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11 most outrageous conservative comments of 2006

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Truthdig – A/V Booth – Weekly Video Roundup:

Media Matters has collected, stomached and ranked the 11 most outrageous conservative comments of 2006, including Rush Limbaugh blaming America’s obesity crisis on the left and Ann Coulter calling Al Gore a “total fag.” Glenn Beck Watch it

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PETER GABRIEL -DOWNSIDE UP on Jools Holland

 


Tom Donahue is possibly the most powerful business lobbyist in D.C.

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AlterNet: It’s hard to precisely define the political establishment, the fixed group of financiers, political operatives, journalists, and politicians who make up the swirl of right-wing power in Washington D.C. But if it’s not always simple to define in its totality, one man stands out as an innovative and particularly venal power broker: Thomas Donahue, President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In a lot of ways, the new challenge after the 2006 elections for the progressive movement boils down to finding the unethical and unaccountable purveyors of systemic corruption and rooting them out. It is these forces that put Bush in the White House and reelected him. It is these forces that corrupt both parties. It is these forces that are going to fight tooth and nail to defeat the Democratic majority, while attempting to also corrupt it from within.

Fortunately, in this case, we can put a face to the force. Tom Donahue is possibly the most powerful business lobbyist in D.C. Most recently, he has been pushing aggressively to weaken the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was passed in the wake of the Enron scandal to ensure corporate accountability and protect investors. And right now, he’s reeling, because he’s been caught in an unethical stock scandal of his own.

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One senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland.

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BBC NEWS | Americas | Bush ‘to reveal Iraq troop boost’:

Bush ‘to reveal Iraq troop boost’ By Justin Webb BBC News, Washington US President George W Bush intends to reveal a new Iraq strategy within days, the BBC has learnt. The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq to focus on ways of bringing greater security, rather than training Iraqi forces. The move comes with figures from Iraqi ministries suggesting that deaths among civilians are at record highs.

 The US president arrived back in Washington on Monday after a week-long holiday at his ranch in Texas. The BBC was told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush’s Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week. Its central theme will be sacrifice. The speech, the BBC has been told, involves increasing troop numbers. The exact mission of the extra troops in Iraq is still under discussion, according to officials, but it is likely to focus on providing security rather than training Iraqi forces. The proposal, if it comes, will be highly controversial. Already one senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland.

The need to find some way of pacifying Iraq has been underlined by statistics revealed by various ministries in the Iraqi government, suggesting that well over 1,000 civilians a month are dying.

The Giuliani presidential campaign charges: "dirty trick"

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New York Daily News – Home – ‘This is clearly a dirty trick’

‘This is clearly a dirty trick’Giuliani camp says dossier was taken,
copied & returned

BY DAVID SALTONSTALLand BEN SMITH
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Rudy Giuliani publicly says he has not decided to run for the White House, but the 140-page dossier details possible hurdles and a fund-raising strategy.
The fledgling Giuliani presidential campaign charged yesterday that it was the victim of a mysterious “dirty trick” in the theft of the former mayor’s political road map for 2008.

The astonishing charge threatened to overshadow the candid details in the 140-page strategy guide obtained by the Daily News from a source sympathetic to a rival campaign.

“This is clearly a dirty trick,” said Giuliani spokeswoman Sunny Mindel. “The voters are sick and tired of this kind of thing.”

Mindel said that while working on the 2006 campaign trail, a Giuliani aide lost a piece of luggage containing the paper.

“During one leg of his campaign travel, all luggage was removed from a private plane and later put back on,” she said in a statement. “However, one staffer’s bag was not returned.

“After repeated requests over the course of a few days, the bag was finally returned with the document inside”

“Because our staffer had custody of this document at all times except for this one occasion, it is clear that the document was removed from the luggage and photocopied.”

