Robert Reich - Thursday the President pronounced that "because of this [financial reform] bill the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street's mistakes."

As if to prove him wrong, Goldman Sachs simultaneously announced it had struck a deal with federal prosecutors to pay $550 million to settle federal claims it misled investor -- a sum representing a mere 15 days profit for the firm based on its 2009 earnings. Goldman's share price immediately jumped 4.3 percent, and the Street proclaimed its chair and CEO, Lloyd ("Goldman is doing God's work") Blankfein, a winner. Financial analysts rushed to affirm a glowing outlook for Goldman stock.

Blankfein, you may recall, was at the meeting in late 2008 when Tim Geithner and Hank Paulson decided to bail out AIG, and thereby deliver through AIG a $13 billion no-strings-attached taxpayer windfall to Goldman. In a world where money is the measure of everything, Blankfein's power and influence have grown. Presumably, Goldman can expect more windfalls in future years.

Although the financial reform bill may have clipped some of Goldman's wings -- its lucrative derivative business may require Goldman to jettison its status as a bank holding company, and the access to the Fed discount window that comes with it -- the main point is that the Goldman settlement reveals everything that's weakest about the financial reform bill.

The American people will continue to have to foot the bill for the mistakes of Wall Street's biggest banks because the legislation does nothing to diminish the economic and political power of these giants. It does not cap their size. It does not resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act that once separated commercial (normal) banking from investment (casino) banking. It does not even link the pay of their traders and top executives to long-term performance. In other words, it does nothing to change their basic structure. And for this reason, it gives them an implicit federal insurance policy against failure unavailable to smaller banks -- thereby adding to their economic and political power in the future.

On every important issue the legislation merely passes on to regulators decisions about how to oversee the big banks and treat them if they're behaving badly. But if history proves one lesson it's that regulators won't and can't. They don't have the resources. They don't have the knowledge. They are staffed by people in their 30s and 40s who are paid a small fraction of what the lawyers working for the banks are paid. Many want and expect better-paying jobs on Wall Street after they leave government, and so are shrink-wrapped in a basic conflict of interest. And the big banks' lawyers and accountants can run circles around them by threatening protracted litigation.

MARCH THRU JUNE SET GLOBAL TEMPERATURE RECORDS

USA Today - March, April, May and June set records, making 2010 the warmest year worldwide since record-keeping began in 1880, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says.

"It's part of an overall trend," says Jay Lawrimore, climate analysis chief at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. "Global temperatures . . . have been rising for the last 100-plus years. Much of the increase is due to increases in greenhouse gases."

There were exceptions: June was cooler than average across Scandinavia, southeastern China, and the northwestern USA, according to NOAA's report.

If nothing changes, Lawrimore predicts:

- Flooding rains like those in Nashville in May will be more common.

- Heavy snow, like the record snows that crippled Baltimore and Washington last winter, is likely to increase because storms are moving north. Also, the Great Lakes aren't freezing as early or as much. "As cold outbreaks occur, cold air goes over the Great Lakes, picks up moisture and dumps on the Northeast," he says.

- Droughts are likely to be more severe and heat waves more frequent.

- More arctic ice will disappear, speeding up warming, as the Arctic Ocean warms "more than would happen if the sea ice were in place," he says. Arctic sea ice was at a record low in June.

RECOVERED HISTORY: BRITS USED TO BE BIG COFFEE DRINKERS

Reuters - Victorian Britain was a nation of coffee-drinkers who paid few taxes, whose economy relied on trade and where defence spending swallowed a huge slice of income, statistics from 170 years ago reveal. The figures, released by government statisticians for the first time, offer a glimpse of Britain from when economic records began.

They run from 1840, a year when Queen Victoria married Prince Albert and the world's first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black, was introduced, through to 1853 when the population topped 18 million.

Britons were really a nation of coffee lovers, not tea drinkers as popular myth has led us to believe. In 1840, Britain imported 28 million lbs of tea, compared with 70 million lbs of coffee.

By 1853 the trend had reversed as the plantations in India soaked the island in tea.

