In the wake of the favorable decision in the case of Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives v. Harriet Miers, et al., the Congress has its eye back on the "subpoena power" ball. The court's decision has done more than simply reaffirm that Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten must obey Congressional subpoenas (under penalty of exactly what, we still have not figured out). It may also have emboldened Congressional investigators and shaken loose some other exercises of the subpoena power that were waiting in the wings.

In the House Education and Labor Committee:

U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, today demanded that Charles E.F. Millard, director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, immediately comply with a subpoena served July 16 by turning over documents regarding a report into the agency’s management and governance practices. The U.S. District Court today reaffirmed that the executive branch must comply with congressional subpoenas.

And this, via The Gavel, in the Government Oversight National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee:

Subcommittee Chairman Tierney and Full Committee Chairman Waxman threaten Michael Dominguez, Principal Deputy Undersecretary for Defense, with contempt after he reveals that he has ordered Dr. Kaye Whitley of the DOD Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office to defy a subpoena to appear

And of course, there's the Judiciary committee's recent vote to hold Karl Rove in contempt for his refusal to comply with their subpoena, but that came before the court's ruling.

But if the action in the committees this week is any indication of a wider reawakening of interest in the subpoena power, things could really break open, sending the full extent of the Bush "administration's" stonewalling of all outside oversight spilling into view at long last.

Just a few weeks ago, there was this, back in Government Oversight:

The chairman of a House committee has warned Attorney General Michael Mukasey he could be held in contempt of Congress if he doesn’t turn over documents from an FBI interview with Vice President Dick Cheney.

Back on June 20th, subscription only Congressional Quarterly reported that:

Panel Chairman Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., is investigating the White House’s role in an EPA decision to bar California from regulating vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. Separately, the panel is investigating the EPA’s decision to set a new smog pollution standard less stringent than what scientific advisers recommended.

Waxman had scheduled a Friday hearing to hold two Bush administration officials in contempt for failing to produce documents he had requested in subpoenas. But he said he would hold off on the contempt vote after learning the White House had invoked executive privilege.

The two officials are Susan Dudley, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget; and EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.

There's even growing realization among Bush's Republican shock troops on the Hill that this "administration's" games are endangering their own powers and prerogatives.

Over in the Intelligence Committee, as noted in yesterday's Midday Open Thread, there was this:

In an interview, Hoekstra, the committee's senior Republican, said he told McConnell that he was disgusted with what he described as the Bush administration's continuing effort to undercut any kind of outside oversight.

"This is part of a systemic problem of the administration, and I said I'm not going to take it anymore," Hoekstra said.

This isn't news to Hoekstra's fellow Republican, Dana Rohrabacher (though you won't find either of them doing anything about it):

"The disdain and uncooperative nature that this administration has shown toward Congress... is so egregious that I can no longer assume that it is simply bureaucratic incompetence or isolated mistakes. Rather, I have come to the sad conclusion that this administration has intentionally obstructed Congress’ rightful and constitutional duties."

The fact is that this "administration" has stonewalled dozens of investigations into nearly every department and agency within the executive branch. There are more than a dozen investigative committees and subcommittees in the House alone, and almost all of them could tell you stories about being stonewalled across multiple investigations by the Bush gang. In the Senate, the situation may be even worse, committee and floor rules make it even more difficult to issue and enforce subpoenas. Witness what happened to Senator Barbara Boxer's efforts to chase down EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson:

A vote on the issuance of a subpoena for the draft endangerment finding on global warming emissions rejected at the highest levels in the White House was stymied when Republican members boycotted the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works business meeting, preventing a quorum

And many of you will remember that the Senate Judiciary Committee also has a very old outstanding (and unenforced) subpoena out for Karl Rove, for the defiance of which the committee voted to hold him in contempt. But the Senate has never bothered to have a floor vote to make the contempt official. And how could they? Where would they get the 60 votes to shut down a filibuster of such a resolution?

So, does the Miers ruling mean the dam finally breaks, and a new flood of subpoenas previously bottled up by the uncertainty of the situation are now unleashed?

Unlikely, although such a deluge would constitute the first and only real demonstration of just how obstructionist the "administration" has been, across the board and on every issue. There's been no comprehensive accounting of just how many avenues of inquiry into just how many areas of critical importance to the American people have been thwarted by White House intransigence -- an intransigence that the federal courts have now joined in declaring to be without support in law or precedent. But it's still unlikely.

That's because the Congressional leadership has retained fairly tight control over how many subpoenas are issued, and how far investigators should go in pursuit of their inquiries. It's been part of the overall political strategy that had its origins in not giving rise to any kind of panic or fear of political vindictiveness -- which Republicans promised Americans would be the case if Democrats were returned to the majority -- stemming from the elections of 2006, and which has morphed into the overall political strategy of not giving rise to any kind of panic or fear of political vindictiveness that might stem from the upcoming elections of 2008.

