I'm sure that many of you are aware of the brilliant investigative journalism of Larisa Alexandrovna, (bio) the  Managing Investigative News Editor of The Raw Story.  She has covered an extensive amount of "below-the-radar" crimes of the Bush Administration, the persecution of Don Siegelman, and the build-up of war against Iran, among many other subjects. A list of her major articles and stories is here.

Tonight she reacted with understandable outrage over the speech George Bush gave to the Knesset today in Israel, and she exposed Bush's Nazi connections.

The newspaper industry is decline, perhaps fatally, for five reasons—all interrelated. You probably already know the reasons, but if you wanted to see them all written down in one place, then here you go.

As always, comment is invited. Be sure to take the poll, too!

In February 2006, Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story published the following exclusive report:

The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY has learned.

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

I received an e-mail from Greg Palast this morning. I have not seen mention of it made yet, so I am pasting the last portion of the e-mail here below. Someday this story might make the headlines, if O.J. lays low, and Lindsay Lohan gets sober, and Janet Jackson's dresses stay secure. I appreciate Greg Palast's efforts. His website is here.

Sorry it took so long to get to this.

Kossack AlanF conducted two interviews with Paul Jay earlier this year - well worth the read.

"Go big or go home": Interview with Paul Jay, IWT/The Real News, Part 1
"The Real News" Junkies Get a Fix

No, I’m not talking about McClatchy, although, they certainly fit into the "reality-based" news category as well. But, this is new. A brand new independent network on the web that takes zero advertising dollars. That’s zero. No advertising; no government funding, and no corporate strings.

In fact, The Real News is a non-profit news and documentary network focused on providing independent and uncompromising journalism. The staff, in collaboration with courageous journalists around the globe, will investigate, report and debate stories on the critical issues of our times.

They are member supported and do not accept advertising, government or corporate funding.

For the past two weeks, I have been in contact with someone who used to work for IEM, the lovely Innovative Emergency Management folks who made such a hash of handling post-Katrina services.  This person says s/he has a wealth of documents from inside the corporation that shows some of the inside mismanagement and deliberate deceptions that went on in the IEM boardrooms.

More on the flip.

In an impressive journalistic effort, Raw Story has followed up on Dana Priest's earlier Pulitzer Prize reporting and identified Poland as one of the Eastern European Countries that housed secret off-the-books prisons for the CIA, in probable violation of the Geneva Conventions:

Update: For those who missed it, or if you just want to savor his words again, the transcript is here

Keith Olberman is giving one of his Special Comments tonight. His show just started over here on the Eastern Seaboard, and in the introduction to his show he described his upcoming comment a such:

Mister Bush the lies have to stop!

Now that, to me, is something worth staying up for, and talking about!

Please join me on the flip do just that...

Howard Kaloogian (R) has posted a photograph on his campaign website which he claims to have recently taken in downtown Baghdad, to show how "calm" and "stable" the city was during his visit.

Check out the photo under the fold. I am no photographic expert, but to me, this does not appear to be a photo of Baghdad (or even Iraq) at all.