NDN Blog

Leading conservative blog www.redstate.com has announced a major campaign to block Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) from taking Rep. John Doolittle's (R-CA) seat on the House Appropriations Committee.  Doolittle is being investigated by the FBI and Calvert's been accused of similar corruption problems, and Red State has had enough of the House GOP Steering Committee that is filling Doolittle's spot: "The House GOP Steering Committee will either embrace reform or reject it,” he wrote. “And we will encourage them to embrace it."

Way to shoot a segment about voter fraud and only feature black people. H/T to Greg Sargent over at TPM Election Central...

From CNN.com

Monday, May 14, 2007 Majority of Americans do not favor military action against Iran

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll released Monday shows a majority of Americans oppose any military action against Iran and a large portion of Americans believe Iran is an enemy.

U.S. Military Action Against Iran

Favor 33%
Oppose 63%

This time it is Paul McNulty, who claims he's quitting "because of the "financial realities" brought on by "college-age children and two decades of public service."" Of course he's also at the center of the scandal that has claimed just about every high-level DOJ official besides Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. A refresher on why McNulty is in hot water from the WAPO:

McNulty began work as Gonzales's deputy in November 2005. McNulty became a central figure in the furor after he told the Senate Judiciary Committee in February that the White House played only a marginal role in the dismissals -- a characterization that conflicted with documents later released by Justice and with subsequent testimony.

He also said most of the prosecutors were fired for "performance-related" reasons. That statement angered many of the former U.S. attorneys, most of whom had sterling evaluations and had remained largely silent about their departures.

Don's miss the WAPO article, but it boils down to this - if you didn't disenfranchise voters aggressively enough for Karl Rove's taste, your job was in jeopardy.

The WAPO details a turn towards engagement with Iran by the Bush Administration:

The White House confirmed yesterday that the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad is likely to meet in the next several weeks with Iranian officials about stabilizing Iraq, as the administration embraces a tactic outsiders have long recommended as essential to reducing sectarian violence in Iraq.

A White House spokesman said that Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will meet with Iranian counterparts in Baghdad to prod Tehran to play a "productive role in Iraq." The confirmation came after the official Iranian news agency disclosed that the two sides had agreed to meet in Baghdad. U.S. officials said the meeting could occur as early as next week.

"The president authorized this channel because we must take every step possible to stabilize Iraq and reduce the risk to our troops, even as our military continue to act against hostile Iranian-backed activity in Iraq," said Gordon D. Johndroe, the spokesman for the National Security Council.

The media firm Macwilliams, Kirchner and Sanders is blogging this week on MyDD about cable and politics, and we're prominently mentioned.  If you haven't seen it before, make sure to check out the Buy Cable paper, part of the New Politics Institute's New Tools series.

Read the MyDD post here...

Paul Wolfowitz may have to work even harder to hang onto his job, according to the NYT:

Xavier Coll, vice president of human resources, provided to a bank committee investigating the matter supported the charge that Mr. Wolfowitz was aware of engaging in favoritism. One said the documents were “devastating” to Mr. Wolfowitz’s case...

A special committee investigating the allegations of misconduct will transmit its findings to the larger 24-member board of the bank on Monday. Also to be transmitted is a recommendation on how or whether Mr. Wolfowitz should be censured.

The bank board will listen to Mr. Wolfowitz’s testimony on Tuesday and decide what to do on Wednesday.

If leading labor unions, the Chamber of Commerce, the Catholic Church and countless advocacy groups weren't enough, now evangelical Christians are organizing to support the kind of comprehensive immigration reform that NDN has been fighting for.  From the NYT:

A new coalition of more than 100 largely evangelical Christian leaders and organizations asked Congress on Monday to pass bills to strengthen border controls but also give illegal immigrants ways to gain legal residency.

The announcement spotlights evangelical leaders’ increasingly visible efforts to push for what they say is a more humane policy in keeping with biblical injunctions to show compassion for their neighbors, the weak and the alien.

The new group, Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, includes members like the Mennonite Church U.S.A. and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which represents Latino evangelicals.

It includes individuals like Dr. Joel C. Hunter, pastor of Northland, a megachurch in Longwood, Fla., and Sammy Mah, president of World Relief, an aid group affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals.

The concerns of the coalition mirror those of many evangelical leaders who have often staked out conservative positions on other social issues or who have avoided politics entirely.

European leaders are working to ease Paul Wolfowitz out as President of the World Bank by offering a deal.  If Wolfowitz leaves soon, they say they will allow the United States to pick the next President, as has been tradition since the bank was founded.

Leading governments of Europe, mounting a new campaign to push Paul D. Wolfowitz from his job as World Bank president, signaled Monday that they were willing to let the United States choose the bank’s next chief, but only if Mr. Wolfowitz stepped down soon, European officials said.

European officials had previously indicated that they wanted to end the tradition of the United States picking the World Bank leader. But now the officials are hoping to enlist American help in persuading Mr. Wolfowitz to resign voluntarily, rather than be rebuked or ousted.

The goal, they said, is to avert a public rupture of the bank board over a vote, possibly later this week, to sanction Mr. Wolfowitz. Even if the vote is a reprimand, they said, it could effectively make it impossible for him to stay on.

And the WAPO talks about the how this current scandal could threaten future funding for the World Bank.