Well, that and the fact that there are probably no more than a few weeks left of active session in the 110th Congress, with both houses in recess for the month of August, and the House still aiming at a September 26th adjournment for the year... so that they can come back home and ask for your votes. No doubt so that they may bring some accountability back to Washington.

That's life. And that's politics. The best we can hope for is that our votes buy us a respite from such overwhelming and dire need for oversight into such basic issues of governance such as, "does the executive branch have to obey the law?" Or, "what if they have to, but they just don't?"

We won't likely be getting any actual answers to those questions before we're all asked to forget about them "for the good of the country." Perhaps we'll enjoy it more than we now think just to have relief from having to ask for a few years.

MsCharisma of Maryland on the "Bill Goes Insane" diary said "He is so obviously jealous of Obama."  Truer words were never spoken,  I believe that jealousy is the real source of the vitriol toward Obama from the Clinton camp.  They cannot be reasonable or rational because jealousy at this level is inherently unreasonable and irrational.  And I think that jealousy has been nakedly on display in recent days.

The number of US soldiers currently deployed in Iraq is roughly equal to double the attendance at Barack Obama's rally in Portland, OR on May 20, 2008.

I've heard other parents say that talking to their kids about procreation is the hardest conversation they have. That conversation was a breeze. Tonight, I had the most serious conversation I've yet had with my 7 year old son.

More serious than the conversation about why his dad and I divorced (mostly because that happened when he was 4). More serious than the conversation about not talking to strangers (mostly because that happened when he was 3). More serious than the conversation about how important it is to tell the truth so that people are inclined to believe you rather than doubt you.

He asked me why George Bush was president, and he is too smart to take "because more people voted for him," for an answer. His immediate follow-up question was, "Why did so many people vote for him when he's such a bad president?"

My son was less than a year old on September 11, 2001.

"I'll tell you my impression. We really in this last election, when I say we...the Democrats,  That if we won the Congressional elections, we could stop the war. Now anybody was a good student of Government would know that wasn't true. But you know, the temptation to want to win back the Congress, we sort of stretched the facts...and people ate it up."

                                        Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D PA)

Paul Kanjorksi, frankly.

There has been a lot of talk today about Travis Childers' victory in MS-01 and the Democratic party's current streak of turning Republican seats blue. Though most people seem aware of the current 3-race streak of special election victories, many people probably aren't aware of a much larger trend. After mentioning this in another thread, I was encouraged to write a diary in order to reach a wider audience.

Given Lieberman's high-profile efforts on behalf of John McCain, I wondered how his constituents were taking it. So I had independent pollster Research 2000 reprise a poll I commissioned last year testing a rematch between Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman. I found last year that buyer's remorse had set in. It's even worse this year.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 3/31-4/2. Regular voters. MoE 4% (9/10-12/2007 results)

Lieberman has shored up his support with Republicans, who clearly see him as one of their own. He has predictably lost ground among Democrats. But interestingly, he also lost the same amount of ground (six points) with independents.

Clearly, his whole "independent" schtick isn't playing well with real independent voters. I'll have more on this poll later today. The crosstabs are below the fold. Crosstabs for last year's poll can be found here. Unfortunately, there's no approve/disapprove numbers from last time since I forgot to ask for that data (I think it was my first poll ever commissioned).

I can't stand it when I open my morning paper and get right-wing spin masquerading as a news story in my local news. Today:

Returning vets form a political surge

Five years in Iraq is a long time.

Long enough to spend $600 billion and lose nearly 4,000 uniformed lives.

Also long enough for rank-and-file to deploy, come home, discharge and run for office. Come November, an unprecedented number of Iraq war veterans will battle on ballots. From coast to coast, they're running guerrilla-style campaigns against career politicians.

Can they win?

"I'll be the youngest member of Congress," said 28-year-old Lee Zeldin, an Army reservist courting New York's 1st District, on the east end of Long Island. The JAG-attorney-turned-private-practice-lawyer is one of a dozen candidates who have joined a Republican coalition called Iraq Vets for Congress.

Since its inception in January, the group has enlisted candidates from key states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and California.

I stumbled upon something I wrote on September, 11th 2006.  This was the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and CNN's Pipeline was re-airing their coverage from that day in real time.  A short essay poured out of me literally as I watched hours of the coverage.

The events on the day I wrote the following words, took place just before the 2006 elections.  In taking back the House and the Senate, we laid the groundwork to create real change.  With a progressive President in the Whitehouse, we can truly move the country and the world in a better direction.  This essay expresses concerns that continue in my mind as I watch the ’08 election ensue.  I have not edited it.