INTERNET SIGHTINGS

FOUND MAGAZINE

FEINSTEIN OPPOSE POT DECRIMINALIZATION

NORML - California's senior senator, Democrat Diane Feinstein (San Francisco), has cosigned the ballot argument against Prop. 19, The Regulate, Control & Tax Cannabis Initiative of 2010, which would allow adults 21 years or older to privately possess and cultivate marijuana for personal use. It would also permit local governments the option to authorize the retail sale and commercial cultivation of cannabis to adults. Personal marijuana cultivation or not-for-profit sales of marijuana would not be taxed under the measure.

Senator Feinstein issued a statement this week calling the measure "a jumbled legal nightmare that will make our highways, our workplaces and our communities less safe." Feinstein falsely claims that the measure, if passed, would prohibit sanctions against employees or motorists who are impaired by marijuana, and would cost California billions of dollars in federal funding.

According to the most recent statewide poll, conducted on July 11 by Survey USA, 50 percent of Californians support Prop. 19, while 40 percent oppose it.

THERE, I FIXED IT

FEDERAL APPEALS COURT APPROVES MAJOR DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THIRD PARTIES

Ballot Access News - The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the U.S. Constitution permits a state to provide public funding to parties that polled 20% for governor in the previous gubernatorial election, and not to independent candidates or new political parties unless they submit massive petitions. The majority upheld Connecticut’s law, in a decision written by Judge Jose Cabranes, a Clinton appointee, and signed by Judge Peter W. Hall, a Bush Jr. appointee. Judge Amalya Kearse, a Carter appointee, dissented.

The plaintiffs were the Green and Libertarian Parties of Connecticut. The decision says that strict scrutiny does not apply to this issue. The decision also says that because the U.S. Supreme Court upheld somewhat discriminatory treatment for minor party and independent candidates for President in 1976 in Buckley v Valeo, anything goes.

One reason the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld discriminatory funding in the general election is that no minor party or independent candidate had managed to even place second since 1912. By contrast, a minor party nominee, Lowell Weicker, was elected Governor on the “A Connecticut Party” ticket in 1990. Weicker had testified in this case that if discriminatory public funding had been in place in Connecticut in 1990, he could not have won. The law would have required him to submit a petition signed by 20% of the last vote cast. The decision mentions Weicker in only two places. Footnote 13 on page 33 says “Putting aside the sui generis candidacy of former Governor Lowell Weicker, no minor-party candidate in Connecticut has won any election in recent memory.” This is erroneous. The Working Families Party and the Green Party have both won partisan municipal elections in Connecticut for their own nominees (not the cross-endorsed nominees of major parties) in the last few years.

IN SOUTH CAROLINA, GREENE MAY HELP GREENS

Independent Political Report - Tom Clements, an environmental activist running for the US Senate in South Carolina, appears to have received a significant boon from the candidacy of Democrat Alvin Greene. Greeneis the controversial unemployed veteran who unexpectedly won his primary to take on Republican Jim Demint and Clements in the general election. Now, some elements of his own party are taking matters into their own hands:

In Aiken County, the local Democratic party seems to offer two choices – Greene or Green. The Aiken County Democratic Party is giving “options” as to whom the party thinks should be elected to the U.S. Senate by listing primary winner Alvin M. Greene of Manning as a candidate and also listing a link to the campaign page of Green Party candidate Tom Clements on the group’s website.

“It’s not an endorsement – but we want people to know there are choices,” said Aiken Democratic Party Vice Chair Teresa Harper.

The state Democratic Party as an organization “cannot support the nominee of another party”, according to chairwoman Carol Fowler in an interview with The Daily Caller. It appears that the county organizations of the Democratic Party in South Carolina have each followed their own response to the Greene campaign, many simply not listing a candidate on their websites in the race.

Political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia recently claimed that “it’s possible” for Clements to finish ahead of Greene in the Senate race.

BANK REFORM BILL

Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research - The final bill passed by the Senate today and already approved by the House of Representatives will improve regulation in the financial sector. However, given the severity of the economic crisis caused by past regulatory failures, the public had the right to expect much more extensive reform.

On the positive side, the creation of a strong independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau stands out as an important accomplishment. Such an agency would have prevented some of the worst lending practices that contributed to the housing bubble.

