President Obama on the Tonight Show: Transcript, Video (3-19-09)

This is the transcript for the program as provided by the White House. Excerpt and video below:

MR. LENO: And that was it. Big change?

MR. OBAMA: You know, I was mentioning earlier, we landed yesterday and then –- this is an example of life in the bubble. We landed at the fairground down in Costa Mesa. And I see the fairground where I think we're having this town hall and I said, well, why don't we walk over there? Secret Service says, no, sir, it's 750 yards. (Laughter.)


So I was trying to calculate –- well, that's like a five-minute walk? "Yes, sir. Sorry." (Laughter.)

Now, they let me walk on the way back. But, you know, the doctor is behind me with the defibrillator. (Laughter.)

MR. LENO: Wow.

MR. OBAMA: Michelle jokes about how our motorcade –- you know, we've got the ambulance and then the caboose and then the dog sled. (Laughter.) The submarine. (Laughter.) There's a whole bunch of stuff going on.

MR. LENO: Now it's only, what, 59 days now, right?

MR. OBAMA: Yes, 59 days.

MR. LENO: And so much scrutiny. Is it fair to judge so quickly? I mean –-

MR. OBAMA: Well, look, we are going through a difficult time. I welcome the challenge. You know, I ran for President because I thought we needed big changes. I do think in Washington it's a little bit like "American Idol," except everybody is Simon Cowell. (Laughter.)

MR. LENO: Wow. Wow. That's rough. (Applause.)

MR. OBAMA: Everybody's got an opinion. But that's part of what makes for a democracy. You know, it's contentious and people are hitting back.

I do think, though, that the American people are all in a place where they understand it took us a while to get into this mess, it's going to take a while for us to get out of it. And if they have confidence that I'm making steps to deal with issues like health care and energy and education, that matter deeply to their daily lives, then I think they're going to give us some time. (Applause.)

MR. LENO: Let me ask you about this. I know you are angry –- because, you know, doing what I do, you kind of study body language a little bit. And you looked very angry about these bonuses. Actually, stunned.

MR. OBAMA: Stunned. "Stunned" is the word.

MR. LENO: Tell people what happened. I know people have been over it, just –-

MR. OBAMA: Well, look, here's what happened. You've got a company, AIG, which used to be just a regular, old insurance company. Then they insured a whole bunch of stuff and they were very profitable and it was a good, solid company.

Then they decided –- some smart person decided, let's put a hedge fund on top of the insurance company and let's sell these derivative products to banks all around the world –- which are basically guarantees or insurance policies on all these sub-prime mortgages.

And this smart person said, you know, none of these things are going to go bust; this sub-prime thing, it's a great deal, you can make a lot of profit. So they sold a whole bunch of them –- billions and billions of dollars. And what happened is, is that when people started going bust on sub-prime mortgages you had $30 worth of debt on every dollar worth of mortgage –- and the whole house of cards just started falling down.

So the problem with AIG was that it owed so much and was tangled up with so many banks and institutions that if you had allowed it to just liquidate, to go into bankruptcy, it could have brought the whole financial system down. So it was the right thing to do to intervene in AIG.

Now, the question is, who in their right mind, when your company is going bust, decides we're going to be paying a whole bunch of bonuses to people? And that, I think, speaks to a broader culture that existed on Wall Street, where I think people just had this general attitude of entitlement, where, we must be the best and the brightest, we deserve $10 million or $50 million or $100 million dollar payouts.

MR. LENO: Right.

MR. OBAMA: And, you know, the immediate bonuses that went to AIG are a problem. But the larger problem is we've got to get back to an attitude where people know enough is enough, and people have a sense of responsibility and they understand that their actions are going to have an impact on everybody. And if we can get back to those values that built America, then I think we're going to be okay.

Markos Moulitsas on 'Countdown': Transcript (3-17-09)

The star of Daily Kos appeared with Keith Olbermann on Countdown. Read the full transcript of the show. Entire interview below:

OLBERMANN: The problem with a good conspiracy theory is that inevitably somebody blabs. However, as we continue Know Your Top Five Bill-O and Goldie Left Wing Smear Merchants week with our guest Markos Moulitsas, number three, the Daily Kos, there is the surprise in our third story tonight, a left-wing conspiracy so well policed that it includes Rachel Maddow, David Shuster, the “New York Times” and me. And I only found about it this morning from a right-wing blog.

The reality of this, as reported at Politico.com, quote, “for the past two years, several hundred left leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off the record, online meeting space called JournoList. Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy? Not at all says Ezra Klein, the 24 year old ‘American Prospect‘ blogging wonder kind, who formed JournoList in February 2007. Basically, he says, it‘s just a list where journalists and policy wonks can discuss issues freely.”

Other so-called J-Listers also commented to Politico, characterizing their exchanges in a similar fashion. But from the right wing blog RedState.com and a man named Erick Erickson comes this, “Politico this morning shows the left has moved into a secret email list serve, where left wing bloggers, policy guys and journalists collaborate online to form news stories that inevitably skew to the left.”

Wait, it gets better than this. “I‘m told such luminaries as David Shuster at MSNBC, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, a host of “New York Times” magazine writers, Frank Rich and others all collaborate on this list.”

Your told? Your told by what, a voice in your own head? Checked with David and Rach. None of us are on the list. I had never even heard of it until somebody told me about the RedState not. Rachel had not heard about it until I asked her about this afternoon. Now that‘s a secret left-wing conspiracy. It‘s so secret the people who are in it don‘t even know they‘re in it.

Besides which, everybody knows I take my instructions from our next guest, the founder and publisher of DailyKos.com, Markos Moulitsas. Good evening, Markos. Congratulations on being number three on the list.

MARKOS MOULITSAS: Thanks so much. Glad to be here.

OLBERMANN: We‘ll get to that Bill-O list in a moment. First, something else from Red State. “I‘m told quite reliably, I might add, that left wing bloggers and policy guys use this site as an express train to get their ideas into the mainstream media. The questions now are, who all is on the list, what hit jobs have come through this list?”

So the JournoList thing gets magnified into a permanent record of some sort of what everybody on the left is doing when we all have this groupthink. Or should we be surprised that this is the interpretation of this by the right?

MOULITSAS: I don‘t think it‘s surprising at all, actually. You have a situation where the right has been completely discredited. And they‘re casting about it for reasons, because as we know, conservatism doesn‘t fail. It can only be failed. So if it‘s not them, then what could it be? Apparently, it‘s these conspiracy theories.

OLBERMANN: So is that the same sort of thinking that—that it must be failed? That there‘s some trickery involved if the conservatives don‘t win that got you number three on the O‘Reilly/Goldberg list? Or do you actually deserve to be there? And have you already in fact celebrated your success?

MOULITSAS: I always celebrate. I mean I looked for—I looked on as O‘Reilly attacked you for years and turned you into this ratings powerhouse on MSNBC, so I thought, I could use a little bit of O‘Reilly love. I‘m glad that he‘s actually delivered some of that.

But I think there is a conspiracy and it goes like this: I wake up in morning and I check out Youtube clips of Bill O‘Reilly screaming at his audience, and I see Glenn Beck crying on his show.

OLBERMANN: Yes.

MOULITSAS: And I think—and I go on my blog, and I write, did you catch these idiots last night? And then somebody else—this is very nefarious. Somebody else also sees those clips, and they also write about what a bunch of morons Fox News is featuring that night. And suddenly you have some kind of collusion. It‘s all very insidious.

OLBERMANN: At no point is the actual shock of the event, these, you know, perpetual repetitions of the Hindenburg disaster that we see. At no point are these credited as being part of this equation. But there is another possibility here, isn‘t it? That there‘s an assumption that there is a left-wing conspiracy, because there has, in fact, been a right-wing conspiracy, that there are talking points that used to come out of the White House, obviously not anymore.

But that entire news days were built around this little cheat sheet that a lot—several guys put out. One being John Moody at Fox News. And they all followed it like it was the tablets, with Moses coming down from the mountain.

MOULITSAS: Yes, absolutely. And I don‘t begrudge them for doing that. They‘ve been very effective for decades by pushing out this conservative message to the masses, by being on message and unified in pushing out that message, across various media, radio, television, the Internet, and so on.

So I totally see this as a case of projection. The fact of the matter is people like me get too much e-mail already. I‘m sure you get enough e-mails. Do you really need to be on another list of someone tell you what to think, when we can think for ourselves, thank you very much.

OLBERMANN: Plus, we don‘t have time to read all of these e-mails that we‘re getting. The bottom line, people think what, they‘re vampires, they never sleep. While we have you here, let me ask you about something of substance in the news that has not gotten the attention that it deserves nationally. The latest of the endless series of the Norm Coleman defenses in this litigation against the man who beat him for the Minnesota Senate seat, Al Franken. Jon Cornyn of Texas is now citing Bush v. Gore. What does Bush v. Gore have to do with Coleman v. reality?

MOULITSAS: Well, Bush v. Gore was obviously a partisan hack ruling that was so bad and so unconstitutional that the Supreme Court itself, the majority said, don‘t ever cite this decision ever again, because they knew it was very poor legal under-pinnings. But it was a hacked partisan decision designed to make sure that their favorite candidate, George Bush, won the presidency.

