Lieberman Seeks Probe into HUD Secretary's Cancellation of Contract to Man Who Disliked Bush  —  WASHINGTON - Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., Tuesday asked the Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development …

Letter Shows Iran's President Seeking Bond  —  UNITED NATIONS - With his 18-page letter, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered President Bush a history lesson, philosophy lecture and religious sermon laced with references to Jesus Christ.  —  The document gives rare insight …

EXCLUSIVE: Presidential Plans Found In Trash  —  How much do you think Osama bin Laden would pay to know exactly when and where the President was traveling, and who was with him?  Turns out, he wouldn't have had to pay a dime.  All he had to do was go through the trash early Tuesday morning.

CUBA ON UN RIGHTS BOARD  —  Cuba has secured a spot on the new United Nations human rights council, the board that replaced a previous one, which was intended to keep countries like Zimbabwe and Burma off these boards.  —  Cuba is the biggest human rights violator in the hemisphere.

Bush Backs Brother Jeb for White House  —  President Bush suggested Wednesday that he'd like to see his family's White House legacy continue, perhaps with his younger brother Jeb as the chief executive.  —  The president said Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is well-suited for another office and would make "a great president."

The Year of the Black Republican?  —  GOP Targets Democratic Constituency in 3 High-Profile Races  —  COLUMBUS, Ohio — When J. Kenneth Blackwell took the stage here on May 2 to claim the Republican nomination for governor, he became something more than his party's standard-bearer in a bellwether state.

Yeeeowch...A Whole New Low  —  The NYTimes has some details on the latest polling in the NYTimes/CBS effort — and it is getting ugly for the Bush White House. … Yowza.  There is even more in the article — it's striking that there is so much of a difference in the President's "base."

Is It Genocide?  —  Before we start dropping bombs, we should first ask whether the situation in Darfur is in fact a genocide.  —  As everyone knows by now, terrible atrocities have been and are continuing to be committed against the civilian population of Darfur in Sudan.

It's Only $300 Billion  —  For the United States, the cost of the Iraq war will soon exceed the anticipated cost of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement designed to control greenhouse gases.  For both, the cost is somewhere in excess of $300 billion.

FREE ADVICE FOR PRESIDENT BUSH  —  The President hasn't asked for my advice, but here it is anyway.  —  You know how the Democrats are always after you to admit that you made a mistake?  You've wisely ignored them; they don't have your interests at heart, and the policies they're talking about weren't mistakes.

DHS: DENY, HEDGE, SPIN  —  The Customs and Border Protection agency at DHS has issued a statement, much-ballyhooed by blind Bush supporters, which calls the Inland Valley Bulletin's story on the Border Patrol/Minutemen/Mexican government "inaccurate."  Let's examine the full bluster:

Iraq War Is Drawing Less Support Than Vietnam Did at Same Stage  —  May 9 (Bloomberg) — Three years into major combat in Vietnam, 28,500 U.S. service members had perished, millions of families were anxious about the military draft and antiwar protests had spread to dozens of college campuses.

Study: 7 of 10 Journalists Surveyed Accused of Bias in Past Year  —  NEW YORK More than half of newspaper journalists in a recent survey believe an unethical or unprofessional incident occurred in their newsroom within the past five years, while seven out of 10 said they had been accused …

Mary Cheney calls John Kerry a "son of a bitch" for using gays for political gain, but not a word about George Bush or dear old dad doing the same  —  Welcome to Mary Cheney's million-dollar closet.  It's still a bit stuffy in here as a lot of things haven't been totally cleared out.

US claim of Qaeda Iraq weakness may reflect reality  —  BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A purported al Qaeda document published by the U.S. military may or may not be authentic but its message that the Sunni Islamist guerrillas face problems in Iraq could reflect reality, security experts said on Tuesday.

Israel Gives Hamas Deadline to Negotiate  —  JERUSALEM - Israel will give the Palestinians until the end of the year to prove they are willing to negotiate a final peace deal, and will unilaterally set its final borders by 2008 if they don't, Israel's justice minister said Wednesday.

GOP Reaches Deal on Tax Cuts  —  $70 Billion Measure Would Extend Breaks  —  House and Senate Republican negotiators reached a final agreement yesterday on a five-year, nearly $70 billion tax package that extends President Bush's deep cuts to tax rates on dividends and capital gains …