Housing market to collapse and his backing of the deregulation of wall street. What do you believe the deregulation of wall street pushed by people like Alan Greenspan contributed significantly to the disaster we saw on wall street several years ago . I dont personally know the extent to which deregulation drove it, but i dont believe deregulation was the proximate cause. We will speak with former financial regulator william black, author of the best way to rob a bank is to own one. And matt taibbi with this new piece, the tax secrets and lies of the bella. Par sabbai the treasury, it is all done by ex wall street people and current wall street people. Ordinary people really do not have input into any of this. Then, haiti. Three years after the earthquake that killed over 300,000 people, we speak to jonathan katz, author of, the big truck that went by how the world came to save haiti and left behind a disaster. All of that and more coming up. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman at least 120 people were killed in pakistan thursday in a series of bombing attacks mostly targeting Shiite Muslims and government soldiers. 86 deaths came in a twin bombing in the Southern City of quetta, with scores dying in initial blast followed by more deaths when a car bomb struck police and rescuers who arrived at the scene. The band citigroup claimed responsibility for the attack, prompting fears of worsening sectarian violence in pakistan after more than 400 deaths in 2012. Thursdays bombings came hours after at least six people were killed in the seventh publicly known u. S. Drone strike inside pakistan in less than two weeks. The Obama Administration has begun 2013 with a flurry of drone attacks inside pakistan, raising speculation is accelerating the bombings before its capacity to carry them out is diminished with a planned withdrawal from afghanistan by the end of next year. According to a tally by the website long war journal, u. S. Drones have already killed as many as 11 civilians and 30 suspected militants in the first 10 days of the year. Confirmed, that would mean a death ratio of more than one civilian for every three suspected militants. It would also already exceed the official civilian death toll for 2012, though that number is likely to small because u. S. Policy deems all adult males as militants unless contrary evidence emerges after their deaths. According to the washington post, the future stationing of cia bases that launch the drone strikes will be among the topics discussed by the white house and afghan president karzai during karzais current visit to washington. The Obama Administration has reportedly set its expectations low for passage of a new assault weapons ban in Congress Despite a change in National Consciousness in the aftermath of last months newtown shooting massacre. The New York Times is reporting the white house has decided it will be exceedingly difficult for the ban to make it to president obamas desk, leading administration aides to develop other gun control rules that would draw bipartisan support. The alternatives include universal background checks, more Government Research on gun violence. The white house is also reportedly considering a 50 million effort to fund the placement of hundreds of Police Officers and new surveillance equipment in public schools, a move that would resemble the National Rifle associations call for armed guards in every school. News of the proposals comes as vicepresident joe biden hosted gun industry representatives at the white house on thursday as part of his ongoing task force on u. S. Gun violence. In his remarks, biden vowed to issue its recommendation to president obama next week. With my colleagues, i am putting together a series of recommendations for the president that he will take a look at. There is a really tight window to do this. I committed to him i would have these recommendations to him by tuesday. There is a surprising, so far, is surprising recurrence of suggestions that we have universal background checks. Not just closed the gun show loophole, but total universal background checks including private sales. The meeting included officials with the nra, who quickly attacked bidens task force in a statement shortly after. The nra said a number of states have got to tackle gun violence on their own following the newtown massacre. In colorado, democratic Governor John Hickenlooper proposed thursday to require universal background checks on all state gun sales. His plan comes the day after new York Governor Andrew Cuomo called for tightening the state assault weapons ban and limiting highcapacity magazines. All this comes as yet another School Shooting occurred thursday, this time in california. A 16yearold Student Armed with a shotgun walked into his high school and fired a fellow student, leaving the victim seriously wounded. The shooter fired at another student, but missed his target. The Kern County Police sheriff said he was carrying multiple rounds of shotgun ammunition. There was an active shooter that did not show up for school this morning for first period, then interrupted the class halfway through it, armed with a shotgun. He fired the first run, striking another student. The student is at the hospital in critical condition. He is stable. He then tried to engage the second student that he named and tried to shoot him and missed. The teacher was trying to get the students out of the classroom and engaged the shooter who had numerous rounds of luggage of shotgun shells in his pockets. And engage the student or the suspect in conversation. According to fellow students, the