Saturday, July 22, 2006

Cheese & Onions (5:30 pm)

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

In These Times Editor Joel Bleifuss On C-Span Midday Tomorrow (7:56 am)

Joel will be live on C-Span Books tomorrow at 12:45, 11:45 (CST), at the Harlem Book Fair on a panel talking about the book that he and Steve Freeman have written, Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count.

View C-SPAN2 online stream here.

Excerpt of the book here.

Purchase a copy here or here or here.

Book reviewed here.

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

Watergategate Expanded Universe: Virgil Goode Edition (7:48 am)

Justin Rood at TPM Muckraker passes along this AP report:

WASHINGTON — An ex-employee at a defense contractor pleaded guilty Friday to making illegal donations to the campaign of Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., marking the latest chapter in a congressional bribery probe.

Richard Berglund, who formerly supervised the Martinsville, Va., office of MZM Inc., faces up to a year in prison for engaging in a scheme with company owner Mitchell Wade to reimburse MZM employees for campaign donations. The scheme violates the Federal Election Campaign Act.

In February, Wade pleaded guilty to bribing former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, in exchange for help in getting $150 million in Defense Department contracts.

Wade and defense contractor Brent Wilkes were at the center of the Cunningham bribery case and the two business executives also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to curry favor with other lawmakers, including Goode and Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Fla.

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Friday, July 21, 2006

U.S. Press Has Chosen Sides In Mid East Conflict (9:27 am)

Counterspin is a program produced by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting. Today the show will host a special extended interview about Lebanon, Israel and the media, featuring Lebanese-born American scholar Fawaz Gerges, professor of international studies at Sarah Lawrence college and the author of Journey of the Jihadists.

CounterSpin can be heard on more than 125 noncommercial stations across the United States and Canada. Stations can be found here. The program can also be heard online. Podcasts available by subscription here.

via Tracy Van Slyke

posted by Brian Zick | 2 comments

A Lieberman Anecdote (8:13 am)

Josh Marshall has been focused the last couple days on the Lieberman/Lamont primary campaign. And - Josh being Josh - he has endeavored to present a variety of perspectives, including several posts with emails from his readers. And despite bending over backward to accommodate any rational explanation for Lieberman’s behavior, Josh has been obliged to conclude - albeit putting it mildly - that the Senator is seriously “out of touch” with his Connecticut constituents.

Reading all the voices, in the establishment press as well as Blogsylvania, about Lieberman standing steadfast in favor of the Iraq war (among other points of contention) has been a bit of an exercise in déjà vu for me.

During the buildup to the Iraq war, like so many folks, I tried to reason with some influential politicians. I made a phone call to Joe Lieberman’s office, and was routed to one of his staffers who was working the issue. Alas, I neglected to make note of the gentleman’s name. For not only was he exceedingly gracious, but he allowed our discussion to go on for a considerable amount of time - it was at least 20 minutes, maybe more. Over the decades I have called many a congressional office cold and totally out of the blue; the time I was given on that call was unprecedented in my experience.

I had a genuine debate with the man over the merits - and demerits - of entering into the conflict. We actually argued. Very politely, but... read more

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Thursday, July 20, 2006

Net Neutrality Update (10:30 pm)

Matt Stoller at MyDD reports that Senator “Byron Dorgan says he has the votes to pass the Snowe-Dorgan bill mandating net neutrality protections.”

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NSA/AT&T Spying Lawsuit Still On Track (9:47 pm)

David Kravets for AP reports:
A federal judge Thursday refused to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the Bush administration’s domestic spying program, rejecting government claims that it could expose state secrets and jeopardize the war on terror.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker said the warrantless eavesdropping has been so widely reported that there appears to be no danger of spilling secrets.

On a related note, Dan Eggen for WaPo reports that Arlen Specter’s much ballyhooed but bogus “compromise” with Bush, which would have effectively scuttled the EFF suit, has been knocked off track. Specter has “canceled a markup session for his proposal that had been scheduled for yesterday.”

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Establishment Media Bias Favoring Conservatives Remains Unchanged (12:22 pm)

Media Matters charts the imbalance.

via Atrios