Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20130727

Stamps. At the Stamp Program was left out of the house bill. We want to get your consideration about those. Oodstamp changes we will find out more about it. Give us your comments as well. Heres how you can do so if you want to reach out to us on social media, on twitter it cspanwj. And you can always send this e mail at journal cspan. Org. This is from an Associated Press story hill here to fill us more is Alan Ferguson is Alan Ferguson. Ellen ferguson. Some of the people on facebook and twitter are commenting that there are already work requirements attached to those receiving food stamps. There are work requirements. What for presented of sutherland is trying to do is he believes there are too many loopholes. There is not enough uniformity and a greater emphasis on work. Think when people talk about work requirements when it comes to people on snap or food stap mps is we are talking about 90 of people recieving benifits and not working. It is a smaller universe than that. Talking about 47 of participants are children. Another eight percent are elderly. I think the definition of elderly is 60 or older. We have 60 who are not elderly but they are receiving ssi d isability payment. We are talking about a big segment of snap recipients who are not eligilble for work. Allow the this would states to go forward with this but not be a mandate . Guest it would not be a mandate. You sigh a lot of fireworks on the floor about the amendment. It was about the amendment and some preceding amendment. I think the primary thing about the sutherland amendment that set some democrats off is that they argued that states will be able to pocket some of the savings from moving people off snap. There was no requirement to use that money to improve their administration or other programs. They couldcome money use for other things in their budget. States are still hurting from the great recession. There is concern that there might be some incentive by some states to hastily move people off. When stimulus money came out at that stage time at the same time some reports were givenink states greater flexibility on that. The states of the big players in this. It is a federal program. The federal government sets the framework. It is the states that are left work on a daytoday basis. They have been allowed to receive waivers and greater flexibility on some of their requirements. Basically categorical eligibility, which is another flashpoint, is something that was started in the 1990s and allows them to streamline their administration. They are given a great deal of on a number of components of food stamps. Is there a consideration about the foodStamp Program becoming a Block Grant Program . He is the chairman of the committee and has included in the past three documents that the house has approved talking about republicans and democrats, for the short term they want to get something out in september. Proposal has been big on numbers and not a lot of details. How do you get from the Current System to reduction of benefits . Pursuing ryan, last proposal he had would hundred 35 billion reduction over 10 years but the question is how do you do that . They are talking about trying to turn a nutrition bill out. It would probably be a stretch for them to actively pursue that. No activity before the august recess, if i am reading it correctly. Like it. Looks leadership can do many things at the last minute. It looks at best what we might get by the end of this coming week might be some sort of , maybe some sort of tentative draft. The big Sticking Point is finding consensus. Majority leader cantor is looking for consensus among republicans. There are a variety of ideas incentives. Host that consensus on the senate side has to be considered . The agricultural chairwoman, debbie stata not, is basically saying we did our bill. We have the agriculture, the , they proposed 4 billion in reductions over 10 years, which many House Republicans find unexpected goal. We now at the point are now at the point that unless republicans can put together a nutrition title, if they go to conference with the senate it will be the senate saying, we have something in writing so we start from our point and our position rather than anything you want to talk about because you have not delivered anything. Ellyn ferguson. She has been talking to us about the foodStamp Program. Thank you for your time this morning. Guest host thank you. Some considerations made on the house side. You heard root that you heard proposals about record you heard proposals about work requirements. Heres how you can reach out to us this morning off of twitter the numbers will stay on the screen is ago on the course course of the morning. Bob is up for bob is a first from philadelphia pennsylvania. A republican, hello. Are you there you go are you there yet though are you there . As you go to the course of the morning, you should know that some requirements our guests talked about on the phone when it comes to the food programs and supplemental nutrition assistance program, as it is also known, here are some of the details and facts from it margaret from leavenworth, kansas. How are you . Caller very worried. I get 16 a month in food stamps. When people talk about and denigrate people, i used to have fulltime jobs and fan i got cancer. When you are in a red state with , people and hateful talk about turning the foodstamp card or read it so everyone can see that you get it. This is so against our country. I have people around me that gets so little. They cannot go out and get fresh fruit or vegetables. This is a shame for a country that is so rich. When you are putting people down , you have to look at people in wheelchairs with one leg, people that have parkinsons disease, we do not have a healthy country to begin with. Andwater is being poisoned then you begrudge people this little bit of money. It is about the lowest i have seen the United States. The proposal to allow states to test work requirements when it comes to the program . Caller what are you going to make people do with one leg . Rick is on our independent line from massachusetts. Caller anybody on food stamps also might be subject to other social welfare benefits. City where, there is abuse of the welfare system where a woman can have three or four kids and still be on welfare. I think the republicans are hypocritical for breaking a the farmbreaking out support program. If i dont agree with you that is fine but be consistent. I think it is absurd. Let us cut down on food stamps and make some changes. Let us eliminate all Foreign Properties of business. Host here is more from the hill close quote on their write up he heard our phone conversation reference some of that material. Heres david from new york on our republican line. Hello. Have been online. I completely agree with the guy that called just before me. Youally think that if eliminate food stamps, the way the government has gone now it sound an awful lot like host dan is from fort scott kansas. Are there safeguards in have suggesting i experienced people in the area here that are drug users. And they have a lot of children. He wanted to sell their food stamps for . 50 on the dollar. Have been approached saying, are you want to buy my 100 worth of food stamps for 50 . Use that on illegal drugs. Is that an issue that has been discussed . Host not so far but keep going. Experience andy i think it is a good idea to have drug testing for foodstamp recipients. Herew there is a big issue in kansas, especially in fort scott. Want to sell their food stamps one they have six or seven kids. Food stamps once they have six or seven kids. Twitter hasf of this to mary who joins us from williamstown, vermont on the independent line. Recently we were covering a conversation. What i found out is that anybody can lock in a private foodstamp. As long as they dont over the income level, if they do not have any income they can keep applying for food stamps. It doesnt matter if they are , for example a 20 year old person who decided they do not want to work. A can apply for food stamps and receive that. That is just wrong to me. It does not make sense. I think that there should be a work requirement of some sort. Even disabled people can do something, most of them. Some of them may not be able to do it and i do not have a problem with that. Some of them can, i do have a problem with that. It is getting so expensive. I cannot even afford to live here anymore. Just a clarify the proposal that was discussed, it would allow the states to do so if they wanted. It would be up to the states to make those decisions. Caller right. I think that is probably true that they should be allowed to make the decision. Ont if you want to comment this, what we have been talking about as far as the work requirement programs or the foodStamp Program as a larger issue, you can give us a call some other issues when it comes to legislative efforts on the house side, this is the wall street journal david is next on the republican line. People in kansas talking about selling their stamps for money, there is a lot of fraud and it. They offer their food stamps here . 50 on the dollar. I am buying my tax dollars back ron fromrice. Host pittsburgh pennsylvania, democrats line. Guest thank you. Republicans,o how how strong they are even when they are not in power. They are in power in the United States house. They have been making incredible amount of Supreme Court decisions. The food stamps is just ridiculous. It is harming people that need it the most. The ridiculous comments i have been hearing to not add up. They try to use the exception. A look at work requirements should not be considered . Is that your opinion . I really do not think work requirement should be a part of it for food stamps. Some of these folks cannot work. Attemptmerely another and disguise to take away benefits from people that cannot survive on their own. They need some assistance. Pushing it out to the state, many of these people know darn statesat many of these have a gop dominated state government. That is a guys. Up is david from dayton, ohio. To call for the gentleman in kansas, and i was just listening to this last call as well, the . 50 on the dollar sale of food stamps is pretty much universal. I have seen it here in dayton many a time. As to work requirements, i believe it was our last caller who was saying that some fellows cannot work. Put them on ssv if they cannot work and eliminate the work requirement. Those that are not holding down a job, put them to work so they can work and earn this. Do not make it an option. Some way to train them so that they can get used to going to a job because that is the only way they are going to get off food stamps is to have that consistent going to work tilt up. Off of twitter we turn to the independent line. Caller i am a young student in las vegas. Around 47 million americans use food stamps . 