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WASHINGTON (AP/THE BLAZE) — President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, will celebrate American poetry and prose with a gathering of poets, musicians and artists at the White House next Wednesday night. Professionals Elizabeth Alexander, Billy Collins, Rita Dove, Kenneth Goldsmith, Alison Knowles, Aimee Mann and Jill Scott will read, sing and highlight poetry’s influence on American culture. And there is another poet whose works will be honored: as NH Journal points out, “One of the poets who will attend is Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. who goes by the name ‘Common.’” “Tell the law my Uzi weighs a ton …...

Page three of article: "He became intrigued by antigovernment conspiracy theories, including that the Sept. 11 attacks were perpetrated by the government and that the country’s central banking system was enslaving its citizens. His anger would well up at the sight of President George W. Bush, or in discussing what he considered to be the nefarious designs of government."

TUCSON — Moments after the swirl of panic, blood, death and shock, the suspect was face down on the pavement and squirming under the hold of two civilians, his shaved head obscured by a beanie and the hood of his dark sweatshirt. Deputy Sheriff Thomas Audetat, a chiseled former Marine with three tours in Iraq to his credit, dug his knee into the gangly young man’s back and cuffed him. With the aid of another deputy, he relieved the heroic civilians of their charge and began searching for weapons other than the Glock semiautomatic pistol, secured nearby under a civilian’s...

As a Christmas present I received a copy of Decision Points, abridged CD audio by Random House Audio. When I placed Disc 1 into my laptop disc drive, Windows Media Player attempts to pull the cover art from the internet. Apparently someone is trying to sell some music. Very poor taste nonetheless. Instead of viewing the book cover, I see this: A quick Google search leads me to DJ Flash's MySpace page: And to his "record label" . . .

William Scott Ritter Jr., a former United Nations weapons inspector who gained renown for his criticism of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, contends his online sexual encounters with teenage girls were only fantasy. Nearly two years ago, Ritter, of Delmar, watched his computer screen reveal that an anonymous person who had been exchanging sexually charged messages with him for 80 minutes was not a 15-year-old girl. It was a cop from a small town in northeast Pennsylvania, alone in his station house and trolling the Internet for suspected child predators. Ryan Venneman, a detective for the Barrett Township...

<p>Say what you want about WikiLeaks - and I don't much like what it has done - it nevertheless would be useful for its founder, Julian Assange, to follow George W. Bush as he lopes around the country, promoting his new book, "Decision Points." When, for instance, Bush attempts to justify the Iraq war by saying the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein, Assange could reach into his bag of leaked U.S. government cables and cite Saudi King Abdullah's private observation that the war had given Iraq to Iran as a "gift on a golden platter."</p>

Former USDA official Shirley Sherrod, who claims she was falsely smeared as a racist while she herself falsely smears Republicans and Fox News as racists, said this morning that she would like to see BigGovernment.com, the website that made her famous, shut down for the good of the country.CNN's American Morning reported on Sherrod's demand:She said if Breitbart's site were shut down, "That would be a great thing, because I don't see how that advances us in this country ... at a time when we should be trying to look at how we can make space for all of us...

Mike "Fat Mike" Burkett from punk rock band NOFX has been permanently banned from Emo's after pulling a disgusting prank during his SXSW showcase. Burkett, performing as Cokie The Clown, started his set by pulling out a bottle of tequila, pouring several shots, and then taking a few shots himself before sharing the rest with the excited crowd. In the video above, hosted by TMZ, the audience can be seen eagerly grabbing the plastic cups that Burkett passes out. Moments later, Burkett replays a video on a small TV on stage, showing him urinating into the same tequila bottle just...

It's hard to think of a movie that'd play better in the Obama White House screening room than Matt Damon's new Iraq War thriller, "Green Zone," in which the Oscar-winner adroitly portrays a soldier fighting to expose the Bush administration's weapons of mass destruction deception. Yet for all the ammo his movie may give Democrats, Damon admits he's "disappointed" in the man who replaced George W. Bush.

Dan Rather slammed CBS Tuesday for trying to keep his court fight with the network out of the public eye. The newsman - who has filed a $70 million lawsuit against the Tiffany network, where he anchored the "CBS Evening News" for 24 years - said "corporate overlords" are conspiring to withhold several key documents. The 76-year-old was back in Manhattan Supreme Court for a hearing on his suit, which accuses CBS of sidelining him to make nice with the White House following a September 2004 report that questioned President Bush's Vietnam-era military service. Rather left the anchor's chair in...

