July 2013 archive

Panama arrests ex-CIA station chief sought by Italy in rendition case

By Tim Johnson, McClatchy

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Robert Seldon Lady was the CIA station chief in Milan when Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr was pulled from the streets of that city as part of an operation that Italian prosecutors later said involved 22 American agents, all of whom fled Italy shortly afterward.

Italy’s main news agency, ANSA, reported that Lady was detained in Panama and that Italian Justice Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri would have two months to formally request his extradition.

…

Italy’s top court of appeals in September confirmed a nine-year jail term for Lady in the extraordinary case, the first attempt by a foreign judiciary to prosecute U.S. officials for the controversial practice of extraordinary rendition – the practice of sending a person detained in one country to another country for questioning without requesting the approval of a court.

…

Nasr was snatched from Milan’s Via Guerzoni before noon Feb. 17, 2003, by two men who sprayed chemicals in his face and forced him into a white van. He turned up in an Egyptian prison, where he spent four years before his release. U.S. officials suspected him of recruiting radical Muslims in Italy for jihad in the Middle East, but he was never charged with a crime in Italy or Egypt.

Italian prosecutors said they proved that the van was part of a CIA scheme to round up Nasr, move him to an air base north of Venice and on to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, before delivering him to Egyptian interrogators.

…

If Lady now faces the threat of being returned to Italy, Nasr has fared little better. During his four years in an Egyptian jail, Nasr tried to commit suicide three times, his attorney told Knight-Ridder newspapers, which was later bought by The McClatchy Co., in 2006.

“He’s been exposed to torture ever since he was kidnapped in Italy,” attorney Montasser Zayat said then. “He said he was beaten even on the plane that took him to Germany before he was handed to Egypt.”

Lady has since been released and has flown back to the United States.  An INTERPOL Warrant for his arrest remains in force.

Germany backs away from claims NSA program thwarted five attacks

By Matthew Schofield, McClatchy

Thursday, July 18, 2013

(German Interior Minister Hans-Peter) Friedrich had made the assertion about the number of attacks that the NSA programs – which scoop up records from cellphone and Internet accounts – had helped to avert after a brief visit to the United States last week. But on Tuesday, he told a German parliamentary panel, “It is relatively difficult to count the number of terror attacks that didn’t occur.” And on Wednesday, he was publically referring to just two foiled attacks, at least one and possibly both of which appeared to have little to do with the NSA’s surveillance programs.

…

(O)pposition politicians and commentators now are talking about the arrogance of the U.S. application of “winner’s power” (a reference to the political authority the United States had here during the Cold War, when Germany was divided between east and west, and West Germany leaned heavily on America for support), and how traditionally strong relations between the two countries have been harmed by the scandal.

…

Perhaps most troubling was how quickly the government backed down on the claims that the surveillance helped foil terror plots. Gisela Piltz, a Liberal Party member of the Bundestag intelligence committee, said she could not give exact details of what took place in the secret hearing but noted: “There was a clear discrepancy between the previously reported number of foiled terror attacks and the number we talked about.”

…

Piltz said that while terrorism is a real threat, the U.S. monitoring programs have done little to prevent it.

“Germans are not safer because of U.S. espionage,” Piltz said. “It is true Germany has been lucky not to have suffered a terror attack, but there has to be a balance. We cannot sacrifice freedom for security, and when in doubt I would always opt for freedom.”

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Ta-Nehesi Coates: Raising the Wrong Profile

In 2003, State Senator Barack Obama spearheaded a bill through the Illinois legislature that sought to put the clamps on racial profiling. Obama called racial profiling “morally objectionable,” “bad police practice” and a method that mainly served to “humiliate individuals and foster contempt in communities of color.” [..]

That is why it is hard to comprehend the thinking that compelled the president, in a week like this, to flirt with the possibility of inviting the New York City Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly, the proprietor of the largest local racial profiling operation in the country, into his cabinet.

Paul Krugman: Hitting China’s Wall

All economic data are best viewed as a peculiarly boring genre of science fiction, but Chinese data are even more fictional than most. Add a secretive government, a controlled press, and the sheer size of the country, and it’s harder to figure out what’s really happening in China than it is in any other major economy.

Yet the signs are now unmistakable: China is in big trouble. We’re not talking about some minor setback along the way, but something more fundamental. The country’s whole way of doing business, the economic system that has driven three decades of incredible growth, has reached its limits. You could say that the Chinese model is about to hit its Great Wall, and the only question now is just how bad the crash will be.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

July 19 is the 200th day of the year (201st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 165 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1848, a two-day Women’s Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York. There the “Bloomers” are introduced.

