Honestly, anyone who still thinks DHS wasn't monitoring the Occupy protests is just too silly to live. Once you have a full-scale operation that's supposed to monitor threats, they're going to look at everything - because they're paranoid they're going to miss something. This is particularly amusing that they tried to push back on "inaccuracies" that were, in fact, true:

Senior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials debated whether they should pressure award-winning reporter Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings to "pull down" a report he published on the magazine's web site about the agency's role in monitoring Occupy Wall Street (OWS), claiming it was riddled with "inaccuracies," according to hundreds of pages of internal DHS emails related to OWS Truthout obtained under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request we filed last October.

But it wasn't Hastings' February 28 report that was incorrect. Rather, it was an unauthorized five-page internal report prepared last October by DHS employees, who acted "outside the scope of their authority" and violated "privacy standards," according to the emails, about the potential threat posed by OWS that was flawed. The internal report strongly suggested DHS had been mining social media, such as OWS's Twitter feeds, for intelligence on the protest movement.

That document, which Hastings had accurately represented in his story, formed the basis for his Rolling Stone story. It was found in more than 5 million hacked emails from private intelligence firm Stratfor that Wikileaks released earlier this year. Hastings obtained the internal report from WikiLeaks, which entered into an investigative partnership with Rolling Stone.

It was Hastings' characterization of the internal report that struck a nerve with top officials at DHS, who spent two days discussing how they should publicly respond to it, according to the heavily redacted emails.

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Rolling Stone has done a great piece about Fox News and its impact on this country. I love this excerpt:

The result of this concerted campaign of disinformation is a viewership that knows almost nothing about what’s going on in the world. According to recent polls, Fox News viewers are the most misinformed of all news consumers. They are 12 percentage points more likely to believe the stimulus package caused job losses, 17 points more likely to believe Muslims want to establish Shariah law in America, 30 points more likely to say that scientists dispute global warming, and 31 points more likely to doubt President Obama’s citizenship. In fact, a study by the University of Maryland reveals, ignorance of Fox viewers actually increases the longer they watch the network. That’s because Ailes isn’t interested in providing people with information, or even a balanced range of perspectives. Like his political mentor, Richard Nixon, Ailes traffics in the emotions of victimization.

“What Nixon did – and what Ailes does today in the age of Obama – is unravel and rewire one of the most powerful of human emotions: shame,” says Perlstein, the author of Nixonland. “He takes the shame of people who feel that they are being looked down on, and he mobilizes it for political purposes. Roger Ailes is a direct link between the Nixonian politics of resentment and Sarah Palin’s politics of resentment. He’s the golden thread.”

Much of the article is similar to what John and Dave wrote about in "Over the Cliff", but the Rolling Stone article reaches even farther. For example, Fox News has created a "fundraising juggernaut" for Republicans, which is what enabled Republicans to bounce back so hard after being trounced in 2008:

But Ailes has not simply been content to shift the nature of journalism and direct the GOP’s message war. He has also turned Fox News into a political fundraising juggernaut. During her Senate race in Delaware, Tea Party darling Christine O’Donnell bragged, “I’ve got Sean Hannity in my back pocket, and I can go on his show and raise money.” Sharron Angle, the Tea Party candidate who tried to unseat Harry Reid in Nevada, praised Fox for letting her say on-air, “I need $25 from a million people – go to SharronAngle.com and send money.” Completing the Fox-GOP axis, Karl Rove has used his pulpit as a Fox News commentator to promote American Crossroads, a shadowy political group he founded, promising that the money it raised would be put “to good use to defeat Democrats who have supported the president’s agenda.”

Just this morning, Fox and Friends ran four separate segments over their 3-hour time slot about Sarah Palin. They didn't stop there, though. There were 3 segments on Chris Christie, and an interview with Michele Bachmann where she got to play coy about her upcoming "major announcement" in Waterloo, Iowa. Then they pivoted to a Palin vs. Bachmann narrative for the last hour.

