1. McClatchy reports a military Judge freezes 9/11 trial as Obama takes steps on Guantanamo pledge. “Army Col. Stephen Henley halted the 9/11 military commission proceedings at midday, after a Pentagon prosecutor argued at the war court created by President George W. Bush that the trials themselves are the prerogative of new commander in chief.” The freeze is for 120 days and came at the request of President Barack Obama.

   “Only hours after he was sworn in Tuesday, Obama told Defense Secretary Robert Gates to instruct the Pentagon prosecutor to seek delays in each of the cases of 21 people currently charged with war crimes before military commissions.”

2. The NY Times reports the U.S. secures new supply routes to Afghanistan. “Faced with the risk that Taliban attacks could imperil the main supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan, the United States military has obtained permission to move troop supplies through Russia and Central Asia, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in the Middle East, said on Tuesday.”

   Meanwhile, the AP reports the U.S. investigates Afghan civilian deaths claim. “The U.S. military said Wednesday that it was investigating an Afghan news report that a coalition operation may have left more than two dozen civilians dead.”

   And the CS Monitor reports the Taliban warn Obama: Leave Afghanistan.

Four at Four continues with Geithner’s confirmation hearing for Treasury Secretary and a look at Obama’s inaugural address.

George W. Bush slinked quietly out of Washington, D.C. on Tuesday. Bush’s send off, much like his campaign stops, were closed to all but the most loyal few.

So for the histories of the past eight years, here is the final chapter of George W. Bush, or Occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

From the Washington Post:

Following the inauguration, Bush and his wife, Laura, boarded a Marine helicopter for Andrews Air Force Base, where they attended a private 20-minute going-away rally in one of the cavernous hangars used to store presidential airplanes…

Bush was headed for his boyhood home town of Midland, Tex., the site of a welcome-home rally intended as an echo of a goodbye celebration held there in January 2001…

The Andrews rally and the flight from Washington were closed to the press corps, with whom Bush had a rocky and often distant relationship. Only a handful of journalists and photographers showed up for a former president who once lured the attention of planeloads of correspondents. About 1,000 people gathered in the hangar and heard extensive remarks by the departing vice president, Dick Cheney, who was in a wheelchair because of a moving-related injury.

The traveling party was a gathering of old friends, including former commerce secretary Don Evans, former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales and former political adviser Karl Rove. Bush’s father and mother, daughters and other relatives were also on the flight.

From the Wall Street Journal:

On board, they watched a surprise 30-minute video including clips of speeches and memorable moments, as well as comments by aides – some funny, some sad. Mr. and Mrs. Bush spent the rest of the flight walking around the plane’s cabins chatting, as supporters dined on crabcakes and sipped beers.

Approaching Midland, the presidential jet flew low over the city’s downtown, so the occupants could get a look at the crowd — and the crowd, estimated at about 20,000, could get a look at the big plane.

And finally from the LA Times:

Late Tuesday afternoon, Fox News was the only major national TV outlet that carried a live telecast of former President Bush’s homecoming speech to cheering supporters in Midland, Texas…

The rest of the networks, however, did not see the Bush address as news fit to broadcast.

PRESIDENT OBAMA

1. From the NY Times, Obama is sworn in as the 44th president. “Barack Hussein Obama became the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, and called on Americans to join him in confronting what he described as an economic crisis caused by greed but also ‘our collective failure to make hard choices.'”

   Obama “signaled a clean break from some of the Bush administration’s policies on national security. ‘As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals,'” he said.

2. The Washington Post reports President Barack Obama will dive into foreign policy on his first full day in office. Obama plans to name former senator George Mitchell (D-ME) as his Middle East envoy. “By the end of the week, Obama plans to issue an executive order to eventually shut down the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to lay out a new process for dealing with about 250 detainees remaining at the prison.”

Four at Four continues with China’s reaction to U.S. arm sales, Fiat to buy stake in Chrysler, and Abu Dhabi steps toward renewable energy.

1. The NY Times reports Barack Obama reaches out for John McCain’s counsel. “Over the last three months, Mr. Obama has quietly consulted Mr. McCain about many of the new administration’s potential nominees to top national security jobs and about other issues – in one case relaying back a contender’s answers to questions Mr. McCain had suggested.”

   Nothing surprising here, I just found it interesting. Obama’s way is a distinct change from that of previous presidents.

2. The Washington Post reports Obama and Chávez start sparring early.

   In an interview shown in the past week on the Spanish-language network Univision, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said that Venezuela’s firebrand president, Hugo Chávez, has hindered progress in Latin America, and he expressed concern that Chávez’s leftist government has assisted Colombia’s biggest guerrilla movement, a group the United States considers a terrorist organization. Chávez responded this weekend by saying that Obama had “the same stench” as President Bush, a frequent target of Chávez’s remarks.

