the body politek

Attorney General Michael Mukasey said yesterday that he sees “no reason for prosecutions or for pardons for those who gave legal advice on the Bush administration’s terrorism policies. “There is absolutely no evidence” that legal opinions on surveillance or interrogation policy were issued “for any reason other than to protect the security of the country,” claimed Mukasey.

House and Senate leaders are taking up legislation to cut the pay of Sen. Hillary Clinton and other members of Congress nominated by President-elect Barack Obama. The Emoluments Clause of the Constitution prohibits new appointees from “serving in a confirmable position within the executive branch if that position has had its pay increased while they were serving in Congress.”

Chris Matthews is being advised to resign his post at MSNBC as soon as possible if he is serious about running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. Despite the fact that Matthews is currently looking for a house in the state, some at NBC believe Matthews’s potential candidacy is simply a “negotiating ploy to jack up his contract.”

While the auto industry is arguing to Congress that it needs a financial bailout to avoid recession, CBS News reports that automakers spent nearly $50 million lobbying lawmakers in the first nine months of the year, along with another $15 million in campaign contributions.

In a surprise move, the United Auto Workers announced yesterday that the union would make major concessions in its contracts with the big three auto companies to help them lobby Congress for federal aid. The union said “members were willing to sacrifice job security provisions and financing for retiree health care” to keep GM and Chrysler out of bankruptcy. More »

Yes, the cigarette manufacturer really did just compare itself to the NAACP.

Today in Oslo, Norway, over 100 countries began signing the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The nations signing the cluster bomb treaty argue that the unexploded munitions pose a “deadly hazard to children, farmers and others long after a conflict ends.” In a surprising last-minute change of policy, Afghanistan agreed to join the treaty.

Russia and the U.S. remain two of the key holdouts to the agreement. Today during the White House press briefing, veteran reporter Helen Thomas pressed spokeswoman Dana Perino to explain the Bush administration’s opposition:

THOMAS: Is the President going to sign the anti-cluster bomb treaty? Apparently this is –

PERINO: Right, this is a treaty that was passed out of the U.N. Security Council several months ago. We said then that, no, we would not be signing on to it. And so I think that the signing is actually — we did not participate in the passage of it, and therefore we’re not going to sign it either.

THOMAS: Why not?

PERINO: What I have forgotten is all the reasons why, and so I’ll get it for you. (Laughter.)

Watch it:

When Perino was asked about the administration’s position on the treaty last May, she stressed the importance of cleaning up the munitions but not ending the practice. “We are deeply concerned about the humanitarian impact, not only of just cluster munitions, but really the whole range of munitions that are used at war,” she said. “It’s a moral obligation to clean up, and we do so.”

The State Department has acknowledged that “there are legitimate humanitarian concerns” about the use of cluster bombs, but argues that “it is going to be impossible to ban cluster munitions, as many in the Oslo process would like to do, because these are weapons that have a certain military utility and are of use. The United States relies on them as an important part of our own defense strategy.”

According to a new release from the Energy Information Administration, “U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2007 were 1.4 percent above the 2006 total.” This increase erases the 1% drop in emissions in 2006, for which Bush claimed credit (even though the decrease was due to an unusually warm winter and high fuel prices). U.S. annual emissions are now 17% greater than they were in 1990. To avoid catastrophic climate change, the International Panel on Climate Change projects that “industrialized countries would need to reduce emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.”

Fresh off his victory in yesterday’s run-off Senate race, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) told Glenn Beck today that he had won a “big victory on basic conservative principles.” He lauded Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) efforts on his behalf, and told Beck that he would push moderate Republicans to move rightward:

BECK: Yeah. Do you think the Republicans are going to get it? … I mean, do you think you are going to be able to hold 40 together on some of the big issues of the day?

CHAMBLISS: […] Having that tighter margin I think is going to give us an opportunity to go to some of our moderates who have not always voted with conservatives and say, look, you know, this is the opportunity we have to define our party, this is the opportunity we have to ultimately move back in the majority. If we don’t stick together, then it’s over. Our movement’s going to be delayed and delayed. But if we do stick together and then what you’re going to find in your state where you’re elected as a moderate, you are going to find folks rallying around you.

Listen here:

A recent Gallup poll found that only 35 percent of independents want the Republican party to become more conservative. In total, 61 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of the party.

Transcript: More »

Last Monday, President-elect Barack Obama announced the nomination of his campaign’s senior foreign policy adviser Susan Rice as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Obama added that he would restore Rice’s position to Cabinet-level rank, as it had been during the Clinton administration.

