welcome to the lower show where we get the real headlines with none of the mercy if you live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to take a look at that or reserve chairman ben bernanke the statements today or lack thereof but also look at the eyes secret program asking a foreign governments to detain interrogate beats american citizens and a.f.l.-cio president richard trumka has come out hard attacking president obama for running to withdraw his support from his campaign in two thousand and twelve so how damaging could actually be for the president's attempts at reelection or you have all that and more for you tonight including a toast of happy hour but first let's take

a look at what the mainstream media has decided to me. all right so i've been giving you my take on the natural disaster reporting over the past couple of days and oakley have made it pretty clear so far that i'm not a huge fan it's not that i don't believe that people should be able to watch the news and see what's coming take the necessary precautions find out which areas are being evacuated where the shelters are find out if nine one one is going to be working or not quite the opposite i think that is the exact information the people really do need to know this is mother nature that we're messing with after all let's face it she can be a heartless bitch but what i can't stand is the over reporting the time spent on the useless reporter who stands on a beach walks along the beach even though the weather is called just to show you that he knows how to stand on a beach or the guy yesterday with the cupcakes save the cupcakes for the local news but i think that by far the worst example of this nonsense that is truly

a waste of money and resources and air time was something that we saw today all the waiting for a particular couple that you might find having a name familiar bride names i reasoned. is trying to figure out what to do because she's supposed to get married on the connecticut shore sunday early this morning we made our final decision we have to be prudent and cautious so we postpone the party and well you tried you you almost almost killed this thing off. i kid you not the cable news networks the ones that run nationally all over the country right a couple of hours to cancel their wedding because of the hurricane i mean it sucks i get it of course what do you know the bride's name is irene it's just too good to be true you people have got to be kidding me i'm sure that there are a lot of weddings that had to be called off a lot of vacations i had to cancel a weekend trip of my own but everybody across the country who's trying to watch the national international news doesn't need to know about it that's what happens when your media establishment is based in washington d.c.

and new york the world just revolves about what's happening right here you know what else is happening right here our government is getting into it with south africa and with african union over recognition of the trans national transitional national council that would be the libyan rebels and the body that they've set up that's far now the u.s. has recognized that many european countries have and the t.n.c. is even announced that they cannot wait to take their seat at the u.n. next month and meanwhile the u.n. has begun releasing one point five billion in libyan assets. i think of this is serves as a little discussion when it's all happening rather fast because he hasn't even completed get out yet but the t.n.c. is already getting the money they're getting the seats of the big tables and we so don't know what the hell they're going to take out of libya they haven't had an election yet how do we even know if they represent the views and the needs of the libyan people if they have a good elected i mean i don't really know i'm not an expert on this matter but i think we should be asking some of those questions i think that there should be i don't know just maybe a tinge more of realism involved because who knows today the international

community recognizes that eventually months from now they're launching another war i mean humanitarian intervention against them is moving pretty quickly and our money is being poured into this venture that we didn't even choose to get into the president did nobody's asking anyone questions so i think they should but that's what they choose to miss. well federal reserve chairman ben bernanke he spoke an annual conference in jackson hole today where last year he announced the fed's indications are it would later become q e two but the day he announced pretty much nothing he continued on the line but although i don't claim it is going to be an issue he doesn't expect the long term growth potential of the u.s. economy to be affected by the crisis or the recession if the right steps are taken he once again said the pad will take any necessary steps to help the economy but he didn't mention any and he once again point the finger at congress and the white house basically saying that better fiscal decisions need to be made for the

monetary policy decisions to live within the hour so what's the takeaway here and what are the chances that those right steps ever be taken to get this economy back on track or discuss this with me as anthony read as the director of economic research for the reason. dan thanks so much for being here tonight so what did you think of burning these riveting speech today i feel like anybody kind of gets that that was very very riveting indeed is that i i think it was actually funny to watch the n.b.c. right after the fact right after the text of the speech came out they were so crestfallen there was nothing to report it was just same old same old this is boring. huge everything yeah it's waiting for this waiting for yeah you know and is it actually went straight back to commenting on irene because at least that was something interesting going to talk about on c n b c. given that was basically what the the media's take away for in general today it's not that surprising because we already had a huge announcement this month that the federal reserve announced it was going to

