The "We Are America Alliance" is launching an immigrant voter registration drive today in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities. Its goal is to register 1 million immigrant voters for the November elections.

During the summer, immigrant advocates will encourage community organizations, union halls and churches across the country to become "immigrant action justice centers." Voter registration forms, citizenship information, letters addressed to politicians and phone numbers to call members of Congress will be available. The groups also plan to set up mobile information centers in high-traffic areas.

Conflicting reports continue concerning Rolling Stone Keith Richards' fall from a palm tree on Fiji. While the New Zealand Herald reported he had two brain surgeries, and possibly sustained brain damage, the Rolling Stones deny it.

The Stones' New York-based publicist, Fran Curtis, issued a statement denying a report in the New Zealand Herald that Richards, 62, had undergone two surgeries since his accident and that doctors were concerned about brain damage.

"Keith Richards did not undergo a second operation. The first and only operation was done on Monday, May 8, and was 100 percent successful," the band's statement said. "There was no brain damage. He continues to improve as expected."

Background here.

Bush's ship is sinking into the ocean. He's fallen so far, The New York Times reports he may not be able to reverse the damage. He continues to lose support among his base as well as Democrats and Independents. According to the new CBS-New York Times poll,

Mr. Bush's approval rating for his management of foreign policy, Iraq and the economy have fallen to the lowest levels of his presidency.

....Mr. Bush's overall job approval rating hit another new low, 31 percent, tying the low point of his father, George H. W. Bush, in July 1992, four months before the elder Mr. Bush lost his bid for a second term to Bill Clinton. That is the third lowest approval rating of any president in 50 years; only Richard M. Nixon and Jimmy Carter were viewed less favorably.

There's also good news for Democrats:

Bump and Update: All of the media Replies to Libby's Response to their motions to quash his subpoenas are now in. Here they are: Andrea Mitchell and NBC News; Matthew Cooper; and Time Magazine. Tim Russert is included in the NBC/Mitchell pleading.

******
Original Post 11:19 am

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller filed this response (pdf) yesterday in her attempt to quash the supboena for her notes issued by Team Libby.

Mr. Libby further maintains he will use such information "to contend that, contrary to the allegations in the indictment, it was Ms. Miller who raised this topic in her discussions with Mr. Libby -if the topic was raised at all."

....He also makes the startlingly baseless claim that it may have been Ms. Miller who mentioned Ms. Plame to him.

How does this match up with her public account of her grand jury testimony?

The Durham City Manager today defended the early actions of the Durham police.

A Duke University committee's report blames Durham police for sending mixed messages in the early hours of the lacrosse rape investigation, but Durham's city manager is firing back. The report says Duke officials did not take the case seriously because Durham police officers said it would blow over.

"I'd like to see where that source of information came from," said Durham City Manager Patrick Baker. He admits the first two or three hours after the rape was reported were confusing as to whether the alleged victim was intoxicated or mentally ill. But Baker tells Eyewitness News that once a rape kit was in hand, there was no confusion. "We had launched a full-scale sexual assault investigation, by 4 or 5 that morning," he said.

Check out this one page Duke University Police report (pdf) dated March 14 released today. It states the accuser was picked up at Krogers "and she was claiming" she had been raped by 20 men. The report says the accuser had changed her story several times and the Durham police did not expect more than misdemeanor assault charges to be filed in the case.

President Bush has decided to ignore the 18 page letter (available here pdf) from Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad containing settlement options for the nuclear weapons issue, calling it "a ploy."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent an unexpected letter to President Bush on Monday, in what was seen as an overture for direct talks about Tehran's nuclear program, but U.S. officials dismissed the missive as an eleventh-hour ploy to forestall punitive action by the United Nations.