But in searching for an alternative perspective of this decision, it appears that some in the media got lazy. Instead of providing a thoughtful counterpoint from a respected and credible voice, the easy route seems to be just to quote U.N. basher John Bolton:

– The New York Times: [Bolton] said it was unwise to elevate the position to the cabinet again. “One, it overstates the role and importance the U.N. should have in U.S. foreign policy,” Mr. Bolton said. ”Second, you shouldn’t have two secretaries in the same department.”

– USA Today: [Bolton] said Cabinet rank creates the potential for bureaucratic conflict, especially with the State Department. Bolton also questioned whether the U.N. — whose culture he says is “impervious to change” — should be so central to U.S. foreign policy.

Naturally, Fox News gave Bolton air time, who, having once served as U.S. ambassador to the world body himself, offered Rice some advice: U.N. ambassadors “are not sent to New York to be platonic guardians with other ambassadors for the good of the world.” Watch it:

Of course Bolton thinks elevating Rice to a cabinet level position and refocusing U.S. foreign policy on greater international cooperation is a bad idea. He hates the United Nations. Bolton famously said “there is no such thing as the United Nations” and if the U.N. building in New York “lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.” Not only that, but Bolton once boasted that he never took any international law classes while attending Yale.

In fact, Bolton’s credibility on issues of peace and cooperation are certainly suspect, as he has spent much of the past year calling for war with Iran. Even President Bush thinks Bolton is a fraud.

But that doesn’t seem to stop the media from continuing to quote him. After all, without much to do these days, perhaps Bolton is more than happy to sit by the phone.

A new poll commissioned by the LGBT advocacy group GLAAD found encouraging news for supporters of gay rights:

– Three-quarters of U.S. adults (75%) favor either marriage or domestic partnerships/civil unions for gay and lesbian couples. Only about two in 10 (22%) say gay and lesbian couples should have no legal recognition.

– Almost two-thirds (64%) of U.S. adults favor allowing openly gay military personnel to serve in the armed forces.

– About six in 10 (63%) U.S. adults favor expanding hate crime laws to cover gay and transgender people.

– Nearly seven out of 10 U.S. adults (69%) oppose laws that would ban qualified gay and lesbian couples from adopting children.

Though conservatives criticized the poll for being funded by an advocacy organization, some of its results are actually more tempered than other polls. For example, a Washington Post poll in July found that a full 75 percent of Americans support gays serving openly in the military.

Democratic senatorial candidate Al Franken has “unexpectedly picked up 37 votes due to a combined machine malfunction and human error on Election Day.” Today, Franken’s counsel Marc Elias said Franken is now up 22 votes, with “approximately 138,000 ballots left to count.” “This would be the first time that Franken has claimed a lead in this drawn-out process,” notes TPM.

Early last month, a reporter asked Assistant White House Press Secretary Tony Fratto why the White House refuses to use the word “recession.” The reporter quipped, “Is that word radioactive?” Fratto demurred, saying, “we don’t make those determinations.” Watch it:

Fratto’s attempt to pass the buck on the question has become a familiar refrain in White House press briefings over the last year:

– “Recessions are things that are declared by other people — National Bureau of Economic Research.” [Edward Lazear, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, 3/7/08]

– “The classic definition of a recession is not something that we could determine now, or forecast. It’s something that people look back on.” [White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, 10/7/08]

– “[Y]ou’re asking me questions — I’m not an economist. … [I]f you want definitions about what is or isn’t a recession in this day and age…you’re just going to have to go to an economist, not me.” [Perino, 9/17/08]

But on Monday, the White House could no longer pretend to be oblivious to whether or not the U.S. is in a recession. Indeed, the organization that, as Fratto put it, makes “those determinations” — the National Bureau of Economic Research — announced that the U.S. currently in a recession and has been since December 2007.

Amazingly, however, the White House still can’t bring itself to publicly discuss the fact that the U.S. economy is in recession. In fact, as the Associated Press noted, in responding to NBER’s Monday recession announcement, Fratto managed to avoid ever using the word “recession.” Additionally, in the two press briefings since the announcement, the word “recession” was not used a single time — by White House officials or by the press.

Despite the fact that the White House’s rhetoric on the economy over the last twelve months has been exposed as nothing more than economic happy talk, the press corps seems content to keep on listening.

Former Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, a former U.S. prosecutor at Guantanamo, told BBC yesterday in his first interview since resigning earlier this year that Guantanamo detainees were treated in a “wrong, unethical and finally, immoral” manner. Vandeveld was so “appalled” by the conditions at Guantanamo that he consulted his Jesuit priest, who told him to resign. “I never suffered such anguish in my life about anything,” he said. Watch BBC’s segment:

A Pentagon spokesman responded: “We dispute Darrel Vandeveld’s assertions and maintain the military commission process provides full and fair trials to accused unlawful enemy combatants who are charged with a variety of war crimes.”