Anyone with half a brain knows Sarah Palin isn't going to run for President. She is just the next Donald Trump lined up to keep wingnut engagement high while the candidates jockey for funding and position.

Kaili Joy Gray at Daily Kos has it right:

So you can all hop off the Palin Paparazzi Tour of 2011, go back to your air-conditioned offices, sit back, and let her show off her savvy "new social media" skills on Twitter and Facebook—and Fox "News"—and then mock the holy hell out of her for being a fucking idiot. That's all. That is the sum total of the amount and kind of attention she deserves. You don't have to treat her like a serious presidential candidate, or even a serious person. Despite her protestations that she doesn't want media attention, she's starving for it. Hell, she quit her job as governor just so she could devote herself full-time to getting you to give her attention in the pages of your Very Serious papers.

This is our Very Serious Political Media. The Beltway Boys. Today's hot stories include more Breitbart mania, Palin, Bachmann and Christie. This is because they do not really want anyone to think about how Republicans are trying to force a financial crisis on this country by holding a faux debt ceiling vote today which will fail without Very Serious Spending Cuts, or how cynical it is to cry wolf over the national debt while refusing to raise revenues to cover it. They don't want us to keep talking about the Paul Ryan plan to destroy Medicare, or how they'd love to kill Social Security and Medicare with one smooth debt ceiling stone. So instead we get Palin, Bachmann, and a world turned upside down over absolutely...nothing.

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In the wake of the General McChrystal firing because of the article titled: Runaway General, Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings is being berated for the fact that he was "hanging around" the general and his staff and therefore somehow must have hypnotized his crew into expressing thoughts and feelings that were classified. (Kind of like the Svengali-like powers only Russian spies in espionage novels by Robert Ludlum could possess.)

And after they were duped by his super powers of persuasion by the great 'hang out,' he was somehow able to put together the type of long form journalism that has been sorely lacking in the traditional media of today. You would think he would be celebrated by the mainstream press for getting a tremendous scoop by doing real investigative journalism, but instead he's being vilified. Are they just jealous, or do they feel their access is now threatened too? The type of access that allows them to print almost propaganda type press released, but gets them invited to cocktail parties.

I didn't realize Michael Hastings 'hang out' interview technique was so easy to do. Find a destination that is remote enough because let's face it, McChrystal was the general in charge of the entire Afghanistan war. It's not like he's hanging around a Jack In The Box, sucking down a a few tacos. Buy a couple of guys a drink at an Irish pub in France and suddenly they open up and tell what they think of Vice President Biden. That was very slimy of Michael Hastings, we now learn.

Here's Howard Kurtz:

KURTZ: And he got fired rather quickly by President Obama. Do you think that McChrystal and his top aides got so used to your hanging around that they let their guard down?

Yeah, the elite team that McChrystal assembled was easily distracted by the constant appearance of Hastings, so they let their guard down. And these are the men running a war. Don't you feel confident now that it will end soon?

Hastings' response:

HASTINGS: No. I don't think that was the case, because some of the most talked-about parts of the piece happened within the first 24 hours that I was with his team.

One of the most -- I guess people have called it inflammatory passages is when I quote a top adviser saying, "Biden -- did you say 'bite me'?" That was the second morning I was with them in Paris covering an on-the-record meeting that they were having to prepare for a speech later on.

I mean, in fly-on-the-wall journalism, you're there to capture exactly those kinds of moments.

But you were hanging around, Michael. Dammit, you unprofessional hack.

KURTZ: But when you are there --

HASTINGS: That what makes fly-on-the-wall journalism so wonderful to read.

KURTZ: When you are there that much, you don't think it's likely that McChrystal and his team assume that some of their joking, that some of their banter would be treated by you as off the record?

... You got some criticism for quoting one comment by one aide while he was getting drunk, or "hammered" is the way you put it. Any second thoughts about that?

HASTINGS: Which quote are you referring to?

KURTZ: I don't have the piece in front of me, but certainly it's been widely commented upon that there was some drinking going on.