47 million received it as of april 13. Host buddy from indianapolis indiana. Caller it amazes me how some have thosebe we out there always speaking of obama and food stamps programs. The reason we have so many people on food stamps today is because of what republicans did in office. They sent the jobs overseas. The overwhelming majority of them overseas are white people that lost their jobs because all the jobs have left the country. Host ring it up to the modern day. What should be done about it . There are people out there who receive food stamps who are on drugs because they are ill. They get out there and try to sell them. This is a small fraction of the number of people who receive a small fraction of those is not like everyone who receives food stamps are out out there selling those food stamps for drug money. There are people who work for car factories that are not on drugs. Los Angeles Times is where you will find the lead story guest thank you for taking my call. I am a republican, i am an african american. The real reason behind, not just this whole foodStamp Program, but all of the issues that my the realposing issue is you have a group of older white men who know that they are going to become the minority in this country. They are doing everything they can to hurt those that will never vote for them. Never regainy will the white house again because they are going to become the minority. They are just sapping everything they can from this country. Training it economically, morally, and every way they can. Host how does that tie to the foodStamp Program . Caller it is not just the foodStamp Program. I will tell you how it relates. This program is being used by mostly minorities, minorities they considered lazy and all of these things. Basically they do not want to pay the taxes to support those people that they think are lazy and do not want to work. These are the people that will never help them regain the off for us. In regain the office. They do not want to support it. That is every program. Not just this one. Host from albuquerque, new mexico, democrats line. Caller i am glad you did not cut the last guy off because i agree with him. You usually cut off people. Want to say is that these people are not lazy, they are working. The chance to have a job, they actually would rather work because the foodStamp Program does not pay that much. These people are not lazy. Is not about race but must these people are under the impression that it is a lot of africanamericans or hispanics people that are taking food stamps. Show, the majority of white people are on food stamps. I want to let people know that they are not lazy and they are working. Of the stories dealing with the potential next head of the Federal Reserve, the wall street journal is one of them fleetwood, pennsylvania, republican line. You for taking my call. Regarding food stamps, i do not know how we will be able to pay for the food stamps with a large number of baby boomers who will be retiring. I am wondering why we do not see more proactive government work ards making certain that makings sure that funds are available. Believe ill, kentucky, independent line. Louisville, kentucky, independent line. Caller i have a comment about what they are going to do with the food stamps. I know the republicans are mostly back in this. I think it is a total shame that the United States of america is importantake the most things from families that really need it. They want to say that they want this work program in place. Host there is nothing formal about it but go ahead. Somebody had six kids and they put them to work, somebody has to pay for their day care. They get 200 of food stamps. Do the math. What are they going to say . I do not get them myself. To treat people like this they need to eat and they do not have the means to buy their own foods, nobody wants to be on food stamps. It is embarrassing for one thing. I guarantee you if the republicans push this they will be out of the house. I will not be able to vote for them. I really feel for the people that need some. Then need them. I think this would be a political disaster. Host one of the story looks at the fta, new rules they have passed down. The story is for the Washington Post some of the largest players in the industry has supported new regulations that lobbyists and the white house have move forward quickly. Democrats line, hello. Caller i have a simple remedy i have a simple remedy for this problem, cut the military in i agree with a lot of colors that say, i heard a republican caller say they have to go find a job. Putting your application there are probably five other applications applications in front of you for most jobs. That is fast food restaurants and everything. Would be tood idea have every congressman, democrat and republican, to live on food stamps with no income for six months and get a taste what get a taste of what it is really like. 47 million receiving food stamps in april. We go now to pennsylvania, republican line. Caller he mightve violated house rules and accepting 25,000 lois on the democrats line. I was calling him concerning the foodStamp Program and another program in other problem are talking about. When the republicans got in there theyve calmest jobs. Where are the jobs . The are not doing anything. Criminals thate are getting all the money they are they are in the food but are not considered about the american citizens . Somebody needs to look into that situation two. Host we go to the republican line from frankfort, indiana. Good morning. I think people that are able to work should work. The most important thing is i have not heard anything i hadnt the most important thing i have not heard anyone talk about is what are they buying . They are buying foods they are buying potato chips, sodas and they should by that chewables and fruits and not just microwaved junk. That is all i have to say about that. Host for the remainder of our time you are welcome to call in to comment on the foodStamp Program. The numbers are located on the screen. A couple more stories to show you. This is out of the Washington Post. It is a poll they took when it comes to support on the afghan war. Scott clements writing paul from springs lake, north carolina. Thank you for having me on the show. I wanted to make a couple of comments. I just wanted to mention that even when working a minimum wage worker is very difficult to survive. Is very difficult because of the rise of cost of living and so forth. It is a great idea to require the requirement to work. A lot of states do not have minimum wages in place right now. He is obama has mentioned trying to get the wages raised. Support that people definitely need. I am really disappointed with how we have been behind the technology curve. And how social services and all of these other programs do not utilize proper thatement and make sure after 2008 we were recovering stronger with a more improved system. Be moving onto globalization and modernize nation on the higherlevel but we cannot even get the mystic issues right because they always stall and play these games. I really do not believe in national debt. I believe the Federal Reserve is a business. Just like the comments about but its been allocated and verything that should about budgets being allocated and everything host the House Ethics Committee making in other announcement. Is they are extending an investigation to Michele Bachmann of minnesota. Part of the document is also on the website. Are presented as michele representative Michele Bachmann is under an investigation. Rhode island, gerald, republican line. Go ahead. It is a tough issue. I think there are a lot of young people that need food stamps and are not going to get them any other way. On the other side of the fence, i had four brothers. All do Different Things to work. We brought money home to the family. We had the family structured back then. I think there is some abuse and there are some ablebodied men that can get out there and get some kind of work. Iother solution might be farmer. Ll farmers do get benefits from the government. Whereould have a Program People could probably get food from local farms. Coming up we are going to to talk by rick maze about the passing of the house spending bill. Later on the Security Exchange itsission has begun investigation to Goldman Sachs trader. We will talk with Bob Van Voris of bloomberg. He will give us some of the specifics and also the secs role in looking at this case. That came uppics was that of military spending. One of the things we took up on our news pay newsmakers row graham Newsmakers Program was senator ron wyden. Iss speaking about what he concerned about when it comes to the collection of americans phone records. Government will not state the rules are with respect to tracking americans on their cell phones. I have asked this repeatedly at public hearings and the intelligence committee, the governments official position is that first if they have the authority to do it, second they are not doing it now but they rulesot sell out what the are today with respect to the rights of americans, lawabiding americans, with respect to cell phone track the king cell phone tracking. The house defeated a proposal that would have banned the telephone collection under the nsa program. Whered you you see this debate going from here you go the you expected to continue continue, especially considering the pollsonal leaders show americans are deeply divided on whether or not they should give up some of their they protections area polls have done an aboutface in just a matter of weeks. We only go along with polls when they are indicating they are going your way. There has been a dramatic shift of Something Like half the that the bullg collection of phone records is a violation of their liberty. I think that is what you saw on the floor of the house of representatives this past week. And i think it is especially important to note that there would not have been even a big debate on the floor of the house of representatives each weeks ago, you would not have had 200 bipartisan votes are fundamental changes, and this debate is definitely going to continue. I think essentially the with senatorproach udall and republicans trying to revise 215 of the patriot act to ensure that when you try to spy on a person you have to have that they are suspected of terrorism. That is the bottom line. Washington journal continues. Host joining me is rick maze. One of the big activities was the defense spending bill. What is the headlines coming out of that discussion . Guest the headline has to do with the National Security agency. It was a very close vote. It shows how divided the house 200epresentatives, 217 five, to keep allowing the nsa to collect telephone records. Host explain it to those that are not following it closely. Many i dont imagine too people do not understand it. This is the National Security agency that was found to be collecting phone calls. They are randomly collecting phone calls under court orders from a secret court. Certainly a lot of people do not want to be listened to. This was all covered by Edward Snowden, now sitting in the moscow airport. To stop a vote to try this practice, which was authorized by congress as part of the patriot act after 9 11. Host the amendment did not survive . Guest it did not survive. It does not explain how that would happen. Host who supported this amendment and who opposed it . We saw a lot of things that you probably did not see before. We have liberal democrats who did not like the government snooping in and conservative republicans. You had six House Committee chairmen all saying we need to keep this. You had Speaker Boehner and nancy pelosi pushing their members to do it. The boat was still very close. On another day the vote might have turned out very differently. Host you had campaign as far as the nsa and other members of the white house is concerned. Guest it was a big deal for the government to keep doing this. Host when it comes to dealing with spending on it the appropriations bill, what guest it is 512 billion on the base budget. 85 billion dollars for war spending. It adds up to a total of 600 billion for the department of defense. Clearly the most spending of any federal agency. Host how to sequestration affect these numbers . Guest we do not know. Ifwill be 52 billion cut sequestration happens next year. It is the smallest it has been since probably the start of 9 11. You heard him talk a little bit about intelligence and spy issues. You can ask questions about the defense bill this week and the discussions that took place. Heres how you can do so the shift to overseas operations, the focus is on afghanistan . Host guest that is where we are spending the money. Even intelligence agencies are closing down bases in afghanistan. Host when it came to the bill as a whole, how did secretary hegel weigh in on this . Guest he did not weigh in on this. Not on the defense parts of it. That is the larger issue. It doesnt really solve the overall budget crisis so he threatened to veto this bill even if it is passed in isolation. Host another aspect before we take calls, when it comes to the topic of foreign aid what were some of the discussions that took place . Not a foreign aid bill so before nate is indirect, mostly through the work Contingency Funds. They had three key votes on these issues. They have a flat prohibition against spending any money in for any in egypt military or paramilitary activities. This is how the appropriations bill works. Meansot think that anything in terms of anything more than symbolic. There is no money in the bill that would have been spent on egypt or paramilitary activities. In afghanistan there , 3. 5 million production made on the house floor. The scandals over construction and misused money and they took the money away from that and used it piece by piece for a variety of other things. Host scandals over costs . That are notngs needed. Cost of buildings. Missing money. Of a lot of that has been uncovered by an Inspector General who was appointed just to look at reconstruction projects. Out ofo they took money it piece by piece to do a variety of things. From the 2. 5 billion money that was supposed to go to afghanistan to pay to avoid civilian furloughs. It took money out for Suicide Prevention programs. There is an antihazing program for the u. S. Military. It is a nice pocket of my to go attack. On pakistan they had a boat. Pakistan came out on top. There is 1. 