Two top Bush-era officials have joined forces to pen an article falsely warning citizens of the strict gun laws the Obama administration will put into place via ceding to the authority of the United Nations.

John Yoo and John Bolton — the former Justice Department official responsible for the “Bush torture memos” and the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. respectively — took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal on Monday sounding the alarm against the sneaky way the Obama administration will come for Americans’ guns: the United Nations. In particular, the recently passed Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is, according to Yoo and Bolton, the vehicle that the White House means to use to go around Congress and the Constitution itself to violate citizens’ Second Amendment rights.

Yoo and Bolton see in the text of the ATT — drafted to regulate the $70 billion arms trade and keep tanks and fighter jets out of the hands of frequent human rights violators — a clear and easy way for the Obama administration to get everything the authors believe to be the end goals of the gun violence debate in the U.S. without the approval of the American people:

But the new treaty also demands domestic regulation of “small arms and light weapons.” The treaty’s Article 5 requires nations to “establish and maintain a national control system,” including a “national control list.” Article 10 requires signatories “to regulate brokering” of conventional arms. The treaty offers no guarantee for individual rights, but instead only declares it is “mindful” of the “legitimate trade and lawful ownership” of arms for”recreational, cultural, historical, and sporting activities.” Not a word about the right to possess guns for a broader individual right of self-defense.

Gun-control advocates will use these provisions to argue that the U.S. must enact measures such as a national gun registry, licenses for guns and ammunition sales, universal background checks, and even a ban of certain weapons. The treaty thus provides the Obama administration with an end-run around Congress to reach these gun-control holy grails.

Their article syncs with other conservatives dire warnings of a new “national gun registry,” despite precisely zero proposals from Democrats to enact one. The portion of the treaty Yoo and Bolton cite does not include specifics on what a “national control list” looks like, and refers to the export of arms and their components. This in turn does not imply the type of Federal individual ownership list Republicans fear and Vice President Joe Biden has made clear isn’t soon coming.
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John Bolton — a self-appointed supposed strong supporter of Israel — accused the Israeli government on Tuesday of lying in expressing its support for President Obama.

The Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. produced a video welcoming Obama on his visit this week to the Jewish state. The unusual video depicts cartoon-like versions of the president and Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu shaking hands to the tune of the “Golden Girls” theme song “Thank You For Being A Friend.”

Fox News host Greta Van Susteren wondered why then, if things were so bad between Obama and Israel, that the Israelis would make such a video. Bolton could think of only one answer: It’s propaganda:

VAN SUSTEREN: The Obama administration saying the president’s trip is mostly a fence mending mission, but it looks like [referring tot he video] the Israelis are welcoming him with open arms. Ambassador, what do you think about this?

BOLTON: I’m glad the Israeli government has enough budget surplus that they can produce propaganda like that. The president has Israel back, the bonds are strong. What could possibly go wrong?

Watch the clip:

Israeli President Shimon Peres will give Obama the Presidential Medal of Distinction during his trip to Israel this week. As Bolton would have it, that’s probably a bogus gesture as well.

But the former Bush administration U.N. ambassador is a regular in the Obama-hates-Israel circuit, the presumption being of course that Bolton is more friendly to the Jewish state than Obama is. But apparently that friendship doesn’t go too far as there’s nothing like having a good buddy who calls you a liar on national television.

The much-awaited release of the State Department’s Accountability Review Board report on the attack in Benghazi, Libya has not quieted the chattering of conservatives about an administration cover-up. Instead, the new conspiracy theory surrounding the tragedy is that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is faking recovery from a concussion to avoid testifying to Congress on the report’s contents.

Accusations began with former Bush Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton on Monday outright stating that Clinton is lying about her illness while appearing on Fox News, setting off a string of rumors. In his conversation with host Greta Van Sustren, Bolton said, “You know, every foreign service officer in every foreign ministry in the world knows the phrase I am about to use: When you don’t want to go to a meeting or conference, or an event, you have a ‘diplomatic illness.’ And this is a ‘diplomatic illness’ to beat the band.” Right-wing commentator Charles Krauthammer joined Bolton’s analysis on Tuesday evening.

Which lead to the hosts of Fox and Friends running with the theorizing on Wednesday morning. Dropping any pretense, hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade both outright stated in their exchange that Clinton was avoiding discussion of Benghazi to keep her credibility for a run for the White House in 2016:

DOOCY: If she runs for President in four years, this is not helpful to her, the fact that there were these systemic failure and management failures. Where the people in the field are asking for help and they’re saying ‘Sorry, we don’t have enough money.’ That’s not acceptable.

KILMEADE: You’re saying in four years she should recover from the concussion. That should be a long enough period –

DOOCY: That we didn’t know about until it was time to go to Capital Hill. [CROSSTALK]

KILMEADE: That’s a long enough period of time, after having a concussion, to remember everything.

