Bush's Approval Rating Falls to New Low  —  WASHINGTON - More and more people, particularly Republicans, disapprove of President Bush's performance, question his character and no longer consider him a strong leader against terrorism, according to an AP-Ipsos poll documenting one of the bleakest points of his presidency.

Burning Allies — and Ourselves  —  DUBAI — Officials here heard late Thursday that Karl Rove had decided to pull the plug.  President Bush's political adviser was said to have conveyed to a top manager of Dubai Ports World in Washington that the White House couldn't hold out any longer …

U.S. Sets Plans to Aid Iraq in Civil War  —  The U.S. military will rely primarily on Iraq's security forces to put down a civil war in that country if one breaks out, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told lawmakers yesterday.  —  Sectarian violence in Iraq has reached a level unprecedented since …

President Signs USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act  —  Fact Sheet: Safeguarding America: President Bush Signs Patriot Act Reauthorization  —  THE PRESIDENT: Welcome.  Thanks for the applause.  Glad you're here in the people's house.  —  I'm going to sign …

ROOTS PROJECT: Pennsylvania  —  (Last updated: Friday March 10 @ 11:30 am Penna. time)  —  The Roots Project  —  The Roots Project is a coordinated effort by national and local bloggers to develop the netroots in each state, and convert them into what I call "netboots" …

The New Protectionists  —  How to create a real security crisis.  —  Dubai Ports World finally threw in the kaffiyah on its American operations yesterday, agreeing to sell them "to a U.S. entity."  We hope that entity turns out to be Halliburton, if only for the torment that would cause certain eminences on Capitol Hill.

$25,000 to Lobby Group Is Tied to Access to Bush  —  WASHINGTON, March 9 — The chief of an Indian tribe represented by the lobbyist Jack Abramoff was admitted to a meeting with President Bush in 2001 days after the tribe paid a prominent conservative lobbying group $25,000 at Mr. Abramoff's direction …

After South Dakota Pt. II: Stand Up For Roe  —  Drink to his health.  —  As most of you know, pro-life rhetoric in the U.S. is, more than anything, focused on diversion, using the language of states' rights or "reasonable regulations" to advance their agenda of banning abortion entirely.

The Pie Strategy  —  You bastards already hate me.  Probably. … This is not only depressing, it's boring.  We're playing out everyone's favorite dynamic of suspicion vs. grievance.  Right-wingers like to pretend that they're the only ones who dare say that we were attacked by MUSLIMS!

Pentagon admits errors in spying on protesters  —  NBC: Official says peaceful demonstrators' names erased from database  —  The Department of Defense admitted in a letter obtained by NBC News on Thursday that it had wrongly added peaceful demonstrators to a database of possible domestic terrorist threats.

The Kurd Card  —  Lost amid the news of all the bloodletting in Iraq is an important political development: The Kurds have switched sides.  In the first parliament after the first set of elections, they allied themselves with the Shiite slate to produce the current Shiite-dominated government led by Ibrahim al-Jafari.

Pakistan arrests 1,000 kite-flyers under terror laws  —  LAHORE, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistan has detained 1,000 people for flying kites and warned they could be tried as terrorists after 10 people were killed in a week by strings coated with glass or made from metal.

Unexpected Rise in Jobless Claims  —  WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuters) — The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week, to 303,000, the highest level this year, a government report showed on Thursday.  —  The increase of 8,000 took the number …

Vernon Robinson's sick commercial  —  Vernon Robinson's sick commercial  —  This is isn't a joke or a parody commercial.  It's just insane.  Robinson is running for Congress in North Carolina and he uses the Twilight Zone theme to attack gays, judges, African Americans and just about anything or anyone else you can think of.

Exporting Censorship  —  AMERICAN technology firms are taking heat from the public and Congress for helping China's government police the Internet.  But this controversy extends well beyond China and the so-called Internet Gang of Four: Google, Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft.

Alarm Spreads Over Remarks Of Jail Imam  —  Extremist remarks made by the head imam of the city's jail system are generating alarm about whether inmates are being recruited as Islamic fundamentalists.  —  Mayor Bloomberg announced yesterday that the city has suspended Imam Umar Abdul-Jalil …