As engineers prepared next week's vital operations to permanently kill the capped BP well, Allen met with parish presidents and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal in New Orleans to discuss how to safeguard local jobs going forward.

With little oil now floating in the Gulf, there are fears the popular "Vessels of Opportunity" program that employs fishing boats to skim crude off the surface of the sea might have to be scrapped.

Allen pledged to redeploy as many skippers as possible to other tasks, but could give no firm indication of how many of the 1,500 boats would still be working in the Gulf after next month.

"Obviously as we transition into a point where there's not the threat of a spill, the involvement of Vessels of Opportunity is going to necessarily change," he said after the meeting.

Allen said that over the next 10 days he would work with parish presidents and the governor to hammer out a plan for the fishermen and what to do with the program through to the end of August.

A large portion of the Gulf waters remain closed to commercial and recreational fishing and with lingering doubts about seafood safety, fishermen could effectively end up losing their jobs for a second time.

"The fishermen have missed a year, and we don't know what the impact is going to be next year, or the year after that," said Marty O'Connell, an environmental scientist at the University of New Orleans.

Many are worried it could be months or even years before they can fish again, and there are no guarantees the fish will be there in the same numbers when they do, or that they will be safe to eat.

"If BP uses the capping of the well as an excuse to minimize its clean-up operations, then shame on them," said Mike Frenette, whose five boats in Venice, Louisiana missed an entire summer's fishing due to the disaster.

Frenette had to apply four times before getting two of his five boats onto the program, which pays between 600 and 3,500 dollars a day, depending on the size of the boat.

"All that our Vessels of Opportunity work is doing is counting against our compensation claim. We're not making any money, here, we're just trying to keep our heads above water."

Many disgruntled fishermen are expected to seek compensation for lost earnings and personal injury in the courts, and in Boise, Idaho on Thursday lawyers for disaster victims opened the first stage in a massive civil trial.

The hearing brought together a wide array of people and players linked to the disaster triggered by an April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the coast of Louisiana.

Plaintiffs range from the families of the 11 workers killed in the explosion to Gulf fishermen whose catch has been contaminated by the spill, threatening them with financial ruin.

A seven-judge panel will decide over the next few weeks whether to consolidate the litigation into one or several cases, and where the trial or trials should take place.

BP and other firms named in the claims argued for the venue to be the oil headquarters of Houston, Texas, but victims' lawyers said it should be somewhere closer to those hit hardest by the disaster, like New Orleans. Joining BP in court were Transocean, which leased the rig to BP, Cameron International, which manufactured the blowout preventer, the device which should have shut down the well but failed to work properly, and Halliburton, the oil services company which had finished cementing the well only 20 hours before the rig exploded.

BP hopes to begin a "static kill" operation as early as this weekend to plug the capped well with drilling mud and cement. Five days later a "bottom kill" through a relief well should finish the job once and for all.

A cap stopped the flow on July 15 after between three and 5.2 million barrels (117.6 million and 189 million gallons) had gushed out, making it likely the disaster is the biggest ever accidental oil spill.

In the name of saving children from candy-flavored methamphetamine, the U.S. appears on the verge of mandating more than a year in jail for anyone who cooks up a batch of pot brownies.

A bill by California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein that has recently reached the Senate floor has cannabis advocacy groups concerned that potent, medical-grade edible products would become a higher crime carrying weighter sentences, ostensibly to protect children from ingesting strawberry-flavored meth.

The bill is the Saving Kids from Dangerous Drugs Act, which, according to Feinstein, "sends a strong and clear message to drug dealers – if you target our children by peddling candy-flavored drugs, there will be a heavy price to pay."

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) co-sponsors the bill. The full text is available online [PDF link].

"Flavored meth – with child-friendly names like Strawberry Quick – is designed to get people to try it a few times," Feinstein declared in a media advisory. "It’s all about hooking young people, and we have to stop this practice before it grows any further. So, this legislation will increase the criminal penalties for anyone who markets candy-flavored drugs to our youth – by imposing on them the same enhanced penalties applied to dealers who distribute drugs to minors."

"New techniques and gimmicks to lure our kids into addiction are around every corner. Candy flavored meth is the latest craze used by drug dealers," Senator Grassley added. "Research has shown time and again that if you can keep a child drug-free until they turn 20, chances are very slim that they will ever try or become addicted. This makes it all the more important that we put an end to the practice of purposely altering illegal drugs to make them more appealing to young people."