The private security firm Blackwater is planning to offer a new service to make money: protection from the pirate-infested waters off the coast of East Africa. “Blackwater’s push to land its first antipiracy contract is part of a strategy to build its business outside its State Department security work in Iraq, which brings in between $300 million and $400 million a year.” The security company may be looking for new lucrative opportunities partly because the Iraqi government has now ratified a law stripping Blackwater contractors of immunity. Indeed, Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell noted the legal benefits of operating in the open sea: “We would be allowed to fire if fired upon; the right of self-defense is one that exists in international waters.”

Last night, Fox’s Hannity & Colmes hosted John Ziegler, author of a push poll attempting to prove that voters who supported Barack Obama were misinformed. Hannity used Ziegler’s study to complain that Obama supporters didn’t know about “really significant issues” like Bill Ayers and Obama’s views on coal. He insisted that only those who watched Fox News understood the real issues:

HANNITY: If you don’t listen to talk radio, if you don’t watch the FOX News Channel, you’re not anywhere nearly as informed as people that are just hearing the bumper stickers, the slogans, the snippets of the commercials of the media. So, journalism died in 2008, and it influenced a lot of people on the way out.

ZIEGLER: That’s exactly right.

Watch it:

Studies have consistently shown Fox viewers to be among the most misinformed Americans. A 2008 Pew study ranked Fox News dead last in the number of “high knowledge” viewers, with only 19 percent of Fox viewers able to correctly identify the majority party in Congress (Democrats), the name of the U.S. Secretary of State (Condoleezza Rice), and name of British Prime Minister (Gordon Brown).

Fox viewers are particularly misinformed about the Iraq war. A 2003 study found three common misperceptions about the war held by many Americans: first, that US troops found evidence of close pre-war links between Iraq and al-Qaeda; second, that troops found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; and third, that world public opinion favored Washington’s going to war with Iraq. Fox viewers were the most likely to believe these falsehoods:

Eighty percent of Fox viewers were found to hold at least one misperception, compared to 23 percent of NPR/PBS consumers. All the other media fell in between. … As to the number of misconceptions held by their audiences, Fox far outscored all of its rivals. A whopping 45 percent of its viewers believed all three misperceptions, while the other commercial networks scored between 12 percent and 16 percent. Only nine percent of [print media] readers believed all three, while only four percent of the NPR/PBS audience did.

Yet Hannity and Ziegler were convinced that media malfeasance was the only reason for Obama’s victory. Ziegler even claimed, “Bush would have won 65-35 with fair coverage in 2004.”

On Monday, ThinkProgress caught Bill O’Reilly claiming that there is “no proof” that detainees were ever abused at Guantanamo Bay, despite the fact that both the FBI and the Red Cross have documented abuse at the prison. On MSNBC’s Countdown last night, Keith Olbermann pointed out that O’Reilly is also contradicting himself when he says that there is no proof of abuse at Gitmo:

OLBERMANN: That kind of contradicts this is quote from somebody who visited Gitmo in June of 2005.

“There have been abuses by U.S. interrogators there, but not many and now we have some stats to back that up.”

It also contradicts what the same visitor said after a second trip to Gitmo in June, 2006.

“Muhammad al Gitani, thought to be directly involved with the 9/11 attack, was treated harshly and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld ordered that Gitani could be subjected to coerced interrogation.”

Who is it that disagrees with Bill O’Reilly’s contention that there is no proof of mistreatment at Gitmo? Bill O’Reilly. He was the visitor who had confirmed the abuses.

Watch it:

During today’s press conference, President-elect Barack Obama called on Fox News to ask a question for the first time since the election. Fox News had not been called on in Obama’s five prior press conferences. Fox’s Wendell Goler began by thanking Obama for calling on him, and then proceeded to ask about the TARP funds and Bill Richardson’s now-removed beard. Obama began by offering a light-hearted take on Richardson’s beard:

I’m going to answer this question about the beard. I think it was a mistake for him to get rid of it. I thought that whole western, rugged look was really working for him. … We’re deeply disappointed with the loss of the beard.

“With respect to TARP,” Obama said, quickly turning the page, “my team has been reviewing very carefully how the TARP program has proceeded.” Obama stressed that one of his first principles is “strong oversight.” Watch it:

During a recent interview with the National Ledger, conservative columnist Robert Novak was asked if he would reveal Valerie Plame Wilson’s secret CIA identity if he could go back and do it all over again. Novak noted that he has previously said he “should have ignored” what he had been told about Plame, but he now claims he is “much less ambivalent“:

NOVAK: I’d go full speed ahead because of the hateful and beastly way in which my left-wing critics in the press and Congress tried to make a political affair out of it and tried to ruin me. My response now is this: The hell with you. They didn’t ruin me. I have my faith, my family, and a good life. A lot of people love me — or like me. So they failed. I would do the same thing over again because I don’t think I hurt Valerie Plame whatsoever.

