Fred Thompson running for president  —  Fred Dalton Thompson is planning to enter the presidential race over the Fourth of July holiday, announcing that week that he has already raised several million dollars and is being backed by insiders from the past three Republican administrations, Thompson advisers told The Politico.

Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert  —  (updated below - updated again - Update III)  —  NBC News, yesterday: … The right-wing noise machine spent the last two years repeatedly, continuously and emphatically telling their followers the exact opposite:

GOP plots blue-slip attack  —  House conservatives are ready to stop the Senate immigration bill in its tracks with a potent procedural weapon should the contentious measure win passage in the upper chamber.  —  The trump card conservatives may hold is a constitutional rule that revenue-related bills must originate in the House.

Economix: Truth, Fiction and Lou Dobbs  —  The whole controversy involving Lou Dobbs and leprosy started with a "60 Minutes" segment a few weeks ago.  —  The segment was a profile of Mr. Dobbs, and while doing background research for it, a "60 Minutes" producer came across a 2005 news report …

The persecution of Lina Joy, continued  —  No, you cannot convert: Three cheers for sharia!  —  Last August, I wrote about the plight of an ex-Muslim woman in Malaysia named Lina Joy.  She had converted to Christianity and wanted to marry a Christian man.

Advisers Fault Harsh Methods in Interrogation  —  As the Bush administration completes secret new rules governing interrogations, a group of experts advising the intelligence agencies argue that the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks are outmoded, amateurish and unreliable.

SAS team ready for Iraq hostage hunt  —  Michael Evans, Defence Editor of The Times  —  A British hostage-crisis team of up to 20 specialists, including SAS and police experts, is on standby in London ready to leave for Baghdad and help find the five Britons kidnapped by insurgents …

Media Embarrassment Over Socialist Rhetoric?  —  Hillary Clinton announced that she would campaign on a platform that would emphasize the need for collective economics and move away from individual performance and success.  It could be called an extension of "It Takes A Village," …

Report confirms terror dry run  —  A newly released inspector general report backs eyewitness accounts of suspicious behavior by 13 Middle Eastern men on a Northwest Airlines flight in 2004 and reveals several missteps by government officials, including failure to file an incident report until a month after the matter became public.

Justices' Ruling Limits Suits on Pay Disparity  —  The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder for many workers to sue their employers for discrimination in pay, insisting in a 5-to-4 decision on a tight time frame to file such cases.  The dissenters said the ruling ignored workplace realities.

Some Hitherto Staunch G.O.P. Voters Souring on Iraq  —  Through four elections, Debbie Thompson has supported Representative Mark Steven Kirk, a Republican and staunch backer of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq.  —  But Ms. Thompson, a mother of two from this affluent suburb of Chicago …

Lieberman in Iraq sees "progress," says so-called surge "would start to break the insurgency"  —  What a coincidence.  Two years after Cheney said the insurgency was in its last throes, Joe Lieberman made essentially the same prediction.  —  CNN reports that Lieberman is on an unannounced "surprise" visit to Baghdad.