Cannabis advocacy blog "Toke of the Town" retorted: "Since there is no national trend toward lacing candy and other edibles with meth or any other drug besides cannabis, this bill clearly targets legitimate medical marijuana dispensaries, caregivers and patients in states that have legalized it as medicine."

And what sort of "enhanced penalty are we talking about? "[A] term of imprisonment [...] shall be not less than one year," the legislation states.

In the same breath, however, the bill adds: "This subparagraph shall not apply to any offense involving [five] grams or less of marihuana."

Should Feinstein's bill become law, the stipulation of five grams or less would absolutely lead prosecutions to level claims as to how much plant matter was used in the preparation of various drug-laced concoctions, which could be a highly subjective science.

Interestingly, the legislation gives no preferred mode of calculating the correlation of the plant matter's weight and the actual, tangible drug effect and content of the finished product, seemingly leaving a drastic space for ambiguity and interpretation.

However, she also opposes Proposition 19, California's marijuana legalization initiative, alleging that it would tie the hands of law enforcement, preventing officers from making stops and arrests of drivers stoned on marijuana. Feinstein even signed a ballot argument with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, citing specifically stoned school bus drivers as the principle threat to post-legalized society.

"Let's assess her argument point by point," began L.A. Times writer Paul Armentano. "First, Proposition 19 explicitly states that it will not amend or undermine existing state law criminalizing motorists who operate a vehicle while impaired by pot. Driving under the influence of marijuana is already illegal in California, and violators are vigorously prosecuted. This fact will not change under the initiative.

"Second, Proposition 19 in no way undermines federal drug-free workplace rules, just as the state's 14-year experience with legalized medical marijuana has not done so. Further, it does not limit the ability of employers to sanction or fire employees who show up to work under the influence of pot. Just as a private or public employer today may dismiss workers for being impaired by legal alcohol, employers in the future will continue to be able to fire employees who arrive to work under the influence of marijuana."

"Some medical marijuana users are so sick that they are unable to smoke their medicine and must eat it in baked goods or lozenges," pleaded activist group Students for Sensible Drug Policy. "They are already breaking federal law and risking prosecution but if S. 258 passes, the penalties they face would double.

"Please write your two United States Senators today and urge them to defeat this heartless bill."

The act was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in mid-June and is awaiting a vote by the Senate at-large.

The allegations — which include failure to report rental income from vacation property in the Dominican Republic or more than $600,000 in other income on his congressional financial disclosure statements — came as lawyers for Rangel and the House ethics committee worked on a plea deal.

One was struck, people familiar with the talks said, but Republicans indicated it might be too late.

"Mr. Rangel was given multiple opportunities to settle this matter. Instead, he chose to move forward to the public trial phase," said Rep. Jo Bonner of Alabama, the senior Republican on the ethics panel.

The alleged violations of House standards of conduct also include using congressional letterhead to solicit donations for a center for public service to bear Rangel's name on the New York campus of the City College of New York.

Rangel was also accused of accepting a rent-stabilized property in Manhattan for his campaign office and initially not paying federal taxes on the Dominican Republic property.

The charges, agreed upon after a two-year probe, were read in a public session of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as the ethics committee is formally known.

Rangel, 80, did not attend.

The session set the stage for a committee trial, expected to be held in September. Democrats had hoped to avoid such a public confrontation as November elections approach.

"We live at a time when public skepticism about the institutions in our country is very high," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., the ethics committee chair.

She said it had been the panel's goal "to by our actions rebuild and earn trust by the public and our colleagues."

Republicans have been trying to turn the case into an indictment of Democratic leadership. Rangel stepped down earlier this year as chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, one of the top posts in the House.

But Bonner told colleagues, "No one, regardless of their partisan stripes, should rejoice."

"It is the duty of the House to punish its members for disorderly behavior. As such, this is truly a sad day," the Alabama Republican said.

Under the tentative plea deal, it was not immediately clear how many of the 13 charges of ethical violations Rangel agreed to accept.

The ethics panel that will judge Rangel's conduct held its first meeting Thursday.

It includes eight members, equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. Thus, for any deal to be accepted it must be approved by at least one Republican.

In the frantic hours leading up to the meeting, Rangel's lawyer, Leslie Kiernan, talked to attorneys for the panel about how to avoid a trial for the 40-year veteran.

Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the panel that will try Rangel, said that the Democrat had been "given the opportunity to negotiate a settlement during the investigation phase."

However, he said, that phase is now over. "We are now in the trial phase," he said.

A congressional trial could be avoided only if Rangel admitted to substantial violations, or resigned.

Punishment could range from a report criticizing his conduct to a reprimand or censure by the House, or a vote to expel him — which is highly unlikely. Any agreement would have to be approved by Rangel and ethics committee members.

"Sixty years ago I survived a Chinese attack in North Korea and as a result I haven't had a bad day since," Rangel told reporters earlier Thursday. "But today I have to reassess that statement."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked if she was worried about the potential election-year fallout for Democrats. "The chips will have to fall where they may politically," she said. Pursuing ethics cases against House members is "a serious responsibility that we have," she added.

"I think everyone is looking forward to getting all the facts out in the open, and people will have to react once we know what we're dealing with," said Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill.

Rangel is tied for fourth in House seniority. He's still vigorous at 80 years old.

He had substantial influence as Ways and Means chairman. The panel handles taxes, trade, portions of health care, Medicare and Social Security.

But he stepped down from that post in March after the ethics committee criticized him in a separate case, saying he should have known that corporate money paid for two trips to Caribbean conferences.

Rangel had repeatedly said he looked forward to a public discussion of the current allegations. A four-member investigating panel, with separate members from the judging subcommittee, brought the charges.

The 42-member Congressional Black Caucus has warned Democrats against a rush to judgment, and any lawmaker with a significant African-American constituency must consider whether it's worth asking Rangel to quit.

However, some Democratic House members in close races may think it's more important to distance themselves from Rangel. They don't want to have to answer negative Republican ads about Pelosi's promise to wipe Congress clean of ethical misdeeds.

Two Democrats didn't wait to hear the charges.

Rep. Betty Sutton of Ohio, a second-term lawmaker who received 65 percent of the vote two years ago, said Rangel needs to resign to preserve the public's trust in Congress.

Rep. Walt Minnick of Idaho, a freshman who got 51 percent of the vote last time, called for resignation if the charges are proven.

Congress adjourns for its August recess after this week.

___

Associated Press writers Ann Sanner and Alex Brandon contributed to this report.

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The U.S. is fighting two wars, and millions are looking for work. So what is making politicians thump their lecterns in two of New England's hottest political races this summer?

Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling.

The ballplayer-turned-businessman is back in his favorite spot — the center of attention — after his startup video game company was offered a sweetheart deal to leave Massachusetts for Rhode Island.

As Republicans rail against government handouts in an era of belt-tightening, all five Rhode Island gubernatorial candidates expressed reservations about the deal. One of them even dredged up the now-discredited notion that Schilling faked the bloody sock that became his signature baseball moment.

"I don't know if I trust Curt Schilling," former Sen. Lincoln Chafee said. "I just remember his own teammates didn't like him. They thought he was a bit of a salesman."

A three-time World Series champion with a pitching resume that might get him into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Schilling is known as much for the things he says and the way he says them — brash and confident, often with an apology to follow — as for his accomplishments on the diamond.

He has endorsed political candidates and even toyed with running for office himself, but he has never been as enmeshed in a race as when the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation offered his company a $75 million loan guarantee to move to the state. Officials with 38 Studios, which is scheduled to release its first product in fall 2011, promised to create about 450 jobs — with an average salary of $67,500 — by the end of 2012.

"I need you to know I've invested a significant amount of my life's earnings in 38 Studios," Schilling, who did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this article, said at a news conference after the state approved the deal. "I will protect the loan guarantee that's been given by the state with the same passion and interest that I'm protecting my own investment in this company. Our paths are very much aligned."

Rhode Island politicians panned the deal — led by the candidates for governor — questioning whether the state should be staking so much on a single company, and an unproven one at that. Moderate Party candidate Ken Block called it "a silver-bullet approach to economic development."

"It doesn't work," he said. "We can't afford it."

Massachusetts Treasurer Timothy Cahill, who's running for governor, said that his neighboring state made a "bad decision" and that Massachusetts "would not have done what Rhode Island did." (Of course, he was careful to praise Schilling's pitching, lest he offend the Red Sox fans in the electorate.)