Michael, I have a big show on CNN and I ask the questions because I'm the media critic even if I don't know what I'm asking about, OK? You fill in the blanks. And really, these people were getting shitfaced. Isn't that a bad time to ask them questions?

HASTINGS: Yes. There was drinking going on.

But the only quote from that scene, if I remember, were two of the top senior military officials singing a song that they called "The Afghanistan Song." So I quoted the refrain which was, "Afghanistan!" "Afghanistan!"

And then I quoted General McChrystal observing his men, and saying, "I'd die for these men, and they'd die for me." I don't see what's so controversial about those quotes.

Bam. Take that beeatch!

KURTZ: You certainly did illuminate the human side of war. Michael Hastings, thank you very much for joining us from Afghanistan.

Now let's hear from fellow Beltway Villager CBS Lara Logan who has been pretty damn good covering Iraq.

LOGAN: Well, it really depends on the circumstances. It's hard to know -- Michael Hastings, if you believe him, says that there were no ground rules laid out. And, I mean, that just doesn't really make a lot of sense to me, because if you look at the people around General McChrystal, if you look at his history, he was the Joint Special Operations commander. He has a history of not interacting with the media at all.

And his chief of intelligence, Mike Flynn, is the same. I mean, I know these people. They never let their guard down like that.

To me, something doesn't add up here. I just -- I don't believe it.

Interpretation: "F--k him, Howard, he beat me to the scoop so he must be full of shit."

Or maybe it was because he took the time out after meeting the general earlier and went by himself to seek out General McChrystal and his staff and ask to do a real article instead of using the all powerful EMAIL. Why travel to a hell hole like Kabul when you can email the general a few basic questions and wait for his reply in the comfort of your own home or office in D.C. or New York?

And then these people wonder why the public has such a dim view of their credibility.

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Bill O'Reilly has been on a mission to first destroy the credibility of Rolling Stone, that fine upstanding DFH mag, which includes the author of the piece that brought down Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Michael Hastings. And secondly, he's now attacking liberalism in general and blaming McChrystal's downfall on the idea that he's a liberal, so he deserved his fate.

And you know BillO hates Michael Hastings -- who once upon a time ran some scathing pieces on Bill O'Reilly's sexual peccadiloes -- so as usual he brings on Bernie "I hate Liberals" Goldberg to attack Michael Hastings and call him a weasel. He's blaming Hastings for ruining General McChrystal, which is absolutely ridiculous. Hastings didn't make anything up and the general and his staff have not refuted anything at all about the article.

BillO has not been able to prove that the general is a flaming treehugger -- he says so in this segment -- but that doesn't stop him from promoting the idea anyway. BillO uses Lara Logan's opinion about how the military grants access to journalists. She is shocked that there were no rigid ground rules.

UPDATE: Read Glenn Greenwald's piece on Lara Logan's response to Hastings.

That in itself is meaningless since Rolling Stone has said from the beginning that they were granted access to write their piece in its entirety. Bernie says she knows what she's talking about, but he can't prove that Hastings sandbagged the general and a reporter is not there to do PR for the military. Good for Bernie. Then Bill delves into liberal-conspiracy-land with Bernie happily along for the ride.

O'Reilly: I don't know his ideology, but when I heard that her's an avowed liberal who turned off FOX News in his office, which as you know is the most widely watched network on all the army, marine and naval bases, all over the globe by far...FOX NEWS,FOX NEWS, FOX NEWS. When he did that and I heard that,"OK, maybe his own ideology brought him down. I wonder if general McChrystal is as liberal now today as he was today before the Rolling Stone article? So I think you live by the liberal sword, you die by the liberal sword.

Goldberg: Exactly, exactly, God created irony. If you're a liberal military man and you take a liberal journalist into your confidence and then he turns around and screws you, I mean that's what we call ironic.