shooter previously had been bullied by other students that have been expelled after was discovered he kept a hit list of people he wanted to target. Meanwhile in colorado, a judge has ordered shooting suspect james holmes to stand trial for killing 12 people and wounding dozens more at an Aurora Movie Theater in july. Holmes is set to appear in court today, but is unlikely to issue a plea. His attorneys say he is suffering from an unspecified mental illness. Evidence emerged a Pretrial Hearing this week that holmes took pictures of themselves posing with his firearms before the attack took place. Outside the courtroom, relatives of two of the shooting victims though spoke out about seeing holmes in person. It was very emotional for a lot of us. I think this whole time he has been detached. He looked very disheveled in court today. He basically looked very disinterested. Honestly, you sit and look at a person and when you see there is no humanity left anymore . You dont look at him as a person, you really dont i took a glimpse at him. I dont feel hate or anger toward him, a just dont feel anything for him. The federal government has unveiled new restrictions on the highrisk home loans that pushed millions into foreclosure and helped spark the financial crisis. The Consumer FinancialProtection Bureau announced new rules thursday permitting lenders forbidding lenders from issuing mortgages to those ill positioned to repay the loan and preventing inducements for borrowers to take on crushing debt. In a statement, the bureaus director said has nominateda another former wall street to become a replacement for to the to the geithner. When the history books are written, tim geithner is going to go down as one of our finest secretaries of the treasury. Jack has my complete trust. I know i am not alone. In the words of one former senator, having him on your team is equivalent as a coach have in the luxury of putting some of the at almost any position and he will do well. I could not agree more. I hope the senate will confirm him as quickly as possible. Lew was an executive at citigroup from 20062008, at a time the financial crisis, and then along time proponent of deregulation wall street. More after headlines. The pastor selected to deliver the benediction at president obama is an operation later this month has withdrawn following an uproar over antilgbtq comments he made in the 1990s. The rev. Had come under opposition after it was revealed he called on christians to fight what he called the lgbtq movements aggressive agenda. The Inauguration Committee said it was unaware of the pastors prior stance at the time he was elected. A new study has found up to half of all food worldwide is going to waste. Britains institution of mechanical engineers says at least 1. 2 billion of the 4 billion tons of food produced each year is thrown out due to problems with harvesting, transporting and storage, as well as wasteful behavior from sellers and consumers. The report calls food wastage the findings come as nations across the globe continue to grapple with soaring food prices. Brendan cox of the group save the children said the soaring food costs threaten to cause more unnecessary deaths. There is a new normal of the food crisis. And the last year we have seen wheat increased by 25 . Already around 3 million children die every year as a result of malnutrition. What could happen next year could make the situation much worse. Fears of a spike in food prices have run after a long standing drought prompted the Obama Administration to declare a Natural Disaster in large parts of the midwest. Conditions in the courtroom and we producing states kansas, colorado, oklahoma, and taxes continue to be the worst on record. Thousands of people rallied in venezuela thursday to mark what would have been the swearingin of ailing president hugo chavez. The inauguration has been delayed while he remains in the hospital following his fourth cancer surgery. The Vice President adjust the supporters. Addressed the supporters. 30 days have passed since the operation of our commander hugo chavez, and at this very moment, as you know, he is fighting a battle. We tell him from here, commander, easy, keep up your battle. You have a revolutionary people. While the Venezuelan Supreme Court has ruled chavez is still president despite missing his swearingin, the opposition is calling for a caretaker government to and new elections. Two Democratic Congress members are planning to walmart ceo was f oreallocations supporting the retail expansion of walmart as early as 2005. Two show walmart internationals general counsel emails duke and other executives about specific bribes for the opening of a number of stores in november 2005, contradicting walmart claims its top officials were unaware. In a letter, the Congress Members wrote the Justice Department is currently investigating whether walmart violated the foreign corrupt practices act, which makes it a crime for american corporations to bribe foreign officials. You can go to democracynow. Org to see our interview with pulitzer prizewinner david barstow. The entire faculty of the seattle Area High School has voted to refuse giving students a standardized test used in teacher evaluations. A unanimous decision that is like the the first of its kind in the nation, teachers at Garfield High School said the math tests are a waste of time, money, and resources that are then unfairly used to grade their performance. Today is not just about testing in general. It is about a particularly flawed test. I just see no use for it at all. So i am not going to do it. Riding on her