The Seneca Falls Convention was an early and influential women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19-20, 1848. It was organized by local New York women upon the occasion of a visit by Boston-based Lucretia Mott, a Quaker famous for her speaking ability, a skill rarely cultivated by American women at the time. The local women, primarily members of a radical Quaker group, organized the meeting along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a skeptical non-Quaker who followed logic more than religion.

The meeting spanned two days and six sessions, and included a lecture on law, a humorous presentation, and multiple discussions about the role of women in society. Stanton and the Quaker women presented two prepared documents, the Declaration of Sentiments and an accompanying list of resolutions, to be debated and modified before being put forward for signatures. A heated debate sprang up regarding women’s right to vote, with many including Mott urging the removal of this concept, but Frederick Douglass argued eloquently for its inclusion, and the suffrage resolution was retained. Exactly 100 of approximately 300 attendees signed the document, mostly women.

The convention was seen by some of its contemporaries, including featured speaker Mott, as but a single step in the continuing effort by women to gain for themselves a greater proportion of social, civil and moral rights, but it was viewed by others as a revolutionary beginning to the struggle by women for complete equality with men. Afterward, Stanton presented the resulting Declaration of Sentiments as a foundational document in the American woman’s suffrage movement, and she promoted the event as the first time that women and men gathered together to demand the right for women to vote. Stanton’s authoring of the History of Woman Suffrage helped to establish the Seneca Falls Convention as the moment when the push for women’s suffrage first gained national prominence. By 1851, at the second National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts, the issue of women’s right to vote had become a central tenet of the women’s rights movement.

Christophe Riblon is the first French Stage Winner of Le Tour had a great race, gutting it out over a U.S. rider, rookie Tejay Van Garderen, in the final 2.2 K.

Though it didn’t rain the descent from Col de Sarenne, as predicted, was pretty dramatic.

Tejay Van Garderen (leader over the top) lost gearing (I’m pedaling and nothing is happening) and had to replace and catch up with Riblon.  Riblon, the eventual stage winner, drove off a left hander and into a swampy ditch and had to pick up his bike and wade back to the road.

Toward the tail end of the descent Froome had a puncture and he too had to replace his bike before the final climb.

Contador, who was attacking all day, eventually eked out a 20 second lead over Froome going into the final ascent up Alpe Huez.  But it wasn’t enough and he was soon overtaken and finished a minute behind on the day.

It might have been different- with 5 K to go in the race Froome’s a blood sugar dropped precipitously and he had to have a team mate drop back to the support car and pick up a tube of glucose (they call it energy gel, but I’ve known Diabetics).  This is a big no no in the final kilometers and eventually he was penalized 20 seconds; not, alas, enough to change the overall dynamics of the race.  If you are a big Contador fan it’s not unreasonable to think that if Froome had not cheated he might have lost up to 3 minutes.

Nairo Alexander Quitana Rojas’ outstanding performance leapfrogged him into 3rd.

General Classification

In the Green Jersey competition nothing much changed except that Peter Sagan is now firmly over 100 points ahead.

Points

For King of the Mountains (Polka Dot) Nairo Alexander Quitana Rojas gained 2 points on Chris Froome with yesterday’s performance and Riblon and Van Garderen moved into contention.

King of the Moutains

In Team Competition Radioshack had a terrible day, dropping about 11 minutes.  On the strength of Riblon’s victory (and of course his team mates performances) the French team AG2R moved into 2nd place and Katusha of Russia, while still under 1 hour behind overall, moved back toward the pack.

Team

I must say that given the strength of Quitana Rojas I have newfound respect for the performance of the other young riders in contention for the White Jersey.

Young Rider

Today’s Stage 19, Bourg-d’Oisans to Le Grand-Bornand, may actually be the toughest of the Alpine Stages especially considering the effort expended yesterday.  It has 2 Beyond Category climbs, 2 Category 1s and a Category 2.

It is raining on and off and there is water on track which might make for some tricky descents.

Today and tomorrow are the only racing days left so if riders are going to make a move, now is the time.  Given Froome’s difficulty on Alpe Huez it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he could break down and give back a chunk of time though I’ll not kid you, 5 minutes is a lot.

