HJC issues subpoena for Rove to testify about Siegelman

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 23, 2008; Page A03

The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed former presidential adviser Karl Rove yesterday to testify about his alleged meddling in Justice Department operations, escalating a long fight over lawmakers' authority to question Bush administration aides.

Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) wants to ask Rove about alleged politicization of the Justice Department, including the firings of U.S. attorneys and any role Rove may have played in the prosecution of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman. Siegelman, a Democrat, was convicted on fraud charges but was released from prison in March pending the results of his appeal.

In recent weeks, Siegelman has intensified his accusations that the Bush administration targeted him for political reasons.

Separately, Conyers disclosed yesterday that the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has opened an investigation of possible selective prosecution of Siegelman and at least three others, at the request of the House Judiciary panel.

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has vigorously rejected allegations of political motivation by department lawyers.

Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, accused House Democrats of "provoking a gratuitous confrontation" and of refusing reasonable offers in which Rove would have provided written answers to questions. (since when did the defendant get to name the terms of his own testimony?)

"The decision about when, where and what a former assistant to the President (remember when Karl Rove was a walking Hatch Act violation?) may testify about raise issues of Executive Privilege and separation of powers (I think the term he's grasping for is "lawlessness") that Mr. Rove does not control," Luskin wrote in a letter dated May 21 that was released yesterday.

"It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests," Conyers said in his own statement. "Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/22/AR2008052203563.html

The DCCC/Obama contribuion pledge

Let me invite my fellow Obama supporters to make a pledge that ON THE DAY AFTER HILLARY CONCEDES we WILL give another $25.08 to the Obama campaign, and just for good luck and to encourage party unity, $25.08 to the DCCC.

$50,000,000 in pledges on the day after Hillary concedes ought to impress even the DLCers.And I am sure Van Hollen could find a way to use that other $50,000,000 for those down-ticket races.

Here's what we can do about it. just click this link and send Van Hollen a pledge/promise that you will contribute $25.08 to the DCCC the day after Hillary concedes, and another $25.08 to the Obama campaign.

Don't send any emails to the campaign itself, just make sure you include in your letter to Van Hollen that $25.08 is going to the campaign and $25.08 is going to the DCCC, then let the DCCC tell the campaign about it.

But don't make the contribution until Hillary concedes.

If you want, copy and paste this letter in your email;

Congressman Van Hollen:
I am at this time making a pledge that the day after Hillary Clinton concedes this race, I will contribute $25.08 to the DCCC and $25.08 to the Obama campaign.
Signed_________________________


Plain and simple... and your .08 will always identify you as one of these pledge signers.

Mass bribery, you say?

Not hardly. This is public financing at its most powerful.

Anyone else want to join the pledge list?

Obama wins round one of the general election...

Michael Tomasky in Washington
The Guardian,
Monday May 19 2008
So, round one of the 2008 foreign policy debate goes to ... Barack Obama? Improbable as it seems, in the first direct rhetorical showdown of the general election campaign - over a question, foreign policy "toughness", that's been a perceived Democratic weakness since Vietnam - it was the guy with the thin foreign policy résumé, suspected by some of his compatriots of being a Muslim, who out-punched the war hero with the extensive résumé. And shall I add that the one with the thin résumé and the strange name has a dodgy position on the question at hand, and yet still won?

Here's how it unfolded. Last Thursday, speaking before the Knesset in Jerusalem, George Bush compared "some" Democrats to those who thought in 1939 that war might have been avoided if we'd just been able to sit down with Hitler and talk some sense into him. This was, despite some White House demurrals, a clear shot at Obama, who has repeatedly announced his intention to negotiate personally as president, and "without preconditions", with the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chávez.

John McCain, that same Thursday morning, was giving a speech in part about the need to move beyond the partisan bickering of the last decade. Within an hour or two, following Bush's lead, McCain attacked Obama: "What does he want to talk about with Ahmadinejad, who said Israel is a stinking corpse?" The Obama campaign emailed reporters accusing Bush of launching "a false political attack".

Now here's the important part. In the past two presidential campaigns, that's where this would have ended. The Democrat "responded" for the record, but somewhat perfunctorily, while the Republicans got their point across: the Democrats are appeasers, the Democratic nominee wants to talk to terrorists and he won't keep the country safe.

Game, set, match. This is how Bush built margins of trust with voters over Al Gore and John Kerry on national-security questions. Invoke appeasement of Hitler, toss in Israel's safety: this is exactly the kind of thing that sent Gore and Kerry running for the hills. Even Bill Clinton, who knew better how to return a punch, would have tried to change the subject back to the economy.
But the current version of the story ends differently. Last Friday, in South Dakota, Obama gave an extended and aggressive press conference in which he hit back hard. Bush and McCain, he told Americans, "are trying to fool you. They're trying to scare you. And they're not telling you the truth." He ticked off the lies that were told about Iraq and the benefits that would redound from making war there, noting that not one of the promises had come to pass.

The headline that afternoon on the influential blog of Mark Halperin, of Time magazine, conveyed the takeaway: "Bam!! Bop!!!! Bash!!"

