Cate Vojdik
AC360° Writer

We’re following breaking news on the auto bailout. We’re getting reports that Senate Majority leader Harry Reid says the Big Three bailout is in jeopardy. Democrats apparently don’t have enough votes to give the Big Three the money they want from the $700 billion rescue plan pot. We’ll have more details by air time.

According to new CNN polling, the bailout is already a bust among Americans. Six in 10 oppose rescuing the Big Three with taxpayer money. In early November, nearly half the public supported federal help for Detroit. So what’s changed? We’d love to hear your take.

Some more baffling math from the poll: Three-quarters of respondents said they think they’ll personally feel the impact if the auto makers go bankrupt. We’re intrigued that so many Americans support letting the auto makers go belly up, while admitting their families will suffer from the consequences. Again, we’d love your input.

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Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

Today we take a moment to remember Odetta. Odetta’s voice was beautiful but she was more than just a singer.  She brought the tradition of American folk music to the Civil Rights Movement.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on “In Session”

Barack Obama has picked Bill Richardson to be the secretary of commerce.

Ken McLaughlin
San Jose Mercury News

In a move bound to create political tension between Latinos and Asian-Americans, a group of Chinese-American activists in Silicon Valley has launched a nationwide grass-roots movement to fight President-elect Barack Obama’s nomination today of Bill Richardson as commerce secretary.

The group is upset at the New Mexico governor for his handling of the nearly decade-old case of Taiwanese-American Wen Ho Lee, a former nuclear scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. U.S. officials once suspected Lee of giving nuclear secrets to China when Richardson was President Clinton’s energy secretary.

The Chinese-Americans say they realize that challenging the nomination of Richardson, 61, the nation’s most high-profile Hispanic politician, will ruffle the Latino community, many of whose leaders felt he should have been named secretary of state instead of Sen. Hillary Clinton.

But the Chinese-American group insists that Richardson’s refusal to acknowledge making serious errors in the case makes it a moral imperative to oppose his nomination to Obama’s Cabinet. They say their criticism of Richardson has nothing to do with him being Latino but everything to do with his lack of judgment in the case.

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Gary Tuchman | BIO
AC360 Correspondent

Now that the Georgia U.S. Senate race is over and voters are finally done casting their ballots in the 2008 elections, it seems an appropriate time to bring up something that we in the news media need to do something about. And that is, to stop being propagandized by campaign spokespeople about the size of crowds at campaign rallies.

These people believe, and perhaps rightfully so, that the bigger the crowd is, the more successful the event is. Back in 1995, the organizers of the Million Man March told reporters they had over two million participants. When the United States Park Police estimated the crowd at 400,000, the organizers of the event threatened to sue the National Park Service.

Well, I’ve been very conscious since then of the very active “spinners” at many big events trying to get their estimates of the crowd to the news media. Both major parties do this.

During this presidential campaign, I covered rallies of virtually every major Democratic and Republican candidate in the race. At some rallies, a political operative would come by reporters and authoritatively say his or her estimate of the number of people in the crowd. At other rallies, we would get an e-mail. In many instances, what they told us was nothing but wishful guesses. And the reason I know that is because it is not hard to actually count some of these crowds and have a good mathematical estimate when you are done.

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Some raw politics on Romanian TV leaves a woman all wet.

Jack Gray
AC360 Associate Producer

Well, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for.  Try not to go too wild.  But yes, it’s true.  President-elect Obama is today announcing Bill Richardson as his nominee for Secretary of Commerce.  Which, while not an unimportant post, was not Richardson’s first choice.  Secretary of State was what Richardson really wanted.  Commerce was further down on his list, right below U.S. Ambassador to Dairy Queen.

Meanwhile, we’re still tying up loose ends from the fall elections.  You may have noticed there was a big run-off in Georgia last night.  Republican Saxby “Vote for me and Sarah Palin will show you how to kill a moose with your bare hands” Chambliss ended up holding onto his senate seat.  That means that the Democrats will not have a filibuster-proof supermajority.

I don’t know about you but I kind of like the name Saxby.  It has a nice ring to it.  I think I’m going to suggest to Anderson that he name his new iguana Saxby.  Oh, you didn’t know Anderson is big into iguanas?  Yeah, he walks around with one on his shoulder at all times:  “I’m sorry, I love your story pitch but my iguana Daisy Duke thinks it’s terrible.”

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David Kirby
AgeofAutism.com 

It looks like the CDC may have missed a memo to itself on vaccine safety.

One very contentious issue in the vaccine-autism debate has been whether a certain subset of genetically susceptible children is unequipped to handle the early and intensive US immunization schedule – including kids like Hannah Poling, who developed autism after receiving nine vaccines at once.

The theory is that some people with abnormal immune or metabolic systems might become overtaxed by the fever, inflammation and/or other stresses sometimes caused by multiple vaccines.

Many doctors and scientists scoff at the notion that someone could be injured by getting too many shots at once. They say that people of all ages, including babies, can handle multiple exposures at any given moment.