The requirement that most derivatives be either exchange-traded or passed through clearinghouses is also an important improvement in regulation. However, important exceptions remain, which the industry will no doubt exploit to their limit.

The creation of resolution authority for large non-bank financial institutions is also a positive step, although the fact that no pre-funding mechanism was put in place is a serious problem. Also, the audit of the Federal Reserve's special lending facilities, as well as the ongoing audits of its open market operations and discount window loans, is a big step towards increased Fed openness.

On the negative side, there is little in this legislation that will fundamentally change the way that Wall Street does business. The rules on derivative trading will still allow the bulk of derivatives to be traded directly out of banks rather than separately capitalized divisions of the holding company. The Volcker rule was substantially weakened by a provision that will still allow banks to risk substantial sums in proprietary trading.

More importantly, there is probably no economist who believes that this bill will end the risks of too-big-to-fail financial institutions. The six largest banks will still enjoy the enormous implicit subsidy that results from the expectation that the federal government will bail them out in the event of a crisis.

Also, the fact that no regulators, most obviously Ben Bernanke at the Fed, were fired for failing to prevent the crisis leaves in place serious doubts about the structure of incentives for regulators. Cracking down on reckless behavior by politically powerful financial institutions will always be difficult for regulators. On the other hand, if regulators know that failing to crack down carries no consequences, even when it leads to disastrous outcomes, we can expect that regulators will have a strong bias toward ignoring reckless behavior.

AMERICANS' OBESITY RATING TO BE IN SEARCHABLE NATIONAL DATA FILE

The national electronic health record system is a massive endangerment of patient privacy, hackable by insurance companies, employers and law enforcement.

CNS - New federal regulations issued this week stipulate that the electronic health records--that all Americans are supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year--must record not only the traditional measures of height and weight, but also the Body Mass Index: a measure of obesity.

The law also requires that these electronic health records be available--with appropriate security measures--on a national exchange.

The regulations issued by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Dr. David Blumenthal, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, define the "meaningful use" of electronic records. Under the stimulus law, health care providers--including doctors and hospitals--must establish "meaningful use" of EHRs by 2014 in order to qualify for federal subsidies. After that, they will be subjected to penalties in the form of diminished Medicare and Medicaid payments for not establishing "meaningful use" of EHRs.

HILLARY CLINTON'S FINANCE CHAIR SENT TO PRISON FOR 12 YEARS

Hillary Clinton's 2008 national finance chair has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for bank fraud. Hassan Nemazee had reached a plea deal in a cade that involved forgery and fake account statement. Nemazee was also a major fundraiser for Barack Obama.

Lloyd Grove, Daily Beat, March 2010 - The strange case of Hassan Nemazee is a lurid example of the human capacity for self-delusion, and a cautionary tale for all those savvy political players who take pride in their ability to size people up.

Seldom has so talented a con man flourished for so long in the confidence of the high and mighty. For two decades, Nemazee was a top fundraiser for the Democratic Party and-for the past 12 years, it turns out-a Ponzi scheme felon who stole hundreds of millions dollars of other people's money. Before he was unmasked by the FBI seven months ago, Nemazee campaigned behind the scenes to be a U.S. ambassador in the Obama administration, and personally lobbied his longtime friend, Joe Biden, to enlist his support for a high-level diplomatic post. . .

It's unclear what, if anything, came of Nemazee's conversation with Biden, or whether Biden was receptive to his old friend's entreaties. A spokesman for the vice president declined to comment on Friday. A proposed meeting about an ambassadorial appointment with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton-for whom Nemazee had raised cash during the 2008 presidential campaign-never occurred, said a well-placed source. The White House, likewise, had no comment. . .

When Barack Obama picked Joe Biden as his running mate, Nemazee was "ecstatic," according to an associate, "because now he would have a direct line to the White House." He boasted that Biden was among his closest friends, and finally he would obtain that ambassadorship he'd always dreamed of. Indeed, he narrowly missed getting one in 1999, when Biden was his lead defender on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Republican senators worked to quash Nemazee's nomination to be President Clinton's ambassador to Argentina. A damaging article in Forbes magazine detailing Nemazee's sharp business practices over the years didn't help his cause.

"When his nomination failed, that was a big shock to him," says the longtime friend, who met Nemazee as a Harvard undergraduate. .

