AP Ticker’s [Scrapple News] Hiking in Iran
The Battle To Make RATM’s “Killing In The Name” The Number One Christmas Song In Great Britain
BBC: Rock band Rage Against The Machine is ahead of X Factor winner Joe McElderry in the race for the Christmas number one, early sales figures suggest. A Facebook group aiming to get the band’s 1992 hit Killing In The Name to the top of the festive chart has attracted more than 750,000 members. But McElderry’s debut The Climb, out on CD on Wednesday, is expected to catch up by the weekend. The Official Charts Company (OCC) said it is “a very exciting battle”. It is understood that there is a 10% margin in sales between the two singles after […]
NOCIALISM: Joe Lieberman’s Pre-Existing Condition
WALL STREET JOURNAL: Senate Democrats on Monday evening dropped a plan to expand Medicare, winning the support of moderates and the reluctant acquiescence of liberals, in another major step toward building enough support to pass a health-care overhaul. The idea of letting people ages 55 to 64 buy into Medicare, announced just last week, had threatened to explode the Democrats’ hopes of getting a bill through the Senate when Sen. Joseph Lieberman came out against it. MORE EZRA KLEIN: Previously, Lieberman had been cool to the idea, saying he wanted to make sure it wouldn’t increase the deficit or harm […]
Philly Man Arrested For Bloomberg Death Threats
NEW YORK TIMES: A man from Philadelphia was arrested Monday on charges that he threatened to kill Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly in several calls made from Manhattan pay phones to 911 over the past seven months, the authorities said. The man, Jeffrey Fisher, 48, traveled to New York from Philadelphia, making 10 calls from pay phones in Manhattan, the authorities said. The Manhattan district attorney’s office charged Mr. Fisher on Saturday with 10 counts of making a terrorist threat. He is being held in lieu of $100,000 bail. MORE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: A […]
KILLADELPHIA: Dead Men Tell No Tales
INQUIRER: Martin Thomas looked at the flier and blanched. “Don’t stand next to this man. You might get shot.” The threat was scribbled on a copy of his signed statement to police, implicating a man in a murder. Thomas, then 20, had revealed a buried cache of weapons and named one of the gunmen who killed a man at 22d and Somerset on a summer night. Now, there were his words to detectives, posted on the wall of a Chinese restaurant in North Philadelphia for all to see. Panicked, Thomas fled, flagged down a police car, and told the officers […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR For years, the name Tom Ford has been associated with fashion: He was, after all, the man credited with reviving the almost bankrupt Gucci empire, and then he started a couture label of his own. Ford has also earned plenty of attention for his provocative advertising, which often uses erotic imagery (including plenty of nudity) to sell fashion and fragrances. Now the Texas native, a onetime actor and model himself, has put his eye for design and his creative sensibilities to work in the service of silver-screen storytelling, translating a ’60s-vintage novel into an elegantly controlled, eloquently stylish […]
Khyber Pass Scion Was International Man Of Danger
INQUIRER: One June day in 1988, customs agents at the Frankfurt, Germany, airport pulled aside an intense and striking young man waiting to get on a plane back home to Philadelphia. They suspected he had heroin in his suitcase. They were right — two kilos’ worth from Pakistan, hidden under a false bottom. He wasn’t tough to crack: Before the day was out, Daood “David” Gilani decided to save his own skin, agreeing to betray his drug-dealing partners by helping U.S. drug agents set up a sting. It was the beginning of a complicated, off-and-on relationship as a confidential informant […]
RUSH TO JUDGEMENT: Judge Rules That De-Funding Of ACORN By Congress Was Unconstitutional
GLENN GREENWALD: Yesterday, in a lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Federal District Judge Nina Gershon of the Eastern District of New York found Congress’ de-funding of ACORN unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement. This is a major victory not only for ACORN, but also for the Constitution. Judge Gershon’s opinion is a model of careful and dispassionate judicial reasoning. Rejecting the DOJ’s claim that Congress had merely exercised its funding discretion rather than “punished” ACORN, the court wrote: “Wholly apart from the vociferous comments by various members of Congress as to ACORN’s criminality and fraud . . . […]
WORTH REPEATING: Of War And Peace
BARACK OBAMA: I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace. We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will […]
RIP: Public Option Taken Off Life Support
HUFFINGTON POST: The public health insurance option died on Thursday, December 10, 2009, after a months-long struggle with Senate parliamentary procedure. The time of death was recorded as 11:12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Its death had been rumored numerous times over the past year, but the public option repeatedly and defiantly battled back. The Senate’s insistence on 60 votes, combined with President Obama’s decision not to intervene on its behalf, eventually proved overwhelming. The public option leaves behind a Medicare buy-in for people aged 55-64, an expansion of Medicaid, a quasi-public option for those under 300 percent of the poverty […]
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: With Your Host, A.P. Ticker
[Video: AP Ticker’s SCRAPPLE NEWS 12.9.2009]
ARMBINDER: An Annotated Takedown Of The Denialist Drivel That Is Sarah Palin’s WaPo Op-Ed
THE ATLANTIC: Once again, the Washington Post has given Sarah Palin the chance to harness herself to the political story of the hour. The former Alaska governor has written an op-ed, published Wednesday, about the “Climate-gate” controversy at East Anglia University. Palin calls on President Obama to boycott the Copenhagen climate summit because the leaked e-mails allegedly cast significant doubt on the scientific consensus about global warming. With the publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research center in Britain, the radical environmental movement appears to face a tipping point. By “radical,” Palin means the overwhelming scientific consensus; virtually every […]
Public Option In Critical Condition After Car Crash
PHAWKER: Last night the Public Option crashed its car into a tree and a fire hydrant at the end of its driveway. Reportedly the Public Option was being chased by his wife wielding a golf club, enraged by the Public Option’s extramarital affairs. At last count, 59 U. S. Senators have come forward to say they have been having an affair with the Public Option. So far, the Public Option’s sponsors all say they will continue to offer their unconditional support to the Public Option and his family — of 120 million Americans it would have covered — during this […]