2 billion in the bill. The vote was to cut it by half. Pakistan got to keep the money ven though it was sponsored they are not necessarily the most reliable country. From first call comes peachtree city, georgia. This is on our democrat line. First of all i want to say i do not think that edward traitor. S a conversationis a that we should really be having. Youro wanted to comment on guest saying that the u. S. Government was spying on americans. From what i have been able to ascertain what they are doing is spying on those coming from outside of the country to americans that are repetitive calls. I dont want the American People to think that the government is randomly selecting American People to spy on. There is some connectivity. I want that to be clear. As far as the u. S. Government spying on my telephone calls area please listen all day long as you need to. Guest she is right, it is not direct spying on americans. Calls are being collected under the blanket order. The purpose of it is to collect calls that are going overseas. And it ties back to Edward Snowden because we would not have known anything about this if he did not provide the details. Was on the house floor that representative bachmann talked about the information that snowden leaked. She said it would help our enemies and those we want to protect them [video clip] collects we cannot deal with false narratives. A false narrative has emerged that the federal government is taking in the content of american phone calls. It is not true, it is not happening. A false narrative has emerged that the federal government is taking in the content of the American Peoples emails. It is not true. Facts. To deal in the facts are real. And the facts are these the only people who have benefited ofm the revelation classified information by someone who worked for this government, who intentionally somenauthorized declassify of the most sensitive National Security information we have, the only result is that those who are in gauged in islam it jihad will have benefited. Consider this to mothers more information contained in the phone book that sits at home on then thehen counter information that is in the National Security database. Guest any comments . Stations two observations, she is on the side of president obama on this. That shows you how much change how much has changed so much. A key opponent of obama care she is the most expressive person with her hands ont he wonder how she onde choreographs that. Perfec her statement on more in the phone book than what the nsa takes in . Guest probably true. Host independent line. A twopart question, is the department of Homeland Security part of the department of defense, and the author of onr is a lie says spending event is a trillion dollars. Is it possible that 400 4 billion 400 billion more is added and the American People do not know about this . Why is this not reported as part of the annual debt . Fiveore comment, there are billion people mining data but less than one billion people working the earth as farmers. I do not consider this Homeland Security. Thank you for your time. Host Homeland Security is a separate agency. If you want to count every single aspect of the government that might have to do with security, like Border Control and customs, you might be able to get somewhere up there. The Defense Budget is 600 billion for 2014. This budget has significant funds for emerging novel activity. Do we risk falling behind other countries . You do have to cut back on r d so that does hurt you. I am not a hardware expert but i do know there is money in the budget for a variety of things. They are going to try to create strike fighters. That is why aircraft carriers are unmanned. They are trying to be a new air force bomber. There is Research Going on in the budget. Billion passed for r d. Host mike joins us from tampa florida. Good morning. Caller thank you for letting me call in. A couple comments and then a there are over 1000 military bases that the United States has in four countries. 200 recognized countries in the world. That is like 10 bases in every country. Russian military bases in the United States . It is just an overextension. I believe 20 of the Defense Budget is overrun and the costs are just fraud and waste. There is the military environmental responsibility act that the military seems to be exempt from all and meyer environmental laws as a response to military bases placed in cities. Guest i think you could get to 1000 overseas bases if you counted every separate little facility as a base. The number is still around 200 and that is still a lot of bases. Every time and the administration talks about closing bases in the United States because of excess, the first thing they do is say what about closing the bases overseas. On environmental laws, i dont know about that bill. On this subject, the Defense Department is not entirely exempt from environmental laws. They spent a lot of money trying to keep in line with them. I dont really know more about that. Host what about overruns and cost . Guest i dont know where he got 20 from. Big contracts are expensive and that has been the nemesis of the department of defense for the 33 years i have been writing about the Defense Budget. They try to sell but i dont been able to has solve it. Host what about the actual operation of the pentagon itself . Guest that is the biggest part of the budget the building . Not tell you. I dont know the actual operating cost for the building. Ofrall, the operating cost and maintenance and infrastructure and training troops, that is like 170 billion, the biggest part of the budget. That includes some health care money. That is the daytoday running of the military, 170 billion per year. Host steve, from louisiana, republican line. Caller thank you for taking my call. Is there anything in the budget stopping people like snowden who is in russia right now . If he takes a pledge intakes and a job with Sensitive Information and then he goes abroad and starts releasing this information what happens to the United States being vulnerable to any person who takes this sensitive job, in that budget, what would we be doing to help stop people from actually releasing Sensitive Information . Snowden have another releasing Sensitive Information. The way people today think that more mean some money and we saw that from iraq. I am glad the troops are coming home. Host what do you want to ask . There anything in the budget that will stop people from releasing this information . Guest it is already illegal. It is a huge bill and i must admit that i have not read every single word there might be some provision that applies to maintaining classified information. Im not of any that would dramatically change that. He did an illegal act under current law like you cannot stop murders and people from running red lights, because it is illegal, it does not mean people will not do it. Host what about continued increases in the Defense Budget . Guest some people would say the Defense Industry is the main driver but it is trying to keep ahead of other military. The defense experts look at places like china and other countries that are still spend money on fast developments and their military and they worry about our aging equipment and that will become outdated. Host what is our spending compared to other countries . Guest we spent more than any other country. We spent more than the next 10 countries combined. I think it was next more than the next 40 countries combined. We have a bigger footprint. Host are talking about the Defense Budget and here is matt from concord, new hampshire, independent line. Caller thank you for cspan and thank you for taking my call. Only recently seen guant report a couple of months ago that the United States is spending 7 billion to take military equipment and shred it in afghanistan. They say is too expensive to bring home. It was not too expensive to go there. Secondly, i understand the military budget and i agree with your figure of 600 billion. That does not include the Intelligence Services. We all know the Intelligence Services make up the vast majority on top of our military budget. It is probably close to the 1 trillion. That is secret money. That money is not disclosed or public record. That money is hush hush. I will notden thing, classified as a traitor or hero, 20will cost us approximately test 30 billion to re program our computers and find a way to track this information and nobody is looking at that cost of what he did. We cry about austerity and we want to bring our budget under control but this man has cost us billions of dollars. I have a brother that works in the military and i will not discuss what he does because it is classified but i know for a fact that this is hurting us already and it will cost tons of money. Thank you very much. Thet i cannot speak to intelligence agencies. That is not something i cover. The 7 talk about billion cost for equipment and afghanistan. That is where we face a dilemma. We dont want the equipment back here for the most part because it is damaged and will cost too much to face effect. It fix. You dont want to abandon it for some other army to pick up. That creates regional instability and might be used against us. Destroying it seems to be 7 billion is a huge figure it is the most costeffective way of doing that. We are facing trouble bringing things back with between export licenses and so forth. Not a good situation. It sounds like they are shredding 7 billion worth of good stuff but the cost to bring it back and fixing it so we can use it is much higher than that host what would stay and what would come back . Guest anything damaged is like if you total a car. That kind of thing. Host to, ga. , and our republican line. Caller you can opt out of the phone book. You cannot opt out of the nsa. Isnt that the freedom point . Other yes, but there are free and points to score. Opting out of the phone book does not mean the Telephone Company still does not have your records. New jersey, charlie, independent line. Problem ie a love cspan and watch it as often as i can. I like the people calling up and giving their opinion. One thing i dont understand. If you listen to cspan, most people, i would say 85 of the people that call, are against the amount of money we spend and the amount of bases we had and our military intervention and the world. Most people are against those things. Yet, very few people in our government say this. Why would we have 130 bases overseas . We should cut our military budget in half. We should close 100 basis. All that money and all those people should be working on things to fix the United States, the potholes, the bridges, the structure of United States is falling apart. I think the greatest disaster to our country, the greatest damage to our country is the military industrial complex. Thank you very much. Guest the logic for having bases overseas is to have more deployed places where you have troops that can quickly respond to what ever is going on there. You have troops in japan and korea and are there for asian reasons and we still have some troops in germany. The numbers are coming down as the military gets more mobile and can move faster to other places. The structure overseas will continue to be reduced. Host this is from twitter. Hardwaream not a expert. I dont know how much money there is for drones. It was not in the billions. Probably in the Contingency Fund budget. Is biggest procurement money one of a billion dollars to buy biggestons and the single piece of that is 15 billion for the navy to buy new ships. Host democrats blind. Line. Caller i understand having a presence all over the world provides us intelligence, not just tanks and boots on the ground. We are overreached and still fighting force based on the cold war mentality. We have more and more unnecessary bombers and equipment that is obsolete by the time it reaches the field of war. There is an issue with the planes but 3 different versions for the different branches of the military. Trk properly and it will cost over 1 billion per plane or Something Like that. Eisenhower warned about. Likentinues to crawl along the old country. The king has to build a castle and surrounded with tons of weapons like the koreans do. We are doing the same thing and we are hypocritical. Lines the pockets of Lockheed Martin and all these other people. The budget is out of control. Of bombers. Ve a lot we are trying to build a brand new bomber but were still using the be52. You might think we have more than enough bombers already defense bille address Guantanamo Bay . Yes, in three places, the bill specifically prohibits the detainees to the United States. There is a provision in it that specifically blocks anybody from being released from Guantanamo Bay and sent to yemen because there are concerns about the Al Qaeda Network there and there