U.S. government

Energy Secretary-designate Steven Chu "seems about as climate friendly as they come," writes Josh Harkinson, but "more industry friendly than his rhetoric suggests." As the director of the Energy Department-funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Chu helped broker "the largest university-industry alliance in U.S. history, the $500 million Energy Biosciences Institute." The biofuels research institute involves the Berkeley lab, two public universities and oil giant BP. Chu pitched BP's deal to the UC-Berkeley Academic Senate, one-third of whose members voted against it. Chu also promoted the institute on campus, saying "money" was the only reason more biofuels research wasn't already underway. The university's compromise agreement gave BP half of the seats on the board governing the institute. As Energy Secretary, Chu will likely "face pressure to partner with corporations in pursuing technological solutions to climate change," notes Harkinson. "As the incoming Obama administration prepares to spend liberally to develop cleaner sources of energy, the structure of corporate-government partnerships will determine how the profits of that research return to taxpayers, and how rigorously scientists evaluate the downsides of controversial technologies such as biofuels."

Under the Bush administration, the federal government has put over $176 million into funding abstinence-only sex education programs, a component of which is asking teenagers to take a pledge that they will remain virgins until after marriage. But a recent analysis of data from a large federal survey revealed that over half of youths became sexually active whether or not they took the pledge. The study also found that teens who took the pledge tended to have more negative views of condoms and to use them less. The percentage of teens who did have sex and took precautions against sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers. "This study again raises the issue of why the federal government is continuing to invest in abstinence-only programs," said Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

President-elect Barack Obama's close advisers "tend to shudder at any parallels to George W. Bush," writes Mark Leibovich, "but many reporters and rivals have noted the 'Bush-like' tendencies the Obama campaign demonstrated in its ability to control information. The comparison is generally meant as a compliment (albeit a grudging one) by members of the press and expressed enviously by veterans of other campaigns. Plouffe himself admitted to me that the Obama campaign subscribed to the 'Bush model' of communications discipline. Asked if Obama himself spoke of the 'Bush model,' Plouffe told me he did." Like Bush's election campaigns, the Obama campaign's "brain trust was unusually small and close-knit. ... This enabled the Obama team to maintain tight control of its information. They prided themselves on never leaking. ... Obama’s operatives spoke with a single voice and a precise message and only when they wanted to." And, "Like the Bush model, the Obama model also clearly allowed for combat with the press, sometimes extending to punishment." One difference, however, is that Obama plans to maintain a close advisory relationship with his press secretary, Robert Gibbs. Bush, by contrast, kept his press secretaries including Ari Fleischer, Scott McClellan and Tony Snow at arm's length and out of the decision-making loop.

Ari Melber of The Nation adds his thoughts to growing speculation about the future role of Barack Obama's unprecedented army of linked-in netroots supporters. "More than a million people asked for campaign text messages on their cellphones. Two million joined MyBO, a website fusing social networking with volunteer work, while more than 5 million supported Obama's profile on social sites like Facebook. Most famously, 13 million voters signed up for regular e-mails, fundraising pitches and other communications. On election day, a staggering 25 percent of Obama voters were already directly linked to him -- and one another -- through these networks. Campaigns largely dissolve after elections, but this infrastructure remains intact. ... Since the election his aides have been experimenting with how to use the networks, for governance and for postcampaign politicking. ... After the election, half a million activists responded to an e-mail survey about the road ahead. The most popular goal was to help the administration 'pass legislation,' according to campaign manager David Plouffe." Other liberal online campaigners include MoveOn with an email list of millions that supported Obama's election and that is working to promote Obama's legislative agenda.

"Consistent with Congress' intent, we are committed to transparency and oversight in all aspects of the program," said Neel Kashkari, the U.S. Department of Treasury's point man for the $700 billion bailout, back on October 13, 2008. But despite Treasury's promise back then that they would release the figure the government is paying the Bank of New York Mellon (BoNYM) to manage and distribute cash from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), they still have refused to make the information public. A current copy of BoNYM's contract with the government obtained by ProPublica, a public interest journalism group, still has the compensation figures blackened out, as they were two months ago, still keeping taxpayers in the dark about how much they are paying BoNYM to administer the program.

