2. The Wall Street Journal's Jackie Calmes reports that disgruntled Republican moderates could pose a threat to the GOP in some suburban congressional districts, in part because of the stem cell issue. LINK

6. In his DLC curtain-raiser, Josh Gerstein of the New York Sun Notes the four '08ers expected to be on hand (Clinton, Vilsack, Richardson, and Bayh) and the liberal bloggers versus centrist DLCers divide under the big top Democratic Party tent. LINK

Weekend politics:
The Democratic Leadership Council kicks off its annual "national conversation," on Saturday evening in Denver, CO and the official business gets going on Sunday.

Alan Schlesinger, the Republican contender Lieberman's seat, paid more than $28,000 total to settle two civil lawsuits filed by casinos to which he was indebted, report Dave Altimari, Jon Lender, and Edmund H. Mahony of the Hartford Courant. LINK

Middle East politics:
The Washington Post's Michael Abramowitz illustrates how the Bush Administration's contentedness with seeing the Israelis inflict the maximum damage possible on Hezbollah "represents a shift away from a more traditional view that the United States plays an "honest broker's" role in the Middle East. LINK

Bush Administration agenda:
On the Washington Post's front page, Jonathan Weisman reports that HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt and his relatives have claimed "millions of dollars in tax deductions through a type of charitable foundation they created that until recently paid out very little in actual charity . . . Instead, much of the foundation's money has been invested or lent to the family's business interests and real estate holdings, or contributed to the Leavitt family genealogical society." A HHS spokesperson is on the record in the story stating the foundation's activities are "legal and proper." LINK

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank Notes that the official White House transcript from President Bush's NAACP remarks describes epithets that were shouted at him as "applause." Milbank's story: LINK

Dionne has Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) saying: "I want conservatism to be seen as a good solution to people's problems and not go the way of liberals. Liberalism is not a title easily worn now, and that could happen to conservatism."

Mark Barabak of the Los Angeles Times rolls out one cliché after another in his excellent piece on the next techie breakthroughs and what they mean for the future of American politics. LINK

The air force carried out more than 150 sorties throughout Lebanon yesterday. Six launchers were destroyed and 16 Hezbollah bases as well as three arms storage facilities were bombed. The air assault destroyed 21 Hezbollah vehicles and included attacks on 100 bridges and roads throughout Lebanon.

In the upcoming days, the IDF plans to expand ground operations in southern Lebanon. Next week, more units will be moved to the North, which will enable broader operations against villages throughout the south. '

The most senior British military commander in Afghanistan today described the situation in the country as "close to anarchy" with feuding foreign agencies and unethical private security companies compounding problems caused by local corruption.

I'm sure you all heard that last week, Newt Gingrich argued the U.S. was facing World War III as a result of developments in the Middle East. I'm sure that most of you reacted as I did to this - with a bit of annoyance and disdain; "there goes Newt again," content to believe he is simply making a lame effort to rally flagging support for Republican policies.

But today, I have been reconsidering this. I think that what Newt has been saying is incredibly significant, and we ought to be paying it a great deal more attention than we have been.

What Newt is proposing is nothing short of the radical mobilization of the entire American nation behind a war effort led by the far right - that "calls for restraint would fall away" if Americans adopted his framing. It could become the pivot around which the GOP shifts into a very new, and extremely ugly, mode of governance - turning the nation into an all-out war state with repressive World War I-esque laws meant to silence dissent and force the population to work even harder to support neo-con policies without any option to do otherwise.

Chris Matthews

I've been afraid of this war from day one because I've always felt, based on history, every time you kill somebody, you've got his brother, his mother, his family coming back to get you. We've killed 50,000 Iraqi's in a war that was supposed to be a two-day wonder. When are we going to notice that the neocons don't know what they're talking about. They're not looking at this country's long term interest. They're bound up in regional and global ideology and they have had no experience, I'll say it again, in even a school yard fight. They don't know what physical fighting is all about. They went to school and were intellectuals but they want our government to be their big brother. I don't get it. I don't know why we keep falling for it. And the president, you say, is he free of these guys or not?

THE EVACUATION DEBACLE: In addition to Israelis and Lebanese, thousands of Americans find themselves in harm's way. Fifteen thousand Americans "have registered with the State Department’s Lebanon Task Force to receive evacuation information" and at least 8,000 have indicated they want to leave. American officials were slow to respond. Only a couple thousand have been able to evacuate so far and "departed two days after the first Europeans left on ships." Denmark, for example, "evacuated more than 4,000 of its citizens" by Thursday.

Most people thought we were out of our minds," said Joe Trippi, who midwifed the first online presidential campaign diary as a part of Howard Dean's 2004 race. "Now I can't think of a single congressional campaign that doesn't have one."