are restrictions on policing anywhere else where there has to be a guide make sure there are not active terrorist networks there. It leaves you wondering what will happen in the long run to Guantanamo Bay. If you cannot try the 240 people and it made clear they dont have enough evidence to do that and you cannot release them back to the country they came from, what exactly will happen in the long run . On fridayhouse said intention is to close Guantanamo Bay. They have the opportunity to send two detainees back somewhere and immediately, there were complaints among republicans. They said we cannot send them where there is Al Qaeda Networks so i dont know the longterm solution. Host chesapeake, virginia, republican. Caller thank you for cspan. I am currently being furloughed losing 400 per month. Secondly, the federal government has been made out to be a bad guy as a Public Service employee and because of that, they have not seen a pay raise for the last almost five years. Is that the address . Guest those are two good questions. The bill specifically prohibits the Defense Department from having furloughs beginning october 1. The furloughs going on this year because of sequestration would be barred. The pentagon could not do that under this bill. I am not telling you that you will not be furloughed again. The senate has not done anything yet so we dont know. Secretary hagel a letter to Congress Said they did not intend to have furloughs in fiscal 2014. Any any way. Be civiliansnded to riff and not just not have people work every friday. If you are not happy that you are not getting paid some fried is, it would be worse if you did not have a job. There is noaise, pay raise for federal civilians in this bill. It would be the fourth Consecutive Year of no pay increase for federal civilians. The Obama Administration has complained specifically about that saying it is not fair to federal workers to go another and theyout a raise requested and the house ignored a 1 pay raise. Ironically, did ministers and complained about the pay raise in the bill for the military is too big. It is a 1. 8 pay raise for Service Members that would take effect january 1. The Administration Says that is too high and they want 1 raise for them, too. Oddly, the cost of giving the military smaller rise would be more than enough to give a race to civilian so there might be a deal in the works. Host we heard about the furlough days but what about the contractors of the Defense Department . Guest contractors for every place are in trouble. There are wage caps on how much they will get them there will be less work for them. This is a sign of a tightening government. Host are they a large part of governor a pentagon operations . Guest overseas that have been but not day today. One of the events of sequestration is that you see soldiers back working in mess halls on the food line. To save money, thats how the troops do it. The of the troops do things contractors were doing. Host delaware, independent line. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for letting me get this call through. Would like to ask mr. Maze if this nsa program that snowden aspect is any ball that of the Echelon Program that we heard about a couple of years ago. . Guest i dont know the answer to that. Host guest there is no lack of audits about waste of money and the pentagon budget. Sadly, you audit it, cannot audit the Defense Budget and they have tried for 15 years. It is too complicated for anybody to make their way through. The current comptroller of the pentagon, bob hale is a friend of mine and has been working since he got there to make it auditable. Host because of the mature size and scope . And all the Services Account things differently. If you want to count how much money we spend on different items, it is in a different line item. You cannot make it add up. Host louisville, kentucky, democrats line. Caller i want to make a comment about what has been going on in since 1980. We were led to believe that spending more money on the military will make us safer at home and it has not made us safer adumbrate we were safer at home before 1980. It has created a great big job market for many people in america who otherwise would be out of work. The only people who have benefited from an increase in Government Spending are people getting jobs to people in companies located in Ronald Reagans home state. Group will team up with democrats because they think the military as part of the government. They will team up with democrats because it is not doing what it is in the was intended to do. Guest part of that i cannot speak to because i am a non partisan reporter. It is true that there are big there is a group of tea Party Related people in the house of representatives that do not hold defense spending sacrosanct like republicans do and dont believe you need to increase the budget every year and that was reflected in the budget control act that capped a defense spending that people wanted defense exempt. The Defense Budget was part of the sequestered. People said you could not do that but the tide has turned on the Defense Budget and it is no longer just growing. Host pennsylvania, republican line. Caller good morning and thank you for taking my call. I note you report on the congress but do you get out into the field and go to the different installations of all services . Guest yes. Caller i am not as active as i used to be on these installations but my old friends i talked to, it seems that the military is in sad shape as far as maintenance of aircraft and equipment. I am concerned about the defense appropriations because if we cut it, we are cutting off our nose to spite our face because we will have to maintain these equipment these pieces of equipment somehow. Our defenseck on infrastructure, we are just putting people out on the street. Then we will increase that problem. Safe and if wet dont maintain military, we will be in deep trouble, thank you very much. I read your article all the time and i greatly appreciate you. Thank you so much. Guest both of those issues are important in terms of the Defense Budget. Bases r. D. K. And equipment is not being maintained. We have concentrated so much on the Defense Budget and efforts on the wars in the last few years so it is not directly related to war and it has not been a priority for spending. Than theyorse shape used to be and there is equipment waiting in line to be fixed. It is not the first time this has happened on the day of the 9 11 attacks, i was just finishing work on a big project about decay in the military. Is not something new. It is a terrible problem and there is no reason to have a big base infrastructure if you cannot take care of it. Defense as aut jobs program, that is the push back that the Tea Party People want to cut the Defense Budget. In fact, it is a jobs program and if you close a base in some small town, that puts a lot of people out of work in the community has to prepare for it. Thats why congress is so resistant to the idea. They say you cannot cut that airplane or close those bases in a weak economy. You want to help the economy by reducing the Defense Budget but you dont want to put federal workers out of work. Host la grange, texas, independent line. Caller if we are going to compare this fall Collection Program to the phone book, it is ridiculous that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year to gain that information. Contact or copies of what phone calls people have made, all you need to do is go thehe fund company go to phone company. Is kind of ridiculous the information that the general public debts and most of us are stupid enough to expect that we have a phone book. Somebody needs to give the American People real information. I cannot disagree. Aat they claim to have is list of telephone calls which is not that different than collecting everybodys phone bill and seating i think it is more sophisticated than that and it is simplified for the purpose of political debate. They do you they do not have referred recorded phone calls. Whether that is true or not, i dont know. On secrecy, i think back when i was a cub reporter and i wrote a nasty memo and my editor said if you think like that, do not put it in writing because people will keep it and find out. You have to realize that everything you do and say is subject to somebody listening in. Host what about the topic of research and development. Does the pentagon engage in that and how much of the budge is involved . Guest yes, that is 66 billion of the Defense Budget. Host about generally . Guest they are trying all kinds of exotic things. Robots,e cool fighting the modernday version of the two boxing robots. That have liquid bandages and all kinds of marvelous things that work on. Host john from california, our last call, independent line. Caller 92 cspan. My question concerns what has been brought up prior. That is about the black budget for defense spending. Rather immoral that we are fighting in the name of democracy in other countries and we say we want to protect itsica by undermining people. We are spending all this money that cannot be accounted for while the people at home are asked to take these draconian cuts. I find it so wrong and i think there needs to be a serious look at these contractors and how this over bloated budget is immune from investigation. Inhink these politicians their home districts are making a lot of money through the weapons or the Defense Industry and i think that is part and parcel of the problem. The 205 votes in the house of representatives on the nsa amendment to stop them from collecting the phone calls is 8 sign that that sentiment is growing in the u. S. There is a lot of push back now against it. Right after 9 11, everybody was security conscious and what ever security wanted or intelligence wanted, they will do it. I think the country has changed. Host how is chuck hagel settle into the pentagon . Guest he might still be a little out of his element as far as dealing with congress because there is a group of people that will not like him no matter what he does but he seems to be well liked. Among the troops he visits and that is a good thing. Maze, thanks for joining us. Coming up, well talk about the securities and Exchange Commission that are currently litigating a case against a Goldman Sachs trader. Later on this morning, today marks the 60th anniversary of the sighting of a ceasefire ending the conflict between north and south korea and we will get a history of the war. We will have extended coverage of ceremonies in washington, d. C. On the korean or later today. The treatment of hunger strikers at guantanamo compromises the core ethical values of our medical profession. As long and desperate to endorse the principle that patients has theo right to refuse medical intervention. The World Medical association and the International Red cross have determined that force feeding is not only an ethical violation but contravenes the geneva convention. My concern is that lets just set aside the numbers that you might or might not feel you can safely push out. There are a number, an unknown number but the president has said is 46, that you can never try. Do you honestly think that the people behind me and the people who are in telling this hearing asking forwwwwnwwwwwe those prisoners because theyw United States . wwwwwwww fearbakedwwwwo guantanamo open is hard to understand. It brought to the u. S. For medicalionoooooggooo the detainees will pose no threat to our National Security. The 86 men who have been cleared for transfer should be transferred. Ww we must findccccccccccs allccccccccccccce done in every conflict. The senatekend, judiciary subcommittee on human rights looks at the implications of closing the Guantanamo Bay prison today at 10 00 a. M. 2,tern and also on cspan live coverage of the roosevelt reading festival from the fdr president ial library and museum hyde park, new york. Live on cspan 3, president obama and defense secretary chuck hagel commemorate the 60th anniversary of the korean war armistice this morning at 10 00. Continues. N journal host if you follow the business sections of the paper may have noticed that in new york, there has been a trial going on featuring a good former Goldman Sachs employee. Beingks about a case litigated by the s e say. Will by the securities and Exchange Commission. Legal joined by a reporter from bloomberg news. Thank you for joining us. Glad to be here. Host we have Fabrice Tourre. Who is he and a white is the sec interested in him . Guest he is a french man and in 2007, he was a 28yearold trader at Goldman Sachs. Goldman sachs because of an investment he structured, an investment that was backed by subprime mortgage in the nextent sour couple of years. Tourre ledims