(cross posted at calitics.com and downwithtyranny.blogspot.com)

Man, what a time to be a Democrat! After years of rebuilding our party through the netroots, we're poised to make MAJOR gains this November in what will probably be an even more historic election than 2006. We have an amazingly strong (presumptive) nominee in CA-41 and nationally, more Senate seats up for grabs than you can count on two hands, three special election victories in deep red territory, and probably tens of new House seats that will flip our way.

But I'm not here to gloat about our election successes so far or prematurely celebrate our prospects in November. I'm writing to you today to introduce you to a woman who has the best chance of unseating the Tom Delay of 2008: Jerry Lewis (R), CA-41. This amazing woman is Dr. Rita Ramirez-Dean. (Follow me after the jump...)

(So I do these every month for Calitics, but it occurs to me that I've never cross-posted it here.  So, um, here.)

Getting this one in under the wire.  On the last day of April, with just over a month to go until the June primaries, and six months to go until Election Day, there's a lot going on all over the state in the Congressional races.  Of the 19 seats in California currently held by Republicans, 17 will be contested in the fall, and some strongly so.  And we now have a full 34 Democrats with the election of Jackie Speier early in the month, and only one of them is a serious challenge.  We also have the first quarter of 2008 fundraising numbers, which will raise some eyebrows.  You can track these races yourself with the 2008 Race Tracker wiki.

A note: I'm mainly getting my numbers on cash-on-hand competitiveness from the Swing State Project.  Fundraising information comes from the FEC.

Here we go...

The latest from House Republicans:

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) announced Thursday that he will try to attach a measure updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as an amendment to the war supplemental bill....

"It’s time for the Democratic leaders to put our national security ahead of the desires of trial lawyers and pass the FISA bill that was passed by the Senate," the lawmaker said. "This Congress should make this legislation one of its top priorities until the intelligence gap is closed."

Meet Rep. Jerry Lewis:

Congratulations to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) lawyers! They've surpassed $1 million in legal fees from the lawmaker....

Since June of 2006, Lewis has paid just over $1 million in campaign funds to some heavy-hitters at the law firm Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher, according to campaign disclosures. A $62,000 payment on December 12th last year put him over the top.

It's hard to be a better friend to trial lawyers than that.

Do these people have no shame?

The LA Times is reporting that the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles has been trying to ring up impressive numbers - by having his prosecutors going after, well, parking violators:

The disgruntled prosecutors in Los Angeles say they are now spending an exorbitant amount of time working on less significant cases -- mail theft, smaller drug offenses and illegal immigration -- to reach quotas. They cited the recent disbanding of the office's public integrity and environmental crimes section, a unit with a history of working on complex police corruption and political corruption cases, as evidence of a shift toward high-volume, low-quality prosecutions . . .

Every now and again I get the breath knocked out of me.  Today it was by an editorial in the New York Times decrying how much Michael Mukasey seems like his predecessaor Alberto Gonzalez.  What happened?  Mukasey's Department of Justice has allowed the U. S. Attorney’s public corruption office in Los Angeles to be disbanded, and it's 17 attorneys will be transferred to other units.  

This, of course, stops in it's tracks the corruption investigation into Representative Jerry Lewis (Republican, of course).  

And guess who is crying foul?  Dianne Feinstein.

Greetings, fans of the most beautiful Congressional District in the state of California, accursed with one of the nation's worst Congressional Reps, the Republican John Doolittle of CA- 04.  A Defense Department contractor named Brent Wilkes is currently on trial down in San Diego, CA, for bribing another Republican Congressman, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who has already pled guilty to corruption and is currently serving an 8 year jail term.   Rep. Doolittle, under investigation, not yet indicted, has also given Defense Dept. earmarks to Brent Wilkes.

This is part 2 and will cover the trial testimony.  For part one, the background story on what and how the Brent Wilkes bribery trial interconnects with the corruption problems of the Republican Party, Jack Abramoff, and the Rovian Bush White House's US Attorney "Gonzogate" firing scandal, plus our very own Congressman Doolittle, please see my previous Oct 9 story, CA- 04 Trick or Treat, Doolittle's Still Not Off the Hookergate Wilkes Trial here:  http://www.dailykos.com/...

More below, including grapes, hookers, and hot tubs:

According to RollCall, a former staffer for the House Appropriations Committee that worked for then Chairman Jerry Lewis said he intends to defy a federal subpoena he was served today from the US District Court for the Central District in California. You may have read about Lewis' attempts to obstruct investigations into his conduct here, when USA Debra Wong Yang was paid $1.5 million to leave the Justice Dept. and work for the firm defending Lewis.  

UPDATE: The staffer's name is Greg Lankler. He worked as an assistant on the Appropriation Defense Subcommittee. Thanks to wanderindiana for the find.

A lot of people are thinking that this represents an extension of the US Attorneys scandal.  Rachel Paulose, a certified nut who was given the Minnesota office after the presiding US Attorney "quit," is under investigation for dressing down several employees (and leaving classified information sitting on her desk - h/t FishOutofWater).  According to one account, she used the words “fat,” “black,” “lazy” and “ass.”  But pay attention to the investigating body:

The federal Office of Special Counsel is investigating allegations that Rachel Paulose, U.S. attorney for Minnesota, mishandled classified information, decided to fire the subordinate who called it to her attention, retaliated against others in the office who crossed her, and made racist remarks about one employee.

The Office of Special Counsel, ay?  Somehow I don't think they're going to have any cash in the cookie jar to work on the whole Paulose thing.