keep interest rates at basically zero until two thousand and thirteen so there was a possibility that breakthrough was going to say something big today particularly given the g.d.p. numbers came in for the second quarter revised down to one percent from one point three so the economy is even worse than how worse we thought it was. i mean you know your honor i mean you know a great i mean is he a little overly optimistic or does he live on another planet i don't know you a long time no he's not he's not saying that the long term looks great because they just they just came out and said. anything along meyer and america can still rise up our growth yes continue to be still here he may do the right things which is the key things and went and then what he did was he went and he punted right back to congress in the white house which has been trying to kick him for a while in talking about fiscal policy and that really should be the biggest takeaway is that what he was saying here is look i have tools and i can tell you what they are because maybe i don't know what they are but i have tools but i want congress to do it now and congress has been saying the right has been saying we

don't want to take on fiscal reform policy reform we don't want to take on tax reform we don't want to take on entirely reform we definitely don't want to take on housing policy reform federal reserve you fix it so they've been kicking he just punted right back to them and so you can even football game that's just so you guys for all that it has served up it was absolutely ok to see him answered of course there is no q e three hundred big tools that immediately think that the fed has also earlier this month you and i spoke about that when he said the interest rates are going to stay allow what other tools are there does very reverend king i actually know i pay i already do some of them not as they say no it's not ok so one of them is that the fed pays banks interest money that they hold and that they don't lend out so one of the things that they do they can do is they could get rid of that so that now the fed is no longer paying banks to hold on to money making it more profitable for the banks to then lend that money it's a very simple idea now when inflation issues come into play so if they did that they would be releasing a lot of money that's currently in the brain works into the larger economy so they

would have to probably raise interest rates at the same time which is one reason they don't want to do that and raising interest rates would cost the united states government more money to borrow to continue to spend as we spend ten trillion twenty trillion million trillion dollars over the next. three months or so they don't want to do that and so they have these various tools but they're all linked to interest rates which is one reason why i really pull the trigger do you think that the third has become a little too involved in the political process and the entire idea here right is they're supposed to be an independent body they're supposed to rise above but now we see this punting back and forth between the federal reserve and between congress now we even see presidential candidates bringing in the federal reserve perry talking about how it be treasonous to print more money and so suddenly he is like a player in a tiny twelve presidential race or pardon me does think that it's important to have the federal reserve being discussed in a political sense because the strength of the dollar purchasing power of the dollar

is immensely important when it comes to our recovery so we should have presidential candidates actually talking about what the federal reserve policy should be in some sense but what they should be talking about is why the federal reserve has as much power as it does in the first place and why it should be allowed to manipulate the system as much as it does and whether or not the dual mandate is even effective which it isn't which we should be talking about monetary policy but not in how much should we do. what you're going to make you do but how much power should the federal reserve have over particular decisions what should monetary policy be in general that's an important discussion whether or not we should have a strong dollar weak dollar whether or not we want to favor policies that promote trade or restrict trade those are important things for politicians to actually discuss it is problematic though that essentially the entire economy is riding on one speech of the federal reserve chairman which is kind of what we're seeing happen today you know it is entire week was building up to the side of mothers building up to this speech if

a little depressing. and definitely with you there ok so i also wonder though if the chances of congress actually doing something to fix the economy right now right now we have a supercommittee that supposed to make one point two trillion dollars in cuts wealthy how that we have president obama is about to make a jobs speech we'll see how bad. i have no idea what these new ideas are that is going to float around other than to say we need to create more jobs and they asked if you trade agreements but then let's talk about housing policy because those are one of the things that the fed said or that he said if we do the right things then the economy can get back on track in that i can continue to be optimistic about america's future do you see any movement so far when it comes to fixing our housing policies will there's no substitute of like over arching sort of movements there are little things that are happening and one of them is there's a lot of talk right now about creating a federal rental program out of the five hundred thousand or so homes that fannie mae for the american dream and basically by taking those one of the ideas out there

