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Glenn Greenwald
They even failed to provide children's health insurance even though their entire party and much of the GOP favored it. They don't feel the slightest bit ashamed or remorseful about any of that. Yet here is Jay Rockefeller, feeling proud and cocky and triumphant, because he is about to vanquish members of his own party and civil liberties groups on behalf of a radical agenda of amnesty for lawbreaking corporations and warrantless eavesdropping powers demanded by Dick Cheney, AT&T and Mitch McConnell. I suppose he needs to find his self-esteem somewhere. But there shouldn't be any doubts regarding on whose behalf Senate Democratic leaders are working. When Rockefeller says "we will prevail," he's telling you as clearly as he can whom they represent.
UPDATE: California's Courage Campaign has an excellent critique of the "compromise" amendment which Diane Feinstein plans to introduce to transfer the cases against telecoms to the secret FISA court and allow them to be shielded from immunity if they can prove they acted in "good faith." That site also has a fairly thorough summary of the procedural events likely to occur today. More>>
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Medvedev's Regional Policy
He is traveling more as President Vladimir Putin's de facto successor than as a presidential candidate. Medvedev is using his trip to inspect the major projects that are located in the regions and to establish contact with the local political elite. From Jan. 10 to 17, Medvedev visited Kaliningrad, Murmansk, Tyumen and Chelyabinsk. Dedicating about a day for each region, he attended meetings on the national projects for housing and health care. The press gave wide coverage to his visits to factories, hospitals, construction sites and ships as well as to impromptu talks with ordinary voters. Medvedev reached out to the entire government bureaucracy wherever he went by including all officials and governors in his meetings. Along the way, he made sweeping declarations clearly directed toward the voters, promising to enact pension reform and to transform Russia into a superpower of food production. More>>
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(AFX UK Focus) 2008-01-23 07:33 GMT: Sports Direct buys 4.96 pct stake in Amer Sports
LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Sports Direct International PLC, the troubled discount sports retailer controlled by billionaire Mike Ashley, said it has acquired a 4.96 pct stake in Finnish group Amer Sports Corp, paying 48.2 mln eur or 36 mln stg. Helsinki-listed Amer owns ski brands Salomon and Atomic and the Wilson tennis and golf equipment brand.
Sports Direct paid 13.5 eur for each Amer share. It sold an earlier investment in Amer last November for about 19 eur a share.
"The company continues to believe that Amer fits its criteria for strategic investments," it said.
"The company makes and retains strategic investments where ... the board believes that the holding of such investments provide the company with the opportunity to gain strategic or commercial advantage and the investments are able to be made at prices considered to be reasonable. More>>