Top Items:
Taegan Goddard's Political Wire:
Lieberman Falls Short on Recruits — Sen. Joseph Lieberman's (D-CT) Tour for Tomorrow continues to be punctuated with today's struggles to save his troubled campaign. In the aftermath of a Quinnipiac poll this morning showing the three term Democrat far behind behind challenger Ned Lamont …
Discussion:
Ned Lamont for Senate, Firedoglake, MyDD, Taylor Marsh, Daily Kos, BluegrassReport.org and The Huffington Post
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Michelle Malkin:
Blackface diaries: Lamont and the nutroots — US Senate candidate Ned Lamont of Connecticut, darling of the left-wing blogosphere, is now running as fast as he can from the nutball bloggers who have zealously promoted his campaign against Sen. Joe Lieberman from its inception. (Today's Vent gives the overview.)
Discussion:
Beltway Blogroll, Washington Post, Hartford Courant, Hot Air, Outside The Beltway, NewsBusters.org, Sister Toldjah, Shakespeare's Sister, Blogcritics, Flopping Aces, The Huffington Post, Democracy Project, The New Republic, The American Thinker, Power Line, The RCP Blog, Blogometer, The Mahablog, FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog, Ace of Spades HQ, JustOneMinute, Hullabaloo, Donklephant, All Things Beautiful, The News Blog, Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, Riehl World View and Cold Fury
Susan Haigh / Associated Press:
New poll shows Lieberman losing ground — HARTFORD, Conn. - Millionaire businessman Ned Lamont opened a double-digit lead over veteran Sen. Joe Lieberman less than a week before Connecticut's Democratic primary, according to a poll released Thursday. — Lamont, a political novice …
Anne Plummer Flaherty / Associated Press:
Generals raise fears of Iraq civil war — WASHINGTON - Two of the Pentagon's most senior generals conceded to Congress on Thursday that the surge in sectarian violence in Baghdad in recent weeks means Iraq may descend into civil war. — "Iraq could move toward civil war" …
Discussion:
Washington Post, The Left Coaster, Argghhh!, Democratic National Committee and Whiskey Bar
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BBC:
Iraq civil war warning for Blair — Civil war is a more likely outcome in Iraq than democracy, Britain's outgoing ambassador in Baghdad has warned Tony Blair in a confidential memo. — William Patey, who left the Iraqi capital last week, also predicted the break-up of Iraq along ethnic lines.
Discussion:
Washington Post, The Road to Surfdom, THE WAR IN CONTEXT, Middle Earth Journal, Donklephant and NewsHog
Associated Press:
Court rules DeLay's name stays on ballot — NEW ORLEANS - A federal appeals court panel on Thursday refused to let Texas Republicans replace Tom DeLay's name on the November congressional ballot. — A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling …
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Jesselee / The Stakeholder:
Tom DeLay Loses Again — Lone Star Project... DeLay stays on the ballot. Welcome back. And yes, I can independently confirm this information. — UPDATE: From the Chron... Court rules GOP can't replace DeLay on ballot [AP] … Wow, again? Sounds like Tom DeLay isn't so anxious …
Jerusalem Post:
France slams call to destroy Israel — TEHERAN — Days after calling Iran a "stabilizing" force in the Middle East, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy issued a statement harshly criticizing Iran's call on Thursday to destroy Israel. — "I totally condemn these words," …
Discussion:
Captain's Quarters, Real Clear Politics, Hot Air, Sister Toldjah, Israel Matzav and It Shines For All
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Think Progress:
Rumsfeld: 'I Have Never Painted A Rosy Picture' About Iraq — Testifying before the Senate today, Donald Rumsfeld told Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) that he has "never painted a rosy picture" about Iraq. Rumsfeld insisted that he has been "very measured" and told Clinton …
Discussion:
AMERICAblog, The Agonist, The Democratic Daily, Sisyphus Shrugged, Crooks and Liars and The Carpetbagger Report
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Nico / Think Progress:
Rumsfeld Claims Insurgent Violence Increases 'In the Spring, Summer and Fall Months' — Last month, Lt. Gen. David Richards, head of NATO's Afghan security force, said the country was "close to anarchy." — Asked about the situation today, Rumsfeld admitted there was a resurgence of the Taliban …
Discussion:
Washington Post
Reader's Digest:
Mel Gibson: Has He Gone Too Far? — The actor speaks about the Holocaust and defends his father. — When we interviewed Mel Gibson over two years ago for his controversial movie, The Passion of the Christ, we expected to make news. But we didn't know then that what Gibson had to say to us would be just as relevant today.