is take those homes sell them to companies who will then rent them out and if you sell all those homes that will in theory stabilize housing prices so the idea is it will stabilize housing prices that's good for the economy as it is a giant fire sale the century however this is this is problematic because we're still in a housing bubble for there to be recovery we can't be in a housing bubble housing bubbles part of what got us to this recession and great contraction that we're in right now we need that housing bubble to go away and for the housing bubble to go away it means housing prices have to continue to fall little bit more so the massive fire sale is our housing prices are are pretty low i mean how do you know if it's going to be a fire sale though right and they're selling them in bulk to private investors which are going to be. perhaps the sovereign wealth funds then how much are they actually buying it for i mean it's still very very very low now they're going to buy they're going to buy for low but a fire sale right now they're going to be able to negotiate those prices to kind of keep them higher than here just individual people coming in to buy them and usually

it's people aren't buying homes right now but then if this program goes through they want to have the option of buying rice will they be able to buy a home somewhere because they want to have it out of these homes because these homes will be specifically only for rental so how does now it will have this massive. of rental homes were. it's going to impact rental fees so if you own homes right now if that are your renting out if you just look at individual that has a second or third home that you're renting to people all of a sudden you're going to be forced to lower those rights because you know you know this massive bunch of homes now if all those companies want to come in and buy them themselves without a big program that might impact rental prices that's you know it's ok if those things happen but it's when you have the federal government coming in and trying to say we think housing prices should be at this price and we think that it's ok if prices are fixed here even if there's not as much demand for renting to do that in the first place this is where this whole idea of letting the market fix the system

that cliff shade idea that it's you that you like to roll your eyes at this is why do you think it only regrets i think we see it as it comes into play and it's better because the government's program is going to screw with all those various that i ask you one last thing too because we're running out of time but i've been ranting about on the show recently this entire compromise write this settlement it's culture i'm going to be the brain i turn to generals attorneys general of states and we had eric schneiderman the new york attorney general who was the sole opposing voice here and now has been kicked out of the executive committee and we found out the obama administration is pressuring him i mean i think this is just the most ridiculous ludicrous thing i've ever heard of. so i'm half with you so here's where i'm with i'm with you in it is that the idea of having all the banks legal problems be summed up in one big deal that is only a deal that for dealing with foreclosure and servicing issues that's problematic afterwards there we're waiting exactly sure here's where here's where i think that

the new york attorney general is wrong is he's trying to get everything all in place he's trying to get consumer problems investor problems and the mortgage. foreclosure problems and the servicing these all in one package that's a bad approach because that's going to take a really long time and we need to get at least the servicing part done so my my thought here is don't have a big. overarching deal where they get older legal troubles just sold them the servicing issue and the foreclosure issue but at the same time their idea of really solving it is kind of saying like no way hands wiped clean twenty billion dollars you guys are free to go no new investigations i don't know you're hearing oh no investigation to see are they can really like what they have to say is completely undemocratic right you know you think it's that much for joining us. now still to come tonight a fan first to play live by agency is upset over a new book how the u.s. government working with foreign countries to detain and interrogate american citizens the sake of program never gets in front of the book.

inside only the military mechanisms if you don't work to bring justice or accountability. help against me right to know what my government would want to know why i think taxes. i would characterize obama as a charismatic sort. of american exceptionalism. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like sleep you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else here's some other part of it and realize that everything is a. chart is a big picture says . let's not

forget that we had an apartheid. i think. even when the well. we never got the book says the earth keep him safe get ready because freedom. for.

well looks like the cia is at it again censoring a book for publishing unflattering information about the agency former cia agent a forty year old lebanese american writing a book called the black banners the inside story of nine eleven in the war against al qaeda and indeed his book so far and gives details on several different events like nine eleven and they include details about the cia amongst those details so on explains how the intelligence agency missed a chance to do rail the terrorist plot by withholding information from the f.b.i. about the two hijackers when they were living in san diego before the attack there's also information on our photo of one of the nine eleven hijackers are actually had been sent to the cia a year before the twin towers were attacked and the other also talks about their brutal interrogation techniques having them as counterproductive and unnecessary so