that investors and participants in the deal about the role played by ballston and co. , a new york hedge fund, that made 15 billion short in the u. S. Housing market in 20062007. Didrding to the sec, tourre not disclose to the investors that paulson and company help pick up the portfolio of investments behind this vehicle that was called abacus. Paulson pick to the investments he wanted those investments to fail . Guest thats right. E made a 1 billion bet again sees investments. She shortage abacus. Paulson and, company was making massive bets against the u. S. Housing market. The sec claims that this was securities fraud. Hey said that having paulsen select the assets it bet against was not fair to investors and that was responsible for the investors losing about 1 billion. Says it is kind of like. Laying poker against some way the sec claims this investment was designed to fail from the beginning. Ballston and company is not been charged with any wrongdoing. John paulson, the billionaire who runs the hedge fund has not been charged with any wrongdoing. The sec sued Goldman Sachs and Fabrice Tourre. Goldman sachs settle several months later for 550 million which was a record at the time. Triale tourre went to with the case and we are two weeks into the trial now and have a week to go. Host is he a big fish in this case . Big fish. Is not a he was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs, a trader unstructured products. He was only 28yearold and supervised nobody. He worked in a vast trading ator with people sitting either elbow, one of those people. Of puttingin charge together the marketing material subprimembling the 90 Residential Mortgage securities that were behind this abacus investment. Host what is his defense in a nutshell . Guest hes got a number of defenses. He claims he just not did not do it, he claims he did not live in the paulson role. Of the says that any itestors in abacus, he said was completely transparent and you can look at the Mortgage Backed bonds that were in abacus. Any investor could decide for themselves whether or not to invest these are sophisticated investors. The investors that lost money or a big german bank, a big dutch bank. Goldman sachs ended up with a long position in abacus and ended up losing money on the deal itself. Tourre, far as fabrice he said he did not do it and they sec bringing the case against him. Part of the defense or the prosecutions case is that tourre wases,mr. Asked to classify how much mr. Paulson was going to put into this investment. Been testimonys by one of the participants, a Company Called aca management which was a company that came in as a thirdparty and select the portfolio behind abacus. Claim cutives at aca that Goldman Sachs convince them that paulson was taking a long position. They thought the housing and Securities Market would do well but it was exactly the opposite. That is how the investors were allegedly misled. One of the challenges for the andis that memories fade says this transaction, there has been nobody to say that fbarice tourre lied about the transaction. It is a circumstantial case based on emails and based on return anyilure to email that suggested that aca thought that paulson and company was lot in the translation transaction. Host the phone numbers are on your screen. Also send us tweets and emails. Were talking about this case being litigated by the securities and Exchange Commission in new york the last couple of weeks taking a look at Goldman Sachs. For our viewers, they may have questions reflected from ken weeks this morning. Guest there have been a bunch of cases brought up by the sec against banks including Goldman Sachs and citigroup and morgan stanley. This case has been pending since 2010. Probably note that we have a new sec commissioner, mary jo white, who spent a decade as the chief federal prosecutor in manhattan. I know for aaid fact that she is a tough prosecutor and has prosecuted many whitecollar cases and lots of terrorism cases including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. That she hasay sent signals including the recent lawsuit against sac capital that indicates she may be much more aggressive in enforcement than the sec has been in the past. Host how is the sec doing in presenting its case . Guest we have had a lot of jargon in the case. There has been a lot of embarrassing emails from Fabrice Tourre they wrote was girlfriend back in 2007 when he was working late nights putting out like this together. The jury has had a little bit of trouble grasping some of the financial concepts, some of the esoteric wall street language that has come up in the trial. As a result, from time to time, we have had jurors appeared distracted and, on several occasions, the jurors and appearing to be dozing off. Host lets go to our first call from connecticut, independent line. Caller in any transaction on the stock exchange, somebody is buying or selling. The person buying thinks the stock will go up and the person selling thinks it may not go up. Different people take different positions. In this case, is there any suggestion that Goldman Sachs had a fiduciary obligation to aca or the buyers and had to disclose everything they knew . Guest thats an excellent question. In this case, as you said, these are sophisticated buyers. They were supposed to be looking out for themselves the goldman a duty notourre to defraud them. To the extent that the sec can prove the case that they lied to them about something that was material to their investment decision, that is fraud. Tourre could be found liable. It is a civil case that he does not have to worry about going to present as he would in a criminal case. Ands facing possible fines penalties and a possible lifetime ban from the securities industry. Host the phone numbers are on your screen. Guest that is certainly the point of view thats tourre is taking. Notate 2006 and 2007, everybody knew the market would go into the tank and people would not be able to pay their mortgages. As the previous caller mentioned, there was a sophisticated investors on both sides of this. Paulson was going short but that bet had to be balanced by people who thought that mortgages were going to be paid and the securities would be successful. There is a little bit of a hindsight bias in looking at this. Some validitynly to that. Host another comment guest thats an excellent point. Of sec has brought lots suits against companies who evade they filed claims against 66 top executives at companies but a lot of these companies are smaller fish. Sued atutives who were places like citigroup and Goldman Sachs are more like areice tourre, people who lower level and structured the investments but not the people the banks for the credit crisis host 4 a, independent line, good morning. 94 coming in on sunday morning. I only call what amounts so i will make a comment my wife and i make around 175,000 per year and we live comfortably and come from a poor family and made it out of poverty. Entired take as our careers, our entire household career, to make what these people running these Companies Make in one year. It would take our entire career to make that kind of money. Accountabilityo for people who are supposed to be making supposed to be able to make good decisions and thats why they make the money they make. We look at a society where we are told that my family deserves to pay a higher comparable rate to our income than these people because they are job create tours. Creators. We are being also told that they cannot be sent to jail because they are job creators. Host what is your question about the case . We saw a complete lack the wallzation with street protesters and things like that. The bulk of america is tired of people who are in control of a big amount of money and it affects a lot of people in this country. When are we finally going to see im notto jail talking about three or four years i am talking about for a long parade of time. So that we can set a precedent so that people who are still there or not in jail can take some accountability. After the 2008 crisis, people lost their homes and jobs and people lost their retirement security. There is a lot of anger out there. You see that reflected in the occupy movement. People are wondering why there havent been more prosecutions of top executives at some of the banks and institutions that they hold responsible for the 2008 crash. I talk to prosecutors and regulators a lot about this. That we are hearing in the last couple of weeks in this trial, these cases are difficult to bring. They involve very complicated transactions. Case, isin the tourre lawyers an ateam of against it four lawyers, the top sec litigator included. Years of preparation go into this. Alllawyers have to master the evidence, reams and reams of evidence and thousands of e mails. It is really a strain on government. Resource is. They say they have to pick their spots carefully. WhyFabrice Tourre . Why not target john paulson tax guest thats a good question. Pursued in this. When you look at how this case is structured, the sec alleges itemsourre put together that lie about paulsons world. Paulson did not go out and lie about his role. Money from it. F this is the person they can put a figure on and say heres a guy we think lied to investors and who we think i think that is why he is in the cross hairs host who is paying for his legal fees . Guest Goldman Sachs is paying his legal fees and also paying for his pr team which has been attending the trial. They are interested in the case. This is an issue that Goldman Sachs had hoped it had put behind it back in 2010 when it settled. That trial over the past couple of weeks is making headlines and bring all this back for people. Host the next call is from nick in california. Caller i watch cspan a lot. Onre is a lot boloney going i am absolutely amazed at how people really believe that the people running all these brokerages did not know what was happening. With home mortgages. If they did not know, why would they put them together and selling them . They were doing that to protect themselves and the homeowner was going to get the shaft regardless of what happened. Home mortgage is only worth what the home is month and you will not make a bundle of money. People in brokerages are controlling the stock market. They are telling companies how much money they have to make. If they miss it by one penny, they want to sell their stock. That is how they make their in bonuses. Dollars they are controlling it. Make their money is buying and selling bonds and the investor gets stuck for it. Most of us were losers in the 2008 crash but there were winners. Goldman sachs and john paulson are two of them. They both came to the crisis. Losers, bearme stearns, lehman brothers, banks that do not exist anymore that thethey made bets Housing Market would continue to go up and got badly burned. As people who are whonding for mr. Tourrre, are these people . Guest tourre is his own star witness. He spent about 1. 