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Tonight on Countdown
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ABC News claimed yesterday that phone calls made by its reporters and journalists at the New York Times and Washington Post are being traced by the federal government as part of an investigation into leaks of classified information. In a blog posting, the network said two of its reporters, Richard Esposito and Brian Ross, were told by an unnamed senior federal official that the government had obtained records of calls placed by the two men. The network said the probe may be focused on leaks about a CIA program to detain terrorism suspects at secret locations outside America, but could also involve the network's reports on the spy agency's use of missile-firing Predator drones in Pakistan.
http://www.nysun.com/article/32798Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann broadcasts LIVE at 8 pm et, and the count is never complete without you. Join us.
Karl Rove, the political brains of the Bush administration, voiced optimism today over the Republicans' chances of maintaining and even expanding their majorities in the House and Senate in this fall's elections. "I'm sanguine ," he said. "The American people like this president. His personal approval ratings are in the 60s. Job approval is lower. And what that says to me is that people like him, they respect him; he's somebody they feel a connection with, but they're just sour right now on the war."
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-051506rove_lat,0,680654.story?coll=la-home-headlinesHowever, on that last point, Mr. Rove is not consistent with the facts.
The President's personal approval tops out at about 40% in recent polls (his JOB approval number, lower).
Al Gore, at the beginning of the upcoming documentary feature "An Inconvenient Truth," introduces himself to an audience gathered to hear about global warming by saying, "I'm Al Gore. I used the be the next president of the United States." After the laughter dies down, he says, with an affable straight face, "I don't find anything particularly funny about that," and he gets an appreciative, though just slightly uncertain, second laugh. Then he launches into what he calls his slideshow - a clear and concise explanation that he has reportedly given about a thousand times around the world, aided by impressive animated mega-graphics on an enormous screen behind him - of what Gore (and a growing number of others) calls a planetary emergency.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=1945893&page=1This documentary was all the rage at Sundance... Is it part of an Al Gore comeback?There's more about other "stuff".