Ahhh, it's all so ironic, Bernie. Well, BillO and Bernie get to their own warped version of what it means to be a liberal and how the media will treat you. You see you stupid liberal military men. All liberals in the media will bring you down in a cloud of shame if you talk to them. Beware, only the halls of the NRO are worthy for you because they will protect you no matter what you say. That's real journalistic integrity. Then Bernie says in a fit of hubris that if Hastings pretended to like McChrystal to win his confidence and he knew he was going to screw him before he did the interview, then Hastings is dishonest. It's killing these wingnuts that General McChrystal might actually be a lefty. The man dubbed the savior of Afghanistan even hates FOX News.

Bill's proof that he must be a liberal is found in Marc Ambinder's piece, which says he is a liberal and banned FOX News from his office. I like him a little more if this is true, but O'Reilly's idea that he got the axe because he was a liberal is absurd as usual.

Today there's a report in CNN which has a military spokesman saying that Hastings didn't fact check some of his quotes.

But days after his ouster, one military official who worked for McChrystal in Afghanistan has told CNN that many of the controversial quotes in the article were never meant to be used on-the-record. But at no point did the official dispute the accuracy of comments about the president or other key administration officials that appeared in the article.

If you have access as a journalist to do an article then he/she is not going to refrain from including controversial comments because you suddenly realize that you made a mistake in making those comments for the record for the fact.

Bill O'Reilly then defends his own "ambush" tactics by calling it "eye to eye' and 'face to face' with someone you want answers from directly.

O'Reilly: ...This Hastings is a weasel, Bernie. He's a weasel. You know he's a weasel. This is a weasel with a capital "W"

Goldberg: I suspect he is...

And there you have it, Michael Hastings must be a weasel and McChrystal is a liberal and deserved his fate.

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Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings was on "Reliable Sources" this morning, and he blew a few of Howard Kurtz's theories out of the water - first, by telling him the most sensational quotes weren't the result of hanging around for two weeks, but were things he was told in the first two days.

Kurtz asked if he thought other reporters went easy on McChrystal and Hastings said McChrystal's staff gave unprecedented access with the expectation that reporters will write "puff pieces".

KURTZ: Michael Hastings, welcome.

Stanley McChrystal gave you an unusual degree of access. And your reporting cost him his job. Any regrets about that?

MICHAEL HASTINGS: I went out to try to tell the best story that I could and write what I saw, I heard and thought. And I had really no control over, you know, the aftereffects. And that really wasn't what I was focusing on. What I was focusing on was trying to write the best story that I could to bring attention to the war in Afghanistan.

I did not expect the fallout that occurred. In fact, I didn't even think that it was possible for General McChrystal to even get fired.

KURTZ: And he got fired rather quickly by President Obama.

Do you think that McChrystal and his top aides got so used to your hanging around that they let their guard down?

HASTINGS: No. I don't think that was the case, because some of the most talked-about parts of the piece happened within the first 24 hours that I was with his team.

One of the most -- I guess people have called it inflammatory passages is when I quote a top adviser saying, "Biden -- did you say 'bite me'?" That was the second morning I was with them in Paris covering an on-the-record meeting that they were having to prepare for a speech later on.

I mean, in fly-on-the-wall journalism, you're there to capture exactly those kinds of moments.

Continue reading »

When the story broke two days ago, Bill O'Reilly tried to portray the Rolling Stone article as "tepid" and not worthy of all the hype it's receiving. Really? Bill knows all about military protocol so he's fibbing, trying to save McChrystal from himself. Obama HAD to fire Gen. McChrystal. I won a bet with Howie when I told him Obama would fire him quickly.

I lost a wager yesterday. Amato was certain Obama had no choice but to fire McChrystal after the now infamous Rolling Stone feature showed the Afghanistan War disaster was being run by a gaggle of arrogant, insubordinate, disloyal overgrown frat boys. Amato thought right from the start that Obama would have no choice but to fire McChrystal.

