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Morning headlines brought to you by Carolyn Kay MakeThemAccountable.com Top Story9/11 Commission Chairman: ‘No Question’ CIA Attempted ‘To Impede Our Investigation’
(Monday) morning on CNN, 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean there is “no question” the CIA was aware that its now-destroyed videotapes depicting severe interrogations were among evidence being sought by 9/11 Commission investigators, and the destruction of the tapes was an attempt to “impede our investigation”.
Click through to watch the video.—Caro Left Toon Lane
The WorldTurkish jets strike Kurdish rebel bases
ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish warplanes hit eight suspected Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq on Wednesday, the third cross-border air assault in 10 days, Turkey's military said.
Suicide truck bomb kills at least 20 in Iraq
BAIJI, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide truck bomb killed at least 20 people and wounded 80 in the northern Iraqi city of Baiji on Tuesday, the police and U.S. military said.
Iran needs no uranium enrichment: Russia's Lavrov
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's delivery of nuclear fuel to the Bushehr power station makes it unnecessary for Iran to pursue its enrichment program, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
Diplomatic row as Afghans expel European pair
KABUL (Reuters) - A diplomatic row erupted on Wednesday between Afghanistan and key aid partners after Kabul ordered the expulsion of a Briton and Irishman working for the EU and the UN, accusing them of threatening state security.
Hindus launch attacks on Indian churches
NEW DELHI - Hindu extremists attacked Christians celebrating Christmas in eastern India, ransacking and burning at least six village churches, officials said Wednesday. One person was killed in the violence.
Thaksin to return as Thai political mess churns on
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on Tuesday he was confident the party he backed in weekend elections could form a coalition government, unless prevented unfairly, allowing him to return from exile.
Laptop project enlivens Peruvian hamlet
ARAHUAY, Peru - Doubts about whether poor, rural children really can benefit from quirky little computers evaporate as quickly as the morning dew in this hilltop Andean village, where 50 primary school children got machines from the One Laptop Per Child project six months ago.
Raul Castro says Fidel ready for new bid
HAVANA - Fidel Castro remains on the mend, gaining weight, exercising twice a day and continuing to help make the Cuban government's top decisions, his brother Raul Castro says. The NationBush Seeks to Restore Tattered U.S. Image With Heavy '08 Travel
Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush's diplomatic passport will acquire a slew of new country stamps during his final year in office as he tries to rebuild the U.S.'s international standing and create a foreign-policy legacy beyond Iraq.
And how does he seek to restore our tattered image? See below.—Caro
Bush backs Turkish strikes on Kurdish rebels
US President George Bush has spoken with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip and gave his backing for military strikes by Ankara on Kurdish rebel rear bases in Iraq.
FCC chief defends media ownership rules
WASHINGTON - The Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is disputing Democratic assertions that a new rule loosening restrictions on media ownership is full of loopholes and will lead to a wave of mergers and fewer choices for consumers.
New Orleans Gets a Boost From NASA
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The route to the moon and perhaps to Mars now goes through New Orleans - and the detour couldn't come at a better time in the city's struggle to rebuild its shattered economy after Hurricane Katrina.
US Senate stays in session to block Bush
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Senate is holding special one man sessions throughout Christmas and the New Year to prevent President George W. Bush from making appointments without the approval of the Democratic majority.
Majority Democrats' power checked by GOP
WASHINGTON - Democrats running Congress for the first time in more than a decade faltered at key points this year as they grudgingly passed important bills opposed by many, or even most, of their House members. When Republicans were in charge, they generally avoided a similar fate.
High court asked to review Congress raid
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to toss out a lower court ruling that says the FBI was wrong to raid Democratic Rep. William Jefferson's office, a decision the Bush administration argues will hinder corruption investigations of Congress.
Political Wire Quote of the Day, December 24
"From my perspective, this is not an academic or a philosophical question. This is about who has the toughness and fight to take on corporate greed and win."
-- John Edwards, quoted by the Boston Globe.
Health coverage improves health and reduces major heart complications
BOSTON, Mass. (December 25, 2007)—As presidential candidates ramp up their primary campaigns, health care reform looms prominently among voters’ main concerns. A new study in the December 26 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, provides the most comprehensive evidence to date that expanding coverage to people without it leads to demonstrable improvements in health.
How healthy is your medical credit score?
Mortgage lenders aren't the only ones showing more interest in your credit score these days – the health industry is creating its own score to judge your ability to pay… The score is already raising questions from consumer advocacy groups that fear it will be checked before patients are treated. People with low medical credit scores could receive lower-quality care than those with a healthy medFICO, they argue… That will not happen, says Stephen Farber, chairman and chief executive of Healthcare Analytics.
