Giuliani Inspires Threat of a Third-Party Run  —  Alarmed at the possibility that the Republican Party might pick Rudolph W. Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate.

Sen. Clinton's Empty Table  —  "THERE ARE basically only three options: We can raise taxes again, which no one wants to do because the payroll tax is regressive. . . We can cut benefits. . . Or we can work together to try to find some way to increase the rate of return."

Even Over A Penny  —  Sixteen years after he castigated the Senate Judiciary Committee for conducting a "high-tech lynching," Justice Clarence Thomas may relish the opportunity to tell his side of the story.  With his new book My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir hitting bookstores today …

Burma: Thousands dead in the massacre of the monks dumped in the jungle  —  Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.  —  The most senior official to defect so far …

Mom cuffed, found dead after missing flight  —  (CNN) — An autopsy was planned Monday for a 45-year-old mother of three who died in police custody at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport.  —  Carol Ann Gotbaum was arrested at the airport Friday for alleged disorderly conduct …

The Usual Suspect  —  The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy  —  IN OCTOBER 2002, Osama bin Laden issued a statement in which he analyzed America's inexhaustible number of sins and prescribed ways of repenting for many of them.  The statement was, by the standards of bin Laden's cave encyclicals, unusually coherent.

Attack at US embassy in Vienna thwarted  —  VIENNA, Austria - A Bosnian who tried to enter the U.S. Embassy in Vienna with a backpack filled with explosives, nails and Islamic literature was arrested Monday after the bag set off a metal detector and the man fled on foot, authorities said.

Fundraising: Fred's struggles  —  Here's something to compare Thompson's money to: the 1st Q numbers of his three main rivals: Romney raised 21.2M; Giuliani raised 16.6M; McCain raised 13M.  —  By comparison, Fred's $7-8M (or even $10 million) this quarter is not great.

Roddy Stinson: Passenger sitting behind soldier reports 'a very moving moment'  —  THE GOOD  —  Last Wednesday, while flying from Phoenix to the Alamo City on U.S. Airways Flight 207, a San Antonio man, Gil Anderson, witnessed something memorable.  —  Shortly before takeoff …

High Court won't hear church-state cases  —  WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court opened its new term Monday refusing to get involved in two church-state disputes — one over religious organizations paying for workers' birth-control health insurance benefits, the other over an evangelical group's plea …

Peace Is Dangerous  —  I stumbled across this a few weeks ago and have been meaning to write about this data.  —  Did you know that more members of the military were killed in Jimmy Carter's last year in the White House than in any of the years we've been fighting in Iraq?  Think about that.

US to reward Iran for ending Iraq arms supply  —  America is prepared to "reciprocate" if Iran halts shipments of arms to Iraq's Shia Muslim militias, General David Petraeus, the US commander in Baghdad has said.  —  Gen Petreaus revealed attacks by Iranian-backed groups may have declined following …

Some in Fairfax Public Housing Make Six Figures  —  Hundreds of families living in housing subsidized by Fairfax County taxpayers exceed income caps designed to ensure that only the neediest receive assistance, a review of county records shows.  —  In the most extreme cases …

HMMM  —  Yesterday at TPM I flagged Sy Hersh's new New Yorker article on the Cheneyite push for war with Iran — an article as depressing as it is unsurprising.  I want to focus in one passage from the piece about arch-Iran hawk Normam Podhoretz ...  So this is the threat.