That RS article was hideous on so many levels, I won't name them all here. But the sewerage coming out of the mouths of the General and his frat boy entourage was quite shocking for a man who has built his reputation on being the ultimate soldier. We all complain about either our bosses, co-workers or friends, but we have a small circle we can trust to listen when we vent these things. McChrystal went directly to a Rolling Stone reporter and laid them all out on a Internet silver platter.

We've had many issues with Obama's handling of issues (as has been laid out on the pages of C&L), but as a political move, he did the exact right thing and when he named The Holy Petraeus to take the job. He trumped the right once again. His pick may endanger the withdrawal timetable (because he is a true believer even if he says the right things now), but the Afghan policy isn't the debate here.

Esquire writes a good piece about the policy switch: 10 Things to Know About the Petraeus-McChrystal Switch

The incident might be the first time since Obama took office that the right-wing noise machine could not figure out a way to pile on the President. Even when he does something they approve, they still attack him incessantly, so I found this whole situation interesting. There's one thing that they cannot argue about: the chain of command. Colonel Hunt, who works for FOX, is a blood and guts type of guy and he agreed with Obama even though Bill did his best to save the general.

Hunt: If anybody, Bill... If anybody in your chain, Bill... If anybody working for you said something close to you, that building would implode you're sitting in. If anyone in McChrystal's chain of command below him said anything even close to this, he'd be fired. You cannot do this in the chain of command. You can't do it.

BillO: I got it. Military discipline dictates, the Commander in Chief and all the generals have to have loyalty, up and down.

--

Hunt:...these kinds of comments are not done in vacuums. These kinds of officers have a great deal of experience. Tony and I have served a long time. There is never a time you could say anything like this about your military boss -- certainly not your civilian leadership with a Rolling Stone guy in the room.

BillO: But again, you're assuming that he did it, I'm not assuming that yet.

He's been apologizing all night , Bill....[Bill speaks] You can't do what he did, you can't.

Last night, Bill conceded that Rolling Stone didn't sandbag the general, but in a very "tepid" way. There may be a few stragglers, but Brit Hume's performance with Megyn Kelly summed up the right wing pretty well. Hell, he should be fired just on the basis that he gave an interview to a DFH magazine like Rolling Stone, right?

Bill O'Reilly did try to save McChrystalMeth, but crazy Colonel Hunt would have none of it, either.

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I'm obviously coming in late on this discussion, but it's pretty interesting to watch the breathless dialogue over words that Gen. Stan McChrystal and his aides used to describe the Very Serious People within the Washington Beltway. I particularly like the coverage in this Firelake post.

McChrystal and aides reserve their greatest rancor for top members of the Administration. They call the “inflection point” deadline of July 2011 to transition to local Afghan forces “arbitrary,” one aide calls National Security Adviser Jim Jones a “clown… stuck in 1985,” and another aide McChrystal himself offers a rejected “Wayne’s World” joke about the Vice President: “Biden? Did you say: Bite me?”

McChrystal had to apologize for the entire profile.

Well, maybe Gen David McKiernan doesn't look so bad, now. I don't have much to add to this controversy other than a few observations. First, I disagree with Spencer Ackerman that the Afghan strategy will somehow collapse if the general is relieved of his command. That's bullshit. No one is indispensable, especially four-star generals. Maybe the Obama administration doesn't want to be cast as another Democratic anti-military crowd (as the Clinton administration was), but let's be clear. McChrystal really stepped on his dick here. Just apologizing won't cut it.

Second, I find it appalling that prominent Democratic politicians like Sen. John Kerry don't immediately support firing the general. We know it was "poor judgment." Rather than being mocked by the Republican conservatives as "anti-military" (which they're going to do in any regard), Kerry doesn't want to make the right call and say, hey, the civilians are in charge of the military. If that's not clear to the general and his aides, they need to go for the good of the US military and any future exercises in national security. Matt Y has already detailed Kerry's past failure to develop a distinct and workable progressive national security strategy in his book "Heads in the Sand."