we should know that this information has been disclosed in the past it's public whether it be congressional hearings where soup on tested by himself memoirs from other officials or even just national reports in the media the information is already out there but the cia still doesn't want any of those details include it so in their official proofreading former agents book they had all those little bits of information thrown out and not only does the government organization claim that this information is classified but an e-mail from the authors lawyer to the f.b.i. as general counsel says credible sources have told mr soufan that the agency has made a decision that this should not be published because it will prove embarrassing to the agency. so there you have it ladies and gentlemen who want to share the details about the cia's mistakes and flubs over to vent to change this country forever it's a pretty big mistake so i guess it's understandable that they're going to do everything they can to try to keep it out of the spotlight but a hard time understanding why the cia is censoring this information most of which

is already public but like everything else that we see these days under the obama administration it seems like everything leans a little more towards a censorship site rather than if we free flow of information now they argue that it's for the sake of protecting the people but it's much more about protecting their image the cia the rest of our government what everyday americans to know about what happened in history the way that they want it remembered now the way that really happened and according to the new york times that black banners is approaching a deadline unless something drastically changes soon the publishers will go forward with this book with all of the cia's editorial changes so hopefully something goes through to actually let the book with all the information be published but in the meantime i guess we're just going to have to add it to the list of embarrassing things that our government censors to try and keep its image up to bad completely violating the constitution of the rights of free speech and i don't really think that's the best way for them to do that. now imagine being an american citizen and

a foreign country most likely a muslim country where you're either held up at the airport maybe you're snatched from a street corner by men wearing black to throw you into a white van you're brought into an interrogation room where security forces of that nation interrogate you if you threaten your family and in times you're brought into another room or someone with an american accent starts doing the same thing probably minus the physical aspect so you say here an american citizen you ask for a lawyer and in turn they tell you that that doesn't matter because you're not formally charged and they also give you a number of other threats including being placed on the no fly zone which means you can't return to america this is a scenario more than once with varying details of course and the program of the f.b.i. is trying to keep secret after all crackly detention rendition light as some people call it the use of other countries to detain interrogate in jail your own citizens doesn't exactly sound legal so how many times do we think that this has happened and did the f.b.i. come close to admitting that they do this to mother jones joins me to discuss this

is nicole the news editor for the thanks so much for joining us tonight thanks for having me now like i said some of these stories have already been out there they've been reported on the media when it comes to go at muhammad for example but you managed to do a really good job of compiling that right to show that this is a trend here you have any idea of course of the statements or we have no idea how many people might be out there but how many people so far at least as there are documented proof of who claim that this is hostile to the will of people who clean this is happened to them i've. searched but there are a lot of reasons why you would. go public with something where. i personally know some people who privately claim look this is up until i'm. gone public for fear of prosecution or for or for fear you know that might look like not so because they might go public with a story that they were detained and interrogated the pride and that the f.b.i. had to. they deal with it they feel that they might be prosecuted something doesn't seem so right back yeah i think there were. one person that i'm thinking of i think

that they're worried you know they may have said some things that. they were being detained would create legal liability for them so so there are more cases there are definitely more cases out there who claim that this is. so let's talk about why is that the f.b.i. is doing it normally when we think of these types of you know programs being conducted abroad you think of the cia because we've done it with individuals from other countries right or any administration during the bush administration but is this because the cia is allowed to spy on americans of the f.b.i. is doing in a home outside of their operations abroad so their. operations abroad are a lot bigger than they were early ninety's right after the first world trade center bombing they started really expanding their program more broadly if it's legal attache who work in u.s. embassies around the world and their entire job is meeting with foreign law enforcement and security services maybe setting up with like head honcho abroad

and they do a lot of court nation for that f.b.i. and they're the main point of contact for if another government agency maybe is interested in american history. so i guess the good news from a security perspective is that these agencies are cooperating with each other you know the question is whether everything was being done told by the pool that it was open and some of the cases that have been documented i would really call it by the book if you're an american citizen right you're supposed to enjoy certain protections that come with that citizenship and that includes if you are detained there is an american in front of you you have the right to ask for your lawyer right for some kind of legal counsel and then when i counter here these people have been given that and in fact they haven't even been charged with crimes they have the f.b.i. allows them to be detained there and you know i mean. you know the interesting thing especially with the. muhammad case is that he he claims that he was told that