Nemazee had been a valued friend and supporter of Biden, Al Gore, John Kerry, Chuck Schumer, and Bill and Hillary Clinton, who were part of a cavalcade of powerful office-holders who dined regularly at the Park Avenue apartment. . .

He was a major supporter of Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, and four years later was on John Kerry's New York finance team. For the 2006 election cycle, Nemazee signed on as finance chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, led by Senator Chuck Schumer. But Nemazee left abruptly, according to knowledgeable sources, after he and Schumer had an acrimonious falling out. The problem, say sources close to New York's senior senator, was that Schumer became frustrated when Nemazee failed to deliver on fundraising goals, and also suspected that he was using his title to burnish his credentials among the Democratic powers that be-and, even worse, was spending time soliciting money for Hillary Clinton.

Real News Project, 2007 - The engineer of George W. Bush's rescue from financial disaster-a man who would propel Bush on the path to elective office-has quietly moved into Hillary Clinton's inner circle of key financial backers. The engineer is longtime GOP backer Alan Quasha. His mysterious Harken Energy drew intense scrutiny from investigators and the media in the early 90's and again during Bush's first term because of its dubious financial practices and board members connected to the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International(BCCI). Along with a business partner, Quasha has been forging new links with Clinton and her associates for several years. Among other things, they have raised substantial sums for her, and in 2005 they discreetly hired Clinton confidant and longtime Democratic Party money man Terry McAuliffe, providing him with a lucrative temporary perch until the Clinton campaign formally launched with McAuliffe as its chairman.

Russ Baker & Adam Federman, Real News Project, 2007 - Another strong link between Quasha and Clinton is Quasha's business partner, Hassan Nemazee, a top Hillary fundraiser who was trotted out to defend her during the Hsu episode--in which the clothing manufacturer was unmasked as a swindler who seemingly funneled illegal contributions through "donors" of modest means. . .

"That Hillary Clinton's campaign is involved with this particular cast of characters should give people pause," says John Moscow, a former Manhattan prosecutor. In the late 1980s and early '90s he led the investigation of the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) global financial empire--a bank whose prominent shareholders included members of the Harken board. "Too many of the same names from earlier troubling circumstances suggests a lack of control over who she is dealing with," says Moscow, "or a policy of dealing with anyone who can pay.". . .

TIDE TURNS AGAINST ISRAEL

Minhaz Merchant, Times of India - Is Israel's long-term security as a nation under threat? That was not a question many asked seriously 10 years ago. But today, thoughtful observers of West Asian politics, including friends of Israel, are asking the question and coming up with a one-word answer that was, till recently, unthinkable: perhaps.

Israel has clearly overreached itself in recent months under the pugnacious leadership of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who took office in March 2009 (he was earlier prime minister between 1996 and 1999). In January 2010, an Israeli assassination squad murdered Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai, leading to international condemnation. More recently, Israeli navy seal commandos killed nine protesters aboard a peace ship flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Movement.

For more than three years, 1.5 million Palestinians have been living under siege in Gaza, a narrow strip controlled by the Islamist party Hamas and blockaded by Israel, subsisting on food, water and medicines allowed in by Israeli troops and smuggled from Egypt through a maze of underground tunnels. There are three principal actors in this human tragedy. First, the United States for its support of any Israeli action, however excessive, in West Asia. Second, Israel for its uncompromising position on Gaza and the West Bank. Third, the broader Arab leadership, largely impotent since the creation of Israel in May 1948.

The trade-off is cynical and simple. American military power protects Arab governments from democratic movements in their own countries in return for acceptance of US policy in West Asia. Arab leaders make periodic statements of protest against Israel through the Arab League. But the clear understanding between the US and nearly a dozen Arab countries (including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Jordan) is that America's policy writ in West Asia will not be challenged. Though President Barack Obama has attempted to moderate this policy, it remains an article of faith on Capitol Hill. The Obama administration's balanced approach has, however, restored US goodwill among moderate Palestinians. . .

