· Just in...Marc Grossman, who has been named in the Sibel Edmonds case as allegedly receiving bribes from Turkish and Israeli agents and warning the Turkish Embassy to stay away from Valerie Plame Wilson's "Brewster Jennings" front company, will be testifying tomorrow morning (Wed.) before a sub-committee of Henry Waxman's House Oversight committee.
· Study: Bush, Other Officials Issued Hundreds of False Statements Before Iraq Invasion
· CREW has completed an analysis of the national news events that took place on the dates for which there are missing White House email.
· Nine out of 23 Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee favor starting impeachment hearings against Vice-President Dick Cheney. Six of the nine are co-sponsors of H.R. 799, which contains three articles of impeachment. Articles I and II of H.R. 799 accuse Cheney of purposely manipulating intelligence to deceive Congress and the American people about a fabricated threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, respectively. Article III charges Cheney with openly threatening aggression against Iran absent any real threat to the United States . All three articles say Cheney's actions have damaged our national security interests.
· Oil companies grab lion's share of money spent at the pump
· Fed saves economic day, but uncertainty continues. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke averted a Black Tuesday on Wall Street, heading off what had seemed certain to be a massive stock sell-off with an unprecedented cut to the Fed's benchmark lending rate of three-quarters of a percentage point, to 3.5 percent.
· Firefighter: Giuliani 'ran like a coward on 9/11'
· The full picture of what happened inside the White House in the days after Saddam Hussein's capture may be lost forever because of improper record keeping by the Bush administration that has caused millions of e-mails to be lost.
· No Questions On Global Warming Asked At CNN’s Coal Industry-Sponsored Presidential Debates
· Petraeus: I Need Another Six Months To Determine Whether ‘We’ve Reached A Turning Point’
· Conservative bloggers fretting over their keyboards. Can a Republican candidate feel the voters’ economic pain without betraying their free market faith?
· Amy Z. Quinn on the writer's strike: "This democracy's making me thirsty!"
· Tens of thousands of Palestinians poured from the Gaza Strip into Egypt Wednesday after masked gunmen with explosives destroyed most of the seven-mile wall dividing the border town of Rafah. Gazans crossed on foot, in cars or in donkey carts to buy cigarettes, fuel, and other items made scarce by an Israeli blockade of their impoverished territory. Across the coastal strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, people pushed into buses and piled into rickety pickup trucks heading to Egypt and a rare opportunity to escape months of isolation.
· Heath Ledger turned down more teen movies after starring in the romantic comedy "10 Things I Hate About You," waiting for the kinds of grueling, intense roles that would become his trademark. The decision set him on a career path toward "Brokeback Mountain" - the film that earned him an Oscar nomination.
· The European Union, Israel's largest trade partner in the world, is watching by as Israel tightens its barbaric siege on Gaza, collectively punishing 1.5 million Palestinian civilians, condemning them to devastation, and visiting imminent death upon hundreds of kidney dialysis and heart patients, prematurely born babies, and all others dependent on electric power for their very survival.
Democracy NOW! DISH channels 9410 & 9415, DirecTV channel 375:
As Gaza Plunges into Darkness, Israeli and Palestinian Fighters-Turned-Peace-Activists Speak Out
The United Nations is accusing Israel of collectively punishing the Palestinian population in Gaza by cutting off fuel supplies as part of a blockade of the Gaza Strip. In the midst of the deepening crisis, we speak with Israeli and Palestinian peace activists Yonatan Shapira and Bassam Aramin. They are from a group called Combatants for Peace that is made up of former fighters from both Israel and the Occupied Territories. (bd: This group is receiving ZERO coverage in the corporate-controlled mainstream media!) Shapira is a former captain in the Israeli Air Force and Black Hawk pilot squadron. Aramin was an armed member of Fatah and spent seven years in an Israeli prison. His ten-year-old daughter Abir was shot dead by an Israeli soldier last year.
DN! transcript or DN! video
Economics Journalist Robert Kuttner on the “Most Serious Financial Crisis Since the Great Depression”: “This is the Result of Rightwing Ideology and the Political Power of Wall Street”
Amid growing fears of a worldwide recession, the Federal Reserve slashed a key interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point on Tuesday, the biggest single cut in nearly a quarter of a century. Meanwhile, President Bush and congressional leaders pledged to work together on a stimulus measure that would inject about $150 billion in additional money into the economy. But many economists are skeptical over whether any measures can turn around a severe slump in the housing market and the subprime mortgage crisis, signs of growing unemployment and weakening consumer spending and the added blow of record high oil prices. We speak to veteran economics journalist Robert Kuttner and Robert Weissman, co-director of the corporate accountability group Essential Action and editor of Multinational Monitor magazine.
DN! transcript or DN! video
Folksinger John McCutcheon: "Hail To The Chief":
