Top Items:
New York Times:
G.O.P. Senators and Bush Reach Wiretap Accord — WASHINGTON, March 7 — Moving to tamp down Democratic calls for an investigation of the administration's domestic eavesdropping program, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that they had reached agreement with the White House …
Discussion:
CNN, Booman Tribune, The Blogging of the President, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Carpetbagger Report, The Strata-Sphere, TAPPED, Hit and Run, Reuters, JustOneMinute, PBD, The Next Hurrah, Daily Kos, Bring it On!, The Heretik, Stop The ACLU, Think Progress, Confederate Yankee, PoliBlog, Decision '08, The Jawa Report v3.0 Beta, The Rude Pundit, The American Street, Shakespeare's Sister, Prairie Weather, Democratic Veteran and AMERICAblog
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Glenn Greenwald / Unclaimed Territory:
Post-mortem on the Intelligence Committee vote — (updated below) — The Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday rejected Sen. Rockefeller's motion to hold hearings to investigate the President's warrantless eavesdropping program by an 8-7, strict party line vote.
Discussion:
State of the Day, The Democratic Party, Thoughts from Kansas, Bring it On!, rubber hose and Decision '08
Walter Pincus / Washington Post:
Senate Panel Blocks Eavesdropping Probe — The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted along party lines yesterday to reject a Democratic proposal to investigate the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program and instead approved establishing, with White House approval, a seven-member panel to oversee the effort.
George W. Bush / White House:
Executive Order: Responsibilities of the Department of Homeland Security with Respect to Faith-Based and Community Initiatives — By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to help the Federal Government coordinate …
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Spencer S. Hsu / Washington Post:
Bush Orders DHS to Create Center for Faith-Based Aid — President Bush ordered the Department of Homeland Security yesterday to create a center for faith-based and community initiatives within 45 days to eliminate regulatory, contracting and programmatic barriers to providing federal funds …
Comandante Agi / the defeatists!:
AND HE SAID UNTO THEM, LET US SECURE THE HOMELAND BY THE GRACE OF GOD
AND HE SAID UNTO THEM, LET US SECURE THE HOMELAND BY THE GRACE OF GOD
Discussion:
Shakespeare's Sister
George Jahn / Associated Press:
Iran Threatens U.S. With 'Harm and Pain' — VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Iran threatened the United States with "harm and pain" Wednesday for its role in hauling Tehran before the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program. America's ambassador to the United Nations said Iran's comments reflected the menace it poses.
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Sylvia Moreno / Washington Post:
DeLay Wins Tex. GOP Primary — Former House Majority Leader Easily Beats Three Challengers — AUSTIN, March 7 — Rep. Tom DeLay, facing an unusual four-way Republican primary, won the party's nomination Tuesday, calling his victory a rejection by voters of "the politics of personal destruction."
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Ralph Blumenthal / New York Times:
DeLay Beats 3 Rivals in Texas G.O.P. Primary — HOUSTON, March 7 — Representative Tom DeLay survived a challenge to his renomination for Congress Tuesday night, outpacing three Republican primary rivals seeking to capitalize on the criminal charges and ethics citations against him.
Chris Bowers / MyDD:
TX-28 Postmortem, Part II: Qualitative and Strategy — Well, it looks like our first primary challenge against an incumbent Democrat didn't work out. To my knowledge, there haven't been any official concession yet, but no matter what happens, I would like to point out that Republicans still …
Discussion:
Daily Kos
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Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
At Conservative Forum on Bush, Everybody's a Critic — If the ancient political wisdom is correct that a charge unanswered is a charge agreed to, the Bush White House pleaded guilty yesterday at the Cato Institute to some extraordinary allegations. — "We did ask a few members …
George F. Will / Washington Post:
Professors of Pretense — The institutional vanity and intellectual slovenliness of America's campus-based intelligentsia have made academia more peripheral to civic life than at any time since the 19th century. On Monday its place at the periphery was underscored as the Supreme Court …
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Thomas B. Edsall / Washington Post:
Democrats' Data Mining Stirs an Intraparty Battle — With Private Effort on Voter Information, Ickes and Soros Challenge Dean and DNC — A group of well-connected Democrats led by a former top aide to Bill Clinton is raising millions of dollars to start a private firm that plans …
William Saletan / Slate:
Take the Fifth — South Dakota's invitation to snuff your embryo. — Monday morning, Gov. Mike Rounds signed into law a ban on nearly all abortions in South Dakota. He called it a "direct challenge" to Roe v. Wade. But the ban also poses a direct challenge to the pro-life movement …
Discussion:
Crescat Sententia, The American Scene, Bark Bark Woof Woof, ACSBlog and Asymmetrical Information
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Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post:
House Agrees To Vote On Ports — Efforts by the White House to hold off legislation challenging a Dubai-owned company's acquisition of operations at six major U.S. ports collapsed yesterday when House Republican leaders agreed to allow a vote next week that could kill the deal.
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Zachary A. Goldfarb / Washington Post:
Delivering the Conservative Line on 'Monologues' — Monique Stuart was a teenager when Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" first appeared off-off-Broadway a decade ago. — But by the time the 24-year-old saw the play in her senior year of college, she'd already made up her mind that it wasn't worth much.
New York Times:
Elite Troops Get Expanded Role on Intelligence — WASHINGTON, March 7 — The military is placing small teams of Special Operations troops in a growing number of American embassies to gather intelligence on terrorists in unstable parts of the world and to prepare for potential missions to disrupt, capture or kill them.
Guardian:
US envoy to Iraq: 'We have opened the Pandora's box' — · 80% of Americans think civil war likely — · Rumsfeld accuses Tehran of fomenting conflict — Julian Borger in Washington and Ewen MacAskill — The US ambassador to Baghdad conceded yesterday that the Iraq invasion …
Nick Schulz / Slate:
The Crappiest Invention of All Time — Why the auto-flushing toilet must die. — After a stint of telecommuting, I recently returned to working in a large downtown building. My office shares a men's room with everyone who works on our level. The bathroom sports three stalls …
Associated Press:
New animal resembles furry lobster — PARIS, France (AP) — Divers have discovered a new crustacean in the South Pacific that resembles a lobster and is covered with what looks like silky, blond fur, French researchers said Tuesday. — Scientists said the animal, which they named Kiwa hirsuta …