CIA and the civilian interrogator corporation, Titan, told the MPs [at Abu Ghraib], "It is your job to soften the prisoners up. We give you permission to do something you ordinarily are not allowed to do as a military policeman -- to break the prisoners, to soften them up, to prepare them for interrogation." That's permission to step across the line from what is typically restricted behavior to now unrestricted behavior." ... "In the same way in the Stanford prison study, I was saying [to the student guards], "You have to be powerful to prevent further rebellion." I tell them, "You're not allowed, however, to use physical force." By default, I allow them to use psychological force. In five days, five prisoners are having emotional breakdowns." ... "The situational forces that were going on in [Abu Ghraib] -- the dehumanization, the lack of personal accountability, the lack of surveillance, the permission to get away with anti-social actions -- it was like the Stanford prison study, but in spades." ... "Those sets of things are found any time you really see an evil situation occurring, whether it's Rwanda or Nazi Germany or the Khmer Rouge. " (1, 2) -By Kim Zetter -Wired 

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20080213
• Entertainment - Writers - Television - Internet - Business - Advertising - "Hollywood writers strike ends." ... "Hollywood's costly 100-day walkout came to a widely welcomed end Tuesday after members of the Writers Guild of America voted overwhelmingly to go back to work." ... "On Feb. [February] 25, writers are expected to ratify a new three-year contract that ensures them a stake in the revenue generated when their movies, television shows and other creative works are distributed on the Internet." ... "The walkout, which began Nov. [November] 5, proved to be far more economically damaging than the studios had expected, shutting down more than 60 TV shows, hampering ratings and depriving the networks of tens of millions in advertising dollars." ... "Labor experts said the crippling effect of the strike helped writers achieve gains they might not have otherwise attained." ... "The new contract gives them residual payments for shows streamed over the Internet and secures the union's jurisdiction for programming created for the Web." ... "Writers were unsuccessful, however, in their efforts to shorten the 17-to-24-day window that studios have to stream their shows for promotional purposes without paying residuals. Many writers complained that most viewers watched repeats online within days after a program was initially broadcast." -By Claudia Eller and Richard Verrier -LAtimes 

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20080123
• Stephen Colbert - Hillary Clinton- Barack Obama - Civil Rights - History - Humor -  - Writers - Union - Entertainment - Song - Religion - Medical - University - South Carolina - Business - 2008 Election - Politics - "Colbert's Civil Rights MLK Day Writer's Strike-Busting Writerless Show — In Song." ... "[Stephen Colbert,] After paying his respects to Monday's debate and busting out a pretty darn good Tom Cruise imitation, Colbert made a segue which, in retrospect, was brilliant: Moving from [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary] Clinton and [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack] Obama's bickering over who loved Reagan more to the evidence provided by Tom Brokaw's book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties, which, in addition to quoting Hillary Clinton discussing how [former Republican President] Ronald Reagan finessed the balance of his role "beautifully" on page 404, contains an early segment devoted to the Reverend Andrew Young, the "last surviving member of Martin Luther King's inner circle at the Southern Christian Leadership Council," and lifelong, steadfast civil rights activist. Colbert got to that — eventually — after first introducing a documentary-style segment (in the style of Brokaw's "1968" documentary, complete with soundtrack) about the Charleston Hospital workers union strike of 1969, which was settled by the young, er, Young, who negotiated with a vice president of the associated Medical University of South Carolina — "the only administrator willing to meet with Young was the newly-appointed vice-president of the medical college, who had taken up the position just days before the strike was called." The two worked behind the scenes to finally end the strike — and on the hundredth day, they came to an agreement, awarding raises to the striking workers." ... "That administrator? James Colbert — Stephen's father." -By Rachel Sklar -HuffingtonPost.com

Watch Colbert Report:
"A-It's All About Stephen."
"B-Interview - Ambassador Andrew Young."
"C-Let My People Go."

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20080104
• Entertainment - Television - Writers - Internet - "Actors refuse to cross Golden Globe picket line." ... "The Screen Actors Guild on Friday said nearly all its members will refuse to cross striking writers' picket lines at the upcoming Golden Globe Awards, throwing Hollywood's award season deeper into doubt." ... "The Writers Guild of America, which represents the writers, also has barred its members from writing for the Oscars, but SAG's Friday announcement pertained only to the Golden Globe Awards." ... "Some 10,500 WGA members went on strike against major U.S. film studios and television networks in early November over issues that included increased fees for their work when it appears on DVDs and on the Internet." ... "Talk show host David Letterman reached its own "interim agreement" with the WGA that allowed "The Late Show with David Letterman" to return to the air with WGA working writers because Letterman's company, Worldwide Pants, is an independent producer." (1, 2) -By Bob Tourtellotte -Reuters 

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20071218
• Mike Huckabee - Ron Paul - Religion - Ad - Liberty - Book - 2008 Election - "Huckabee admaker calls cross imagery "absolutely accidental;" Paul says "fascism' will be 'carrying a cross'." ... "Asked about Republican rival Mike Huckabee's Christmas-themed ad, which we wrote about yesterday and has attracted attention in part because of the image of a cross that many see hovering over Huckabee's shoulder, GOP presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul said this morning on FOX & Friends that:" ... ""It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once said. He says, 'when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.' Now I don't know whether that's a fair assessment or not, but you wonder about using a cross, like he is the only Christian or implying that subtly. So, I don't think I would ever use anything like that."" ... "From [Sinclair Lewis's book] It Can't Happen Here: "But he saw too that in America the struggle was befogged by the fact that the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word 'Fascism' and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty."" -By Mark Memmott -USATODAY

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20071120
• Dick Cheney - Karl Rove - I Lewis "Scooter" Libby - Intelligence - Law - Politics - Book - "McClellan blames Bush for CIA leak deceit: Former spokesman says both president and vice president involved." ... "Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames [Republican] President Bush and [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] operative." ... "In an excerpt from his forthcoming book ["What Happened"], McClellan recount the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame." ... ""There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Monday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."" ... "Bush's chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card." -AP via -MSNBC 

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20071114
• Rudolph W Giuliani - Bernard Kerik - Media - Company - Politics - 2008 Election - Publisher - New York - Police - Government - "Regan says she was told to lie to protect Giuliani: In a lawsuit against News Corp., the former publisher alleges that she had to keep quiet on an affair with the mayor's top cop." ... "Former publisher Judith Regan filed a $100-million defamation lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and other defendants Tuesday, alleging she was asked by company officials to lie to federal investigators in order to protect [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Rudolph W. Giuliani's presidential bid." ... "Amid a flurry of allegations, the one most likely to cause a stir is Regan's charge that News Corp.'s political agenda was to protect the campaign of former New York Mayor Giuliani, especially when it came to the controversies over former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, whom Giuliani had recommended for the post of Homeland Security secretary. Regan said she confided to company executives as early as 2001 that she had been having an affair with Kerik, whose memoir, "The Lost Son," she published shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks." ... "After [Republican] President Bush nominated Kerik for Homeland Security secretary in 2004, Regan alleges in her suit, one executive "advised Regan to lie to, and to withhold information from, investigators concerning Kerik."" ... "The company then launched a campaign to discredit her, because it feared that she might disclose information that would be politically hurtful to Giuliani, the suit said. Kerik subsequently withdrew his name from consideration amid a cloud of legal questions over his past behavior and fitness for office; he was indicted last week on federal charges, including tax fraud." -By Josh Getlin -LAtimes 

