In an attempt to bring “solidarity among House Republicans,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) called the Senate Republicans favoring withdrawal “wimps” at a caucus meeting today. Boehner was then criticized by Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM), who said discussions of war “should always be taken seriously.”

The attorney for former White House counsel Harriet Miers has said that she will not appear before the House Judiciary Committee in tomorrow’s hearing, electing not to pursue the course of Sara Taylor who chose to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee today.

In a July 10 letter to Miers’ attorney, White House counsel Fred Fielding wrote:

We have been informed by the Department of Justice that Ms. Miers has absolute immunity from compelled Congressional testimony as to matters occurring while she was a senior adviser to the President. … Therefore, in view of this constitutional immunity, I respectfully request that you inform Ms. Miers that the President has directed her not to appear at the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, July 12, 2007.

Read the letter here.

Today, Miers’ counsel informed the House Judiciary Committee that, pursuant to Bush’s order to defy Congress’ subpoena, Miers will not appear tomorrow. Earlier, Miers’ lawyer had suggested she would appear at the hearing. As TPM Muckraker noted “Miers does in fact have a choice” to attend and answer questions, even though Bush has asserted executive privilege.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers issued the following statement:

“I am extremely disappointed in the White House’s direction to Ms. Miers that she not even show up to assert the privilege before the Committee,” Conyers said. “We understand that the White House has asserted privilege over both her testimony and documents, and we are prepared to consider those claims at tomorrow’s hearing.”

Congress can issue a contempt citation if Miers does not appear. Asked last Sunday if he would consider doing that, Conyers said, “Well, yes. It means moving forward in the process that would require him to comply with the subpoenas like most other people.” Marty Lederman explained the potential legal avenues Congress might pursue at that point.

Yesterday, NARAL discovered that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had revised a government website, 4parents.gov, with biased and misleading ideological claims about abortion. From new website:

Some teen pregnancies end in abortion. Abortions can have complications. There may be emotional consequences, as well: some women say that they feel sad and some use more alcohol or drugs than before.

The previous version of the site contained factual information about the rates of teen pregnancy. But these new “facts” on the site are misleading. As the Guttmacher Institute’s May 2006 report noted:

[T]he APA [American Psychological Association] found that “women who are terminating pregnancies that are wanted or who lack support from their partner or parents for the abortion may feel a greater sense of loss, anxiety and distress. For most women, however, the time of greatest distress is likely to be before an abortion; after an abortion, women frequently report feeling ‘relief and happiness.’”

There is no “right” way to feel after an abortion, and it is not HHS’s role to highlight information implying that women regret having abortions. Women feel a “range of emotions after an abortion, such as relief, sadness, happiness and feelings of loss.” “It is outrageous that the department charged with providing Americans objective information about health is disguising unproven political rhetoric as sound science,” noted NARAL president Nancy Keenan.

This is not the first time 4parents.gov has put forth misleading information. When the site launched in 2005, it told parents “to convince their teens to stop having sex by telling their children that they are ‘worth it.’” But no resources were provided for “parents whose teen remains sexually active, implying that these youth are not ‘worth it.’” It also referred to a “fetus” as an “unborn baby.”

Yesterday, Richard Carmona told Congress that when he served as Bush’s Surgeon General, he was often muzzled and censored from speaking out on key issues, such as stem cell research and women’s issues. “Anything that doesn’t fit into the political appointees’ ideological, theological, or political agenda is ignored, marginalized, or simply buried,” said Carmona.

UPDATE: In 2005, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent Leavitt a letter with reviews by scientific experts who concluded that 4parents.gov’s content appeared “to have been guided by ideology.” He also noted that the website was not created by government scientists, as the administration claimed, “but rather through a no-bid contract to the National Physician’s Center for Family Resources, an obscure organization that has taken positions against scientific agencies on important matters of public health.”

Digg It!

See the previous version of the website: Read more

Number of Americans who “believe that the U.S. troop surge in Iraq was a success.” Just 38 percent of Republicans consider the President’s strategy successful.

A new Pentagon Inspector General report finds that “the Defense Department put U.S. troops in Iraq at risk by awarding contracts for badly needed armored vehicles to companies that failed to deliver them on schedule.”