Federal Judge Rules White House Aides Can Be Subpoenaed

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In June, after White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers refused to comply with congressional investigations into the U.S. Attorneys scandal, the Justice Department claimed “that senior presidential advisers are absolutely immune from congressional subpoenas.” But today, a federal judge has ruled that “there’s no legal support for that stance” and “aides can be subpoenaed.” Federal Judge John Bates stated that Bolten and Miers must comply with Congress:

U.S. District Judge John Bates disagreed. He said there’s no legal basis for that argument. He said that Miers must appear before Congress and, if she wants to refuse to testify, she must do so in person.

“Harriet Miers is not immune from compelled congressional process; she is legally required to testify pursuant to a duly issued congressional subpoena,” Bates wrote.

He said that both Bolten and Miers must give Congress all non-privileged documents related to the firings.



Update: Bates was appointed by President George W. Bush in December 2001 and was appointed to the FISA court by Justice John Roberts in 2006. On many previous occasions, his rulings have helped cover-up for the administration's wrongdoings.

Update: Read Bates' summary judgment here.

Another Obama "Problem" Group Proves to be Unproblematic

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Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin today:

Women voters aren't warming to 'cool' Obama

July 30, 2008

BY CAROL MARIN Sun-Times Columnist

The Obama campaign has a woman problem. How big? How small? It's not clear, but in a close election, small can be big.


Terrific lede! Except ... Obama's polling among women actually IS quite clear, according to a Research 2000 poll released three days ago:

QUESTION: If the election for President were held today, who would you vote for if the choices were between Barack Obama, the Democrat, John McCain, the Republican, Bob Barr, the Libertarian, or Ralph Nader, an Independent?

OBAMA  MCCAIN  BARR  NADER  OTHER  UND

ALL     51%    39%    3%     2%     1%     4%

MEN     45%    45%    4%     2%     1%     3%
WOMEN   56%    34% 2%     2%     1%     5%


That's a 22-point lead among women overall, Ms. Marin.

But don't let a little thing like empirical evidence mess with the premise of the day's "Obama's got a [fill in the day's demographic] problem!" story. Especially when you have a whole lot of anectodotal crap to cram into a column somewhere, like how Michelle Obama pleaded for support in a roomful of well-off, well-dressed women who seemed disposed to vote for her husband, but hey ...there is still a woman problem, damn it, because the writer has to shoehorn in a little "human interest" crapola to justify her columninizing existence. Enter ... Sarah, angry McCain-supporter news junkie who thinks Obama is "like the organic chicken at lunch. Sleek, elegant, beautifully prepared. Too cool."

But the women Obama needs right now are the ones who do not dine downtown. They're the ones who can't afford organic anything, forced to choose between a gallon of gas and a gallon of milk because they can't buy both on the same day.

Women like Sarah.


What's particularly irritating about this column is that near the end, Marin actually does cite a poll ("The July 15 Quinnipiac University poll shows women overall backed Obama over McCain 55 percent to 36 percent.") ... yet we're delivered the stupid lede and premise anyway. So it's not even the case that she's unaware of how Obama is polling among women overall.

Yeah, Obama might have a woman problem, all right. It just might be Carol Marin.

Update by kos: For more context, check out the 2004 exit polls. Kerry won the female vote 51-48. So while Kerry won that vote by just three points, Obama leads that demographic by 22.

A real problem for Obama, yes.

Washington Post Fans Outrage After Misquoting Obama

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Washington Post reporters Dana Milbank and Jonathan Weisman gave the McCain campaign a nipple-stiffening moment today after they picked up a statement by Barack Obama, and used it, apparently, entirely out of context, presenting it for the consumption of Post readers in a way that made it look like Obama was being arrogant.

For Milbank's part, it was all because he wanted to wedge the statement into his preferred frame: "Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee." I believe it was Oscar Wilde who cautioned: "Reality is a MADE thing."