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Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

Did we say $25 billion? Actually, make that $34 billion. Detroit’s automakers submitted their turnaround plans to Congress Tuesday with the hopes of winning approval for a loan package they claim is necessary for their survival. The plans included job cuts - as many as 31,000 in the case of GM — salary cuts for top executives and the likely elimination of some well-known brands. But the companies are now asking the government for as much as $34 billion in federal loans instead of the $25 billion they originally wanted. GM is asking for up to $18 billion. Ford is looking for up to $9 billion. Chrysler wants a $7 billion. We’ll see how Congress reacts to the new requests on Thursday, when the CEO’s of the Big Three complete their drives from Michigan to Washington in their hybids.

Meanwhile, local United Auto Workers leaders from across the country will hold an emergency meeting in Detroit this morning to discuss concessions the union could make to help auto companies get government loans.

The CEO’s of the Big Three drive their hybrids from Michigan to Washington - hoping to arrive in time for Thursday’s encore appearance before Congress.

Unloading some brands is on the car companies’ agenda, but we’re learning this morning that maybe you can’t go home again. The Swedish Government reportedly says that while it’s ready to support Volvo and Saab, it doesn’t want to take over the troubled brands from Ford and GM.

And just as Detroit’s Big Three presented their turnaround plans to Congress, we learned that car sales continued to plunge in November, falling 37% from a year-ago and hitting a 26-year low. The nation’s five largest automakers - GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota and Honda — each reported that sales dropped more than 30% from a year-earlier (47% in the case of Chrysler).

It’s not just the automakers that are hurting. More than 700 car dealerships across the country have shut their doors so far this year. And more than twice number that could close in 2009. Others are resorting to crazy promotions - such as one Dodge dealership in Miami that’s literally giving cars away.

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Penny Manis
AC360 Senior Producer

Today is the Christmas Tree lighting at Rockefeller Center. The owner says the 72-foot tall tree was planted after his parent’s used it as their first Christmas tree in 1931. He says it’s “the miracle tree” because his late mother always said it would one day be on display at Rockefeller Center.

The family recently saw a blue bird in the tree and they believe the bird was their mother guarding it. Now there’s a nice thought to warm our greasy little hearts this morning.

Btw: Am I the only one who feels like summer ended only a short while ago and we are already fully launched into the holiday season? Time flies when you’re having fun.

The holidays conjure up images of snow. (some of u reading this probably feel the full effects of winter snow already). Well if u live in Chicago, the city’s mayor said from now on, crews will scale back on plowing at night and on the weekends to avoid paying overtime costs. I guess that’s why all the Governors were hitting P-E Obama up for money yesterday at a meeting in Philly. Get your shovels ready if you live in the Midwest.

Another day, another press conference. Obama announces his nomination of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as Commerce Secretary. Some folks have commented that Obama’s picks show he is a ‘closet centrist’.

Conservatives initially feared he would be more radically liberal but his National Security picks seem to indicate a concern for continuity in a time of war and economic crisis. What do you make of his nominations thus far?

We (CNN) caught up w/ Bill Clinton in Asia overnight, in an exclusive interview he said he would have ‘very little’ to do with decisions his wife Hillary will face as Sec of State, and that he would be a helpful sounding board to her, but nothing more.

Clinton said his wife learned she was being considered for the Cabinet post by reading it in the newspaper. Wonder if she spilled her coffee all over the place after reading that particular clip about her future that morning?

We continue to follow the Big 3 automakers again today, and there is also a bond hearing in Chicago for the man charged with killing 3 family members of Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson. William Balfour, who is Hudson’s estranged brother-in-law, faces 3 murder counts and a home invasion count. Poor Jennifer, she really captured our admiration when she belted those tunes out in Dream Girls. So much drama to deal with now.

See you at 10pet!

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and boys pray next to the bodies of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

All terrorism is monstrous, but the murder of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg by ‘religious Islamic extremists’ stands out for its unspeakable infamy. The deliberate targeting of a small Jewish center and its married young directors, whose only purpose it was to provide for the religious needs of a community and feed travelers, proves that those who perpetrated this crime are bereft not only of even a hint of humanity, but every shred of faith as well. The world’s most aggressive atheists are more religious than these spiritual charlatans and pious frauds. When Osama bin Laden, whose beard masks the face of the ultimate religious hypocrite, attacked the World Trade Center in New York, the target was purportedly chosen as the very symbol of American materialism and excess. But what could these ‘religious’ people have been thinking in exterminating a twenty-something couple with two babies who moved from the world’s richest country to India to provide religious services and faith to the poor and the needy? What blow against Western decadence were they striking by targeting a Chabad House whose entire purpose it is to spread spirituality to people whose lives lack it? Now is not only a time to remember the victims but to hate their killers. One cannot love the innocent without simultaneously loathing those who orphan their children.

I know how uncomfortable people feel about hatred. It smacks of revenge. It poisons the heart of those who hate. But this is true only if we hate the good, the innocent, or the neutral. Hating monsters, however, motivates us to fight them. Only if an act like this repulses us to our core will we summon the will to fight these devils so that they can never murder again.

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