Gonzales once again implicates self in Bush torture program

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has implicated himself - yet again - in the Bush administration's torture program.

Gonzales told Talking Points Memo that he knew "enhanced interrogation techniques" were used against suspected terrorists.

"I was aware of the techniques. I did have knowledge," Gonzales explained in the exclusive interview. "[I] know that a number of lawyers worked to look to see whether it could be administered in a way that was consistent with the anti-torture statute and guidance was given by the Department of Justice while I was in the White House about how these techniques could be implemented to gather important information, in a dangerous period for our nation, to gather information from the enemy that would be in America's favor."

Records show that Gonzales played a key role in the Bush torture program, with the former US attorney general authoring the original torture memo.

The memo referred to Article III of the Geneva Convention as outdated when applied to Al-Qaeda and Taliban captured abroad and imprisoned in US bases across the world.

But months prior to the release of Gonzales' original memo, he had approved of the CIA's "borderline torture" of Abu Zubaydah, according to a National Public Radio report in 2009. This approval was unusual in that the White House usually never advises agencies outside itself and called into question the CIA's policy review process that spring.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, once chief of staff to Bush's first secretary of state, Colin Powell, has said that he learned from Powell that President Bush had the inside scoop on counter-terrorism policy involving torture techniques.

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7/7 inquests: MI5 fails in bid to keep evidence secret

The High Court backed Lady Justice Hallett, the assistant deputy coroner, who said that the coroners’ rules prevented closed hearings.

The press and public are likely to be excluded from any such hearings but the ruling means that lawyers for the families of the dead can be present to ask questions.

However the government may yet halt the inquests and call a judicial inquiry instead, which would allow sensitive intelligence material to be considered in secret.

A Home Office spokesman said the government was “committed to co-operating fully with the coroner's inquiry” but added that they would “consider the judgment carefully."

"We believe a closed hearing for a small part of the July 7 inquests would be the best way for the coroner to consider as much information as possible.

"The court has decided this is not possible and we will consider the judgment carefully," a spokesman said.

Lady Justice Hallett, an Appeal Court judge appointed to hear the July 7 inquests, had concluded that she could not exclude "interested persons" from the hearings.

But she said she was “still hopeful that, with full co-operation on all sides, most if not all of the relevant material can and will be put before me in such a way that national security is not threatened.”

"Sources' names may be withheld, redactions made. I do not intend to endanger the lives of anyone. I do not intend to allow questions which might do so," she added.

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TSA Pat Down Went Too Far, Agency Chief Says

The beleaguered head of the Transportation Security Administration said today that at least one airport passenger screening went too far when an officer reached inside a traveler's underwear, and the agency is open to rethinking its current protocols.

An ABC News employee said she was subject to a "demeaning" search at Newark Liberty International Airport Sunday morning.

"The woman who checked me reached her hands inside my underwear and felt her way around," she said. "It was basically worse than going to the gynecologist. It was embarrassing. It was demeaning. It was inappropriate."

That search was against protocols and "never" should have happened, TSA Administrator John Pistole told "Good Morning America" today.

"There should never be a situation where that happens," Pistole said. "The security officers are there to protect the traveling public. There are specific standard operating protocols which they are to follow."

Pistole, reponding to complaints from passengers, has maintained that the TSA will not change its pat down procedures. But today he said the agency is "open" to changing security procedures.

"The bottom line is, we are always adapting and adjusting prior protocols in view of the intelligence and in view of the latest information we have on how the terrorists are trying to kill our people on planes," Pistole said. "If that means we need to adjust the procedures, then of course we're open to that."

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Michael Dell Shows Why Ben Bernanke Is Impotent: William Pesek

Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Suspicions that the Federal Reserve’s moves won’t save the U.S. are often based on events in Tokyo. Round Rock, Texas, may be a better place to look.

That’s where the computer empire Michael Dell created in 1984 is based. As Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke pumps a new burst of stimulus into the economy, he hopes to spur businesses to hire, spend and help avoid a second recession.

It’s no longer so simple. In September, Dell Inc. sold $1.5 billion in 3-, 5- and 30-year notes. In regulatory filings, Dell said the proceeds were for “capital expenditures, advancements to or investments in our subsidiaries, and acquisitions of companies and assets.” Nine days later, Dell said it will spend more than $100 billion in China during the next decade.

Dell says the money it raised won’t be used outside the U.S. Yet it’s hard not to connect the dots and wonder what the Fed thinks it will accomplish by flooding America with cash when much of it will leak overseas. This is stimulating developing nations in Asia and elsewhere more than the U.S.