The State Department announced on last Thursday afternoon that Clinton sustained a concussion during a fall, the result of extreme dehydration in the course of a debilitating stomach virus. Department spokeswoman Victora Nuland yesterday slammed insinuations that Clinton could be hiding from the Benghazi report, saying that it is “really unfortunate that in times like this people make wild speculation based on no information.” Deputy Secretaries Thomas Nides and William Burns will testify in Clinton’s place in open hearings of Congress on Thursday, and Clinton has also confirmed that she will be available to speak before various Congressional committees in January.

Today John Bolton, former U.N. ambassador under George W. Bush, said that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to Australia is “very important” and necessary, undercutting attacks from conservative news outlets such as Fox News and Drudge that Clinton is vacationing Australia rather than testifying in front of a congressional committee about the Benghazi attacks.

Speaking on Fox News today, Bolton said:

Let me first say a word in defense of Secretary Clinton and Secretary Panetta being in Australia. This is for an annual meeting called the AUSMIN that we have and I think it is very important that we demonstrate solidarity with the Australians so the fact that they’re out of town shouldn’t be concerning.

Watch the clip:

Specifically, Fox Nation propagated a myth that Clinton skipped a hearing on Benghazi to drink wine in Australia. The Drudge Report picked up the story as well, going even further with its headline: “Hillary can’t make House hearing on Benghazi; busy visiting friends, wine tasting in Australia.” Drudge and Fox link to an article in the Herald Sun, a newspaper, as Media Matters pointed out, that is owned by conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Indeed, the Australia meeting is crucial. At the meeting today, Clinton and Panetta announced that the military “will station a powerful radar and a space telescope in Australia as part of its strategic shift toward Asia.” Other key topics including Afghanistan will be covered as well, the Voice of America notes, “The two countries will also discuss plans to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Australia, which has 1,550 troops in Afghanistan, is the biggest military contributor to the campaign outside NATO.”

Today the White House denied rumors that Valerie Jarrett, one of President Obama’s top advisers, is allegedly negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program. The story has proliferated in predominantly right-wing news outlets but Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told Fox News that “there is not a shred of truth to this report. It’s completely false.”

On October 21, Front Page Magazine, a fringe right-wing news outlet, reported on a New York Times story about an agreement that the Obama administration had with the Iranian government to negotiate one-on-one regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Front Page claimed that Jarrett “is almost certainly pushing for an Iranian agreement to nail down his ‘legacy.’” Then on Monday, Israeli media outlet YNet reported that Jarrett is the “key player behind the secret talks between the US and Iran.” The story cited vague “state officials” as the sources for the story.

Fox News then picked up the story, citing Iranian news blogs as “heating up” about her role but adding that the “claims of the blog have not been independently verified, and it isn’t clear how the blogger, who didn’t cite official sources, would know such details.” From there, Fox explains why “her name would come up in rumors of such talks,” and lists shaky evidence such as the baseless claim that Jarrett “urged Obama on three different occasions to cancel” the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Media Matters fully discredited the bin Laden raid claim, noting that “on the dates Obama was alleged to have canceled the ‘mission,’ there wasn’t yet a ‘mission’ to cancel.” Moreover, the White House said she “wasn’t read into super-secret plans for the raid that took place in May of 2011,” adding that the claim was an “utter fabrication.”

So, why was Jarrett’s name thrown into the story? It seems to boil down to the fact that she was born in Iran where her father once worked. Jarrett moved to the United States from Iran as a young child. Both Fox News and Ynet prominently feature Jarrett’s Iranian background in their stories. Fox News claimed that “[m]any believe she speaks Farsi, or Persian, the official language of Iran.”

Today, Fox host Martha MacCallum highlighted Jarrett’s Iranian connection, wondering if she could “bridge a relationship there” or make “arrangements” for other negotiations in the future. But even right-wing hawk John Bolton, rarely a friend to the Obama administration, wasn’t buying it, though Bolton said he wouldn’t “put it past” the Obama administration to do such a thing, claiming it would be “malpractice” to even consider Jarrett as an adviser.

Mitt Romney turned attention to his foreign policy this week, with a largely substance-free and fact-challenged speech on Tuesday and a European tour that will eventually take him to Israel. While Romney has gone to great lengths to avoid talking national security, it’s no secret that neither Romney nor his advisers appear capable of outlining a clear vision of a Romney administration’s foreign policy. What little specifics we do hear sound suspiciously like the Obama administration’s positions. So for those wondering what a Romney presidency might mean for U.S. troops and diplomats, there’s not much to go on.