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20071109
• Bernard Kerik - Rudolph Giuliani - Secret - Apartment - Book - Money - Law - New York - New Jersey - "Ex-NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik surrenders in corruption probe." ... "[Former Police Commissioner Bernard] Kerik is charged with conspiracy, tax fraud, making false statements and depriving the city of his honest services while he was [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate Rudolph] Giuliani’s corrections commissioner and top cop." ... "The one-time nominee to be [Republican] President Bush’s Homeland Security czar faces charges that carry a top prison sentence of 142 years, if convicted. He also faces more than $4 million and fines, and would have to repay $255,000 in free rent he got from a Manhattan developer." ... "Kerik is charged with trying to convince city investigators that a New Jersey contractor secretly renovating his Bronx apartment was free of mob ties." ... "He also faces multiple allegations of tax fraud, including failing to report those renovations as income, hiding $75,000 in income from his book, “The Lost Son, and to taking a bogus $80,000 charitable donation." -By Thomas Zambito and Greg B. Smith -NYDailyNews.com

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20070922
• Government - Electronic - Surveillance - Data - Travelers - Flying - Driving - Reading - People - Civil Liberties - US - International - San Francisco - California - Alaska - Terrorism - Intelligence - Politics - Law - "Collecting of Details on Travelers Documented: U.S. Effort More Extensive Than Previously Known." ... "The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials." ... "The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country." ... "Officials yesterday defended the retention of highly personal data on travelers not involved in or linked to any violations of the law. But civil liberties advocates have alleged that the type of information preserved by the department raises alarms about the government's ability to intrude into the lives of ordinary people. The millions of travelers whose records are kept by the government are generally unaware of what their records say, and the government has not created an effective mechanism for reviewing the data and correcting any errors, activists said." ... "The activists alleged that the data collection effort, as carried out now, violates the Privacy Act, which bars the gathering of data related to Americans' exercise of their First Amendment rights, such as their choice of reading material or persons with whom to associate. They also expressed concern that such personal data could one day be used to impede their right to travel." ... ""The federal government is trying to build a surveillance society," said John Gilmore, a civil liberties activist in San Francisco whose records were requested by the Identity Project, an ad-hoc group of privacy advocates in California and Alaska. The government, he said, "may be doing it with the best or worst of intentions. . . . But the job of building a surveillance database and populating it with information about us is happening largely without our awareness and without our consent."" (1, 2) -By Ellen Nakashima with contributions by Julie Tate -WashingtonPost

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20070704
• Fred Thompson - Lewis Libby - Dick Cheney - Surveillance - Intelligence - Law - Politics - History - Book - Tennessee - "Not all would put a heroic sheen on Thompson's Watergate role." ... "The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight -- asking an aide to [Republican] President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system -- he telephoned Nixon's lawyer." ... "Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, "At That Point in Time," Thompson said he acted with "no authority" in divulging the committee's knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon's resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson's actions." ... ""Thompson was a mole for the White House," Armstrong said in an interview. "Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was."" ... "But the story of his role in the Nixon case helps put in perspective Thompson's recent stance as one of the most outspoken proponents of pardoning I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney. Just as Thompson once staunchly defended Nixon, Thompson urged a pardon for Libby, who was convicted in March of obstructing justice in the investigation into who leaked a CIA operative's name." ... "On July 13, 1973, Armstrong, the Democratic staffer, asked [Nixon aide Alexander] Butterfield a series of questions during a private session that led up to the revelation. He then turned the questioning over to a Republican staffer, Don Sanders, who asked Butterfield the question that led to the mention of the taping system." ... "To the astonishment of everyone in the room, Butterfield admitted the taping system existed." ... "When Thompson learned of Butterfield's admission, he leaked the revelation to Nixon's counsel, J. Fred Buzhardt." ... "[Tennessee Republican Senator Howard] Baker, meanwhile, insisted that Thompson be allowed to ask Butterfield the question about the taping system in a public session on July 16, 1973, three days after the committee had learned about the system." -By Michael Kranish -Boston/Globe 

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20070601
• Secret - I Lewis Libby - Dick Cheney - Government - Military - Intelligence - Employee - Free Speech - Book - Politics - New York - "Plame Sues C.I.A. for Blocking Her Memoir." ... "Valerie Wilson [nee Plame], the former intelligence operative at the heart of an investigation that reached into the White House, sued the Central Intelligence Agency in federal court in New York yesterday over its refusal to allow her to publish a memoir that would discuss how long she had worked for the agency." ... "Although that information is set out in an unclassified letter to Ms. Wilson that has been published in the Congressional Record, the C.I.A. contends that her dates of service remain classified and may not be mentioned in “Fair Game,” the memoir Ms. Wilson hopes to publish in October." ... "The letter [published in the Congressional Record] said that Ms. Wilson had worked for the government since Nov. 9, 1985, for a total of “20 years, 7 days,” including “six years, one month and 29 days of overseas service.”" ... "The C.I.A. has been adamant in refusing to confirm the dates or details of Ms. Wilson’s service before 2002. In July 2003, the syndicated columnist Robert Novak disclosed her identity as “an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.” Mr. Novak referred to Ms. Wilson by her maiden name, Valerie Plame." ... "The investigation into that disclosure led to the conviction of I. Lewis Libby Jr., formerly [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, on perjury and obstruction of justice charges in March." ... "On Friday, the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, submitted an unclassified summary of Ms. Wilson’s “C.I.A. employment and cover history” to the judge who will sentence Mr. Libby." ... "The summary said that Ms. Wilson was a covert C.I.A. employee at the time of Mr. Novak’s disclosure. Between the beginning of 2002 and Ms. Wilson’s resignation from the agency at the end of 2005, the summary said, she traveled overseas “under a cover identity, sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias” at least “seven times to more than 10 countries.”" -By Adam Liptak -NYTimes 

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20070430
• 2008 Election - Religion - "Romney Favors Hubbard Novel." ... "When asked his favorite novel in an interview shown yesterday on the Fox News Channel, Mitt Romney pointed to “Battlefield Earth,” a novel by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology." ... "“I’m not in favor of his religion by any means,” Mr. Romney, a Mormon, said." -By Jim Rutenberg -NYTimes 

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20061221
• Religious - Books - People - Virginia - Minnesota - Michigan - US Immigration - Virgil H Goode Jr - "Va. Lawmaker's Remarks on Muslims Criticized: Republican Had Decried the Use of the Koran for Congressman's Oath of Office." ... "[Virginia Republican] Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. (R-Va.) is coming under sharp criticism for lashing out against the decision by [Minnesota Democrat] Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who will become the first Muslim member of Congress next month, to use the Koran during a swearing-in ceremony." ... "In a recent letter to constituents, Goode, a five-term congressman from Rocky Mount, wrote that he does "not subscribe to using the Koran in any way" and added: "The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration, there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran."" ... "When members of Congress are sworn in, they simply raise their right hand. In a ceremony afterward, they may take the oath of office on a Christian Bible, another religious book or no book at all." ... "Ellison, who was born in Detroit [Michigan], could not be reached to comment." -By Zachary A. Goldfarb -WashingtonPost 

