Top Items:
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.
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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.
David Weigel / Reason:
Gay Marriage to the Rescue! — Why doomed Constitutional amendments won't save the GOP — What's the best way to describe how the once-formidable Republican Party is struggling? Is the GOP Jake LaMotta, stubbornly rushing into punches (the Iraq war) and getting pounded into a final pathetic retirement (K Street consulting firms)?
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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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 …
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.
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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 …
Charlie Savage / Boston Globe:
Bar group will review Bush's legal challenges — WASHINGTON — The board of governors of the American Bar Association voted unanimously yesterday to investigate whether President Bush has exceeded his constitutional authority in reserving the right to ignore more than 750 laws that have been enacted since he took office.
John Fund / Opinion Journal:
Pluribus Sine Unum — Will the Senate impose race-based government on Hawaii? — America's motto is "E pluribus unum," Latin for "Out of many, one." Some U.S. senators seem to be reading it backward. This week the Senate will consider legislation that would create an independent, race-based government for Native Hawaiians.
Michael Barone / Real Clear Politics:
Bush Knows His History — Two weeks ago, I pointed out that we live in something close to the best of times, with record worldwide economic growth and at a low point in armed conflict in the world. Yet Americans are in a sour mood, a mood that may be explained by the lack of a sense of history.
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Rob Stein / Washington Post:
Medical Privacy Law Nets No Fines — Lax Enforcement Puts Patients' Files At Risk, Critics Say — In the three years since Americans gained federal protection for their private medical information, the Bush administration has received thousands of complaints alleging violations …
Bob Kemper / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
McKinney probe enters 3rd month — Police unions criticize U.S. attorney — Washington - The grand jury investigation of 4th District Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney enters its third month today with no hint from the federal prosecutor about how much longer it will take to settle a case …
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 …