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Cheney On Libby Witness List

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Cheney On Libby Witness List:

Vice President Dick Cheney will be called as a defense witness in the CIA leak case, an attorney for Cheney’s former chief of staff told a federal judge Tuesday. “We’re calling the vice president,” attorney Ted Wells said in court. Wells represents defendant I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who is charged with perjury and obstruction. Early last week, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said he did not expect the White House to resist if Cheney or other administration officials are called to testify in Libby’s trial, expected to begin in January…. Cheney, who would be the trial’s most anticipated witness, has said he may be called to testify. If so, prosecutors could ask how the White House responded to Wilson’s criticisms. Cheney was upset by Wilson’s comments, Fitzgerald has said, and told Libby that Plame worked for the CIA. That conversation is a key to Fitzgerald’s perjury case. Libby testified that he learned about Plame’s job from a reporter. Cheney could also help prosecutors undermine Libby’s defense that he was so preoccupied with national security matters, he forgot details about the less-important Plame issue. Prosecutors argue that Plame was a key concern of the vice president, and thus would have been important to Libby.

In-camera Editing

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Videography Basics – In-camera Editing:

In-camera Editing Most of the time, when videographers shoot tape, they do it with the thought in mind that they’ll edit the pictures later. But sometimes deadline pressures or other constraints make it difficult to do post-production editing. In those cases, videographers can “edit in the camera.” That means planning in advance what shots could tell the desired story and then shooting only those shots in that order. This style of shooting might not result in a perfect product, but the finished tape is much more interesting to watch than one that was shot without a plan.

Canon-ZR100

Poll: Hillary tops McCain, ties Rudy

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Newsday.com: Poll: Hillary tops McCain, ties Rudy:

BY GLENN THRUSH Newsday Washington Bureau December 18, 2006, 11:28 PM EST WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton beats John McCain and ties Rudolph Giuliani in a new Newsweek national poll, a stunning counterpoint to recent surveys showing the former first lady trailing the GOP’s dueling presidential frontrunners. The poll, taken earlier this month, shows Clinton besting McCain 50 to 43 percent among 1,000 registered voters nationwide. It also showed her in a dead heat with McCain among independents, a group that has proven stubbornly resistant to her centrist message. Clinton leads Giuliani — her onetime Senate nemesis — by a 48 to 47 margin, a technical tie that falls within the poll’s 4 percent margin of error. Clinton came within a hair’s breadth of renouncing her October 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq invasion Monday, telling NBC “Today” show anchor Meredith Vieira that she wouldn’t have voted yes if President George W. Bush had leveled with the American people about Saddam Hussein’s limited weapons arsenal.

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Few Iraqis Are Gaining U.S. Sanctuary – New York Times

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Few Iraqis Are Gaining U.S. Sanctuary – New York Times:
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and ROBERT F. WORTH BAGHDAD,
Jan. 1 —

WAR CRIMINAL

With thousands of Iraqis desperately fleeing this country every day, advocates for refugees, and even some American officials, say there is an urgent need to allow more Iraqi refugees into the United States. Until recently the Bush administration had planned to resettle just 500 Iraqis this year, a mere fraction of the tens of thousands of Iraqis who are now believed to be fleeing their country each month. State Department officials say they are open to admitting larger numbers, but are limited by a cumbersome and poorly financed United Nations referral system. “We’re not even meeting our basic obligation to the Iraqis who’ve been imperiled because they worked for the U.S. government,” said Kirk W. Johnson, who worked for the United States Agency for International Development in Falluja in 2005. “We could not have functioned without their hard work, and it’s shameful that we’ve nothing to offer them in their bleakest hour.” Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat who is taking over the immigration, border security and refugee subcommittee, plans hearings this month on America’s responsibility to help vulnerable Iraqis. An estimated 1.8 million Iraqis are living outside Iraq. The pace of the exodus has quickened significantly in the past nine months. Some critics say the Bush administration has been reluctant to create a significant refugee program because to do so would be tantamount to conceding failure in Iraq. They say a major change in policy could happen only as part of a broader White House shift on Iraq. “I don’t know of anyone inside the administration who sees this as a priority area,”