RICK PERLSTEIN Clipping the Eagle's Wings The Age of Reagan cannot survive the successful wedging of its business constituency, which craves nothing so much as respectability, and its lunatic constituency, who appear the more unrespectable the closer they're held to the light. House Passes Mortgage Bill washingtonpost.com — Bucking a White House veto threat, 39 Republicans joined Democrats in supporting an ambitious plan to rescue hundreds of thousands of homeowners at risk of foreclosure. The measure aims to unfreeze mortgage markets by expanding the Federal Housing Administration's reach and strengthening mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It also would create a $7,500 tax credit for first-time home buyers to try to boost sales and slow plummeting home prices. Bush To Veto Farm Bill reuters.com — U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said that President George W. Bush will veto the farm bill agreement reached by law makers in Congress. The administration said the farm bill was too costly and failed to deliver the reforms that the administration was seeking. House and Senate negotiators agreed on a $285 billion farm bill that puts more money into public feeding programs and denies one crop subsidy program to the wealthiest Americans. Mine Disaster Was Preventable iht.com — The results of a congressional investigation say that the general manager and possibly other senior staff at the Crandall Canyon Mine near Huntington, Utah, where 9 miners died in August 2007, hid information from federal mining officials that could have prevented the disaster and should face criminal charges. The report also said that the mining company should never have submitted a request to remove coal from the section of mine where the collapse occurred, and that federal mining officials should not have approved the proposal, because of foreseeable dangers. Criminal Investigation Sought cnn.com — Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, said the general manager and possibly other senior staff members at the Crandall Canyon Mine near Huntington, Utah, should face a criminal inquiry. Miller, chairman of a House investigation committee, has sent a referral letter to the Department of Justice asking it to investigate whether the mine's manager, on his own or in conspiracy with others in the company, concealed facts or made false statements to federal investigators about the condition of the mine before the disaster. Workers Get U.S. Protections ap.google.com — Workers in the Mariana Islands will receive the protection of U.S. labor law under a bill signed by President Bush. Debate over whether to extend federal labor and immigration law to the Marianas, in the northwestern Pacific, had been sullied by reports of sweatshop labor and past associations with the lobbying scandal surrounding Jack Abramoff, whose firm was hired by the islands to oppose the changes. The measure creates a federally run guest-worker program in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Pentagon Passes on Pakistan Post iht.com — Two months after announcing Major General Jay Hood would become the senior American officer based in Pakistan, the Pentagon has quietly canceled the assignment. Hood, a 33-year army veteran, was excoriated in the Pakistani news media for one of his previous jobs: commander of the United States prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The withdrawal of Hood's assignment has not been announced, but it reflects the widening shadow that the military prison at Guantánamo is casting over American foreign policy. Oil Reaches $126 money.cnn.com — Oil prices hit a new record high above $125 as a weaker U.S. dollar drove investments into commodities. U.S. crude for June delivery rose as high as $126.20 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.   ROBERT PARRY Trivializing Campaign 2008 inthesetimes.com — When historians try to figure out how the most powerful nation on earth managed to end up under the control of someone as unfit as George W. Bush for eight years, they will have to take note of this media phenomenon. MICHAEL T. KLARE Portrait of an Oil-Addicted Former Superpower tomdispatch.com — An observer might be pardoned for wondering whether there hadn't been two super losers in the Cold War. Had the Soviet Union simply imploded first, while the U.S., enwreathed in a cloud of self-congratulation, was almost unbeknownst to itself also slowly making its way toward an exit? MICHAEL CALDERONE AND AVI ZENILMAN 'Deafening' Silence On Pentagon Propaganda politico.com — The New York Time's 7,600-word investigation of the Pentagon's military analyst program has been noticeably absent from television airwaves since the story. While bloggers have kept the story simmering, Democratic congressional leaders also are speaking out, calling for investigations that could provoke the networks to finally cover the Times story — and, in effect, themselves. DANNY SCHECHTER Will the Mortgage Industry Pay for Its Crimes? alternet.org — Borrowers are being crushed under the credit crisis. Someone needs to pay. LIZ CHIMIENTI AND DEAN BAKER Three Things that Won't Help the Foreclosure Crisis cepr.net — As Congress seeks to pass legislation to stem the foreclosure crisis, legislation containing elements of these proposals should not be on the table. HELEN THOMAS A Picture Worth A Thousand Words wesh.com — Too often in this war, the news media seem to have tried to shield the public from the suffering this war has brought to Americans and Iraqis.   BILL SCHER Is It Even Possible To Reduce Gas Prices This Year? Both parties in the Senate have just introduced legislation in response to high gas prices. RICK PERLSTEIN These are Our Debating Partners I'm fascinated by how many conservatives have been defending Watergate and arguing that America was lucky to escape the Sixties with no worse than Watergate — that Richard Nixon, in other words, wasn't that much of an authoritarian anyway as these things go, so what's all the fuss about? Blast from the Past: That Sinking Feeling I can't resist this one comment. The AP article cites a geologist in claiming, "Sinkholes are rare." TERRANCE HEATH Complacent Conservatism A new study claims that conservatives are happier than liberals. Being happy is a cinch, if you can rationalize not caring much about injustice and inequality. more from our bloggers >> We need to fight them there so we won''t need to fight them here. Iraq is a key battleground in the war on terror. The war in Iraq has made us less safe. The U.S. official National Intelligence Estimate concludes that the war in Iraq has increased Islamic radicalism, and has made the terror threat around the world worse. The number of significant terrorist incidents worldwide tripled in the year following the beginning of the war, and a bipartisan survey of national security experts says the war in Iraq is making the world more dangerous for Americans. more pro vs con >>