he can have access to his lawyer because he was he was under kuwaiti law and he did not that right under the law but really matter abroad f.b.i. agents abroad are still bound by the constitution and the interesting thing is in fact when i called up the f.b.i. and i asked them about this at the time when they grew up on the story first broke up first tried to claim to me that exact make that exact same claim that he was covered by. they won't necessarily have to have a lawyer when they're interrogating him but that's just not the case that just seems like a crock if you ask me now the f.b.i. didn't exactly say yes we ask other countries to do this for us to detain american citizens so that we can kind of stand by tearing it into or at least just watch but what did they say to you exactly so they said. ok sure only. information that they share with foreign governments results in the detention of american citizens and i guess the way that they would explain that is well you know

if we would want the saudis to tell us if if they had a source of their coming over here. and they caught up person might be dangerous but it does come into you know how much coordination is there between the f.b.i. and these foreign intelligence services and you know how are these people going to be used and it's clear that some of these people have returned to the u.s. f.b.i. doesn't seem to currently think that they're guilty because they haven't been charged with anything and they're sort of moving a lot of movies and if they're like every person here is actually a credible threat right i think that's the real issue you know i think that most americans do you know do you want to catch terrorists the question is whether there are people being interrogated in foreign jails who are not actually terrorists well you know that was one of the things that that struck me and this is something that i was talking about last night you were talking about another johnson that's occasion about the f.b.i. there. massive cell of informants fifteen thousand and four months that they have

and how innocent individuals usually get caught up in this web right there they're part of the surveillance too and i was reading comments online in response to your piece on mother jones and there are some people who are saying i don't care go get em do whatever you need as long as that means that you might save some lives at the end of the day do you think the most americans feel that way that even though i don't care if somebody has an american passport do whatever you need to do break any law violate any of your civil liberties as long as long as it might keep someone safe. i don't feel that way i think there are a lot of americans that do i would just i would caution. a lot of. the f.b.i. and the cia have a record of making mistakes about this sort of thing it's not as if everyone who was in prison in guantanamo bay was in fact a terrorist or a member of al qaeda or whatever. and given that they have a record of making mistakes it's in the public interest to sort of monitor these sorts of programs and if they're going on in secret it's hard for congress and hard for the american people in the process to keep an eye on it so is there any

evidence to me does congress know about this program or you know i these just rogue f.b.i. agents working from some from one of their offices abroad or do these orders come from high up maybe even the white house i think so all these sorts of cases this is been going on for a while there there are cases that meet this profile that happened during the bush administration for example. all these sorts of cases for my reporting seem to be handled on a case by case basis so i'm talking to this region an obama administration so sometimes they'll make a make decide that you know something on the house or be approved by the counterterrorism center section chief or you know maybe the attorney general and sometimes it doesn't go to the national security council or the white house and do you have any kind of evidence as to how they see it was their torture and vaas or any of the cases. i think. all of these people claim or almost all of these people claim abuse to one to varying

degrees so some people claim that they were sort of held in incommunicado and held in solitary and sort of bullied by other people for example claims he was beaten that's a pretty common accusation and you know we know a lot about these foreign regimes and they do time to beat up people in custody that's pretty standard practice so that wouldn't be too. the other possibility and when it comes to the case. just one person i wrote about. he claims that he was tortured pretty extensively as well and many custody. and. pretty severe stuff. he had been shot in the leg basically he was still injured while he was being interrogated it seems like. he claims to have suffered some pretty severe bout severe about to me is you know you can say that sure we know that countries might reveal that way before asking for or for asking for

assistance to be treated that way over totally ok with it turning a blind eye or turning a blind eye there's a serious problem there nic thanks so much for joining us thank you. also coming i think a place so why does he want to be president for not my full time award and the head of a major union says that president obama aligned with the tea party everything that you need a great political win a second term with. a topic you will discuss in just a moment. i doodled we're going to bring justice or accountability. i have a right to know what my government if you want to know why i think that's. what i would characterize obama as the charismatic. of american exceptionalism.