Was that the President's great political achievement? Karl Rove, his political svengali, proclaimed that the Bush victory, narrow as it was - the narrowest for any second-term president - would mean that the Republicans were the natural party of government, destined to be in power for a generation or more. And the Democrats, demoralised and divided, leaderless and bitter, seemed to believe this hubristic nonsense, just as Bush believed it and the conservative evangelical base of the Republican Party believed it, the godless liberals having been crushed and consigned to the political wilderness.

ALBANY -- A renowned poet who taught the Virginia Tech killer found his presence so intimidating it felt like he was "controlling my classroom," the professor said in an interview. . . . The evening wasn't all solemn, though. Giovanni's often profane jokes about men, Jesus, and especially the Bush administration kept the crowd in stitches, though most of them can't be printed in a family newspaper. And from this article:But it wasn't what the celebrated poet said about the massacre that provoked one of the loudest reactions from her audience of University at Albany students Thursday. What really got...

Robert Novak, nationally syndicated columnist, television news commentator and the self-acknowledged “Prince of Darkness” of the Washington press, spoke at Schwartz Auditorium (Cornell University) last night. In his opening remarks, Novak, who served in the Korean War and worked for 50 years in Washington, D.C., revealed the origin of his sinister moniker. “I believe in limited government, low taxes and individual economic freedom. And in Washington that makes you The Prince of Darkness. It may well make you The Prince of Darkness at Cornell,” said Novak. In his speech, Novak offered an analysis of the 2006 Congressional power shift, a...

I want to hear your comments about the American Idol contestant who sang "Not Ready to Make Nice" by the dixie chicks and was axed.

Rocker David Byrne has accused US President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for leading the country the same way the late Saddam Hussein led Iraq. Byrne is stunned at the Iraq war and is vehemently against it, said contactmusic.com. He said: 'It's like we are in shock. At least I am. The majority of Americans don't want to commit more troops, Congress doesn't want to commit more troops, but George and Dick do and by god they are gonna have it. And I thought, 'Can they just do this?' I thought only people like Saddam Hussein could...

(Ignoring the blather on Immigration and Impeachment, I proceeded to the Idiotorial remarks on the CIA leak postscript from the Houston Comical - weegee): -------------------- With the latest developments in the CIA leak case, some Bush apologists insist that it's time for a correction or contrition from those of us who spoke out about the White House's involvement. At least as far as my commentary has gone, I see no required rollback. Bush has not taken the "appropriate action" that he promised in October 2003, as Karl Rove remains on the White House payroll. Disclosure that Richard L. Armitage, when...

Woman on diverted flight 'barely lucid' By MELISSA TRUJILLO, Associated Press Writer 50 minutes ago A woman on a trans-Atlantic flight diverted to Boston for security concerns passed several notes to crew members, urinated on the cabin floor and made comments the crew believed were references to al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks, according to an affidavit filed Thursday. Catherine C. Mayo, 59, of Braintree, Vt., appeared in federal court Thursday on a charge of interfering with a flight crew on United 923 as it flew from London to Washington, D.C., Wednesday. She was dressed in a Rolling Stones T-shirt,...

Haggard and Going Strong An outlaw country pioneer takes a break from touring and recording to discuss his political incorrectness, the Dixie Chicks and a Merle Haggard miniseries.

Comedienne Sandra Bernhard appeared on the show and, amidst a discussion about Laura Bush, characterized the First Lady, with her typical acidity as "heavily medicated." Co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck, a vocally ardent Republican, took acute exception and tried to defend Mrs. Bush's work on childhood education, whereupon Bernhard called Hasselbeck "honey" – and then the sparks really flew. It was all a bit too much for Joy Behar to bear, apparently.

Bush, bird flu, iPod mania, Stephen Colbert, big hairy dogs and the best CD of the year - Balm for your tormented soul. Reasons not to off yourself with a handful of whippets and a bottle of Maker's Mark while reciting Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium" just yet. Feel free to add you own: 1) Bush at 31 percent and falling fast The apocalypse is yawning and going back to bed. The man can do no right. Dubya's inept policies and slew of appalling deceits are coming back to bite him faster than perhaps any president in history. Oh sure, he's...

