With just 31 days left in his term, President Bush has pardoned Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors for years of misdeeds, inefficiency, uncompetitiveness, and poor quality. The White House will give the auto manufacturers $17.4 billion in low interest loans.

For those interested, here is the audio and text of a clip on the Clinton Foundation’s donor list which was made public yesterday. I spent some time speaking on the subject to Peter Overby of National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.

I thought I’d share this cartoon, which my colleague Doga Cigdemoglu found on the Hurriyet Daily News website. Here is a link to a slide show of 34 cartoons about the now famous “shoe attack.

I was notified this morning that the Clinton Foundation had posted on its website its roster of donors. Good luck looking to it and through it — which I did at length in the first few minutes after receiving the email. But ever since, the Clinton Foundation site has been crashing. Tons of traffic.

Visit msnbc.

This morning, I will be doing a web-based exchange with people all over the world about U.S. foreign policy and what may be coming next from an Obama-led America. The site is here, but the Facebook page for this U.S. State Department global chat network titled Co.Nx conveys a bit more about this interesting forum….

Tonight. 9:45 pm EST. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show. Whither political dynasties? Why are so many so uncomfortable about Caroline Kennedy being appointed to New York’s U.S. Senate seat?. . .and still so attracted to political aristocracy? Clinton. . .Bush. . .Gore. . .Biden. . .Salazar. . .Udall. . .Murkowski. . .Kennedy. . .Roosevelt. . ….

Former IBM top technologist and Sloan Foundation President emeritus Ralph Gomory has a provocative think-piece up at Huffington Post today titled “Autopia: A Tale of Two Bailouts.

There is a dark truth in the national security establishment. Generals, intelligence directors, national security advisors, and the President prepare themselves to make judgments that may cost American lives. Part of their world involves very tough choices and occasional tragedies.

From the Obama watch pool report tonight: Pool Report — Dec. 17, 2008 On a snowy Chicago night, President-elect Barack Obama left the federal building at 7:30 p.m., about eight hours after he arrived.