welcome to the lower show where you get the real headlines with none of them or see if you live in washington d.c. now it's not going to take a look at that or reserve chairman ben bernanke the statements today or lack there of but also look at the eyes secret program and asking for governments to detain and interrogate and beats american citizens and a.f.l.-cio president richard trumka has come out hard attacking president obama running to withdraw his support from his campaign in two thousand and twelve so how damaging could actually be for the president attempts at reelection or you have all that and more clued into ghosts 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 i'll play it 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 or opposite i think that that is the exact information that 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 his nonsense that is truly a waste of money and resources and air time was something that. well the wedding

for a particular couple that you might find having a name familiar bride named irene 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 and we have to be prudent and cautious so we postpone the party and well you tried it you almost almost pulled 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 name is irene it's just too good to be true but you people have got to be kidding me i'm sure there are a lot of weddings that have to be called off a lot of vacations i would cancel a weekend trip of my own but everybody across the country who is 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 survives about what's happening right here and you know what

else is happening right here our government is getting into it was 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 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 that this is serves a little discussion went on happening rather crass and off he hasn't even been complete a count yet but the t.n.c. is already getting the money they're getting to see through the big cables and we so don't know what the hell they're going to make 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 that we should be asking some of those questions i think there should be i don't know just maybe a tinge more of realism involved because who knows today the international community recognizes that and then two months from now they're launching another war i mean humanitarian intervention against that is just moving pretty quickly and

our money is being poured into this venture that we didn't even choose to get into the president did and 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 in an annual conference in jackson hole today where last year he announced the pres indications what would later become q e two but today he announced he much he continued on the line 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 of the fed 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 of the monetary policy decisions to live within the hour so when the takeaway here and what are the

chances that those right steps will ever be taken to get this economy back on track or discuss this if we as anthony read as though director of economic research for the reason foundation anthony thanks so much for being here tonight so what did you think of bringing these riveting speech today i mean i feel like anybody could get a five that was very very riveting indeed it is i think it was actually funny to watch c n b c right after the fact right after the text of the speech came out you were so quest fall and there was nothing to report it was just same old same old this is boring and i feel that the wind here different yeah i mean it's waiting for this waiting for yeah you know and it is actually went straight back to commenting on irene because at least that was something interesting for them to talk about on c.b.c. . given that was basically what the the media's takeaway 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 he 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 worse we thought it was. i mean you know you're going to look great i mean is he a little overly optimistic here does he live on another planet i don't know you a long term he's not saying that the long term was scary because they just they just came out. yesterday saying a lot more of the american can still rise up our growth and continue that he's still here he's going to do the right things which is the key games and went and then what he did was he went and hunted right back to congress and the white house which has been trying to get to 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 on the right has been saying we don't want to take on fiscal reform pass reform we don't want to take on tax reform

we don't want to take on one side of the 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 it's like a canadian football game that's. just absolutely ok so you mentioned of course that there is no q e three right that's one of the big tools that immediately thinks of the fed has you mentioned also earlier this month you and i spoke about that when he said that interest rates are going to scale out whatever tools are there does very rubbernecking i actually know what they are or do some of them not as they said it's not ok so one of them is that the fed pays banks interest on 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 today and lend that money it's a very simple idea now inflation issues come into play so if they did that they would be releasing a lot of money that's currently on the banks books into the little 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 thought the trigger do you think that the third has become a little too involved in the political process many 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 with kerry talking about how the treasonous to print more money and so suddenly he is like a player in the twenty twelve presidential race or part of me does think that it's important to have the federal reserve being discussed in a political sense because the strength of the dollar the purchasing power of the dollar is immensely important when it comes to our recovery so we should have

presidential candidates actually talking about what 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 power should we give. what should and if you do but how much power should the federal reserve have over pretty good 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 the desire months building up to this speech if it's 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 do we have president obama's about to make a job speech we'll see how that. i have no idea what these new ideas are that he's going to put around other than just say we need to create more jobs and they have let's pass a few trade agreements and let's talk about housing policy because those are one of the things that the fed said or that ben bernanke he said if we do the right things then the economy 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 substance to over 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 and so the idea is if we stabilize housing prices that's good for the economy this is a giant fire sale that essentially 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 a housing bubble to go away and for the housing bubble to go away it means housing prices have to continue to fall a 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 goldman perhaps and 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 a fellow but a fire sale right now they're going to be able to negotiate those prices to kind of keep them hired and if just individual people coming in to buy them and it's a little people aren't buying homes right now but then if this program goes through

they want to have the option of buying they'll be able to buy a home somewhere because they want to have a lot of these homes because these homes will be specifically only for rental so will have this now will have this massive. delusion of rental homes which. we're going to impact rental fees so if you own homes right now that are you're renting out if you just like an individual that has a second or third home that you're renting to people all the sudden you're going to be forced to lower those rights because you know you know this massive bunch of homes now with 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 when 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 this is why i

just don't think it is really worth it i think it's the design of this comes into play and it's better because the government's program is going to screw with all those various that i want to ask you one last thing because we're running out of time but i've been ranting about on the show recently this entire compromise right this settlement that's going in the brain i twenty generals are attorneys general of states and we had erickson in the new york attorney general who was the sole opposing voice here who now is being kicked off 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 you know if you listen to ok so i'm half with you so here's where and when i'm with you and 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 if you afterwards there we're writing exactly so 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

play he's trying to get consumer problems investor problems and the mortgage. foreclosure problems in the service and things 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 people troubles just solve the servicing issue and the foreclosure issue but at the same time their idea of really solving it is kind of saying like hands wiped clean twenty billion dollars you guys are free to go no new investigations i don't know you can you know your investors you just got they can really like what they have to say is completely undemocratic telling me is that much for joining us. now still to come tonight a fence or ship of my life by agency is upset over a new book how the u.s. government working with foreign country for details and interrogate american says it's a secret program never gets in front of a joint. inside only a military mechanism to do the work how to bring justice or accountability. i have

a right to know what my government should do if you want to know why i pay taxes. but i would characterize obama as a care isn't a version 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 if you're see some other part of it and realize that everything is ok and you don't i'm trying hard look at the big picture. say. let's give the we part.

