Top Items:
Julie Hirschfeld Davis / Associated Press:
Immigration bill fails key test-vote — WASHINGTON - A fragile bipartisan compromise that would legalize millions of unlawful immigrants suffered a setback Thursday when it failed a test vote in the Senate, leaving its prospects uncertain. — Still, the measure — a top priority …
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Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post:
Immigration Bill Fails Key Senate Test Vote — The proposed overhaul of the nation's immigration laws teetered on the verge of collapse today, after four Republican senators switched their positions to help pass an amendment early this morning that would close the bill's guest worker program after five years.
William Otis / Washington Post:
Neither Prison Nor Pardon — Justice in the Libby Case Lies With Bush's Third Option — Scooter Libby should not be pardoned. But his punishment — 30 months in prison, two years' probation and a $250,000 fine — is excessive. President Bush should commute the sentence by eliminating the jail term while preserving the fine.
Discussion:
Captain's Quarters, New York Times, Salon, al.com, Firedoglake, The Volokh Conspiracy, Washington Times, Hullabaloo, Is That Legal?, TalkLeft, Macsmind and PSoTD
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Ari Melber / The Nation:
Senate Begins Real Push on Habeas Corpus — Today the Senate Judiciary Committee passed an important bill to restore habeas corpus, the sacrosanct Constitutional right to challenge government detention in court, by a vote of eleven to eight. — Habeas corpus was revoked …
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David S. Broder / Washington Post:
Candidates Lacking A Real-World Clue — GOFFSTOWN, N.H. — The 18 presidential candidates — eight Democrats and 10 Republicans — who came to Saint Anselm College here for a pair of debates this week displayed a remarkable ability to ignore the real-world consequences of many of the policies they were advocating.
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, The Carpetbagger Report, Central Sanity, TalkLeft and Rising Hegemon
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Robert D. Novak / Washington Post:
A Contender's Worn-Out Welcome
A Contender's Worn-Out Welcome
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Taylor Marsh, The Huffington Post, MSNBC, Captain's Quarters and Carry on America
Brian Beutler:
Null set blogging redux — Curious to determine if Romney's meaning had been accidently flipped—if maybe he meant to say, "this is a non-sequitur: Null-set!" —I did me some googling and I found this from May 8, nearly one month ago. … This is interesting for two reasons: It's evidence that …
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The Atlantic Online:
Null Set Blogging, Part Three — Brian Beutler uncovers a May 8 transcript which reveals that the debate this week isn't the first time Mitt Romney offered his curious answer to the question "If you had to make the decision, based on what we know now, if you were the president there, do you think you would have done the same thing?"
Shaun Mullen / The Moderate Voice:
(Updated) Paris Hilton Bawls Her Way Out of An L.A. Celebrity Slammer — Paris Hilton has finally done it to me. She has so outraged my sensibilities that here I am blogging on this sack of celebrity excrement instead of analyzing every jot and tittle of the presidential race.
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Nico / Think Progress:
Lieberman 'Really Upset' At Troops Who Didn't 'Speak To Me From Their Heart' — During Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) trip to Iraq two weeks ago, McClatchy published an article highlighting how several soldiers who met with Lieberman had wanted to ask him, "When are we going to get out of here?"
CNN:
Cooperation agreed on missile defense … HEILIGENDAMM, Germany (CNN) — U.S. President George Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Thursday at the G8 summit in Germany to cooperate on missile-defense systems, apparently cooling tensions between the two leaders.
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Alan Fram / Associated Press:
AP Poll: Bush Approval Hits Low Point — Bush Approval Hits All-Time Low in AP-Ipsos Poll, With Discontent Over Iraq, Terror War — Public approval of the job President Bush is doing now matches its all-time low, with widespread discontent over how he is handling the war in Iraq …
Paul R. Pillar / The National Interest:
The Other Intelligence Assessments on Iraq — Editor's note: The following is a preview of a longer article that will appear in a forthcoming issue of The National Interest. — What comes to mind when someone mentions intelligence and the Iraq War? Why, of course, the intelligence estimate …
Justin Rood Reports / The Blotter:
Internet Absurdity: Bin Laden Listed at FOX Headquarters — Justin Rood Reports: — An Ohio man says he has located Osama bin Laden in the United States and wants to claim the U.S. government's $25 million reward. — Using an online person search built from phone directories and other public records …
Discussion:
News Hounds
Nicholas Wade / New York Times:
Biologists Make Skin Cells Work Like Stem Cells — In a surprising advance that could sidestep the ethical debates surrounding stem cell biology, researchers have come much closer to a major goal of regenerative medicine, the conversion of a patient's cells into specialized tissues that might replace those lost to disease.
Daniel Henninger / Opinion Journal:
To Be an American — For many, illegal workers are a rebuke to dutiful citizenship. — People tend to regard the idea of "democratic" politics with high reverence, when in practice it consists most of the time of the right of any citizen to describe one's opponent as an idiot, or worse.
WebWire:
Dirty snow may warm Arctic as much as greenhouse gases — The global warming debate has focused on carbon dioxide emissions, but scientists at UC Irvine have determined that a lesser-known mechanism - dirty snow - can explain one-third or more of the Arctic warming primarily attributed to greenhouse gases.
New York Times:
Defeat's Killing Fields — SOME opponents of the Iraq war are toying with the idea of American defeat. A number of them are simply predicting it, while others advocate measures that would make it more likely. Lending intellectual respectability to all this is an argument that takes …