Chafee went farther — too far — when he raised doubts about the bloody sock, a talisman of the 2004 World Series victory that ended an 86-year championship drought for the Red Sox.

With an ankle injury that would otherwise have kept him from pitching, Schilling asked team doctor Bill Morgan to stitch a flapping tendon in place so he could make his start in Game 6 of the AL playoffs. They repeated the procedure five days later in the World Series — with another bloody sock, and another Red Sox victory.

The performances gave birth to a stubborn urban legend that Schilling stained the sock with ketchup or paint to call attention to himself. He has denied it, Morgan has vouched for him, and the Hall of Fame, which has the sock in its collection, has said there is no reason to doubt the stain is blood.

"It was blood, my blood, and it was coming from the sutures in my ankle," Schilling said in 2007. "You're either stupid or bitter if you think otherwise."

Schilling's former teammates also stand by him, though some have also acknowledged that the story has legs in part because Schilling, well, seems like the kind of guy who would do something like that.

There's no doubt about this: Where Schilling goes, controversy usually follows.

Or this: He seems to revel in it.

Schilling's success on the field is undisputed, with a 216-146 lifetime record in 20 years with five teams and a .846 playoff winning percentage that is among the best in baseball history.

But it is his tendency to venture into off-field issues that made him one of the most polarizing athletes of his time.

He was a vocal critic of steroid users in baseball, earning him an invitation to a congressional hearing. When called to testify, he said: "The issue was grossly overstated by people, including myself."

He also said that Barry Bonds, accused of using steroids, "admitted to cheating on his wife, cheating on his taxes and cheating on the game." Schilling later apologized.

The morning after Boston's cathartic World Series victory — a week before the 2004 presidential election between George W. Bush and home-state senator John Kerry — Schilling appeared on "Good Morning America" and signed off by saying, "Make sure you tell everybody to vote, and vote Bush next week."

In 2008, he backed Republican John McCain (after suggesting — somewhat implausibly, considering Schilling's stated positions — that he thought about endorsing Barack Obama).

When Sen. Edward M. Kennedy died, Schilling publicly vacillated over whether to run for the seat, publishing his potential position paper on his blog under the headline "What I Believe." He decided instead to support Republican state Sen. Scott Brown against overwhelming favorite Martha Coakley, the Democratic attorney general in a heavily Democratic state.

Coakley dismissed the endorsement as coming from, of all things, a Yankees fan. Schilling said the gaffe showed she was out of touch with the state's voters.

"I've been called a lot of things," Schilling responded, "but never, I mean never, could anyone make the mistake of calling me a Yankee fan."

And no one's ever called him bashful, either.

Mochila insert follows...

Update: Civil rights attorney arrested in police confrontation

The Center for Constitutional Rights just sent out the following release ...

This afternoon, CCR Attorney Sunita Patel was arrested while carrying out her legal observer duties at a protest of Arizona’s unconstitutional immigration law, SB 1070. As police began a sweep, Ms. Patel began to take down names of those being arrested and was promptly arrested herself. Witnesses say legal observers were deliberately targeted by police.

Said CCR Legal Director Bill Quigley, “Arresting a young woman of color who is there as an attorney observer demonstrates how irresponsible and un-American the Arizona action is. I fear Arizona is starting to act like Mississippi in the civil rights days.”

Several hundred activists marched here Thursday as a new Arizona immigration law went into effect, sparking a tense standoff with riot police in which about two dozen people were arrested.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer appealed against a judge's injunction stripping the most contentious sections from the legislation, as angry protestors were met by scores of police in riot gear.

Civil rights groups marched through Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, to denounce the new law, even though a judge has temporarily stripped it of key powers allowing police to spot check the immigration status of all suspects.

Judge Susan Bolton ruled Wednesday that those powers would place a burden on legal resident aliens living in Arizona, where one in three of the 6.6 million people is foreign-born and an estimated 460,000 are illegal immigrants.

Protestors urged schools, town and city governments and local police departments not to comply with the law, which they say amounts to ethnic profiling.

Waving Mexican and US flags, the activists marched on the courthouse and the offices of tough county sheriff Joe Arpaio, brandishing banners demanding "Stop the Raids, No More Deportations" and "Stop Targeting Immigrants Now."

About a dozen demonstrators chained themselves to the metal doors of the Marciopa country jail until sheriff's deputies emerged from the building to take them inside, an AFP correspondent saw.