That will not happen. No, people who can’t pay won’t be treated at all.—Caro
US illegal immigrants 'self-deport' as woes mount
PHOENIX - Mexican illegal immigrant Lindi sat down with her husband Marco Antonio in the weeks before Christmas to decide when to go back to Mexico… The couple are among a growing number of illegal immigrants across the United States who are starting to pack their bags and move on as a crackdown on undocumented immigrants widens and the US economy slows, turning a traditional Christmas trek home into a one-way trip.
As I’ve been saying all along, we don’t need to build any fences and we don’t have to do mass deportations. All we have to do is enforce existing laws, and the illegal immigrants will find their way home.—Caro
Disappointing Sales During Holiday Season
American consumers, uneasy about the economy and unimpressed by the merchandise in stores, delivered the bleak holiday shopping season retailers had expected, if not feared, according to one early but influential projection. MediaPermanent link to MTA daily media news
Please help spread the word: Wexler, Gutierrez, Baldwin, Kucinich, and the People Call For Cheney Censure (by Betsy L. Angert at BeThink.org)
May I offer my sincerest gratitude to Representatives, Robert Wexler, Luis Gutierrez, and Tammy Baldwin. These glorious members of the House Judiciary Committee, recently raised the volume on the issue of impeachment for Vice President Cheney. The three invite us, the average citizen, to join them. Please express your distress; sign the petition.
Click through for a link to the petition.—Caro
Another Conservative Truth: The Circulation Of Daily Newspapers Is Lower In Conservative States Than In Liberal States
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006 the average Circulation of Daily Newspapers in the United States in 2004 was 0.19 per capita. 22 out of 31 Conservative States had a lower than average Circulation of Daily Newspapers (71% of Conservative States) versus 12 out of 20 Liberal States that had a lower than average Circulation of Daily Newspapers (60% of Liberal States). The highest average Circulation of Daily Newspapers in the country is found in the District of Columbia with 1.46 per capita.
Bush gives CNN the Helen Thomas treatment. (Think Progress)
In the last month, CNN’s Ed Henry has aggressively questioned Press Secretary Dana Perino about the White House’s deceptive statements about Iranian intelligence and its evasiveness about its role in destroying the torture tapes. Fishbowl DC reports that at his year-end press conference last Thursday, Bush did not call on CNN, “making CNN’s Ed Henry and Helen Thomas (who almost never gets called on by Bush) the only two front-row journos not to be called on.”
Washington-centric candidates and reporters: What’s missing here?
Presidential candidates and the reporters covering them are out on the hustings all the time, but they often act as though government begins and ends in Washington.
Paper Gives 'Anti-Endorsement' to Romney
MILFORD, N.H. (AP) - The Concord Monitor broke with political tradition Sunday, telling readers in the state with the first presidential primary why they should not vote for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney instead of whom they should support.
HARRY & LOUISE & BARACK.... (by Kevin Drum at Political Animal, The Washington Monthly)
Obama's using Harry & Louise clones to attack a key plank in progressive healthcare policy. I know that we blog readers are policy geeks and barely one person in a hundred cares about this kind of stuff. But I do, and I'm only willing to put up with the Kumbaya campaign as long as I think that, in the end, it really is going to promote progressive ends. Takeoffs on Harry & Louise decidedly don't. If that's where he's going, I'm getting off the train.
Oprah Puts Her Brand on the Line
What works for Oprah the inspiring talk-show host may not work for Oprah the political player. After her endorsement of Barack Obama, part of her base was livid.
Oy, Kos (by Paul Krugman)
Markos writes: “Every presidential candidate whose health plan rewards the health insurance companies by giving them more business via mandates “ Stop right there! The Edwards and Clinton proposals actually include a public option — that is, people can buy into a Medicare-type plan administered by the government. They are not forced to go to private insurance companies… The Obama plan includes a public option for everyone as well — but … when it was first announced, it didn’t… This gets once again at what I keep trying to tell people: on health care, Obama is consistently running to the right of his rivals. And it’s deeply disappointing to have influential bloggers buying into the bizarre notion that trying to make a health care plan truly universal is somehow a gift to the insurance companies.
Karma's a Bitch (by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo)
Chris Matthews devoted a substantial portion of Friday's Hardball to trumpeting an article in the New York Times exonerating Rudy on the Shag Fund front and lamenting how his beloved candidate's campaign was torpedoed by a bum rap… (But it) wasn't just the Shag trips to the Hamptons… (W)hat sunk Rudy was the clear evidence that Rudy had used shifty accounting methods to conceal his high-living mayoral lifestyle and spent gobs of taxpayer dollars keeping his mistress up in style. Is that a bum rap?
