Gitmo, Obscenity & Capitol Hill Corruption
(CBS)The Skinny is Joel Roberts’ take on the top news of the day and the best of the Internet.
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A pair of legal setbacks for the White House and the indictment of a Democratic congressman in a bribery scandal dominate the front pages Tuesday morning.
The http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-gitmo5jun05,1,7689981,full.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage leads with the decisions by two military judges to toss out charges against suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay a development that suggests the Bush administration’s “hastily reassembled military tribunals have no jurisdiction over any of Guantanamo’s 380 prisoners.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/world/americas/05gitmo.html?ref=todayspaper also leads with the Gitmo rulings, calling them “the latest legal setbacks for the governments effort to bring war crimes charges against detainees.”
The http://online.wsj.com/documents/print/WSJ_-A001-20070605.pdf, in the top item in its page-one news box, says the rulings threw the Bush military tribunal system “into doubt.”
Meanwhile, the http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/04/AR2007060400683.html?hpid=topnews leads with the indictment of Rep. William Jefferson on federal bribery and racketeering charges.
The Louisiana Democrat is accused of taking and offering hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to support business ventures in the U.S. and several West African nations.
The indictment of Jefferson, who allegedly hid $90,000 in bribe money in his home freezer, is a blow to Democrats’ efforts to paint the Republicans as the party of corruption, and, according to http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/washington/05jefferson.html?ref=todayspaper, could “sully the partys promise to bring an ethics overhaul to the 110th Congress.”
Also featured prominently on the front pages is a federal appeals court decision that questions the government’s right to police the airwaves for obscene language.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/business/media/05decency.html?ref=todayspaper called the decision, which tossed out an indecency ruling against the Fox television network, “a sharp rebuke for the F.C.C. and for the Bush administration” which have taken “a much harder line on obscenities uttered on broadcast television and radio.”
Obama-Clinton In Dead Heat
Of course it’s still early in the presidential campaign, and of course polls taken more than a year before the election don’t mean much.
Still, a new http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070605/1a_bottomstrip05.art.htm/Gallup poll showing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in a virtual dead heat in the race for the Democratic nomination is bound to raise some eyebrows.
The poll shows Clinton with just a 1-point edge over Obama, 37-36 percent the first time in any major national poll that the New Yorker hasnt clearly led the Democratic pack.
On the GOP side, the poll finds Rudy Giuliani continuing to lead the field at 32 percent, ahead of John McCain (19 percent), Mitt Romney (12 percent) and Fred “Testing the Waters” Thompson (11 percent).
Also Tuesday, a new http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/04/AR2007060401230.html poll shows growing discontent with Congress, fueled by lower approval ratings for congressional Democrats among strong opponents of the Iraq war.
Amid continuing pessimism over President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq, the poll shows “satisfaction with the overall direction of the country at its lowest point in more than a decade.”
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