THE AMERICAN FLAG COMES SECOND  —  ***scroll for updates...new photo added below of a student in Dallas screamed at by an angry mob for carrying an American flag...plus fence-hopping at Montebello H.S...unreality-based Ted Kennedy gets the Clueless Blowhard of the Day Award...chanting in Las Vegas …

Abramoff Gets Minimum Sentence  —  Former Lobbyist to Spend 5 Years, 10 Months in Prison  —  MIAMI, March 29 — Jack A. Abramoff, the once-powerful Republican lobbyist at the center of a major corruption scandal, was sentenced Wednesday to five years and 10 months in prison for his role …

FISA judges say Bush within law  —  A panel of former Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges yesterday told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that President Bush did not act illegally when he created by executive order a wiretapping program conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Time Magazine's Michael Ware from Baghdad.  —  HH: Joining me now live from Baghdad is Michael Ware, bureau chief for Time Magazine.  Michael, welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show.  —  MW: Thanks, Hugh.  —  HH: Michael, we met each other courtesy of CNN on a couple of editions of Anderson Cooper's program last week.

Making Promises You Can't Keep  —  Why is it that politicians who are desperate to regain power, who don't have a focused message, and whose party has no unified platform, retreat to the promiseland to invest in commitments they can't keep?  —  Politicians of all stripes make this mistake.

Afghan convert given Italy asylum  —  The Italian cabinet has approved a request for asylum from an Afghan who escaped a possible death sentence for converting from Islam to Christianity.  —  Welfare Minister Roberto Maroni said the case of Abdul Rahman, 41, was now in the hands of the interior ministry.

'The Last Helicopter'  —  Mideast dictators try to "wait Bush out."  They may be miscalculating.  —  Hassan Abbasi has a dream—a helicopter doing an arabesque in cloudy skies to avoid being shot at from the ground.  On board are the last of the "fleeing Americans," forced out of the Dar al-Islam …

Rubber Stamp Republican Congress: Citizen Action Update  —  Morning everyone — happy Jack Abramoff Sentencing in Florida Day.  Looks like Jack still has a few friends on the Hill.  But today, it's all about the sentencing judge — and the proffer as to what cooperation Jackie Boy has been giving the Feds.

Bush blames Iraq's instability on Hussein  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush said Wednesday that Saddam Hussein, not continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, is responsible for ongoing sectarian violence that is threatening the formation of a democratic government.

Six theses on immigration policy  —  Some random thoughts as the nativist campaign builds up a head of steam:  —  1. For any given amount of total immigration, it's obviously better to have a larger fraction of that total be legal.  That's especially true if we're worried about terrorism.

Saudis, with Pakistani help, working on nuclear programme  —  BERLIN (AFP) - Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear programme, with help from Pakistani experts, a German magazine reports in its latest edition, citing Western security sources.  —  The German magazine Cicero says that during …

'War' on Christians Is Alleged  —  Conference Depicts a Culture Hostile to Evangelical Beliefs  —  The "War on Christmas" has morphed into a "War on Christians."  —  Last December, some evangelical Christian groups declared that the religious celebration of Christmas — and even the phrase …

Senators End Right to Derail Votes Secretly  —  Nearing a vote on ethics and lobbying rules that many say are too weak, they also defeat a bid to create an independent public integrity office.  —  WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday voted to strip its members of the power to secretly place a …

Iraq: Prosecutions threaten freedom of expression in northern Iraq  —  Amnesty International is greatly concerned by the prosecutions of two critics of the Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq and the threat these pose to freedom of expression in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.