But what’s troublesome about Romney on foreign policy is what’s cooking behind the scenes. Gen. Colin Powell recently complained that Romney’s foreign policy team is “quite far to the right.” Indeed, veterans of the Bush/Cheney administration “pepper” Romney’s foreign policy team and the so-called “Cheney-ites” are reportedly winning the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s ear. Here’s an in depth look at some of the key advisers a President Romney will hear from on foreign policy and what we might come to expect in a Romney administration:

JOHN BOLTON

Before advising Romney, Amb. John Bolton served briefly as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under a recess appointment — awkward from the start because of his lifelong disdain for anything multilateral. After leaving government and taking up a position at the American Enterprise Institute, he turned on the Bush administration for not being hawkish enough on Iran. It’s a note he’s been striking since as a Fox contributor, sometime presidential candidate, and frequent guest on right-wing conspiracy theorists’ radio shows. He cheers for negotiations with Iran to fail, a position that supports his “default setting” of wanting to bomb Iran for any old reason even though he has admitted it might not work. Ominously, Bolton even once suggested a nuclear attack against Iran.

ELIOT COHEN

Just months after the war in Afghanistan began, Eliot Cohen — who “was closely affiliated with the circle of hawks who surrounded Vice President Dick Cheney” — was agitating for a war in Iraq, calling it the “big prize.” As a co-founder of the Project for A New American Century, a neoconservative pressure organization critical to the development of the Iraq War, Cohen helped push the case for toppling Saddam. Though critical of the execution of the Iraq War, Cohen appears to have drawn only the most limited of conclusions, as he was seen as recently as 2009 making the case for a new war in Iran.

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Today on Center for Security Policy president Frank Gaffney’s radio show, Mitt Romney foreign policy adviser John Bolton defended Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) call for the U.S. government to investigate suggestions that government employees — including a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — are affiliated with a Muslim Brotherhood plot to infiltrate the U.S. government.

Bolton has direct ties to the Romney campaign, serving as an unpaid adviser that regularly appears at campaign events stumping for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. “John Bolton insists on good results for America and is someone I respect,” Romney said in December. “I think he’s a fine man with great capacity.”

On Gaffney’s radio show today (Gaffney is the brains behind Bachmann’s campaign), Bolton said Bachmann and some of her fellow Republicans are just asking questions, adding that he’s “mystified” by the criticism Bachmann has received:

BOLTON: What I think these members of Congress have done is simply raise the question, to a variety of inspectors general in key agencies, are your departments following their own security clearance guidelines, are they adhering to the standards that presumably everybody who seeks a security clearance should have to go through, are they making special exemptions? What is wrong with raising the question? Why is even asking whether we are living up to our standards a legitimate area of congressional oversight, why has that generated this criticism? I’m just mystified by it.

Listen to the clip, courtesy of Right Wing Watch:

Bolton joins right-wing luminaries Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh in defending Bachmann’s anti-Muslim witch hunt but many top Republicans — Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) — have criticized the Minnesota Congresswoman’s crusade.

Mitt Romney’s foreign policy adviser Amb. John Bolton has a knack for grabbing headlines for his unbridled hawkishness. On Sunday, Bolton rehashed his usual attacks on President Obama for not being supportive of Israel (those charges are spurious).

The only thing that might be notable about Bolton’s comment was its venue. Bolton was appearing on Sunday on a radio show hosted by Aaron Kelin, the Jerusalem bureau chief for the conspiracy website World Net Daily, known as WND. WND is perhaps best known for pushing Obama “birther” conspiracies — the widely discredited claim that the president was born abroad and is ineligible to hold his office — as well as other questionable stories.

It should come as no surprise that the Romney campaign, where Bolton serves as a foriegn policy adviser, maintains these sorts of relationships with conspiracy theorists. In an interview with another right-wing website, a Romney campaign spokesman Lenny Alcivar outlined a media strategy to use right-wing websites like the aggregator Drudge Report to get around critical media coverage. (During the campaign, Romney singled out Drudge as one of his favorite websites, and posted a video of himself reading the Drudge Report.)

But Drudge has a sordid history of providing traffic-driving links to conspiracy websites — including WND. A ThinkProgress investigation revealed that, since June 2011, Drudge linked 184 times to WND and another prominent conspiracy site, by conservative estimates driving over 30 million pageview to them — and that doesn’t include the seven permanent links Drudge has to WND columnists.

Here’s a chart showing how one of Mitt Romney’s favorite websites drives web traffic to WND and other conspiracy sites:

Like his employer WND, Klein buys into “birtherism”: He recently hosted “birther” idol Sheriff Joe Arpaio on his show to discuss findings of an investigation concluding Obama’s birth certificate was faked. (Klein said he, too, did an investigation that yielded the same results.)

WND pushes other less-than-reliable conspiracies on its pages. The website published stories alleging that Obama spent a year in Pakistan working for the C.I.A. and that conspiracists’ bête noire William Ayers paid to put the “foreigner” Obama through school.

For his part, Bolton had, not including this weekend’s episode, appeared on Klein’s radio show at least three times this year alone, with more appearances before that.