Transcript for July 2  —  MS. ANDREA MITCHELL: Our issues this Sunday: Partisan battles on Capitol Hill, Iraq, immigration, flag-burning, and a Supreme Court ruling against the president's claim of wartime powers, all setting the stage for the November midterm elections.

No One Gets a Blank Check  —  The tension between liberty and security is as old as the Republic—and as new as the latest high-tech listening device.  In wartime, that tension very often plays itself out as a battle between the White House and the press.  It is doing so again now.

Mexico presidential election - too close to call  —  TV Azteca's exit polling calls it a tie.  TV Azteca won't release actual data if it falls within the margin of error (+/-1.6% — according to TV Azteca).  —  I'll update this post as things develop.  —  UPDATE I, 8:48 pm: Per TV Azteca …

COPYCATTY COULTER PILFERS PROSE: PRO  —  July 2, 2006 — Conservative scribe Ann Coulter cribbed liberally in her latest book, "Godless," according to a plagiarism expert.  —  John Barrie, the creator of a leading plagiarism-recognition system, claimed he found at least three instances of what he calls …

Interview With An Iraqi General  —  I wrote a story for Michael Yon's Frontline Forum a week ago about the town I am stationed in right now named Qayyarah.  Qayyarah is a model for other Iraqi cities because it was once a haven for terrorists but is now safe enough for anyone to travel around in without fear of terrorists.

Nanotechnology 'fertile' for energy breakthrough  —  Thinking small may help solve one of the world's biggest problems — the need for alternative energy sources — according to scientists attending the first Energy Nanotechnology International Conference held June 26-28 at MIT.

The Unstoppable Cuban Spring  —  By Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas  —  HAVANA — In March 2003 dozens of leaders of Cuba's Varela Project and other human rights defenders were detained, subjected to summary trials, condemned to many years in prison, and confined in the most inhumane and cruel conditions.

Hardcover Business Best Sellers  —  THE WORLD IS FLAT, by Thomas L. Friedman.  (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30.)  A columnist for the New York Times analyzes 21st-century economics and foreign policy and presents an overview of globalization trends.  —  FREAKONOMICS, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

Bush Reportedly Instituted NSA Surveillance of Calls 7mos.  Prior to 9/11  —  Bloomberg is reporting that the Bush administration began spying on the phone calls of Americans months before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, according to lawyers dealing with the AT&T lawsuit.

The Democrats' New Populism  —  The best symbol of how the party hopes to take back the Senate this year may be Montana candidate Jon Tester's flattop  —  When Jon Tester was 9 years old, he lost the middle three fingers of his left hand in a meat grinder.

Don't Believe the Hype  —  Al Gore is wrong.  There's no "consensus" on global warming.  —  According to Al Gore's new film "An Inconvenient Truth," we're in for "a planetary emergency": melting ice sheets, huge increases in sea levels, more and stronger hurricanes, and invasions of tropical disease …

No Conservative: Lieberman's A JFK Democrat  —  How would John F. Kennedy fare in his party today?  —  It is impossible to completely project a historical figure into the current political situation.  However, it is fair to suggest that both parties have radically changed over the past half-century.