(Diarist's note: Although kos made mention of emptywheel's coverage from The Next Hurrah, I'm surprised to see no one here has picked up on this story from yesterday's Wall Street Journal. I cut out the article from yesterday's hard copy, figuring it wouldn't be available free online and I'd have to scan it in, but - lo and behold - the Dow Jones folks decided to make it available to hoi polloi, so here you go . . . - o.h.)

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday the White House talking point that "a budget squeeze" has left U.S. Attorneys' offices around the country with no choice but to take on fewer cases and to "slow down" ongoing cases.

Huh. Okaaaayy . . .

LEWIS TO RETIRE - Novak; LEWIS AIDES SAY NO DECISION HAS BEEN MADE

Let's Convince the Congressman It's Time to Go

Last week, conservative columnist Robert Novak reported that sixteen-term Republican Congressman Jerry Lewis is likely to retire at the end of the current term. In recent years, Lewis has been no stranger to controversy and has been one of the most ethically-challenged members of the GOP caucus.

Staff and advisers to the San Bernadino Congressman denied the veracityof Novak's reporting- saying Lewis had not made any decisions regarding his future.

What is it with GOP members of the House Appropriations Committee (Lewis is currently the ranking member)? It seems you can't let them too close to the taxpayers' money, they apparently can't control themselves. Before you know it, they're pigging out on pork.

It's time for us to send this pig to the slaughterhouse.

In what I expect to be the first of possibly three Republican retirements in California, Robert Novak is reporting that Jerry Lewis will not seek reelection.

Whilst reviewing some enemy websites this afternoon, one article in particular made me quite happy!  If anything good comes out of the Immigration Bill it is the sight of the red-neck, not so veiled racist wing of the War Party chew at their chains a bit, and blame their leadership for siding with, of all people, Senator Kennedy!

Of course, being good racists and not wanting to actually come out and proclaim their hatred of brown-skinned Mexicans, they have decided to attack the leadership for its lack of ethics in other matters; namely, the entire Cunningham/Doolittle/Calvert debacle...

Welcome to the Overnight News Digest.

A big thanks to Sidof79 who edited last night's digest and best wishes to him on his graduation day.

Top Stories

• A half-mile wide tornado destroyed Greensburg, Kansas, killed 9 people, and injured dozens of its residents. At least 90 percent of Greensburg was either destroyed or heavily damaged. Governor Kathleen Sebelius declared Kiowa County a disaster area.

• George W. Bush hit all-time approval low of 28 percent in a new Newsweek poll. "A majority of Americans believe Bush is not politically courageous: 55 percent vs. 40 percent. And nearly two out of three Americans (62 percent) believe his recent actions in Iraq show he is 'stubborn and unwilling to admit his mistakes'".

• Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson obliterated Sean Hannity at a University of Utah Debate on Impeachment.

In an op-ed piece in today's New York Times, Adam Cohen adds another allegation that the prosecutor purge came from within the White House for political purposes -- in particular to thwart the investigations into Republican Congressional scandals (Reps. Cunningham and Lewis, to be precise).  This op-ed indicates those scandals were of prime concern to the White House, and Yang (along with Carol Lam) was a priority.  More after the jump.

The Proto George W. Bush Dan Quayle has not been in the headlines much lately. After mispelling potatoe potato and being mocked mercilessly, he seems to have dropped off the public radar. He is not gone, even though forgotten.

Quayle got a plum gig as chairman of Cereberus which is a billion dollar vulture fund company. They take over dying companies and pick at them like vultures. What they also do is try to get plum governmental contracts for the units that they hold onto.

Let's flash back to 2005. The Republicans were still in charge, the corruption was flowing like toxic waste dumped into a pristine river, and Cereberus had bought $140,000,000 into World Com which helped operate a communications system for the Navy and Marines that worked about as well as George W. Bush's Iraq strategy.

Sunday Lineup

• Meet the Press: Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE).
• Face the Nation: SoS Condi Rice; Rep. John Murtha (D-PA); Politico's Roger Simon.
• This Week: SoS Condi Rice; Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI); Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS); actress Natalie Portman; roundtable of ABC's Martha Raddatz, Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria and George Will.
• Fox News Sunday: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Cindy McCain; remembering ex-MPAA chief Jack Valenti.
• Late Edition: SoS Condi Rice; Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL); Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA); Iraqi FM Hoshyar Zebari; European Commiss. Pres. Jose Manuel Barroso; a roundtable of Dana Bash, Joe Johns, and Ed Henry

Hey Sunday talk hosts! Ask Condi about this!

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

FACT: From 1997 to 2000, Lam was the Chief of the Major Fraud Section at the Southern District of California.  For the 11 years before that she was Assistant US Attorney at the same office.

FACT: Carol Lam was appointed as interim US Attorney for the Southern District of California on September 4, 2002. On November 12, 2002 she was sworn in as a presidential (George W. Bush) appointment.

Another Bush scoundrel is Debra Wong Yang, another US Attorney who was not fired, and did not stay...no, she resigned. Did she do so out of a deep sense of outrage over the Bush Administration's treatment of the Judiciary Branch? Did she resign to go to Peace Corps or to work pro bono at the local Los Angeles legal assistance program? No. She is a Republican. And, her case is rather a hybrid version. She did not get fired as Lam was fired: because Lam was getting to close to the inner-sanctum of the Bush Crime Family; no, Yang took the easier out--a path lined with millions of dollars, and a path that would have gone completely under the radar had Gonzogate not exploded. Poor Ms Yang...  May you receive a subpoena as well!