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20061211
• US - Israel - Palestine - Book - Media - "Carter says criticism has led to more attention Israeli policy." ... "Former President Jimmy Carter says the criticism aimed at his latest book is a sign that its take on Israeli policy is generating more interest in the plight of the Palestinians." ... "Carter said Monday he expected the backlash against his top-selling book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."" ... ""The premise of this country concerning what's going on in Palestine is so deeply ingrained, so deeply rooted that it's not surprising to me that any contradiction of that has aroused a strong reaction," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview." ... "Part of the reason, he said, is that Americans often see no counterbalance to pro-Israeli viewpoints in the news media." ... ""All they really read or hear is really one-sided, where the Israeli point of view is put forward," he said. "Very rarely do you see any expression or concern of the horrible plight of the Palestinians in their own land."" -AP via -IHT.com

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20061015
• Poverty - Legislation - Politics - Book - "A Loss Of Faith: Former White House Insider Tells Lesley Stahl Staffers Called Evangelicals "Nuts" And "Goofy"." ... "David Kuo is an evangelical Christian and card-carrying member of the religious right, who got a job in the White House in the president’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He thought it was a dream-come-true: a chance to work for a president whose vision about compassionate conservatism would be matched with sweeping legislation to help the poor." ... "But Kuo says the so-called compassion agenda has fallen short of its promise and he blames President Bush for that in his new book." ... "As correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, he also says the White House was a place that cynically used religion for political ends and that White House aides ridiculed the very Christian leaders who helped bring Mr. Bush to office." ... "Kuo speaks as an insider. Even before he became the number two guy in the White House faith-based office, he had a long resume in the world of Christian conservatives." ... ""This message that has been sent out to Christians for a long time now: that Jesus came primarily for a political agenda, and recently primarily a right-wing political agenda - as if this culture war is a war for God. And it’s not a war for God, it’s a war for politics. And that’s a huge difference," says Kuo." ... ""God and politics had become very much fused together into a sort of a single entity. Where, in a way, politics was the fourth part of the trinity. God the father, God the son, God the holy spirit, God the politician," says Kuo." ... ""You’re calling for a fast. That’s your expression," Stahl remarks." ... ""Yes. I think that Christians, particularly evangelical Christians need to take a step back. To have a fast from politics," he replies. "People are being manipulated. Good well-meaning people are being told, ‘Send your money to this Christian advocacy group or that.’ And that’s the answer. It’s just not the answer. It’s not the answer."" (1, 2, 3) -CBSNews 

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20061013
• Secret - US - World - German - Syrian - Military - Terrorism - Torture - Prisons - Politics - Journalist - Book - "Inside the CIA's Secret Prisons Program: An explosive new book provides a rare glimpse into the full extent of the agency's controversial terror renditions — and the curious coalition of partners who helped the U.S. pull them off." ... "In December of 2001, U.S. agents arranged to have a German citizen flown to a Syrian jail called the Palestine Branch, renowned for its use of torture, and later offered to pass written questions to Syrian interrogators to pose to the prisoner, according to a secret German intelligence report shown to TIME on Wednesday. The report is described in the new book Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program by British investigative journalist Stephen Grey. The complex arrangement was part of the CIA's sprawling practice of extraordinary renditions, the secret transfer of terror suspects to hidden prisons across the world — which has involved the aid of numerous foreign governments and the knowledge of key Western European allies, according to the book, which was shown to TIME by the author. After U.S. officials long refused to confirm the CIA's secret detention of terror suspects abroad, President Bush last month admitted that terror suspects had been transferred abroad to secret CIA facilities, but U.S. officials continue to deny that such prisoners have been tortured, saying that foreign governments assured them that they would be treated fairly." ... "The cooperation between an unlikely coalition of intelligence agencies did not end there. The intelligence report gives a rare glimpse into the favors exchanged between governments during the CIA renditions. One day after Germany learned that the Syrians were holding Zammar, the CIA offered the German foreign-intelligence agency BND the chance to put written questions to their prisoner. The intelligence report doesn't make clear whether CIA interrogators had direct physical access to Zammar. In June 2002, Syrian officials offered German interrogators access to Zammar in prison, according to the 263-page report by the BND, marked "Geheim" (Secret). That same day, the BND chief asked Germany's federal prosecutors to drop their charges against Syrian intelligence agents who had been arrested in Germany for allegedly collecting information on Syrian dissidents." (1, 2) -By Vivienne Walt -TIME.com

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• Rove - Faith - Politics - Book - Foley - FL - "Book: Bush Aides Called Evangelicals 'Nuts': White House advisors sought the support of conservative Christians but mocked them in private, writes a onetime administration official." ... "A new book by a former White House official says that President Bush's top political advisors privately ridiculed evangelical supporters as "nuts" and "goofy" while embracing them in public and using their votes to help win elections." ... "The former official also writes that the White House office of faith-based initiatives, which Bush promoted as a nonpolitical effort to support religious social-service organizations, was told to host pre-election events designed to mobilize religious voters who would most likely favor Republican candidates." ... "The assertions by David Kuo, a top official in the faith-based initiatives program, have rattled Republican strategists already struggling to persuade evangelical voters to turn out this fall for the GOP." ... "Some conservatives lamented Thursday that the book, "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction," also comes in the midst of the scandal involving former [Florida Republican] Rep. Mark Foley, another threat to conservative turnout in competitive House and Senate races." ... "In the book, Kuo, who quit the White House in 2003, accuses Karl Rove's political staff of cynically hijacking the faith-based initiatives idea for electoral gain. It assails Bush for failing to live up to his promises of boosting the role of religious organizations in delivering social services." ... "Kuo is not the first insider to accuse the White House of politicizing the faith-based program. John J. DiIulio Jr., the first director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, resigned after seven months and was quoted as saying that the White House was run by "Mayberry Machiavellians" who sometimes put politics ahead of other causes." ... "While many Democrats opposed the initiative as a violation of church-state separation, the White House used the program to build alliances with prominent African American ministers, some of whom switched political allegiances to back Bush. It was part of a larger minority outreach program designed by Rove and other conservative activists to slice off pieces of the traditional Democratic coalitions in order to build a lasting GOP majority." -By Peter Wallsten -LAtimes 

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20061002
• Government - Military - Terrorism - Intelligence - History- Politics - Reporting - Book - "Records Show Tenet Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda Threat." ... "A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman said Monday." ... "The account by Sean McCormack came hours after Ms. Rice, the secretary of state, told reporters aboard her airplane that she did not recall the specific meeting on July 10, 2001, noting that she had met repeatedly with Mr. Tenet that summer about terrorist threats. Ms. Rice, the national security adviser at the time, said it was “incomprehensible” she ignored dire terrorist threats two months before the Sept. 11 attacks." ... "Mr. McCormack also said records show that the Sept. 11 commission was informed about the meeting, a fact that former intelligence officials and members of the commission confirmed on Monday." ... "When details of the meeting emerged last week in a new book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, Bush administration officials questioned Mr. Woodward’s reporting." ... "Now, after several days, both current and former Bush administration officials have confirmed parts of Mr. Woodward’s account." ... "Officials now agree that on July 10, 2001, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, were so alarmed about an impending Al Qaeda attack that they demanded an emergency meeting at the White House with Ms. Rice and her National Security Council staff." ... "According to two former intelligence officials, Mr. Tenet told those assembled at the White House about the growing body of intelligence the Central Intelligence Agency had collected pointing to an impending Al Qaeda attack." -By Philip Shenon and Mark Mazzetti -NYTimes

