Christian Amanpour

* andrea mitchell seems to think that Christian Amanpour was spied upon by NSA. (update: atrios says that " NBC has removed that bit from their transcript. Sweet.")

* john reminds that jamie rubin is married to amanpour . is his phone tapped?

* Blinky has overruled the mccain torture amendment. (link)

* "In other news, the Associated Press has announced its ended ties with a reporter found to have been working for the U.S. government-backed National Endowment for Democracy. The NED, which receives annual funding from the US Congress and State Department, has been linked to supporting opposition groups favorable to US government positions in countries such as Venezuela and Haiti. The reporter, Regine Alexandre had contributed at least one dozen articles for the AP and at least two for the New York Times. Her ties to the NED were exposed by independent journalist Anthony Fenton and radio host Dennis Bernstein on the radio program Flashpoints on Pacifica's KPFA." (link)
who'd have thunk that a) the AP is a spin machine b) the NED is using covert operatives?

* amy goodman interviewed one of sibel's whistlblowers: "Two weeks ago, a former NSA intelligence officer publicly announced that he wants to testify before Congress. His name is Russell Tice. For the past two decades he has worked in the intelligence field both inside and outside government, most recently with the National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency. He was fired in May 2005 after he spoke out as a whistleblower."

* tucker carlson gets in a tizz about abramoff (and sheldon and norquist). its quite funny. apparently tucker has had it up to here with phony conservatives.