Top Items:
Captain Ed / Captain's Quarters:
9/11 Commission Chairs Asked Keller To Shelve SWIFT Report — Outgoing Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose low-key leadership led to his eventual replacement, has ensured that he will make waves on his exit from the Bush Cabinet. Secretary Snow released a rebuttal to Bill Keller's wan explanation …
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Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:
Bush Says Report on Bank Data Was Disgraceful — WASHINGTON, June 26 — President Bush on Monday condemned as "disgraceful" the disclosure last week by The New York Times and other newspapers of a secret program to investigate and track terrorists that relies on a vast international database …
James Joyner / Outside The Beltway:
Limbaugh Detained for Unathorized Viagra Possession (VIDEO) — Rush Limbaugh is once again in trouble for prescription drug irregularities: This time, he was carrying Viagra without his name on the bottle. … One could understand the fuss if Limbaugh were carrying Viagra in case quantities …
Discussion:
The All Spin Zone, Blue Crab Boulevard, The Influence Peddler, Done With Mirrors and Scrutiny Hooligans
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Christy Hardin Smith / Firedoglake:
Not Such a Rush... If I had to bet, I'd say that Roy Black is in a foul mood this morning. Nothing like cutting a sweet deal for a client and then having them screw it up within three months: it makes you look bad as an attorney because you've made representations about your client's willingness …
Discussion:
TalkLeft, bradenton.com, James Wolcott, skippy the bush kangaroo, Thought Theater and Wonkette
Associated Press:
Limbaugh's latest drug run-in: Viagra
Limbaugh's latest drug run-in: Viagra
Discussion:
TPMmuckraker, cbs4.com, The Moderate Voice, Michelle Malkin, Macsmind, Billmon, The Carpetbagger Report, Democrat Taylor Marsh …, Crooks and Liars, DownWithTyranny!, Pharyngula, Bark Bark Woof Woof, First Draft, The Heretik, The Radio Equalizer, Assorted Babble, AMERICAblog, Classical Values, PunditGuy, The Talent Show, PartisanTimes.com, Hang Right Politics, skippy the bush kangaroo, Eschaton, MyDD, Shakespeare's Sister, Pam's House Blend and The Left Coaster
Matthew Mosk / Washington Post:
Steele's Donor List Stirs Racial Questions — The fundraiser thrown for Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele on Thursday night, while ordinary in most ways, struck some African American leaders as notable because of the host. — Unlike the dozens of high-dollar events across the country …
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USA Today:
Black candidates paint new picture for GOP politics — YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Two years after the 2004 presidential election, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell still faces accusations that he made it hard for Democrats to vote. Here at a public housing community center, however …
Eric Lipton / New York Times:
'Breathtaking' Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid — FEMA spends $250,000 a month to store about 10,000 empty mobile homes at an airfield in Hope, Ark. — WASHINGTON, June 26 — Among the many superlatives associated with Hurricane Katrina can now be added this one: it produced …
Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
In the Senate, Covering Themselves in Old Glory — The Citizens Flag Alliance, a group pushing for the Senate this week to pass a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution, just reported an alarming, 33 percent increase in the number of flag-desecration incidents this year.
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Carl Hulse / New York Times:
Senate Debates Flag Bill; Backers Seem Near Success
Senate Debates Flag Bill; Backers Seem Near Success
Discussion:
Hit and Run
Laurie Kellman / Associated Press:
Bush ignores laws he inks, vexing Congress — WASHINGTON - A bill becomes the rule of the land when Congress passes it and the president signs it into law, right? — Not necessarily, according to the White House. A law is not binding when a president issues a separate statement saying …
Dean Baquet / Los Angeles Times:
Why we ran the bank story — The Times editor on the paper's decision to expose U.S. money monitoring. — MANY READERS have been sharply critical of our decision to publish an article Friday on the U.S. Treasury Department's program to secretly monitor worldwide money transfers in an effort to track terrorist financing.
Discussion:
Hugh Hewitt, Winds of Change.NET, Marc Cooper, The Washington Monthly, Feministe, Blue Crab Boulevard and Don Surber
Raymond Hernandez / New York Times:
A Well-Known Political Blogger Is Hired by the Clinton Campaign — WASHINGTON, June 26 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign has hired Peter Daou, one of the most prominent political bloggers in the nation, to help disseminate her message in a forum that has not always been that hospitable to her.
Gardiner Harris / New York Times:
Top Democrat Finds F.D.A.'s Efforts Have Plunged — WASHINGTON, June 26 — A 15-month inquiry by a top House Democrat has found that enforcement of the nation's food and drug laws declined sharply during the first five years of the Bush administration. — For instance, the investigation found …
Michael Isikoff / Newsweek:
What the Government Knows — While an overseas program to track bank records has unleashed a political storm, the domestic Patriot Act has already made a wealth of financial data available to U.S. law enforcement agencies. — Christian Weidemann / AP — An aerial view of Swift's Belgian headquarters
Art Buchwald / Washington Post:
When the Anchor Drops — Goodbye to Dan Rather. He was a good man and served CBS for 44 years with distinction. — Television is a tough business. When it's time to go, you go . And if you don't go the way they want you to, they get very upset. They tell the world …
BBC:
Womb environment 'makes men gay' — A man's sexual orientation may be determined by conditions in the womb, according to a study. — Previous research had revealed the more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he is to be gay, but the reason for this phenomenon was unknown.
Agence France Presse:
Harry Potter may perish in last book, author hints — Harry Potter may perish in the final installment of the boy wizard series in which two main characters die, author J.K. Rowling hinted in a television interview. — Speaking on Monday evening, Joanne Kathleen Rowling, 40 …
Jeff Dufour / The Hill:
Making love in the White House is even better — Because he was the first Democrat to step up and say publicly last year that he's exploring running for president, we can assume that Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) is plenty interested in the office. — But like most other men, apparently there are things that interest him more.