ThinkFast: February 22, 2006
ThinkFast: February 22, 2006
ThinkFast is a new feature of ThinkProgress. Coffee and donuts not included. (It’s still a work in progress – let us know what you think.)
Human Rights First is set to release a report today charging that 98 prisoners have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002. Thirty-four of the deaths were suspected or confirmed homicides. Also: Actors from a new film Road to Guantanamo were held and interrogated at UK airport.
In a recently unsealed court document, Bush administration lawyers argued “journalists can be prosecuted under current espionage laws for receiving and publishing classified information.” Secrecy expert Steven Aftergood said the Bush position “is one that characterizes authoritarian societies, not mature democracies.” Also: “Why We Need Leakers”
On the heels of a car bomb that killed 21 people, Iraqi insurgents yesterday blew up the gold-domed shrine in Samarra that houses two important Shiite imams.
More: “Turf battles in Iraq delay government’s formation”
Alito’s America: Supreme Court agrees to decide whether a vaguely-worded ban on so-called “partial-birth abortion” is constitutional.
Three appeals courts found the ban unconstitutional and ordered the government not to enforce it, primarily because it lacks an exception for a woman’s health. Pro-choice groups charge its language is “so vague and overbroad that it gives doctors insufficient notice of what medical conduct is prohibited and what is legal.”
“Though more seniors are enrolling” in the new Medicare prescription drug plan each month, they’re liking it less and less. Some 45 percent of seniors view the plan unfavorably today compared to 32 percent last August, according to the Kaiser Foundation. Also: Health care spending on track to consume 20 percent of U.S. GDP.
In 2000, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) opposed a bill banning Internet gambling. Now, he supports the ban. The difference? One of his “closest and dearest friends,” Jack Abramoff, isn’t around now to convince him to support it.
Conservative Senate Ethics Committee Chairman George Voinovich (R-OH) indicates a growing enthusiasm for public financing of campaigns. Voinovich says politicians spend too much time “dialing for dollars,” something Brent Wilkes knows about all too well.
Right-wing supporters argued earlier this year that the Constitution is a technicality, and a clerical error in the Senate budget reconciliation bill making it different than the House version was no big deal. But three years ago, the leadership authorized $221,000 to update “How Our Laws Made,” a report which clearly states, “A bill cannot become a law of the land until it has been approved in identical form by both Houses of Congress.”
“How important is a war-on-terror intelligence asset — important enough that his clear complicity in genocide should be overlooked?” A confidential UN document identifying “the 17 individuals most responsible for war crimes in Darfur” lists Salah Gosh, the head of Sudanese intelligence who was flown into the United States by the CIA last year in an effort to foster a “close intelligence partnership” between the two countries.
“The Secretary of Defense thinks like a futurist and acts like a Neanderthal.”
David Cole writes in the New York Review of Books: “Are We Safer?”
Instability and violence continue just 600 miles off the Florida shores where Haitians are still attempting to establish a viable government and the rule of law. The way forward? President-elect Preval needs to put the national interest ahead of his own interests, and the U.S. needs to offer its support.
Police are investigating why 70 percent of a Hell’s Angels biker gang chapter were certified as depressed and found qualified to receive state sickness benefits — all by the same doctor.
What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.
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Are the Jellyfish growing spines?
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:09 am. . . and of course, those that actually leak the classified information will be pardoned at a later date.
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:17 amBushiva and L’il Dick have turned America’s sons and daughters into murderers…
…while Bushiva and L’il Dick commit treason…
…by declassifying sensitive “classified” info, feeding it to the press and now they want to “prosecute” reporters for possessing classified information…
…they’re selling our ports, and leaving our borders wide open, but it’s no accident we haven’t been attacked on American soil since 9/11…
…they’re (al Qaida’s) killing our sons and daughters over there, ’til they can come up with something even MORE spectacular and devastating than 9/11 to kill us over here…
…The traitors Bushiva and L’il Dick…
…destroying America one scandal, misstep, and lie at a time…
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:18 amYou listed the Alito/abortion stuff twice.
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:21 amI don’t care for this new method, “thinkfast”.
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:21 amIf you could let us know how we could improve it, that would really help us out. Remember, this is in addition to our regular content, not instead of our regular content.
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:24 amThe Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that a small congregation in New Mexico may use hallucinogenic tea as part of a four-hour ritual intended to connect with God. (SOURCE: The AP)
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:33 amI like the Headline news give me an overview that the msm mainly leaves out like this:
In a recently unsealed court document, Bush administration lawyers argued “journalists can be prosecuted under current espionage laws for receiving and publishing classified information.†Secrecy expert Steven Aftergood said the Bush position “is one that characterizes authoritarian societies, not mature democracies.†Also: “Why We Need Leakersâ€
Now how do we gt the MSM to report on the bush authoritarianism of America that Mr Aftergood rightly describes?
