GOP Struggles To Define Its Message for 2006 Elections  —  Republican efforts to craft a policy and political agenda to carry the party into the midterm elections have stumbled repeatedly as GOP leaders face widespread disaffection and disagreement within the ranks.

On Anniversary, Bush and Cheney See Iraq Success  —  WASHINGTON, March 19 — On the third anniversary of a war that they once expected to be over by now, President Bush and senior officials argued Sunday that their strategy was working despite escalating violence in Iraq …

Deaths fall for U.S., rise for Iraqis  —  BAGHDAD — U.S. military deaths during the past month have dropped to an average of about one a day, approaching the lowest level since the insurgency began two years ago, according to a USA TODAY analysis of U.S. military data.

How to spot a baby conservative  —  Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints?  Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.  —  At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids …

Global Warming is a Terrible Danger for Humanity  —  James Hansen is the country's premier Global Climate change scientist.  Since the 1970s he has been at the forefront of the studying global climate change and has provided his expert opinion to every administration since then.

Spinning Operation Swarmer  — Email to a friend - Print this page - Text size: A A  —  The latest criticism of the war in Iraq has become so politically manipulative, so disingenuous, so over-the-top that it is undermining a critical cause that we cannot, for a variety of global security reasons, afford to lose.

David Duke Claims to Be Vindicated By a Harvard Dean  —  A paper recently co-authored by the academic dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government about the allegedly far-reaching influence of an "Israel lobby" is winning praise from white supremacist David Duke.

THE WANKERY WILL NEVER DIE.  I enjoy my job, but because the Lord has decreed that everyone should hate Monday mornings irrespective of such things, he's given Cokie Roberts a Monday A.M. segment on NPR where she's usually found peddling the most egregious bits of conventional wisdom available.

Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn  —  BALTIMORE — Black men in the United States face a far more dire situation than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has worsened in recent years even as an economic boom …

Bush Approval Steady at 37%  —  Bush has averaged 38% over last four Gallup Polls  —  PRINCETON, NJ — There has been little change in George W. Bush's job approval rating in the last week.  The March 13-16 Gallup Poll pegs his approval at 37%.  This rating is virtually unchanged …

'Iraq was awash in cash.  We played football with bricks of $100 bills'  —  At the beginning of the Iraq war, the UN entrusted $23bn of Iraqi money to the US-led coalition to redevelop the country.  With the infrastructure of the country still in ruins, where has all that money gone?

OBL Sought 'Joint Operations' with Saddam  —  An Iraqi intelligence document released last week indicates that Osama bin Laden sought to conduct "joint operations" with Saddam Hussein's regime six years before the 9/11 attacks - and was given the green light by the Iraqi dictator.

Contractor tiers swell Katrina costs  —  Normalcy eludes city as bodies are still being found  —  NEW ORLEANS — How many contractors does it take to haul a pile of tree branches?  If it's government work, at least four: a contractor, his subcontractor, the subcontractor's subcontractor …

Anti-war protesters in SLC, elsewhere lament apathy  —  By the time the war protesters began their march Saturday morning in Salt Lake City, only about 50 people had gathered.  Their numbers had swelled to about 200 by noon - and that was with a little high-tech help from a marcher who text-messaged friends to join him.

Sayed and de Man at Yale  —  The campus that ran off a Nazi propagandist today welcomes one from the Taliban.  —  Three weeks after the New York Times revealed that former Taliban official Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi is attending classes at Yale, many at the university still have little to say about the controversy.

V for Vendetta Brings Down the House … I WAS GOING TO write a review this morning calling V For Vendetta, the Wachowski Brothers adaptation of Alan Moore's and David Lloyd's mid 1980s comic book series, the greatest ever movie from a comic book source.  But when I wrote the phrase it just rang hollow.

RINO Sightings March 20th Edition  —  Good morning and welcome to the March 20, 2006 edition of RINO Sightings.  This is my first time hosting the sightings and I've got to say thank you go everyone who contributed and for the opportunity to host this week's carnival.  Now, let's get started.