Israel, though a nation of determined and talented people whose centuries-long persecution in Europe rightly draws widespread sympathy, has two crucial weaknesses. The first is demographic. Israel has a low birth rate. Net migration, due to the psychological state of siege it lives under, is also turning negative. Meanwhile, the Palestinian population is exploding. Though confined to narrow strips of land, the number of Palestinians in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank (nearly six million) has already exceeded the total Jewish population in Israel (5.66 million). If this trend continues, Israel's long-term security will be seriously compromised.

Israel's second weakness is the shift in global, especially European and US, public opinion against its treatment of Palestinians. The international Free Gaza Movement, now three years old, is gathering pace. European Nobel laureates, American senators and Asian civil society leaders are challenging Israel directly and frequently.

But Israel's real worries will begin once a separate Palestinian state is established over the next few years under the two-state solution brokered by the US at the Annapolis Conference in November 2007. Palestinian demographics and cross border fungibles could break down Israel's ring-fenced security, causing even more of its nervous east European-origin Jews to migrate back to their homes in Russia, Poland and elsewhere. The inevitability of long-term reverse migration is what really haunts the Israeli political leadership. The result of reverse migration could be a creeping, backdoor takeover by neighboring Palestinians of much of the territory

WHY DO REPUBLICANS CREATE SUCH LARGE DEFICITS?

From Business Insider

WHERE'S BIN BEEN?

Reuters - It has been years since the United States has had good intelligence on the whereabouts of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin laden, although he is thought to be in Pakistan, CIA director Leon Panetta said on Sunday.

Not since "the early 2000s" have U.S. officials had "the last precise information about where he (bin Laden) might be located," Panetta said.

"Since then, it's been very difficult to get any intelligence on his exact location," Panetta said. "He is, as is obvious, in very deep hiding . . .

More on where's Bin been?

SENATE MOVING TO APPROVE POWER OF PRESIDENT TO SHUT DOWN INTERNET

This bill, if passed, would be near the top of all anti-democratic measures ever approved by the U.S. government. It is not the work of a constitutional legislature but of a dictatorship. To get an understanding of what it means, think of equivalent legislation that would permit the president to close down all TV, radio and newspapers for 120 days. The Internet is not some exotic piece of communications equipment; it is today’s free press.

Given, however, the willingness of the American media, institutions, and people to surrender to assaults on their rights, it is not too early to start working on defensive measures. Let’s say the Internet is closed for 120 days. How does the word get out? For example, should we have identified places in communities where important news can be posted? If email is still permitted, what sort of distribution lists could be created in advance to spread information? Ask one simple question: without the internet, how would you get the word out? It is not too soon to come up with answers.

CBS - The White House is one step closer to having the authority to flip the Internet "kill switch" in case of emergency.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs approved a cybersecurity bill called PCNAA, or Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act on Friday. The bill would give the president the power to call it lights out for the Internet if there is "a cyber attack capable of causing massive damage or loss of life."

The legislation would force companies such as broadband providers, search engines, or software firms that the government selects to "immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone failing to comply would be fined.

The idea behind it is not new. A draft Senate proposal that CNET obtained in August allowed the White House to "declare a cybersecurity emergency," and another from Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) would have explicitly given the government the power to "order the disconnection" of certain networks or Web sites.

That emergency authority would allow the federal government to "preserve those networks and assets and our country and protect our people," Joe Lieberman, the primary sponsor of the measure and the chairman of the Homeland Security committee, told reporters on Thursday. Lieberman is an independent senator from Connecticut who caucuses with the Democrats.

Any company on a list created by Homeland Security that also "relies on" the Internet, the telephone system, or any other component of the U.S. "information infrastructure" would be subject to command by a new National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications that would be created inside Homeland Security.

The only obvious limitation on the NCCC's emergency power is one paragraph in the Lieberman bill that appears to have grown out of the Bush-era flap over warrantless wiretapping. That limitation says that the NCCC cannot order broadband providers or other companies to "conduct surveillance" of Americans unless it's otherwise legally authorized.

The NCCC also would be granted the power to monitor the "security status" of private sector Web sites, broadband providers, and other Internet components. Lieberman's legislation requires the NCCC to provide "situational awareness of the security status" of the portions of the Internet that are inside the United States -- and also those portions in other countries that, if disrupted, could cause significant harm.

