Mike Allen, consummate Beltway "journalist"  —  The Politico's "Chief Political Correspondent" Mike Allen (until recently Time's White House Correspondent") has a characteristically hard-hitting, insightful new article on Rove protegee Dan Bartlett and his departure from the White House.

Isikoff: Congress Wants Ashcroft's Testimony  —  The House and Senate Intelligence Committees have asked the former attorney general to testify about his role in a dramatic showdown over a controversial eavesdropping program.  Will he play ball?  —  The Senate and House Intelligence Committees …

Defense Officials Tried to Reverse China Policy, Says Powell Aide  —  The same top Bush administration neoconservatives who leap-frogged Washington's foreign policy establishment to topple Saddam Hussein nearly pulled off a similar coup in U.S.-China relations—creating the potential …

Kidney-donor TV show a hoax, producers admit … AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) — A Dutch reality television show in which a supposedly dying woman had to pick one of three contestants to whom she would donate a kidney was revealed as an elaborate hoax on Friday.

Report: U.S. hits militants' Somali base  —  MOGADISHU, Somalia - At least one U.S. warship bombarded a remote, mountainous village in Somalia where Islamic militants had set up a base, officials in the northern region of Puntland said Saturday.  —  The attack from a U.S. destroyer took place late Friday …

Gates won't say who's winning terror war  —  SINGAPORE - Declining to say whether the U.S. and its partners are winning the war on terror, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Saturday for more focus on combating poverty and other underlying causes of extremism.

"Media Matters"; by Jamison Foser  —  A rich man in a poor man's shirt  —  Imagine how the media would react if a multimillionaire, East Coast, big-city, thrice-married presidential candidate who was a progressive Democrat said his most recent music purchase was opera, his favorite fitness activity …

Abuse and incompetence in fight against global warming  —  Up to 20% of carbon savings in doubt as monitoring firms criticised by UN body  —  A Guardian investigation has found evidence of serious irregularities at the heart of the process the world is relying on to control global warming.

The Saturday Cartoons  —  Ok, so you're Republicans, your brand is in the toilet, you fight wars like Alberto Gonzalez Attorney Generals, you spend more money that it costs Fred Thompson to get his dome shined (take that Huckabee!) etc. and so forth...so who do you pick to resuscitate the brand?

Protests in Venezuela Reinvigorate Opposition  —  Rallies by Free Press Advocates Deride Chávez Over TV License  —  Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's decision to pull the plug on an anti-government television station has prompted days of protests and generated international condemnation …

Al Qaida suspects sue Boeing, with ACLU's help  —  WASHINGTON — Boeing has been sued by suspected Al Qaida operatives transported by the CIA to Arab countries for interrogation and torture.  —  The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan …

U.N. Team Still Looking for Iraq's Arsenal  —  Though Work Is Seen as Irrelevant, Security Council Can't Agree to End It  —  UNITED NATIONS — More than four years after the fall of Baghdad, the United Nations is spending millions of dollars in Iraqi oil money to continue the hunt …

The Troop Funding Trap  —  What are you supposed to do, according to supporters of the Iraq war, if you think that the war is a dreadful mistake?  Suppose you are a member of Congress, elected by constituents who also, like most Americans, according to opinion polls, oppose the war.