Sites of Interest-

• Wikipedia
• Bourg-d’Oisans / Le Grand-Bornand (127 miles, Le Tour)
• Bourg-d’Oisans / Le Grand-Bornand (Guardian)
• The Guardian
• Guardian Interactive Route Guide
• Le Tour

The Stars Hollow Gazette Tags-

• Le Tour
• 2010 Le Tour
• 2011 Le Tour
• 2012 Le Tour

If you can’t get congress to abide by the Constitution and its amendments, then resort to a tactic they might fall for, amend the egregious law with the appropriate amendment:

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Congressman Alan Grayson (FL-09) submitted an amendment today to the National Defense Authorization Act, which would prohibit the Department of Defense from collecting information on U.S. citizens without probable cause of a terrorism or criminal offense. Grayson’s amendment is a response to recent reports that the National Security Agency (NSA), which falls under the Defense Department, has been secretly collecting the telephone records and the private internet communications of U.S. citizens.

Grayson called these reports “disturbing.” “Without probable cause, there’s no excuse for the NSA to be compiling this type of data on American citizens who have done nothing wrong-particularly without their knowledge,” he said. “This amendment prevents the Defense Department from collecting ANY information about U.S. citizens within the country-no telephone records, no internet records, no physical locations-unless there is probable cause of a terrorism or criminal offense.“

Click on image to enlarge

What digby said:

Hmm. I could swear I’ve heard that somewhere before. Oh wait:

   

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

I can’t wait to see how many members of Congress vote against the 4th Amendment.

This should not be necessary.

Why is the financial world freaking out over the possibility of former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer becoming New York City’s Comptroller? Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Thomas Ferguson laid it out in his article republished at naked capitalism:

Who, when the Justice Department, Congress, and the Securities and Exchange Commission all defaulted in the wake of a tidal wave of financial frauds, creatively used New York State’s Martin Act to go where they wouldn’t and subpoena emails and corporate records of the malefactors of great wealth, winning convictions and big settlements.

Who in 2005, as New York State Attorney General, actually sued AIG instead of thinking up ways to hand it billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money.

Who brought a suit over the Gilded Age compensation package Stock Exchange head Richard Grasso had been awarded by his chums on the board.

And who in 2013 with business as usual once again the order of the day, is promising to review how the Comptroller’s Office, which controls New York City’s vast pension funds, does business with Wall Street and corporate America. With his incisive questions about Wall Street’s fee structures and criticism of the passive stances most pension funds take to skyrocketing executive compensation in the companies they invest in, Eliot Spitzer is the last person on earth Wall Street wants to see in that slot.

The chorus of outrage from Wall Street pundits and media over Spitzer’s return after embarrassing exit from the governor’s office after his out of state tryst with prostitutes (omg, he had the nerve to use his own money) and, according to a New York Times article, his out of control ego and combative, go-it-alone style.

Prof. Ferguson dismisses the hyperbole as a “smoke screen” for the real objections that Spitzer would stop Wall Street from using the city’s pension funds to make profits for the 1% while cheating the workers out of a lifetime of investment. Spitzer as an activist for the 99% scares the crap out of them.

The compelling case for activism in the Comptroller’s Office by somebody of Spitzer’s intelligence, knowledge, and experience rests mostly on quite different grounds. As Spitzer has observed, most pension funds put up little or no resistance to management’s soaring claims for compensation. These come massively at the expense of investors as a group; pushing back would benefit investors in general and, obviously, beneficiaries of City pension funds. At a time when the air is filled with sometimes dubious claims of pension fund inadequacies, increasing returns to the City pension funds would be a real triumph. You can be sure, however, that the threat to ever-escalating executive salaries fuels a lot of the animus to Spitzer within much of big business and finance.

No less important, though, is another reality to which Spitzer has alluded to from time to time. Wall Street overcharges for financial advice and pension funds often find it expedient to tolerate this, rather than shop vigorously around. Studies of pension funds returns routinely note the frequency with which high fees accompany relatively shoddy performance, often over many years. It is high time attention was focused on this situation; Spitzer would likely do that.

And the Office of the Comptroller has subpoena power, that’s a lot of power:

First, part of the comptroller’s job is ensuring that private sector employees working on city projects are paid the prevailing wage. If an employer, for example a construction company, is reported to be paying workers below-market rates, the comptroller can open an investigation and subpoena payroll records if the employer won’t cooperate.

In addition, the comptroller has the authority to review all legal settlements entered into by the city’s corporation counsel. Last fiscal year, the city paid $486 million to settle lawsuits filed against its agencies or employees, the comptroller’s office said in a report last month. The settlements were for cases such as malpractice at city hospitals or police misconduct.

That’s just for starters.  

Republicans, White House in Talks Toward Big Fiscal Deal

By Chris Frates, National Journal

July 17, 2013 6:42 p.m.

