Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 359 Editor's Choice: 12
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See the video
[Read the article: The Cheney-Rumsfeld "cabal"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here's the speech in Quicktime, a large (67 MB) file that contains material not in the transcript:
http://www.newamerica.net/images/Event_520_4.mp4
It's a very important speech, IMHO. And the answers to questions are as important.
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Asked and answered
[Read the article: What comes next for Karl Rove?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Fitzgerald answered this question well before your timestamp. This grand jury had served both its 18 month term and the one permitted 6 month extension and is therefore excused. It is routine, Fitzgerald said, for investigations that carry over past a single grand jury's term to turn to an already empaneled grand jury for further action, if necessary.
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Wrong senators
[Read the article: Samuel Alito: The reaction from the right]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Can you get on the phone and talk to Snowe, Specter, Chafee and Collins, please?
Especially Snowe and Chafee.
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Make Dewine go nuclear
[Read the article: Alito, the nuclear option and the Democrats' thin hopes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It would be insane for the Democrats to let DeWine, Chafee and Snowe walk away from this without a clear vote, up or down, on whether they support Roe. They need to make a cloture vote a vote on whether or not the radical fundamentalists who rejected Harriet Miers without even bringing the nomination to a vote are going to select the next Supreme Court Justice.
Let DeWine threaten. Make him do it. Make him break up the Gang of 14, violate the rules of the Senate, take the filibuster off the table.
All in order to install a Supreme Court nominee chosen by Jerry Falwell, who blamed US morality for 9/11, and the people who believe that Katrina was God's punishment for New Orleans' iniquity.
Send DeWine to the votes against Hackett with this policy position. Go ahead. Make my day. Bring Dick Cheney to the floor of the Senate to declare just who runs his party and therefore the Bush government.
Let Chafee take NARAL's endorsement and then destroy the rules of the senate over this candidate.
Let Snowe defend her position as a New England moderate in a long-standing tradition of independence from political vicissitudes while she lets extremists dictate who's gonna be on the Supreme Court.
Nuclear option indeed.
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Hooten had it right
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But I may not even have his name spelled right. During the congressional hearings, one of the people testifying was a guy named Hooten, who believed that his son's suicide was related to steroid use. He faulted himself for not noticing the signs, and might have benefited from the publicity King talks about.
He did, though, make one very sensible and concrete suggestion. He said that the way to reduce the usage of steroids by young athletes is go through the scouts and recruiters. He says they routinely send messages to kids that if they want to get drafted or want to get a scholarship, they have to get bigger.
There's a simple way to do this. Require a series of clean tests from anybody who signs a minor league baseball contract or a letter of intent. That is, to send a letter of intent, you must enclose a series of clean tests from a certified lab. To sign a minor league contract, you must test clean in advance of signing that contract.
You need to remove the incentive for kids on the bubble to try to get off the bubble by juicing. What the pros do doesn't really matter. As King says, they have the money and connections to staty ahead of the tests. But kids don't have either of those assets. Making kids clear the next hurdle after high school sports with a clean test would go a long way to solving the real problem.
It also takes high schools out of the business of drug testing, a place they really don't belong. This isn't about high school sports. It's about the next level.
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Tiki Looks Up
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There was a strange moment in the Giant game. Tiki Barber had broken loose on a long run. The camera had him from the front, in a close-up. As he's running downfield he looks up, like a basketball player checking the time on the clock. While he's running, full speed.
The announcers didn't mention this as it happened, but came back to it shortly thereafter. They said what he was doing was looking at the video screen in the stadium, to see whether there was anybody behind him.
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"Kissinger wrote a letter of resignation" doesn't mean much
[Read the article: The long march of Dick Cheney]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Readers shouldn't put too much weight on his doing so. Kissinger was always threatening to quit. See the Haldeman Diaries.
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Firedoglake had this story first
[Read the article: Why Karl Rove came clean about Matthew Cooper]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]via atrios: http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/12/msm-plays-catchup-with-fact-free-blogs.html
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Actually, this is the first sensible thing they've done
[Read the article: The TSA's plan for tricking terrorists]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Up until now, the entire focus of the TSA has been on security theater--doing visible things rather than effective things. In fact, there was never a security risk from knives or tweezers, but they wanted to make it look like they were doing something about the 9/11 attack. In fact, there is zero chance for a repetition of that attack. That attack was not about box cutters. It was about the hijack protocol of getting the plane down safely, first, and then negotiating. That protocol ended, informally but finally, over rural Pennsylvania. Passengers and crews will no longer permit hijackings.
The risk now is that someone will blow up a plane. The search protocols, based on profiles, are certain to fail. There's a paper in a security journal about that, but, simply enough, if someone wants to get a bomb on a plane, they'll use someone who doesn't fit the profile. It doesn't matter that the profile is secret--you just run people through until you find someone who doesn't get flagged.
Randomization of who is searched and how they are searched is essential to any effective screening methodology. Nobody is gonna use a notebook computer case to hold a bomb. They're gonna use a shaving kit.
Aside from securing the cockpit doors, this is the first sensible set of things they've done.