in-other-news

FBI Investigating Norm Coleman's Suit-Buyer

Pareene · 12/10/08 12:19PM

Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, currently fighting to protect his seat from vile comedian Al Franken, got some good news and some bad news this week. The good news? Minneapolis officials lost 133 ballots, and they just gave up on finding and counting them. Those 133 ballots would most likely have given Franken a net recount gain of about 46 votes, based on the voting habits of Minneapolitans. So Coleman's 192-vote lead is looking good, as the board of elections moves to considering the thousands of challenged ballots. But here's the bad news: Coleman's under investigation by the FBI!

Even Torture Comes Down to PR

Pareene · 10/15/08 09:10AM

A couple years ago, the CIA was instructed by the Justice Department to waterboard and torture all the al-Qaeda members they secretly detained in illegal prisons. But the CIA got a bit worried! Because, you see, administrations come and go, but the CIA is forever. They've become quite skilled as ass-covering. So they pressured the White House to give written policy approval of "enhanced interrogation techniques." Why? So they could leak the memo to the Washington Post in case someone like Condi Rice tried the "it was all the CIA's idea and we knew nothing" line. Which she did! Condi told Congress last month that the Bush administration was "initially uneasy about a controversial CIA plan for interrogating top al-Qaeda suspects." She says she asked someone to look into whether the torturing was legal or not. But the CIA remembers it differently.

New York's Priorities

Pareene · 02/05/08 12:35PM

Coverage of the Giants tickertape parade is trumping coverage of primary voting on all the New York stations. Cable news net NY1, though, has attempted to make their broadcast of ecstatic fans and slow-moving floats educational nonetheless, with Pat Kiernan making countless digressions into how the parade is blocking polling places, highlighting the unsung heroism of our fair city's sanitation department, and pointing out that many Wall Street buildings no longer have windows from which employees can toss shredded documents. [NY1]