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Julian E. Barnes / Los Angeles Times:
Army Manual to Skip Geneva Detainee Rule — The Pentagon's move to omit a ban on prisoner humiliation from the basic guide to soldier conduct faces strong State Dept. opposition. — WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention …
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Jeff Goldstein / protein wisdom:
Conservative Stalwart Andrew Sullivan is MORE MORAL THAN THOU (UPDATED) — At the risk of prompting unstable people to issue anonymous threats against his beagle, I reprint this latest from The Daily Dish: … Sullivan pronounces on the debased status of a once great nation in response …
time.blogs.com:
We Torture — And so the Cheney-Rumsfeld combo strikes again. The McCain Amendment, we find out, as if we didn't already know, was irrelevant. We thought we still lived in a constitutional democracy where the Congress regulates the rules of war, as specified in the Constitution itself. No longer.
Laurie Kellman / Associated Press:
Senate to tackle gay marriage ban — WASHINGTON - President Bush and congressional Republicans are aiming the political spotlight this week on efforts to ban gay marriage, with events at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue — all for a constitutional amendment with scant chance of passage but wide appeal among social conservatives.
Discussion:
Roger L. Simon, A Blog For All, Pam's House Blend, Confederate Yankee, Democrats.com, State of the Day and BlondeSense
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John / AMERICAblog:
ACTION ALERT: Call Congress, ask if THEY'RE defending THEIR marriages — Today I'd like you to call the offices of the members of Congress who support the gay-bashing "Marriage Protection Amendment" and demand to know if THEY and THEIR STAFF are protecting marriage in their own lives.
Debra Rosenberg / Newsweek:
Politics of the Altar — GOP leaders are putting gay marriage back on the agenda. Will voters respond? — June 12, 2006 issue - Back in 2004, suburban Seattle pastor Alec Rowlands watched with dismay as gay couples in Massachusetts flocked to courthouses and churches, exchanged vows and walked away legally wed.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Sister Toldjah, Democrat Taylor Marsh …, Dependable Renegade, Booman Tribune, The Washington Monthly, The Carpetbagger Report, Happy Furry Puppy Story …, Bring it On!, Blue Crab Boulevard, Bark Bark Woof Woof, Brilliant at Breakfast, AMERICAblog, Middle Earth Journal and Decision '08
Ian Austen / New York Times:
In Bomb Plot News Coverage, a Toronto Newspaper Shines — TORONTO, June 4 — The competition between Toronto's four major daily newspapers is often intense, particularly over crime news. But its results are rarely as one-sided as the coverage that followed the arrests of 17 Ontario residents …
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Marc Lacey / New York Times:
Islamic Militants Declare Victory in Mogadishu — NAIROBI, Kenya, June 5 — Islamic militias declared victory today over Somalia's traditional warlords in the battle for control of Mogadishu, quelling months of fierce fighting in the lawless capital but raising new questions about whether this regime …
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Sebastian Mallaby / Washington Post:
Reward for the Hereditary Elite . . . It doesn't matter if you are liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. There is no possible excuse for doing what Congress is poised to do this week: Abolish the estate tax. — The federal government faces a future of expanding deficits.
Jackson Diehl / Washington Post:
Iran's China Syndrome — In the middle of a tirade about the pointlessness of talking with the Bush administration, a senior Iranian official I met in Tehran last month abruptly paused and asked if he could speak off the record. Then he said: "What we need is an American president …
Discussion:
FP Passport
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John F. Burns / New York Times:
Uncovering Iraq's Horrors in Desert Graves — ON THE EDGE OF THE ASH SHAM DESERT, Iraq, June 3 — Among experts on the American-led team investigating Iraq's mass graves, the skeletal remains lying face-up at the rear of the tangled grave here have been given a name — the Blue Man …
Peter Wehner / Washington Post:
And Now For Some Good News — By now Americans know the litany: The nation is engaged in a difficult and costly war in Iraq; Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon; gas prices are high; the costs of reconstructing the Gulf Coast region are huge; illegal immigration is a major problem — and more.
Alan Feuer / New York Times:
500 Conspiracy Buffs Meet to Seek the Truth of 9/11 — CHICAGO, June 4 — In the ballroom foyer of the Embassy Suites Hotel, the two-day International Education and Strategy Conference for 9/11 Truth was off to a rollicking start. — In Salon Four, there was a presentation under …
Theodore Dalrymple / City Journal:
All or Nothing — The quest for a moderate Islam may be futile. — Islamic Imperialism: A History, by Efraim Karsh (Yale University Press, 288 pp., $30) — The week following the Muslim protests in London against the Danish cartoons—with marchers carrying signs calling for the beheading of infidels …