Third, I'll reserve this shot for anyone who suggests that the political strategy and/or foreign policy needs to crafted to support military operational strategy, rather than the other way around. Mr. Exum already suggests that "there are good reasons both for and against the sack," but I disagree. There's only good reasons for the sack. The military may not like the development of political strategy that is intended to guide the execution of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that's not their call. The second that the military believes it knows better than the political decision-makers, it's time for them to go. They advise, but when the order is given, they salute and move out without sniping at the decision-makers (at least while they're on active duty). I believe there were lots of ground commanders in 2003-2006 who thought the Bush administration had developed poor policy and was not supporting the prompt and efficient execution of military operations, but Rumsfeld and company kept a hard hand on any dissenters. This is the same situation, different leaders, and we cannot let this example stand as the way Dems do business.

On the plus side, if President Obama and SecDef Gates use this unfortunate incident to rethink their strategy and to ensure that the political decisions have been made and are adequate to support a 2011 start of withdrawing forces from Afghanistan, here's the opportunity to do so. It would be foolish not to search this black cloud for a silver lining.

UPDATE: VoteVets calls for McChrystal to resign or be fired

CNN is reporting that General McChrystal has submitted his resignation. The President wants to meet with him before deciding to accept it.

Yes, General McChrystal snarked and growled in front of a Rolling Stone reporter about foreign officials, the Obama administration, President Obama and Vice President Biden. About the only official to get a pass from McChrystal was Hillary Clinton, largely because she supports whatever the military wants in Afghanistan. And as Jason argues, all of this is a reason for the President to accept his resignation.

I've watched this story unfold all day, and while I believe the remarks McChrystal made about the administration and the President reflect poorly on him and are insubordinate, I'm surprised that the focus has been so sharply laid upon that angle. No matter what the good general has to say about his conduct in an apologetic tone, he knew exactly what he said and who he said it to. He also received the article in advance.

Robert Gibbs laid out the real reason for why the President should accept McChrystal's resignation in his daily briefing.

MR. GIBBS: Well, let me say, first and foremost, there are more than 90,000 of our bravest men and women in Afghanistan, and what we owe them is nothing short of our full support and our best efforts to get a new strategy in that country right. That’s the president’s focus. That should be everybody’s focus.

It was a strategy, as you all know, that was worked out in long consultation last fall and last winter. And the president went around to many of the people that will be in the Situation Room tomorrow, asking them if they agreed with this new strategy and asked for their commitment to implement it. That’s — again, that’s what we owe the men and women that are — that are fighting each and every day over there.

According to the Rolling Stone article, the rank and file has lost faith in McChrystal's strategy and believe it places them at a greater risk of injury and death.

But however strategic they may be, McChrystal’s new marching orders have caused an intense backlash among his own troops. Being told to hold their fire, soldiers complain, puts them in greater danger. “Bottom line?” says a former Special Forces operator who has spent years in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I would love to kick McChrystal in the nuts. His rules of engagement put soldiers’ lives in even greater danger. Every real soldier will tell you the same thing.”

This is why McChrystal must resign. The President will survive petty snark about whether he was sufficiently deferential to the general at their first meeting. He will survive the hysterical flappings of the right about how he's unqualified to lead, and how the military doesn't respect him. This is not about President Obama. It's about the troops who are putting their lives on the line every single day in Afghanistan.

Everyone who has a clue about leadership understands what happens when the rank and file loses faith. There can be no question that the troops in Afghanistan do not believe in their ability to successfully carry out the mission McChrystal has defined, nor do they believe in the mission itself. That is a very large red flag that must not be ignored.

Just as McChrystal has expressed his lack of faith and trust in the President, so too have the troops expressed similar sentiments toward him. For that reason, it is time for General McChrystal to hand his letter of resignation to the President when he reports tomorrow. He should then apologize not to the President, but to the troops under his command whose concerns he so cavalierly dismissed.

So forgive me if I don't buy the "I'm so sorry, I used poor judgment" apology. I don't. He knew what he said and why he said it.