From Samuel Jackson's not-so-real blog:

I just did me a search on Google for “self-inflicted nail injury.” Seemed apros-motherfucking-po since I’ve been trying real hard to pay attention to politics lately.

Y’all read the story about the dude in Bahrain who had a two-inch nail pulled out of his pecker? Dude shows up at a doctor’s office complaining about some severe motherfucking pain in his fuck-stick region. After a quick inspection of the area, the doctor couldn’t help but notice a two inch got-damn nail shoved down his pee-hole. When asked, the dude says that the nail must’ve been put there “without his knowledge.” Which is how I feel about this fucking superdelegate bullshit–I’ve got some superdelegates shoved down my pee-hole, and I ain’t got no motherfucking clue how the fuckers got there.

I spent a good part of the last week working the lighting for a photo shoot where we made portraits of students at the University of California, Berkeley.

What amazed me, as I introduced myself to each of these young Americans was how much energy they had, how much verve, how much curiosity. I was blown away by their confidence and their lack of cynicism...even if they hadn't learned the polished and guarded tones those of us, uh, over 30 may take for granted.

Once again, in South Carolina today, as he has across the nation, Barack Obama won the vote of young people...changing the face of South Carolina politics in the process. This diary is going to focus on that by focusing on young people themselves.

As predicted, the calls for the Left to acknowledge the success of the surge are increasing.  It was surprising to absolutely no one that throwing 30,000 more police officers into an area would result in lower crime rates, but that was not the purpose of the surge.  There are faint glimmers of political reconciliation in Iraq however.  Enough for the Right to finally declare that we're winning in Iraq, and demand the Left do the same.

The problem is that the Right has been declaring victory in Iraq non-stop for four years straight.  Widespread looting, the insurgency, all meant we were winning.  We were winning without the surge; we were winning with the surge.  Both the rise and fall of attacks on U.S. troops and Iraqi citizens meant we were somehow winning.  Bottom line:  the Right's record on defining 'victory' is horrible.  Why should we believe them now?

I am all for a bruising primary season.  I think they make for better, tougher, battle-tested candidates; and as we all know the opposition is highly unlikely to observe Marquis of Queensberry rules when we face them in the general election.   However, its good to remember that after primaries we're all going to be on the same team, so  you might want to cut back on the horse-collars and cut blocks.  

Watching the campaign in the last few days I got the same sick feeling I got yesterday watching the Chargers upset the Colts-while losing their Starting quarterback, Superstar Running back and leading receiver-and now they get to face the only undefeated team in the NFL. (reached for comment after the game Coach Pyrrhus said "well we feel pretty good, after all a win is a win")

Specifically, I think Clinton is playing with fire by bringing up the race issue and it has to potential to burn both candidates badly:

This diary is just my journey, my personal feelings.  This was written in the heat of the moment, and just represents a flood of emotions.

Ever sense the MD Senate elections I've wondered one thing: would the rationale for endorsing Michael Steele used by prominent blacks in Maryland have an impact in the future? And by "future," I mean, "a scenario where an African-American ended up running for president in 2008."

For Maryland, it looks like "the future" will be sometime around February 12th.

Based on the Iowa results, there is an extraordinary negative correlation between years of federal elected experience and support.  Look back at the candidates service in either elected or appointed federal office compared to their results in Iowa, and the pattern is clear.  

I am writing this diary to correct some deceptive information that was posted by a commenter on DailyKos and my own formulations on the candidate.  I am not an Obama fanatic but, for a variety of reasons, I think he is the best "top tier" candidate.  With that said, I do have some reservations and I am receptive to the argument that we need a fighter, not a compromiser, when it comes to defeating the conservative movement.  So I was distraught when an Edwards supporter posted a comment stating that Barack Obama had endorsed the king of capitulation, Joe Lieberman.  After a bit of research, I discovered that this comment was (surprise, surprise) an unfair characterization of Obama's support for Lieberman.

I have been critical of Obama because in my opinion he is trying to be a "centrist".  That has been my problem with him.  I am not a centrist.  I am very liberal and I like progressive candidates.   My concern with Barack, who is my senator and I voted for him in 2004, is what I thought was his tendency to appear "centrist".   But then I read this recommended diary that (finally) clarified the issue.   According to the diarist, I have been making a mistake, perceiving Barack's "inclusivism" for "centrism".

Great, I should feel better now, and consider supporting Barack I guess.  But how good is to be "inclusive" that way?  Does it really help?

'The Hartford Courant wouldn't publish a positive, smiling picture of Ned Lamont on its cover if God Himself commanded it.' "Ned Wins, Joe's In!" By Lori Price 27 Dec 2007