In the months leading up to the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein did try to cooperate with United Nations inspectors, a decision that, paradoxically, helped convince the West that he was hiding weapons of mass destruction. By late 2002, Saddam finally tilted toward trying to persuade the international community that Iraq was cooperating with the inspectors of Unscom (the United Nations Special Commission) and that it no longer had W.M.D. programs. Saddam was insistent that Iraq would give full access to United Nations inspectors "in order not to give President Bush any excuses to start a war." Ironically, it now appears...

It is not too soon for "United 93," because it is not a film that knows any time has passed since 9/11. The entire story, every detail, is told in the present tense. We know what they know when they know it, and nothing else. Nothing about Al Qaeda, nothing about Osama bin Laden, nothing about Afghanistan or Iraq, only events as they unfold. This is a masterful and heartbreaking film, and it does honor to the memory of the victims. The director, Paul Greengrass, makes a deliberate effort to stay away from recognizable actors, and there is no attempt...

"Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day," President Bush said recently. Another time he said, "Some say that if you're Muslim you can't be free." "There are some really decent people," the president said earlier this year, "who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care ... for all people." Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions. When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, as...

Morrissey was questioned by the FBI and British intelligence after speaking out against Bush and Blair, the singer has revealed. Mozza, a famous critic of the war in Iraq, has previously branded the US President a “terrorist”. He said: “The FBI and the Special Branch have investigated me and I’ve been interviewed and taped and so forth. They were trying to determine if I was a threat to the government, and similarly in England. But it didn’t take them very long to realise that I’m not. “I don’t belong to any political groups,” he continued, “I don’t really say anything...

Poor Fidel. It's not easy being a dictator these days, not when your sworn enemy has stolen your playbook and recast it as democracy. How sad it must be to come up with all these creative governing principles -- listening in on private phone calls, reading personal mail, secretly video-taping protestors -- only to live long enough to see a third-rate intelligence like George W. Bush adopt them all as his own. It's enough to drive anyone nuts. In a few days, Fidel will celebrate an important personal anniversary, and the whole world will look on in awe. Whatever your...

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY By Jonathan Alter Newsweek Updated: 6:17 p.m. ET Dec. 19, 2005 Dec. 19, 2005 - Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgate—he made it seem as if those who didn’t agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to Al Qaeda—but it will not work. We’re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham...

It must be said that subsequent events have not made life easy for those of us who were so optimistic as to support the war in Iraq. There were those who believed the Government's rubbish about Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction. Then the WMD made their historic no-show.Some of us were so innocent as to suppose that the Pentagon had a well-thought-out plan for the removal of the dictator and the introduction of peace. Then we had the insurgency, in which tens of thousands have died.Some of us thought it was about ensuring that chemical weapons could never again be...

After the love (for Bill) is gone THE WAY WE WERE Writer recalls the betrayal that ended their political affair I BROKE up with Bill a long time ago. It's always hard to remember love — years pass and you say to yourself, was I really in love or was I just kidding myself? Was I really in love or was I just pretending he was the man of my dreams? Was I really in love or was I just desperate? But when it came to Bill, I'm pretty sure it was the real deal. I loved the guy. As...

Controversial film-maker Michael Moore is planning to make a hard-hitting documentary based on US President George W. Bush's handling of the Hurricane Katrina rescue operation. Moore grabbed international acclaim with his scathing 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11, which studied Bush's handling of the September 11th terrorist attacks. The Oscar winner is now "seriously considering" documenting the catastrophe in America's Gulf Coast region. He tells the New York Daily News, "There is much to be said and done about the man-made annihilation of New Orleans, caused not by a hurricane but by the very specific decisions made by the Bush administration in...

The quagmire in Iraq and the precariousness of conditions in Afghanistan provide wars enough for discussion, should anyone want a serious one. Nonetheless, the ghost of Vietnam rises again in an odd footnote to the 2004 presidential campaign. This is the belated decision by Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to release his complete military record to media organizations. If you count yourself among those who have no interest in how the college grades of former Yale men Kerry and George W. Bush compare - they both turn out to be poor - perhaps you missed the point.

Interesting irony on Larry King last night. First King interviewed Woodward & Bernstein, the two men responsible for breaking one of the biggest stories of the century with the help of an anonymous source we now know was the number two man at the FBI. In the next hour King interviewed Dan Rather, the man responsible (at least in part) for one of the bigger journalistic bungles in the modern era, rushing to air a story based on forged documents from very dubious sources to try and influence the outcome of a presidential election. It's clear that Rather is still...