Arpaio warned that those causing disturbances will be arrested, and Phoenix authorities told AFP that about two dozen people had been detained.

In a challenge to the immigrant groups, Arpaio said some 200 police and volunteers would be patrolling the streets on Thursday on the lookout for illegal immigrants in the 17th such sweep by his deputies.

"We're going to hit certain areas valley-wide, which includes cities, that we feel that the human smuggling is taking place," he told reporters.

Activists accused the authorities of fostering "a climate of hate."

"They're not hiding their intentions, and we intend to resist," said Alfredo Gutierrez, a former state senator and activist with the Somos America rights group.

But officials in Arizona, which borders Mexico, argue the US administration has failed to secure the borders, and they are overwhelmed by illegal immigrants.

Brewer, who signed the bill into law in April, appealed against the judge's injunction, vowing to take the fight to the Supreme Court.

"Illegal immigration is an ongoing crisis the state of Arizona did not create and the federal government has refused to fix," she said, urging the courts to expedite the appeal.

Judge Bolton on Wednesday suspended the most contested parts of the law hours before it went into effect at one minute after midnight (0701 GMT Thursday).

She ruled that sections handing police the power to check the immigration status of all suspected criminals and making it a crime not to carry proper papers were suspended.

She also temporarily froze a section making it a crime for illegal immigrants to solicit work -- a clause aimed at the queues of people who gather early every day waiting for employers to drive by and offer them spot jobs.

The row over the Arizona law has thrust the issue of the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants once more into the spotlight, after a series of failed legislative attempts to bring them out of the shadows.

"This is just a backfire of the economic policies that the US is implementing on third world nations," said Jorge Perez, who traveled to the protest with a group of labor activists from San Diego.

"I've talked to a lot of immigrant laborers, who come here for work, and they say they hate it here," he added.

"They'd rather be at home, but they have no choice," said Perez, who claimed free trade agreements were to blame for economic misery in Latin America.

The Obama administration has filed one of seven legal challenges to the law being heard by Bolton, and she ruled it would likely succeed in arguing that the federal government has responsibility over immigration policy.

This video is from MSNBC's News Live, broadcast July 29, 2010.

Watch this video on iPhone/iPad

(with additional reporting by RAW STORY)

Despite billions in aid from Washington and a shared threat from extremists, Pakistanis have an overwhelmingly negative view of the United States, according to results of a Pew Research Center poll released Thursday.

The survey also found that Pakistanis have grown less fearful of extremists seizing control of their country, perhaps reflecting gains that government troops have made against militants since early 2009.

Most Pakistanis want improved relations with the United States, according to the poll. But most view the U.S. with suspicion, support for American involvement in the fight against extremists has declined, and nearly two-thirds want U.S. troops out of neighboring Afghanistan.

Nearly six in 10 Pakistanis polled described the U.S. as an enemy and only one in 10 called it a partner.

Public attitudes in Pakistan figure importantly in the Obama administration's strategy for strengthening the U.S. partnership with Pakistan to help defeat al-Qaida and stabilize Afghanistan. Another U.S. worry is the prospect of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of militants.

The Obama administration persuaded Congress this year to approve $7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan over five years. Since the 9/11 attacks the U.S. had provided Pakistan with billions linked to counterterrorist work. On a visit to Pakistan last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced a raft of new aid projects worth $500 million.

Mistrust of the U.S. among Pakistanis appears due in part to Washington's decision to turn away from the South Asian nation after enlisting its support to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The U.S. is not directly involved in ground combat operations in Pakistan, but some dozens of U.S. troops are helping train Pakistani forces. The U.S. also has an unacknowledged program of launching airstrikes from drone aircraft at Taliban and al-Qaida figures inside Pakistan.

The strikes by CIA drones are widely unpopular in Pakistan. The Pew poll found that of those who had heard about drone attacks, 93 percent said they are a bad thing, 90 percent said they kill too many innocents, and 49 percent said they are being done without the Pakistani government's approval.

Without mentioning drone strikes, Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday rejected suggestions that al-Qaida is becoming entrenched in Pakistan and said the U.S. is making inroads against extremists.

"I assure you, we are doing significant damage to al-Qaida in Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan, so we're making progress," Biden said in an interview that was taped Wednesday at Fort Drum., N.Y., and broadcast Thursday on NBC's "Today" show. "But the truth of the matter is that there's more to go."