This fall, the country will hit its debt limit and be unable to pay its bills unless Congress authorizes additional borrowing. Republicans plan to use the debate over raising the debt limit to force Democrats to cut spending-a negotiation Obama has said he won’t engage in. But these meetings demonstrate that the president is in fact engaging Republicans in a broader discussion about debt and spending.

…

An administration official said White House aides have made clear to Republicans that the president’s offer from December-including $600 billion in new tax revenue for $400 billion in Medicare and other health care cuts-still stands.

Republicans are open to $600 billion in revenue, Burr said, but want to see it come from a mix of entitlement and tax reform. And the GOP opposes Obama’s $400 billion in Medicare cuts, arguing they want more structural reforms.

Repeat after me-

There is no budget deficit.  Austerity does.  not.  work.  You can’t cut your way to growth.

(h/t Susie Madrak @ Crooks & Liars)

Chase, Once Considered "The Good Bank," Is About to Pay Another Massive Settlement

By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

July 18, 12:20 PM ET

In the three-year period between 2009-2012, Chase paid out over $16 billion in litigation costs. Noted financial analyst Josh Rosner of Graham Fisher slammed Chase in a report earlier this year, pointing out that these settlements and legal costs represented a staggering 12% of Chase’s net revenue during this time. There couldn’t possibly be a clearer demonstration of the modern banking model, in which companies break rules/laws as a matter of course, and simply pay fines as a cost – a significant cost – of doing business.

For sheer curiosity’s sake, I thought I’d list, in capsule form, some of the capers Chase has been caught up in in recent years:

• They were fined $153 million for the infamous “Magnetar” fund case, another scam in which a bank allowed a hedge fund to create a “born-to-lose” mortgage portfolio to bet against. Very similar to the Abacus case that’s at the heart of the ongoing “Fabulous Fab” trial;
• Chase paid $228 million for its role in the egregious municipal bond bid-rigging case we wrote about in Rolling Stone in 2011;
• Chase paid $297 million to the SEC last November for fraud involving mortgage-backed securities;
• Chase paid $75 million in cash and generously agreed to forego $647 million in fines in the Jefferson County, Alabama mess, in which a small-town pol was bribed into green-lighting a series of deadly swap deals;
• In two separate orders this spring, Chase was reprimanded by the OCC and the Fed for money-laundering behaviors similar to the infamous HSBC case, and also for regulatory failures and fraud in the London Whale episode. There was a separate FBI investigation into the London Whale probe in which they allegedly lied to customers and investors about the loss;
• They’re under investigation for allegedly failing to disclose Bernie Madoff’s trading activities to authorities;
• They were one of 13 banks asked to pay up in this year’s $9.3 billion robosigning settlement;
• They were one of four banks last year to settle for a total of $394 million with the OCC for improper mortgage servicing practices;
• They were ordered by the CFTC to pay $20 million last year for improper segregation of customer funds (this was part of the Lehman investigation). The CFTC also fined Chase $600,000 last year for violating position limits in the cotton markets;
• Last year, Chase paid a $45 million settlement to the federal government for improperly racking up fees for veterans in mortgage refinancings. Hey, if you’re going to steal from everyone, you can’t leave out those veterans overseas!
• In 2010, Chase paid $25 million to the state of Florida for selling unregistered bonds to a state-run municipal money-market fund;
• The bank last year was convicted in Europe along with several other banks for fraudulent sales of derivatives to the city of Milan. A total of about $120 million was seized from Chase and three other banks.

…

There are some other civil actions left out, too, like the $110 million class-action settlement for improper charging of overdraft fees, or their part in the gigantic $6 billion settlement completed last year involving Visa, MasterCard and other credit card providers for manipulating card service rates. And states like California have only just begun crawling up Chase’s backside for its role in the lunatic filing of erroneous credit card collection lawsuits, a scam outed by whistleblower Linda Almonte.

Chase is turning into the Zelig of the corruption era.

Speaking of Credit Cards-

Chase Made Errors in Nine Percent of Credit-Card Collection Lawsuits, Internal Survey Finds

By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

July 11, 12:05 PM ET

Thirteen states, as well as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a primary banking regulator, are investigating Chase’s insanely sloppy practices in the area of credit-card collections. I’ve been following this for years thanks to an acquaintance with former Chase VP and whistleblower Linda Almonte, who saw horrific abuses firsthand (I have a chapter on Linda’s crazy experiences coming out in my next book).

…

I’m glad that the states are finally listening to Linda and that this news is starting to come out. The story is actually far worse than is being described in the papers. It involves allegations of a rather complicated scam tied to secondary sales of credit-card debt – it’s easier to sell credit card debt when a judgment has already been obtained, so it seems companies like Chase will go to great lengths, including mass robosigning and other abuses, to obtain judgments.