After the Kerry loss of 2004, Democrats began to vow: we understand what happened. We're not going to let ourselves get outboxed and intimidated next time around, especially on national security. There was every reason in the world to think this was an empty promise. If Hillary Clinton were the nominee, it wouldn't be exactly empty, because the Clinton camp does know how to return fire. But it would be a dissatisfying thing for most Democrats to watch, because Clinton's returns of serve would consist of hawkish statements designed to prove that she could be just as tough as the Republicans (witness her recent promise to "obliterate" Iran).

Obama is doing something altogether different. He is standing for an alternative vision of how America should operate in the world, and he is defending it tooth and nail. I'm not sold on the idea that negotiations without preconditions with hostile powers are the world's best strategy. If the US had some leverage over Iran that might be one thing, but, in our current state, we have little. Still, this is one of those cases where the symbolic message of what Obama did last Friday is more important, for now, than the substance.

He said: These people have screwed up foreign policy and security. I have a different way of doing things. And I'm not ceding an inch."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/19/barackobama.uselections2008

Would the REAL John McCain please stand up?

One more big thanx to Robert Greenwald at Brave New Films for this collection of contrasting McCain flip-flops.

Just a note to the armchair and professional psychologists and psychiatrists ou there, I am beginning to think McCain may have dual personalities, at times it seems as if his two faces don't remember what each other said. Either he is growing more senile by the day, or he's got some serious conflicting personalities vying for control of the man. Or he is a pathological liar.

And I don't mean this as snark, the thought of a Jeckyl/Hyde President should make us all stop to ponder the implications.

I suppose the big question would be, which one will have their finger on the button?

"Flip" McCain or "Flop" McCain?

Also, if you want to stay on top of the McCain flip-flops, no one covers it better than Cliff Schecter on his "Silo" blog at the FDL mothersite, and his book "The Real McCain", you can find it by clicking this link...

World’s Poor Pay Price as Crop Research Is Cut

from the New York Times
By KEITH BRADSHER and ANDREW MARTIN
Published: May 18, 2008
LOS BAÑOS, Philippines — The brown plant hopper, an insect no bigger than a gnat, is multiplying by the billions and chewing through rice paddies in East Asia, threatening the diets of many poor people.
The damage to rice crops, occurring at a time of scarcity and high prices, could have been prevented. Researchers at the International Rice Research Institute here say that they know how to create rice varieties resistant to the insects but that budget cuts have prevented them from doing so.
This is a stark example of the many problems that are coming to light in the world’s agricultural system. Experts say that during the food surpluses of recent decades, governments and development agencies lost focus on the importance of helping poor countries improve their agriculture.
The budgets of institutions that delivered the world from famine in the 1970s, including the rice institute, have stagnated or fallen, even as the problems they were trying to solve became harder. (Unlimited no-bid billions for war, as the world's poor starve?)
“People felt that the world food crisis was solved, that food security was no longer an issue, and it really fell off the agenda,” said Robert S. Zeigler, the director general of the rice institute.
Vital research programs have been slashed. At the rice institute, scientists have identified 14 genetic traits that could help rice plants survive the plant hopper, which sucks the juices out of young plants while infecting them with viruses. But the scientists have had no money to breed these traits into the world’s most widely used rice varieties. (Maybe, like the oil industry has monopolized and engineered their market, this is all being done by design to make the world's billionaires even more wealthy?)
The institute is the world’s main repository of rice seeds as well as genetic and other information about rice, the crop that feeds nearly half the world’s people.
But nowadays at the International Rice Research Institute, greenhouses have peeling paint and holes in their screens and walls. Hallways are dotted with empty offices. In the 1980s, the institute employed five entomologists, or insect experts, overseeing a staff of 200. Now it has one entomologist with a staff of eight.
“We’ve had an exodus here,” said Yvette Naredo, an assistant geneticist.
Similar troubles plague other centers in Asia, Africa and Latin America that work on crop productivity in poor countries. Agricultural experts have complained about the flagging efforts for years and warned of the risks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/business/worldbusiness/18focus.html

Edwards Throws Support to Obama

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 15, 2008; Page A01

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., May 14 -- Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards gave his long-sought endorsement to Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday night, calling on Democrats to unite behind him and turn their attention to the fall campaign.

"The reason I am here tonight," Edwards declared, "is the voters have made their choice, and so have I."

Edwards had been heavily courted by Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton since he quit the race three months ago. His decision to climb off the fence with just five contests remaining is likely to yield limited benefits, but it sends a strong signal that Edwards, at least, thinks the nomination battle is over.

Appearing with Obama at a rally here, the former senator from North Carolina and 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee gave what sounded in places like a eulogy for Clinton's candidacy, praising her tenacity and describing her as "made of steel." But he emphasized that the party must now get behind Obama.

"When this nomination battle is over, and it will be over soon, brothers and sisters," he said, "we must come together as Democrats and in the fall stand up for what matters in America and make America what it needs to be."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/14/AR2008051404014.html

Vote for Change! Obama voter registration drive