Between his return Friday from Pope John Paul II's funeral in Rome and his meeting Monday with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, President George W. Bush spent an hour and a half Saturday riding a mountain bike at his Texas ranch. With him, as usual, was his indispensable new exercise toy: an iPod music player loaded with country and popular rock tunes aimed at getting the presidential heart rate up to a chest-pounding 170 beats per minute. Which brings up the inevitable question. What, exactly, is on the First iPod? In an era of celebrity playlists - the New...

Heads roll at CBS over Bush report Network's probe blames staffers' 'myopic zeal' ANTONIA ZERBISIAS Four big heads — but not the fat talking one called Dan Rather — are rolling at CBS. The axings come after an independent study found "myopic zeal" was behind last September's questionable 60 Minutes Wednesday report on gaps in President George W. Bush's National Guard service records. Yesterday, CBS announced that Mary Mapes, who produced the story about Bush getting "special treatment," was fired. Senior broadcast producer Mary Murphy, executive producer Josh Howard and Betsy West, who supervised CBS News primetime programs, have all...

NEXT YEAR, 1.3 million college students will receive reduced Pell grants for college aid. Another 89,000 currently eligible students will get no aid at all. These cuts will save the Bush administration about $300 million, a small part of what it needs to pay for its tax cuts and military forays.

Arab astrologer predicts Bush assassination Oracle famed for prophesying deaths of Diana, Yassin, Arafat © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com A Tunisian astrologer who reportedly predicted the deaths of Princess Diana, Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Yasser Arafat says President Bush will be killed by an assassin's bullet in 2005. So seriously are Hassan al-Sharibi's predictions taken in the Arab world that a similar prophecy about Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Mahmoud Abbas has resulted in increased security around the candidate to replace Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority. Abbas' aides put a "great deal of credence" in the prediction, according to...

HOLLYWOOD has-been Chevy Chase lashed out at President Bush at a liberal love-in Tuesday night, calling the commander-in-chief a "dumb f - - k." Chase was master of ceremonies at People for the American Way's Defender of Democracy awards gala at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. But the organization got more than it bargained for when Chase went off the rails in a potty-mouthed rant, the Washington Post reports. "This guy in office is an uneducated, real schmuck," Chase fumed, "and we still couldn't beat him with a bore like [John] Kerry." He then joked about Cabinet changes,...

Washington, DC, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- The remembrance of Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor took on partisan political spin Tuesday with a Democrat leader using it to attack House Republicans. Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, in a special Pearl Harbor Day statement, said national unity 63 years ago enabled Americans to go forward and defeat the country's enemies, but the same kind of unity needed now was being undermined by Republican disagreements over provisions of the yet-to-be-voted on intelligence reform bill. "While we as a nation are united in this fight, there are clearly deep divisions within...

No Apologies Helen Thomas has been shaking up the White House press corps since George W. took office. She talked to Real Change about power, truth, and women in Washington interview by Adam Holdorf For most of her four-decade career covering the White House, journalist Helen Thomas stuck to the straight facts. Lately, though — having left United Press International, where she wrote wire stories, and taking on a new role as a columnist for Hearst Newspapers (like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, where she’s regularly printed) — she’s loosened the lid on her own opinions. But unlike other columnists, she has...

Rather deserves respect By Ray Richmond There was a telling moment in a telephone interview I conducted with Dan Rather a little more than a year ago in conjunction with the 75th anniversary of CBS. "I'm not a large part of the legacy (of CBS)," Rather offered. "But whatever part of it that I am and have been, I'm very proud of. At the same time, I'm humbled by the fact that I know that I'm undeserving. I know that I'm still working to be worthy of it." Anyone who knew Rather will tell you this wasn't false modesty. He...

Some retailers had luxurious weekend But discounters report sales were disappointing By DAVID KAPLAN Retailers use the Thanksgiving weekend to gauge how the Christmas season will go. ADVERTISEMENT This year, though, it's hard to spot a general trend. "I think the start was very mixed," said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a national retail consulting and investment banking firm in New York. Some retail segments did a booming business, including luxury, electronics, online retail, certain specialty apparel chains and department stores like Sears and J.C. Penney that had early bird specials. However, discounters didn't perform well. For example,...