Now, of course, Republicans are very, very much desperate. They want to hold onto that Minnesota seat. This is going to be seat number 59 for the Democrats. They‘re doing everything they can. And they are praying for their own hacked partisan rule from the courts. They‘re not going to get it. It‘s only a matter of time before Al Franken is actually seated and is rightfully called Senator Al Franken.

OLBERMANN: Good thing too. Markos Moulitsas, the founder and publisher of Daily Kos, number three on the list of the top three left wing smear merchants. Thank you and don‘t forget to send me my email full of marching orders in the morning.

MOULITSAS: Absolutely. Thanks so much.

Make AIG Pay it Back

The politicians are now posturing when they shouldn't have been giving out bailouts without strings attached in the first place. But the Senator is expressing the sentiment of the American people.

Sen. Charles Grassley is so angry over AIG bonuses that he says the executives should resign or kill themselves.

In a comment aired this afternoon on WMT, an Iowa radio station, Grassley (R-Iowa) said: “The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them if they’d follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things — resign, or go commit suicide.”


The radio clip was also aired on WTOP, a news radio station in Washington.

In response to a POLITICO inquiry, Grassley spokeswoman Jill Gerber clarified Grassley’s comments, saying “clearly he was speaking rhetorically – he meant there’s no culture of shame and acceptance of responsibility for driving a company into the dirt in this country. If you asked him whether he really wants AIG executives to commit suicide, he’d say of course not.”

“Point being, U.S. corporate executives are unapologetic about running their companies adrift, accepting billions of tax dollars to help, and then spending those tax dollars on travel, huge bonuses, etc,” Gerber said.

Grassley’s statement was the most over the top among the many expressions of outrage Monday, as the White House and Congress struggle to figure out how to recoup $165 million in bonuses from AIG, which has received more than $170 billion in federal bailout funds.

“With millions of Americans out of work, staying up nights trying to figure out how to make this week’s paycheck last until the next, wondering how they’ll make the next mortgage payment or pay the overdue tuition bill, these executive bonuses are beyond outrageous,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joined the chorus, saying the bonuses were “appalling.”

Even FOX hosts are chiming in:

VAN SUSTEREN: [...]when Congress handed over this dough, they should have looked into it. You know, they do these things. They rush this stuff through, and they never take a look at it. I mean, they should have looked to see what the bonus payments were going to be.

WOLOSKY: Absolutely. You know, there are executive compensation limits and clawback provisions in the TARP bill that was passed, but we just don't see them being applied in this situation. And I think the president was right today to call for these payments to cease. You know, as you know, AIG is trying to get even more executive compensation, bonus compensation, from our client, Star (ph) International. It's really a situation, which as the president said and Larry Summers said, is outrageous.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, this wasn't -- this wasn't even done under President Obama's watch. This was done under Congress. And Congress was just plain stupid. They never -- or sloppy, one or the other. That's my term, not yours.

This Bloomberg columnist gets it right:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is unhappy that American International Group Inc. is paying tens of millions in bonus payments to some of its traders.

So why doesn’t he forbid them?

The company says it’s afraid of being sued. But contrary to what lawyers and legalistic bureaucrats will tell you, there are worse things than lawsuits. Stiffing taxpayers to pay gluttonous derivatives traders -- and in the midst of an economic crisis -- is among them. To judge by his recent comments, even President Barack Obama is looking for a way to cancel the bonuses. Besides, this is a lawsuit the government just might win.

AIG is doling out $165 million to traders in the very group that caused the company to fail. The payments are part of a $450 million bonus pool that AIG agreed to early last year, when it was beginning to take on water, and when it feared that high- flying traders would jump ship.

Since then, AIG has been bailed out four times by the federal government. The taxpayers have provided AIG with $173 billion in investment and loans. That’s enough money to run the entire state of New Jersey for six years.

Although other companies have gone on the federal dole, of all the government’s corporate stepchildren, AIG is making the least progress.

Citigroup Inc., which got three bailouts, at least operated at a profit during January and February, according to its chief executive officer, Vikram Pandit. Morgan Stanley, which got a bank charter last September, is off the critical list. But the news at AIG keeps getting worse.

Worst Outrage

Ben Bernanke, the normally even-tempered Federal Reserve chairman, has said he is fuming over the way the regulated insurer used its high-rated balance sheet to run a hedge fund- type operation that helped to derail Wall Street. Lawrence Summers, the president’s top economic aide, says of all the outrages, AIG is the worst.

So why is the government allowing AIG to use its taxpayer lifeline to pay seven-figure bonuses? Seven employees will get at least $3 million and one will get $6.5 million. What kind of company pays such bonuses for a year in which it lost $99 billion -- the biggest loss ever by a U.S. corporation?

Just as outrageous is the fact that some foreign banks are getting some of that AIG bailout money:

I added up the various lists provided by AIG by country (see below), and the results were quite revealing. About $44 billion went to counterparties headquartered in the U.S., such as Goldman Sachs and states such as California and Virginia.

But as I expected, the majority of the funds—$58 billion—went to banks headquartered outside the U.S. The big winners were French and German banks, which pulled in $19 billion and $17 billion respectively.

To put these numbers in perspective, remember that the U.S. fiscal stimulus bill passed in February provided only $27.5 billion for highway and bridge construction.

In effect, the U.S. Treasury and Fed have been bailing out the rest of the world, to a massive degree. Is this a good thing? Perhaps.

But the U.S. cannot be the banker for the entire world. Now that the list are public knowledge, Congress is going to balk at providing any more open-ended financing for foreign counterparties. We are faced a global crisis, and it can only be solved through global action.

Cheney Unapologetic in CNN Interview: Transcript (3-15-09)

This man should be on trial not appearing on some news program. Read the Full Transcript. Excerpt below:

KING: There are people I assume watching this interview right now, and people in this town who would say, why should we listen to you? And they would say that because of the context of the Bush administration numbers.

They would say, you know, what did you do when you were in charge?

And they have some numbers to back up their case. And I want to show some to our viewers When you came to office, the unemployment rate in the country was 4.2 percent, when you left it was 7.6 percent.

The number of Americans in poverty when you arrived, just under 33 million, over 37 million when you left. The number without health insurance, a little over 41 million when you came, over 45 million approaching 46 million when you left.

And you came with a budget surplus of $128 billion and in the final year, the budget deficit was a record $1.3 trillion. So what would you say to someone out there watching this who is saying, why should they listen to you?

CHENEY: Well, there are all kinds of arguments to be made on that point. But there's something that is more important than the specific numbers you're talking about, and that had to be priority for our administration.

Eight months after we arrived, we had 9/11. We had 3,000 Americans killed one morning by al Qaeda terrorists here in the United States. We immediately had to go into the wartime mode. We ended up with two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of that is still very active. We had major problems with respect to things like Katrina, for example. All of these things required us to spend money that we had not originally planned to spend, or weren't originally part of the budget.

Stuff happens. And the administration has to be able to respond to that, and we did.

I think it's also -- you talked the unemployment...

KING: But you're a conservative administration, spending more than

$1 trillion.

(CROSSTALK)

CHENEY: We always said -- I always said that wartime scenario is cause for an exception in terms of spending. It was appropriate in World War II, certainly, and I think it's appropriate now.

KING: I want you to listen to something one of the president's top economic advisers, Larry Summers, said, at the close of last week, trying to explain to the American people how he thinks we got into this financial mess. Let's listen to Larry Summers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUMMERS: This is the paradox at the heart of financial crisis. If, in the last few years, we've seen too much greed and too little fear, too much spending and not enough saving, too much borrowing, and not enough worrying, today, our problem is very different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Do you accept that analysis of what happened?

CHENEY: No, not really. I think there's no question but what there is an element of concern out there now in the country because of what's happened in the stock market, partly. People with their savings being diminished because of the state of the economy, reluctant to spend, trying to hang on to everything they can, and, naturally, it results in a slower level of economic growth.

A couple of points that need to be made here, John. One is this is a global problem. This isn't something that happened just in the Bush administration or just in the United States. We are in the midst of a worldwide economic period of considerable difficulty here. So I think in terms of trying to assess it and trying to fix it and address it, it's important to understand that. It doesn't do just to go back and say, well, George Bush was president and that is why everything is screwed up, because that is simply not true.

KING: I think some people do go back to that, sir, and say, understanding that. And the Democrats were in charge the last two years of your administration. That's a point that should be made. And you're right, other governments around the world have been caught up in this.

But I think some Americans say, wait a minute, he was the MBA. Dick Cheney was the veteran Washington insider and a CEO who came back into government. How could they have not seen this coming? Was everybody, not just the administration -- I'm not trying to pin this on the Republicans -- but was the White House, everybody in Congress, regardless of party, leaders around the world so caught up in the boom that they had blinders on and didn't see the warning signs?

CHENEY: I think so. I don't recall, you know, sort of a general warning of concern until things started to turn -- turn south on us.

I do remember, and I mentioned earlier, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As best I can tell, from looking at the evidence, the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was one of the key ingredients that caused the subsequent financial problem and economic recession. We did try, earlier in the administration, to impose reforms on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and we ran into a stone wall on Capitol Hill in the form of the chairmen and -- of the Banking Committee in the House and the Senate, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. The Democrats absolutely opposed any effort to reform those two institutions, and I think the collapse of those two institutions, as much as anything, contributed to the financial difficulties we've been living with since.