As President-elect Barack Obama announces his cabinet nominees and prepares to take office, his former rival and Secretary of State candidate, Hillary Clinton, remains deep in debt. Her presidential campaign owes $5.3 million to the Penn, Schoen and Berland (PSB) polling firm, which is owned by former Clinton campaign strategist and Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn. After Clinton wrote off her own $13.1 million loan to her campaign, the campaign owes a total of $6.3 million. Meanwhile, Doug Schoen has announced that he's leaving PSB. Schoen will join the Edelman firm's lobbying practice in Washington DC, where he and "Democratic heavyweight" Bob Shrum will be senior counselors.

"Journalists and many others (rightly) lionizing the late W. Mark Felt, the former FBI official, for his contribution as 'Deep Throat' in helping to bring down Richard Nixon, should not overlook the fact that Felt was one of the architects of the bureau's notorious COINTELPRO domestic spying-and-burglary campaign," writes Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher. Mitchell notes that some of the people spied on included journalists and personal friends of his, including Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo. FBI agents illegally spied on them (even though they had committed no crime) by hiding in the woods near their cabin, breaking in at least half a dozen times, opening their mail, inspecting their bank records, bugging their bedroom, and planting a homing device in their car.

The Bush administration has approved a new "conscience protection" rule that allows health care workers to opt out of administering any form of medical care they feel is objectionable on moral or religious grounds. The new rule will permit emergency room workers to withhold information from rape victims about access to emergency contraception, and will allow doctors in federally-funded clinics to refuse to tell a pregnant woman that her fetus has a severe abnormality. A press release on the Department of Health and Human Services Web site says the law will "protect health care providers from discrimination." DHHS secretary Michael Leavitt said that doctors have a duty only "to provide care that they are comfortable providing." The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops praised the new rules, saying medical workers "should not be required to take the very human life they are dedicated to protecting." The rule is scheduled to take effect the day before President Bush leaves office. Democratic House Representatives Diana DeGette of Colorado and Louise Slaughter of New York plan to introduce a Congressional resolution rejecting the Bush administration's last-minute rules.

There's a telling email exchange quoted in the Defense Department Inspector General's report (pdf) on America Supports You (ASY), a Pentagon program launched in 2004, ostensibly to boost troop morale.

Allison BarberAllison Barber, who founded and led ASY until her recent resignation as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Internal Communications and Public Liaison (and who infamously helped President Bush stage a teleconference with troops in Iraq), asked in a June 2004 email: "Overseas, we make troops [not living on military bases] buy a digital receiver for their televisions so they can see AFRTS," the American Forces Radio and Television Service. "Is there a way for me to make this situation know [sic] to corporate America and offer them the option of 'sponsoring' a receiver? So the receiver might have a sticker on it that says 'brought to you by Sears'."

An attorney with the Defense Department's Standards of Conduct Office responded sharply: "Of course, you may not solicit anyone, especially corporate America, to sponsor the receivers. That's a no-no."

Judging by the Inspector General's report -- which was 18 months in the making -- Allison Barber was responsible for quite a lot of "no-no's."

The Pentagon's Inspector General has concluded that the "Defense Department's public affairs office may have 'inappropriately' merged public affairs and propaganda operations in 2007 and 2008 when it contracted out $1 million in work for a strategic communications plan for use by the military in collaboration with the State Department," writes Walter Pincus. The Inspector General's report (pdf) states that to avoid "appear[ing] to merge inappropriately the public affairs," or PR, "and information operation functions," Pentagon public affairs staff should focus on PR, while Pentagon policy staff assume "strategic communications responsibilities for information operations," the use of information to gain advantage over the enemy. While the report says that organizational structure should "ensure the separation" of PR and propaganda functions, it adds that "information operations [must] use public affairs products and information to communicate military objectives, counter misinformation and disinformation, deter adversary actions, and maintain the trust and confidence of the U.S. population." The focus of the report is an evaluation of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and the American Forces Information Service, which is now part of the new Defense Media Activity.