Top Items:
Katherine Shrader / Associated Press:
Hatch: Court Briefed on Bush Surveillance — WASHINGTON - Two judges on the secretive court that approves warrants for intelligence surveillance were told of the broad monitoring programs that have raised recent controversy, a Republican senator said Tuesday, connecting a court to knowledge …
Discussion:
Right Wing Nut House, Running Scared, Confederate Yankee, The Strata-Sphere, AMERICAblog, NewsHog, Andrew Sullivan and GOP Bloggers
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New York Times:
Verizon Denies Turning Over Local Phone Data — Verizon, the country's second-largest phone company, said yesterday that it had not provided local phone records to the National Security Agency as part of efforts to compile a database of calling records to track terrorist activities.
Discussion:
TPMmuckraker, CNN, The Left Coaster, The Carpetbagger Report, The Anonymous Liberal, The Washington Monthly and TalkLeft
David Ignatius / Washington Post:
Spy Tools In Need Of a Law — Let's take a hypothetical problem: An al-Qaeda operative decides to switch cellphones to prevent the National Security Agency from monitoring his calls. How does the NSA identify his new cellphone number? How does it winnow down a haystack …
New York Times:
Divide Remains as Bush Pushes Immigration Plan — WASHINGTON, May 16 — President Bush pushed ahead on Tuesday with his effort to bring Republicans in the House and the Senate together on a plan to reduce illegal immigration. But he ran into renewed resistance from conservatives …
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Carolyn Lochhead / San Francisco Chronicle:
Senate guest worker plan survives attack — Boxer, Alabama Republican fail to kill provision, but number of visas is reduced — Washington — Seldom do California's liberal Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Alabama's conservative Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions agree on anything.
Patrick Yoest / public.cq.com:
DHS Does About-Face In Backing Use of National Guard to Seal Border — In December of 2005, Fox News talking head Bill O'Reilly floated an unlikely — even brash — idea to the Homeland Security secretary to seal off the porous southwest border. — "Why don't you put the National Guard …
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Mark Tapscott / Tapscott's Copy Desk:
Conservative Battle Fatique? The "What If" Issue — More bad news for the GOP in today's edition of The Washington Post as 56 percent of the respondents to the latest Post/ABC News survey say they prefer Democrats in control of Congress. — There is a distinct, though not quite as deep …
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David Germain / Associated Press:
Albinos Condemn 'Da Vinci' Assassin — The notion of Christ as a family man is not the only raw nerve "The Da Vinci Code" has touched. Albinos are bothered that one of their own has yet again been depicted as a villain. — Dan Brown's best seller begins its worldwide debut Wednesday …
Discussion:
Outside The Beltway
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Joe Gandelman / The Moderate Voice:
GOPers Find A New Political Horror Star In Pelosi — You can hear the music starting now. That menacing cadence. The numbing feeling that something could soon happen. A small move that you see in the corner of your eye that makes your blood run cold. And then it happens:
BillHobbs.com:
Ripley's Believe It Or Not — Amazing but true: … George W. Bush isn't at 29 percent because he's lost support among moderates and liberals - he's at 29 percent because he has been too willing to cave in to moderates and liberals. — The recipe for restoring his popularity to above 50 percent …
Roger Clegg / Opinion Journal:
Disinvited — The EEOC cancels a meeting rather than listen to criticism. — Last month, I received an invitation to testify before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about affirmative action and diversity in U.S. companies. The testimony was scheduled for today …
Associated Press:
Venezuela may sell U.S. jets to Iran, others — CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's military is considering the possibility of selling its fleet of U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to another country, perhaps Iran, a Venezuelan military official said Tuesday.
Andrew Taylor / Associated Press:
Senate readies vote on $70B tax cut — MAY. 11 1:13 P.M. ET President Bush and his GOP allies on Capitol Hill anticipated a long-sought election year victory Thursday as senators debated a bill awarding tax relief to investors and 15 million taxpayers with above-average incomes.
Discussion:
David Sirota
Patrick Cockburn / Independent:
Basra carnage escalates as one person killed every hour — One person is being assassinated in Basra every hour, as order in Iraq's second city disintegrates, according to an Iraqi Defence Ministry official. — And a quarter of all Iraqi children suffer from malnutrition …
Discussion:
No More Mister Nice Blog
Chris Bowers / MyDD:
We Will All Win, Eventually — Today, in just three divisions (precincts) available to me, Kevin and I pulled over 100 votes. With only 27-01, 27-02, and 27-23 reporting, we have reached roughly 110 votes. And that is only three divisions (precincts). We won, and we won huge.
TCS Daily:
The Parent Trap — Not long ago we worried about baby booms and overpopulation. Now some people are worrying about a "Global Baby Bust." Writing in Foreign Affairs, Phillip Longman says it's mostly because of economics: … He's clearly right about the economics.
Kathy Matheson / Associated Press:
Foster Quotes Eminem at Penn Graduation — PHILADELPHIA - You can add rapping to the list of Jodie Foster's talents. The Oscar-winning actress spoke Monday at the University of Pennsylvania's commencement ceremonies, ending her address with the chorus of Eminem's "Lose Yourself" from …
Khaled Abu Toameh / Jerusalem Post:
Aksa Brigades threatens US, Europe — The Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, on Monday threatened to strike at US and European interests in response to international sanctions on the Palestinian Authority. — The threat, the first of its kind, came as PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas …
PittsburghLIVE.com:
'Earthquake in Pennsylvania' — TRIBUNE-REVIEW — Angry taxpayers on Tuesday tossed out the two Republican Senate leaders who helped engineer last year's legislative pay raise, an issue that apparently cost 15 House members their jobs, too. — Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer of Altoona …