THE HILL’S CONGRESS BLOG: Voting ended late last week on the President-Elect¹s website Change.gov. As was the case in December, questions from the general public pertaining to marijuana and drug policy reform proved to be extremely popular. Of the more than 76,000 questions posed to Obama by the public, the fourth most popular question overall called on the incoming administration to cease arresting and prosecuting adults who use cannabis. And in the sub-category “National Security,” the most popular question posed by the public pertained to amending U.S. drug policies as a way to try and halt the ongoing violence surround […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Knopper chronicles the rise of the record industry — and its subsequent digital-age collapse — in his new book, Appetite For Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash Of The Record Industry In The Digital Age. Knopper’s work has also appeared in Spin, Esquire, The Washington Post and Wired. RADIO TIMES WITH MARTY MOSS-COANE Hour 1 A look back at President George Bush’s eight years in office. How will he be judged? An analysis of the high and lowpoints with Vanderbilt University historian GARY GERSTLE and Bush biographer, ROBERT DRAPER. Listen to the mp3 Hour 2 […]
BREAKING: Missing Pilot Who Faked Death Found
CNN: Marcus Schrenker, the financial manager who officials say faked his own death in a plane crash after scamming his customers, has been found after an apparent suicide attempt, Florida and federal authorities said Tuesday. Schrenker was found at a campsite near Quincy, Florida, with “deep cuts on his wrists,” according to a statement by a Florida-based U.S. Marshals Service task force. Schrenker was bleeding profusely when about 20 officers approached his tent, said Deputy U.S. Marshal John Beeman. PREVIOUSLY: GHOST OF D.B. COOPER — On The Verge Of Financial Collapse, Man Fakes Death In Spectacular Plane Crash THE OBAMACONS: […]
HOT DOC: Why I Can’t Stop Giving Obama My Money
[War Is Over by SHEPARD FAIREY] Dear Jonathan, To celebrate Barack Obama’s historic inauguration, graphic artist Shepard Fairey has created an unforgettable limited edition poster. Make a donation of $20 or more to receive your official inauguration poster. This will be the most open and accessible Inaugural in our nation’s history. And thanks to supporters like you, it’s happening without donations from Washington lobbyists or big corporations. Celebrate this historic moment and our first step toward change. Get your limited edition Shepard Fairey poster today. Thank you for your support, The Presidential Inaugural Committee P.S. — Shepard Fairey also designed […]
THE WIRE: Councilman, Is That A Justice Department Wire Under Your Suit Or Are You Just Glad To See Me?
DAILY NEWS: CITY COUNCILMAN Jack Kelly secretly recorded for federal investigators conversations with his chief of staff and a generous campaign contributor, according to documents obtained by the Daily News. Former chief of staff Chris Wright goes on trial Jan. 27 for corruption charges along with brothers Ravinder and Hardeep Chawla and their attorney, Andrew Teitelman. In an August indictment, the U.S. attorney accused Wright of using his City Hall post to help real estate development companies run by the Chawla brothers and Teitelman, who was also Kelly’s campaign treasurer. In exchange, Wright got cash bribes, free legal advice and […]
Videotape The Israeli Army Doesn’t Want You To See
Facts4idfnadesk: From the CBC Website * THEY WOULD VASTLY PREFER YOU TO PAY ATTENTION TO THIS FOOL INSTEAD: SDEROT, Israel — Joe the Plumber has set aside his wrenches to become a rookie war correspondent, covering Israel’s side of its two-week-old military offensive in Gaza. The Ohio man, who rocketed to fame during the U.S. presidential campaign for asking Barack Obama about his tax plan, was in the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Sunday to tell readers of the conservative pjtv.com Web site about the rockets that rain down from the neighboring Gaza Strip. The people of Sderot “can’t […]
STREET FIGHTING MAN: By Any Means Necessary
