• Biologists can now harvest stem-cells without destroying an embryo; White House and members of Congress trying to think up new objections. [NYT, W$J]

• Bush no longer touting “unseen-progress” in Iraq; new slogan is “Hey, it could be worse.” [WP]
• Some Republicans angry over lack of CIA fear mongering regarding the Iranian threat. [NYT]
• George Allen calls to personally apologize for “macaca” remark, “from his heart.” [NYT, WP]
• Elizabeth Dole, however, sticking by Conrad Burns and his slurs. [AP]
• Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski losses badly in republican primary, blames “anti-incumbent mood.” [NYT, WP]
• Freed of his Democratic cloak, Lieberman wants everyone to know how much he loves the Iraq war. [NYT]

• Ed Peck, chief of the U.S. mission to Iraq under Jimmy Carter, defends Hezbollah. [Hot Air]
• Talking Points Memo launches new sub-site called Election Central. [TPM's Election Central]
• CNN this AM: “In keeping with her mood and to reflect the world crises she tackles daily, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to play a somber piece of music to her Asian colleagues in Malaysia this week. ‘It is not a time that is frivolous. It is a serious time. I will play something that is in accordance with my serious mood,’ said Rice, who had just attended a conference in Rome aimed at helping resolve the Lebanon crisis.” [Crooks and Liars]
• “‘Malice’ has several definitions, but the legal definition that applies to homicide is ‘the intention or desire to cause harm to another through an unlawful or wrongful act without justification or excuse.’ It’s intent that’s at issue here, not evil motives. And there’s no question that doctors who perform abortions or harvest stem cells have intent aplenty.” [Political Animal]

We were somewhere around Barstow when the stem cells began to take hold… MORE »

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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]

Surrounded by a dozen-and-a-half families with “snowflake babies“–kids born of frozen embryos–President Bush has done did the first veto of his presidency: killing legislation for increased federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. Note the increased there–back in 2001, the prez allowed some of the same sort of research to continue, which sort of undercuts the murder equivalency argument his spokesman is wont to use in explaining Bush’s position. MORE »

You tolerated her as the teary-eyed wife of Rob Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show and the straight gal on her “breakthrough” eponymous show (you know the one where she threw her hat up into the air during the opening credits and played straight gal to Capt. Stubing of the Love Boat)–and you absolutely loved her like a tortured Harvey Keitel-tormented-Catholic-type in her 1969 (!) Elvis-nun flick, Change of Habit (it was her personal Mean Streets and Bad Lieutenant rolled into one, with a touch of The Piano thrown in for good measure!).

But for all of us who revel in the federally funded wanton murder of leftover frozen embryos in the hopes of curing everything from spinal cord injuries to simple chronic halitosis, public diabetic Mary Tyler Moore shone like a beacon yesterday as the U.S. Senate approved a stem-cell research bill. There she was, reports the Chicago Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet in Mickey Spillanesque prose, confabbing with admitted cat killer and stem cell backer, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.):

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• 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]

We found Kerry’s aforementioned intern. She’s in a wheelchair. More importantly: MORE »

Above, Senator Sam Brownback shows a “chart” drawn by a little girl named Hannah. Hannah had been “adopted as an embryo.” Brownback summarized Hannah’s explanation of the drawing: It’s a bunch of embryos. The one on the far left is a smiling, happy Hannah, thankful to be allowed to develop to gestation. On the right, the embryos destroyed in the IVF process — the ones who died that Hannah may live. Hannah, Senator Brownback explains, has blood on her hands. This chilling picture is a portrait of a killer. MORE »

Late breaking news release from Kerry’s press office: MORE »

• FBI and Justice Department officials, including Alberto Gonzales, defend search of Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) office; Speaker Hastert talks to Bush. [WP, NYT, LAT]
• Gen. Michael Hayden wins over the Senate intelligence committee; full Senate could confirm his nomination to lead the CIA by Thursday. [WP, NYT, LAT, USAT]
• Chertoff contends the U.S. is prepared for hurricane season but skepticism remains. [WP]
• Reaching a compromise over immigration will be a challenge for the House and Senate; Bush urged to apply his “full energy into the effort.” [WP, LAT]
• Veterans Affairs Department waited two weeks before alerting authorities about data loss. [NYT, USAT]
• Critics see recent spending bill for Iraq and Katrina “as a monumental example of earmarking taken to extremes.” [WP]

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* White House shake-up is directed at the midterm elections; Bolten is following a five-point plan that includes an “extremely visible enforcement crackdown at the Mexican border.” Bush advisor: “If we don’t keep Congress, there won’t be a legacy.” [Time]
* Osama Bin Laden releases new audio tape; analyst says intention is to provide a global posture for al Qaeda: “Bin Laden is a master craftsman at recognizing issues and knowing how to exploit these issues for his own purposes. He’s trying to enlarge the global conflict and is trying to incite and anger the Muslim world against the West.” [WP]
* Eight American troops have been killed over the past two days in Iraq; April will likely be the deadliest month this year. [AP]
* West Wing is said to feel “really weird right now” because “people are worried about their jobs,” says a senior official; aides “are on edge.” Mark McKinnon: “Karl has more bandwidth than anyone on the planet, but with the elections coming up, we have to make sure he has the time to concentrate on the big message.” Nicole Wallace on Bolten: “It was nice to cut right to the chase. He set a very honest and direct tone. It was kind of, ‘We’re going to get through all this together, and we need to step it up.’” [Newsweek, NYT]
* White turnout in the New Orleans mayoral election was double the norm; Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu could be the city’s first white mayor in nearly three decades. [NYT, WP]
* CIA is cracking down on leaks by subjecting dozens of employees to polygraph tests; top Democrats suggest a double standard exists about leaking for political purposes. [NYT, WP]
* Los Angeles Times editorial board calls for Bush to boot Cheney: “Having changed his tune, the president should also think about changing the company he keeps — big time, as Dick Cheney would say.” [LAT]

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