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20060929
• Noteworthy - US - Iraq - Political - Intelligence - History - Book - "Book Says Bush Ignored Urgent Warning on Iraq." ... "The White House ignored an urgent warning in September 2003 from a top Iraq adviser who said that thousands of additional American troops were desperately needed to quell the insurgency there, according to a new book by Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporter and author. The book describes a White House riven by dysfunction and division over the war." ... "The warning is described in “State of Denial,” scheduled for publication on Monday by Simon & Schuster. The book says President Bush’s top advisers were often at odds among themselves, and sometimes were barely on speaking terms, but shared a tendency to dismiss as too pessimistic assessments from American commanders and others about the situation in Iraq." ... "As late as November 2003, Mr. Bush is quoted as saying of the situation in Iraq: “I don’t want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don’t think we are there yet.”" ... "Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is described as disengaged from the nuts-and-bolts of occupying and reconstructing Iraq — a task that was initially supposed to be under the direction of the Pentagon — and so hostile toward Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, that President Bush had to tell him to return her phone calls. The American commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, is reported to have told visitors to his headquarters in Qatar in the fall of 2005 that “Rumsfeld doesn’t have any credibility anymore” to make a public case for the American strategy for victory in Iraq." ... "Robert D. Blackwill, then the top Iraq adviser on the National Security Council, is said to have issued his warning about the need for more troops in a lengthy memorandum sent to Ms. Rice. The book says Mr. Blackwill’s memorandum concluded that more ground troops, perhaps as many as 40,000, were desperately needed." ... "It says that Mr. Blackwill and L. Paul Bremer III, then the top American official in Iraq, later briefed Ms. Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, her deputy, about the pressing need for more troops during a secure teleconference from Iraq. It says the White House did nothing in response." (1, 2) -By David E. Sanger with contributions by Mark Mazzetti, David Johnston, and Julie Bosman -NYTimes

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20060815
• British - Pakistan - US - Aviation - Terrorism - Law Enforcement - Intelligence - Book - Military - Politics - "The Triumph of Unrealism." ... "The London plot against civil aviation confirmed a theme of an illuminating new book, Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11." The theme is that better law enforcement, which probably could have prevented Sept. 11, is central to combating terrorism. F-16s are not useful tools against terrorism that issues from places such as Hamburg (where Mohamed Atta lived before dying in the North Tower of the World Trade Center) and High Wycombe, England." ... "Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement (the British draw upon useful experience combating IRA terrorism) has validated John Kerry's belief (as paraphrased by the New York Times Magazine of Oct. 10, 2004) that "many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror." In a candidates' debate in South Carolina (Jan. 29, 2004), Kerry said that although the war on terror will be "occasionally military," it is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world."" -By George F. Will -WashingtonPost 

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20060623
• Civil Righs - Books - Money - Library - Georgia - "Mayor: MLK papers to find home at Morehouse College: June 30 auction, expected to bring up to $30M, is canceled." ... "The children of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. will receive an undisclosed amount of money from an anonymous group of people for about 10,000 manuscripts and books belonging to the civil rights icon, Atlanta [Georgia] Mayor Shirley Franklin's office said Friday." ... "A planned June 30 auction will be canceled. Sotheby's auction house had expected to command between $15 million and $30 million for the documents." ... "The papers include drafts of King's "I Have a Dream" speech, his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance address and a printed version of the "Letter from Birmingham Jail."" ... "King, who won the Nobel Prize at age 35, was fatally shot April 4, 1968." -By Deanna Proeller -CNN 

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20060512
• US - Iraq - Australia - UN- Military - Intelligence - Book - "Ex-WMD inspector: Politics quashed facts." ... "A year after Bush administration claims about Iraqi "bioweapons trailers" were discredited by American experts, U.S. officials were still suppressing the findings, says a senior member of the CIA-led Iraq inspection team." ... "At one point, former U.N. arms inspector Rod Barton says, a CIA officer told him it was "politically not possible" to report that the White House claims were untrue. In the end, Barton says, he felt "complicit in deceit."" ... "Barton, an Australian biological weapons specialist, discusses the 2004 events in "The Weapons Detective," a memoir of his years as an arms inspector, being published Monday in Australia by Black Inc. Agenda." ... "Barton's memoir says that well into 2004, pressure from Washington kept the U.S. public uninformed about the true nature of these alleged WMD systems." -Charles J. Hanley -AP via -Kentucky.com 

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20060424
• Government - Secrecy - Politics - Media - Books - History - "Moves Signal Tighter Secrecy Within C.I.A.." ... "The crackdown on leaks at the Central Intelligence Agency that led to the dismissal of a veteran intelligence officer last week included a highly unusual polygraph examination for the agency's independent watchdog, Inspector General John L. Helgerson, intelligence officials with knowledge of the investigation said Sunday." ... "The special polygraphs, which have been given to dozens of employees since January, are part of a broader effort by Porter J. Goss, the director of the C.I.A., to re-emphasize a culture of secrecy that has included a marked tightening of the review process for books and articles by former agency employees." ... "Authors say the agency's Publications Review Board has been removing material that would easily have been approved before. While the board in the past has generally worked with retirees to make manuscripts publishable, it now more often appears to be trying to block publication, the authors say. And reprimands for violations have become more stern, including letters warning of possible Justice Department investigations." (1, 2) -By Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti -NYTimes

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20060413
• Hans von Spakovsky - Lawyer - Author - Texas - Georgia - Civil Rights - "Official's Article on Voting Law Spurs Outcry." ... "When he was a senior lawyer in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Hans von Spakovsky played a central role in approving a controversial Georgia voter identification program over the objections of staff lawyers." ... "But now, after leaving Justice for the Federal Election Commission, von Spakovsky has acknowledged writing a law review article that endorsed photo identification, which was Georgia's approach, before the state's proposal was even submitted to Justice for review. He also took the unusual step of using a pseudonym, "Publius," in publishing the article, which appeared in the spring 2005 issue of the Texas Review of Law & Politics." ... "The article and its unusual authorship prompted a letter of complaint to the Justice Department last week from the Voting Rights Project, an arm of the American Civil Liberties Union that is opposed to Georgia's voter identification plans. The group said the article shows von Spakovsky had already made up his mind on the issue and that his attempt to hide his views may have violated Justice Department guidelines." ... "The episode marks the latest controversy involving von Spakovsky, who served as counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights before Bush named him as a recess appointment to the FEC in December. Von Spakovsky was a central figure in a contentious internal debate over civil rights cases at Justice, especially voting-related decisions that primarily benefited Republicans over the past five years." -By Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost

