by Sen. Carl Levin [courtesy of Politics on HuffingtonPost.com]

Because the administration has proved itself unable and unwilling to take the necessary steps to provide affordable energy supplies to the American people, it is now up to the Congress.

by DHinMI [courtesy of Daily Kos]

Michigan offered up a plan for seating its delegates:

Under that proposal -- hammered out weeks ago by Sen. Carl Levin, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and National Committeewoman Debbie Dingell -- Sen. Hillary Clinton would get 69 of the state's delegates and Sen. Barack Obama, 59.

The compromise would cut only slightly into Obama's lead. The Illinois senator has 1,846.5 delegates to Clinton's 1,696, according to the Associated Press.

The proposal also would seat the state's 29 superdelegates.

The proposal essentially splits the difference between the 73 delegates Clinton won under state party rules in the disallowed primary -- Obama had taken his name off the ballot -- and an Obama proposal to award each candidate half the delegates.

State Party Chairman Mark Brewer said he was directed during a conference call with the state party's 80-member executive committee Wednesday night to bring the plan as a challenge to the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws panel when it meets May 31 in Washington.

Brewer said support for the compromise was sizable.

Among those supporting the plan:

DNC member Joel Ferguson, a co-chairman of Clinton's Michigan campaign who said he could support the 69-59 plan.

"While we compromised on how many delegates we get, we still recognize the plurality of the election," Ferguson said, noting that proposal lets Clinton keep a 10-delegate lead in light of her primary victory.

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by Jonathan Singer [courtesy of MyDD]

CNN has the story:

Michigan's Democrats have released another new proposal yesterday in their quest to ensure their state will be represented at this summer's Democratic National Convention.

Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Sen. Carl Levin, Democratic National Committee Member Debbie Dingell and United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger - the working group that has been meeting to try to end the impasse -- sent a letter to state party chair Mark Brewer Tuesday in which they urged the Democratic National Committee to seat the Michigan delegation under a formula that would give a 10-delegate edge to Hillary Clinton.

Clinton was the only major candidate to appear on the ballot in the state's January contest, which she won with 55 percent of the vote. No delegates were awarded because of national party penalties on Michigan Democrats for moving up their primary date. Forty percent of January's primary voters chose the "uncommitted" option on the ballot; a majority of those "uncommitted" delegates are backing Barack Obama.

Clinton's campaign has said that the results of the January vote - which would give her an 18-delegate edge, 73-55 - should count. Obama's campaign had said the delegates should be split evenly, 64-64.

by The Huffington Post News Team [courtesy of Politics on HuffingtonPost.com]

If you cast your mind back to the evening of the Pennsylvania primary, you'll remember that the Clinton campaign began to develop a pretext for...

by kos [courtesy of Daily Kos]

We already had top Clinton supporter Harold Ickes, who voted to sanction Michigan at the DNC, then now complaints about the sanctions he himself approved.

Now we have Terry McAuliffe himself, as DNC chairman, enforcing the very rules he now thinks should be broken.

Mark Nickolas digs out the relevant passages from Terry McAuliffe's own book:

"I'm going outside the primary window," [Michigan Sen. Carl Levin] told me definitively.

"If I allow you to do that, the whole system collapses," I said. "We will have chaos. I let you make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously and you lost."

He kept insisting that they were going to move up Michigan on their own, even though if they did that, they would lose half their delegates. By that point Carl and I were leaning toward each other over a table in the middle of the room, shouting and dropping the occasional expletive.

"You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said.

"Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff, Carl, you go ahead and do it."

We glared at each other some more, but there was nothing much left to say. I was holding all the cards and Levin knew it.

[Source: McAuliffe, Terry. What A Party!, p. 325.]

Now?

by The Huffington Post News Team [courtesy of Politics on HuffingtonPost.com]

WASHINGTON — Iraq's financial free ride may be over. After five years, Republicans and Democrats seem to have found common ground on at least one...

by DarkSyde [courtesy of Daily Kos]

As millions of Americans hurry to complete their taxes by April 15, yet more indication that those hard earned dollars are being needlessly lost in the sands of Iraq. With oil over $100 a barrel, Iraqi coffers are bulging with cash. Billions of dollars in fact. So, those revenues are being used to pay for Iraqi security and improvements to infrastructure, like the neocons promised five long years ago, right?

CNN -- He was replying to Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who last week complained that after five years of war, "it is still the American taxpayer who is shouldering the greatest economic burden in Iraq." Levin, a key congressional Democrat, made the comment during a series of hearings last week in the House and Senate on the status of the war. With the 5-year-old war's cost to U.S. taxpayers now estimated at more than $600 billion, the Iraqi windfall provoked sharp questions from lawmakers to the top U.S. general in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, who were among those who testified.

"This nation's facing record deficits, and the Iraqis have translated their oil revenues into budget surpluses rather than effective services," Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday.

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by The Huffington Post News Team [courtesy of Politics on HuffingtonPost.com]

Some quotes from lawmakers during Tuesday's Senate hearings on Iraq, which featured testimony from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker: ___...

by Matt Stoller [courtesy of Open Left - Front Page]