* The White House has announced that President Obama will attend the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen.
* Military contractors employed by Blackwater are at the center of a secret program of targeted assassinations in Pakistan, according to The Nation‘s Jeremy Scahill. The operatives are also helping direct a drone bombing campaign, all from a US Joint Special Operations Command forward base in Karachi.
* AIG CEO Robert Benmosche has signed a non-compete deal and plans to stay on and continue collecting his $11 million bonus. Benmosche had been grumbling about government-imposed limits on his taxpayer-owned company.
* Following White House counsel Greg Craig‘s departure, the resignation of Phillip Carter signals more fallout from the administration’s “disappointing civil liberties record,” writes David Dayen. As assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy, Carter was playing a key role in the Gitmo closing effort.