There are two reasons why the Fed’s largess is bad for Asia. The first has gotten lots of press: The torrent of hot money is adding to overheating risks. The second deserves more attention: Asian governments gain room to foster the false perception that their region is immune to the West’s malaise.

Global Fed

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New Afghan war plans could cost US taxpayers an extra $125 billion

As leaders at the NATO summit in Lisbon meet this weekend to discuss strategy in Afghanistan, US war planners have been signaling that troop withdrawals set to begin in 2011 will be mostly symbolic and that the handover to Afghan forces in 2014 is “aspirational.”

Such could cost American taxpayers handsomely at a time when deficit cutting has gripped Washington. According to one estimate, softening those deadlines could add at least $125 billion in war spending – not including long-term costs like debt servicing and health care for veterans.

“I don’t think anyone is seriously talking about cutting war funding as a way of handling the deficit,” says Todd Harrison, a defense funding expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. But higher war costs “could hurt the base defense budget [and] the rest of the discretionary budget.”

IN PICTURES: Fighting continues in Afghanistan

A shift in US deadlines

Currently there are some 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan, which includes the 30,000 troop surge announced by President Obama in December 2009. At that time, the president also said the US would “begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.”

Such was interpreted by many Americans and Afghans to be a significant withdrawal in 2011. In recent months, with the situation in Afghanistan showing few signs of stabilizing, US officials have focused more on 2014 as the date for withdrawal.

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Robert Fisk: An American bribe that stinks of appeasement

INDEPENDENT

In any other country, the current American bribe to Israel, and the latter's reluctance to accept it, in return for even a temporary end to the theft of somebody else's property would be regarded as preposterous. Three billion dollars' worth of fighter bombers in return for a temporary freeze in West Bank colonisation for a mere 90 days? Not including East Jerusalem – so goodbye to the last chance of the east of the holy city for a Palestinian capital – and, if Benjamin Netanyahu so wishes, a rip-roaring continuation of settlement on Arab land. In the ordinary sane world in which we think we live, there is only one word for Barack Obama's offer: appeasement. Usually, our lords and masters use that word with disdain and disgust.

Anyone who panders to injustice by one people against another people is called an appeaser. Anyone who prefers peace at any price, let alone a $3bn bribe to the guilty party – is an appeaser. Anyone who will not risk the consequences of standing up for international morality against territorial greed is an appeaser. Those of us who did not want to invade Afghanistan were condemned as appeasers. Those of us who did not want to invade Iraq were vilified as appeasers. Yet that is precisely what Obama has done in his pathetic, unbelievable effort to plead with Netanyahu for just 90 days of submission to international law. Obama is an appeaser.

The fact that the West and its political and journalistic elites – I include the ever more disreputable New York Times – take this tomfoolery at face value, as if it can seriously be regarded as another "step" in the "peace process", to put this mystical nonsense "back on track", is a measure of the degree to which we have taken leave of our senses in the Middle East.

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$11,000 fine, arrest possible for some who refuse airport scans and pat downs

If you don't want to pass through an airport scanner that allows security agents to see an image of your naked body or to undergo the alternative, a thorough manual search, you may have to find another way to travel this holiday season.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning that any would-be commercial airline passenger who enters an airport checkpoint and then refuses to undergo the method of inspection designated by TSA will not be allowed to fly and also will not be permitted to simply leave the airport.

That person will have to remain on the premises to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest.

"Once a person submits to the screening process, they can not just decide to leave that process," says Sari Koshetz, regional TSA spokesperson, based in Miami.

Koshetz said such passengers would be questioned "until it is determined that they don't pose a threat" to the public.

Palm Beach Sheriff's Office spokesperson Teri Barbera said PBSO deputies stationed at the airport would become involved when requested by the TSA.

"We will handle each incident on a case-by-case basis," she said.

No one will be forcibly searched or arrested "just because they refuse to go through the security procedures," Barbera said. "That may rise to the level of suspicious behavior for the TSA, but it wouldn't rise to the level of suspicious behavior for a deputy," she said.

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U.S. seeks more drone strikes

WASHINGTON POST

The United States has renewed pressure on Pakistan to expand the areas where CIA drones can operate inside the country, reflecting concern that the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan is being undermined by insurgents' continued ability to take sanctuary across the border, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.

The U.S. appeal has focused on the area surrounding the Pakistani city of Quetta, where the Afghan Taliban leadership is thought to be based. But the request also seeks to expand the boundaries for drone strikes in the tribal areas, which have been targeted in 101 attacks this year, the officials said.

