Natl.  Intel Director Worried About Terror Sleeper Cells in U.S.  —  Believes Small Numbers of al Qaeda Operatives Are in This Country Raising Funds  —  The nation's top intelligence official today went further than ever before in outlining what he described as a heightened threat of an al Qaeda attack on American soil.

Unlikely Adversary Arises to Criticize Detainee Hearings  —  NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — Stephen E. Abraham's assignment to the Pentagon unit that runs the hearings at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, seemed a perfect fit.  —  A lawyer in civilian life, he had been decorated for counterespionage …

KILLITARY: Lefties Dropping the Fiction of 'Supporting the Troops'  —  The leftist blogosphere went out of their way to cover this one up as quickly as possible.  —  It was posted at Daily Kos, as Ace relates.  But the Kidz are on edge about their credibility, so it was deleted within hours, without a word of explanation.

Al-Qaeda faces rebellion from the ranks  —  Sickened by the group's barbarity, Iraqi insurgents are giving information to coalition forces  —  Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a person's face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of al-Qaeda …

Deceased Farmers Got USDA Payments  —  The U.S. Department of Agriculture distributed $1.1 billion over seven years to the estates or companies of deceased farmers and routinely failed to conduct reviews required to ensure that the payments were properly made, according to a government report.

U.N. suspends peacekeepers amid sex abuse charges  —  ABIDJAN, Cote d'Ivoire (Reuters) — The United Nations said on Saturday it had suspended a Moroccan military contingent from its peacekeeping mission in Cote d'Ivoire while it investigated allegations of widespread sexual abuse.

All the rage - victim of US bloggers' cartoon hits back  —  Riazat Butt  —  With his clenched fists, wild eyes and gnashing teeth he has become the face of Muslim fury, protesting against the enemies of Islam.  —  Shakeel Ahmad Bhat has been on the frontline of political activism in Srinagar, India, for more than a decade.

WANING INFLUENCE  —  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice finds that her star is fading  —  I remember the heady days for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  —  About 2 1/2 years ago, when she was new in office, I accompanied her on her first trip around the world, with stops in India …

[TS] Op-Ed Columnist: The French Connections  —  What happened to America's Internet lead?  Bad policy.

Just What the Founders Feared: An Imperial President Goes to War  —  The nation is heading toward a constitutional showdown over the Iraq war.  Congress is moving closer to passing a bill to limit or end the war, but President Bush insists Congress doesn't have the power to do it.

In the Heart of Freedom, in Chains  —  Elite hypocrisy, gangsta culture, and failure in black America  —  Two April days threw a clarifying light on the state of race in America.  On the 11th, North Carolina's attorney general exonerated three white Duke students of the rape charges …

How to Win in Iraq  —  A stable Iraqi state would constitute a strategic victory—and the only one still possible.  —  Among the bits of lore of the United States Senate is a story that dates back to before I arrived there in 1973 as a staffer to Sen. Robert Taft Jr. of Ohio.

Focus Groups Anyone?  —  (We were joined in comments tonight by Dr. Maryam, an Iraqi Pediatric Oncologist.  The discussion allowed us to hear a very clear voice from Iraq, a voice missing in the news we normally read - the conversation begins below the fold.)

Alarm at US right to highly personal data  —  Religion and sex life among passenger details to be passed on to officials  —  Highly sensitive information about the religious beliefs, political opinions and even the sex life of Britons travelling to the United States is to be made available …

Subpoena Standoff  —  AND SO THE jousting continues.  For months the White House has resisted Congress's attempts to compel administration officials to testify about the controversial U.S. attorney firings in 2006.  Congress's propensity to let subpoenas fly has been matched …

Democrats Press House to Expand Health Care Bill  —  After a rare bipartisan agreement in the Senate to expand insurance coverage for low-income children, House Democrats have drafted an even broader plan that also calls for major changes in Medicare and promises to intensify the battle with the White House over health care.