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:37 am98 Killed in US custody. Not to mention couple thousand or more Afghans who were boxed up in shipping containers with little or no air and never let out at the outset of the Afghanistan War and slowly suffocated in the desert heat. They were being transported to a prison and just never got there.The Us personel just left them in the desert. What a way to go. At that point nobody here in the US was asking questions.
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:44 amI also believe that incident was one of the first reported journalist shootings when a reporterand camera man were shot investigating the mass graves.
According to Dr. John Pace, UN Human Rights Chief that number,98, is much much higher. Story at whatreallyhappened.com ———-Feb 20
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:54 amI like the new service, especially when very important news stories are breaking, and the Tricky Dickey Cheney shooting incident is still the headline news.
When important news is breaking from around the world, you need a news service like ‘Thinkfast’ to report these news stories. It would seem that the Whitehouse could easily suppress certain news topics in the US. Then this type of a news service is essential in counteracting what can only be described as the ‘censorship’ of the news.
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:55 amI think the bombing of the shrine is much bigger news than most in the West will realize.
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:56 amthe new feature, Me likey
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:02 amYes T.P. Dkos and other blogs will become the lifeline on real news when bushco does their smack down on Reporting Non State Run News.
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:13 amSo, as long as they keep their illegal activities ‘classified’, it is illegal to report on their illegal activities? That seems a little ‘out there’ to me. Maybe this is another clutching at straws effort to try and make spying on anyone they choose, legal after the fact.
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:19 amThis Global War on Terror, the GWOT, is nothing but a reign of terror.
It’s a cryin’ shame.
It’s also a crime.
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:26 am“Human Rights First is set to release a report today charging that 98 prisoners have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002. Thirty-four of the deaths were suspected or confirmed homicides. Also: Actors from a new film Road to Guantanamo were held and interrogated at UK airport.”
Even if you discount this stat as only 34 deaths were attributed to homicide, the number of deaths for two prisons has got to blow away any statistics on U.S. Prisons of any type for the same period or amount of time.
Does anyone research prison stats.?
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:32 amOut of interest, the full statement from the actor, Rizwan Ahmed who was detained can be found at http://www.theLIP.org/?p=129 scarey stuff…
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:35 amIf civil war has not begun in Iraq already, this latest bombing may have tipped it. And there is no one to blame but us.
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:36 amC. Rice will have a hard time continuing to tout all the “progress” being made in Iraq, when the country is in flames.
Congressional Conservative Treason:
Congressional conservatives argued earlier this year that the Constitution is a technicality, and that a clerical error in the Senate budget reconciliation bill making it different than the House version was no big deal. But three years ago, the leadership authorized $221,000 to update “How Our Laws Made,” a report which clearly states, “A bill cannot become a law of the land until it has been approved in identical form by both Houses of Congress.”
-American Progress Action Fund Report-
I like the Thinkfast format…
…provides a nice synopsis of some of the off the radar news tidbits…
February 22nd, 2006 at 12:07 pmNow how do we gt the MSM to report on the bush authoritarianism of America that Mr Aftergood rightly describes?
Sorry to sound defeatist, but I’m afraid we don’t. The corporate press, much like the Congress, just don’t seem inclined to hold people in the Admin accountable, at least not anymore. About the only way I see this becoming an interest to the corporate media, is if one of their own is on the business end of an indictment as a “news informer.” Yet another example of the GOP “shoot the messenger” strategy.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:41 pmDoes anyone remember that vet who was trying to get on the Ohio democratic ballot for senate? Read this for a memory spur:
February 22nd, 2006 at 5:23 pmhttp://www.hackettforcongress.com/
Now this comes up in today’s news:
http://enews.earthlink.net/article/pol?guid=20060222/43fbefd0_3ca6_1552620060222793162489
Can’t they even shoot straight?
Walt, that’s a disgrace. And no, they can’t shoot straight. Hackett is a passionate man, and the Dems totally wimped out.
February 22nd, 2006 at 6:09 pmJudd, I like this round-up thing you’ve got going. What about encouraging commenters to consider this an open thread?
February 22nd, 2006 at 6:11 pmI was under the impression that this was an open subject thread. I only posted here because no one seemed to have noticed the report which was in the news a mere three days after Paul Hackett cried uncle (as in – enough is enough).
February 22nd, 2006 at 6:32 pmwalt – i’m no wiz about these things, but the earthlink article is about the HOUSE race…hackett was wanting to run for senate, bowed out for sharrod brown…
February 22nd, 2006 at 7:35 pm#27 – katy,
February 22nd, 2006 at 8:34 pmNo, it was the senate. He used his original web page for his move to the senate. The earthlink article refers to the democratic party failing to be able to field a candidate just tree days after Hackett threw in the towel because of opposition from the national party. For some reason, it does not mention Hackett for reasons I will never fathom.
Yeh I think their are too many stories at once for this type of Format. (Blogs are FAST at times, yet Slow compared to a Chat room)
February 23rd, 2006 at 4:44 amMaybe if they were only two related Items instead…
That or a Different Layout/Html Page setup that one might click on comes to my mind with the same articles above.
February 23rd, 2006 at 4:46 am