   “There is still time” for Obama to correct his views, the Venezuelan leader said, but he added: “No one should say that I threw the first stone at Obama. He threw it at me.”

3. The Anchorage Daily News reports Murkowski requests pardon for Stevens. “U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s spokesman said Sunday that Murkowski had asked the White House to pardon the former senior senator of Alaska, Ted Stevens.”

4. The Guardian reports the Shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist to seek asylum in Switzerland. “Geneva-based lawyer Mauro Poggia said Muntadhar al-Zeidi’s life was in danger if he stayed in Iraq” and so his client seeks political asylum in Switzerland. Al-Zeidi is still in Iraqi detention.

5. The NY Times reports Interest rate drop has had dire results for legal aid. “Legal aid groups have long benefited from little-known programs that draw interest earned from short-term deposits that lawyers hold in trust for clients during, for example, real estate transactions or personal injury payouts. The interest is mainly donated to legal services for the poor.”

   Now, these groups that “help poor people with noncriminal cases – like disputes over foreclosures, evictions and eligibility for unemployment benefits – are being forced to cut their staffs and services, even as requests for help have soared.”

 

The Goverment Accountability Office (GAO) released a report (pdf) on Friday detailing how the biggest U.S. companies are using offshore tax havens to avoid being responsible corporate citizens. The GAO summary explains:

Many U.S. corporations operate globally and have foreign subsidiaries… In some cases they may be used to reduce taxes…

Eighty-three of the 100 largest publicly traded U.S. corporations in terms of 2007 revenue reported having subsidiaries in jurisdictions listed as tax havens or financial privacy jurisdictions. Sixty-three of the 100 largest publicly traded U.S. federal contractors…

Not only that, but many of these corporations have received billions in federal bailout money and Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Carl Levin (D-MI) estimate this corporate tax exploit shifts $100 billion tax responsibility to other taxpayers in the form of loss tax revenue.  

1. The LA Times reports Departing CIA chief Michael Hayden defends torture.

   Responding to critics who contend that harsh interrogation methods produce faulty intelligence, Hayden said that interrogations of key Al Qaeda figures accounted for the bulk of the United States’ understanding of the terrorist network and led to a series of successful operations around the globe.

   “Do not allow others to say it didn’t work,” Hayden said. “It worked.”

   Essentially, Hayden said the U.S. knows nothing, since most of the understanding of international terrorism is faulty since it was learnt through torture.

2. The Guardian reports on The worst of times: Bush’s environmental legacy examined. “The tone was set in the first 100 days when Bush reneged on a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants, the biggest contributors to global warming. Days later, the White House announced that America would not implement the Kyoto global climate change treaty.”

   The most damaging action by Bush administration was a disinformation campaign “to keep the public unaware of the evidence on climate change”. “The full extent of the White House efforts to downplay, distort and outright censor the science on climate change remains unclear – but such efforts continued even after [NASA scientist James] Hansen accused the Bush administration of censorship” in October 2004.

   Some of the other environmental horrors perpetrated by the Bush administration are:

   • Circumventing a 2007 Supreme Court decision compelling the EPA to regulate car emissions by doctoring scientific findings on the costs of fuel-efficiency standards

   • Opposing California’s efforts to impose stricter fuel efficiency requirements than the national standard

   • Gutting key sections of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts

   • Dismantling the protections of the Endangered Species Act

   • Widespread political interference in the management of endangered species

   • Opening millions of acres of wilderness to mining, oil and gas drilling, and logging

   • Defunding programs charged with the clean-up of toxic industrial wastes such as arsenic, lead and mercury

   • Reducing the enforcement effort in the Environmental Protection Agency

   • Removing grizzly bears and wolves from the endangered species list

   • Endorsing commercial whaling

   • Approving mountain-top removal for coal mining

   • Authorizing cetacean-killing sonar for U.S. Navy exercises

Four at Four continues with the move toward bank nationalization, AIG pays $150 more in retention bonuses, and surfing on icy Lake Superior.

1. The NY Times reports in its second public ruling in 30 years, the FISA Court rules expansive warrantless wiretapping are legal. The president and Congress has the power to “to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a specific court order, even when Americans’ private communications may be involved.”

   However, the court “did not directly rule on the legality of the once-secret operation authorized by … Bush between October 2001 and early 2007, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the international communications of Americans suspected of ties to terrorists.”

2. The Guardian reports Sudan fears U.S. military intervention over Darfur. “Sudan’s government is increasingly fearful that the incoming US administration will resort to military intervention to end the six-year-old crisis in Darfur that has killed up to 200,000 people and left 2.7 million homeless, diplomatic sources in Khartoum say.”

   In her Secretary of State confirmation hearing, Hillary Clinton said the Obama administration indicated the U.S. may directly support UNAMID, the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force.

   “We have spoken about other options, no-fly zones, other sanctions and sanctuaries, looking to deploy the Unamid force to try to protect the refugees but also to repel the militias,” Clinton said. Her future boss, President-elect Barack Obama said last April, “I will make ending the genocide in Darfur a priority from day one.”

3. The Guardian reports Bush urges the U.S. to stake claim to Arctic territory in last-gasp energy grab. In George W. Bush’s last week in office, the White House has issued National Security Presidential Directive 66 asserting the United States “intention to exploit the vast oil and mineral wealth hidden below the Arctic circle by extending its ‘sovereign rights’ over the seabed.”

   The White House urged the U.S. senate to ratify the United Nations’ 1982 Law of the Sea Convention that “allows countries to extend their control of the seabed from 200 miles to up to 350 miles beyond their coastline.”

4. After having done so much for the Chinese economy and international standing, the LA Times reports George W. Bush remains a popular president.

   “Many Chinese credit the Bush administration’s free-trade policies with helping the Chinese economy blossom over the last eight years. They appreciate its efforts to rein in the fiery anti-Beijing rhetoric of former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian. And Bush’s attendance of the opening ceremony of last summer’s Olympics, at a time when many world leaders were urging a boycott because of China’s human rights record, is viewed with deep gratitude.”

1. Bob Woodward of the Washington Post reports Guantanamo detainee was tortured, says official overseeing military trials.

   The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a “life-threatening condition.”

   “We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani,” said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. “His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case” for prosecution…

   In May 2008, Crawford ordered the war-crimes charges against Qahtani dropped but did not state publicly that the harsh interrogations were the reason. “It did shock me,” Crawford said. “I was upset by it. I was embarrassed by it. If we tolerate this and allow it, then how can we object when our servicemen and women, or others in foreign service, are captured and subjected to the same techniques? How can we complain? Where is our moral authority to complain? Well, we may have lost it.”

2. Bloomberg News reports the Supreme Court rules Illegally obtained evidence can be used. “A divided U.S. Supreme Court gave prosecutors more ability to use evidence obtained in violation of the Constitution, ruling against a man who was arrested and searched only because of a police clerical error.”

   “In such a case, the criminal should not go free because the constable has blundered,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court…

   The justices voted 5-4 along ideological lines. Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy joined John Roberts’s opinion. Dissenting were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer.

   “Negligent recordkeeping errors by law enforcement threaten individual liberty, are susceptible to deterrence by the exclusionary rule and cannot be remedied effectively through other means,” Ginsburg wrote.

3. The LA Times reports Marine suicides in 2008 at a yearly high since Iraq invasion. Forty-one active-duty Marines committed suicide last year, more “than any year since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, although the suicide rate remained virtually unchanged because the Marine Corps is increasing in size… Nearly all were enlisted and under 24, and about two-thirds had deployed overseas.”

Four at Four continues below the fold with Patrick McGoohan’s obituary and a bonus Obama-icon maker.

1. The Washington Independent reports Schlozman broke federal law and lied to Congress. Bradley Schlozman was a central person in the U.S. attorney firing scandal. From the report:

   The evidence in our investigation showed that Schlozman, first as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General and subsequently as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Acting Assistant Attorney General, considered political and ideological affiliations in hiring career attorneys and in other personnel actions affecting career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division. In doing so, he violated federal law – the Civil Service Reform Act – and Department policy that prohibit discrimination in federal employment based on political and ideological affiliations, and committed misconduct. The evidence also showed that Division managers failed to exercise sufficient oversight to ensure that Schlozman did not engage in inappropriate hiring and personnel practices. Moreover, Schlozman made false statements about whether he considered political and ideological affiliations when he gave sworn testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee and in his written responses to supplemental questions from the Committee.

   The Independent adds Schlozman emails indicate a Republican voter suppression strategy.

   The report released this morning by the Justice Department is a pretty damning account of the tenure of Bradley Schlozman, the infamous U.S. attorney and head of (politicizing) the Civil Rights Division. at the department. The report details email conversations between Schlozman and “voter rights” guru Hans von Spakovsky, who was special counsel to the assistant attorney general.

   The email exchanges solidify what reports on the U.S. attorney firing scandal suggested: that the politicization at the agency was part of a coordinated effort to disenfranchise voters, at the expense of Democratic candidates.

   And the Washington Post adds Study finds rightwing ideology fueled Justice Department hirings. The DoJ inspector general’s extensive study of department’s hiring practices between 2001 and 2007 found “former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bradley Schlozman, favored employees who shared his political views and derided others as ‘libs’ and ‘pinkos'”.

   “The report’s release was delayed by more than six months after inspector general agents referred the case for possible prosecution by authorities in the District. But prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office declined to pursue the matter last week, according to lawyers involved in the case.”

Four at Four continues Bush administration officials cash in, Congress set to restore the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and EPA creates big loophole for major polluters.

1. The Miami Herald reports President-elect Barack Obama says early closing of prison camp unlikely. Yesterday “marked seven years to the day that the first 20 detainees” from Afghanistan were transfered to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Worldwide, protestors “donned trademark orange jumpsuits to condemn the prison camps” and held signs: “Obama: Keep Your Promise. Close Guantánamo”.

   Meanwhile, Obama was interviewed on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” and said Closing Guantánamo Bay is more difficult than people realize. Obama indicated it would not be closing within the first 100 days of his administration.

   “I think it’s going to take some time and our legal teams are working in consultation with our national security apparatus as we speak to help design exactly what we need to do,” he said. “But I don’t want to be ambiguous about this. We are going to close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure that the procedures we set up are ones that abide by our Constitution.

   Here’s how the Center for Constitution Rights says how to go about Closing Guantánamo and restoring the rule of law. “The three simple steps are: 1) send those can go home home, 2) secure safe haven for those who cannot, and 3) charge those who can be charged and try them in ordinary federal criminal court.” So what’s Obama’s problem?

   The NY Times reports Obama is reluctant to look into Bush programs like domestic spying and the use of torture. Obama said there should be prosecutions if “somebody has blatantly broken the law”, he believes “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

   This is the relevant part of the interview: Obama leaves the door open (a bit) on prosecuting Bush officials.

   Stephanopoulos asked Obama about Dick Cheney’s view of “extraordinaty” interrogation methods, to which Obama answered “Waterboarding is torture“.

   “Vice President Cheney I think continues to defend what he calls extraordinary measures or procedures and from my view waterboarding is torture. I have said that under my administration we will not torture,” Obama said.

   Since he believes that, how can Obama morally not investigate the Bush administration?

Four at Four continues with Afghanistan != Iraq, U.S. port security, and a walking fish house.

1. Congressional Democrats are looking to right a wrong perpetrated by a 2007 Supreme Court decision. The LA Times reports Democrats focus on workplace bias. The Supreme Court tossed out a workplace discrimination suit brought by Lilly Ledbetter against Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Ledbetter said “she was paid less than comparable male employees for years, won at trial, but the justices ruled she had sued too late.”

   The legislation, sponsored by Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), would force judges to adopt Ledbetter’s position that each paycheck constituted a separate act of discrimination that extended the statutory time limit for filing suit. Supporters think such a rule is necessary because victims of pay disparity often have difficulty finding out the salaries of other workers.

   The legislation passed the House today on a 247-171 vote.

2. The NY Times has the latest from Afghanistan where a series of Bombings kill 9 Afghans and 5 American soldiers. Today, three U.S. soldiers were killed when their armored Humvee hit a large roadside bomb near the border of Zabul Province near Kandahar Province. A separate attack, a suicide bomber also killed Gul Mohammed, a police commander in Zaranj, and five others.

   Yesterday, “two American soldiers and three Afghan civilians were killed near Kandahar when a suicide bomber drove an explosive-packed car into a crowded bazaar… The blast wounded 21 civilians.”

3. Bloomberg reports that 2008 Payrolls Drop Biggest Since 1945. “The U.S. lost more jobs in 2008 than in any year since 1945 as employers fired another 524,000 people in December, indicating a free-fall in the economy just days before President-elect Barack Obama takes office.”

   The Labor Department reported that the nation lost 2.589 million jobs in 2008, just shy of the 2.75 million decline at the end of World War II…

   During President George W. Bush’s two terms in office, the economy generated a net 3 million jobs, compared with 22.8 million created during the eight years when Bill Clinton was president.

   Bush leaves office with unemployment at 7.2 percent, compared with the 4.2 percent rate he inherited from Clinton in January 2001. Unemployment was 7.3 percent when Clinton took office in January 1993, the last month that the jobless rate was higher than now.

   Atrios notes the “U6, a broader measure of unemployment, is up to 13.5%“.

4. The Guardian reports Climate change may ruin farming in tropics by 2100 and half the world’s population could face food shortages. “Harvests of staple food crops such as rice and maize could fall by between 20% and 40% as a result of higher temperatures during the growing season in the tropics and subtropics.”

   The study published in Science “found there was a 90% chance that by the end of the century, the coolest temperatures in the tropics during the crop growing season would exceed the hottest temperatures recorded between 1900 and 2006.”