Despite receiving billions in U.S. aid since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, many Pakistanis believe the U.S. gives them little or none, according to the poll. About a quarter of those questioned said the U.S. provides a lot of financial aid. Nearly a quarter said it provides a little aid, 10 percent said the U.S. gives hardly any, and 16 percent believe the U.S. gives Pakistan no aid.

The poll also found that only eight percent of Pakistanis express confidence that President Barack Obama will do the right thing in world affairs — his lowest rating among 22 nations that Pew polled in April. Seventeen percent expressed a favorable view of the U.S., and 64 percent said it is important for relations with the United States to improve.

The Pew poll consisted of face-to-face interviews in April with 2,000 adults in areas of Pakistan that represent about 84 percent of the nation's adult population. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas — the region along the Afghan border where al-Qaida is believed to have found haven and where the Pakistani government has little control — was not included in the survey.

In its May 2009 survey of Pakistanis, Pew found that 69 percent were very or somewhat worried about extremist groups taking control of their country. That was one month after the Pakistani army began a large-scale offensive against extremists in the Swat Valley, some 100 miles from Islamabad.

This year's poll found that 51 percent expressed concern about a takeover by extremists.

Pakistanis also said they feel less threatened by the Taliban and much less by al-Qaida. The proportion who considered al-Qaida a serious threat fell from 61 percent last year to 38 percent this year. The equivalent numbers with regard to the Taliban fell from 73 percent to 54 percent.

The shift in opinion could be seen as a positive trend if it reflects actual setbacks for the extremists in battles with government forces.

But it also could cut the other way. If Pakistanis see less of a threat from militants, that could undercut U.S. efforts to persuade their government to expand its offensive against insurgents and to take on the groups of greatest concern to the U.S., including al-Qaida.

The poll also found that while the Taliban and al-Qaida are unpopular in Pakistan, negative views toward them have become a little less prevalent over the past year, while positive views have increased.

Eighteen percent said they view al-Qaida with favor, compared to nine percent a year ago and 25 percent in 2008. Fifty-three percent had an unfavorable view of the group, compared to 61 percent a year ago and 34 percent in 2008.

Not surprisingly, Pakistanis said the biggest threat to their country is longtime rival India. Fifty-three percent rated India as the biggest threat, 23 percent named the Taliban and three percent cited al-Qaida. The rest cited all three, or none or said they didn't know.

Source: AP News

Mochila insert follows...

Staff at Goldman Sachs have been told to refrain from salty language, after embarrassing emails that revealed the bankers' liberal use of profanity to describe their own products.

Staff at the venerable Wall Street firm will face tighter curbs on swearing in emails, texts and instant messages, as filters are toughened, the firm said.

In April, Goldman's chief executive was hauled before a congressional committee and dressed down by lawmakers wielding expletive-laden emails from his staff.

Quoting liberally from one message, Democratic Senator Carl Levin accused Goldman's Lloyd Blankfein of shopping a "s***ty deal" to investors.

A Goldman spokesman said there was no shift in the firm's policy.

"The policy referred to is not new," said Michael Duvally. "We have merely made improvements recently to our surveillance systems. The policies have existed for a very long time."

From the point of view of civil libertarians, the Obama administration has been an exercise in frustration, with every hopeful sign followed by failures to live up to its own promises.

The ACLU has just issued a report (pdf), titled "Establishing a New Normal: National Security, Civil Liberties, and Human Rights Under the Obama Administration," which focuses on this pattern of inconsistency.

"The administration has displayed a decidedly mixed record," explains ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romaro, "resulting, on a range of issues, in the very real danger that the Obama administration will institutionalize some of the most troublesome policies of the previous administration -- in essence, creating a troubling 'new normal.'"

As summarized in a press release announcing the report, "President Obama has made great strides in some areas, such as his auspicious first steps to categorically prohibit torture, outlaw the CIA's use of secret overseas detention sites and release the Bush administration's torture memos, but he has failed to eliminate some of the worst policies put in place by President Bush, such as military commissions and indefinite detention. He has also expanded the Bush administration's 'targeted killing' program."

The report is divided into seven sections covering transparency, torture and accountability, detention, targeted killing, military commissions, speech and surveillance, and watch lists. The most striking areas of the report, however, are those which focus not on torture or secret prisons but on less-publicized recent actions by the Obama administration.

