Awakening in Babil  —  The provinces of Iraq.  Click map to view.  —  A pro government tribal leader is targeted in Babil; the four provinces around Baghdad have established an Awakening movement  —  The formation of the regional Awakening movements—the groupings of anti-al Qaeda tribes …

RNC fires phone solicitors  —  The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors' rebellion over President Bush's immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Friday in The Washington Times.  —  Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off …

Inspector Ignored Warning On TB Patient  —  Man Quarantined With Dangerous Strain Of Tuberculosis ID'd As Lawyer And Son-In-Law Of CDC Microbiologist  —  (CBS/AP) A U.S. border inspector who allowed an Atlanta lawyer infected with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis back into the country …

McCain Agrees We Need a Cap To Maintain "White, Christian, Male Power Structure"  —  John McCain's campaign posted this YouTube clip of the Senator on the O'Reilly Factor:  —  Near the end of the video, there was this exchange:  —  Bill O'Reilly: But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want?

A spreading terror  —  Iraq now set up as a school for insurgents ready to be exported, says GEORGIE ANNE GEYER  —  Anyone who knows anything about cancer knows that the danger point comes when the cancer suddenly and unexpectedly appears in another supposedly "clean" part of the body.

Bush's 'new climate strategy'  —  Today's headlines are full of the news that President Bush is &;  quot;unveiling a new climate strategy.&;  quot; If your immediate reaction is cynicism, well ... looks like you learned something over the last seven years.  Let's look a little closer.

Endgame Ahead  —  While the rest of us enjoyed our holiday, 10 more Americans were killed in Iraq on Memorial Day — adding to the human toll of that accursed war.  —  This summer threatens to bring more such grim days as the expanded ground forces move deeper into Baghdad neighborhoods …

Why Do We Stay In Iraq?  —  Josh Marshall heads down the path to madness in order  —  to try to answer that question.  —  The answer is unknowable because there isn't one.  There are a variety of powerful actors who have different motives.  It's as true, if not more true …

NINE DAYS AFTER PHOTOS RELEASED, NETS AND TOP PAPERS SILENT OVER AL-QAEDA TORTURE HOUSE  —  Yet Top Media Ran More Than 6,000 Stories on Abu Ghraib Abuses  —  "The elite media's liberal bias is abundantly clear in this case.  U.S. soldiers raided several al-Qaeda safe houses in Iraq …

The Final Option  —  Left to Right: Lieutenant Colonel Doug Crissman; General Hamid; Sayed the interpreter.  Seconds after this photo, LTC Doug Crissman grabbed General Hamid's pistol.  (Note: the pistol was already unsnapped.)  —  Hit, Anbar Province, Iraq

The Case for Conservatism  —  Conservatism's recovery of its intellectual equilibrium requires a confident explanation of why America has two parties and why the conservative one is preferable.  Today's political argument involves perennial themes that give it more seriousness than many participants understand.

Rudy Blasts Hillary [Larry Kudlow]  —  Rudy blasted Hillary's tax hike plan yesterday calling it an "astounding, staggering tax increase."  Good for him.  —  Hillary's been out proclaiming her government redistributionist message of "shared prosperity."  Her growth-paralyzing solution?

Living in Terror  —  Let me ask you a hypothetical question.  What do you think America would do if Canadian soldiers were firing dozens of missiles every day into Buffalo, N.Y.?  What do you think our response would be if Mexican troops for two years had launched daily rocket attacks on San Diego — and bragged about it?

Mitt Romney's Disappointing Campaign  —  Mitt Romney is the fastest-talking presidential candidate I have ever seen.  He dashes through his stump speech like a racehorse in full gallop — he even looks a bit equine — his feet barely touching the ground as he skims the surface of issues.

Officer arrested; citizenship questioned  —  He is suspected of taking on identity of dead cousin years ago  —  A Milwaukee police officer was arrested Wednesday by federal immigration agents on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant who assumed the identity of his dead cousin a decade ago, officials said.