Pakistan has rejected the request, officials said. Instead, the country has agreed to more modest measures, including an expanded CIA presence in Quetta, where the agency and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate have established teams seeking to locate and capture senior members of the Taliban.

The disagreement over the scope of the drone program underscores broader tensions between the United States and Pakistan, wary allies that are increasingly pointing fingers at one another over the rising levels of insurgent violence on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Senior Pakistani officials expressed resentment over what they described as misplaced U.S. pressure to do more, saying the United States has not controlled the Afghan side of the border, is preoccupied by arbitrary military deadlines and has little regard for Pakistan's internal security problems.

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In Lisbon, they talk. In Afghanistan, they die

Christopher Davies, 22, was the 100th British serviceman to die this year in a war that Nato's leaders – gathered today for a crucial summit – have no idea how to win.

Christopher Davies, a guardsman with the 1st Battalion Irish Guards, has been named as the 100th member of Britain's armed forces fighting in Afghanistan to die this year.

The 22-year-old's death was given extra poignancy yesterday as world leaders gathered to formulate an exit strategy from the bloody and intractable campaign. It has now claimed the lives of 345 British servicemen and women since it began in 2001.

Guardsman Davies, from St Helens, Merseyside, died after being ambushed and shot by insurgents while on patrol in the Nahr-e Saraj district, Helmand Province, on Wednesday. He was the devoted father of one young daughter, Lucy. Lance Corporal Bryan Philips, one of his colleagues, said he "had so many pictures of his daughter and talked about her constantly".

His family remains entwined in the fortunes of the Afghanistan mission. He had been serving in the Irish Guards alongside his 21-year-old brother, John Davies.

In a statement issued yesterday, Guardsman Davies' family described him as a "cracking lad" who had a keen imagination, loved joking with friends and often entertained them by singing karaoke. He had joined the Army in January last year.

"Christopher had always wanted to be in the Army ever since he was at school," his family said.

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Foreclosure Hearing

The foreclosure hearing was held on 11-16-10.

Stop the looting and start the prosecuting!

“PROGRESSIVE” PRICE-INDEXING WOULD SIGNIFICANTLY CUT SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS FOR MANY RECIPIENTS

CBPP

Proposals to tie initial benefit levels for new Social Security beneficiaries to changes in prices rather than average wages are receiving attention as policymakers wrestle with the nation’s fiscal challenges and with options to close Social Security’s long-term financing shortfall. Such proposals, commonly called “price-indexing,” are misguided for several reasons:

They would significantly cut future benefits for very large numbers of workers — including those with relatively modest incomes — compared to currently scheduled benefit levels.

Progressive price indexing proposal, benefits would be reduced by nearly 30 percent for those who earned medium wages (about $43,000 in 2010 dollars) and by as much as 50 percent for higher earners.

(See Figure 1.)

Fall further and further behind their previous standard of living — and behind the rest of society — over time.

That is because price indexing would steadily reduce the fraction of workers’ past earnings that Social Security benefits replace.

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USA Bottom Of 11-Country Health Care League

Americans are more likely to have no health care cover, forego treatment because of costs, struggle to pay medical bills, be confronted with very high medical charges even when they are insured, have insurance companies not pay them, and have disputes with insurance companies than 10 other countries in a survey carried out by the Commonwealth Fund. This is despite the fact that the USA spends far more of its Gross Domestic Product on health care than any of the other 10 countries.

The survey consisted of data gathered from 19,000 adults from Australia, The USA, The UK, France, Canada, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, France and New Zealand. Information was collected by telephone from March to June 2010.

Health coverage systems in the 11 countries vary widely, from a wholly public system in Canada, a mainly public system with some private health insurance companies and private health care providers in the UK, to countries with mainly private health insurance companies as in Switzerland and the USA.

The researchers wanted to find out what impact a country's style of health care cover has on access to care, protection against high financial costs and medical debt, and the complexity of the insurance.

They found that:

• Going without - 33% of American adults forego treatment, do not visit a physician when ill, or do not go and get their prescription - all because of costs. This compares to 6% in The Netherlands and 5% in the UK.
• Struggling with bills - Up to 9% of ten countries' adults had serious problems meeting the costs of their medical bills, compared to 20% in the USA. 9% was the highest among the other ten countries.

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Prime U.S. Mortgage Foreclosures Rise to Record

Foreclosures on prime fixed-rate mortgages in the U.S. jumped to a record in the third quarter as unemployment strained household budgets of the most creditworthy borrowers.