What Gibbs said is far more important. This is about those 90,000 men and women over there. And what that article said is far more important. Those 90,000 men and women doubt this general's strategy and believe they are being put in more danger than necessary. When the President accepts McChrystal's resignation, effective immediately, he should make this clear to the country.

It really isn't about the President. Or even about tension between civilian/military leadership. It is about McChrystal's failure to lead those troops in that region with full conviction and belief in their success. Don't be fooled by all the right wing spew about to gush forth. For this administration, the troops are what matter, not a general's petulance about not being properly admired by a sitting President.

Remember that Rolling Stone piece about Goldman Sachs I mentioned the other day? Here's another post from Matt Taibbi that should raise serious concerns about the stranglehold the company has on the economic markets:

"In a move set to infuriate and send many Zero Hedge readers over the top, the NYSE has taken action to make sure that nobody will henceforth be able to keep track of the complete dominance that Goldman Sachs exerts over the New York Zero Hedge Stock Exchange. This basically ends our weekly Program Trading updates disclosed every Thursday indicating that Goldman has singlehandedly captured all of NYSE's program trading."

-- Zero Hedge

I'm sorry I didn't post this earlier, but I urge readers to go over to Zero Hedge and check out this post about the NYSE's recent decision to change its procedures... to protect Goldman Sachs from bloggers like Zero Hedge!

This is complicated stuff (for people with no financial background, like me, it's nightmarish) and I have a longer thing about this coming out later. But the essence of this story is that Tyler Durden over at Zero Hedge has, for months, been complaining that Goldman has been manipulating the NYSE, in particular manipulating program trading in somewhat the same way (although perhaps not to the same extent) that they manipulated the commodities markets. In order to make his case -- and his theory has gained a lot of acceptance, to the point where Goldman had to respond to the allegations publicly -- he has been analyzing data the NYSE releases on program trading every week.

So what happened this week? The NYSE announced that it will no longer be releasing its weekly program trading data. This is quiet obviously a move designed to make it even more impossible to track what's going on in the NYSE and shield, in particular, Goldman Sachs. Let's hope there's a public uproar about this; Zero Hedge posted contact info for NYSE officials, and has urged readers to petition the exchange to restore the old rules in the name of transparency.

They plan to do this by July 10th, so it's important to call now. Let them know what you think of them making it impossible for anyone but insiders to know what's going on. From Zero Hedge:

This is a travesty, as well as a complete obliteration and a mockery of the move for transparency that the Administration, Regulators and Exchanges have been posturing they support.

We advise all readers to contact the provided staff on the memorandum and voice your incredulity with this brazen move to completely obfuscate Goldman's behind-the-scenes take over the world's biggest stock exchange.

Robert Airo, Senior Vice President, NYSE Euronext at (212) 656-5663 or

Aleksandra Radakovic, Vice President, NYSE Regulation at (212) 656-4144

Mind you, this is the man for whose case the Obama administration is citing the state secrets act. This could be any one of us:

A British ‘resident’ held at Guantanamo Bay was identified as a terrorist after confessing he had visited a ‘joke’ website on how to build a nuclear weapon, it was revealed last night.

Binyam Mohamed, a former UK asylum seeker, admitted to having read the ‘instructions’ after allegedly being beaten, hung up by his wrists for a week and having a gun held to his head in a Pakistani jail.

It was this confession that apparently convinced the CIA that they were holding a top Al Qaeda terrorist.

But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the offending article – called How To Build An H-Bomb – was first published in a US satirical magazine [Seven Days] and later placed on a series of websites.

Written by Barbara Ehrenreich, the publication’s food editor, Rolling Stone journalist Peter Biskind and scientist Michio Kaku, it claims that a nuclear weapon can be made ‘using a bicycle pump’ and with liquid uranium ‘poured into a bucket and swung round’.

Despite its clear satirical bent, the story led the CIA to accuse 30-year-old Mohamed, a caretaker, of plotting a dirty bomb attack, before subjecting him to its ‘extraordinary rendition programme’.