Jeep employee Marv Skampo, above, attends a town hall for autoworkers yesterday in Toledo, Ohio. United Autoworkers President Ron Gettelfinger, from left, Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli, Ford CEO Alan Mulally, and General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner have all taken turns this week testifying before Congress about a proposed auto industry bailout. (Photos Getty, Reuters, AP)

On Capitol Hill today, it was all about being green, efficient and technologically savvy.

Executives from Detroit's big three automotive manufacturers, Gerald Wagoner Jr., president and CEO of General Motors Corp., Alan Mulally, president and CEO of the Ford Motor Co. and Robert Nardelli, chairman and CEO of Chrysler, LLC, are speaking to lawmakers from the Senate Banking Committee, asking for up to $34 billion in emergency bailout money to save the nation's struggling car and truck industry.

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VIDEO | Auto Executives Arrive in Style

It has been two weeks since the executives appeared before Congress, only to be sharply criticized for arriving for the hearings in private jets. Today, all three men said they came to Washington by car.

And all three pledged to use any federal money wisely, to benefit the consumer.

Still, many lawmakers said they remain skeptical of any government-funded bailout.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the top Republican on the Banking Committee, said he would oppose any bailout for the auto manufacturers, saying the companies were lagging behind overseas rivals.

"The firms continue to trail their major competitors in almost every category necessary to compete," he said.

And Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) simply said: "I don't trust the car companies' leadership."

Nassau County Police on site at the Valley Stream, N.Y., Wal-Mart where a worker died amid a throng of eager Black Friday bargain shoppers. (Ed Betz / AP)

The fallout from the Black Friday death of a Long Island Wal-Mart employee, who was literally trampled as shoppers rushed into the store, has placed a new spin on the annual holiday shopping season.

The "Black Friday stampede" at the Wal-Mart store, in which an estimated 2,000 people made a beeline for the doors at 5 a.m. to grab holiday deals, resulted in the death of Jdimytai Damour, 34, of Jamaica.

The temporary security worker died of asphyxiation, police said. No one has been charged in connection with Damour's death, though police are investigating possible criminal charges (Newsday reports that it's unlikely anyone will be charged in the crime).

One of Damour's sisters has already filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Wal-Mart in state Supreme Court in the Bronx, claiming the company's ads offering deep discounts "created an atmosphere of competition and anxiety" that led to "crowd craze," The Associated Press reports.

The lawsuit also alleges Wal-Mart failed to provide adequate security at the store. Authorities suspect the 6-foot-5, 270-pound Damour was placed at the front because of his linebacker-type size.

Lawmakers are already throwing around ideas for "doorbuster" crowd-control laws in New York. A no-cutting-in-line conflict between two large groups of shoppers also helped to spark the 5 a.m. rush to the doors, police told Newsday.

Good morning, and welcome to Thursday's Daily Read. Please let us know if we missed any good stories and feel free to comment.

Emanuel Used Contacts to Make Millions » After leaving the Clinton White House, Rahm Emanuel went on to make more than $18 million in just two-and-a-half years, turning many of his contacts in his substantial political Rolodex into paying clients and directing his negotiating prowess and trademark intensity to mergers and acquisitions. — New York Times

Nevada Lt. Gov. Indicted for Fraud » Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, the first major Republican to announce a challenge to Democratic Sen. Harry Reid in 2010, was indicted by a grand jury on Wednesday on four counts of fraud related to his handling of public money as state treasurer. — New York Times

Obama to Wait for Sensitive Legal Opinions » The Justice Department's new leaders may not gain access to the Bush administration's most sensitive legal opinions until after the January inauguration, according to Attorney General Michael Mukasey... Mukasey also said that he saw no need for President Bush to issue blanket pardons of officials involved in some of the administration's most controversial counterterrorism policies. — Washington Post, New York Times

U.S. to Raise 'Irregular War' Capabilities» The Pentagon approved a major policy directive that elevates the military's mission of "irregular warfare" -- campaigns to battle insurgents and terrorists, often with foreign partners and sometimes clandestinely -- to an equal footing with traditional combat. — Washington Post

Henry Kissinger, left, and President Richard M. Nixon together after Kissinger's swearing in as 56th secretary of state, Sept. 22, 1973. (AP File)

Newly released memos and tape recordings from President Richard Nixon's archives shed new light on Nixon's decision-making process in his escalation of the Vietnam war.