KING: I want to move on to other issues after a break, but before we go to the break, any regrets about the financial bailout package that started in your administration? The Obama administration is building on it. They say they are fixing some things they thought went wrong in the Bush administration, but I know hindsight is easy, but looking back now from outside of the government, was it a mistake? Should you have let the market run its course and let some of those institutions you deemed too big to fail to let them fail? Would that have been a better course than where we are now?

CHENEY: I don't think so. And I think you've got to remember, we were talking here about financial institutions. And the federal government is -- does have the lead responsibility for those financial institutions. That's what the Federal Reserve is part of. That's what the FDIC does. That's what we do with budgets and treasury functions and so forth.

Those financial powers and responsibilities belong to the federal government. If the system is bad, if it freezes up, the only one that can fix that is the federal government. That's different than getting into the industrial sector of the economy or necessarily the housing sector or other parts of the economy.

And I believe, as much as a conservative as I am in limited government, I did believe that with respect to the financial problems we had, when the credit market seized up, only the federal government could address those issues.

Meet The Press Transcript (3-15-09)

On the program the Republican Congressman, Eric Kantor, demonstrates hypocrisy on the budget and the deficits:

REP. CANTOR: David, David, the Republicans will have a plan. We had a stimulus plan. You know, part of the problem with being in the minority is, David, that sometimes your colleagues in the press don't want to cover the ideas that the minority has. We had a plan on the stimulus. It was, it was tailored to small business tax relief. It was focused on what a stimulus plan should be, which is the preservation, protection and creation of jobs. And what we see in this president's budget is, is a lack of that kind of focus. I mean, what we're talking about with him is, is trying to address the energy situation, the health care situation. And you heard Dr. Romer here just today say if we can look long term, these short-term problems will just fix themselves. Well, that's not true. When you sit here and advocate long term, an energy tax and a tax that some have some have said will amount to about $3,000 per household of four, that means everybody that pays an electric bill will have an additional tax, everybody that pays a gas bill will have a tax, everybody that buys anything manufactured in this country will essentially have an $800 per man, woman and child tax. How is that something that will help create jobs in this economy? Again, they're trying to do entirely too much and not focus on the job at hand, which is to get these credit markets working again and have small business create jobs again.

MR. GREGORY: There's a concern about spending in this budget that you and other Republicans have talked about. And yet this was John McCain, the--obviously the standard-bearer of the party, the presidential candidate in 2008. Back in 2007, this is what he said about the Republicans.

(Videotape, May 15, 2007)

SEN. McCAIN: We didn't lose the 2006 election because of the war in Iraq. We lost it because we in Republican Party came to Washington to change government and government changed us. We let spending go out of control. We spent money like a drunken sailor.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Where was all the concern about fiscal conservatism and reining in spending from you and your Republican colleagues during the Bush years?

REP. CANTOR: Well, well, listen, David, if you're asking could we have done better, absolutely. If you're asking us did we blow it in terms of restoring fiscal sanity into this system, absolutely. But that doesn't give now the Democrats in power in this town to go in and repeat the mistakes that perhaps we may have committed in the past. You know, you look at this budget, how can it be that they claim that they're balancing the budget when they are doubling the debt, when they are increasing the deficit to record levels of a trillion, seven hundred billion dollars this year? How is it that, that that is a fiscally sane plan? We've got to remember...

MR. GREGORY: Did you oppose President Bush's budgets that increased the deficit or the debt?

REP. CANTOR: Well, David, we were in a time where I think the priority then was to make sure that we could deliver the money for our troops. And I joined along with Democrats on, on the other side of the aisle as well as my colleagues on mine to say the most important thing we needed to do at the time was to support the efforts of our military to insure our national security.

MR. GREGORY: So it was OK to, to support deficit spending at wartime, but it's not OK now during an economic crisis, when Warren Buffett calls that the equivalent of Pearl Harbor?

REP. CANTOR: Listen, I, I, I--there is no question that priority one has to be to restore the confidence in this economy, and, and we must do that which we have to do. But when you're talking about the type of budget--and look, look, over the last 50 days we have passed the stimulus bill, we have passed the omnibus spending bill. And it is striking to see the lack of change in that bill, the type of waste and pork barrel spending, the earmarks that exist in that bill. You've got that train from Disneyland to Las Vegas, you have, you know, you have other things like the, the money that goes to remove pig, pig odor.

MR. GREGORY: All right.

REP. CANTOR: I mean, come on.

MR. GREGORY: How many earmarks have you supported...

REP. CANTOR: Well...

MR. GREGORY: ...in the time in Congress?

REP. CANTOR: Well, I mean, I...

MR. GREGORY: Because Democrats provide data saying that you voted for more than 46,000 earmarks. Is that wrong?

REP. CANTOR: Well, in terms of the votes and the budgets in the past, clearly. But I for one, along with our leader, John Boehner, have said we ought to all embrace a moratorium on earmarks so we can get the process working again.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

REP. CANTOR: And we're looking to President Obama. You know, he did promise, he said he'd come to Washington to get rid of the pork barrel spending. We saw him sign the omnibus spending bill without doing anything of the sort. And what I would say to him is we will work hard to sustain his veto if he will, you know, keep--deliver on his promise that he made. We'll work to help sustain his veto on these pork barrel spending bills. And frankly, if he wants to look at some of the things that he's already signed into law, we'll work as well with him to try and rescind some of those expenditures.

MR. GREGORY: But, but isn't the problem in the, in the public's mind, Republicans are calling for things now that they didn't actually do during the Bush years? And you look at some of the polling, here's our recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll: Which party would do a better job of getting the U.S. out of a recession? It's the Democrats that have, by a 48 to 20 percent margin, the advantage in terms of people's confidence. What do you do to change that as the minority party?

REP. CANTOR: Well, I mean, listen, as the minority party, I think part of our job is to be the honest opposition. And we also, I think, are charged with the task of bringing President Obama back to the center. That's what bipartisanship is about and, frankly, that's what the solutions are going to be about going forward. And what we see is very troubling given the last 50 days and the direction of the ideology of this administration and, frankly, of Speaker Pelosi and others in Congress. We've seen the failure of that ideology in the '70s in Great Britain, in the '80s in France. We, we understand in this country, I believe, that we're about free markets, we're about individual freedoms, and that is what our goal is. And when you apply that to the budget that we're going to be discussing over the next couple weeks, we've got a job to do. I mean, because I don't think that the American people are going to embrace this budget. I think you've seen the news reports that the administration now is on an all-out campaign to beef up the support for their budget. If it was a sane budget, I don't think you'd have to have some kind of multitiered campaign plan to get people behind it. It'd sell itself.

- Read the full show transcript

AIG Thumbs It's Nose at the American Taypayer, Congress

Is this what the bailout means? Apparently, it's business as usual for big business. This time they are using the American taxpayer to line their pockets directly--with the help of Congress. Just call the government Uncle Sucker. What is President Obama going to do about this outrage? Will he allow them to get away with it? Once again it becomes perfectly clear that the two parties do not give a damn about America:

Despite being bailed out with more than $170 billion from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, the American International Group is preparing to pay about $100 million in bonuses to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.

An official in the Obama administration said Saturday that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner had called A.I.G.’s government-appointed chairman, Edward M. Liddy, on Wednesday and asked that the company renegotiate the bonuses.

Administration officials said they had managed to reduce some of the bonuses but had allowed most of them to go forward after the company’s chief executive said A.I.G. was contractually obligated to pay them.

In a letter to Mr. Geithner, Mr. Liddy wrote: “Needless to say, in the current circumstances, I do not like these arrangements and find it distasteful and difficult to recommend to you that we must proceed with them.”

The bonuses will be paid to executives at American International Group’s Financial Products division, the unit that wrote trillions of dollars’ worth of credit-default swaps that protected investors from defaults on bond backed by subprime mortgages.

An A.I.G. spokeswoman said the company had no comment beyond the text of the letter.

In his letter to the Treasury, Mr. Liddy said A.I.G. hoped to reduce its retention bonuses for 2009 by 30 percent. He said the top 25 executives at the Financial Products division had also agreed to reduce their salary for the rest of 2009 to $1.

But Mr. Liddy defended the need to continue paying bonuses if A.I.G. was going to unwind the rest of its disastrous mortgage-related business at the lowest possible cost to taxpayers.

“We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury,” he wrote Mr. Geithner. The government owns nearly 80 percent of the company.

The bonuses were first reported by The Washington Post.

Of all the financial institutions that have been propped up by taxpayer dollars, none has received more money than A.I.G. and none has infuriated lawmakers more with practices that policy makers have called reckless.

Mr. Liddy, whom Federal Reserve and Treasury officials recruited after A.I.G. faltered last September and received its first round of bailout money, said the bonuses and “retention pay” had been agreed to in early 2008 and were for the most part legally required.

The company told the Treasury that there were two categories of bonus payments, with the first to be given to senior executives. The administration official said Mr. Geithner had told A.I.G. to revise them to protect taxpayer dollars and tie future payments to performance.

The second group of bonuses cover some 2008 retention payments from contracts entered into before government involvement in A.I.G. that the company says it is legally obligated to fulfill. The official said Treasury concluded that those contracts could not be broken.

Indeed, in his letter to Mr. Geithner, Mr. Liddy wrote that he had shown the details of the $450 million bonus pool to outside lawyers and been told that A.I.G. had no choice but to follow through with the payment schedule.

A.I.G. did cut other bonuses, he explained in the letter, but those were part of the compensation for people who dealt in other parts of the company and had no direct involvement with the derivatives.