The letter is thought to be the first direct communication between the two countries' leaders since Iranian militants overthrew the shah and took Americans hostage at the U.S. Embassy in 1979. Diplomats hoped the letter signaled a new willingness on Iran's part to address the standoff over its uranium enrichment program, which the Islamic Republic says is for peaceful energy purposes, but which much of the West suspects is a cover for trying to build nuclear weapons.

The Council of Foreign Relations notes:

by TChris

Why doesn't the Culture of Life focus on this?

An estimated 2 million babies die within their first 24 hours each year worldwide and the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world, according to a new report.

American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan, and newborn mortality is 2.5 times higher in the United States than in Finland, Iceland or Norway, Save the Children researchers found.

The "pro-life" movement's anti-contraception focus compounds the problem.

The report said that family planning and increased contraception use leads to lower maternal and infant death rates

Update: The GOP solution: a plan that could permit health insurers to "offer plans that exclude childhood immunizations and other important services."

President Bush has done it again. Yesterday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals was scheduled to hear oral argument Qassim v. Bush, the Guantanamo case involving the Uighur detainees from Western China who have been held without charges for four years. (Background here.)

On Friday, the Administration filed a motion seeking to declare the case moot, because it had just agreed to release the men to Albania where they will be resettled as refugees.

Brennen Center Associate Counsel Jonathan Hafetz writes:

The government claimed its extensive efforts to find a safe home for the Uighurs, who could not be returned to China for fear of torture, had finally "come to fruition."

Law Professor Geoffrey Stone writes that the Bush Administration's recent threats to prosecute reporters and publishers for printing classified information is not only unprecedented but unlikely to succeed.

the President and some of his supporters have threatened to prosecute reporters and publishers for violating a provision of the 1917 Espionage Act, which provides in part that "whoever having unauthorized possession . . . of information relating to the national defense, which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States . . . willfully communicates . . . the same to any person not entitled to receive it . . . is guilty of an offense punishable by 10 years in prison."

Professor Stone provides three reasons these attempts will fail.

by TChris

Speculative explanations of the recent resignations tendered by CIA officials Porter Goss and Kyle "Dusty" Foggo continue to circulate. The turf battle theory, explored in this Newsweek article, boils down to a power struggle between John Negroponte and the CIA's leadership. The more interesting and salacious theory ties Foggo to Brent Wilkes, the defense contractor who allegedly bribed former Rep. Randall "Duke" Cunningham.

The CIA has acknowledged that its internal watchdog is investigating if Foggo helped steer any contracts to Wilkes.

Wilkes' parties were attended by "at least six former and current members of Congress" as well as intelligence officials and businessmen, according to Ken Silverstein at Harper's. Wilkes reportedly provided prostitutes to Cunningham; as reported here, federal agents are asking whether other congressional representatives received similar favors.

by TChris

About 47,000 high school seniors who failed California's exit exam may be allowed to graduate anyway if, as this article predicts, Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman rules in a class action lawsuit that California can't withhold diplomas from a group of students it failed to educate.

Freedman said he was apt to agree with the plaintiffs' argument that the test infringes on students' rights by virtue that not all California students have access to the same quality of education. ...

Among the complaints is contradictory curriculum taught in schools that does not match what is being tested on the exams, and a lack of qualified teachers.

Firedoglake beat me to it, but I've been pondering contest questions for a few days now. So I'm joining in with a TalkLeft contest. Feel free to enter them both. To win TalkLeft's contest, you need to correctly answer these questions:

1. What date will the Indictment be returned by the Grand Jury?
2. Will the Indictment name only Karl Rove or Karl Rove and others? If others, who will they be?
3. What crimes will be charged for each person you name and how many counts for each? (Example: Only Karl Rove, Three counts of false statements to investigators, two counts of perjury to the grand jury, one count of obstruction of justice, one count of conspiracy)
4. Who, if anyone, will be "Offical A" in the Rove Indictment?

The first commenter with the correct answers wins. The winner will be determined by me and TChris. A tie will be determined by Last Night in Little Rock.

The prizes: