All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the aspiring reality-television stars whose unauthorized entry into the Obama administration's first state dinner resulted into a congressional inquiry into White House security, are vowing to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights if they are forced to appear before Congress.

The House Homeland Security Committee will vote tomorrow about whether or not to subpoena the couple. Last week, the head of the Secret Service accepted blame for the security breakdown and said three officers had been placed on leave in testimony before the committee.

The couple's lawyer sent a letter today to the leadership of the committee that included signed declarations from the couple that they will decline to answer questions.

The letter accuses members of Congress of coming to premature conclusions about the couple. It cites as one piece of evidence District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton's characterization of the couple as "practiced con artists who bamboozled the Secret Service" and "outlaws."

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Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) today introduced a bill to help finance the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through war bonds.

"The legislation will authorize the Treasury to issue and market War Bonds to the American people," according to a Nelson press release.

"War bonds are a cost-effective way to reduce our dependence on foreign creditors and create an outlet for Americans to express their patriotism and support for our servicemembers and America's mission," Nelson said. "War bonds allow us to borrow from ourselves, rather than other countries."

"I believe that we need shared sacrifice and fiscal discipline in financing the war effort," he added. "I don't believe our first instinct should always be a rush to tax. The government has gone to great lengths to address the economic downturn and adding new taxes right now could undermine those efforts."

CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan

Critics say that Nelson's characterization of the advantages of war bonds is misleading.

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Republicans are livid over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's statement comparing opposition to health care reform efforts to opposition to ending slavery, perhaps none more so than Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.

Steele, who suggested that liberals are playing the race card on the issue on CBS' The Early Show this morning, put out a statement calling for Reid to leave the Democratic leadership if he does not apologize for his "offensive and absurd statements."

Steele suggested Reid has lost "his ability to reason."

"Having made this disgraceful statement on the floor of the United States Senate, Mr. Reid should immediately apologize on the Senate floor to his colleagues, to his constituents, and to the American people. If he is going to stand by these statements, the Democrats must immediately reconsider his fitness to lead them," he said.

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The Environmental Protection Agency said today that greenhouse gasses put the environment and the health of the public at risk, moving the agency toward regulating those gasses as part of an effort to battle climate change.

Some Republicans immediately responded to the news with statements opposing the decision.

"It’s unsurprising and disappointing that the EPA has decided to push though the Endangerment finding based purely on political calculations and not based on science," said House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA). "Earlier this year, EPA set up internal barriers to stifle dissent and is now ignoring serious accusations to the science upon which the endangerment finding is based."

Indiana's Mike Pence, Chairman of the House Republican Conference, suggested the EPA was going to "kill jobs."

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A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released today (PDF) finds that Sarah Palin's favorable rating has risen to 46 percent. That represents an increase from the 39 percent favorable rating for Palin in CNN polling over the summer, following her decision to resign from her job as Alaska governor.

Palin, the former GOP vice presidential candidate, remains a polarizing figure, of course: 46 percent view her unfavorably, matching her favorable rating. Just 8 percent of those surveyed did not offer an opinion on Palin, who is currently on a book tour for memoir "Going Rogue: An American Life."

The poll also found that former Vice President Dick Cheney, a frequent critic of President Obama, remains unpopular. Cheney's unfavorable rating sits at 53 percent, while 39 percent view him favorably.

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A video opposing health care reform that came out last month is causing a stir on the Internet today. The spot features Americans staring at directly at the camera and saying something you don't much hear in polite company: "I guess I'm racist." The reason? They oppose President Obama's health care reform efforts. Watch at left.

The video appears to be the work of filmmaker Ray Griggs, who has released a documentary called "I Want Your Money." Introducing the spot on his Web page, Griggs writes that "Americans have every right to speak out against the ruinous direction our nation is currently heading without being labeled a racist."

Griggs calls the video a "national commercial," though it is not clear whether it has run on television. According to a posting on the conservative Web site Free Republic, it has appeared on Fox News.

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An international conference in a European country involving complicated science and nearly 200 oft-competing agendas doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would generate a ton of eyeballs on U.S. news sites. But the two week U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen kicking off today seems to be garnering serious attention, at least for a story that doesn't involve a certain allegedly adulterous golfer: The words "Copenhagen" and "Climategate" both appeared in Google's "hot topics" this morning, right alongside Tiger, bowl games, Saturday Night Live and Facebook.

The interest is coming, it's fair to assume, primarily from two groups: Those who believe climate change is man-made and real – and are interested in whether international leaders make progress on addressing the issue – and those who believe that, in the words of Homer Simpson, "it’s all a load of crap."

The former camp includes the vast majority of climate scientists as well as the residents of low-lying nations like the Maldives, where government ministers recently held a cabinet meeting underwater to stress the possibility that, due to rising water levels brought on by global warming, their country could soon disappear into the sea.

The latter, meanwhile, includes skeptics, most of them conservative, who have seized on the recent so-called "Climategate" story to defend their position that global warming is a myth grounded in a conspiracy being perpetrated by scientists and activists around the world.

Former vice president and climate activist Al Gore – a charter member of the first camp – is meeting today with President Obama to discuss climate change at the White House. In an example of just how polarized the issue has become, two conservative members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are reportedly calling for the Oscar Gore won for the environmental documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" to be rescinded in the wake of the Climategate e-mails.

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The White House just announced that former Vice President and climate activist Al Gore this afternoon in the Oval Office. The meeting is set for 4:40 p.m. Eastern Time.

Climate change is in focus this week with the U.N. climate change conference kicking off in Copenhagen. On Wednesday, President Obama will meet with business and environmental leaders at the White House to discuss the conference, which he will head to next week.

Gore, who is attending the summit, does not believe that many of the goals being discussed in Copenhagen go far enough in reducing carbon emissions.

Russell Wiseman, the mayor of Arlington, Tennessee, wrote a post on his Facebook page suggesting President Obama purposely preempted "The Charlie Brown Christmas Special" with his speech on the war in Afghanistan Tuesday evening.

Wiseman suggested the president is Muslim. Many Christians have embraced "The Charlie Brown Christmas Special" for what they percieve as a Christian message.

Here's what Wiseman wrote, as reported by the Commercial Appeal: "Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim president is there, what a load.....try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it....w...hen the answer should simply be 'yes'...."

"...you obama people need to move to a muslim country...oh wait, that's America....pitiful," he wrote.

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White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters today that President Obama will likely back using some portion of the $700 billion in TARP bailout funds during a speech on the economy next Tuesday.

That idea isn't sitting well with House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), who released a statement this afternoon arguing that such a move would be against the law.

"The President and Speaker Pelosi need to recognize that TARP money was borrowed from the taxpayer to deal with a dire emergency, and now it must be returned," he said. "In fact, current law states that returned TARP funds are to be used to reduce the debt – not more spending preferred by the President. This country is in debt, and the only responsible action is to pay it down, not preserve and expand it."

"TARP funds borrowed from the taxpayer should not become a slush fund for the political whims of Washington," he added.

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