NEW YORK TIMES: JERUSALEM — The grinding urban battle unfolding in the densely populated Gaza Strip is a war of new tactics, quick adaptation and lethal tricks. Hamas, with training from Iran and Hezbollah, has used the last two years to turn Gaza into a deadly maze of tunnels, booby traps and sophisticated roadside bombs. Weapons are hidden in mosques, schoolyards and civilian houses, and the leadership’s war room is a bunker beneath Gaza’s largest hospital, Israeli intelligence officials say. Unwilling to take Israel’s bait and come into the open, Hamas militants are fighting in civilian clothes; even the police […]
RUINATION: No Country Left Behind
[CLICK TO ENLARGE] THE ATLANTIC: Barack Obama assumes the presidency this year amid a similar sense of national crisis, and having made similar promises of change. And, like Roosevelt, he’ll be leading a country very different from the one his predecessor inherited: as the statistics on this map show, change itself is one thing we’ve seen in abundance in the past eight years. Making sense of that upheaval will be the first responsibility of the new administration. Since 2000, America has changed in small ways, in big ways, and in ways that seem innocent enough now but no doubt herald […]
OBAMALAMA DING DONG: The First 100 Minutes
COMEDY CENTRAL: As Barack Obama prepares to take office in less than two weeks — still seems like an eternity, doesn’t it? — There’s been a lot of talk about how he’ll spend, and what he’ll achieve, during his first 100 days in office. Even though he’s warned against expecting miracles during that time period and has tried in vain to consider instead his first 1,000 days in office (yeah, right), the speculation does not end. Mad Magazine has a different question: What will Barack Obama achieve during his first 100 minutes in office? In an exclusive timetable that they’ve […]
UNCOOL: Obama Puts Record Company Pitbulls In Charge Of Copyright And File Sharing Regulation
CNET: As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama won applause from legal adversaries of the recording industry. Stanford law professor Larry Lessig, the doyen of the “free culture” movement, endorsed the Illinois senator, as did Google CEO Eric Schmidt and even the Pirate Party. That was then. As president-elect, one of Obama’s first tech-related decisions has been to select the Recording Industry Association of America’s favorite lawyer to be the third in command at the Justice Department. And Obama’s pick as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position, is the lawyer who oversaw the defense of the Copyright Term Extension […]
DIRTY DEEDS: The Trouble With Harry Reid
BRENDAN CALLING: So on top of refusing to honor the holds of fellow democrats while upholding the holds of racists like Tom Coburn, doing the GOP’s bidding on FISA in return for campaign donations from Verizon and AT&T, working on behalf of the billboard industry to undermine Lady Bird Johnson’s Highway Beautification Act, we can add running defense for convicted felons, suspicious discussions with a soon-to-be-convicted governor, and also unconstitutionally trying (and failing) to turn away the duly appointed Senator from Illinois (shades of Little Rock Arkansas). And there is so much more, from his support for Joe Lieberman, to […]
THE ECHO CHAMBER: Like Porno For Pyros
[Photo: Hatem Moussa/Associated Press via New York Times] L.A. TIMES: Reporting from Cairo and Beirut — Face splotched in blood, eyes closed, mouth aslant, the child seems slumbering, but she is dead. The only part of her you see is her head tilting in ash and rubble above the caption, “A day of massacres in Gaza.” She is nameless, but her face, peeking from a black-and-white photograph spread like a flag of horror across the Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper, is unforgettable. In the Gaza Strip, Israel maneuvers with sophisticated tanks, missiles and planes. But the Arab media possess a potent […]
UNAMERICAN ACTIVITIES: You Are Being Watched
TEXAS OBSERVER: Allen Hamilton kept his files secret until his death in 2005, long after his retirement as campus police chief for the University of Texas at Austin. His son discovered them while cleaning out his father’s office. The boxes of documents and photos from the 1960s included records of the most horrific event in Chief Hamilton’s tenure—the August day in 1966 when Charles Whitman perched atop the UT Tower with a high-powered rifle, killing 15 and wounding 33. Graphic photos from the Whitman archives were made available to newspapers to mark the 40th anniversary of that bloody day. But […]