Chase is the headline target of these new investigations, but most analysts believe the same exact things go on at other banks and credit companies. Once the bigger state lawsuits gain momentum, we’re likely to find out, as we did in the foreclosure scandals, that faulty paperwork and perjured/robosigned affidavits pervade the entire consumer debt industry.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Nasser al-Awlaki: The Drone That Killed My Grandson

I LEARNED that my 16-year-old grandson, Abdulrahman – a United States citizen – had been killed by an American drone strike from news reports the morning after he died.

The missile killed him, his teenage cousin and at least five other civilians on Oct. 14, 2011, while the boys were eating dinner at an open-air restaurant in southern Yemen. [..]

Nearly two years later, I still have no answers. The United States government has refused to explain why Abdulrahman was killed. It was not until May of this year that the Obama administration, in a supposed effort to be more transparent, publicly acknowledged what the world already knew – that it was responsible for his death.  [..]

After the deaths of Abdulrahman and Anwar, I filed another lawsuit, seeking answers and accountability. The government has argued once again that its targeted killing program is beyond the reach of the courts. I find it hard to believe that this can be legal in a constitutional democracy based on a system of checks and balances.

The government has killed a 16-year-old American boy. Shouldn’t it at least have to explain why?

New York Times Editorial Board: A Second Chance for the World’s Disabled

There was a painful moment on Capitol Hill in December when former Senator Bob Dole, seated in a wheelchair, was greeted warmly by old Republican colleagues but then rebuffed by some of those very same members after he had urged Senate ratification of a United Nations treaty defending the rights of people with disabilities. The treaty drew a 61-to-38 vote that fell five votes short of the needed two-thirds majority after skittish Republicans bought into a nonsensical attack by right-wing critics that it would undermine national sovereignty.

Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is now negotiating with the ranking committee Republican, Bob Corker of Tennessee, to arrange another vote. Should Mr. Corker agree, it is essential that Senate Democrats vote as one to approve the treaty and that Republicans rise above the hackneyed politicking that undermined the vote last year. With the social-issue pandering of the 2012 campaign behind us, the treaty can be seen for what it is: a singular opportunity to apply the principles of the highly effective Americans With Disabilities Act to the world at large.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on images to enlarge

July 18 is the 199th day of the year (200th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 166 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who first took office in 1933 as America’s 32nd president, is nominated for an unprecedented third term. Roosevelt, a Democrat, would eventually be elected to a record four terms in office, the only U.S. president to serve more than two terms.

Roosevelt was born January 30, 1882, in Hyde Park, New York, and went on to serve as a New York state senator from 1911 to 1913, assistant secretary of the Navy from 1913 to 1920 and governor of New York from 1929 to 1932. In 1932, he defeated incumbent Herbert Hoover to be elected president for the first time. During his first term, Roosevelt enacted his New Deal social programs, which were aimed at lifting America out of the Great Depression. In 1936, he won his second term in office by defeating Kansas governor Alf Landon in a landslide.

Election of 1940

The two-term tradition had been an unwritten rule (until the 22nd Amendment after his presidency) since George Washington declined to run for a third term in 1796, and both Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt were attacked for trying to obtain a third non-consecutive term. FDR systematically undercut prominent Democrats who were angling for the nomination, including two cabinet members, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and James Farley, Roosevelt’s campaign manager in 1932 and 1936, Postmaster General and Democratic Party chairman. Roosevelt moved the convention to Chicago where he had strong support from the city machine (which controlled the auditorium sound system). At the convention the opposition was poorly organized but Farley had packed the galleries. Roosevelt sent a message saying that he would not run, unless he was drafted, and that the delegates were free to vote for anyone. The delegates were stunned; then the loudspeaker screamed “We want Roosevelt… The world wants Roosevelt!” The delegates went wild and he was nominated by 946 to 147 on the first ballot. The tactic employed by Roosevelt was not entirely successful, as his goal had been to be drafted by acclamation. The new vice presidential nominee was Henry A. Wallace, a liberal intellectual who was Secretary of Agriculture.

In his campaign against Republican Wendell Willkie, Roosevelt stressed both his proven leadership experience and his intention to do everything possible to keep the United States out of war. In one of his speeches he declared to potential recruits that “you boys are not going to be sent into any foreign war.” He won the 1940 election with 55% of the popular vote and 38 of the 48 states. A shift to the left within the Administration was shown by the naming of Henry A. Wallace as Vice President in place of the conservative Texan John Nance Garner, who had become a bitter enemy of Roosevelt after 1937.