HOMELAND SECURITY -- TWO YEARS LATER, BUSH ADMINISTRATION FAILS ON 9/11 COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS: Tomorrow marks the two year anniversary of the 9/11 Commission's final report. President Bush has consistently touted his administration's accomplishments in securing the nation, stating in 2005, "In the three and a half years since September the 11th, 2001, we have taken unprecedented actions to protect Americans." But a new report released today by members of the House Homeland Security Committee finds that the administration has actually fallen far short in fulfilling the Commission's recommendations. The Bush administration's lowest grades -- an F -- were on its inability to provide radio equipment to first responders, allocate homeland security funds based on risk, and improve airline passenger screening. "This report card just reiterates that the Department of Homeland Security is satisfied with mediocrity, but the American people are not. .

THE IRAQ FACTOR: A key aspect of the current epidemic of violence is the growing solidarity between Syria, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. The Los Angeles Times reports that "a key factor in solidifying the partnership was the current war in Iraq...but also provided a successful model for long-running guerrilla warfare against the U.S." According to Nabil Samman, head of the Center for Research and Documentation, "The insurgency in Iraq was able up to this moment to stand against the United States Army. And this has taught a lesson to the others. It has changed the whole equation in the Middle East." It

"People now have wonderful spider webs of relationships that span thousands of miles and thousands of people," said Henry Copeland, whose company, BlogAds, places advertising on 300 of the most heavily trafficked political websites. "In the past, you'd say something to five colleagues. Now you see something you're interested in, you instantly forward it to a list of 30 buddies who give a damn about politics."

Within a few years, it may be possible to target cable TV spots — this ad intended for older voters, that one for renters — the way customized mailers are now routed to selected homes.

Lawrence Kaplan writes in the New Republic that "the administration views the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah as a classic case of great-power brinkmanship--in this case, pitting the United States against Iran. The paradigm that the Bush team has drawn on in its response to the Lebanon crisis isn't the war on terrorism. It's the proxy battles of the cold war. . . .

$591 million: Halliburton’s second-quarter profit, a 51 percent increase over the same period last year.

Campaign '08 Preview: Podcasting Politicians

In 2004 it was blogging. What will be the next techie breakthrough for getting in touch with voters? Strategists won't let it surprise them.

How do you know when something has gone viral? "When it takes on a life of its own," said Bassik, traveling from family to friends to co-workers and on and on, infinitum.

That, however, is exceedingly rare in politics. More often, the Internet seems to act as a centrifugal force, pushing people apart as they burrow deeper into niches: conservative or liberal blogs, websites devoted to celebrating political personalities, or trashing them. Where the people go, candidates follow, and in today's 50-50 politics, there is strong temptation to aim at those extremes — fragmentation leading to further polarization.

Karen Pierce, Chargé d'Affaires, UK Mission to the United Nations, delivered a UK statement on the Middle East in the UN Security Council on 21 July.

The United Kingdom is gravely concerned by the escalating crisis in the Middle East. It threatens the wider security of the region and is causing huge harm to the civilian populations, with civilian casualties mounting, particularly in Lebanon. We fully echo the Secretary-General's call yesterday: hostilities must stop.

Mr President, it is important to remember that this crisis was precipitated by Hizbullah. Its militants crossed into Israel and killed eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two more.

Our goal remains a negotiated two-state solution achieved through the road map. There is no alternative to this, and it is incumbent on all of us to find a way to work through the current crisis to get back on to that track.'

Quite a bit of this flows from the Bush administration's general indifference to the peace process -- writ small (negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians) and writ large (trying to wrestle the various conflicts in the region toward some peaceful equlibrium) -- and their out of the gate conceit that managing the conflicts of the Middle East, particularly Israel-Palestine, accomplished little and only generated political grief for the president. But as we can see, things can always get worse. For the moment, however, forget about the past. What are they doing now?

Bush Refuses To Estimate Future Costs of Iraq War, Violating Federal Law

Congress passed a law requiring the Bush administration to estimate the future costs of the war in Iraq. Here’s an excerpt:

The President shall provide to the Congress a report detailing the estimated costs over the period from fiscal year 2006 to 2011 of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, or any related military operations in and around Iraq and Afghanistan, and the estimated costs of reconstruction, internal security, and related economic support to Iraq and Afghanistan… the report referenced above shall be submitted no later than January 1, 2005.

There is an exemption if the administration certifies that estimates “cannot be provided for purposes of national security.” But the President hasn’t done that. From Bloomberg:

Instead of a presidential waiver, Joshua Bolton, director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote congressional leaders in May 2005 that the Pentagon couldn’t compile the estimates because “there are too many variables to predict accurately.'’

Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) isn’t happy:

The Bush administration hasn’t followed a 2005 law requiring the Pentagon to estimate the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan military operations through 2011, a Republican lawmaker said today.

“The administration does not appear to have compiled with a statutory requirement to provide Congress with a report,” wrote Representative Christopher Shays in a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate armed services and appropriations committees.

Shays has good reason to be concerned about mounting costs. Total appropriations for Iraq by Congress will soon exceed $400 billion.