Top Scoops: Comment & Opinion Digest March 23 2007

Friday, 23 March 2007, 5:00 pm
Article: Alastair Thompson

SCOOP COMMENT & OPINION:
Stateside With Rosalea: D.C. Impressions From Inside The Power House
Iran: What's It Like Waiting Around To Be Bombed?
Foreign Affairs: Cameron Walker Examines The NZ Double Standard On US Aggression
911: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed & Senate Approval Of Torture
US Attorneys: House Tightens Its Grip On White House
American Coup: Brad Freidman On The Battle To Ban Touch Screen Voting In America
LATEST ANTI IRAQ WAR NEWS:
MORE SCOOP COMMENT & OPINION:
Lent 2007: Katya Rivas' Passion Part 15

Stateside With Rosalea: DC. Impressions From Inside The Power House

Scoop's Rosalea Barker writes: - The buildings are all much smaller than they seem to be on the telly. The scale of the West Wing, at least, is really no bigger than that of a family home. The annex that links the White House to the West Wing contains the indoor swimming pool where JFK allegedly had his trysts with Marilyn Monroe. The pool has been covered over since those days, and the annex is now used as a break room for the media encampment that is permanently lined up along the driveway to the west wing. See... Stateside: Rosalea’s Big Day Out In D.C. [1]

[1] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00399.htm

Iran: What's It Like Waiting Around To Be Bombed?

- A recent CBS News/New York Times poll showed that 65 percent of Americans endorsed diplomacy with Iran, while 10 percent favored military action. But when asked by an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll if the US should "destroy Iran's ability to construct nuclear weapons," the percentage that advocated an attack rose to 43 with 47 percent demurring. The same poll also asked if we should attack Iran if it were found responsible for exporting roadside-bomb technology to Iraq. Those in favor were now in the majority -- 55 percent -- while 45 percent opposed. See... Russ Wellen: Iran On The Brink [1]

[1] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00390.htm

Foreign Affairs: Cameron Walker Examines The NZ Double Standard On US Aggression

- In January 2007 Cabinet Minister Jim Anderton, in an interview about the Bush Administration’s decision to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq, with Christchurch's newspaper The Press, compared the occupation of Iraq with America's Vietnam 'fiasco'. He then added: "One wonders whether the lessons I would have expected to be learnt from that fiasco have been learnt in any way at all. It is literally years since Mr Bush landed on an aircraft carrier and announced the war was over. I don't know whether he remembers that." See... Clark And Peters: Apologists for Mass Terror [1]

[1] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00407.htm

911: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed & Senate Approval Of Torture

- Last week, senior al-Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reportedly confessed during his Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) at the US prison in the US Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He is said to have admitted planning virtually every al-Qaeda attack on the United States. But during the military tribunal proceedings, he also said he was tortured during his four-year confinement in CIA secret prisons. Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) viewed the Guantanamo proceedings over a special video link into the US Senate. See... Ann Wright: The Sheikh and the Torture Senator [1] MORE:

[1] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00410.htm
[2] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00363.htm
[3] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00316.htm

US Attorneys: House Tightens Its Grip On White House

- In a letter late Wednesday, Rep. Henry Waxman presented numerous instances in which subpoenas were used by Congress to compel the testimony of presidential staff in former administrations. White House Spokesman Tony Snow told reporters that the demand for sworn testimony from presidential advisers is "unprecedented" and "highly unusual in any White House."See... Renner: Waxman Provides Precedent for Subpoenas [1] MORE US ATTORNEY'S NEWS:

[1] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00409.htm
[2] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00389.htm
[3] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00381.htm
[4] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00408.htm
[5] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00388.htm
[6] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00386.htm
[7] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00365.htm

American Coup: Brad Freidman On The Battle To Ban Touch Screen Voting In America

- The Saturday before last I was interviewed on Air America's Ring of Fire with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio concerning my call for the Election Reform Bill (HR811) by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) to be amended to include a full ban on Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems. The interview was pre-taped, and an edited-for-time version was aired. The complete, unedited version of that 15 minute interview, along with a text-transcript is now posted. See... Amending the Holt Bill to Ban Touch-Screen Voting [1] MORE AMERICAN COUP NEWS:

[1] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00383.htm
[2] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00362.htm
[3] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00406.htm
[4] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00384.htm
[5] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00364.htm
[6] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00355.htm

LATEST ANTI IRAQ WAR NEWS:

[1] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00402.htm
[2] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00361.htm
[3] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00358.htm
[4] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00357.htm

MORE SCOOP COMMENT & OPINION:

[1] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00411.htm
[2] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00391.htm
[3] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00369.htm
[4] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00368.htm
[5] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00367.htm
[6] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00366.htm
[7] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00387.htm
[8] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00385.htm
[9] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00405.htm
[10] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00404.htm
[11] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00403.htm
[12] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00360.htm
[13] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00359.htm
[14] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00356.htm
[15] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00354.htm

Lent 2007: Katya Rivas' Passion Part 15

- At dawn Caiaphas ordered them to take Me to Pilate so that he might pronounce the sentence of death. Pilate questioned Me, hoping to find a reason to condemn Me, but at the same time his conscience tormented him and he felt great fear at the injustice ... See... Katya Rivas: Jesus Is Sentenced to Death [1] EARLIER EXTRACTS FROM THE PASSION:

[1] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00401.htm
[2] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00380.htm
[3] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00353.htm
[4] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00330.htm
[5] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00302.htm
[6] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00251.htm
[7] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00235.htm
[8] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00216.htm
[9] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00180.htm
[10] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00170.htm
[11] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00109.htm
[12] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00094.htm

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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