Senate OKs Border Fence, Mulls Citizenship  —  The Senate voted to build 370 miles of triple-layered fencing along the Mexican border Wednesday and clashed over citizenship for millions of men and women who live in the United States illegally.  —  Amid increasingly emotional debate …

The Victory In Primaries For Conservatives  —  Over the past week, many of us have written on the frustration felt by conservatives (especially fiscal conservatives) over the past few years.  Some believe that the only manner in which to serve notice on the GOP that it cannot take conservative votes …

Bush Is Now A Lame Duck  —  CBS' Meyer: Forget November, Forget '08; President Is Done  —  (CBS) This commentary was written by CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer.  —  The great impulse of the punditocracy right now is to look at President Bush's swelling problems with the public and his party …

A Travesty of an "Investigation"  —  I have received the report of the Investigative Committee of the University of Colorado and consider it a travesty.  This "investigation" has all along been a pretext to punish me for engaging constitutionally-protected speech and, more generally …

G.O.P. Voters to Be Target of Radio Ads by Democrats  —  WASHINGTON, May 16 — House Democrats, trying to capitalize on conservative dissatisfaction with Republicans, are reaching out to Christian voters with radio advertisements critical of Republican proposals to overhaul Social Security.

Confidence In GOP Is At New Low in Poll  —  Public confidence in GOP governance has plunged to the lowest levels of the Bush presidency, with Americans saying by wide margins that they now trust Democrats more than Republicans to deal with Iraq, the economy, immigration and other issues …

At White House Briefing, Polish Replaces Testiness  —  Tony Snow said he didn't want to "hug the tar baby," and then he did just that by using the expression in his first televised White House press briefing yesterday.  —  The tar-covered doll that Br'er Fox used to ensnare Br'er Rabbit …

Big Oil Launches Attack On Al Gore  —  Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will unveil two 60-second TV ads focusing on what it calls "global warming alarmism and the call by some environmental groups and politicians to reduce fossil fuel and carbon dioxide emissions."

Handyman Gets Life in Suburban N.Y. Murder  —  NEW CITY, N.Y. - A laborer who raped and murdered a suburban homemaker in her bedroom after being hired to clean a backyard deck was sentenced Monday to life in prison without the chance of parole.  —  The sentencing came on what would have …

Sherwood Survives  —  Rep. Don Sherwood (R-PA), his popularity weighed down by a messy extramartial affair, narrowly survived a primary challenge from a virtual unknown with a Democratic voting history.  —  With more than half of the vote counted, Sherwood led challenger Kathy Scott 56 percent to 44 percent.

GOP Official Faces Sentence in Phone-Jamming  —  Democratic Lines Were Blocked in 2002 as New Hampshire Elected U.S. Senator  —  In October 2002, Charles McGee, executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, was mailed a Democratic flier that offered Election Day rides to the polls.

New Presidential Memorandum Permits Intelligence Director To Authorize Telcos To Lie Without Violating Securities Law  —  In recent days, AT&T, Bell South and Verizon have all issued statements denying that they've handed over phone records to the NSA, as reported by USA today.  —  There are three possibilities:

Hugo's travels and the marketing of competitive authoritarianism  —  Scott Burgess has an excellent post of how welcome Hugo was in London, Rapturous London Hosts Second Coming, which includes a brief resume of Hugo's accomplishments: … Sure enough, I looked up that post …

Still Dodging Immigration's Truths  —  President Bush's immigration speech mostly missed the true nature of the problem.  We face two interconnected population issues.  One is aging; the other is immigration.  We aren't dealing sensibly with either, and as a result we face a future …

Dow Plunges; Nasdaq Turns Negative on Yr.  —  NEW YORK - Stocks plunged Wednesday after a stronger-than-expected rise in consumer prices intensified Wall Street's fear that interest rates will keep climbing.  The Dow Jones industrial average lost 200 points, and the Nasdaq composite index turned negative for the year.

"Voltaire and Erasmus Are Spinning in their Graves"  —  Holland's most famous immigrant — Ayaan Hirsi Ali — has been stripped of her citizenship overnight following television revelations about news that's long been public: she lied a little on her application for asylum years ago.