memeorandum: MORTGAGE MELTDOWN — Interest rate 'freeze' - the real story is fraud (Sean Olender/San Francisco Chronicle)

8:00 AM ET, December 11, 2007

Top Items:

Lawyers Cleared Destroying Tapes — Lawyers within the clandestine branch of the Central Intelligence Agency gave written approval in advance to the destruction in 2005 of hundreds of hours of videotapes documenting interrogations of two lieutenants from Al Qaeda, according …

Discussion: The Corner, Firedoglake, PrairiePundit, Washington Monthly, Corrente, Oliver Willis and War and Piece

ABCNEWS:

Coming in From the Cold: CIA Spy Calls Waterboarding Necessary But Torture — Former Agent Says the Enhanced Technique Was Used on Al Qaeda Chief Abu Zubaydah — A leader of the CIA team that captured and interrogated the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.

Discussion: Jules Crittenden, BAGnewsNotes, The Sundries Shack, Taylor Marsh, TBogg, Macsmind, All Spin Zone, About.com US Politics, Captain's Quarters, PoliGazette, Comments from Left Field, Booman Tribune, TVNewser, The Heretik, Daily Kos, TalkLeft, Hot Air and The Atlantic Online

Washington Post:

Waterboarding Recounted — Ex-CIA Officer Says It 'Probably Saved Lives' but Is Torture — A former CIA officer who participated in the capture and questioning of the first al-Qaeda terrorist suspect to be waterboarded said yesterday that the harsh technique provided an intelligence breakthrough that …

Discussion: Prairie Weather and ScrappleFace

Kevin Drum / Washington Monthly:
TWO STORIES....After the United States captured al-Qaeda operative …

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Spencer Ackerman / TPMmuckraker:
CIA Interrogator Tells ABC He Supervised 'Necessary' Torture of Abu Zubaydah

Discussion: Majikthise

Thomas Hendrick / TheDenverChannel.com:

Security Guard: 'God Guided Me And Protected Me' — Jeanne Assam Stopped Gunman At New Life Church — COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Jeanne Assam appeared before the news media for the first time Monday and said she "did not think for a minute to run away" when a gunman entered the New Life Church …

Discussion: Of Arms and the Law, Slapstick Politics, QandO, Vox Popoli, The Moderate Voice, GINA COBB, Blue Crab Boulevard, No More Mister Nice Blog, Gateway Pundit, Jules Crittenden, The World Wide Rant, BLACKFIVE, Whiskey Fire, Instapundit.com and michellemalkin.com

Hindrocket / Power Line:
SPEAKING OF HATE CRIMES...

Discussion: Sadly, No!, TBogg, Patterico's Pontifications, KUSA-TV, The Moderate Voice and Right Voices

Tom McGhee / Denver Post:
Church gunman "hated Christians"

Discussion: Rocky Mountain News, Slapstick Politics, The Sundries Shack and Hot Air

Ron Claiborne / ABCNEWS:

Analysis: How McCain Could Still Win — Political Watchers Say John McCain May Be Down, but a Comeback Is Possible — A year ago, he was the odds-on favorite to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. Today, he's considered a long shot. — His campaign has rebounded …

Byron York / The Corner:

McCain Attacks Romney's Attack on Huckabee — Here's an interesting one. The Romney campaign is set to release the first negative ad of the season in Iowa tomorrow - an attack on Mike Huckabee on the immigration issue. Huckabee will certainly respond - and now, he has help from another candidate, John McCain.

Discussion: Redstate and The Atlantic Online

David Brooks / New York Times:
The Postwar Election

Discussion: Betsy's Page

Jonathan Martin / The Politico:
Romney to launch GOP's first attack ad

Discussion: TIME, The New Republic, CNN Political Ticker and Eunomia

New York Times:

G.O.P. Voters Are Uninspired by Candidates — Three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Republicans voters across the country appear uninspired by their field of presidential candidates, with a vast majority saying they have not made a final decision about who to support, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

Discussion: TalkLeft, Blue Mass. Group, Cliff Schecter, TPM Election Central and Prairie Weather

Stephen Dinan / Washington Times:
Two GOP hopefuls see some illegals as citizens

Discussion: Right Wing News, PrairiePundit and PoliPundit.com

Josh Kraushaar / The Politico:

NRCC props up its pummeled Ohio candidate — Republicans are facing a surprisingly fierce fight in a Tuesday special election to hold on to a conservative northwestern Ohio seat that has been under the party's control for the past 70 years. — The GOP expects to win another special election set …

Discussion: Real Clear Politics, Buckeye State Blog, Eunomia, Daily Kos and Ohio Daily Blog

Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post:

House Democrats Pull Budget Offer — The GOP Is Negotiating In Bad Faith, Obey Says — A Democratic deal to give President Bush some war funding in exchange for additional domestic spending appeared to collapse last night after House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.) …

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, Main and Central and PrairiePundit

Sean Olender / San Francisco Chronicle:

MORTGAGE MELTDOWN — Interest rate 'freeze' - the real story is fraud — Bankers pay lip service to families while scurrying to avert suits, prison — New proposals to ease our great mortgage meltdown keep rolling in. First the Treasury Department urged the creation of a new fund …

Discussion: Angry Bear, Mish's Global Economic … and Seeing the Forest

Hadley Arkes / Claremont Institute:

A Very Claremont Christmas — There's nothing quite like a good book for ensuring the merriest yule cheer and a happy new year. Here are a few picks from friends and colleagues of the Claremont Institute... Edward Ney Professor of Jurisprudence, Amherst College

Discussion: The Corner and Power Line

Jeff Zeleny / The Caucus:

Obama, Under the Clinton Microscope — DES MOINES - Presidential campaigns have unlimited appetites for information about their rivals. They track their whereabouts, they study their records and they obsessively follow nearly every movement. By this point in the race, though …

Discussion: Wizbang

Reuters:

New Jersey moves closer to ending death penalty — PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - New Jersey moved closer to eliminating the death penalty on Monday when its Senate and an Assembly committee voted in favor of making life in prison without parole the state's top criminal penalty.

Discussion: The World Wide Rant and SteveAudio

MotherJones.com:

Huckabee Hides His Full Gospel? — WASHINGTON DISPATCH: Is Mike Huckabee the presidential candidate shunning Mike Huckabee the preacher? Before entering politics, he was a pastor at two Baptist churches. Now his campaign tells Mother Jones it won't make his sermons available to the media and the public.

Discussion: Hot Air, Street Prophets, David Corn, Think Progress, TalkLeft, Shakespeare's Sister and Riehl World View

Jessica Mintz / Associated Press:

Mortgage Crisis Forces Big Cuts at WaMu — Mortgage Problems Force WaMu to Close Offices, Fire Workers and Drop Subprime Loans — SEATTLE (AP) — Washington Mutual Inc., the nation's largest savings and loan, said Monday that problems in the mortgage and credit markets are forcing it to close offices …

Discussion: Mish's Global Economic …