Selected private companies would be required to participate in "information sharing" with the Feds. They must "certify in writing to the director" of the NCCC whether they have "developed and implemented" federally approved security measures, which could be anything from encryption to physical security mechanisms, or programming techniques that have been "approved by the director." The NCCC director can "issue an order" in cases of noncompliance.

To sweeten the deal for industry groups, Lieberman has included a tantalizing offer absent from earlier drafts: immunity from civil lawsuits. If a software company's programming error costs customers billions, or a broadband provider intentionally cuts off its customers in response to a federal command, neither would be liable.

If there's an "incident related to a cyber vulnerability" after the president has declared an emergency and the affected company has followed federal standards, plaintiffs' lawyers cannot collect damages for economic harm. And if the harm is caused by an emergency order from the Feds, not only does the possibility of damages virtually disappear, but the U.S. Treasury will even pick up the private company's tab.

Initially, the bill would have given the president unlimited authority on how long he could control the Internet, but an amendment passed Friday says he would have to get the approval of Congress to shut down the Internet for more than 120 days.

RECOVERED HISTORY: MCCRYSTAL'S SEAMY PAST

Common Dreams,2009 - In an interview with Gulf News, (the Persian Gulf's largest daily English language newspaper published from Dubai) on May 12, Pulitzer prize-winning American investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, said that there is a special unit called the Joint Special Operations Command that does high-value targeting of men that are known to be involved in anti-American activities, or are believed to be planning such activities.

According to Hersh, the Joint Special Operations Command was headed by former US vice president Dick Cheney and the former head of JSOC, Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal who has just been named the new commander in charge of the war in Afghanistan.

McChrystal, a West Pointer who became a Green Beret not long after graduation, following a stint as a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division, is currently director of Staff at the Pentagon, the executive to Joint staff to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Most of what General McChrystal has done over a 33-year career remains classified, including service between 2003 and 2008 as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, an elite unit so clandestine that the Pentagon for years refused to acknowledge its existence.

On July 22, 2006, Human Rights Watch issued a report titled "No blood, no foul" about American torture practices at three facilities in Iraq. One of them was Camp Nama, which was operated by the Joint Special Operations Command, under the direction of then Major General Stanley McChrystal.

McChrystal was officially based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, but he was a frequent visitor to Camp Nama and other Special Forces bases in Iraq and Afghanistan where forces under his command were based.

An interrogator at Camp Nama known as Jeff described locking prisoners in shipping containers for 24 hours at a time in extreme heat; exposing them to extreme cold with periodic soaking in cold water; bombardment with bright lights and loud music; sleep deprivation; and severe beatings.

When he and other interrogators went to the colonel in charge and expressed concern that this kind of treatment was not legal, and that they might be investigated by the military's Criminal Investigation Division or the International Committee of the Red Cross, the colonel told them he had "this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there's no way that the Red Cross could get in."

When Human Rights Watch asked whether the interrogator knew whether the colonel was receiving orders or pressures to use the abusive tactics, Jeff said that his understanding was that there was some form of pressure to use aggressive techniques coming from higher up the chain of command; however neither he nor other interrogators were briefed on the particular source.

"We really didn't know too much about it. We knew that we were only like a few steps away in the chain of command from the Pentagon, but it was a little unclear, especially to the interrogators who weren't really part of that task force."

The interrogator said that he did see Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of US Joint Special Operations forces in Iraq, visiting the Nama facility on several occasions. "I saw him a couple of times. I know what he looks like."

The International Committee of the Red Cross is the international body charged under international law with monitoring compliance with the Geneva Conventions, and it, therefore, has the right to inspect all facilities where people are detained in a country that is at war or under military occupation.

To hide prisoners or facilities from the ICRC or to deny access to them is a serious war crime. But many US prisons in Iraq have held "ghost" prisoners whose imprisonment has not been reported to the ICRC, and these "ghosts" have usually been precisely the ones subjected to the worst torture. Camp Nama, run by McChrystal's JSOC, was an entire "ghost" facility.

The decision by Obama's administration to appoint General McChrystal as the new commander in charge of the war in Afghanistan and retaining the military commission for the US war-on-terror detainees held in the Guantanamo Bay prison are the latest examples of the new US administration walking in Bush's foot steps with regards to torture and denial of habeas corpus.

