The new White House domestic policy chief, Karl Zinsmeister, altered his own quotes and other text that appeared in a published profile of him, originally written by the Syracuse New Times but later amended and posted on the AEI website. The White House claims that the alterations were “corrections” due to “misattributions” by the reporter, an unlikely story given that Zinsmeister emailed the New Times reporter after the interview to thank him for his “fair and thoughtful treatment.”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Sen. Rick Santorum’s residence: “He doesn’t live here anymore.” The paper sent a letter to Santorum’s supposed residence in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania in March, only to watch the letter bounce back “with a sticker from the U.S. Postal Service checked as ‘Not Deliverable As Addressed — Unable To Forward.’”
In an e-mail and robocall message, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) attacks his opponent, Zack Space, as too liberal because he appeared on Rachel Maddow’s Air America show. Ney calls her a “cross-dressing lesbian” who “uses a different name when dressed ‘in drag.’”
Meanwhile, two of Ney’s top aides have been subpoenaed in the Jack Abramoff bribery investigation. Paul Vinovich, formerly Ney’s top aide with the House Administration Committee, and Will Heaton, Ney’s current chief of staff, both accompanied Abramoff, Ney, Ralph Reed, David Safavian, and Neil Volz on an Aug. 2002 golf trip aboard a private jet to Scotland.
ABC’s Brian Ross stands by his story that House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) is under FBI investigation. “I think our story is accurate. We’ve gone back to our sources, and they believe what we reported was accurate as they knew it.” George Stephanopoulos, ABC’s chief Washington correspondent, called the implications “potentially seismic.”
“Deserts in the American Southwest and around the globe are creeping toward heavily populated areas as the jet streams shift, researchers reported yesterday. The result: Areas already stressed by drought may get even drier.”
A British Joint Committee On Human Rights charged with evaluating the Blair government’s compliance with the United Nations convention against torture has concluded that the government has not adequately investigated allegations of renditions. The report states the British “should take active steps to ascertain more details about certain flights known to have used UK airports and suspected of involvement in extraordinary renditions.”
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has “ordered a probe of dozens of television stations” after a report by the Center for Media and Democracy found that at least 77 stations had “aired advertisements as if they were news reports” in violation of an FCC warning to disclose sponsors.
The data analyst whose house was burglarized, resulting in the loss of 26.5 million veterans’ personal information, routinely took home data for three years, without authorization. “It will cost at least $10 million to inform veterans that their personal information may be in the hands of criminals.”
And finally: It’s good to have friends in high places. “A 26-year-old college dropout who carries President Bush’s breath mints and makes him peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches will follow in his boss’s footsteps this fall when he enrolls at Harvard Business School,” the Harvard Crimson reports. “Though it is rare for HBS — or any other professional or graduate school — to admit a student who does not have an undergraduate degree, admissions officers made an exception for Blake Gottesman.”
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