TV News LIES

Former Libyan military officers packed an auditorium here on Wednesday to listen to the man who has been appointed to lead the country's army as the leaders of the movement that deposed dictator Moammar Gadhafi's last month attempt to consolidate their control.

But leading the discussion wasn't the man most Western news reporters have focused on in recent weeks, Hakim Belhaj, the leader of rebel forces in Tripoli and a former member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, who was imprisoned by Gadhafi after the CIA captured him in Southeast Asia in 2004.

Joe McGinniss's book on Sarah Palin is finally here. After years of hype, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin does not disappoint, offering the kind of salacious allegations you'd expect from a guy who'd move next door to Palin to write a book about her. What's in it? Cocaine, a one-night stand with a basketball hero, a love triangle.

Clergy sex abuse victims upset that no high-ranking Roman Catholic leaders have been prosecuted for sheltering guilty priests have turned to the International Criminal Court, seeking an investigation of the pope and top Vatican cardinals for possible crimes against humanity. The Vatican called the move a "ludicrous publicity stunt."

The Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based nonprofit legal group, requested the inquiry Tuesday on behalf of the U.S.-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, arguing that the global church has maintained a "long-standing and pervasive system of sexual violence" despite promises to swiftly oust predators.(See more on controversial study into Catholic church abuse.)

Father Frank Pavone, one of the country's most visible and vocal opponents of abortion, has been suspended from active ministry outside the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas, over financial questions about his operation of Priests for Life.

The suspension was made public in a Sept. 9 letter from Amarillo Bishop Patrick J. Zurek to his fellow bishops across the country, but Father Pavone told Catholic News Service that he was returning to Amarillo and planned to continue functioning as a priest there.

The United States cannot fully account for more than 16,000 kilograms tons of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium that it has shipped to 27 "friendly" countries in recent decades, and it lacks any coherent policy to track down the materials, a Government Accountability Office report concluded late last week.

In fact, according to auditors, the country's atomic accounting is so shoddy that the International Atomic Energy Agency—the same agency sent to search for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction—could potentially find the United States in violation of its international anti-proliferation treaty obligations.

Earlier this week, Oversight Committee Ranking Member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) along with other members of his panel called on Oversight chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) to probe News Corporation over allegations that the company broke the Foreign Corrupt Practices Law and may have even hacked the phones of victims of the 9/11 tragedy.

Yesterday on Fox News, a subsidiary of News Corp, Issa responded to those calls by claiming that (1) the Justice Department is investigating the matter so he doesn’t need to, (2) it is not his responsibility to look into an issue that occurred “in another country,” and (3) the “most inappropriate” course of action would be “picking on media”:

Poor management and critical mistakes by BP and its contractors led to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, according to the final report of the largest U.S. government probe into last year's massive Gulf oil spill.

Investigators from the U.S. Coast Guard and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management scattered blame for the accident on the companies involved while also saying stronger regulations could have helped prevent the catastrophe.

More proof that Washington is corrupt? A new Legistorm study reveals there is a "revolving door" between Congress and lobbying firms, showing that almost 5400 lawmakers have jumped from the government to lobbying firms in the last decade. Washington Post:

Of the 5,400 lobbyists with recent Hill experience, the study found that 2,900 were registered to lobby on behalf of clients this year. Twenty-five powerhouse firms and organizations employ 10 or more former Hill workers. The largest number are at the Podesta Group, followed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which employs at least 21.