'Free Iraq' Is Within Reach, Bush Declares  —  President Bush delivered a rousing defense of his Iraq policy on Wednesday, telling a group of veterans that "a free Iraq" is within reach and warning that if Americans succumb to "the allure of retreat," they will witness death and suffering of the sort not seen since the Vietnam War.

Romney Struggles to Define Abortion Stance  —  Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said this week that as president he would allow individual states to keep abortion legal, two weeks after telling a national television audience that he supports a constitutional amendment to ban the procedure nationwide.

August 23, 2007 - Clinton Up Among Pennsylvania Dems As Obama Fades, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Romney Eats Into Thompson Support With Republicans  —  New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has jumped to a 30-point lead over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama among Pennsylvania Democrats …

Militias Seizing Control of Iraqi Electricity Grid  —  Armed groups increasingly control the antiquated switching stations that channel electricity around Iraq, the electricity minister said Wednesday.  —  That is dividing the national grid into fiefs that, he said, often refuse …

Animals rights  —  As long time readers know, I'm, well, crunchy-ish.  I make my own yogurt, I fret about global warming, and I only eat certified humane meat.  I don't care about killing farm animals, but I do think that their lives, however long they are, should be worth living on sheepish or piggy or . . . er . . . cowese terms.

Did Clinton Lie About Targeting Bin Laden?  —  It appears that Bill Clinton may have exaggerated his record when it came to strategizing against Osama bin Laden.  Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball take a look at the Inspector General's report of the pre-9/11 intelligence failures at the CIA and find an interesting nugget.

Rule to Expand Mountaintop Coal Mining  —  The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation on Friday that would enshrine the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal.  The technique involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams.

Behind Giuliani's Tough Talk  —  Islamic terrorists are at war with us," Rudy Giuliani told about 300 people at a synagogue in Rockville, Md., one evening in July.  He likes to say it that way—that they are at war with us, not the other way around. "  They want to kill us," he warned a group in New Hampshire the same month. "

AG: Cops must ask suspects for immigration status … Attorney General Anne Milgram today ordered all local police officers in New Jersey to inquire about the immigration status of suspects charged with serious crimes, and to notify federal immigration authorities if there is reason to believe the suspect is in the country illegally.

Transcript: Debate on the foreign intelligence surveillance act  —  The following is the transcript of a question and answer session with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell.  —  Question: How much has President Bush or members of his administration formed your response to the FISA debate?

White House Declares Office Off-Limits  —  Administrator of Missing E-Mails Not Subject to Open-Records Law, It Says  —  The Bush administration argued in court papers this week that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act as part of its effort …

What September Won't Settle  —  Come September, America might slip closer toward a Weimar moment.  It would be milder than the original but significantly disagreeable.  —  After the First World War, politics in Germany's new Weimar Republic were poisoned by the belief that the army …

Are Fundamentals "Sound"?  —  Dean Baker fears that they are not: … I guess the big difference is that I don't think that home prices are likely to plunge.  Why not?  Because Ben Bernanke is more aware than any other possible Fed Chair that large-scale housing asset price deflation threatens …

How Miss Slackistan and the Burka Beauties fell foul of the racism zealots  —  It probably seemed like a good idea at the time.  Stuck for inspiration about what to wear at their village carnival, one group made a last-minute decision to dress up in mock Muslim burkas.