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20060109
• US - Iraq - Political - Book - "Request for more troops ignored, book says." ... "Paul Bremer, the ranking U.S. official in Iraq for a year after the 2003 invasion, said he pushed the Pentagon to increase the number of troops there but was ignored despite growing lawlessness and an increasingly lethal insurgency." ... "Bremer said he gave a think tank report to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in May 2003 suggesting stabilizing Iraq would require 500,000 troops — more than three times the U.S. forces then in Iraq." ... ""I never heard back from him about the report," Bremer wrote in his memoir, My Year in Iraq, released Monday." -By Jim Michaels -USATODAY

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20051216
• Turkey - Law - Author - EU - "EU watches as trial of Turkish author adjourned." ... "The trial of best-selling Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk was adjourned on Friday in a case that has raised concern in the European Union over freedom of expression in Turkey and its bid for EU membership." ... "Istanbul Judge Metin Aydin said the trial would restart on February 7, 2006, to give the Justice Ministry time to decide whether the case was in line with judicial procedures at the request of the state prosecutor." -By Ercan Ersoy with contributions by Daren Butler -Reuters

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• Turkey - Military - Law - Authors - History - Media - TV - Censorship - "'Terrorised' writers lament state's assault on free speech: Trial of Turkey's greatest living author is focusing attention on attempts to control public opinion." ... "Ertugrul Kurkcu has been hauled before the judges for saying the wrong thing so many times that he has almost lost count. "Six or seven trials, always acquitted, but I did get a 10-month jail sentence from a military court for translating a Human Rights Watch report," says the veteran leftwing Turkish dissident." ... "He took one case to the European Court of Human Rights last year. The case was annulled and the Turkish government paid him €5,000 compensation." ... "Mr Kurkcu's problem is that he keeps colliding with the country's notion of "Turkishness", and that spells danger for writers, historians and novelists, who bring the wrath of the establishment down on their heads every time they are deemed to have belittled it." ... "A raft of other regulations make it possible for Turkey to muzzle, fine and pressure the publishing industry, newspapers and television stations for stepping out of line. Censorship flourishes, too, through requirements that manuscripts be submitted to state authorities for approval and special licensing arrangements that oblige the books industry to get official stamps before a book can be published." -By Ian Traynor -Guardian.co.uk

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• Turkey - Law - Author - Journalists - Switzerland - "Judge Halts Trial of Turkish Novelist." ... "The presiding judge halted the trial of Turkey's best-known novelist Friday, saying the court would need the approval of the Justice Ministry for the trial to proceed." ... "Orhan Pamuk is accused of insulting Turkey's national identity, a free speech case that has divided the nation." ... "He faces up to three years in prison for saying to a Swiss newspaper in February that Turkey is unwilling to deal with painful episodes in its treatment of the country's Armenian minority or its continuing problems with its 12 million Kurdish citizens." ... "Turkey has for years come under criticism for jailing journalists, authors and activists for speaking their minds." -By Suzan Fraser -AP via -HoustonChronicle.com

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• Turkey - Law - Journalists - Books - EU - "Trial of Turkish author adjourned." ... "Mr Pamuk is on trial for "denigrating" Turkishness, and faces up to three years in jail if found guilty." ... "Mr Pamuk was charged under Article 301 of Turkey's revised penal code, which has been widely criticised within the EU." ... "The Independent Communications Network found 16 journalists had been put on trial in Turkey in the first nine months of this year, with 12 of them being found guilty." ... "The Publishers Association said that, in the 18 months until this summer, 37 authors were tried for criminal offences in connection with the publication of 47 books." -Guardian.co.uk

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20051215
• Books - Library - Languages - "Study: 1 In 20 Can't Read English." ... "An estimated in one in 20 U.S. adults is not literate in English, which means 11 million people lack the skills to perform everyday tasks, a federal study shows." ... "The 11 million adults who are not literate in English include people who may be fluent in another language, such as Spanish, but are unable to comprehend text in English." -AP via -CBSNews

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  National Assessment of Adult Literacy -  http://nces.ed.gov/naal

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• EU - Turkey - Author - Law - History - "Turkey, not author, on trial, EU exec says: Many see test of free speech in Istanbul today." ... "Orhan Pamuk, 53, was expected to appear in court in the Istanbul district of Sisli, charged with "public denigration of Turkish identity." The charge stems from an interview he gave to a Swiss magazine in February in which he said that "30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares talk about it."" ... "Pamuk, a prolific writer who has been compared to James Joyce and Salman Rushdie, was referring to two of the most profound issues in modern Turkey: The brutal repression of Kurdish separatists throughout the past two decades and the genocide campaign perpetrated by Ottoman Turkish forces from 1915 to 1918 that claimed the lives of about 1.2 million of the collapsing empire's Armenian subjects." -By Amberin Zaman -LAtimes via -HoustonChronicle.com

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20051209
• Books - US - Iraq - Military - Religion - "Iraq war debate enters new phase." ... "You might not expect a West Point graduate, Vietnam vet and career soldier to come out with a book titled "The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Addicted to War." But that's what Andrew Bacevich, who now directs the program in International Relations at Boston University, has done." ... "A self-described conservative, Bacevich argues that Americans have fallen prey to a "military metaphysic." By that he means all international problems are seen as military problems and the likelihood for finding a solution except through military means is discounted. The result is war as a permanent condition with the only acceptable plan for peace a loaded pistol. One has only to consider the relative weight given to the Pentagon and the State Department to get the point." ... "As a pastor what most interested me is Bacevich's careful tracing of the role of leading religious conservatives in promoting a "crusade theory of warfare," to replace the more long-standing and cautious doctrine of just war. A crusade theory of warfare provides the mindset and justification for offensive military action, for so-called preventive wars like the current war in Iraq. The just war ethical tradition mandates the use of force for defensive, not offensive, purposes." -By Anthony B. Robinson -SeattlePI.NWsource

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20050616
• -  -  -  -  -  - Civil Liberties - "House defies Bush, votes to repeal part of Patriot Act: Book-reading probes would be banned." ... "The Republican-led House bucked President Bush on Wednesday by voting to upend the Patriot Act provision that allows federal agents to examine people's book-reading habits at public libraries and bookstores as part of terrorism investigations." ... "The 238-187 vote might be only a temporary victory for librarians, booksellers and civil libertarians who had opposed the controversial provision of the 2001 law as a threat to privacy rights." ... "The White House issued a statement threatening to veto the appropriations bill if its final version contains any language that weakens the Patriot Act. It's also unclear how the Senate will deal with the library provision." -By Edward Epstein -SFGate.com 

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20050429
• -  -  - - "Detainee Questioning Was Faked, Book Says: U.S. Military Denies Staging Interviews." ... "The U.S. military staged the interrogations of terrorism suspects for members of Congress and other officials visiting the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to make it appear the government was obtaining valuable intelligence, a former Army translator who worked there claims in a new book scheduled for release Monday." ... "[Former Army Sgt. Erik] Saar also told CBS, and claims in his upcoming book, "Inside the Wire," that a few dozen of the more than 750 men who have been held at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay were terrorists, and that little valuable information has been obtained from them." -By Carol D. Leonnig with contributions by Julie Tate-WashingtonPost 

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20050427
• -  - Alabama - "Alabama Bill Targets Gay Authors." ... "Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. As CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters." ... ""I don't look at it as censorship," says State Representative Gerald Allen. "I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children."" -CBSNews