website, former bush assistant secretary of education Diane Ravitch said the vote could have National Ramifications for showing teachers nominations for the 85th Academy Awards were unveiled thursday. The documentary Category Features three films featured on democracy now the invisible war, how to survive a plate, and five broken cameras. Those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman with juan gonzalez. Welcome to all our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. President obama is facing criticism for nominating another former wall street executive to become treasury secretary. Thursday, obama tapped his own chief of staff jack lew to replace Timothy Geithner air. Lew was an executive at citigroup from 2006 to 2008 at the time of the financial crisis. He served as chief operating officer of citigroups alternative Investments Unit a group that bet on the Housing Market to collapse. Lew has long pushed for the deregulation of wall street. From 1998 to january 2001 he headed the office of management and budget under president clinton. During that time, clinton signed into law two key laws to deregulate wall street the Financial Services modernization act of 1999 and the commodity futures monitored his asian act of 2000. On thursday, independent senator of vermont Bernie Sanders criticized the nomination saying at a press conference at the white house thursday, president obama praised the record of jack lew. Jack has the distinction of having worked and succeeded in some of the toughest jobs in washington and privatesector. As a congressional staffer in the 1980s, he helped negotiate the deal between president reagan and tip oneill to save social security. And president clinton, he presided over three budget surpluses in a row. So for all the talk out there about deficitreduction, making sure our books are balanced, this is the guy who did it. Three times. He helped oversee one of our nations finest universities and one of our largest investments. In my administration, his managed operations for the state department and the budget for the entire executive branch. Over the past year, i have sought his advice on virtually every decision ive made from Economic Policy to foreign policy. For more on the nomination of jack lew as well as other news about wall street, were joined by william black, author of the best way to rob a bank is to own one. He is an associate professor of economics and law. His recent article for the Huffington Post is called, jacob lew another brick in the wall street on the potomac. Were also joined by matt taibbi, contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine. His latest piece, secrets allies of the bailout, which we will talk about in a bit. He is author of, griftopia a story of bankers, politicians, and the most audacious power grab in american hisotry. Professor black, your assessment of jack lew . On financial matters, jack lew has been a failure of pretty epic proportions. He gets promoted precisely because he is willing to be a failure, and is a useful to wall street interests. So you have mentioned two of the things in terms of most important and most destructive deregulation under president clinton by statute. But he was also there for much of the regulation by rule and strong proponent of it, and he was there for much of the cutting of staff, for example, the fdic lost threequarters of its staff and a huge loss began under clinton. And the whole reinventing government, lou was a strong supporter of that. We were taught, instructed by washington that we were to refer to banks as our clients and our role as regulators, and to think of them as clients. He goes from there to wall street where he was a complete failure. You noted that part of what citicorp did was a bet that housing would fall. That is one of their winning bets. The action made a bunch of losing bets as well. And the unit he was heading would have not been permissible but for the deregulation of getting rid of glasssteagall under president clinton. And you saw as an example of citicorp why we should not be doing this. Why would we create a federal subsidy where all of us through the u. S. Government are on the hook for citicorps gambling on Financial Derivatives for its own account . Running a casino operation. That makes no Public Policy sense. Then he comes in to the Obama Administration and he was disastrously wrong. He tried very hard to impose austerity on the United States back in 2011, which he wanted european strategy which has pushed the eurozone back into recession. Spain, greece, and italy are in Great Depression levels. Great depression levels of unemployment this guy is also intellectually dishonest. He will not own up to his role in the regulations role in producing this crisis. Not just this crisis, but the enronera crisis and the savingsandloan debacle. Matt taibbi, your reaction to the nomination of jack lew by president obama . I agree with everything professor black said. The symbolism of this choice i think its important for people. Just the mere fact of picking somebody from citigroup and from the same nexus that Timothy Geithner came from. You heard barack obama as he was introducing jack lew, praising Timothy Geithner as someone who will go down in history as one of the great treasure secretaries of all time. I think what this tells everybody is jack lew was one represent absolute continuity with the previous treasury secretary who had a very specific agenda when it came to wall streets. I think were going to expect more of the same, more of the same really being over and covert backing of these institutions that were too