Reuters' Freeland: US Prisons An 'American Gulag Archipelago
Chrystia Freeland has called the US prison system an "American Gulag Archipelago." The Global Editor-at-Large of Reuters made her comment during today's Dylan Ratigan show on MSNBC.
The context was a discussion of the recent WikiLeaks document dump about Gitmo, but Freeland was clearly speaking of the domestic US prison system, not our military prisons. Ratigan picked up on her theme,…
Dean: Only Reason To Fight In Afghanistan--Feminism
Call him a NOW-hawk . . .
Of all the reasons to send our people to fight and die in Afghanistan, spending $2 billion per week in the process, Howard Dean has managed to come up with perhaps the worst: feminism.
On today's Morning Joe, Dean explained that "the whole reason" he used to support President Obama's waging of the Afghanistan war was that leaving the country would plunge its…
NY Times Celebrates Murdered Pro-Hamas Activist on Front Page, Almost
After relegating to page A16 the stabbing slaughter of five members of a family of Israeli settlers on March 12 at the hands of Palestinians, the New York Times mustered front-page sympathy for Vittorio Arrigoni, a pro-Palestinian activist murdered in Gaza by a fringe Islamic group. Fares Akram and Isabel Kershner reported from Gaza for Saturday’s front page, “Killing of Pro-Palestinian…
'Morning Joe' Skips Over Potential Democrat Senate Candidate's Ties to
Former Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez is expected to be a Democratic contender in the Texas 2012 Senate race. However, when Politico's Mike Allen brought news of his probable candidacy to MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Monday, he omitted the fact that Sanchez commanded the U.S. ground forces in Iraq while the infamous abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison took place.
Sanchez, when he retired from the Army…
The New York Times Just Keeps Getting the Max Cleland Ad Wrong
In her Sunday off-lead New York Times story on bipartisan senators looking for budget compromise, “‘Gang of Six’ In the Senate Tackles Debt – A Bipartisan Effort to Build a Budget, Jackie Calmes furthered the Times’s long-standing legend about the “nasty” campaign ad by Republican Saxby Chambliss that helped him defeat Democratic Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia in 2002.
Once again, the Times…
WaPo Critic Hits 'The Conspirator' for Politically Distorting History
Robert Redford's "The Conspirator" is a thinly-veiled political allegory warning against the danger of trying terrorists in military tribunals. And that's why his movie about the military trial of Lincoln assassination conspirator Mary Surratt is problematic.
That's not me talking, that's Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday in her April 15 movie review:
NPR's Temple-Raston Carries Water For Holder on Terror Suspect Trials
NPR's Dina Temple-Raston touted Attorney General Eric Holder's reluctance to give detainees at Guantanamo Bay military trials during a segment on Monday's All Things Considered. Temple-Raston and host Michele Norris only featured sound bites from the Justice Department head, omitting clips from supporters of the military tribunals.
Norris began by noting the Obama administration's "major…
NY Times Exec. Editor Keller Contemplates Being 'Frog-Marched' in Shac
For “Secrecy in Shreds,” his latest column for the New York Times’s Sunday magazine, Executive Editor Bill Keller conducted a surprisingly affable conversation with conservative journalist Gabriel Schoenfeld of Commentary magazine, who last year published “Necessary Secrets,” a book highly critical of Keller and the Times revealing details of and thus wrecking two successful terrorist-fighting…
NYT's Michael Shear Pins Medals on Obama, a 'Foreign Policy President
Barack Obama, war president?
The Times’s chief online political reporter Michael Shear gave the president, who ran on an anti-war platform, some militant reelection advice in his Wednesday morning “Caucus” post, “The Case for Obama Campaigning as a Foreign Policy President.”
In the past several weeks, events outside the United States have commanded as much of Mr. Obama’s attention as the…
'Morning Joe' Pundits: Obama 'Extremely Deft in a Very Tough Situation
During Monday's "Morning Joe," Time's Mark Halperin and co-host Mika Brzezinski helpfully provided some spin for the White House to borrow as President Obama finishes his prepared remarks for Monday evening's address to the nation on the events in Libya.
President Obama has received sharp criticism for his foreign policy concerning Egypt and Libya, but Halperin threw cold water on that,…
UK Telly: Al Qaeda Troops on Libyan Rebels' Front Lines
The headline and sub-head:
Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links
Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
So how will the U.S. press deal with this hot potato?
Here are excerpts from the UK Telegraph story:
Bozell, Hannity Tackle Media Double Standard Between Iraq and Libya
In the lead-up to the Iraq War, the media "hammered Bush" about getting congressional approval, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on last night's "Hannity" during the "Media Mash" segment. Yet such scrutiny has been missing in President Obama's actions on Libya, he noted.
What's more, the media have failed to press Obama on violating his own standards on presidential use of military…
Obama More 'Hawkish' Than Bush, More Charming, Say 'Morning Joe' Pundi
Is Obama more 'hawkish' and yet more charming than his immediate predecessor?
Apparently so, claimed Time's Mark Halperin and MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski on Thursday's edition of "Morning Joe."
Halperin believes that President Obama has been more cavalier than his predecessor, and Brzezinski thinks that although Obama has extended many of Bush's unpopular policies, he brings a different "…
New York Times Claims 'Muslims Have Grown Up in a Newly Hostile Countr
New York Times reporter Andrea Elliott won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for a series of articles about Sheik Reda Shata, an imam in Brooklyn. In a speech to the Times newsroom after her victory, her editor lauded the series for helping to tear down "the wall of hatred” against Muslims in America.
Sunday’s similar, 8,400-word magazine cover profile, “A Marked Man In America,” featured Yale Ph.D.…