ARTS BEAT

The Metropolitan Museum of Art reports that 5,240,000 people visited the museum and nearly 40 million visited their website this year. “This is the first year since 2001 that attendance at the Metropolitan has exceeded five million.”

Wall Street Journal - New York City Center's seats are getting supersized. As part of a renovation project that began in April, the performing-arts center, home to the annual "Fall for Dance" festival, is taking the lead of theaters across the country in expanding the width of its seats and increasing its leg room, or row spacing. . . A study by Theatre Projects Consultants, a theater-development firm, found that the average standard width of seats in performing-arts theaters has expanded from 21 to 22 inches over the last two decades, "primarily due" to the concurrent rise in obesity. Over the course of the entire last century, the average width increased from 19 to 21 inches.

The concert business, a lone bright spot in the struggling music industry, is in trouble this summer. A tale of bad backs, canceled acts and angry fans. Plus: A guide to discount tickets. The Eagles, Rihanna and Maxwell have canceled tour dates. A wobbling "American Idol" tour has flooded the market with discounted tickets, and the resurrected Lilith Fair tour has called off concerts from Dallas to Salt Lake City. Even teen idols the Jonas Brothers announced this week that they're scrapping some shows.. . . With the continued evaporation of recorded music sales, acts at all levels of the talent pool must lean heavily on their live-performance earnings. That's forcing artists to tour more, and to keep their ticket prices high, despite the weak economy. This has created a glut of seats. . . The emphasis on touring revenue is tempting more artists to test one of the industry's unwritten rules: Only hit the road when there's a new album to promote.

INDICATORS

The gap between the wealthiest Americans and middle- and working-class Americans has more than tripled in the past three decades, according to a June 25 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. New data show that the gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest parts of the population in 2007 was the highest it's been in 80 years, while the share of income going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level ever.

Population growth in rural America has lagged far behind the rest of the country over the last decade, the Daily Yonder's analysis of Census Bureau county estimates shows. "The nation’s total population increased 9.1 percent between 2000 and 2009, a total of 25.5 million people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau," Robert Gallardo writes for the Yonder. "The population of the nation’s 2,038 rural counties increased by just 2.9 percent in the decade." Exurban counties increased by 13.1 percent and urban counties increased by 10.1 percent.

FURTHERMORE. . .

Michael Wolf, Newser - My sources say that not only is nobody subscribing to the [London Times paywall] website, but subscribers to the paper itself¬who have free access to the site¬are not going beyond the registration page. It’s an empty world. The wider implications of this emptiness are only just starting to become clear. A Murdoch and Fleet Street veteran with whom I’ve been corresponding about the paywall reported to me on his recent conversation with an A-list entertainment publicist: “What was really interesting to me was that this person volunteered a blinding realization. ‘Why would I get any of my clients to talk to the Times or the Sunday Times if they are behind a paywall? Who can see it? I can't even share a link and they aren't on search. It’s as though their writers don't exist anymore.’”

VATICAN DECLARES ORDINATION OF WOMEN A 'GRAVE CRIME'

PAPERLESS TICKETING: MAKING CONCERT AND SPORTS GOING MORE COMPLICATED

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COMMENT

Binoy Kampmark: Catching Pegasus - Mercenary Spyware And The Liability Of The NSO Group

In this woefully unregulated industry, Israel’s poster child of spyware will most likely cough up and continue to make money from the pathologies of government insecurity. They will just have to be mindful of the US market from hereon in.

Ramzy Baroud: The World Owes Palestine This Much - Please Stop Censoring Palestinian Voices

In the specific case of social media censorship in Gaza, lives are literally being lost as a result of politically motivated decisions. The censorship takes a dark, deadly turn as it could make the difference between people dying under the rubble of their homes or receiving assistance.

Dee Ninis, The Conversation: Why Vanuatu Should Brace For Even More Aftershocks After This Week’s Deadly Quakes: A Seismologist Explains

Since Vanuatu’s first earthquake was at a magnitude over 7, we would expect to see more aftershocks to come, at declining strengths and frequency – in a pattern that can last weeks to months.

Undernews For July 17, 2010