Bankrupt Airline, What Happened to the Workers? (by Dean Baker)
The WSJ reported the bankruptcy and shutdown of MAXjet Airways. The piece discusses the financial situation of the airline and the efforts that are being made to accommodate ticket holding passengers. All of this is well and good, but what happened to the airline's employees who got a layoff notice in their Christmas stocking? Did they get severance pay? Will they be picked up by another airline? The WSJ doesn't tell us. It doesn't seem too touchy and feely to include two sentences about what happens to the employees of a defunct airline, especially when the collapse occurs in the middle of the holiday season. Technology & Science'Hybrid' Semiconductors Show Zero Thermal Expansion; Could Lead To Hardier Electronics
ScienceDaily (Dec. 26, 2007) — The fan in your computer is there to keep the microprocessor chip from heating to the point where its component materials start to expand, inducing cracks that interrupt the flow of electricity — and not incidentally, ruin the chip. Thermal expansion can also separate semiconducting materials from the substrate, reduce performance through changes in the electronic structure of the material or warp the delicate structures that emit laser light.
Musical Focus: New Speakers Don't Bother Bystanders
Experts have invented a way for audiophiles to listen to music over loudspeakers that don't annoy people standing nearby. "You may soon be able to enjoy audio without those uncomfortable earphones or headsets and not bother your neighbors," said researcher Chan-Hui Lee at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
Internet renovates how homes get sold
In the process of selling their homes, three men learned some surprising lessons about the risks and rewards in how the Internet is reshaping the housing industry. Their experiences shed light on the power and potential of the Internet to change how real estate buyers and sellers connect, gather information and communicate in both real and virtual worlds.
Airborne Internet Might Bring Turbulence
NEW YORK (AP) - Seat 17D is yapping endlessly on an Internet phone call. Seat 16F is flaming Seat 16D with expletive-laden chats. Seat 16E is too busy surfing porn sites to care. Seat 17C just wants to sleep. Welcome to the promise of the Internet at 33,000 feet - and the questions of etiquette, openness and free speech that airlines and service providers will have to grapple with as they bring Internet access to the skies in the coming months.
Cabin Fever Has an Online Cure This Year
National Wildlife Federation site shows parks and green spaces close to your zip code
Post-Holiday Letdown Can Be Avoided
Healthy diet, exercise are real blues-beaters, experts say.
Child Care in First Two Years Greatly Affects IQ
How well children are cared for in their first two years directly affects brain development and IQ later in life, a new study finds.
Update To Food Guide Pyramid For Older Adults
ScienceDaily (Dec. 25, 2007) — Tufts University researchers have updated their Food Guide Pyramid for Older Adults to correspond with the USDA food pyramid, now known as MyPyramid. The Tufts version is specifically designed for older adults and has changed in appearance and content. The Modified MyPyramid for Older Adults continues to emphasize nutrient-dense food choices and the importance of fluid balance, but has added additional guidance about forms of foods that could best meet the unique needs of older adults and about the importance of regular physical activity.
Modern Beetles Predate Dinosaurs
New research hints that modern-day versions of the bugs are far older than any tyrannosaur that trod the Earth.
Russian cargo ship docks with space station
MOSCOW (Reuters) - An unmanned Russian Progress supply vessel docked with the orbiting International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday to deliver fresh food, water, fuel, equipment and holiday presents for the crew. EnvironmentAmerica pays huge price to run cars on corn
It takes deluges of water, mountains of fertilizer and vast greenhouse gas emissions to grow corn crops on the scale they’re now being grown in America. Not to mention a doting Congress. In 2005, Congress – paying lip service to the environment and tribute to the farm lobby – delivered to corporate agriculture one of the greatest regulatory bonanzas in history. It did so by mandating that 7.5 billion gallons of the nation’s fuel supply come from ethanol by 2012. Because U.S. ethanol is currently distilled almost entirely from corn, the law created an artificial demand for this grain that has driven up its price and muscled other crops out of farmers’ fields.
China says is no threat to world energy security
BEIJING (Reuters) - China said it is not a threat to world energy security and energy issues should not be politicized, urging that conflicts in producing nations be resolved through dialogue and not military force. China, the world's second-largest oil consumer, also is too reliant on international crude markets for last minute oil supplies and needs to arrange more long-term deals, Beijing said in a policy paper released on Wednesday. For more headlines, visit MakeThemAccountable.com.
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