5 days on the stand. He told his own story. He grew up in france and was educated in france and got a degree from a Top Engineering School in paris, came to the United States and got a masters at stanford and started working for Goldman Sachs. He appears lively and engaged. He speaks with something of a french accent so he can occasionally be difficult for the Court Reporter and jurors to understand. Getting up on the stand, he is doing his best to get across to jurors that he was not one of these masters of the universe, that he was part of a Big Organization on a transaction that was reviewed by many other theye at a place where have lots of institutional control. He says he depended on those controls of the institution. To make sure that there was nothing wrong with the transaction. On the other side, the sec has really made this a case about wall street greed. Lawyer used the phrase wall street agreed in times in his opening statement. He is trying to make this a case for the jurors about the gap between what people were doing on wall street and what they were saying. Here is an email that Fabrice Tourre was sending. This was introduced and this was a big part of the trial, the e mails that he was sending to his girlfriend at the same time he was structuring some of these deals. This was sent to his girlfriend on january 23. Of as manying one late nights on the abacus deal and he for words to her an article predicting doom to, the financial markets. That she should look at the article. The whole building is about to collapse any time now. The only potential survivor is the fabulous fab. Standing in the middle of these complex, highly levered exotic tracy created without not necessarily understanding the implications of those monstrosities. Not feeling too guilty about this, the real purpose of my job is to make Capital Markets more efficient and ultimately provide the u. S. Consumer with more efficient ways to leverage and finance themselves so there is a humble, noble, and that the reason for my job. Amazing how good i am. And a sense of reaction from the jury from that step there havelutely, been some very dry parts of this trial jurors drift off. Stand ande took the was compelled to read that email and others, like this one, they are a combination of pillow talk and Market Analysis from a 28 yearold writing his girlfriend at a time of stress for the jury paid close attention to this. Lawyers say they dont matter. Are notes from a young man claims girlfriendthe sec this shows is real thoughts, that he was attending an doing his best for his clients. Host to give you a sense of how mr tourre in person, he testified for a Senate Subcommittee it back in 2010 and talked about the sec sit against an. Goldman sachs had no economic motive to design the transaction to fail. Quite the contrary, we held no exposure in the transaction just like aca. When the securities referenced declined in value, we lost money, to including around 83 million with respect to the long position we retained. Host pointed out they lost money, to investors in this transaction. Guest there have been other deals and there have been lawsuits about other deals were banks are alleged to have taken tough this toxic assets that they held on their own account and packaged them into the securities and sold them to clients. This is not really that case. Who is a case where paulson was a client of Goldman Sachs came in and wanted was seeking a vehicle they could use to short the Housing Market. Host independent line is next, go ahead caller you need to look at the commodity futures modernization act of 2000, december, 2000 that made Residential Mortgagebacked securities and all these derivatives offbalance sheet to the top 10 Bank Holding Companies in america. This is the results of the crime. I encourage you to look at that in your work as nobody brings that up. All of these activities have been performed off Balance Sheets from the people who structure them. That is a straight to statement. When the Asset Backed Securities or setup, that was a new asset class from the real estate. When i have a home at a value of 1 million, the First Trust Deed was converted by my signature into the asset class called a bond security. The real estate property, land property, cannot be taken from the home owner under a grantee. But caller makes a great point. These securities are extremely complicated and very far removed ultimately from the individuals Holding Mortgages in homes. Theseare packaged into securities. At a certain point, there is a sense isunreality about them. Host if we have had two weeks of testimony, what is expected in the final weeks . Fabrice tourre just concluded his testimony and some witnesses will be up there. The defense said it may call john paulson to the stand which would be interesting. We should find out monday if he will testify. The parties will wrapup probably on friday or next monday. On parties will wrap up probably friday or next monday. The jury includes a former spot , a Public School principal, a priest. It appears to be a pretty intelligent jury. As i mentioned before, there is a lot of jargon. There is a real learning curve to figuring this out. Some of them seem disconnected at times. It is kind of hard to tell. If john paulson does take the stand, does that change the nature of what goes on during the case . Do we learn information about his intentions leading up to this and those kind of issues . Guest we already had the testimony of Paolo Pellegrini who was a top paulson executive, one of the architects of this strategy of shorting the Housing Market and making huge profits. He was a very interesting with this. He clearly projected the air of heebody who did not feel should be being questioned by the sdc. He repudiated some earlier testimony and accused the s ec he sec testifies, hen will be testifying as a witness and it will be expected he comes up. Nobody could have been fooled about his role in this transaction. Massively short. It was all over the papers. Everybody on wall street knew exactly where he stood on the Housing Market. Host gregory from pennsylvania, republican lied. Republican line. Caller thank you gentlemen for taking my call. I am interested in this matter because it seems to me like this is nothing more than a footman in delivering the goods whereas paulson is the host. I think absolving those subprime mortgages was a good thing because they were flawed real estate anyway am probably going going to berobably torn down and sold us lots to the municipalities. It comes back to what Lloyd Blankfein said when he was first he said we are doing gods work. I do not see where the big fuss is about all of this complication. I am more interested in the blacktie in philadelphia who tries to get us . 50 who tries to get . 50 and gets beaten to a pulp by philadelphia police. Guest as i mentioned before theres a sense sense of frustration that you do not see some bigger names involved in some of these prosecutions. Certainly there are questions of our government of where our government directs its resources. This is a highprofile target. Globals Goldman Sachs is a 30,000company with employees worldwide and Something Like 34 billion in revenues last year. It has a highprofile, famously squid in vampire Rolling Stone magazine. A lot of people have a lot riding on this. Case thatthe sides of stem from the financial meltdown is there a statute of limitations . Guest for most of these cases there is. Some of the statutes run out after five years. You could cases manye expecting to see more these cases one a lot of these deals were put together. For some of these it may be the last hurrah. Tennessee, democrats line. Is anything going to be the goldman far as aluminumndal buying up and being able to price it. Be able to going to happen as far senators and congressmen being it to work out being able to make deals under the table. Those are my two questions. I am not familiar with the aluminum issue. I do know that bloomberg has reported extensively on legislators and other government getting early notice of Government Action and making money off of them. This is supposed to be a market where everybody, we are on an even playing field. You are supposed to make money if you are smarter. As we have seen with a lot of the Insider Trading that have been brought in our courthouse call but that is always true. Courthouse, that is not always true. We see the Justice Department going after as after sec capital. York the prison attorney has brought insidertrading cases against Something Like 80 people. 80 people have gotten convictions or trials. 70 of those cases are still one of those cases is still pending. Matthew mark toma is charged with the largest insidertrading in u. S. History. I was lucky enough to sit down with Catherine Horace a couple of months ago. She is an obama appointee. Forhas been on the bench only two years. Just a year after she took the bench, i think it was last september, she struck down a provision of the National Defense authorization act of 2012. Its opponents claimed it could be it could result in americans being held indefinitely without trial. Often also thing you hear. The love of struck just after a year on the bench. Reversed herourt just last week. She is a former highpowered partner at a firmware partners made 3 million per year. Cut down ton a pay the judicial salary of 174,000. She had a lifelong dream of being a judge. She is moving the trial along, keeping the lawyers from getting too deep in the weeds as far as the wall street jargon and esoteric concepts are concerned. She appears to be doing a pretty good job. Host sharon is up next in massachusetts, republican line. Caller hello. I am enjoying your show this morning. Ob vanearning a lot from b voris. What can we do as citizens to help rectify situations like this . I know you said government does not have a lot of resources to go after this type of situation. I noticed we always have the money to go into another country for our armed services. Can we do as a citizen to help combat things like this . It very much disturbs me. Ifthinking if a person you put up a little pan or in that says boycott walmart for monday, something to go against corporate america. Guest one last call. This will be from maryland. Hello. I think this gentleman is a small pond in a game of corruption. Also they are still allowed to steal peoples homes. It is a tragedy. I think all of them should be put in jail. Enqueue. Thank you. I dont know if a priest tore would like to have you on his jury or not. I think he is trying to make the point that he is not a big fish. That the sec guy should be targeting. At the end of the week we will find out what i say. Would you classify the sae cks as weak or strong . It is definitely a challenging case. A think they can win. I think they feel good about where they are right now. Other side, the sec has put in the case that the intent to prove. I think theyre both cautiously optimistic. I never predict what juries are going to do. 202 7370001 that point, what does it say about the larger idea of litigating guests if the sec wins or loses . Wins, i thinksec that is an important symbol that they have brought in one of the players. They did recover 550 million from Goldman Sachs. Of money. Lot a place like goldman does not pay that money likely unless there is a good case. If they lose. If they lose, i think it will be bad if they lost. Againstec lost a case , therecutive last summer is a much bigger spotlight on this case. Badsec has suffered publicity from the nato scandal. There is criticism that it failed to prevent some of the things that happened in the 2008 meltdown. I think it is going to be a problem if they lose. Bob van voris, thank you for your time. Willin washington dc there be a special ceremony that includes president obama taking a look at the korean war. This will highlight the 16 Year Anniversary of the armistice that was signed. Our next segment is going to take a look at some of the details of the war and what led to the signing on this day back in 1953. Is with George Washington university and he will talk about what this means for the modern day. American history tv today, special coverage of this event. We will leave you with a little bit of that and we will take up the discussion with the korean war when we return. [video clip] the first lady reflects the schism that is in the United States about what women are supposed to be today. Are we supposed to be mama chief . Are we supposed to be first mate . That if the president is supposed to be head of state and head of government, is the first lady supposed to be the ideal fashionista . Is she supposed to be mama chief . Is she supposed to be first helpmate . At the same time, if she is going to be first helpmate she needs to really understand what is going on in the administration. She needs to understand what is going on in the country. She has got to understand her husbands political agenda. You cannot really separate how the first lady resents herself and the conflicting expectations that the country still has four working lives and for chemo others and for working mothers for working wives and working mothers. Activism on behalf of important issues and the transitioning of public to private lives, 9 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Website, it is the history of Popular Culture. It it is a collection of stories on the history of Popular Culture. To say pop culture, it is quite more than that. What i have been trying to do at detaile is go into more with how Popular Culture interacts with politics and sports and other arenas. What we have our stories about popular music am a sports biography, we have some history of media entities, newspaper history. Of things. Range when i formulated the site i purposefully cut that i purposefully cast a wide net. I purposefully cast a wide net. More with jack doyle sunday at eight on cspans q and a. Washington journal continues. In 1963 was on this day that an armistice was signed. Back then it was the commander of u. S. Forces that made the announcement. We have stopped the shooting. That means much to the fighting men and their families. It will allow some of the previous wounds of korea to heal. Therefore i am thankful. Step toward what yet might be done. Put the now is to ceasefire agreement into full effect as quickly as we can and get down into working out a settlement of the korean problems. Louder that time for prayer that we may succeed in our difficult endeavor to turn this armistice to the