Ever since it was to be bailed out by the government last fall, A.I.G. has been defending itself against accusations that it was richly compensating people who caused what might be the biggest financial crisis in American history.

A.I.G.’s main business is insurance, but it had a unit called A.I.G. Financial Products that sold hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of derivatives — the notorious credit-default swaps that nearly toppled the entire company last fall.

In his letter to the Treasury, Mr. Liddy said that A.I.G. was required to pay about $165 million in bonuses on or before March 15. The company had already paid $55 million in December, but the rest was about to come due.

The bonus plan covers 400 employees, and the bonuses range from as little as $1,000 to as much as $6.5 million. About seven executives at the financial products unit were entitled to receive more than $3 million in bonuses.

Ex-WWE Champ, Andrew Martin, Found Dead at 33

You can bet that it's steroids related. We need to do a better job of educating the public on how harmful steroids are to the human body. Martin was only 33 years old.

Authorities say former professional wrestler Andrew Martin, who was known as "Test" and "The Punisher" to fans, has died at his Tampa home. He was 33.

The former World Wrestling Entertainment champion was found dead at his apartment Friday night. Police say a neighbor reported that she could see into his apartment window and that Martin appeared motionless for several hours.

Police say there was no indication of foul play. A cause of death will be determined after an autopsy.

During his time with Stamford, Conn.-based World Wrestling Entertainment, Martin held the Intercontinental, European and Hardcore belts. He was also a tag-team champion.

Other wrestlers died under similar circumstances.

Steroids played a role in the deaths of several pro wrestlers since 1997, according to medical examiners, family members and the wrestlers themselves, including:

• Curt Hennig, 44, died of acute cocaine intoxication in February 2003, medical records show. But his father said last year that a lethal combination of steroids and painkillers contributed to his death.

•"The British Bulldog," Davey Boy Smith, 39,died in 2002 in Canada of an enlarged heart with evidence of microscopic scar tissue, possibly from steroid abuse, a coroner said. "Davey paid the price with steroid cocktails and human-growth hormones," says Bruce Hart, a veteran trainer who worked with Smith and was his brother-in-law.

•Louie "Spicolli" Mucciolo, 27, died from coronary disease in his San Pedro, Calif., home in 1998, according to his autopsy. Investigators found an empty vial of the male hormone testosterone, pain pills and an anxiety-reducing drug. The Los Angeles County coroner's office determined the drugs might have contributed to his heart condition.

•Richard "Ravishing Rick Rude" Rood, 40, died from an overdose of "mixed medications" in Alpharetta, Ga., in 1999, his autopsy shows. In 1994 he testified that he had used anabolic steroids to build muscle mass and relieve joint pain.

•"Flyin' "Brian Pillman, 35, was taking painkillers and human-growth hormones when he died from heart disease in 1997, his widow said several years ago. Investigators found empty bottles of painkillers near his body in a Minnesota hotel room.

We've already forgotten about Chris Benoit:

Steroids were among the prescription medications found by investigators going through pro-wrestler Chris Benoit's house, where he strangled his wife and young son last weekend before hanging himself.

Key to their probe is determining whether drugs played a role in the double murder-suicide, and whether so-called "roid rage" was at the root of the tragedy.

Chronic use of anabolic steroids — the kind commonly taken in excessively high doses by athletes including wrestlers — has been linked to marked aggression and anger, or what is referred to as "roid rage."

"Anabolic steroids affect neurochemicals in the brain," said Dr. Linn Goldberg, an expert in steroid use and the head of sports medicine at Oregon Health and Science University. It's those neurochemical changes that cause the extreme anger, he explained.

"They're not in great control to start with and then they use steroids and it heightens that," he said. "They have problems with impulse control."

[...]In addition to uncontrollable fury, other possible behavioral side effects of regularly taking large quantities of steroids include paranoia, delusions, depression and mania.

"They lead to psychotic episodes of aggression," said FOXNews.com's managing health editor Dr. Manny Alvarez. "It's not inconceivable that this wrestler was indeed suffering from some of the psychological consequences of anabolic steroids, which might have led him to commit this heinous act."

And there is no doubt that steroids are an integral part of wrestling:

In November 2005, 38-year-old professional wrestler Eddie Guerrero died in a Minneapolis hotel room due to what a coroner later ruled as heart disease, complicated by an enlarged heart resulting from a history of anabolic steroid use.

In the aftermath of that tragedy, WWE chairman Vince McMahon announced a new drug policy, one that would give "no special consideration" to anyone and would involve frequent, random drug tests performed by an independent agency.

In the wake of this past weekend's murder/suicide case, in which steroids were found in the home of pro wrestler Chris Benoit, one has to wonder just how well the WWE's new policy is working.

If steroids are common in pro baseball and football, then the drugs are rampant in pro wrestling, which places an enormous emphasis on the size of its athletes. Former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura admitted to using steroids when he was in the WWE and Hulk Hogan has admitted to taking steroids for 13 years. In 1993, McMahon was charged with conspiring to distribute steroids to his wrestlers, one of whom testified that McMahon had directed him to use steroids. McMahon was acquitted by a jury in U.S. District Court the following year.

Moreover, Bruno Sammartino refused to be inducted into the wrestling hall of fame in 2005 because he believed wrestlers were pumping themselves with steroids. More recently, a story by SI.com reporters revealed that former WWE champion Kurt Angle and other wrestlers allegedly received a wide variety of anabolic steroids supplied by Applied, the Mobile, Ala., compounding pharmacy that was raided last fall by investigators.

Jon Stewart Pummels Jim Cramer: Transcript (3-12-09)

Here's the famous whoopin Jon Stewart gives Jim Cramer on his program, The Daily Show. Read the full transcript (video: part1, part2, part3). Excerpt below:

STEWART: How the hell did we end up here, Mr. Cramer? What happened?

CRAMER: I don’t know. I don’t know. Big fan of the show. Who’s never said that?

STEWART: Well, many people. Let me just explain to you very quickly one thing that is somewhat misinterpreted. This was not directed at you, per say. I just want you to know that. We threw some banana cream pies at CNBC. Obviously, you got some schmutz on your jacket from it. Took exception.

CRAMER: I think that everyone could come under criticism from it. I mean, we all should have seen it more. I mean, admittedly this is a terrible one. Everyone got it wrong. I got a lot of things wrong because I think it was kind of one in a million shot. But I don’t think anyone should be spared in this environment.

STEWART: So, then, if I may, why were you mad at us?

-Audience laughs-

CRAMER: No.

STEWART: Because I was under the impression that you thought we were being unfair.

CRAMER: No, you have my friend Joe [inaudible] on and Joe called me and said, ‘Jim, do I need to apologize to you?’ and I said, No. We’re fair game. We’re big network. We’ve been out front. We’ve made mistakes. We have 17 hours of live TV a day to do. But I—

STEWART: Maybe you could cut down on that.

-Audience laughs-

STEWART: So let me tell you why I think this has caused some attention. It’s the gap between what CNBC advertises itself as and what it is and the help that people need to discern this. Let me show you…This is the promo for your show.

CRAMER: Okay.

-"In Cramer We Trust” promo” plays-

STEWART: Isn’t that, you know, look—we are both snake oil salesmen to a certain extent-

CRAMER: I’m not discerning…

STEWART: But we do label the show as snake oil here. Isn’t there a problem with selling snake oil and labeling it as vitamin tonic and saying that it cures impetigo... Isn’t that the difficulty here?

CRAMER: I think that there are two kids of people. People come out and make good calls and bad calls that are financial professionals and there are people who say the only make good calls and they are liars. I try really hard to make as many good calls as I can.

STEWART: I think the difference is not good call//bad call. The difference is real market and unreal market. Let me show you…This is…you ran a hedge fund.

CRAMER: Yes I did.

-2006 video of Jim Cramer being interviewed on TheStreet.com-

CRAMER: You know a lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund and I was position short, meaning I needed it down, I would create a level of activity beforehand that could drive the futures. It doesn’t take much money.

-End video-

STEWART: What does that mean?

CRAMER: Okay, this was a just a hyperbolic example of what people— You had a great piece about short selling earlier.

STEWART: Yes, I was—

CRAMER: I have been trying to reign in short selling, trying to expose what really happens. This is what goes on, what I’m trying to say is, I didn’t do this but I’m trying to explain to people this is the shenanigans that—

STEWART: Well, it sounded as if you were talking about that you had done it.

CRAMER: Then I was inarticulate because I did] I barely traded the futures. Let me say this: I am trying to expose this stuff. Exactly what you guys do and I am trying to get the regulators to look at it.

STEWART: That’s very interesting because, roll 210.

-210 video-

CRAMER: I would encourage anyone who is in the hedge fund unit ‘do it’ because it is legal. It is a very quick way to make the money and very satisfying. By the way, no one else in the world would ever admit that but I don't care.

UNKNOWN: That’s right and you can say that here.

CRAMER: I’m not going to say it on TV.

-End video-

-Audience groans-

CRAMER: It’s on TV now.

STEWART: I want the Jim Cramer on CNBC to protect me from that Jim Cramer.

CRAMER: I think that way you do that is to show—Okay, the regulators watch the tape, they realize the shenanigans that go on, they can go after this. Now, they didn't catch Madoff. That’s a shame.