The internal White House memos date from November 1968 to January 1969, after Nixon had been elected president. The tapes were recorded between November and December 1972, shortly after his re-election and just as the Watergate scandal began to unfold. Combined, the items consist of nearly 200 hours of tape and 90,000 pages of text documents.

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VIDEO | Skeletons In Nixon's Closet

This is the largest disclosure of Nixon's presidential papers and recordings since Nixon's library transitioned last year from a privately-run institute, controlled by Nixon supporters, to the federally administered National Archives.

Among the released tapes are conversations between Nixon and national security adviser Henry Kissinger in early December of 1972 in which they discuss how and why they will escalate the deeply unpopular war in Vietnam. Weeks later, Nixon would begin a bombing campaign in North Vietnam on Christmas day.

"Let's look at the action. We can't have any doubts about it," Nixon said to Kissinger.

Throughout the discussions, Nixon and Kissinger never use the phrase "bombing," but instead refer to campaign as "the action."

The conversations also reveal that Nixon was aware that he was undertaking a huge gamble by escalating the war. He feared that Congress might cut his funding for the war.

"Blame the Democrats," Kissinger suggested.

According to historian Luke A. Nichter, the newly released items show that Nixon had a personal hand in the details of the Vietnam war planning the war's escalation. "President Nixon was more involved in the minutia of the Vietnam War than we previously thought, at least during the Christmas bombing period," Nichter said.

The documents and recordings also shed light on Nixon's efforts to investigate his enemies, whom he believed were all around him.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani (second to the left) speaks with political leaders during a national security conference in Islamabad Dec. 2. (Reuters / Mian Khursheed)

As India continues to point the finger at neighboring Pakistan for a deadly terrorist attack in Mumbai that killed at least 172 people a week ago, government officials and security experts are urging patience in order to sort out truth from speculation.

India has accused Yusuf Muzammil, a senior leader of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, of coordinating the attack, The Wall Street Journal reported. A senior Mumbai police official told the newspaper that two days before the attack, the group of 10 terrorists who took hostages talked with terrorist group leaders via satellite phone. The group also underwent training in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, the official said.

Muzammil was on a list of 20 people India has asked Pakistan to extradite. Pakistani officials have promised to look into the alleged role of "nonstate actors," a phrase that usually refers to militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba. President Asif Ali Zardari pledged quick action against anyone proven to be involved. (The State Department has been reluctant to say whether Pakistan had a role in the attack, except to say a group at least partly based in the country is believed responsible, The Associated Press reports.)

Meanwhile, a former Defense Department official told The New York Times that former officers from Pakistan's Army and its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped train the Mumbai terrorists, although there was no known link to the current government. (The ties to former officers, if substantiated, could prove to be a point of serious contention between India and Pakistan, which has denied any state involvement in the attack.)

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, speaking in New Delhi to reporters, has tried to play a role of neutral mediator as information about the attackers has leaked out. She has urged Pakistan to "act quickly" in turning over information to Indian authorities, Reuters reports, but also stressed that any hasty move by India could yield "unintended consequences," according to The Times.

Steve Coll, writing for The New Yorker, noted that India will likely try to find evidence of direct state sponsorship by Pakistan in the attacks, but such evidence might be hard to come by.

"If past investigations into such groups prove to be any guide, it may be difficult to find clear-cut evidence of direct involvement by Pakistani intelligence or army personnel," Coll wrote last week. "This is because Pakistan, knowing the stakes of getting caught red-handed, has increasingly pursued its clandestine proxy war against India in Kashmir and on the Indian mainland through layers and layers of self-managing and non-state groups."

The federal government's much-ballyhooed $700 billion program to rescue Wall Street's banks and financial institutions has some loopholes, the Government Accountability Office report.

The Government Accountability Office yesterday released its initial report on the Treasury Department's bailout, finding problems with the oversight of the initiative. The report also questioned whether the government is adequately watching whether banks are complying with the plan's limits on conflicts of interest and executive compensation.

Auditors also said it was too early to tell whether the bailout plan was working.

The report added that the bailout plan's internal controls will inherently have a "heightened risk" of poor oversight because of how quickly the program was put together. (Check out the report below)

"The rapid pace of implementation and evolving nature of the program have hampered efforts to put a comprehensive system of internal control in place," the report said.

Highlights of the December 2008 GAO review of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) approved with the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act signed into law in October. Every 60 days, the U.S. Comptroller General is required to report on a variety of areas associated with oversight of TARP.

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Bush Eases Dumping Rules, Mumbai Attacks, FBI Snags Illinois Officers

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