But of course, Plame was “hurt” because of Novak’s column — she no longer has a career as a covert CIA agent. Moreover, Plame has said that she feared for her and her family’s lives after Novak revealed her identity.

But Novak ignores the point that Plame’s outing had broader national security implications. In fact, Plame’s CIA job was to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and as one former senior intelligence officer put it, the leak made “it harder for other CIA officers to recruit sources.”

Novak also claimed “it was an important story because it explained why the CIA would send Joe Wilson [Plame’s husband] — a former Clinton White House aide with no track record in intelligence and no experience in Niger — on a fact-finding mission to Africa.” Except, Wilson did have experience in Niger, not only as a foreign service officer but as the NSC’s Senior Director of African Affairs during the Clinton administration as he explained to TPM:

WILSON: Why me? Because I knew a lot about the [uranium] business […] I knew all of the personalities who would have been involved in this sort of interaction, because I had been at the White House during the time when the transaction purportedly took place.

Earlier in the interview with the National Ledger, Novak said that Vice President Dick Cheney is “the most forceful, effective vice president in history.” Given the dark “cloud” that hangs over the vice president’s involvement in the whole Plame saga, it is perhaps easy to understand Novak’s lack of remorse.

Addressing speculation that he “is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies,” President-elect Barack Obama pledged last month to end torture as part of “an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.” Today, a dozen retired generals and admirals will meet with Obama’s transition team “to plead for a clean, unequivocal break with the Bush administration’s interrogation, detention and rendition policies.” The officers also want Guantanamo Bay closed, an effort that would force Obama “to decide what to do with inmates who can’t be tried for war crimes yet are deemed too dangerous to be released.”

Last night in New York, ABC News correspondent John Donovan moderated a debate between the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, former Bush aide Karl Rove, Slate editor Jacob Weisberg and Guardian columnist Sir Simon Jenkins. The most contentious part of the debate came during discussion over the invasion of Iraq, in which Kristol proclaimed outright that the United States has won:

But [Kristol] and Mr. Rove both maintained that while the initial occupation was mismanaged, the surge of troops begun in 2007 has placed the U.S. on the cusp of victory in Iraq.

“We’ve won the war,” Mr. Kristol said.

Kristol did not say if this meant that all U.S. troops could now come home.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) told Politico, “I am considering” a run for Senate, after Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) announced yesterday he would retire in 2010. “A lot of people are calling him and contacting him and encouraging him to look seriously at this,” a source close to Bush said. In an e-mail to ABC’s The Note, Bush wrote, “I am going to think about it for the next month or so.”

CNN reports that President-elect Barack Obama has a “hearty appetite for intelligence.” Obama is receiving intelligence briefings on all seven days of the week, “exceeding the six days given to President Bush.” Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell jokingly wondered aloud whether “there’s a little bit of competition” between the men.

Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson “was awarded a $4 million bonus in 2008” and was granted 225,000 shares of restricted stock. He will also receive a 10 percent increase in his annual salary in 2009, raising his base salary to $2.06 million.

Yesterday, federal prosecutors expanded the corruption indictment against former NYC police commissioner Bernie Kerik. “The main charges — that Kerik accepted free apartment renovations from a would-be city contractor, lied to the White House and filed false income tax returns — remain,” but the indictment adds new details regarding Kerik’s lies about his finances.

Yesterday, the White House approved “one of the most contentious” regulations officials are trying to push through in Bush’s final weeks in office, making it “easier for coal companies to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys.” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson argued that the new rule would “protect fish, wildlife and streams.” More »

The ultrahyped Spore isn't the only game where global warming is part of the virtual landscape

AP reports:

Chambliss’ victory thwarted Democrats’ hopes of winning a 60 seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. It came after a bitter monthlong runoff against Democrat Jim Martin that drew political luminaries from both parties to the state and flooded the airwaves with fresh attack ads weeks after campaigns elsewhere had ended.

Minnesota — where a recount is under way — now remains the only unresolved Senate contest in the country. But the stakes there are significantly lower now that Georgia has put a 60-seat Democratic supermajority out of reach.

With 92 percent of the precincts reporting, Chambliss captured 58 percent to Martin’s 42 percent. Chambliss’ win is a rare bright spot for Republicans in a year where they lost the White House as well as seats in the House and the Senate.