And, as it turns out, Milbank's "reality" is something of a deconstruction. Milbank's remake reads:

"This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for," adding: "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."

According to a Democratic leadership aide in attendance, the full quote from Obama is:
It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.

(For what it's worth, before Milbank's column was published, we received a separate eye-witness account of Obama's meeting with House Dems that mirrored the full context quote above.)

So, in actuality, Obama was attempting to diminish his own importance, not place himself on a pedestal. It was an attempt at humility, not arrogance.

And speaking of arrogance, really - Milbank is a fine one to be speaking on the subject. Via Wonkette, we present to you this video of a slurring Milbank, pompously declaring, "I will not read blogs, I'm sorry...If something is important enough, it will be brought to my attention."

Gotcha! Gallup Commits "Polling Malpractice" Startling New Info/Controversy on Poll

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Reposted from DailyKOS.

There were many problems with the latest Gallup Poll, which has McCain up +4 vs Obama. But now with more information (buried deep into the 9th paragraph of USA Today's own write up), it only gets worse. It's potentially "startlingly" worse

It seems that Gallup according to writer Seth Colter Walls, "committed polling malpractice", when describing polling expert, Prof. Adam Abramowitz analysis, of Gallup/USA today's latest halting revelation.

Gallup fudged the numbers in more ways than we ever thought!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...





As for how "likely voters" were identified, USA Today reports that respondents were asked "how much thought they had given the election, how often they voted in the past and whether they plan to vote this fall." Fair enough. But the very next sentence raises even more questions about whether USA Today's effort is actually a snapshot of the electorate, as its website claims, or enters the realm of forward-looking hypothesizing. Buried in the ninth paragraph of USA Today's own write-up, they reveal that "McCain's gains came because there was an even number of likely voters from each party. Last month, the Democrats had an 11-point edge."

Abramowitz says this contradiction is the equivalent of polling malpractice. "It is simply not plausible that there would be an 11-point  swing in party ID among likely voters or that there is now an even split in the likely electorate between Republicans and Democrats," he wrote in an email to the Huffington Post.


Agreed! There is no responsible poll in America that would weigh Democrats and Republicans evenly right now.

As Prof. Abramawitz explained, party ID wouldn't be up 11 points in a month (especially for the struggling Republican party) either. Think about it? When is the last time you've seen, or heard about a poll where Republican and Democratic party ID were equal? Gallup tried to hide this initially. It was bad enough they had given us multiple, shaky reasons/data already. But this one (equal party ID) is just as bad as removing a large sample of 109 so called "unlikely voters", who planned to vote for Obama by 61 to 7% (Yes. They did that, and several other highly questionable decisions) to give McCain the "likely voter edge". Obama should of been up BIG in this poll (as he already hit 50% vs McCain's 44% in their June poll).

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/...

Something really crazy is happening. I wrote a diary yesterday regarding this subject. http://www.dailykos.com/...

There seems to be a confluence of media and polling firms, that are either against Obama or trying to keep this race close.

I don't know. But Gallup Chief Frank Newport practically admits on MSNBC that they lied and were testing new theories. So Back to Mr. Colter of the Huffingtonpost:

But grains of salt aside, there is other evidence to suggest that USA Today's "likely voter" poll runs afoul of its own standards in terms of not forecasting far-off election results. In describing the poll's usefulness on MSNBC Tuesday morning, Gallup chief Frank Newport said "it's important to look at likely voters ... just to see under a scenario where McCain supporters are energized."

"Just to see a scenario where McCain supporters are energized"; so now Gallup is passing off speculation and hypothesis as accurate polling?


Shouldn't this be some type of scandal? What was Gannet's (USA Today's owners) role or influence in this? Why is MSNBC, other media and "pundits", continue to reference this now disgraced poll? What does this mean to our future, the upcoming election, and media/polling priorities and influence?