STEWART: Now why, when you talk about the regulators, why not the financial news network? Isn't that the whole point of this? CNBC could be an incredibly powerful tool of illumination for people that believe that there are two markets: One that has been sold to us as long term. Put your money in 401ks. Put your money in pensions and just leave it there. Don’t worry about it. It’s all doing fine. Then, there’s this other market; this real market that is occurring in the back room. Where giant piles of money are going in and out and people are trading them and it’s transactional and it’s fast. But it’s dangerous, it’s ethically dubious and it hurts that long term market. So what it feels like to us—and I’m talking purely as a layman—it feels like we are capitalizing your adventure by our pension and our hard earned money. And that it is a game that you know... That you know is going on. But you go on television as a financial network and pretend isn’t happening.

CRAMER: Okay. First, my first reaction is absolutely we could do better. Absolutely. There’s shenanigans and we should call them out. Everyone should. I should do a better job at it. But my second thing is, I talk about the shorts every single night. I got people in Congress who I’ve been working with trying to get the uptick rule. It’s a technical thing but it would cut down a lot of the games that you are talking about. I’m trying. I’m trying. Am I succeeding? I’m trying.

STEWART: But the gentleman on that video is a sober rational individual. And the gentleman on Mad Money is throwing plastic cows through his legs and shouting “Sell! Sell! Sell!” and then coming on two days later and going, “I was wrong. You should have bought, like-I can’t reconcile the brilliance and knowledge that you have of the intricacies of the market with the crazy bullshit you do every night. That’s English. That’s treating people like adults.

CRAMER: How about if I try it?

STEWART: Try what?

CRAMER: Try doing that. I’ll try that.

STEWART: That would be great, but it’s not just you. It’s larger forces at work. It is this idea that the financial news networks are not just guilty of a sin of omission but a sin of commission. That they are in bed with them.

Only Matter of Time before RNC Chairman Steele gets Fired

The Democrats must be getting a kick out of watching the Republicans fighting amongst each other. Michael Steele sounds more like a Democrat. This won't do. But Republicans got what they deserve for hiring someone so they can look like an inclusive political party:

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele’s series of gaffes turned into something more serious Thursday, as leaders of a pillar of the GOP—the anti-abortion movement—shifted into open revolt over comments in an interview with the men’s magazine GQ.

Steele called abortion an “individual choice” and opposed a constitutional ban on abortion in the Feb. 24 interview, which appeared online Wednesday night. He echoed the language of the abortion rights movement and appeared to contradict his own heated assertions during his campaign for chairman that he is a committed soldier in the anti-abortion movement.

While he issued a statement Thursday affirming his opposition to abortion and his support for a constitutional amendment banning it, the damage appeared to be done as leading social conservatives publicly attacked the embattled chairman.

“Comments attributed to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele are very troubling, and despite his clarification today the party stands to lose many of its members and a great deal of its support in the trenches of grass-roots politics,” former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) said in a posting on his blog. “For Chairman Steele to even infer that taking a life is totally left up to the individual is not only a reversal of Republican policy and principle, but it's a violation of the most basic of human rights — the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a conservative rival who ultimately backed Steele's bid for chairman, also lambasted him in a written statement.

“Chairman Steele needs to reread the Bible, the U.S. Constitution and the 2008 GOP Platform,” said Blackwell. “He then needs to get to work or get out of the way.”

Here's the NY Times spin on the Steele interview that has Republicans up in arms:

This was supposed to be the week that Michael Steele, the beleaguered new chairman of the national Republican Party, got his groove on, as he might put it: From filling vacancies left by the mass-firing he conducted upon taking office to issuing 100-day plans on how to make the Republican Party competitive on fund-raising and the Internet, among other things.

But no.

On Thursday Mr. Steele found himself yet again explaining what he had meant to say, this time after a lively interview with GQ in which he seemed to suggest, among other things, that women should have the right to decide whether to have an abortion. “I think that’s an individual choice,” he said.

A moment later, he appeared to clarify his remarks, saying that abortion policy should be decided by the states.

“The states should make that choice,” he said. “That’s what the choice is. The individual choice rests in the states. Let them decide.”

After the interview appeared online on Thursday, he issued a statement seeking to make clear that he is an opponent of abortion rights.

The interview — in which Mr. Steele also appeared to stray from the view of many conservatives on homosexuality while offering a steady patter of jokes and irreverent observations — rippled through Republican circles as soon it was posted on GQ’s Web site Thursday morning. If the interview, conducted several weeks ago, fueled the existing concern among party leaders, it was hardly a surprise after four weeks in which Mr. Steele had left many Republicans anxious about their new chairman. He had tangled with Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk show host, and become the target of mirthful parodies by Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and “Saturday Night Live” over his call to apply the party’s principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”

It appears highly unlikely that there would be any serious move to recall Mr. Steele, who is barely two months into a two-year job. The political repercussions of replacing the party’s first African-American chairman would be too severe, several Republican leaders said, and there are no obvious candidates ready to take the job.

Nonetheless, there were expressions of anguish over what many Republicans described as Mr. Steele’s growing pains as he takes on the role of leader of a party struggling to find its way after its defeat in the November elections. This latest episode seems likely to diminish his conservative credentials further, undercutting his ability to present his case for his party and raise money.

“I think the job of chairman is to elect Republicans and beat Democrats,” said Chip Saltsman of Tennessee, who was one of Mr. Steele’s opponents for the job. “If anything, what Michael did was get away from the primary directive of being chairman. Right now, it’s a turbulent time for him, and everybody is coming at him.”

Mr. Saltsman, who came under fire for distributing a holiday CD to supporters that included the parody song “Barack the Magic Negro,” said he was confident that Mr. Steele would become an “excellent chairman.” But, he added, “Michael needs to get back to the basics and put together a team.”

Social conservatives like Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, were especially critical.

“For Chairman Steele to even infer that taking a life is totally left up to the individual is not only a reversal of Republican policy and principle, but it’s a violation of the most basic of human rights — the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Mr. Huckabee said. “His statement today helps, but doesn’t explain why he would ever say what he did in the first place.”

Salon:

War Room got all the newsworthy bits of embattled, rattled RNC Chairman Michael Steele's surreal interviews with conservative Cal Thomas and GQ's Lisa DePaulo on Wednesday.

To recap: Steele told Thomas that GOP congessional leaders are like "mice" who are "scurrying" because they no longer have access to "cheese" -- read: any clue what Steele is doing. Maybe more inflammatory, he told DePaulo that he thought abortion was an "individual choice" and that he opposed a constitutional amendment on gay marriage. And for a guy who promised to bring hip-hop to the GOP message, he couldn't really name a modern-day hip-hop artist. He called Diddy "P. Diddy" -- oh, who can blame him -- and hailed Grandmaster Flash, who still deserves all of our love and respect, but who is also known as "the grandfather of hip-hop."

That inflamed Alex Koppelman. Understandably. But A-Kop utterly ignored the equally heinous ignorance Steele displayed in GQ about the music of my parents' era -- Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. Or as Steele described them, "the Pack Rats." Huh? DePaulo corrected him: "You mean the Rat Pack." Steele was cool. "The Rat Pack, yeah."

First he alienates that crucial "urban-suburban" hip-hop fan base by not knowing P.Diddy is now, usually, Diddy; then he turns off their grandparents by screwing up the term "Rat Pack"? To be fair, maybe "Pack Rats" is the hip-hop version of the Rat Pack. I'm so confused. But I am glad the RNC went out and found a black chairman, now that we have a black president. That is really working.

Mexican Drug Lord on Forbes Rich List

This is one of the sickest and most immoral decisions any media outlet has made in my memory. How do you add a murderer and seller of drugs that kills thousands of Americans each year on a list that includes some of the most successful people. This wealth is not earned. It is blood money. And it shouldn't be recognized by Forbes. It is insane. For that matter, why don't you include Bernard Madoff at 50 billion? How about Putin in Russia? Shouldn't you include the wealth he has acquired by being a dictator. Where do you draw the line? Forbes is sending a message that it doesn't matter how you obtain wealth. It's all good:

Mexico's most wanted man Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, blamed for housands of deaths in a drug war, has made it onto the Forbes Magazine list of the world's richest people with an estimated $1 billion fortune. Guzman, who is just 5 feet tall (1.55 metres), escaped from prison in 2001 to set off a wave of killings across Mexico in an attempt to dominate the country's highly lucrative drug trade into the United States.

"He is not available for interviews," Luisa Kroll, senior editor of Forbes, said on Wednesday. "But his financial situation is doing quite well." Forbes placed Guzman at 701 on its list, tied with dozens of others worldwide with riches of some $1 billion. Guzman, 51, who officials believe changes his cell phone every day to avoid being tracked, is often compared to the late Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar, whom
Forbes has said amassed a fortune of $3 billion before he was killed by police
in 1993.

The Mexican smuggler is "basically one of the biggest providers of
cocaine to the United States," Kroll said. The magazine based its tally of his
fortune on estimates from drug-trade analysts and U.S. government data.
Guzman's prison escape and ability to elude capture for eight years are an
embarrassment to the Mexican government.
He has outwitted four major government drives to find him between 2002 and 2007. His escapades are the stuff of legend in the areas he controls and in popular "narcocorrido" songs that glorify drug traffickers. Mexico's attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, told Reuters last week that defeating Guzman's cartel of traffickers from the Pacific state of Sinaloa was a priority in President Felipe Calderon's army-backed drug fight. Some 7,000 people have been killed in drug violence across Mexico since the start of last year as rival gangs fight each other and Mexican security forces. Guzman's enforcers from the Sinaloa cartel are among
the most vicious hitmen. Forbes said Mexican and Colombian traffickers laundered between $18 billion and $39 billion in proceeds from wholesale drugs shipments to the United States in 2008.

