REP. JOHN CONYERS (D-Michigan): “I am proud to have introduced the RESTORE Act with Intelligence Committee Chairman Sylvestre Reyes… Earlier this year, President Bush signed a short-term surveillance law that exposed innocent Americans’ phone calls and emails to warrantless intrusion. Speaker Pelosi immediately asked us to fix this problem and to ensure court oversight while preserving our ability to fight against foreign threats. This bill shows that it is possible to protect civil liberties and fight terrorism at the same time.” [via TPM MUCKRAKER] RESTORE Act of 2007 (Responsible Surveillance That is Overseen, Reviewed and Effective) Bill Summary Security and […]
HEAR YE: Radiohead In Rainbows
NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO!
WORTH REPEATING: Reality Has A Liberal Bias
“That’s right, hate mongers like Media Matters [SEE upper right of blog] take innocent statements like mine, Rush Limbaugh’s, John Gibson‘s, and Bill O’Reilly’s and make them offensive by posting them on the internet, allowing the general public to hear words that were meant for people who already agree with us. Media Matters, you want to end offensive speech? Then stop recording it for people who would be offended.” –Stephen Colbert [via CROOKS & LIARS]
TODAY I SAW . . .
BY JEFF DEENEY TODAY I SAW the words “Da Bottom” and “36th St.” written in black magic marker on the front door to Mantua Hall. The door is made from stainless steel and has a scratched-up window that looks over the lobby past the security guard’s window. There’s another identical exit door with the same words scrawled on it on the other side of a partition. It swings open and a tired looking, deathly skinny women walks past, dragging two dripping bags of garbage behind her. Mantua Hall is one of the last of a dying breed; it’s a high-rise […]
CONFETTI BETTY: The Week That Was
BY AMY Z. QUINN The logic which binds these events together is as twisted as a pretzel — I mean yo, this is Philly — but it’s a kind of Six Degrees of Election ’08: South Philly Edition. Follow me: 1. Bono, in town to receive the Liberty Medal at the National Constitution Center, declares himself an American, says “this is my country, too.” Uses platform to deliver an elegantly worded tongue-lashing to his adopted country on subjects including: fair trade, our responsibility to the poor, free speech, our responsibility toward Africa’s AIDS victims, and torture. That last one was […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
WATERGATE TAPE: Nixon Describes Fred Thompson As A Useful Idiot Fred Thompson has made much of his role 30 years ago as a young Senate lawyer helping to lead the investigation of the Watergate scandal and President Richard Nixon. But a much different, less valiant picture of Thompson emerges from listening to the White House audiotapes made at the time, as President Nixon plotted strategy with his aides in the Oval Office. Thompson’s job on the Watergate committee was to lead the Republican side of the investigation. As the investigation picked up speed, Nixon grew increasingly concerned about whether Thompson […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, talks about his book I Am America (And So Can You!) and his successful television show.The former correspondent and contributor to The Daily Show created his own Emmy-nominated late-night show to parody Bill O’Reilly’s The O’Reilly Factor. In I Am America, Colbert targets race, religion, sports and the American family as well as more mundane topics like breakfast cereal. RADIO TIMES Three Philadelphia funeral home directors were charged last week with selling bones and tissues from the deceased without permission from the donor or his or her family. We […]
TO OUR READERS: Did You ‘Buy’ The New Radiohead?
FROM THE EDITOR: If so, I wanna talk to you. I am reviewing the new album for the Inquirer and would like to know what you paid and why. Also, to the best of my knowledge the album has NOT leaked to the Internet, if you know otherwise please do tell. You can reach me at feed@phawker.com. Thanks.
AUTHOR, AUTHOR: The Bard Of Main Street USA
[illustration by ALEX FINE] Richard Russo, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls, spoke to PHAWKER about what spurs him to write about small-town life, class and it’s relation to geography in his new book, Bridge of Sighs, and his newest screenplays. He will be speaking at the Free Library tonight. PHAWKER: How has winning the Pulitzer changed how you live and write? RICHARD RUSSO: Well I got caller ID. [laughs] That’s one way it’s changed how we live. I think it changed my writing more; it was just such a wonderful thing to happen that I kind of […]
I HEART BLACKWATER!
A new low in right-wing toadying! USA TODAY: Today, at 38, [Erik] Prince, chief of Blackwater USA, has a real army — or at least the makings of one, with weapons, aircraft, armored vehicles and a thousand or more battle-hardened security personnel… Prince landed an internship in the early 1990s in the White House under then-President George Bush. Again, he was disappointed. He later told the Grand Rapids Press: “I saw a lot of things I didn’t agree with — homosexual groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act, those kinds of bills.” But he didn’t reject […]
GAMBLOR: Dick Sprague IS Gamblor!
In a front page article Saturday on attorney Richard Sprague’s efforts to quash a grand jury investigation of his client, Louis DeNaples, we inexcusably forgot to mention that Sprague and his children own a little more than 13 percent of SugarHouse Casino. SugarHouse plans a $550 million casino on Delaware Avenue straddling the Fishtown/Northern Liberties border. DeNaples, a prodigious campaign contributor from Scranton, hopes in the coming weeks to reopen the once-famous Mt. Airy Lodge in the Poconos as the state’s first standalone slots parlor.Until recently, Sprague also represented the chief architect of the 2004 law that legalized slots in Pennsylvania, […]
BLACK OPS: It Was 40 Years Ago Today…
REUTERS: Guevara was captured by CIA-backed Bolivian soldiers on October 8, 1967, and was shot the next day in a schoolhouse. His bullet-riddled body, eyes wide open, was put on display in a hospital laundry room and later buried in an unmarked grave. He was 39. MORE