Here's another collection from the Blue newsroom...
USA Today: "Christian right groups set sights on '08"
WASHINGTON -- Leaders of conservative Christian organizations plan to jointly interview Republican contenders for the 2008 presidential nomination, perhaps even endorsing one of them - steps that could expand their already considerable political influence...
Gary Bauer, president of American Values, said in an interview that the sit-down sessions, likely to begin after the 2006 elections, would be "a very effective way to nail down where people are on cultural issues." He said candidates have become "very astute" at answering written questionnaires in ways that avoid making firm commitments.
Those who plan to participate include leading figures of the Christian right: James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, the Rev. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association, Perkins and Bauer. Others also would join them...
Evangelical Christians, who overwhelmingly backed President Bush in 2004, already are an influential constituency in the Republican Party. Coordinated action could increase that influence, especially in a crowded GOP primary field.
"It would have an impact," Republican strategist Charles Black said.
And on a related note...
The Hill: "Conservative groups to spend over $20M on Supreme Court"
Progress for America (PFA), a group that is quickly becoming the conservative counterpart to liberal 527 groups such as America Coming Together (ACT), pledged yesterday to spend at least $18 million on the expected fight to replace William Rehnquist, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The amount that PFA intends to spend on the court fight alone is more than half of the total funds ACT expects to raise for the 2006 election cycle. During the 2004 election cycle, ACT raised more money than any other 527 group, according to PoliticalMoneyLine.
Should PFA meet its fundraising goal, it would significantly undercut the perception that Democrats are more helped by 527 fundraising. Congress is considering legislation to restrict the activities of 527s, named after a section of the tax code.
Officials with PFA revealed their Supreme Court plans yesterday. Progress for America has already spent $3.2 million on television and radio ads advocating up-or-down votes for circuit-court nominees Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown.
Another conservative group, the Judicial Confirmation Network, has budgeted $3 million on a Senate battle to fill the next court vacancy. As a result, conservative groups are expected to spend more than $20 million to counter groups on the left that are expected to launch a coordinated effort to block President Bush's nominee, who is likely to be conservative.
NY Times: "Lawyers Fought U.S. Move to Curb Tobacco Penalty"
WASHINGTON, June 15 - Senior Justice Department officials overrode the objections of career lawyers running the government's tobacco racketeering trial and ordered them to reduce the penalties sought at the close of the nine-month trial by $120 billion, internal documents and interviews show.
The trial team argued that the move would be seen as politically motivated and legally groundless.
"We do not want politics to be perceived as the underlying motivation, and that is certainly a risk if we make adjustments in our remedies presentation that are not based on evidence," the two top lawyers for the trial team, Sharon Y. Eubanks and Stephen D. Brody, wrote in a memorandum on May 30 to Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum that was reviewed by The New York Times.
The two lawyers said the lower penalty recommendation ordered by Mr. McCallum would weaken the department's position in any possible settlement with the industry and "create an incentive for defendants to engage in future misconduct by making the misconduct profitable."
At the close of a major trial that dozens of Justice Department lawyers spent more than five years preparing, the department stunned a federal courtroom last week by reducing the penalties sought against the industry, from $130 billion to $10 billion, over accusations of fraud and racketeering.
The decision generated protests from health advocates and Democratic lawmakers, who accused the Bush administration of political motives, and it prompted an internal departmental inquiry. But details of the behind-the-scenes debate over the issue had remained a mystery...
The newly disclosed documents make clear that the decision was made after weeks of tumult in the department and accusations from lawyers on the tobacco team that Mr. McCallum and other political appointees had effectively undermined their case. Mr. McCallum, No. 3 at the department, is a close friend of President Bush from their days as Skull & Bones members at Yale, and he was also a partner at an Atlanta law firm, Alston & Bird, that has done legal work for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, part of Reynolds American, a defendant in the case.
"Everyone is asking, 'Why now?' " said a Justice Department employee involved in the case who insisted on anonymity for fear of retaliation. "Why would you throw the case down the toilet at the very last hour, after five years?"
The House handed President Bush the first defeat in his effort to preserve the broad powers of the USA Patriot Act, voting yesterday to curtail the FBI's ability to seize library and bookstore records for terrorism investigations.
Bush has threatened to veto any measure that weakens those powers. The surprise 238 to 187 rebuke to the White House was produced when a handful of conservative Republicans, worried about government intrusion, joined with Democrats who are concerned about personal privacy.
One provision of the Patriot Act makes it possible for the FBI to obtain a wide variety of personal records about a suspected terrorist -- including library transactions -- with an order from a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, where the government must meet a lower threshold of proof than in criminal courts. Under the House change, officials would have to get search warrants from a judge or subpoenas from a grand jury to seize records about a suspect's reading habits...
The vote -- on an amendment to limit spending in a huge bill covering appropriations for science as well as the departments of Justice, State and Commerce -- came as Bush is traveling the country to build support for reauthorizing 15 provisions of the Patriot Act that are scheduled to expire at year's end.
House Republican leadership aides said they plan to have the provision removed when a conference committee meets to work out differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. "The administration has threatened to veto the bill over this extraneous rider, and there are too many important initiatives in the bill for that to happen," said Appropriations Committee spokesman John Scofield.
ABC News: "Memo: Pentagon Concerned About Legality of Interrogation Techniques"
June 15, 2005 -- The interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in 2002 triggered concerns among senior Pentagon officials that they could face criminal prosecution under U.S. anti-torture laws, ABC News has learned.
Notes from a series of meetings at the Pentagon in early 2003 - obtained by ABC News - show that Alberto Mora, general counsel of the Navy, warned his superiors that they might be breaking the law.
During a January 2003 meeting involving top Pentagon lawyer William Haynes and other officials, the memo shows that Mora warned that "use of coercive techniques...has military, legal, and political implication...has international implication...and exposes us to liability and criminal prosecution."
Mora's deep concerns about interrogations at Guantanamo have been known, but not his warning that top officials could go to prison.
In another meeting held March 8, 2003, the group of top Pentagon lawyers concluded - according to the memo - "we need a presidential letter approving the use of the controversial interrogation to cover those who may be called upon to use them."
