A little bit of good news…….

A federal judge yesterday refused to delay his order requiring former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers to testify in Congress, another legal setback for the Bush administration’s attempts to limit cooperation with Democratic lawmakers.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates rejected the administration’s argument that Miers should not be required to cooperate with Congress while the government appeals an earlier ruling he issued.

In the previous decision, Bates rejected the administration’s assertions that Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten were protected by executive privilege and could not be forced to testify or provide documents to Congress about the controversial firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006. The judge said that the government’s position was excessively broad and that senior aides must be more specific about the information they say is protected.

The new ruling will make it more difficult for Miers to avoid testifying by running out the clock on the 110th Congress, which ends in early January. Without a stay, she could be compelled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee as early as next month.

More at the Washington Post

by Eleanor Clift
from Newsweek

A longtime confidant of the Bush and Cheney families describes the dangerous influence of the vice president.

June 29, 2007 - Dick Cheney is like “Zelig,” the Woody Allen character with the uncanny ability to turn up everywhere. We always suspected his dark influence throughout the government, and now it’s been documented chapter and verse in an exhaustive series in The Washington Post. Cheney operates largely in secret, and because he is such a skilled bureaucratic infighter, he’s able to do end runs around everybody, including President Bush, who does nothing to rein in his evil twin.

Under the guise of national security, Cheney has gotten away with curbing civil liberties, condoning torture and launching an unnecessary war. He’s also chipped away at environmental regulations and done myriad favors for his friends in the business world. His stealthy intervention undermined former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman and led to her resignation. He shapes tax policy and energy policy and whatever else strikes his fancy, installing himself as president of Corporate America.

Cheney’s above-the-law arrogance finally met its match this week, when he declined to give national archivists who oversee the handling of classified data in the executive branch access to his papers. Cheney’s argument: that he’s not part of the executive branch because he also serves as president of the Senate. The claim was ludicrous on its face and opened up Cheney to ridicule. Democrats can-t muster the votes to cut off funding for the war, but when House leader Rahm Emanuel threatened to cut off funds for the vice president’s operation, Cheney backed down.

I had lunch with Vic Gold, an old friend of the Cheney’s, on the third day of the Post series. I asked him how he felt reading about Dick’s dark adventures. “A tremendous feeling of validation,” he said. In a recent book, Gold described Cheney as a “mega-maniacal paranoid” whose secret empire within the government had captured the Bush presidency and helped bring the Republican Party to the brink of ruin. Gold’s book, published in April, is titled: “Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP.” (It was originally titled “How the Neo-Cons Took Over the GOP,” but midway through the process, Gold got so angry he changed the verb to “Destroyed.” )

read more at NEWSWEEK through MSNBC