[International Herald Tribune]
The most appealing Democratic candidate for '08 disqualifies himself as a legitimate choice.

[MSNBC]
The White House, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors. Bush's attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents.

[ars technica]
The Federal Trade Commission today dealt a serious blow to "Net Neutrality" proponents as it issued a reporting dismissive of claims that the government needs to get involved in preserving the fairness of networks in the United States.

[The New York Times]
The Senate Judiciary Committee issued a series of subpoenas to the White House, Vice President Cheney’s office, and the Justice Department today related to the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program, setting the stage for a major legal showdown between Congress and the Bush Administration.

[Reuters]
The U.S. Supreme Court curtails free-speech rights for students. In a 5-4 decision.

[The New York Times]
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that taxpayers cannot challenge a White House initiative that helps religious charities get a share of federal money. In a 5-4 decision.

[Think Progress]
Newsday reported this week that former mayor Rudy Giuliani stepped down from the Iraq Study Group after chairman James Baker gave “him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit.” Baker was upset that despite serving on the panel for two months, Giuliani had failed to attend a single official meeting of the group.

Giuliani made eight paid speeches, each on a different day, during the 23 days the Iraq Study Group met. Two of the eight speeches were for an organization called Life Win, Inc. (Get Motivated Seminars, a daylong program infused with Christianity, patriotism and pumping music suitable for aerobics.)

[Forbes]
Bush vetoes stem cell research law. Again.

Harry Reid: President Bush won't listen to the more than 500 leading organizations who support the bill including AARP, the American Medical Association and the American Diabetes Association, just to name a few. President Bush won't listen to the 80 Nobel laureates or his own director of the National Institutes of Health, who all support embryonic stem cell research. Most importantly, President Bush won't listen to the overwhelming majority of Americans who call out for stem cell research.

[The Washington Post]
An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, emails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism. Worse, the new audit covers just 10 percent of the bureau's national security investigations since 2002.

[AlertNet]
The U.S. war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo have betrayed the principles of fairness that made the Nazi war crimes trials at Nuremberg a judicial landmark, one of the U.S. Nuremberg prosecutors said on Monday. I think Robert Jackson, who's the architect of Nuremberg, would turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on at Guantanamo, Nuremberg prosecutor Henry King Jr. told Reuters in a telephone interview. It violates the Nuremberg principles, what they're doing, as well as the spirit of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

[The New York Times]
In a stinging rejection of one of the Bush administration’s central assertions about the scope of executive authority to combat terrorism, a federal appeals court ordered the Pentagon to release a man being held as an enemy combatant. To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote, even if the President calls them "enemy combatants," would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution—and the country....We refuse to recognize a claim to power that would so alter the constitutional foundations of our Republic.

[NetRootsMass]
List of Bush scandals for those keeping track at home.

[The New York Times]
Five years of numbers.

[BBC News]
U.S. rejects common sense G8 climate goals.

[The Hollywood Reporter]
The federal appeals court in New York has tossed out a key FCC indecency ruling that said a slip of the tongue gets broadcasters a fine for indecency, telling the commission that it failed to give a good reason for its decision and couldn't likely find a good reason if it had to.