Top Items:
Stephen Farrell / Times of London:
Give us guns - and troops can go, says Iraqi leader — Listen to the interview with Nouri al-Maliki — America's refusal to give Baghdad's security forces sufficient guns and equipment has cost a great number of lives, the Iraqi Prime Minister said yesterday.
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Joshua Partlow / Washington Post:
Maliki Stresses Urgency In Arming Iraqi Forces — Need for U.S. Troops Could Drop 'Dramatically' — The Iraqi government's need for American troops would "dramatically go down" in three to six months if the United States accelerated the process of equipping and arming Iraq's security forces …
Discussion:
The Carpetbagger Report, On Deadline, Angry Bear, Shakespeare's Sister and Tennessee Guerilla Women
Sabrina Tavernise / New York Times:
Shiite Fighters Arrested in Crackdown, Iraq Says — Facing intense pressure from the Bush administration to show progress in securing Iraq, senior Iraqi officials announced Wednesday that they had moved against the country's most powerful Shiite militia, arresting several dozen senior members in the past few weeks.
Discussion:
The Jawa Report, Firedoglake, Andrew Sullivan, Swampland, The Moderate Voice, Middle Earth Journal and Secular Blasphemy
Qassim Abdul-Zahra / Associated Press:
Iraqi PM: 400 Shiite fighters detained
Iraqi PM: 400 Shiite fighters detained
Discussion:
On Deadline
Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post:
Republicans Halt Ethics Legislation — Senate Republicans scuttled broad legislation last night to curtail lobbyists' influence and tighten congressional ethics rules, refusing to let the bill pass without a vote on an unrelated measure that would give President Bush virtual line-item-veto power.
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Zachary Roth / Political Animal:
HOLDING BAD PUNDITS ACCOUNTABLE PART 671...From today's Washington Post: … The guiding force behind this cynical gambit? New GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell. — It's not exactly a surpise that McConnell is turning out to be a bare-knuckled partisan in his new job.
Robert Bluey / Examiner:
How bloggers took on Harry Reid and won on earmark reform — WASHINGTON - In ways both big and small, bloggers are changing how business is done on Capitol Hill. — Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., learned firsthand last week the effect bloggers can have on public policy when he was handed …
New York Times:
Court to Oversee U.S. Wiretapping in Terror Cases — The Bush administration, in a surprise reversal, said on Wednesday that it had agreed to give a secret court jurisdiction over the National Security Agency's wiretapping program and would end its practice of eavesdropping without warrants on Americans suspected of ties to terrorists.
Discussion:
Slate, The Volokh Conspiracy, TPMmuckraker, Bloomberg, The Moderate Voice, Outside The Beltway, Right Wing Nut House, Unclaimed Territory, Captain's Quarters, Balkinization, PoliBlog (TM), The Carpetbagger Report, CorrenteWire, Confederate Yankee, Brilliant at Breakfast, Daily Kos, Reason Magazine, PBD, The Heretik, Shakespeare's Sister, Patterico's Pontifications, Sister Toldjah, Defense Tech, Kiko's House, The Democratic Daily, White House, Political Animal, Washington Post, TalkLeft and JustOneMinute
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Heidi Przybyla / Bloomberg:
Bush Faces Deepening War Opposition, Demand for Congress to Act — Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) — President George W. Bush failed to rally public support with his nationally televised speech announcing plans to send more soldiers to Iraq, as most Americans say they want Congress to find a way to stop the troop increase.
Discussion:
CNN Political Ticker
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Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Congressional Procession of Iraq Proposals Likely to Lead Nowhere — "You cannot run a war by committee," Vice President Cheney said over the weekend. — Oh? Just watch them. — Lawmakers were introducing Iraq legislation at a mad pace yesterday, at one point in the afternoon scheduling news conferences in half-hour intervals.
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Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post:
Bipartisan Senate Measure Confronts Bush Over Iraq
Bipartisan Senate Measure Confronts Bush Over Iraq
Discussion:
Gun Toting Liberal ™
Amanda / Think Progress:
FACT CHECK: Bush Has Cut Funding For Cancer Research — Health officials reported yesterday that cancer deaths in the United States dropped for the second year in a row. President Bush teed off this news with a speech at the National Institutes of Health, touting the increased funding for cancer research since 2001:
Discussion:
Associated Press
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Brett Arends / Boston Herald:
McCain no longer rocks in Granite State — As Mitt, Hillary, Barack and a dozen others jump into the presidential stampede, something interesting is happening in New Hampshire. — For seven years, conventional wisdom has said that the state's pivotal independent voters would line …
Patricia Sullivan / Washington Post:
Newspaper Columnist Art Buchwald Dies at 81 — Art Buchwald, 81, the newspaper humor columnist for more than a half-century who found new comic material in the issues that come up at the end of life, died of kidney failure last night at his son's home in Washington, his family announced today.
The Big Trunk / Power Line:
NEIL SHER: CONSIDER THE SOURCE — Last month I noted the accusation by Neil Sher that Jimmy Carter had once lobbied the Justice Department on behalf of a former SS concentration camp guard who had been deported. Today Lucianne is featuring the Israel National News story by Ezra HaLevi …
Lizette Alvarez / New York Times:
Speaking Chic to Power — LAUDING someone for their style on Capitol Hill is a lot like celebrating the best surfer on Florida's Gulf Coast — it's all relative, and some would argue irrelevant. Washington has never embraced fashion (nor, for that matter, has the fashion world embraced Washington), and for understandable reasons.
Frank Ahrens / Washington Post:
Area Readers Get the Joke — The Onion, the Gen-X satiric newspaper, is coming to Washington and will partner with The Washington Post, which will print the paper and sell local ads. — The Onion, which also maintains a Web site, will be distributed free in news boxes and by hawkers in Washington beginning the first week in April.