Scotland Yard wants the world to know that America certainly did not have Princess Diana assassinated in Paris 10 years ago. Just try to argue with the evidence in this all-new authoritative investigation: MORE »

Is there a single government staffer doing any work today? According to Craigslist Casual Encounters, the answer is No. MORE »

Relax, closeted gay Republicans at the highest levels of government. This time, the “outing” will reveal that 135 federal bureaucrats — including NSA spooks, diplomats in the Middle East and somebody in the White House — bought phony university degrees from a diploma mill. MORE »

• Rhode Island’s 15 minutes of fame are up as maverick Senator Lincoln Chafee wins GOP primary. [WP, NYT, USAT]

• Michael Chertoff tells congress that the US cannot “defend ourselves against every conceivable threat.” Nation’s petting zoos and popcorn factories now totally unprotected. [NYT]
• Hillary Clinton wins primary in a cakewalk, eats no actual cake. [NYT]
• Democrats feel NSA is inappropriately advocating it’s own spying program. [WP]
• Maryland elections display DC levels of logistical incompetence. [WP]
• States taking it upon themselves to increase minimum wage, “for the first time, a majority of states could require higher pay than the federal rate.” [USAT]
• Diplomacy now so obsolete reporters forced to write about who’s doing Condi this week. [NYT]
• Adrian Fenty will be next mayor of DC. [WP]

• Tehran is ready to negotiate with the UN on a range of issues not named “uranium enrichment.” [WP, NYT, BBC]

• Poll shows most Americans are still plenty scared of Bin Laden. [CNN]
• Marines to begin recalling reserves to active duty, as recruitment goals fall short. [LAT]
• Aid money flowing to Lebanon having a hard time finding relief agencies other than Hezbollah. [NYT]
• Israel halts withdraw from West Bank settlements as Lebanon becomes focus of government apparently incapable of multitasking. [WP]
• Senator Hillary Clinton is dithering on a AIDS funding bill — either to get more cash for New York or to make herself look good in the south. [WP]
• Americans tired of Iraq, want to go home. [NYT]
• Richard Armitage, number two at the State Department, met with Bob Woodward around the time Bob Woodward says he learned Valerie Plame’s identity and top secret job. [NYT]
• Anna Taylor Diggs, the federal judge who ruled against Bush and his NSA warrantless wiretapping, is a card-carrying member of the ACLU. [NYT]
• More states adding online “meth registries” to help connect redneck speed freaks. [USAT]

First subject: Senator Conrad “Knee-Walking Drunk” Burns (R-MT), seen above struggling valiantly against the sandman. Burns, famous for his hatred of firefighters and himself, should frankly be lauded for just falling asleep during this (frankly boring-sounding) hearing and not, say, unleashing a string of expletives or insulting a veteran.

After the jump, a man who makes our worst hangovers look like an ice cream headache. And who’s also in charge of the largest military in the world.

MORE »

Terrorist Surveillance Program ruled to be in violation of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
Osama bin Laden, reached by phone, calls news “thrilling.”
NSA officials forced to put giant glass to walls of telecommunications companies, lean in close. MORE »

• New bipartisan congressional report shows that the Homeland Security Department abuses no-bid deals, poorly trains managers. “32 Homeland Security Department contracts worth a total of $34 billion have ‘experienced significant overcharges, wasteful spending, or mismanagement.’” [WP]

• Bush’s draft bill for putting terror-detainees on trial excludes defendants from their own legal proceedings, unlike Rwanda and Yugoslav tribunals. [NYT]
• Bush presses Senate Foreign Relations committee to make U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton permanent. [WP]
• In NSA Senate testimony yesterday, civil liberties advocate James X. Dempsey said “he would prefer to see no legislation at all, allowing the National Security Agency to continue wiretapping Americans without warrants, than Congressional approval of procedures outside the scope of the 1978 law that created the secret court.” [NYT]
• Rice: “I am a student of history, so perhaps I have a little bit more patience with the enormous change in the international system and the complete shifting of tectonic plates, and I don’t expect it to happen in a few days or even a year,” [USAT]

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• Lebanese author Riad Kassis doesn’t know what to tell his 7-year-old daughter about the “bombs falling in Lebanon.” Slice of Laodicea asks: “Maybe his seven-year-old daughter could sympathize with those Israeli children who have died because of this ongoing terrorist activity.” Burn. [Slice of Laodicea]

• “Some Democrats are privately hoping they lose in November so Pelosi will not get a promotion.” [Red State]
• Nobel Peace Laureate Betty Williams to hundreds of schoolchildren yesterday: “‘Right now, I would love to kill George Bush.’ Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.” [Blogs for Bush]
• “Cases are currently moving through the federal courts that challenge the legality of Bush’s domestic surveillance program and they have the potential to provide the first substantive oversight of spying taking place outside of FISA. Specter’s legislation would make meaningful judicial review virtually impossible - and thus give the Bush administration freedom to operate as they please without having to worry about Congress or the courts stepping in to check their expansion of powers.” Firedoglake provides phone and fax numbers. [Firedoglake]
• CNN organizes Mortal Kombat-style martial arts tournament for Middle East correspondents. Anderson Cooper, Test Your Might! [Eschaton]

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• Michelle Malkin’s “Hezbollah is not my problem” syndicated column begins today. [Michelle Malkin]

• Red State honors Bush, tsks Frist: “Mr. Frist has shown us exactly the kind of leader he is–one absolutely willing to throw the leader of his party and his pro-life supporters under the bus for the support of the pharmaceutical lobby.” [Red State]
• The Angry Fag: “But if these sex offenders are so dangerous to require registries, notifications, electronic monitoring and other such things why are they being let out of prison at all? [The Angry Fag]
• “Without any kind of court verdict in regards to legality on the NSA surveillance program, the ACLU continue to stomp their feet, consistently labelling it as ‘illegal’ when there has been no official ruling of any kind.” [Stop The ACLU]

• Israel will continue to bomb Lebanon for another week or two; then the US will send in Condoleezza Rice. Meanwhile, as a debate continues over Israel’s use of possibly “disproportionate” force, hundreds of Americans were evacuated from Beirut. [NYT, NYT, WP]

• Bush’s seeming inability or unwillingness to handle North Korea and Iran with the same swagger that met foreign threats of his first term has angered conservative intellectuals and pundits. [WP]
• The USDA somehow ended up in a crooked powdered-milk racket. [WP]
• Stem cell research has slowed over the last few years, and the bill passed by the Senate yesterday would help reverse that trend — if not for Bush’s expected veto, which congress is not expected to overturn. [NYT, WP]
• In what some critics call “a politically motivated interference in Justice Department affairs,” President Bush blocked the DoJ’s own internal affairs office from investigating the NSA wiretapping program. [WP]
• The Senate unanimously passed a resolution endorsing Israel’s bombing campaign against Lebanon yesterday. [WP]
• President Bush will address the NAACP at its national convention. [WP]
• A House hearing on immigration reform devolved into sniping at the Senate and the president. [NYT]