FRESH AIR Although the Bush administration has stated that the interrogations techniques used at Guantanamo Bay came from the bottom up, British lawyer Philippe Sands disagrees. In his 2008 book, Torture Team, Sands argues that the harsh interrogation policy that emerged after Sept. 11 came from high-ranking government officials and top military figures. Sands warned in a June 2008 Fresh Air interview that the impact of the Bush administration’s conduct would be felt internationally: “The terrible tragedy of these memos and that dark period is that they have migrated into the hands of people who now say, ‘Well, Americans do […]
EYELESS IN GAZA: Israel Maintains Media Blackout
[Photo Source: BOSTON GLOBE] NEW YORK TIMES: And so for an 11th day of Israel’s war in Gaza, the several hundred journalists here to cover it waited in clusters away from direct contact with any fighting or Palestinian suffering, but with full access to Israeli political and military commentators eager to show them around southern Israel, where Hamas rockets have been terrorizing civilians. A slew of private groups financed mostly by Americans are helping guide the press around Israel. Like all wars, this one is partly about public relations. But unlike any war in Israel’s history, in this one the […]
Obama Taps CNN’s Sanjay Gupta For Surgeon General
CNN: The Obama transition team approached Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, about becoming U.S. surgeon general, according to sources inside the transition and at CNN. Gupta was in Chicago, Illinois, in November to meet with President-elect Barack Obama on the matter, sources said. Gupta has declined comment. The transition team is impressed with the combination of Gupta’s past government experience, as a White House fellow in 1997 and a special adviser to then-first lady Hillary Clinton, along with his medical career as a neurosurgeon and his communication skills, the transition source said. Gupta is a member of the […]
DIRE MAN: Nutter Shutters Seven Fire Companies
Philadelphia Fire Department, circa 1913 [photo courtesy of PhillyHistory.Org] DAILY NEWS: Seven Fire Department companies were closed and 130 firefighters reassigned to other parts of the city yesterday as part of Mayor Nutter’s budget cuts. Nutter announced plans in November to eliminate five engine and two ladder companies to deal with a more than $1 billion hole in the budget over the next five years. MORE FIREFIGHTER HOURLY: Having visited fire departments all around the country, having ridden with very busy companies, I can say with a straight face that Philly faces some of the toughest conditions this side of […]
UNRELIABLE SOURCES: Did NBC Ban Ann Coulter?
DRUDGE: The nation’s top selling conservative author has been banned from appearing on NBC, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT. Banned for life! “We are just not going to have her on any more,” a top network source explains… MORE UPDATE: UNDER PRESSURE, NBC EXECS RE-THINK COULTER BOOKINGS… DEVELOPING… TV NEWSER: Late today, NBC News denied the story with this statement: “We’ve had Ann Coulter on ‘Today’ many times, but because of the news in Washington and the Middle East, we decided to cancel her appearance tomorrow. Understanding the media as well as she does, we are sure she knows this […]
MY SPY: Obama Taps Ex-Clinton White House Chief Of Staff Leon Panetta To Lead Central Intelligence Agency
NEW YORK TIMES: President-elect Barack Obama has selected Leon E. Panetta, the former congressman and White House chief of staff, to take over the Central Intelligence Agency, an organization that Mr. Obama criticized during the campaign for using interrogation methods he decried as torture, Democratic officials said Monday. Mr. Panetta has a reputation in Washington as a competent manager with strong background in budget issues, but has little hands-on intelligence experience. If confirmed by the Senate, he will take control of the agency most directly responsible for hunting senior Al Qaeda leaders around the globe, but one that has been […]
WE WILL ROCK YOU: BeardsBirds Crush Vikings
PHILADELPHIA 26 MINNESOTA 14 *** WHOOPSIE: Pay-To-Play Probe Ends Richardson Commerce Secretary Bid WASHINGTON POST: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to be commerce secretary, withdrew from consideration yesterday, citing an ongoing federal “pay-to-play” investigation involving one of his political donors as a significant obstacle to his confirmation. Richardson, 61, who competed unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, becomes the first political casualty in Obama’s Cabinet, and his withdrawal marked the first visible crack in what had been one of the smoothest presidential transitions in modern history. MORE RELATED: Picture of Richardson Beating Up […]
EYELESS IN GAZA: Death From Above
[Photo slideshow at: BOSTON GLOBE] [WARNING: Graphic content.] EDITOR’S NOTE: Let the record show that Phawker has no dog in this fight. We are posting these pictures [CLICK TO ENLARGE] as neutral observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because we believe that sanitized reportage of conflict is a gross distortion of reality that only serves to enable conflict to persist. Setting aside for a a moment the convoluted tit-for-tat that stretches all the way back to 1947 and serves as the bloody preamble to what is happening right now, the chain of recent events goes something like this: enraged by Israel’s […]
REWIND 2008: The Year In Obama
[EDITOR’S NOTE: New and improved, with more content than ever!] Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Obama in the White House, the Democrats in control of Congress and the motherf*king Republicans down in flames. If this is a dream, we don’t wanna wake up. Join with us now as we stroll down the memory lane of our in-house commentary and analysis on the 2008 Presidential election (for our complete coverage CLICK HERE). Like Same Cooke prophesied in 1963, a change has come. Truly a once in a lifetime moment in this American life. […]
DEATH OF PURRFECTION: Eartha Kitt RIP
NEW YORK TIMES: Ms. Kitt, who began performing as a dancer in New York in the late ’40s, went on to achieve success and acclaim in a variety of mediums long before other entertainment multitaskers like Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler. With her curvaceous frame and unabashed vocal come-ons, she was also, along with Lena Horne, among the first widely known African-American sex symbols. Orson Welles famously proclaimed her “the most exciting woman alive” in the early ’50s, apparently just after that excitement prompted him to bite her onstage during a performance of “Time Runs,” an adaptation of […]
THIS JUST IN: Michael Jackson On The Verge Of Death
STUFF: Jackson’s biographer Ian Halperin told US gossip magazine In Touch Jackson is suffering from a rare genetic illness called Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency, as well as emphysema and gastrointestinal bleeding. The 50-year-old former King of Pop is also reportedly 95 percent blind in his left eye and can barely speak. “He’s had it for years, but it’s gotten worse,” Halperin told In Touch. “He needs a lung transplant but may be too weak to go through with it.” Halperin said the gastrointestinal bleeding was Jackson’s most dangerous ailment: “It could kill him.” Jermaine Jackson has not denied reports of his […]
CONVICTED: Fort Dix 6 Guilty Of Conspiracy
INQUIRER: A federal jury today found the five foreign-born Muslim men guilty of conspiring to kill military personnel, but not guilty of attempted murder. The verdict ends one of the country’s most sensational cases of domestic terrorism, a case that garnered international headlines on May 7, 2007, when the defendants were arrested in coordinated raids. On that day, brothers Dritan and Shain Duka attempted to buy seven rifles from Mahmoud Omar, who was working as an FBI informant. A third Duka brother, Eljvir, also was arrested that day. Like all of the defendants, the brothers were born overseas, but raised […]
DIRECT ACTION: Democracy Needs Your Help
“Yesterday, a coalition of major city unions, clergymembers, library users, and community leaders stood together to announce a class action lawsuit to halt the shutdown. But to insure that the courts hear lawsuit effective, we need members of City Council join us as plaintiffs. So click here to ask your district and at-large city council members to join in the suit. Under a law that requires council approval for closing city-owned facilities, the Mayor’s unilateral action to close the libraries is illegal.So click here to tell your council members to stand up for their own rights, and for our libraries, […]