Bush vetoes troop withdrawal bill  —  WASHINGTON - President Bush vetoed legislation to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq Tuesday night in a historic showdown with Congress over whether the unpopular and costly war should end or escalate.  —  In only the second veto of his presidency …

Loyalty Day, 2007  —  A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America  —  America was founded by patriots who risked their lives to bring freedom to our Nation.  Today, our citizens are grateful for our Founding Fathers and confident in the principles that lead us forward.

The Weird Religions Candidate  —  Dave Weigel notes that Mitt Romney says his favorite novel is L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth: … Dave comments: "No, that isn't true.  Battlefield Earth is awful.  Nobody reads that book except Scientologists and smartasses who want to giggle at Scientologists …

The Left's New Machine  —  MOST POLITICAL ACTIVISTS can point to one catalyzing event, an episode in each of their lives (or, more often, in the life of their country) that shook them from their complacency and roused them to change the world.  You can find many such stories if you troll through …

'Mission Accomplished' By The Numbers … U.S. Troops Wounded … U.S. Troops Killed … Contractors Killed … Journalists and Media Assistants Killed … U.S. Forces in Iraq … Size of Iraqi Security Forces … Number of Insurgents … Insurgent Attacks Per Day … Cost to U.S. Taxpayers

Shadowy Iraq office accused of sectarian agenda … BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Iraq's prime minister has created an entity within his government that U.S. and Iraqi military officials say is being used as a smokescreen to hide an extreme Shiite agenda that is worsening the country's sectarian divide.

News Corp. Offers $60 a Share In Unsolicited Bid for Dow Jones  —  Dow Jones & Co., parent of The Wall Street Journal, said it received an unsolicited $5 billion offer from News Corp.  —  The publisher said the board and members and trustees of the controlling Bancroft family are evaluating …

State Dept: Iraq Has Been 'Good For The Effort To Reduce Terrorism'  —  Yesterday, the State Department released its annual terrorism report, showing that the number of terrorist attacks worldwide rose by 20,000 (40 percent) last year.  Iraq accounted for nearly two-thirds of last year's terrorism-related deaths.

Give bloggers Capitol access  —  This is the first article in a weekly series, exclusively in The Hill, exploring the recommendations of the Sunlight Foundation's Open House Project, which advocates online transparency in Congress.  —  Members of Congress are increasingly turning to bloggers …

Top Hamas official: Kill all Americans  —  Sheik Ahmad Bahr, acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, declared during a Friday sermon at a Sudan mosque that America and Israel will be annihilated and called upon Allah to kill Jews and Americans "to the very Last One".

What haircut stories tell us about the press  —  Only because it would save time and make them more efficient, I think members of the Beltway press corps should consider starting up a new reporting pool, to duplicate the one currently in place for shadowing the president …

DeLay's PAC closes shop  —  The political action committee for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was quietly closed last week after a decade-long run as one of the most influential - and infamous - PACs run by members of Congress.  —  With a final $1,400 payment …