i think the. well. we never got the shows for people to safely get ready for freedom. for.

well looks like the cia is at it again censoring the book for publishing unflattering information about the agency the 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 india's book so fond 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 how photo of one of the nine eleven hijackers are actually had been sent to the cia a year before the twin towers were attacked at all they're also talks about their brutal interrogation techniques dumping them as counterproductive and unnecessary so we should know this information has been disclosed in the past it's public

whether it be congressional hearings where soufan testified himself memoirs from other officials or even just national reports in the media the information is already out there but the cia's still doesn't want any of those details included so in their official proofreading of the former agents book they had all of 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 author's lawyer to the f.b.i. general counsel says credible sources have told mr soufan that the agency has made a decision that this book 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 the vent that changed 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 i have 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 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 it is 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 it 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 i'm hopefully something goes through to actually let the book with all of 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 or brought into an interrogation room where security forces of that nation interrogate you there might be a new threat in your family and it times you're brought into another room where someone with an american accent starts doing the same thing probably minus the physical aspect so you say you're 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 that's happened more than once with varying details of course and it's a program of the f.b.i. is trying to keep secret after all proxy detention rendition like to 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 is 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. so much for joining us tonight thanks for having me

now like i said some of the stories have already been out there they've been reported on the media when it comes to get muhammad for example but you managed to do a really good job of compiling right to show that this is a trend here you have any idea of course some of the statements are we have no idea how many of you might be out there but how many people so far at least as there are documented proof of who claim that this is happening that all of people who claim this is happening to them. but there are a lot of reasons why you would. go public with something where. i personally know some people who privately claim that this is talking to them but have you gone public for fear of prosecution or for or for fear that you know that it's so because they might go public with the story that they were detained and interrogated abroad and that the f.b.i. has. they do with it they feel that they might be prosecuted something doesn't seem so right 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 well they were being detained would create legal liability for them so and so there are more cases there are definitely more cases out there people who claim that this is something so let's talk about pi is that the f.b.i. is doing it normally when we think of these types of. 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 that the f.b.i. is doing it at home and some of their operations abroad so their. operations abroad are a lot bigger than they were the early ninety's right after the first world trade center bombing that started really expanding their program abroad these 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 oh like head honcho.

they do a lot of court mission for that and they're the main point of contact for all so if another government agency maybe is interested in american history brought 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 is from being done totally by the book. 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 from what i gather here these people have been given and in fact they haven't even been charged with crimes and yet the f.b.i. allows them to be detained there and yeah i've been burned kuwait you know the interesting thing especially with big. muhammad case is that he claims that he was told that he couldn't have access to his lawyer because he was he was under kuwaiti

law and he did that right under the law but that's really matter abroad f.b.i. agents abroad are still held by the constitution and the interesting thing is in fact when i called up the f.b.i. to ask them about this at the time of the gulag muhammad story first broke out first tried to claim to me that exact make that exact same claim that he was covered by kuwaiti law and 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 admit they did say yes we ask other countries to do this for us to detain american citizens so that we can kind of stand by and interrogate and kill or at least just watch but what did they say to you exactly so they say. occasionally. 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 with it we would want the saudis to tell us if if they had

a citizen of theirs coming over here. and they thought about that person might be dangerous but it does come into the issue of you know how much coordination is there between the f.b.i. and these four intelligence services and you know are these people going to be used and it's clear that some of these people have returned to the u.s. . doesn't seem to currently think that they're guilty because they haven't been charged with anything and they're sort of moving away moving so it's not like every person here has actually had credible threats right i think that's the real issue you know i think 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 struck me and this is something that is talking about last night you were talking about another johns and that's your question about the f.b.i. there. massive cell of informants fifteen thousand and four means that they have and how innocent individuals usually get caught up in this way right here they're part of the surveillance queue as reading comments on line in response to your

piece on mother jones and there are some people who are saying i don't care go get it and do whatever you need as long as that means that you might save some lives at the end of the day do you think that most americans feel that way of even i don't care if somebody has an american passport you would every need to do break any law violate any of your civil liberties as long as long as i keep someone say i don't feel that way i think there are a lot of americans that do and 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 but 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 it going so is there any evidence to me just congress know about this program or who just you know i these just rogue

f.b.i. agents working from some from one of their offices of these orders come from high up maybe even the white house i think 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 the syrian and obama administration so sometimes they'll make a make decide 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 does in fact go to the national security council or the white house now do you have any kind of evidence as to how bad these people have been treated when it was their torture involved in many cases. i think. well 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 about mohamed 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 beat out people in custody that's pretty standard practice so that would be totally out of the realm of possibility and then when it comes to the case mobley just one person i wrote about. he claims that he was tortured pretty extensively as well and he had many custody. and. pretty severe stuff. he had been shot in the leg and basically he was still injured while he was being interrogated it seems like. he claims to have suffered some pretty severe about what severe but it's me you know you can say that sure we know that countries that we are asking for are for asking for our citizens to be treated that way and we're 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 come tonight he is a cd player so why the former president graham or not my full time award and i have a union says that president obama aligned with. everything that you need a great political win a second term. a topic of assassin just got. into that when we knew with the mechanisms that you know we're considering just to sort of come up with. i have a right to know what my government should do if you want to know why i think. i would characterize obama as a charismatic. american exceptionalism.