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Friday, Feb 15, 2002

hard times

"Prominent Campaign Finance Reform Proposals Would Not Have Reduced Enron's or Andersen's Political Spending "

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mission scrub

"On 9-9-01 - just two days before Osama Bin Laden's attack on the US - the NY Times published a lengthy and chilling article about Osama Bin Laden by reporter John Burns. Some time after 9-11, the Times SCRUBBED this article, replacing it with a completely different article that Burns wrote on 9-12."

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Thursday, Feb 14, 2002

b-list

""I didn't agonize over it," the vice president breezily tells the Post. Neither, apparently, did Woodward. But Dana Milbank might have. By general consensus, Milbank -- one of the Post's two White House correspondents -- is the administration's least-favorite journalist. And it's not hard to see why. Over the past year or so, Milbank, who previously covered the White House for The New Republic, has broken a number of stories that made life difficult for Bush. Last summer, he exhumed an administration plan to exempt the Salvation Army from state and local antidiscrimination laws -- a major embarrassment to Bush aide Karl Rove, who played a central role in the discussions. Milbank also broke early stories about the vice president's secret energy-task-force meetings (which prompted angry phone calls from Congress) and Bush's decision to abandon school vouchers (which prompted angry calls from conservatives)."

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news is not free

"NEW YORK -- Last year, many newspapers were considering shutting off free access to their Web sites -- "closing the floodgates," as at least one publisher put it. But there seems to be less interest in shutting those doors these days."

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yellow roses

"George W. Bush is trying to rewrite the history of his and his family’s relationship with Enron Corp.’s disgraced former Chairman Kenneth Lay. So far, Bush has enjoyed fairly good success as the U.S. news media has largely accepted the White House spin."

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full of sheet

"Bankers at Citigroup (news/quote), Credit Suisse First Boston and Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown found ways for Enron to remove lagging assets from its balance sheet by selling bonds backed by Enron's stock.

After hatching that idea, some of those bankers took it on the road and sold it to other corporations that wanted to make their financial statements look better, too."

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Wednesday, Feb 13, 2002

memory challenged

"If campaign finance reform is enacted into law, I believe that you can thank President George W. Bush, because he changed the dynamic of how this phony debate has finally ended in Washington, D.C.," Fleischer said. "What I'm signaling is that the president wants to improve the system. I'm not indicating there's a blank check. I will never indicate before a vote is taken that the president will sign anything that's sent to him."

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ugly china pattern

"BEIJING, Feb. 12 -- A religious rights group in the United States has published a set of internal Chinese government documents describing in remarkable detail the suppression of unauthorized religious groups, including efforts to crush underground Catholic churches, use of secret agents to infiltrate illegal Protestant congregations and orders for "forceful measures" against the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement."

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maureen corps

"Aren't we supposed to be influencing the Saudis and other Middle Eastern countries in the direction of honesty and transparency? Instead, the vice president emulates his Saudi friends — operating with high-handed secrecy, plotting with cronies to develop a petrostate, and restricting the press — just as he did during Desert Storm."

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watch out

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Washington police are building what will be the nation's biggest network of surveillance cameras to monitor shopping areas, streets, monuments and other public places in the U.S. capital, a move that worries civil liberties groups, The Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday."

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