The transparency section, for example, emphasizes that the program of "targeted killing" of suspected terrorists has been "shrouded in secrecy," and that despite a FOIA request by the ACLU, "the CIA has refused even to confirm or deny whether it has records about the program."

It also points out that rather than living up to Obama's promise as a candidate that he would make sure whistleblowers got protection, "the administration has been prosecuting them."

"It has charged Bradley Manning," the report notes, "a 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst, for allegedly leaking a video showing the killing of two Reuters news staff and several other civilians by U.S. helicopter gunships in Iraq. (Reuters had spent nearly three years trying to obtain the video through FOIA; now that the video is in the public domain, it is clear that there was no basis for withholding it.)"

"We urge the administration to recommit itself to the ideals that the President himself invoked in his first days in office," the report urges. "Our democracy cannot survive if crucial public policy decisions are made behind closed doors, implemented in secret, and never subjected to meaningful public oversight and debate. It cannot survive if the public does not know what policies have been adopted in its name."

Another striking revelation appears in the section on surveillance: "Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has invested border agents with the authority to engage in suspicionless searches of Americans' laptops and cell phones at the border; Americans who return home from abroad may now find themselves confronted with a border agent who, rather than welcoming them home, insists on copying their electronic records -- including emails, address books, photos, and videos -- before allowing them to enter the country. (Through FOIA, the ACLU has learned that in the last 20 months alone, border agents have used this power thousands of times.)"

And the report blasts the use of watch lists of suspected terrorists as "a disaster that too often implicates the rights of innocent persons while allowing true threats to proceed unabated."

"Rather than reform the watch lists the Obama administration has expanded their use and resisted the introduction of minimal due process safeguards to prevent abuse and protect civil liberties," the report charges. "The result is an unconstitutional scheme under which an individual's right to travel and, in some cases, a citizen's ability to return to the United States, is under the complete control of entirely unaccountable bureaucrats relying on secret evidence and using secret standards."

"There can be no doubt that the Obama administration inherited a legal and moral morass, and that in important respects it has endeavored to restore the nation’s historic commitment to the rule of law," the report concludes. "But if the Obama administration does not effect a fundamental break with the Bush administration’s policies on detention, accountability, and other issues, but instead creates a lasting legal architecture in support of those policies, then it will have ratified, rather than rejected, the dangerous notion that America is in a permanent state of emergency and that core liberties must be surrendered forever."

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin's announcement came amid deep anger in the US Congress at Beijing, which lawmakers charge is hurting US exports by keeping the yuan artificially cheap.

"There is no real question that China's deliberately undervalued exchange rate is unfair, contributes to global trade imbalances, and costs the United States jobs and economic growth, particularly in the manufacturing sector," he said.

China had long held a tight rein on the yuan, and effectively pegged its currency at about 6.8 to the dollar since mid-2008 to support exporters during the global economic crisis.

The People's Bank of China pledged on June 19 to let the currency trade more freely against the greenback, though it ruled out any large fluctuations. The yuan has appreciated 0.7 percent since the announcement.

"We must ensure that China's rhetoric translates into results that are meaningful and that the international trading system ensures fair rules of competition," said the lawmaker, a top Democratic White House ally.

Levin said the panel would consider options such as US legislation or seeking formal dispute settlement consultations with China at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Ousted USDA employee Shirley Sherrod says she will sue conservative blogger over edited video

Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday she will sue a conservative blogger who posted an edited video of her making racially tinged remarks last week.

Sherrod made the announcement in San Diego at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention.

The edited video posted by Andrew Breitbart led Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to ask her to resign, a decision he reconsidered after seeing the entire video of her March speech to a local NAACP group. In the full speech, Sherrod spoke of racial reconciliation and lessons she learned after initially hesitating to help a white farmer save his home.

Vilsack and President Barack Obama later called Sherrod to apologize for her hasty ouster. Vilsack has offered her a new job at the department, which she is still considering.

Obama said Thursday morning on ABC's daytime talk show "The View" that the incident shows racial tensions still exist in America.

"There are still inequalities out there. There's still discrimination out there," Obama said. "But we've made progress."

Obama pinned much of the blame for the incident on a media culture that he said seeks out conflict and doesn't always get the facts right. But he added, "A lot of people overreacted, including people in my administration."