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20050417
• -  -  -  - Languages - Secrets - "Decoded at last: the 'classical holy grail' that may rewrite the history of the world: Scientists begin to unlock the secrets of papyrus scraps bearing long-lost words by the literary giants of Greece and Rome." ... "For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure - a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible." ... "Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed." ... "In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament." -By David Keys and Nicholas Pyke -Independent.co.uk

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20050405
• -  -  -  - "Japan history texts anger E Asia: Japan has approved a set of new school history text books whose version of past events has already sparked complaints from South Korea and China." ... "The most controversial of the new books was written by a group of nationalist historians called the Society for History Textbook Reform, and its first version, published in 2001, caused Seoul to recall its ambassador for nine days in protest." ... "The Japanese government had demanded 124 changes to the book following the complaints in 2001. These have been made, but the new text still has controversial elements." ... "It refers to the Japanese slaughter of some 300,000 civilians in the Chinese city of Nanjing as an "incident", rather than the "massacre" it is known as elsewhere."-BBC /News 

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20040420
• -  -  - ELECTION 2004 - "Kerry hits alleged Bush-Saudi deal: Seizes on account in journalist's book." ... "The latest inside account of the Bush administration has provided fresh fodder for John F. Kerry's campaign, with the presumptive Democratic nominee yesterday condemning the president for reportedly allowing the Saudis to maintain high gasoline prices until just before the fall election, when they would be cut to boost the US economy." ... "Kerry said the deal, reported in "Plan of Attack," the new book by Washington Post editor Bob Woodward, and mentioned in his appearance Sunday on the CBS program "60 Minutes," was "fundamentally wrong" and "outrageous and unacceptable to the American people." A day earlier, the Massachusetts senator condemned Bush for withholding details about Iraqi war planning from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, again relying on Woodward's account of the administration's war planning." -By Glen Johnson -Boston/Globe 

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20040401
• -  -  - "Sept. 11 Panel Scrutinizing Past Testimony." ... "The staff of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is conducting a detailed review of all discrepancies found in public and private statements by Condoleezza Rice and Richard A. Clarke in drawing up questions for Ms. Rice when she testifies before the panel, probably next week, commission officials said Wednesday." ... "The White House, they said, is hoping to limit any political damage to the president by having Ms. Rice testify quickly in the hope of ending the furor over the accusations made by Mr. Clarke, Mr. Bush's former counterterrorism director." ... "Mr. Clarke said in testimony before the commission last week and in his new best-selling memoir that the Bush administration — and Ms. Rice, in particular — largely ignored threats by Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11 attacks." (1, 2) -By Philip Shenon and Doublas Jehl -NYTimes via -Google-News 

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20040331
• 2004 ELECTION -  -  -  - "Political titles play an unusual role in this campaign." ... "The influential role that serious, issues-based books are playing is unusual, historians and political scientists say. "I can't think of anything close to this happening during a campaign, at least in the 20th century," says James Campbell, a political science professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo." ... "The hottest book is Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror by Richard Clarke. The counterterrorism expert served in the Reagan, Clinton and both Bush administrations. He says the current administration paid too little attention to the threat of terrorism before Sept. 11 and made terrorism more of a threat by going to war in Iraq." -By Mark Memmott -USATODAY 

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•  Search Google: "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror" by Richard Clarke

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20040112
• -  - "Treasury seeks probe into papers taken by O'Neill." ... "The Treasury Department has asked for a probe into former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill's possible misuse of documents that may have been classified, a department spokesman said Monday. But O'Neill said Tuesday, "The truth is, I didn't take any documents at all."" ... "At least one of the documents was shown Sunday during an interview on CBS' 60 Minutes in which O'Neill described his disillusioning experience in the Bush administration. O'Neill served as Treasury secretary for two years before he was forced to resign in December 2002. His perspective is laid out in a new book, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill." -By Peronet Despeignes -USATODAY 

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20031201
• -  - Free-Speech - "Texas court to rule: Can fiction be libel?" ... "Shortly after a Texas county judge had 13-year-old Christopher Beamon jailed for five days for writing a Halloween essay about the shooting of a teacher, the Dallas Observer parodied the news item with a fictional account of its own." ... "In a satirical piece, the same judge, Darlene Whitten, was portrayed jailing a 6-year-old girl for writing a book report on Maurice Sendak's children's classic "Where The Wild Things Are," said to contain "cannibalism, fanaticism, and disorderly conduct."" -By John C. Ryan -CSMonitor 

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20031130
• -  -  - "Web sites vanish so fast scientific papers just can't keep up: Disappearing links cause consternation -- it's not academic." ... "In research described in the journal Science last month, the team [dermatologist Robert Dellavalle and his co-workers] looked at footnotes from scientific articles in three major journals -- the New England Journal of Medicine, Science and Nature -- at three months, 15 months and 27 months after publication. The prevalence of inactive Internet references grew during those intervals from 3.8 percent to 10 percent to 13 percent." ... ""I think of it like the library burning in Alexandria," Dellavalle said, referring to the 48 B.C. sacking of the ancient world's greatest repository of knowledge. "We've had all these hundreds of years of stuff available by interlibrary loan, but now things just a few years old are disappearing right under our noses really quickly."" -By Rick Weiss-WashingtonPost via -SFGate.com 

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20031113
• -  - "Dipping into books online: Is it stealing?  Amazon.com says its new 'Search Inside the Book' feature has boosted sales. But authors worry that people will read just what they need and not buy the book." ... "Late last month, Amazon.com opened a whole new portal to the world of books. The cyberretailer's new "Search Inside the Book" feature makes the entire content of books available -free - to anyone with a high-speed internet connection and a credit card." ... "Now, Web surfers can unearth, read, and even print recipes, travel tips, or anything else mentioned in the 120,000 books whose publishers have let Amazon make their texts fully searchable." -By John C. Ryan -CSMonitor 

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20030812
• - - "To Fox, 'Fair and Balanced' Doesn't Describe Al Franken." ... "In the dry corner of business law called trademark litigation, Fox v. Franken is an unusually lively document. Along with mundane accusations of unfair competition, the lawsuit includes some especially derisive remarks about the defendant, Al Franken, the political satirist." ... "The court papers were filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan and became public yesterday. In the lawsuit, a judge is being asked to decide an important question: who has the right to use the word "fair" and the word "balanced" together, connected by the word "and"?" ... "Lawyers for Fox News Network, part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, News Corporation, contend that Mr. Franken should not be allowed to use those words in the title of his new book due in stores next month, "Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right" (Penguin)." -By Susan Saulny -NYTimes via -Google-News

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• -  - "Fox Sues Humor Writer for Using 'Signature' Slogan." ... "Fox News Network is suing humor writer Al Franken for trademark infringement over the phrase "fair and balanced" on the cover of his upcoming book, saying it has been "a signature slogan" of the network since 1996."-Reuters

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20030807
• - OPINION - "Is sin in?  Centuries after the seven deadly sins [gluttony, anger, pride, envy, sloth, lust, and greed] became the ultimate measure of moral depravity, a new series of essays asks if they are still relevant." ... "The list that Pope Gregory I refined was first arrived at by a 4th-century monk named Evagrius of Pontus. He choose eight: gluttony, lust, avarice (greed), sadness, anger, acedia (spiritual sloth), vainglory, and pride. Gregory I added envy, and merged vainglory with pride and acedia with sadness (which eventually became sloth)." -By Kim Campbell -CSMonitor 