The inventory of homes in foreclosure financed by prime fixed-rate loans rose to 2.45 percent from 2.36 percent in the previous three months, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in a report today. New foreclosures rose to 0.93 percent from 0.71 percent. Both numbers were the highest in the 12 years since the Washington-based trade group started tracking the categories.

Homeowners are falling behind on their mortgage payments as job cuts make it difficult for them to cover their bills, said Michael Fratantoni, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s vice president of research and economics. The unemployment rate has stayed above 9 percent for 18 consecutive months, the longest stretch since 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“The increase in these plain-vanilla type of loans to the highest numbers ever show us it really is being driven by the economic environment,” Fratantoni said in a telephone interview. “It’s not going to turn around until we get more significant job growth.”

New foreclosures against all types of mortgages, which also include subprime, rose to 1.34 percent, the highest level in a year, according to the report. The overall inventory of loans in foreclosure dropped to 4.39 percent from 4.57 percent as some mortgages were modified by servicers, companies that administer payments. Those modified loans may reappear as foreclosures in future quarters because of redefaults, said Fratantoni.

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House Rejects Unemployment-Extension Bill

WSJ

The House rejected a three-month extension of benefits for the long-term unemployed Thursday, with benefits set to lapse for some on Nov. 30.

The vote was a setback to congressional Democrats, who are hoping to keep the program alive despite Republican opposition.

The vote gave the bill majority approval, 258-154, but it failed because Democratic leaders brought the measure to the floor under fast-track procedures, which require a two-thirds majority to pass.

Republicans largely voted largely against the bill, as they have against previous extensions of benefits, because its $12 billion cost wasn't covered with offsetting spending cuts.

Democrats could bring the bill back to the House floor under regular, more time-consuming debate rules that would allow the bill to pass with a simple majority. But the measure still would face obstacles in the Senate, where Republicans also are poised to block it if the bill isn't paid for.

Democrats weren't surprised by the outcome but saw political advantage in staging the vote in order to portray Republicans as being responsible for the impending benefit lapse.

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More Americans filing for unemployment

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits rose by 2,000 in the latest week, pointing to continued weakness in the job market, the government reported Thursday.

The number of initial filings rose to 439,000 in the week ended Nov. 13, the Labor Department said. The number was slightly better than the 442,000 economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected, but higher than the revised 437,000 initial claims filed the week before.

Overall, the weekly number has been treading water since last November, hovering in the mid to upper 400,000s and even ticking slightly above 500,000 in mid-August.

Economists often say the number needs to fall below 400,000, before the stubbornly high unemployment rate can start dropping significantly.

That said -- initial claims have stayed below the 440,000 level for three of the last four weeks, and that could be seen as a bright spot.

Jennifer Lee, senior economist with BMO Capital Markets, called the data "not that bad," and Zach Pandl, an economist with Nomura said the recent claims data have boosted his optimism about the job market.

Bruce Yandle, an economics professor at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University said the numbers could point to a temporary steady period, just before jobless claims start trending down more significantly.

"What we're looking at is a time where the economy is getting it's legs and moving positively in rebuilding employment," Yandle said.

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Guantánamo detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani cleared of 284 terror charges

Barack Obama's plans to try accused terrorists in civilian courts experienced a major setback last night when the first former Guantánamo detainee to be tried in one was convicted on just one of 285 charges over the 1998 attack on US embassies in East Africa which killed 224 people.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a 36-year-old Tanzanian, was found guilty of conspiracy to destroy US government buildings and property for helping an al-Qaida cell to buy a lorry and bomb parts in the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Dar-es-Salaam. But a US federal jury acquitted him of all the more serious charges of murder and conspiracy.

Ghailani faces 20 years to life in prison when he is sentenced in January. He had already been told that even if he was acquitted on all counts he would not be freed so long as America remains "at war" with al-Qaida.

However, the verdict is an embarrassment for US prosecutors who maintained that Ghailani played an important logistical role in the attacks but were unable to persuade a jury which showed signs of serious disagreement during deliberations, with one juror asking to be excused because of differences with other jurors. The judge, Lewis Kaplan, refused.

The failure to convict Ghailani on the more serious charges is also a blow to Obama's attempts to persuade a sceptical Congress and security establishment that civilian trials are better than the widely condemned military tribunals held at the Guantánamo detention centre. The trial was considered a test run.

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The Fed will kill the dollar! Eventually!