advantage of mankind. Greg brezinski, he serves as a and associated offense associated professor. We see the end result is far as this day on 1953. Let us go back. Describe what is going on in the United States and the world at the time in the lead up to the korean war. Guest when you talk about the lead up to the korean war, a lot of times what is emphasized in the United States is the american role. How does the United States get involved the echo for more americans the korean war begins on june 25, 1950 when north korea launches an invasion of south korea. But i think to understand korean war it is also important to Pay Attention to what is going on in korea between 1945 and 1950. Before 1945 korean had been high before 1945 korean had been a japanese colony. There are groups of people that benefited from japanese colonialism and there were groups and individuals that had suffered deeply because of it. The right and the left in korea do not like each other. Even if you take out the United States and take out the soviet union and china, it is still likely that there would have been some sort of civil conflict in korea. I think initially neither the United States nor the soviet union intended to divide korea. They both occupy parts of korea endas agreed to during the of world war ii. They had originally believed that they would negotiate and come up with a formula for a unified agreement. Of the. Course between 1945 the 19th the you get increasing cold war elections 1950 you get increasing cold war for cushion. Cold war friction. Eventually leads to the creation of separate north and south korean states that are rivals from the time that they are created. Throughout this. Between 1948 in 19 fifth the, north korea desperately wants to invade south korea. Theyll fill it at still view it as illegitimate. Kim ilsung held a number of conversations with stalin. Of 19 fifth the stalin to calculations have changed. He was more confident about the future of communism in asia because the chinese Prime Minister revolution has triumphed. He finally agrees to kim il sungs plan to allow an invasion of south korea. What is happening here in the United States . Admittedly the truman and ministration views this as a threat. Truman is not very eager to get involved in a major conflict in asia. Nevertheless he thinks the Truman Administration believes that what the North Koreans have done is essentially wiped out and dependence day. That is a challenge to american democracy of this is brought up to the Security Council. The Security Council immediately passes a resolution, condemning north korea aggression. Within two days it is decided the United Nations will send forces to the Korean Peninsula to push the korean troops out of south korea. Have the sense Congress Went along with it well at the time you go guest i think truman was well at the time . Cho well at the i think trumans critics in the republican party, most of those critics criticized him for not being tough enough on communism. They were criticizing him for losing china. When it came to this kind of issue where there was a challenge to the United States by communism. There were still some isolationists in the republican the decisionerally to rescue south korea was one the approvaly had of the public and congress. The topic for this host the topic for this final segment, the korean war. Heres your chance to call in. If you want to send us suites send us tweets, it is cspanwj. Foremost, macarthurs role in this . He made bold maneuvers. The Amphibious Assault that general macarthurs launches on the south korean city of inchon in 1950. It helps turn the tide of the war. Forces did not expected. This initial assault was extremely successful. Eventually there were differences between macarthur and truman. I think macarthur took a very extreme view. If the United States had done what macarthur had wanted, who knows how large a military conflict we would have ended up getting involved in . Truman wanted to limit the war. This became especially apparent in early 1951. Chinese forces entered the war in 1950. U. S. Forces south of the 38th parallel by the beginning of 1951. Then there is unamerican counteroffensive. Whereduring this time macarthur wants to take much more aggressive actions at dance to china and against north korea. He is talking about using Nuclear Weapons to it hacked china if necessary. He is talking about that it is absolutely essential that the United States and south Korean Forces recapture north korea and and destroy the korean state. President truman did not agree with that area he decided the United States would be best off if the war was limited. Messed macarthur is constantly criticizing truman because of the difference of opinion between test between the two men. This leads to macarthur being accused of insubordination and being dismissed. Was a goodimately it decision by the Truman Administration. You had a general who was advocating policies that were just too extreme and were in many ways dangerous. It may well have led to world war iii. It is in this latter stage of the conflict that macarthurs judgment were not very good. We have if youre asking about the u. S. Intention. Was it used as an excuse to enter the war . Host i do not think the nets it ever intended to invade china. I think they did do something that made his chinese that made the chinese very concerned. Immediately after the north korean invasion of south korea harry truman sent the u. S. Seventh fleet into the taiwan strait. China was still hoping that it would be able to launch its own Amphibious Assault on taiwan and reunify them with the mainland. The dispatch of the seventh fleet prevented this. This is one thing that really can chinese suspicions of the United States. The United States was warned repeatedly not to cross the 38th parallel. Whether the United States would invade or not, china was still view china still viewed north korea as an important buffer. Is thatchinese motive during the chinese civil war there had been some north korean lessons that shot that fought alongside Chinese Communist forces. There was still a sense of fraternal solidarity with the north korean workers party. Things help to contribute to chinas eventual decision to enter the war in the end of 1950. The korean war is the topic. You mentioned the landing in inchon. As we talk about that, started fighting there, how did we do overall . In the early part of the war, especially between june 25, 1950 and august of 1950, the United States was not doing very well. Part of the reason for this was the south Korean Forces were were not very prepared for the north korean onslaught. American forces were rushed to the Korean Peninsula through , there were a significant amount of forces in japan as part of the occupation at the time. They were not completely ready to deal with the situation at hand. They did not even have the sufficient weapons to deal with the weapons north korea had at the time. During this initial phase american and south Korean Forces are pushed back to what is called the pusan perimeter. It is a very small area in southeastern korea. Most of korea is occupied by north Korean Forces of the time. North Korean Forces committed numerous atrocities against south korean civilians. With the inchon landing the tides turned. In 1950 you have more american troops, mori American Equipment being sent into the pusan perimeter. Eventually they are able to strengthen this perimeter and defend it and hold out until we enforcement arrived. Host here is David Rochester new york. Hello. Yes i am a student of history and i would like to read the best books on every segment of history, and if you could recommend what you think is the best book on the korean war. There are a few, covering different aspects. If you want to read about the International History of the war , one of the books i like is the korean war International History. If you want to know about the korean dimension of the war, a wellknown scholar at the university of chicago, bruce cummings, has written books on the origin of the korean war. There are a lot of books that cover different aspects of the topic. Professor at Cornell University has written a book called chinas road to the korean war. That is also one i would highly recommend. Host our guest is also an author. Thats right. The book is not explicitly about the korean war but it does deal with part of the war and the longterm impact on American Relations with south korea. If you are interested in that, i would definitely make it a plus for myself. We have dom on the independent line. Caller i have i hope this program reminds people we have wars with china in the past 50 years. Chinese almost won the korean when macarthur had its landing cut off supplies so that they had to retreat and so forth. We have now made them a powerful. Ompetitor they are not our friends. The reason they are scaling information from us is just to reinforce that information. The fools in washington who have sold us out to the chinese and sold our factory workers out to the chinese, they have them to thank for. Many fracturing is 20 of our economy. Manufacturing is 20 of our economy. Think our relationship with china is much more competent than it was during the korean war. During the korean war they were our adversary, absolutely. Today when people talk about the u. S. Relations with china they talk about a mix of cooperation and come petition. And competition. There are areas where china is obviously an american editor. There are areas where it is a necessary. Is an adversary. Apolitical adversary, economic adversary. I think an important aspect of the korean war is that when you talk about why is there so much mutual suspicion . Why is there so much mutual distrust between the United States and china . I think what happens between 1953 has a lot to do with it. It contributes to an ongoing chinese understanding that the United States wants to encircle china in different ways. You still hear china talking about this now. We have a few or ask about the support the United States people had for the korean war. Guest the support for vietnam was extremely low by the end of every by the end of the war. The korean war was not popular by 1952. One of the things eisenhower promised is he would go to korea and bring in and and bring an end to the war. Fundamental questions that the American People were asking about, the nature of foreignpolicy, were much more fundamental during the vietnam war than they were during the korean war. Host joe was on our republican line. Interested if youre guest has any relations with in regards to his being on trumans side and demanding macarthurs resignation, would you agree that north korea has achieved a Nuclear Explosion and getting an object into orbit would it not be arguable that macarthur had a longer view of history than truman, in light of the fact that north korea has been has an upper has an object in orbit. Istguest your first question easy. The answer is, no. I did my phd at cornell. I was not asked that once in my five or six years here. Since i have come to washington i get that at least every other week. No known relation. Question, it is a very challenging one in a lot of ways. If we have eliminated or wiped out north korea in 1951 then it would not exist today and we would not have all of the problems that we are involved with having this rogue regime that develops Nuclear Weapons and threatens our allies in the pacific region. I think you have to ask what the cost would have been if you had engaged in a protracted war over between 19peninsula 50 and 1953. I think it would have been a much bloodier conflict than it already was. It would have ended up in a lot more chinese volunteers. In the and we would have needed to send a lot more American Forces to the korean theater. That wouldd have led to a lot more american casualties. I think the hostility would be even more enduring. That there isin no easy answer to the north korean situation. Looking back on history, if we wartried to remain in the and fight until korea was unified as an anticommunist bulwark, i think the cost would have been extremely great back then. The cost may have been greater than the American Public and American Resources could have borne. It is a good question and a challenging question. I still think truman did the right thing. Host a viewer asks was this the result of the United States getting involved in the civil war . That is absolutely. There were these divisions within korean society, divisions haveen groups that benefited or collaborated with japanese imperialism or groups that have suffered under colonialism. Before 1950, the large scale north korean invasion of the americas biggest intervention there are constant border skirmishes