What the Republicans did, cleverly, was to establish effective "memes" in the minds of the public and the pundits... Bush became the "winner" of a dead heat, in the midst of an incomplete recount, when a premature victory was declared on her own unnecessary deadline by his Florida campaign co-chairwoman, who also held the crucial post of secretary of state... [I]t was clearly a shameless ploy to slam the door before the election escaped. A meme was born. The other effective GOP meme was the mantra, "we counted, and counted again, and then a third time." These words were chanted...

THE last presidential election in the United States is as American as apple pie. Even till the last second before the event started, nobody in the US or elsewhere knew for sure whether George Bush would retain his job or whether he would be defeated by John Kerry. Characteristic of American presidential elections in recent history, the last one was tough, rough and sometimes acrimonious, although some degree of razzmatazz was also noticeable.Key issues in the run-up to the election were security, the war against terror, the American misadventure in Iraq and the worrisome state of US economy. Generally speaking,...

Between the end of the Republican National Convention and Election Day, the Houston Chronicle spent roughly 50,000 words on President George W. Bush and his campaign for re-election. Perhaps most impressive, one of its own columnists had major news to break on the race. He just didn't, umm, break it to the Chronicle. Russ Baker, a New York-based freelance journalist and contributing editor at Columbia Journalism Review, had been circling the reporting waters around President Bush for several months, dialing up hundreds of possible sources for material on the commander in chief. "I just didn't think we really knew enough...

By Hunter S. Thompson Page 2 "The Summer is over the harvest is in, and we are not saved." -- Jeremiah 8:20 Well, the election is over now, and I was pitifully wrong on my public prediction about the outcome. George W. Bush won handily; and my friend, John Kerry, lost by three percentage points -- which was every bit as big in a vicious presidential election as it was on the football field last night when the low-riding Indianapolis Colts kicked a last-second field goal to beat Minnesota 31-28. That field goal was just as good for the Colts...

Page 2 George McGovern called Saturday night from New Orleans and said he was ready to rumble. "This is it, Hunter. This is the day we've been waiting for all our lives," he cackled. "Nixon was nothing compared to these bastards. This is the most important election of my lifetime, including my own race."What do you think is going to happen on Tuesday?" "I think Kerry will win," I answered. "Yes, I think so, too. He is about the greatest thing since God created you and me," he laughed. His voice became serious then, and he said, "I think he...

As a member of the Manhattan intelligentsia, novelist Tom Wolfe seems a lonely defender of George Bush's conservative values. But, he tells Ed Vulliamy, he's bewildered by a sex-mad society and tired of being lectured to at dinner parties. So is he voting for Dubya tomorrow? He's not quite telling Tom Wolfe casts his gaze across America at this election time, with eyes that change mood in a nanosecond, with a flicker. For the most part, they exude an amused elegance befitting the hallmark white suit and dandy-ish two-tone brogues. But then the look suddenly changes, to become scalpel-sharp, mischievous,...

I was flipping around the channels and stopped at CNN because Lou Dobbs was talking about the missing ammo in Iraq (he hadn't gotten the NBC memo yet). Anyways, after the interview with the woman, he intros the next story: To paraphrase: "Next, you won't believe what a paper in England said about President Bush. Stay tuned for what The Guardian said." Que the graphics to lead to commercial. Lou Dobbs (mic still on): "I love The Guardian." Female Guest: "Oh God!"

In Saturday's Guardian, Charlie … concluded his analysis of the presidential election thus: "On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr — where are you now that we need you?" Well, wherever they are, they're probably saying: "Why bring us into it? When ol' Lee Harvey...

Disgraced CBS newsman Dan Rather accused the White House on Saturday of trying to "smear" him after he used forged documents in a bid to discredit President Bush's National Guard record. Speaking at a media forum in New York City, Rather insisted, "I don't have a political agenda." "I'm an independent journalist," he claimed, in quotes picked up by the Washington Post. Rather pledged that he wouldn't give in to his critics, whom he said were themselves guilty of "bias."The embattled newsman denied reports that he would step down as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" anytime soon, vowing to...

ARLINGTON, Va. The rows of simple white headstones in the broad expanses of brilliant green lawns are scrupulously arranged, and they seem to go on and on, endlessly, in every direction. It was impossible not to be moved. A soft September wind was the only sound. Beyond that was just the silence of history, and the collective memory of the lives lost in its service. Nearly 300,000 people are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, which is just across the Potomac from Washington. On Tuesday morning I visited the grave of Air Force Second Lt. Richard VandeGeer. The headstone tells us,...