Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy announced Thursday he had subpoenaed White House adviser Karl Rove and his deputy. He accused them of stonewalling a widening probe into the firing of federal prosecutors.

“The Bush-Cheney White House continues to place great strains on our constitutional system of checks and balances,” Leahy said in issuing the subpoenas. “Not since the darkest days of the Nixon Administration have we seen efforts to corrupt federal law enforcement for partisan political gain and such efforts to avoid accountability.”

The American Civil Liberties Union Wednesday said it is “do or die time” to save the U.S. Constitution.

The ACLU in a statement urged the U.S. Congress to “vote to hold White House officials in contempt for refusing to cooperate with legitimate congressional subpoenas.”

The ACLU statement said the issue had become “a constitutional crisis that threatens to destroy the separation of powers.”

Fidel Castro suggested that Washington has deliberately failed to stop terrorist attacks against Americans because it needed to “deliver a bang” that would justify its war on terror.

In the latest in a series of essays that Cuba’s 80-year-old Maximum leader has begun writing every few days, Castro on Sunday seized on U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s comments this past week expressing a “gut feeling” that the United States faces an increased risk of attack this summer.

“The government of the United States sees and hears all, with or without legal authority,” Castro wrote. “They can prevent any attack on their people, unless there is some imperial need to deliver a bang so that they can carry on with and justify the brutal war which has been declared against the culture, religion, economy and independence of other peoples.”

Former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten, the current Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush, will likely be charged with contempt by the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday this week.

“This investigation, including the reluctant but necessary decision to move forward with contempt, has been a very deliberative process, taking care at each step to respect the Executive Branch’s legitimate prerogatives,” said Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, in a statement. “I’ve allowed the White House and Ms. Miers every opportunity to cooperate with this investigation, either voluntarily or under subpoena. It is still my hope that they will reconsider this hard-line position, and cooperate with our investigation so that we can get to the bottom of this matter.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has said that if three more Congress Members get behind impeachment he will start the impeachment proceedings.

I was a guest today on Bree Walker’s radio show. She’s the progressive radio host from California who purchased Cindy Sheehan’s land from her in Crawford, Texas.