northorth and cap and south korea. South korea thinks north korea is illegitimate and fisa bursa. And vice versa. It was a war that has international dimensions. South korea probably would not have looked the way that it did. Similarly i do not think that north korea would have looked the way it did by 1950 if the soviet union had not played such a significant role in bringing kim ilsung to power and giving north korea different kinds of aid and support. There is a combination of civil war and a combination of civil war and International Conflict elements in the korean case. Parallel to said to syria . Guest i think the dimensions were very different. The time you get to 1950 and the United States intervenes you are dealing with two separate states. I think the dimensions of it are quite different to that regard. Host here is john from massachusetts. The key for holding on. Go ahead. I was curious if you had seen oliver stones a history of the United States. Korea was a japanese colonial basin. At the end of the second world russell was probably going to invade japan if china didnt. They have touched upon those issues. Japanese the koreans and chinese have a history of all kinds of war is all kind of massacres. It is a competition situation. Wasnt wore a cold war extension . Guest that is a cold war extension. As i haveflected, been mentioning, these divisions in korean society. Mid thee at Truman Administration reacted to it, it reflects what is going on in the world and the origins of the cold war. In particular, one of the things the Truman Administration said and one of the ideas that was as justification for sending american troops to korea. American jew korea was this was a sense of communist aggression. Abbeys from the perspective of the Truman Administration and their motives were very much intertwined with the cold war. John from ohio. Are you there . Caller hello. My question is when i got drafted i got i was at fort lewis washington. Everybody was going to korea but new nt me to germany to germany. Ofas curious, the thousands troops i was curious how many thousands of troops we have in germany. We ought to deter communism. Was the whole thing of the korean war, to stop communism. These communist satellite countries of the time. Guest thank you for serving, first of all. I would say a couple of things. Trumans administrations priority was actually europe. One of the reasons it was so reluctant to fight a major war in korea. In korea, the Truman Administration believed europe was important. Of germany against communism needed to be americas first priority. Why thereat explains were still people getting called be a part of nato forces in europe at a time when we were fighting communists on the ground and in korea. I am not sure of the exact number of troops that i had in different parts of europe at the time. Why is it referred to as the forgotten war . Answer is an interesting one. How did it become a forgotten war . It is this war that is sandwiched between world war ii and the vietnam war, which has a much more infamous history in the United States. It had such an adoring clinical impact and was so traumatizing. Have this great victory in world war ii and is traumatic defeat in vietnam. I think his stories tend to focus on those two wars and pay less attention to korea. Korea has become a forgotten war is because it is really hard to talk about what theyve the United States won the war or lost the war. Easy not something that is to glorify in American History and it is not something that is easy to depict as an out right tragedy. There is no clear historical narrative that teachers can use to describe the war. I thinksomething that contributes to the fact that it is not studied as much. And by the media and by popular writers as some of the other wars that the United States has been involved in. Host what is the significance of the 38th parallel . Guest there was no real reason to divide at the 38th parallel. It was something random. 1945, initially the United States was thinking that we will occupy japan and baby the soviet union will come in and occupys and occupy korea. The Truman Administrations thinking at the end of world war ii again to change a little bit. They started thinking they will occupy japan, that will be an important linchpin in our policy in the pacific. Korea has always been a dagger pointing into the heart of japan. People in the Truman Administration started to think it might be a good idea for the United States to occupy part of korea. But they are basically ending up doing is sending to american officials. Dean rusk would eventually become secretary of state under kennedy. Maps ofked at some old the Korean Peninsula and seoul ishat soul south of the 38th parallel, so let us draw the line there. That is how they became to be divided. There is not much logic of why they would divided there. Because that is the decision that was made, it has become very important so starkly. Host republican line. Caller i had a book by david duncan, he was with the first ine division and he landed until they evacuated the reservoir. Were you familiar with that book . There were live pictures of the battles all the way up. If you could tell me where i could find that took so i can have it replaced again. I am not familiar with that book. In terms of how to acquire it, i do not know. In terms of where you might see i think there is probably some research libraries. The library of congress probably has these kinds of books. Host the viewer mentioned it was a turning point in the war, inchon. Here is the positioning of the marines and the importance of this as far as the macarthur strategy guest it was an important turning point because the North Koreans were not expecting the toted states American Forces come in. It was a difficult landing. I think at a time when macarthur makes this landing American Forces North Koreans have. Ccupied most of south korea south korean and American Forces are mostly stationed within that narrow perimeter and the southeastern part of korea. He makes this landing, it is dramatic. They cut off north korean supply lines. Within a few weeks of the inchon landing the north Korean Occupation of south korea has ended. Austrian forces has withdrawn north of the 38th parallel. The question really became whether or not american and south Korean Forces should advance north of the 38th parallel. Isnt north and south korea technically in a state of for . Guest absolutely. There has never been a peace treaty. There has been a ceasefire but never a formal peace treaty ending the korean war. Hear korean youll talk about this as something that it wants in exchange for giving up its nuclear program. I actually think it is something the United States should consider. Right now americas influence in north korea and our ability to engage is very minimal. One of the reasons for that is because we have no legitimate channels to contact them. I am not saying that if we sign this peace treaty that north korea is going to change or we are going to be able to transform it overnight, but it is something that might estimate a little bit of a dent in their behavior. Something that would enable the United States did get a little bit more information about north korea, to know more work it and to be able to with it just a little but more constructively. Are interested in learning more about the korean war as for special events are concerned, a special event is scheduled to take place you see live pictures of it now. Theill show you live commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the armistice. Issident obama inspect set to speak as well as secretary chuck hagel. Thatll take place at 10 00 00 right after this show on our sister channel. New york, independent line. Caller good morning. Should be aar template of how not to fight a war. Mean the president one man committed troops. They proceeded to defy to fight the war from defensive posture. We did not pursue the anomie until he captured or killed him. What did we get . And armistice where we are still fighting this war. Ive i feel many of those facts could be applied to the vietnam war. The its not do not even have an air force or nav. Have anam did not Even Air Force or nav. 50,000 or more were killed. The rest turned and ran. There were obviously strategic blunders committed during the korean war. Absolutely that we should not have fought . That is a much more difficult question. If the United States had not gotten involved in the korean , probably today the entire Korean Peninsula will look like north korea and south korea would not exist. Today south korea has one of the most vibrant democracies in all of asia. In the United States we drive around in our hyundais, we have all of thesehones, things would not have existed if the United States had not gotten. Nvolved in the korean war i think that is important to remember. There were tragic elements of it. There were strategic blunders. Of the the sacrifices americans who fought in the war made were not for nothing. They helped to create a prosperous democracy, whose citizens are better off than people throughout most of asia. Talk about the aftermath, particularly what happened because of president truman and general macarthur. What happens to general macarthur, after his dismissal he returns to the United States. There are congressional hearings in which he sharply criticizes the Truman Administration and the truman strategy during the korean war. Line, olde famous soldiers never die, they just fade away. In fact macarthur fades away. During the hearings he actually shows himself to be really a hard liner and his views seem so extreme that even the areblicans in congress who out to get truman started to lose their sympathy for him. Was in there end there was some talk that he would pursue the president ial nomination in 1952 but he does not even become a legitimate contender. Trumans popularity had been suffering by 1952 for a variety of reasons. Withof them have to do domestic issues. Some of them have to do with foreignpolicy issues. For truman the loss of china was something the republicans used to bash his foreignpolicy and criticize him from a poor foreignpolicy perspective from a foreignpolicy perspective. 52 truman leaves office extremely unpopular but his reputation has been resurrected. Y some historians he is one of the most controversial and debated president s in American History ,hen it comes to foreignpolicy with some people blaming the cold war on him and some people saying he acted wisely and judiciously in his or her policy. I think the ultimate legacy in terms of truman have not been completely settled by historians. This is offered on our democrat line. Served in korea, not during the korean war. I saw a monument dedicated to allied troops. Could your guests talk about int role did the u. N. Play the war in korea and can he name some of the other allies that box . That thought . Fought . The u. S. Send more forces than any other country. This was a you and effort that thoughtsed troops i i forgot the exact number of countries, but it was a significant number of countries beyond United States. Reddish, canadian, australian, turkish troops i. There were some battles that these u. N. Troops played a in warding off north korea and Chinese Forces or in creating opportunities for allied forces to escape. That is a very good nt that this conflict was it was u. N. Forces at the u. N. Command. Were themerican forces largest in number, nevertheless troops from other countries that were allied with United States United States also played a very significant role, also made sacrifices, also died to protect south korea during the war. We have been learning about the korean war. Thank you for your time this morning. And do not forget on american coveragev we have live of that event about the armistices 60th anniversary. Part of the coverage you will see if you go over to cspan3 at 10 00. Part of our discussion will be on the congressional week ahead. 7 45 tomorrow we will talk with gail russelll chaddock. Aboutwe will talk municipalities. Will walk us through the process and things to be considered. M and then we will hear fromich and then we will hear from to talk about the Obama Administrations to put that the Obama Administrations plan to provide forces to syrian rebels. We will see you tomorrow. Coming up, a hearing on Guantanamo Bay prison and the implications of the potential closure. The members of the house debate amendments to the develop dealing with the data Collection Program. This is a website. It is the history of Popular Culture. It is a collection of stories on the history of Popular Culture. It is quite more than that. What i have been trying to do is go into more detail with how Popular Culture and pack impact