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January 7, 2009
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Gaza rubble
AP Photo/Khaled Omar

Why Do So Few Speak Up for Gaza?

Why is it that there is such widespread acceptance, beginning with the apologetic arguments of President Bush, that whatever Israel does is always justified as necessary to the survival of the Jewish state? It is not.

Featured Dig

Capzles.com

Financial Meltdown 101

Getting a grip on the economic catastrophe that rocked the country during the fall of 2008 is no easy feat, what with so many players, back-room deals, bills, upswings and meltdowns to consider. Updated

 
A/V Booth

Lou Dobbs is diversifying his nonsense portfolio. The anti-immigrant poster boy has taken up the now-passé fight against climate science. In this clip, Dobbs refers to “many scientists” and “just the facts” as he tries to pin climate change on something he calls the “solar sun spot activity cycle.”

Long before he would become the 44th POTUS—or make arugula the unlikely culinary signifier of elitism—Barack Obama discussed the virtues of the Southern sampler platter at Chicago’s Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop restaurant in Chicago on this 2001 episode of local eats show “Check, Please.” He recommends the cobbler.

Roland Burris tells MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow he’d rather not have a media circus swirling around his controversial appointment. But that’s what is shaping up as he moves to claim a seat in the U.S. Senate.

 
Arts and Culture
Laura Bush

Americans have always preferred Laura Bush to her husband, and now Scribner, an imprint of a division of a subsidiary of Sumner Redstone’s National Amusements, is hoping to capitalize on that appeal with an “intimate” new memoir set for 2010 release. There’s no telling how much the better Bush is getting paid, but “millions” is a safe bet. Update after the jump.


There was a time when Russia was an economic power on the rise. Sean McMeekin’s new book, “History’s Greatest Heist: The Looting of Russia by the Bolsheviks,” explains what nipped that growth in the bud.

Rosenblats

The fluidity of memory aside, this is getting a little strange: Following in the footsteps of James Frey, Misha Defonseca and Margaret Seltzer, yet another “memoirist,” Herman Rosenblat, has admitted that his supposedly true story, “Angel at the Fence,” is a bit lacking in the truth department.

 
 
 
Reports

While the Israeli government, dominated by hawks in the midst of a political campaign, has escalated its assault on Gaza, there are many Israelis who are outraged by what’s happening.

UN peacekeepers

Can it be that yet another Israeli failure in Gaza will change the dynamics of “peacekeeping” in the Middle East, that at last the ghost of Arafat will watch the “internationalisation” of the Israeli-Palestinian war?

While Republicans are looking inward and focusing on appeals to the party’s activist base, Obama wants Democrats to concentrate their energies on recently acquired political terrain and the new converts who were central to his party’s sweep last year. 

I am supposed to be typing out words that articulate a highly audible and terribly alarmed tsk tsk. Instead, I am laughing with unrestrained amusement at the farce that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has engineered. Honestly, I haven’t had this much fun since New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s implosion.


Some have argued that the Senate does not have the right to reject embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s pick to replace Barack Obama. However, history clearly disagrees.

Rayan

I often visited Nizar Rayan, who was killed Thursday in a targeted assassination by Israel, at his house in the Jabaliya refugee camp when I was in Gaza. His four wives and 11 children also were killed. Rayan’s sons, according to their father, strove to be one thing: martyrs for Palestine. 

Kenyans for Obama

As the dust settles from the feverish dances that greeted Barack Obama’s victory in the American elections, Africans wonder what “our son and brother” will be able to do for Africa in the face of daunting challenges in the United States and other parts of the world.

President-elect Obama will have more urgent matters to deal with after he takes the oath of office. But somewhere on his long to-do list, he should make a note to finally bring five decades of counterproductive American policy toward Cuba to a definitive end.

The governor is playing Chicago-style hardball at the highest level. His opponents need to reply in kind. 

 
Ear to the Ground
Burris

The Coleman-Franken battle wasn’t the only drama going down Tuesday on Capitol Hill. Roland Burris, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s pick for Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat, was not part of the swearing-in ceremony for new members of Congress, but he just might make it after all.

111th Congress

There were just a few action items—emphasis on action—for the 111th Congress to contend with on the broad domestic and global scale as veteran members reconvened and new recruits made it official on Tuesday. Get to work, people.

Gupta

Although the fact that his sponsoring network, CNN, reported this rumor makes it a tad suspect, it wouldn’t be the first time that the concept of self-promotion was associated with the name of Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s resident brain surgeon and talking head, who has apparently been approached by the Obama squad to potentially fill the position of U.S. surgeon general.


Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak presented a cease-fire proposal Tuesday that would buy time to negotiate a long-term agreement. Israel continued its offensive in Gaza, meanwhile, shelling a United Nations school. At least 30 people, children among them, were killed by the attack, which Israel said was aimed at militants.


NBC has been taking heat for scheduling a book-pushing session with Ann Coulter, but according to the author, her “Today” show appearances have been canceled. Drudge adds that “insiders” at the Peacock say the network has banned ol’ skin and bones for good, though that seems too good to be true.

The 2008 Weblog Awards

It’s awards season, and we need your help. Truthdig is a 2008 Weblog Awards finalist in two categories: Best Political Coverage and Best Liberal Blog. Show your support by voting here and here. Polls close Jan. 13, and you can vote once every day in each category. Thanks, as always, for your support.

 
 
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A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
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