The big news of the day is a ruling by the judge in the civil suit filed by Congress regarding its subpoenas of Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten. Citing executive privilege, they ignored the subpoenas -- which is unprecedented. They didn't even show up and site executive privilege in answer to specific questions. They claimed a blanket "absolute immunity" for Presidential advisors (and the Supreme Court hasn't even recognized that in all cases for the President). When handed instructions by Congress to prosecute a contempt of Congress citation, the DOJ refused to prosecute. So rather than go for "inherent contempt" and force a Constitutional crisis, Congress went to court.

 

The case got assigned to John Bates, a judge appointed by George W. Bush who through some magic has had several of the Bush administration's most outlandish cases assigned to him and consistently ruled in favor of the Bush administration.

 

Not this time. In a scathing 93-page ruling, he utterly eviscerates the Bush administration's arguments, including a whole series of petty, time-wasting suggestions about why Congress doesn't have standing or a cause of action (my favorite part is when he points out that in one place the Bush Administration argues that inherent contempt probably doesn't apply to Presidential advisors, and in another they argue that Congress doesn't have a cause of action because they haven't yet exhausted their option to cite them for "inherent contempt"). Then he gets down to the heart of the matter and lays out very clearly why there is no doubt that Presidential advisors do not have "absolute immunity."

 

It's an incredibly well-written ruling with a completely unexpected outcome. I read it over dinner tonight; I encourage you to read it too.

 

What happens from here? I'm 90% sure the Bush administration will appeal, and hope to get a stay so that they can run out the clock on a technicality. The subpoenas were issued by the House, which literally ends its term every two years at which point all its outstanding subpoenas expire. The next House could re-issue them and start the process all over again, but at that point it would be a different game anyway because an Obama administration might choose not to fight the subpoenas -- or to prosecute the contempt of Congress citations.

 

But it was a good day in case law.

 

The results of the DOJ's own investigation of the politicization of their hiring process has completed, and a scathing report was issued today.

 

Several people, including Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson, clearly and blatantly used political factors in hiring decisions, in violation of federal law and DOJ policy. Further, they lied to people investigating the matter.

 

Worth reading, or at least skimming. According to Goodling, a "good American" is a conservative Republican.

McCain straight talk on gay adoption.

 

I'm tempted to call this a brilliant non-answer, but there's nothing particularly brilliant about it -- ti's just endless repetition of a noncommittal non-answer that the conservatives will take as in their camp, while giving McCain wiggle room with moderates because he didn't come straight out and say that he's against gay adoption.

 

 

It's Shark Week on the discovery channel.  Don't miss it.

 

After saying for months that offshore oil drilling should be left up to individual states and pointing out that it will have essentially no effect on gas prices, on June 16th McCain did a dramatic flip-flop and now supports lifting the federal ban. And according to this report by the Washington Post, the oil money came gushing into his campaign -- starting with a fundraiser with oil executives the day after his announcement.

 

According to the Department of Energy, on January 22, 2001 (Bush's first week in office), a gallon of gasoline averaged $1.51. On July 21, 2008, it averaged $4.11. So clearly having a man beholden to big oil interests in the White House is in the best interests of US citizens.

The LA Times a study, by a former contributor to FOX News, showing that while Barack Obama is getting more coverage than McCain on the three big broadcast networks, it's significantly more negative coverage.

Election lawyers in Ohio are pushing forward with an election fraud case that goes pretty high up in the Bush administration, and are now suggesting that Karl Rove was intimidating and blackmailing the GOP IT guru at New Media Communications.

 

There's been a meme floating around, sadly started by the Clinton campaign back in the spring, that Hispanics wouldn't vote for Obama.

 

A new report has come out that shows that this is clearly not true. Obama is kicking McCain's butt in the Hispanic population.

Obama's been having a great week in the Middle East and Europe.

 

But I have to agree with people on both the left and the right: this was a dumb move.

 

At the very least, Obama's exaggerating when he said "no one clapped." From the video, it sounds like there was a small amount of very tepid clapping, compared to when he finished his speech. But Obama shouldn't be lying and shouldn't be exaggerating.

It's funny listening to McCain blast Obama's foreign policy statements and credentials, and in practically in the same sentence warn of the serious situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border.

 

(note to readers: Iraq and Pakistan don't share a border)

 

I'm way off my game today -- I had to take my daughter to the airport last night for an 11:30pm red-eye flight. And then I got caught in road construction on the way home... ugh.

 

But this just made it a lot better.

 

And this.

 

A cybersecurity expert held a press conference claiming that he had evidence of a patch applied to Diebold machines in two counties in Georgia in 2002.

 

He has given his evidence to the Justice Deaprtment. The real question: will they do anything?

 

Don't hold your breath. Six months is a long time to wait.

For those of you who need a Joss Whedon fix... or even if you don't.

 

You must watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog.

 

Seriously. Gotta watch this. Absolutely worth it. All three parts.

 

I won't ruin it by giving details. Just watch.

 

At his talk at the NAACP yesterday, McCain was asked when he's going to fill out the NAACP civil rights survey.

 

He said he'd be happy to, because they fill out literally every survey.

 

Except the Project VoteSmart political courage test. (he even got kicked off their board for refusing to fill it out)

 

Or the AFL-CIO survey.

 

Or the Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire.

 

Or the Human Rights Campaign.

 

Daily Kos lists some more.

 

Under Bush's own terms, isn't this appeasement?

 

Apparently they lost their sense of humor in what they've determined is "satire." Both the Obama and McCain campaigns agree.

 

I don't know what they were thinking.

Carly Fiorina is out lying on his behalf now...

 

Wow, this is really damning. Steven Payne, a Bush "pioneer" and political appointee got caught on camera selling access to the White House -- $400-500k to his lobbying firm, and a $250k donation to the Bush presidential library fund. Of course the denials are coming fast and furious; Payne saying he did nothing wrong and it's all "above board" and the Bush white house saying that they would not be influenced by payments like this.

 

Paying money to the Bush library fund in order to get political considerations (and we're talking more than just a meet-and-greet here -- listen to the conversation) is called "bribery."  A political appointee selling his services to influence foreign policy is minimally a clear conflict of interest between his lobbying job and his appointment, and probably rises to the level of bribery too.

 

UPDATE: This story has been out all day now, and I can't find any coverage of it on mainsteam US news. Very strange.

 

Also, it needs to be pointed out that if you watch the entire video, the lobbyist also mentions Sen. Joe Biden. Doesn't mention any donations to Biden though, like it did for the Bush library. But it's an important detail not to be overlooked for the sake of partisan politics.

 

In the blogosphere, the critical response has been "so what? this is what lobbyists do." This is not true. Lobbyists get paid to go talk to politicians, and their campaign contributions are carefully watched and controlled so we know who they are trying to influence. Payne is not just a lobbyist -- he's a political appointee; there's an inherent conflict of interest there. Second, he is arranging for a donation to the Bush library in return for the Bush administration to publicly make statements lending credibility to an ousted leader of another country in order to help him make a political comeback. That's bribery.

 

 

 

 

For a very long time, McCain has told the story that when he was a POW in Vietnam and being interrogated, he names the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers as his squadron-mates.

 

On Thursday, when beng interviewed in Pittsburgh, he said it was the defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers. (you guessed it -- it's on YouTube)

 

His campaign spokesperson called it an "honest mistake." And, of course, blamed bloggers for stirring up trouble.

 

Oh come on. Just for once, admit that you lied to pander to the local crowd. Because you're not actually fooling anyone.