john conyers

Like I have been saying – the survival of health care out of conference is anything but certain:

“Last night’s vote in the Senate should be applauded for what it was:
an affirmative statement by that body that comprehensive health care reform legislation should not be held captive any longer by a select few.” “As this legislation moves towards its constitutionally mandated reconciliation with the House of Representatives, I also want to make it clear that, in my mind, this bill does not adequately address many of the problems that plague our current system.  Without material changes, this legislation will be reform in name only.”

“In order to pass the House of Representatives, a final health care bill must provide universal affordability and competition to the American people.  Additionally, it should be financed by those with the ability to pay and not by working class Americans lucky enough to receive quality health coverage through their employers.”

“I supported the House bill because it included serious provisions aimed at helping individuals who currently cannot afford to purchase health care by providing subsidies and expanding Medicaid to 150 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.  The Senate bill passed last night does not ensure this same level of affordability; there are fewer subsidies and the expansion of Medicaid is not as extensive.”

You can read on here.

Dave Dayen summed up what Conyers wants rather nicely:

• Affordability: Conyers argues for more generous subsidies to make health insurance affordable.

Didn’t expect this:

Former White House political adviser Karl Rove and counsel Harriet Miers have agreed to face questions from Congress about allegations of improper political influence in the Justice Department, the House Judiciary Committee announced Wednesday.

Both will give depositions to investigators from the committee, and claims of privilege will be "significantly limited," according to a statement from the committee.

Rove and Miers had been resisting congressional subpoenas about the matter since the House Judiciary Committee began trying to force Miers to testify in 2006. The Bush White House resisted, claiming she could not be compelled to appear. But a federal judge in Washington ruled that the former Bush administration officials had no grounds to invoke executive privilege in the case.

The committee, led by Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, has been investigating claims that Rove and his White House allies fired U.S. attorneys for political reasons and prosecuted officials whom they saw as opponents. Conyers called the agreement "a victory for the separation of powers and congressional oversight."

I can only guess they got some legal advice that made them decide it’s time to follow the law.

Change is awesome! The Obama transition team has launched a section on change.gov dedicated to healthcare reform. There are already close to 1,200 comments on it. Imagine a government letting people voice their opinion? I thought that was America’s principal, but wasn’t so sure after the last eight years. Well it looks like it may be our principal again.

But that isn’t all. John Conyers is working on a single payer healthcare package and now has a page dedicated to informing the public about it.

A core belief of the Democratic Party is starting to see life, and could become reality. How many times has that happened for the Republicans?

 I swear there are just not enough hours in the day, so let me do a quick catch up.

First we have the Senate Judiciary Committee issuing a subpoena to former Rove aide Sara Taylor, while the House Judiciary Committee is issuing one to Harriet Meirs. Regarding this matter, John Conyers said, "Let me be clear: this subpoena is not a request, it is a demand on behalf of the American people for the White House...to help us answer the questions that remain".

Next up we find out that even with the "surge", we still don't have enough troops in Iraq and might need yet another surge. This came from Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey as he was testifying before the House yesterday. Oh and let's remember that this was yesterday, before our next item of:

In the early morning hours Sunni insurgents blew up the Askariya Shrine. This is the same shrine that was blown up last year and caused the sectarian violence to explode. Before al-Maliki could issue the new "indefinite curfews", arsonists set fire to a Sunni mosque in western Baghdad. a Shiite shrine was blown up north of Baghdad and two Sunni mosques were bombed south of Baghdad.

To make matters even worse, al-Sadr and his bloc of 30 members suspended its membership in Iraq's parliament. Yes al-Sadr is a bad guy, but now he is that much worse.

Hey John McCain - is this still like a stroll in any American town? What say you Joe Lieberman or Mike Pence?

Now reports are saying that 4 years of Rove email may be missing:

A lawyer for the Republican National Committee told congressional staff members yesterday that the RNC is missing at least four years' worth of e-mail from White House senior adviser Karl Rove that is being sought as part of investigations into the Bush administration, according to the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

GOP officials took issue with Rep. Henry Waxman's account of the briefing and said they still hope to find the e-mail as they conduct forensic work on their computer equipment. But they acknowledged that they took action to prevent Rove -- and Rove alone among the two dozen or so White House officials with RNC accounts -- from deleting his e-mails from the RNC server. Waxman (D-Calif.) said he was told the RNC made that move in 2005.

In a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Waxman said the RNC lawyer, Rob Kelner, also raised the possibility that Rove had personally deleted the missing e-mails, all dating back to before 2005. GOP officials said Kelner was merely speaking hypothetically about why e-mail might be missing for any staffer and not referring to Rove in particular.

That is an awful lot, but the White House feels that they don't even have to turn over emails on RNC accounts, as Think Progress notes:

Next week the House will hold hearings on the firing of federal prosecutors. John Conyers issued the first subpoenas since the Democrats took over in this case. He subpoenaed the fired prosecutors to testify before the Judiciary Committee, which Conyers chairs. It has also come out now that Heather Wilson and Pete Domenci were the two New Mexico congressmembers that pushed one of the fired prosecutors to take action against a Democrat last fall:

Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico pressured the U.S. attorney in their state to speed up indictments in a federal corruption investigation that involved at least one former Democratic state senator, according to two people familiar with the contacts.

I got to say this is big. I said in my Sunday Line Up post that "This Week" looked promising and indeed it was:

In an exclusive interview on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold called on the Senate to publicly admonish President Bush for approving domestic wiretaps on American citizens without first seeking a legally required court order.

"This conduct is right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors," said Feingold, D-Wis., a three-term senator and potential presidential contender.

He said President Bush had, "openly and almost thumbing his nose at the American people," continued the NSA domestic wiretap program.

This is the boldest step anyone has done in this Senate to try and write the wrongs of Bush. John Conyers introduced motions of censure last December but the Republican stronghold is to great on the House to get it to move anywhere. This could be the start of something big. You can view the interview at Crooks and Liars, and view the entire transcript at Raw Story. Just to mention, Frist followed up with trying to play the terrorism card again. True Frist is one of the very few who also supported Dubai taking over our ports.