Gallup/USAToday should certainly feel ashamed and needs to apologize as it attempts to pass off this drivel.  Mr. Colter Walls agrees, and Gallups, Newport even tries to defend/explain himself one more time, as well:

So sure, "under a scenario" where McCain's voters are energized at a level equal to Obama's and the national distribution of party ID is equal between Democrats and Republicans, perhaps it would make sense to see McCain with a four-point lead in a poll with a plus/minus 4 percent margin of error. But engineering coverage of a poll with metrics contrived to show results under a certain "scenario" sounds more prospective and hypothetical than the paper's stated mission of covering polls as momentary snapshots and "not forecasts of far-off election days."

As Newport said on MSNBC this morning: "The likely voters simply tell us that turnout could make a difference."


I'm sure we've all thought it at times. But I hope this is the first, last, and only poll that has McCain ahead (legitimate, or illegitimately). Let's not start any precedents.

Gallup's Frank Newport, The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, John McCain and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough are all a disgrace, and charter members of Keith Olberman's "Worst Person Of The Day". club.

PS: Obama is kicking ass, and the crowd is juiced in his economic townhall in Missouri today.

He's been funny, articulate, honest and emotionally energized.

House Judiciary Committee Cites Karl Rove for Contempt

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The House Judiciary Committee just voted along strict party lines, 20-14, to hold Karl Rove in contempt of Congress for his failure to appear in response to the duly authorized subpoenas seeking his testimony in the matter of the US Attorney firings and the allegations of his interference in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

The resolution now goes to the full House, where a straight majority vote will be necessary for formally and officially locking in the contempt citation.

It's at that stage that the decision of which procedure to utilize -- statutory contempt which gets referred for prosecution to the US Attorney, or inherent contempt which is prosecuted by the House itself in a trial before the body -- is made.

The House's earlier contempt citations against Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers were referred under the statutory contempt procedure to the US Attorney who, at the instruction of the White House and the Department of Justice, declined to prosecute the cases. An ironic situation, given that the contempt citations arose in the context of an investigation into whether or not the DOJ and the White House were improperly directing prosecutorial decisions of the US Attorneys.

The House Judiciary Committee subsequently filed suit in federal court, seeking an order compelling the US Attorney to proceed with the prosecution, and somehow -- magically! -- the case was assigned to former Whitewater Deputy Independent Counsel John D. Bates, the federal judge who dismissed the Plame lawsuit, dismissed the Cheney Energy Task Force lawsuit, upheld the validity of Bush's signature on an a bill not properly passed in the same form by both houses of Congress, and dismissed the DNC's lawsuit seeking to force the FEC to rule on John McCain's attempt to withdraw from his presidential campaign's public financing commitments.

I don't know about you, but I'm not really feeling the fear with respect to the statutory contempt thing.

One other possibility: Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) testified in last Friday's non-impeachment hearing before the Judiciary Committee regarding his legislation that would grant Congress the authority to petition the courts to appoint a special prosecutor in cases where the DOJ refused to take up referrals of contempt of Congress. That bill, H.R. 6508, now sits before the Judiciary Committee awaiting action, albeit with powerful cosponsors including Chairman Conyers, and subcommittee chairs Linda Sanchez and Jerry Nadler.

Probably time to get moving on that.

In the meantime, how about signing the Send Karl Rove to Jail petition?

The petition made a bit of a splash yesterday:

Bush administration critics hand-delivered a petition to a Democratic lawmaker Tuesday containing more than 127,000 signatures calling for former White House adviser Karl Rove to be held in contempt of Congress and jailed.

A coalition of advocacy groups dropped off three boxes of signed petitions at the office of Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., who heads a House Judiciary subcommittee that took up the matter this month. The full committee is scheduled to take up the contempt charges Wednesday.

The coalition includes advocacy groups such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington as well as liberal organizations such as Brave New Films, Campaign for America's Future and The Nation magazine.


Now that the decision goes to the full House as to what procedure to adopt, perhaps those signatures and more should also be delivered to the Democratic Leadership who will guide that decision. Why not add your voice to that growing chorus?