In the process of acquiring that wealth the Mexican kingpin has created a chaotic condition in his home country that has led to chaos at the border. Now Obama might need to send troops to protect our country.

President Obama weighed in Wednesday on the escalating drug war on the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that he was looking at possibly deploying National Guard troops to contain the violence but ruled out any immediate military move.

"We're going to examine whether and if National Guard deployments would make sense and under what circumstances they would make sense," Obama said during an interview with journalists for regional papers, including a McClatchy reporter.

"I don't have a particular tipping point in mind," he said. "I think it's unacceptable if you've got drug gangs crossing our borders and killing U.S. citizens."

Already this year there have been 1,000 people killed in Mexico along the border, following 2008's death toll of 5,800, according to federal officials who credit Mexican President Felipe Calderon for a crackdown on drug cartels.

But the spillover on the border -- for example, to El Paso from neighboring Ciudad Juarez -- has created a political reaction.

In a recent visit to El Paso, Texas Gov. Rick Perry called for 1,000 troops to protect the border.

Obama was cautious, however. "We've got a very big border with Mexico," he said. "I'm not interested in militarizing the border."

The president praised Calderon, "who I believe is really working hard and taking some extraordinary risks under extraordinary pressure to deal with the drug cartels and the corresponding violence that's erupted along the borders."

Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., chair of a key subcommittee on border security, will hold a hearing Thursday on Mexican border violence.

"Last week Mexico sent an additional 3,200 soldiers to the border," Sanchez said in a prepared opening statement for the hearing, "increasing the total number of Mexican soldiers combating drug cartels to more than 45,000."

Sanchez chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security's subcommittee on border, maritime and global counterterrorism.

"It should be noted that over 200 U.S. citizens have been killed in this drug war, either because they were involved in the cartels or were innocent bystanders," she said. "With those concerns in mind, it is essential that the Department of Homeland Security, along with other relevant departments, continue to pursue a contingency plan to address 'spillover' violence along our border."

At a hearing this week, Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, who visited Mexico last month as part of a congressional delegation tour, praised the so-called Merida Initiative -- a drug cartel fighting agreement between the U.S. and Mexico that provides Mexico with $1.4 billion to control drug trafficking.

Chris Matthews Takes on Ari Fleischer

Chris Matthews really went after former Bush press secretary, Ari Flesicher yesterday. Here is the blow by blow. Excerpt below:

MATTHEWS: What brings you back? Is this the return from Elba? Is this the 100 days of Napoleon`s return from Crawford? What is going on with this network of former Bushies -- current Bushies, I should say -- singing the old song?

FLEISCHER: Well, Chris, I`m here because you invited me to be here.

MATTHEWS: Oh, yes. OK. I appreciate that. But isn`t there a lot of you out there -- I called them the "band of Bushies" -- who are out there trying to remind us of how good he really was?

FLEISCHER: Well, there, of course, is a number of people who believe in George Bush, believe in his policies and believe he helped contribute to a stronger, better America, where we haven`t been hit since September 11. But what happens after you leave office, Chris -- and you know this very well -- is there are a lot of cable shows and a lot of people are still interested in your opinions. And I`m always pleased if I can go on and talk -- mostly, it`s talking contemporaneously about what`s happening with President Obama and just my take on events. And along the way, there are inevitable comparisons or insights you can deliver about what I saw when I was there working for President Bush. I`m proud to say what I think.

MATTHEWS: Well, let`s talk about the change in parties which occurred last year in November. You`re as aware of politics as anybody around. You speak about it. You think about it. You write about it. It seems to me there were two reasons why Barack Obama was elected president. First of all, he won the primaries because he was totally against the war in Iraq. He won the general because the economy sucked.

Now, to put it bluntly, what`s wrong about that? Doesn`t the war still stand as a mistake, as an unpopular war? Doesn`t the economy that you left the country when your party left the country in our hands terrible and worthy of a change of parties? What`s really changed since November?

(CROSSTALK)

FLEISCHER: I don`t think a lot has changed in terms of what you just described. And I would agree with your overall political assessment. It was in part because of Iraq and in large part because of the economy that Barack Obama won.

Having said that, I also think Barack Obama should say thank you every day that he inherited a world without Saddam Hussein in it. Imagine how much worse the Middle East would be if Saddam and his sons were still in charge of that country and how much worse human rights would be in that region of the world.

So it`s not as simple as just saying that one factor contributed to an election. That`s absolutely true in the politics of it. But now that he`s governing it`s a lot more complicated, isn`t it. Take today...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: ... the war in Iraq?

FLEISCHER: Hold on a second, Chris. Take today.

MATTHEWS: ... Ahmadinejad, who doesn`t have a buffer in the region...

FLEISCHER: Chris, today he issued his first signing statement...

MATTHEWS: Right.

FLEISCHER: ... where he put the exact same things that George Bush did in signing statements...

MATTHEWS: OK.

FLEISCHER: ... that you and others criticized George Bush for. My point is that governing is a lot more complicated than mere politics. And I can point that out when I have the ability to compare what happened under George Bush`s watch to Barack Obama`s watch. It`s a lot of nuance and a lot of context.

MATTHEWS: Well, we had the national debt grow from $5.7 when you guys came in to $10.9 when you left. And many Republicans who now speak very loudly on this subject say the reason is that that man we`re looking at right now, your boss for those years, President George W. Bush, never vetoed a single spending bill. He opened the door, the flood gates, to huge spending.

FLEISCHER: Well, actually, the spending on domestic...

MATTHEWS: Isn`t this true?

FLEISCHER: Chris, the spending on domestic discretionary and non- homeland security went up by 1.3 percent a year. What happened was entitlement spending, because of prescription drugs for seniors, and then defense military homeland security went way up, then you had the recession of 2001, which we inherited. That`s all that contributed to it.

Critics will point to the tax cuts. I remind people that the tax cuts led to a record-breaking 55 months of economic growth and job creation. We`ve never in this country had 55 straight months of job creation. We had that under President Bush before the bank failures of September.

MATTHEWS: Are you proud of the economic record of George W. Bush?

FLEISCHER: You know, I think he came in with a recession, he left with a recession...

MATTHEWS: No, really. Are you proud of it? Is it something to brag about?

FLEISCHER: Chris, it`s not a simple one-word answer. I`m not proud of the way...

MATTHEWS: Yes, well, the way we judge success is what you left behind. The way we judge success in life is if you have a campfire as a Boy Scout and you say -- you`re told, Leave it better than when you found it. Did you leave the economy better than you found it?

FLEISCHER: Look, I think when people look back on the Bush years...

MATTHEWS: Isn`t that a fair standard?

FLEISCHER: ... the one thing people are going to remember the most is that he kept us safe. We have not been attacked against since September 11. The second is, as I said, Barack Obama should be thankful that he`s inherited a world without Saddam Hussein in it. The third part...

MATTHEWS: Yes, but we were attacked on your watch. If you start getting into who was attacked when, we suffered the worst domestic calamity in history on your watch. If you get into this whose watch was good, you guys blew it.

FLEISCHER: Chris, I...

MATTHEWS: I don`t know if you can do it that way.

FLEISCHER: Chris, how dare you?

MATTHEWS: But how can you say...

(CROSSTALK)

FLEISCHER: Chris, if we get attacked again -- if we get attacked again, are you going to say we got attacked on Barack Obama`s watch? We got attacked by terrorists.

MATTHEWS: No, no. I`m using the word the way...

FLEISCHER: That`s who`s to blame for it, Chris.

MATTHEWS: ... you`re using it. You`re saying...

FLEISCHER: And I think what you just did is shameful.

MATTHEWS: No, no. I think...

FLEISCHER: I just said that we can all be proud...

MATTHEWS: It`s not shameful to say...

(CROSSTALK)

FLEISCHER: You were bragging about the fact that we weren`t hit after 9/11.

(CROSSTALK)

FLEISCHER: ... proud that we haven`t been attacked since September 11.

MATTHEWS: You`re bragging about the fact we weren`t hit...

FLEISCHER: That`s exactly right.

MATTHEWS: How can you brag about...

FLEISCHER: That`s what people are going to remember about President Bush`s administration.

FLEISCHER: Well, they don`t remember that because his popularity went down to about one of the lowest in American history. He`s down near the bottom of American presidents because people believe that he didn`t do a good job as president. Let`s go back to your standard. I`m not saying...

(CROSSTALK)

FLEISCHER: ... people who look at substance. You`re in the former category.

MATTHEWS: Ari -- Ari, you can`t set up a standard and then not live by it. If the standard is, We didn`t get hit...

FLEISCHER: Who is talking?

MATTHEWS: What?

FLEISCHER: Who`s talking?

MATTHEWS: If you set up a standard...

FLEISCHER: Set up a standard and not live by it, Chris Matthews?

MATTHEWS: Yes.

FLEISCHER: You know, Chris, I don`t recall you saying that James Carville, Paul Begala, those people, shouldn`t be on the air defending their boss, but here you are questioning why people like me would be out there saying things about my boss.