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20030604
• -  - "Hillary Clinton recounts Bill's confession." ... "Hillary Rodham Clinton says her husband's relationship with Monica Lewinsky caused so much pain that, at one point, Buddy the dog      was the only member of the family willing to keep President Clinton company." ... "The Democratic senator from New York declares in her new memoirs that, ``As a wife, I wanted to wring Bill's neck,'' but she finally resolved that she loved him, wanted to keep the marriage intact and supported what he was doing as president." ... "Mrs. Clinton vividly describes her pain over the betrayal in ``Living History,'' covering her eight years in the White House. A copy of the book, which goes on sale next week, was obtained by The Associated Press." -By Calvin Woodward and Siobhan McDonough -AP via  -StarTribune.com 

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  Search Google:
• <"Living History" Hillary Clinton -[News]>

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20030507
• -  - -  - "Iraqi Documents on Israel Surface on a Cultural Hunt." ... "What began today as a hunt for an ancient Jewish [Talmud] text at secret police headquarters here wound up unearthing a trove of Iraqi intelligence documents and maps relating to Israel as well as offers of sales of uranium and other nuclear material to Iraq." ... "In one huge room in the flooded basement of the building, American soldiers from MET Alpha, the "mobile exploitation team" that has been searching for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in Iraq for the past three months, found maps featuring terrorist strikes against Israel dating to 1991." -By Judith Miller -NYTimes via  -AltaVista-News 

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20030502
• "With pot and porn outstripping corn, America's black economy is flying high:  Illegal migrants provide the muscle for US black market." ... "Marijuana, pornography and illegal labour have created a hidden market in the United States which now accounts for as much as 10% of the American economy, according to a study. As a cash crop, marijuana is believed to have outstripped maize, and hardcore porn revenue is equal to Hollywood's domestic box office takings." ... "Despite laws that punish marijuana cultivation more strictly than murder in some states, Americans spend more on illegal drugs than on cigarettes. And despite official disapproval of pornography, the US leads the world in export of explicit sex videos, according to [the book] Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labour in the American Black Market, by Eric Schlosser." -By Duncan Campbell -Guardian.co.uk

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20030429
• -  -  - "Gilgamesh tomb believed found:  Archaeologists in Iraq believe they may have found the lost tomb of King Gilgamesh - the subject of the oldest "book" in history." ... "The Epic Of Gilgamesh - written by a Middle Eastern scholar 2,500 years before the birth of Christ - commemorated the life of the ruler of the city of Uruk, from which Iraq gets its name." ... "Now, a German-led expedition has discovered what is thought to be the entire city of Uruk - including, where the Euphrates once flowed, the last resting place of its famous King." ... ""I don't want to say definitely it was the grave of King Gilgamesh, but it looks very similar to that described in the epic," Jorg Fassbinder, of the Bavarian department of Historical Monuments in Munich, told the BBC World Service's Science in Action programme." -BBC/News 

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20030424
• -  -  - "Right to Read:  Librarians, Booksellers Take on Feds Over Patriot Act Provisions." ... "The threat, according to booksellers and librarians, comes from the federal government and a provision of the USA Patriot Act in Section 215 that authorizes the FBI to obtain "certain business records" based on warrants from secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts, which under changes instituted by USA Patriot do not require that the government show probable cause." ... "The law, passed by Congress less than two months after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, also makes it illegal for a business — including libraries or bookstores — whose client records are demanded to tell anyone about it, even the person whose purchase or borrowing records are demanded." -By Dean Schabner -ABCNEWS.com 

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20030421
• -  -  - "Reconstruction time again:  Burned libraries make Iraq's history a war casualty." ... "According to news reports, the burned libraries (with contents described by [Islamic art bibliographer for Harvard's Fine Arts Library, Andras] Riedlmayer) include:" ... "• The Awqaf Library (Library of the Ministry of Religious Endowments), which contained 8,500 Islamic manuscript codices (an ancient type of book) in Arabic, as well as hundreds of manuscripts in Persian and Ottoman Turkish. It also contained ancient illuminated Korans. Its oldest work was a scriptural commentary by the ninth-century scholar Ibn Qutayba, copied in 1079." ... "• The National Library of Iraq and National Centre for Archives, known as the House of Wisdom, comparable to the US Library of Congress. It held 417,000 books, 2,618 periodicals from the late Ottoman era and modern times, and a collection of 4,412 rare books and manuscripts." ... "Also looted, if not burned, were the University of Mosul library, which had 890,000 volumes, including many rare books and manuscripts, and the University of Basra library, with 190,000 volumes and 700 manuscripts." -By David Mehegan -Boston/Globe 

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• - -  -  -  - "Local Officials Rise Up to Defy The Patriot Act." ... "This little city [Arcata, California] (pop.: 16,000) has become the first in the nation to pass an ordinance that outlaws voluntary compliance with the Patriot Act." ... "The Arcata ordinance may be the first, but it may not be the last. Across the country, citizens have been forming Bill of Rights defense committees to fight what they consider the most egregious curbs on liberties contained in the Patriot Act. The 342-page act, passed by Congress one month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, with little input from a public still in shock, has been most publicly criticized by librarians and bookstore owners for the provisions that force them to secretly hand over information about a patron's reading and Internet habits. But citizens groups are becoming increasingly organized and forceful in rebuking the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act for giving the federal government too much power, especially since a draft of the Justice Department's proposed sequel to the Patriot Act (dubbed Patriot II) was publicly leaked in January." -By Evelyn Nieves-WashingtonPost

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20020913
• 9-11 Meta Index - "A Monitor Guide to Books of September 11:  A year after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the publishing industry has produced more than 300 related books. No single event has ever generated so many, so quickly."  -CSMonitor/buy

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20020819
• HUMOR_;-) - "Book gangs of New York:  The biggest, baddest literary crime boss on the mean streets of Manhattan declares war." ... "It was crazy and we all knew it. But could I turn my back on the man who had rescued me from a dreary future of card catalogs at the NYPL?" -By Sam Apple and Rebecca Jacobs -Salon 

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20020623
• "FBI checking out Americans' reading habits Bookstores, libraries can't do much to fend off search warrants." ... "Section 215 [of the USA Patriot Act] gave the FBI authority to obtain library and bookstore records and a wide range of other documents during investigations of international terrorism or secret intelligence activities." ... "Unlike other search warrants, the FBI need not show that evidence of wrongdoing is likely to be found or that the target of its investigation is actually involved is terrorism or spying. Targets can include U.S. citizens." ... "Nearly everything about the procedure is secret. The court that authorizes the searches meets in secret; the search warrants carried by the agents cannot mention the underlying investigation; and librarians and booksellers are prohibited, under threat of prosecution, from revealing an FBI visit to anyone, including the patron whose records were seized." -By Bob Egelko -SFGate.com 

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  Google:
• <USA Patriot Act>
• <USA Patriot Act 215>
• <USA Patriot Act section 215>