CNN

NEW YORK -- It's hard to find someone that isn't criticizing the Federal Reserve these days. I keep expecting to see a press release from Lady Gaga in my inbox about why she thinks quantitative easing is the financial equivalent of a bad romance.

The big concerns among all the Fed-haters was that QE2 would keep long-term interest rates too low for too long and further weaken the already puny dollar.

But now that two weeks have passed since the Fed's oft-lampooned decision to buy $600 billion in long-term Treasuries, it's worth pointing out that the worst-case fears have yet to be realized. Bond yields are higher and the dollar has gotten stronger.

Let's look more closely at the greenback. The U.S. Dollar Index has risen 3% since November 3, a move that probably would have been considered impossible a few weeks ago.

However, experts said it's important to put the dollar's "surge" in context. The U.S. Dollar Index plummeted more than 7% in about two months after Fed chairman Ben Bernanke first raised the idea of QE2 being necessary during a speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo. in late August.

So the weakness that everyone was predicting for the dollar did take place -- in September and October, in anticipation of the Fed announcement.

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Facing setbacks, Obama presses his foreign policy

Setbacks are piling up for President Barack Obama's foreign policy efforts as he struggles to salvage his signature nuclear weapons treaty with Russia and to keep Mideast peace talks alive.

The apparent collapse of the arms treaty because of political opposition in Washington follows the disappointments Obama suffered recently abroad. He returned from a tour of Asian democracies without a trophy trade agreement with South Korea, and he was unable to persuade other nations to join the U.S. in branding China as a currency manipulator.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton beseeched the Senate to ratify the treaty this year, saying delay was a threat to the nation's security. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he believes the New START deal will come up and be approved during the lame-duck session now under way.

The pact, a top foreign policy priority for Obama, would shrink the U.S. and Russian arsenals of strategic warheads and revive on-the-ground inspections that ceased when a previous treaty expired nearly a year ago.

"This is not an issue that can afford to be postponed," Clinton said after an unusual breakfast meeting with key members of Congress.

Vice President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have been telling senators the same thing, and Russian officials have warned that failure to ratify the pact imperils the fragile effort to mend relations between Washington and Moscow.

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New French defence minister says Afghanistan a trap

REUTERS

PARIS, Nov 17 - The war in Afghanistan is a trap for all parties involved and France will discuss how to draw down its troop presence at a NATO summit this week, the newly-appointed defence minister said on Wednesday.

"Afghanistan is, I would say, a trap for all the parties involved there," said Alain Juppe, a former prime minister who was appointed defence minister on Sunday in a reshuffle of conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy's cabinet.

Juppe's remark added weight to expectations that France will start bringing home troops based in Afghanistan next year and withdraw from the country entirely ahead of a 2012 presidential election.

France has about 3,500 troops in Afghanistan, although the U.S.-led war has been largely unpopular at home. At least 50 French soldiers in Afghanistan have been killed since 2001.

Former defence minister Herve Morin had said France would try to hand over responsibility in one of the two zones it controls there to Afghan forces next year.

Juppe told Europe 1 radio France was trying to hand over fighting duties "bit by bit" and would study how the zones under French control could be transferred to Afghan forces at a NATO summit in Lisbon on Friday and Saturday.

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TSA Hit With Lawsuits As Revolt Explodes

PRISON PLANET

The TSA has been hit with a number of lawsuits as the revolt against Big Sis, naked body scanners, and invasive groping measures explodes, with one case involving a woman who had her blouse pulled down in full public view by TSA goons who then proceeded to laugh and joke about her exposed breasts.

Nationwide outrage against the TSA is not only bringing to light new cases of airport abuse, it’s throwing fresh attention on previous incidents that have been going on for years.

One of the most disturbing, which is subject to an ongoing lawsuit, involved a 21-year-old college student from Amarillo Texas. The woman was passing through security at Corpus Christi airport on May 29 2008 when she was subjected to “extended search procedures” by the TSA.

“As the TSA agent was frisking plaintiff, the agent pulled the plaintiff’s blouse completely down, exposing plaintiffs’ breasts to everyone in the area,” the lawsuit said. “As would be expected, plaintiff was extremely embarrassed and humiliated.”

TSA workers continued to laugh and joke about the incident “for an extended period of time,” leaving the woman distraught and needing to be consoled. After the woman re-entered the boarding area, TSA workers continued to humiliate her over the incident.

“One male TSA employee expressed to the plaintiff that he wished he would have been there when she came through the first time and that ‘he would just have to watch the video,’” the suit said.

The woman filed an administrative claim against the TSA but was forced to launch a full lawsuit after the agency failed to respond.

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