MATTHEWS: Well, because...

FLEISCHER: It`s not a slam-dunk, Chris. There are two sides to every issue.

MATTHEWS: OK. Good. Fair enough. Fair enough.

FLEISCHER: And I get to present that side.

MATTHEWS: OK, give me the argument that you can make again on a couple of fronts. The Iraq war -- back when we got into the war, you admitted that the evidence presented by the president wasn`t fair, that the argument that we were facing a nuclear threat, about the yellowcake from Africa and the purchase of it supposedly from -- by Saddam Hussein, you said wasn`t true. Your words were, That information turned out to be incorrect. You questioned the president`s case for the war, I didn`t.

Are you happy to defend the way Katrina was handled after you left the administration? Are you generally happy with the economic record of the Bush administration? These are broad questions. I think I`m being fair.

FLEISCHER: And my point...

MATTHEWS: And by the way, nobody was tougher...

FLEISCHER: My point to you...

MATTHEWS: Nobody on television was tougher...

FLEISCHER: ... back, Chris, is that we have not been...

MATTHEWS: ... on President -- nobody was tougher on President Clinton than I was, and you know it. So don`t accuse me...

(CROSSTALK)

FLEISCHER: No, I think a lot of people were tougher than you. You were tough on President Clinton, on his ethics and his morality.

MATTHEWS: Don`t say I haven`t been tough.

FLEISCHER: Chris, you were tough on...

MATTHEWS: Don`t say I haven`t been tough.

FLEISCHER: You were tough on his ethics and morality. How couldn`t you be?

MATTHEWS: Well...

FLEISCHER: But as for President Bush, yes, I am proud of the fact we have not been attacked since September 11, and a lot of people deserve credit for it...

MATTHEWS: OK.

FLEISCHER: ... President Bush included. And despite the fact that we were wrong about whether Saddam had WMD because Saddam lied about it and everybody, included Bill Clinton, believed he had WMD, I believe we are all better off and Barack Obama is better off because Saddam Hussein is no longer in this world or in this Middle East creating more trouble.

MATTHEWS: OK. Suppose...

FLEISCHER: And he should be thankful for that.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you this question as a partisan question. Suppose you knew that a Democratic president had...

FLEISCHER: What else do you ask?

MATTHEWS: ... had gotten a presidential memo, a daily presidential briefing that said, al Qaeda to attack within the United States, and three or four weeks later, they did and killed 3,000 of us. Would you hold that against the incumbent Democratic president, if you knew he was warned directly of an attack coming and then it came with nothing stopping it? Would you say that he was shameful, might be a word you`d use?

FLEISCHER: Chris, first of all, wasn`t warned directly. It was one of those vague warnings about al Qaeda wants to attack in the United States.

MATTHEWS: Inside the United States.

FLEISCHER: Well, is that a surprise to...

MATTHEWS: It was delivered to the president in person...

FLEISCHER: Sure.

MATTHEWS: ... in a daily intelligence briefing. And what did he do with that intelligence?

FLEISCHER: Chris, and this is the real world. This is what`s mind- numbingly frustrating about...

MATTHEWS: See, I`m just asking you how you...

FLEISCHER: Chris...

MATTHEWS: ... would use it politically.

FLEISCHER: Chris, do you ever not interrupt your guests, or is that all you`d like to do? Now, here`s the answer to your question, if you would let me answer it. One of the frustrating parts that the presidency - - and Barack Obama is going to find this -- is that intelligence reports are mind-numbingly frustrating. You get a report saying al Qaeda is determined to attack in the United States. Well, that`s not a surprise. Of course they are. It doesn`t say where. It doesn`t say when. It doesn`t say how.

So if you get a report like that, what do you do? Do you shut down shipping to the United States? Do you shut down air traffic in the United States? How long do you do these things? Do you shut down immigration to the United States? If you don`t know the hows, the whens and the wheres, you`re very limited in what practical steps you can take.

So if Barack Obama were to receive something like that, I would not do what you did. I would not be critical of the incumbent president. I would say this is part of the reality of how hard it is to govern in a world of terrorism and that I wish President Obama tremendous success in stopping terrorists who come here. I wouldn`t put the blame on his shoulders. I put the blame on the shoulders of the terrorists who tried to attack us.

The Israeli Lobby Shows its Power in Defeating an Obama Nominee

Rarely is there any debate on the power of the Israeli lobby in Washington. So when there is a news story that exposes their influence it's news. This story illustrates how powerful and sinister they really are. The whole machinery of government (including Barack Obama) is subservient to the pro-Israel lobby. It's why we are in Iraq. And maybe why 9-11 happened. There must be debate of the role of any lobby in Washington, especially the unpatriotic pro-Israel lobby. This was in the Washington Post:

The withdrawal of a senior intelligence adviser after an online campaign to prevent him from taking office has ignited a debate over whether powerful pro-Israel lobbying interests are exercising outsize influence over who serves in the Obama administration.

When Charles W. Freeman Jr. stepped away Tuesday from an appointment to chair the National Intelligence Council -- which oversees the production of reports that represent the view of the nation's 16 intelligence agencies -- he decried in an e-mail "the barrage of libelous distortions of my record [that] would not cease upon my entry into office," and he was blunt about whom he considers responsible.

"The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East," Freeman wrote.

Referring to what he called "the Israel Lobby," he added: "The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views." One result of this, he said, is "the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics."

Freeman's angry rhetoric notwithstanding, the controversy surrounding the former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia was broader than just Middle East politics. Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair's choice of Freeman prompted a storm of complaints about his recent commercial connections to China and questions about whether he was too forgiving of that nation's leaders.

But most of the online attention focused on Freeman's work for the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that is funded in part by Saudi money, and his past critical statements about Israel. The latter included a 2005 speech he gave to the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, where he referred to Israel's "high-handed and self-defeating policies" stemming from the "occupation and settlement of Arab lands," which he called "inherently violent."

Only a few Jewish organizations came out publicly against Freeman's appointment, but a handful of pro-Israeli bloggers and employees of other organizations worked behind the scenes to raise concerns with members of Congress, their staffs and the media.

For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, often described as the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington, "took no position on this matter and did not lobby the Hill on it," spokesman Josh Block said.

But Block responded to reporters' questions and provided critical material about Freeman, albeit always on background, meaning his comments could not be attributed to him, according to three journalists who spoke to him. Asked about this yesterday, Block replied: "As is the case with many, many issues every day, when there is general media interest in a subject, I often provide publicly available information to journalists on background."

The Post also cites this article:

Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s infamous witch hunt against alleged communists in the U.S. government relied primarily on lies, innuendo, and intimidation. Then, at a particularly odious hearing, after McCarthy had falsely accused a young Army officer of being a communist agent, Army counsel Joseph Welch turned on the senator and shot back: "At long last, Senator McCarthy, have you not a shred of decency?"

I am reminded of that moment as I watch the all-too-predictable smear campaign against Charles Freeman’s appointment as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. As soon as the appointment was announced, a bevy of allegedly “pro-Israel” pundits leapt to attack it, in what The Nation’s Robert Dreyfuss called a “thunderous, coordinated assault.” Freeman’s critics were the usual suspects: Jonathan Chait of the New Republic, Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard, Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, Gabriel Schoenfeld (writing on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal), Jonah Goldberg of National Review, Marty Peretz on his New Republic blog, and former AIPAC official Steve Rosen (yes, the same guy who is now on trial for passing classified U.S. government information to Israel).

What was their objection to Freeman? Did they think he’s unpatriotic, not smart enough, or that he lacks sufficient experience? Of course not. Just look at his resume:

Freeman has worked with more than 100 foreign governments in East and South Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and both Western and Eastern Europe. He has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d'Affaires in Bangkok and Beijing, Director of Chinese Affairs at U.S. State Department, and Distinguished Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and the Institute of National Security Studies."

What unites this narrow band of critics is only one thing: Freeman has dared to utter some rather mild public criticisms of Israeli policy. That's the litmus test that Chait, Goldberg, Goldfarb, Peretz, Schoenfeld et al want to apply to all public servants: thou shalt not criticize Israeli policy nor question America's "special relationship" with Israel. Never mind that this policy of unconditional support has been bad for the United States and unintentionally harmful to Israel as well. If these pundits and lobbyists had their way, anyone who pointed that fact out would be automatically disqualified from public service.

Obama Speech on Education: 3-10-09

Read the full transcript:

Fact Sheet: Expanding the Promise of Education in America

"In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity, it is a pre-requisite. That is why it will be the goal of this Administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education - from the day they are born to the day they begin a career."
- President Barack Obama
Address to Joint Session of Congress, February 24, 2009

Providing a high-quality education for all children is critical to America's economic future. Education has always been the foundation for achieving the American dream, providing opportunity to millions of American families, newcomers, and immigrants. Our nation's economic competitiveness depends on providing every child with an education that will enable them to compete in a global economy that is predicated on knowledge and innovation.

Progress toward this goal requires a race to the top to reform our nation's schools. It requires holding schools accountable for helping all students meet world-class standards aligned to the demands of the 21st century workforce. It requires solutions for schools to close the achievement gap, and strategies to accelerate the learning of those that are the furthest behind. It requires new reforms to promote effective teaching and attract the best and brightest into the profession. It requires a national strategy to confront America's persistent dropout crisis, and strengthen transitions to college and career.

