Top Items:
Jamiecnn / CNN Political Ticker:
Ron Paul's wife hospitalized in Iowa — DES MOINES, Iowa — Rep. Ron Paul's wife was hospitalized Saturday morning, the Texas Republican's presidential campaign announced shortly before voting was to begin in the Ames GOP straw poll. — The campaign did not say why Carol Paul was taken to the hospital …
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Roger Simon / The Politico:
Romney pigs out at Iowa State Fair — DES MOINES — Today we are at the Iowa State Fair, where politicians meet swine but are rarely mistaken for them. — Mitt Romney is at the Pork Tent being a "guest cook," which means he is flipping pork chops on a giant grill with about a dozen camera crews recording the moment for history.
Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
Straw Poll Expectations Setting — AMES, Iowa — It's finally here. — The Fix drove 45 minutes north from Des Moines this morning through land dominated by corn fields to arrive in this college town that, for today at least, is at the center of the political universe. — The atmosphere is like a carnival.
Washington Post:
How We Won the Mainstream — Three years ago things looked bleak for the Democratic Party. George Bush had just won a second term while his party consolidated its grip on Congress. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay crowed about a "permanent Republican majority," and Beltway Democrats acquiesced …
Discussion:
New York Times, TPMCafe blogs, TalkLeft, theneweditor.com, Norwegianity, Riehl World View, Denver Post Blogs, Daily Kos and Opinion Journal
Associated Press:
Iraq war czar: Consider a draft — WASHINGTON (AP) — Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush's new war adviser said Friday. — "I think it makes sense …
Discussion:
Liberal Values, Pam's House Blend, Michael P.F. van der Galiën, Right Wing Nut House, Taylor Marsh, Unqualified Offerings, The Carpetbagger Report, Middle Earth Journal, Outside The Beltway, Daily Kos, Macsmind, Talking Points Memo, Alternate Brain, PoliBlog (TM), The Newshoggers, AMERICAblog and Comments From Left Field
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Matt / Think Progress:
Right-Wing Media Give Favorable Platform To 'Another 9/11′ Columnist — In his Thursday column, Philadelphia Daily News scribe Stu Bykofsky seemingly wished for the tragic death of 3000+ Americans when he wrote that "another 9/11 would help America." — A host of right-wing media …
Discussion:
TalkLeft, Balloon Juice, News Hounds, Rising Hegemon, The Carpetbagger Report, PSoTD, Political Radar, EdCone.com and Left in the West
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Perry Chiaramonte / New York Post:
NYPD ON THE ALERT FOR QAEDA 'BOMB' — TEAMS HIT STREETS AFTER 'NET 'CHATTER' — In a show of force, the NYPD mobilized hundreds of anti-terrorism cops last night after an Internet report of a "dirty bomb" threat targeting the city surfaced, authorities said.
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Bill Roggio / The Fourth Rail:
Pakistan: Concern over nukes as al Qaeda camps empty — Red agencies/ districts controlled by the Taliban; purple is defacto control; yellow is under threat. — US intelligence investigates Pakistan's nuclear security and the military's loyalty to Musharraf as the Northwest Frontier Province spins further out of control
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Barbara Starr / CNN:
Sources: U.S. assessing Pakistan nukes if Musharraf falls — WASHINGTON (CNN) — U.S. military intelligence officials are urgently assessing how secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons would be in the event President Gen. Pervez Musharraf were replaced as the nation's leader, CNN has learned.
Nathaniel Fick / Washington Post:
Fight Less, Win More — On a highway north of Kabul last month, an American soldier aimed a machine gun at my car from the turret of his armored Humvee. In the split second for which our eyes locked, I had a revelation: To a man with a weapon, everything looks like a threat.
Discussion:
Outside The Beltway
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Kevin Drum / Washington Monthly:
THE BUNKER....When Rudy Giuliani finally agreed to build an emergency-command center in New York City back in 1996, the city's emergency management director recommended a site in Brooklyn: it was a safe location, had a low profile, and could be built quickly. Giuliani refused.
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Hullabaloo, Pottersville, The Atlantic Online and The Right's Field
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canada.com:
Sign splits Lebanese, riles Jews — Members of the Jewish and Lebanese Christian communities in Windsor are outraged by the appearance of a billboard that appears to promote Hezbollah — an organization the Canadian government considers terrorist. — "That organization is banned in Canada …
New York Times:
Democrats Say Leaving Iraq May Take Years — Even as they call for an end to the war and pledge to bring the troops home, the Democratic presidential candidates are setting out positions that could leave the United States engaged in Iraq for years. — John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator …
The Big Trunk / Power Line:
SHIP OF FOOLS — Yesterday "the editors" of the New Republic published another statement on Baghdad fabulist Scott Thomas Beauchamp. "The editors" stand by Beauchamp's TNR articles as of this moment in the name of the editors' journalistic integrity. They imply that Beauchamp is being held incommunicado by the Army.
Peter Baker / Washington Post:
Bush's Muse Stands Accused — He has been hailed as the best White House speechwriter since Kennedy's Theodore Sorensen, the muse behind President Bush's most famous phrases, the moral conscience of the West Wing. But now Michael J. Gerson is accused by a former colleague of taking credit for words he did not write.
New York Times:
Reported Drop in Surveillance Spurred a Law — At a closed-door briefing in mid-July, senior intelligence officials startled lawmakers with some troubling news. American eavesdroppers were collecting just 25 percent of the foreign-based communications they had been receiving a few months earlier.