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Reuters:
Iran frees bin Laden son -German newspaper —Text+BERLIN (Reuters) - Iran has freed a son of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from house arrest, a German newspaper reported on Wednesday. — Die Welt said the Iranian Revolutionary Guard released Saad bin Laden on July 28 with the aim of sending him to the Syria-Lebanon border.
Discussion:
Counterterrorism Blog, Security Watchtower, Hot Air, Vital Perspective and The Strata-Sphere
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Hasani Gittens / New York Post:
OSAMA'S EVIL SPAWN IN LEB — IRAN UNLEASHES QAEDA HEIR TO AID HEZ — A son of Osama bin Laden has gone from Iran to Lebanon with the mission to organize terror attacks against Israel, it was reported yesterday. — Saad bin Laden, 27, one of the terror mastermind's eldest sons …
Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
Was 9/11 an 'inside job'? — More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.
Discussion:
Hot Air, PunditGuy, Shakespeare's Sister, Blue Crab Boulevard, Vox Popoli, The Bullwinkle Blog and Alternate Brain
Washington Times:
Senate votes to fund the fence — The Senate did an abrupt about-face yesterday, voting overwhelmingly to begin paying for 370 miles of fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border, just three weeks after voting against the same spending.
Steve Clemons / The Washington Note:
Harry Reid May Ask Senator Clinton to Preempt Presidential Ambitions to Succeed Him as Senate Majority/Minority Leader — Some high level Democratic Party political insiders have shared with TWN details of a potential shift in vectors for several of the major political stars in that party.
David S. Broder / Washington Post:
Doubling Two Bad Bets? — If you think there is an echo in the air when officials discuss the twin crises in Iraq and Lebanon, you're not hearing things. In both cases the argument for carrying on the destructive current policy comes down to a claim that "we can't afford to let the other guy win."
Sidney Blumenthal / Salon:
The neocons' next war — Richard Perle (Zuma Press photo) and Elliott Abrams (Reuters photo) — The National Security Agency is providing signal intelligence to Israel to monitor whether Syria and Iran are supplying new armaments to Hezbollah as it fires hundreds of missiles into northern Israel …
Dennis Cauchon / USA Today:
What's the real federal deficit? — How many billions (or trillions) of dollars depends on how you do the accounting — The federal government keeps two sets of books. — The set the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005.
Washington Post:
U.N. Talks Focus on Terms of Cease-Fire — Lebanon Sees No Solution to the Conflict Without a Role for Syria and Iran — Lebanon's acting foreign minister, Tarek Mitri, said Wednesday he doubts that his government would agree to invite a European-led intervention force into southern Lebanon …
nbc10.com:
Ohio Man Claims Right To Have Sex With Boys — Admitted Pedophile Says Children Can Consent — CLEVELAND — It was probably not a defense the court had heard before. — A suburban Cleveland man accused of sexually assaulting nine disabled boys told a judge Wednesday that his apartment …
Agence France Presse:
Rare snowfall across South Africa — JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Snow fell on South Africa's biggest city Johannesburg for the first time in 25 years as icy temperatures gripped vast swathes of the country, the weather office said. — "It (the snow) is by no means freakish but I would certainly classify …