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• "The Bible and the Apocalypse:  The biggest book of the summer is about the end of the world. It's also a sign of our troubled times." ... "... among the best-selling fiction books of our times—right up there with Tom Clancy and Stephen King—is a series about the End Times, written by Tim F. LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, based on the Book of Revelation. That part of the Bible has always held its mysteries, but for millions of people the code was broken in 1995, when LaHaye and Jenkins published Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days. People who haven't read the book and its sequels often haven't even heard of them, yet their success provides new evidence that interest in the End Times is no fringe phenomenon. Only about half of Left Behind readers are Evangelicals, which suggests there is a broader audience of people who are having this conversation." (1, 2, 3, 4) -By Nancy Gibbs -TIME.com 

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20020613
• "ABCNEWS.com: ''READ THIS!'' Nationwide Book Club to Book Club 'Handoff.'" from the Get-A-Clue. dept.  -By Hermit ;-) -Posted 1st @ LISNews.com

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20020430
• "Where literary greats once trod." Hike Boston's trail of authors: "... tie on a comfortable pair of shoes and follow the Literary Trail through Boston, Cambridge, and Concord. This self-guided, 20-mile tour, developed by the Boston History Collaborative, takes you where some of America's best-loved authors – Emerson, Longfellow, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Alcott – met, wrote, and lived." -By Frances J. Folsom  -CSMonitor/subscribe

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20020422
• "Vonnegut May End Public Appearances." Witty, personable, popular, author "Kurt Vonnegut" [Google], informally suggested he may no longer make public appearances.  -AP via  -FindLaw /LegalNews

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20020418
• - "China mega-book gets new life:  The world's largest nonfiction work and its earliest encyclopedia is going to be given a new lease of life when it gets reprinted for the first time in 600 years." ... "The Yongle encyclopedia (Yongle Dadian) -- made up of 22,877 volumes in 11,095 books -- is being republished by the Beijing Library Press, China's state-run Xinhua news agency said on Thursday." -By Marianne Bray  -CNN/Asia

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20020417
• "Career vs. baby book sparks controversy." -CNN/Health
• Google Search: <"Creating a Life." [book title] Hewlett [Author]>

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20020211
• "Michael Moore's Uncensored Book Release Planned." from the Correlation-or-Causation dept. -By Hermit ;-) - Posted 1st @ LISNews.com - Comment? 

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20011203
• "'Harry Potter' to Be Released in Latin." -AP via -AJC

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20011121
• "Shedding writer's block:  Retreating to the confines of a tiny shed is the first step for many writers in freeing their imagination." -By Noel C. Paul-CSMonitor/buy 

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20011119
• .Salon's recommended book list: from the last year of their book reviews. -Salon

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20011118
• Book - "Non Campus Mentis." "Student book offers twisted history 'coarse':  Experience history from the Stoned Age to the Blintz Krieg! From Middle Evil Times to the Age of Now, from the Land of Milk and Chocolate to the Iran Hostess Crisis and the fall of the Berlin Mall!" -Reutersvia  -CNN 

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20011115
• "Annual Book Guide 2001." -By Ron Charles-CSMonitor 

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20011107(11)
• "Prophet of Evil:  'Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden' by Peter L. Bergen." ... "... the only book you need to read about Osama bin Laden, at lest for now.... a work that is at once lively, literate and authoritative -- equal parts journalism, history and even whimsical travelogue...." -Reviewed by Jeff Stein -WashingtonPost

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20010928
• "Where's my Islamic e-book?  The demand for good books about terrorism or Afghanistan has never been greater, but the best are hard to find. Why can't I just click, buy and download?" The author explains "that in the case of out-of-print or otherwise obscure books that suddenly become relevant because of world events, it shouldn't be that hard to slap a digital version on the Net, and charge for downloads." -By Andrew Leonard-Salon 

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20010911
• "Communities buzz with more 'literary' chatter"Oprah Winfrey's book club and the "Harry Potter" books are among the things that have helped a new push for "communal reading". -By Abraham McLaughlin -CSMonitor
+Unendorsed research links:
• >NIFL - National Institute For Literacy
• >LiteracyLink/PBS
• >FamLit.org - National Center for Family Literacy
• >VerizonReads

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20010514
• "The No-Book Report: Skim It and Weep:  More and More Americans Who Can Read Are Choosing Not To. Can We Afford to Write Them Off?" -By Linton Weeks -WashingtonPost 

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• "Online Texts Collection" -IPL 

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20010826
• "Big Borders bookshop is watching you:  High-tech surveillance ... the kind used to catch terrorists will be spying on shoppers" -By Jenifer Johnston  -sundayherald via  -Slashdot Discussion: "Borders to Use CCTV Face Recognition"

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Book Notes:	-
	TOP

• http://Classics.MIT.edu - Browse -
•  Shakespeare -> Romeo and Juliet.

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• Banned Books =  Banned Books Online -  http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned-books.html 

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• On-LineBooks - http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/
• also:  http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
• Online Texts - http://www.ipl.org/reading/books/

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•  BookSense.com

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• ALA.org:
"Let Freedom Read:  Read a Banned Book."
•  http://www.ALA.org/ala.search?q=banned+books
• "Banned Books Week." - http://www.ala.org/bbooks
• "For Reporters."
• "Quotations and Links."
• "Challenged and Banned Books."

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• >NIFL.gov - National Institute For Literacy
• >LiteracyLink/PBS
• >FamLit.org - National Center for Family Literacy

Books Weblog: Book Weblog:	- TOP
(NOT Necessarily Recommended)-! surf at your own risk, no lifeguard on duty (and read the fine print ;-)

•  Free Ebooks and Classic Literature Library
•  Sherlock Holmes - William Shakespeare

 Google Search: book reviews

 BBC / News

 BBC - Books - Book Club

 BBC - Books - Authors

 Google Search: book news

 Google Search: books news

 ajc.com - "Opinion | Books." - http://www.AccessAtlanta.com/ajc/living/books

 The Library of Congress National Book Festival Home Page - October 12, 2002 - http://www.LOC.gov/bookfest

 Center for the Book in the Library of Congress - http://www.LOC.gov/loc/cfbook

•  World Wide Web Sites Sponsored by ERIC/EECE - http://ericps.crc.uiuc.edu

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• NPIN.org - "National Parent Information Network."
•  NPIN. Virtual Library
•  NPIN. Virtual Library. Full-Text Parenting Resources

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•  ECRP: Early Childhood Research & Practice - "An Internet journal on the development, care, and education of young children." - http://ecrp.uiuc.edu 

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•  ReadingPath.org - site for teaching young children to read.
•  Glossary

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• International Literacy Day - September 8.
•  Google Search: International Literacy Day

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•  Reading.org - "International Reading Association."



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•  Google Search: "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them."

•  OUP.co.uk - "Oxford University Press."
•  OxfordReference.com
•  OED.com - "Oxford English Dictionary."
• free: Word of the Day - http://www.OED.com/cgi/display/wotd
• Oxford English Dictionary News - http://www.OED.com/public/news
•  ‘Doh!’ before Homer: the Appeals list and the process of continuous revision
•  The OED's special characters - "The subject of this piece is not in fact the staff of the Dictionary, but rather the characters and symbols which are non-standard in the English language, and known to typographers as ‘special sorts’ - or, less esoterically, the thousands of alphabetic, mathematical, and assorted obscure symbols that pepper the text of the OED."

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News Reference Facts Information Sources Intelligence Haven Works !-)

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