President Obama's agenda will improve outcomes for students at every point along the educational pipeline.

Early Education: A Strong Foundation for Success

Research demonstrates that the years before kindergarten comprise the most critical time in a child's life to influence educational outcomes. It's time that our nation make the early investments that will transform lives, create opportunity and save money in the long term

· President Obama is committed to helping states develop seamless, comprehensive, and coordinated "Zero to Five" systems to improve developmental outcomes and early learning for all children.
· In the 2010 budget, Early Learning Challenge Grants will encourage states to raise the bar on the quality of early education, upgrade workforce quality, and drive improvements across multiple federal, state, and local funding streams.
· Incentive grants to states will support data collection across programs (Head Start, child care, Pre-kindergarten, and other early learning settings), push for uniform quality standards, and step-up efforts for the most disadvantaged children.

K-12: Fostering a Race to the Top

To excel in the global economy, we must adopt world-class standards, assessments, and accountability systems to upgrade the quality of teaching and learning in America's classrooms.

· The President encourages an end to the practice of low-balling state reading and math standards, and will promote efforts to enhance the rigor of state-level curriculum to better foster critical thinking, problem solving, and the innovative use of knowledge needed to meet 21st century demands.
· He will push to end the use of ineffective "off-the-shelf" tests, and promote the development of new, state-of-the-art data and assessment systems that provide timely and useful information about the learning and progress of individual students.
· With funding provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the U.S. Department of Education will work with states to upgrade data systems to track students progress and measure the effectiveness of teachers.

Teachers are the single most important resource to a child's learning. America must re-invest in the teaching profession by recruiting mid-career professional and ensuring that teachers have the world's best training and preparation. We must take action to improve teaching in classrooms that need it most, while demanding accountability and performance.

· The President will teacher quality by dramatically expanding successful performance pay models and rewards for effective teachers, scaling up federal support for such programs in up to an additional 150 school districts nationwide.
· He supports improved professional development and mentoring for new and less effective teachers, and will insist on shaping new processes to remove ineffective teachers.
· The President supports a new, national investment in recruiting the best and brightest to the field of teaching, and will invest in scaling-up innovative teacher preparation and induction models.

Driving Innovation and Expecting Excellence

America's schools must be incubators of innovation and success. Where charter schools are successful, states should be challenged to lift arbitrary caps and make use of successful lessons to drive reform throughout other schools.

· President Obama will encourage the growth of successful, high-quality charter schools, and challenge states to reform their charter rules and lift limits that stifle growth and success among excellent schools.
· The President supports rigorous accountability for all charter schools, and will encourage higher-quality processes for the approval and review of charter schools, as well as plans to shut-down charters if schools are failing to serve students well.

America's competitiveness demands a focus on the needs of our lowest-performing students and schools. Our middle- and high- schools must identify students at-risk of dropping out, and we must scale-up models that keep students on a path toward graduation. Reform in America's lowest-performing schools must be systemic and transformational. For some, partnerships and additional support can bring about change and drive improvement. Others may need to move beyond the late 19th century and expand the school day.

· The President supports a national strategy to address the dropout crisis in America's communities, and efforts to transform the nation's lowest-performing schools. 2,000 of the nation's struggling high schools produce over half of America's dropouts. The President will invest in re-engaging and recovering at-risk students, including those enrolled in the middle school grades.
· The FY 2010 budget will support the development and scaling of effective dropout prevention and recovery models - such as transfer schools that combine education and job training for high school students that are far behind.
· President Obama supports the acceleration of America's lowest-performing schools, and will make a robust investment toward recovery for schools failing standards under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Restoring America's Leadership in Higher Education

Our competitiveness abroad depends on opening the doors of higher education for more of America's students. The U.S. ranks seventh in terms of the percentage of 18-24 year olds enrolled in college, but only 15th in terms of the number of certificates and degrees awarded. A lack of financial resources should never obstruct the promise of college opportunity. And it's America's shared responsibility to ensure that more of our students not only reach the doors of college, but also persist, succeed, and obtain their degree.

· President Obama's FY 2010 budget makes a historic commitment to increasing college access and success by restructuring and dramatically expanding financial aid, while making federal programs simpler, more reliable, and more efficient.
· The President will restore the buying power of the Pell Grant for America's neediest students and guarantee an annual increase tied to inflation. His plan will end wasteful subsidies to banks under the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program, and re-direct billions in savings toward student aid.
· And it will dramatically simplify the Federal Application for Student Aid (FAFSA), making it easier to complete and more effective for students.
· The President supports strengthening the higher education pipeline to ensure that more students succeed and complete their college education. His plan will invest in community colleges to conduct an analysis of high-demand skills and technical education, and shape new degree programs for emerging industries.

Another Mass Shooter: Alabama Gunman Kills 9 Then Himself

Mass shootings have become so commonplace that it raises serious questions. Are these people doing it for the fame? The media after each of these shootings immediately starts to speculate on the motive almost given it a legitimacy. Their faces are splattered on everyone's TV. It's like being the star of a reality show. The media has stop romanticizing these people. And show for what cowards they are. Focus on the victims, not the perpetrators. There is also the question of easy availability of guns. Something the politicians have no courage in addressing. Why do these people have guns:

A coroner says the suspect in a shooting rampage that killed at least 10 people in south Alabama began his day of bloodshed by burning down his mother's house where officials found her body.

Coffee County Coroner Robert Preachers says officials have not been able to enter the house outside of Kinston to determine if she was shot. Preachers says the suspect then went to nearby Samson and killed his grandparents, aunt and uncle.

Preachers said the grandfather, Alfred White, had raised the suspect and that officials did not have a motive.

The Alabama Department of Safety says the gunman killed nine people before fatally shooting himself at a metal products plant in neighboring Geneva.

Police are investigating at least four separate shootings, all believed to be done by one gunman. His name was not released.

You can bet the shooter saw the stories about that church killer recently:

The suspect accused of killing a minister at an Illinois church had marked the day of the attack as a "day of death" or "death day" in a planning book, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

There were "words to those effect," written in a day planner belonging to Terry J. Sedlacek, the man accused in Sunday's attack at the First Baptist Church in Maryville, Illinois, said William Mudge, the Madison County state's attorney.

Mudge said he hadn't seen the planner and could not recall the exact wording that police described to him. He said police found the book in Sedlacek's home.

Lt. Scott Compton of the Illinois State Police said he hadn't seen the planner and could not confirm Mudge's account.

Authorities have charged Sedlacek, 27, with first-degree murder in the killing of the Rev. Fred Winters. He also was charged with two counts of aggravated battery related to the stabbing of church members Terry Bullard and Keith Melton.

Sedlacek was seriously wounded in the melee, authorities said.

Time to debate the role of guns and violence in our society:

A gunman's rampage that took at least 32 lives yesterday at Virginia Tech University was not an aberration. Mass shootings at schools in the United States have become frighteningly common. The U.S. Secret Service even collaborated on a detailed study with the federal Department of Education on how to prevent them. Too bad that changing lax gun laws was beyond the study's purview.

How common are school-based shootings in the United States? Between 1994 and 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta documented 220 separate incidents, accounting for 253 deaths. Leaving aside summer and holidays, that's nearly one homicidal incident a week over six years at schools. Yet the CDC called the incidents rare -- perhaps because 15 young people between the ages of 10 and 24 are killed each day, on average, in the United States. The mass school shootings are but a small percentage of this frightening total.

If the frequency of the mass shootings is uniquely American, it is also uniquely American to have a respected public-health authority label 220 school shootings in six years as rare. That lack of perspective goes some distance toward explaining why so deadly a massacre as the one at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in 1999 did not bring about a nationwide crackdown on guns. (Twelve students, one teacher and two teenage gunmen died at Columbine.) "What have we done as a nation in the eight years since Columbine about this problem?" Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, asked yesterday. Guns are still proliferating. No new gun controls have been legislated. A federal ban on assault weapons was left to expire in September, 2004.

Canada has had school shootings, but they have been much less common, and the outpouring of rage and disbelief has prompted the country's legislators to react. After Marc Lépine killed 14 women at École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989, the federal government passed gun-control legislation that may have helped limit the carnage last September when Kimveer Gill took semi-automatic weapons into Dawson College, also in Montreal, and killed one student. Mr. Lépine used a gun that could fire 30 bullets, but the 1991 law that followed his attack limited most rifles to five rounds of ammunition, and handguns to 10 rounds.

- Update:
Incredibly I wake up to another mass murder. This time in Germany. Is there any doubt this was a copycat shooting? This demonstrates that the glorification of murderers is also impacting Europeans:

A 17-year-old gunman dressed in black opened fire at his former high school in southwestern Germany on Wednesday, killing at least 15 people before police shot him to death, state officials said.

Nine students and three teachers were among the dead, State Interior Minister Heribert Rech said.

It was Germany's worst shooting since another teenage gunman killed 16 people and himself in another high school in 2002.

Police said the former student at the school in Winnenden, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) northeast of Stuttgart, entered it at 9:30 a.m. and opened fire, shooting at random.

Witnesses said students jumped from the windows of the building after the gunman opened fire.

"He went into the school with a weapon and carried out a bloodbath," regional police chief Erwin Hetger said earlier. "I've never seen anything like this in my life."

Concerned parents quickly swarmed around the school, which was evacuated during the incident. About 1,000 children attend the school

After the attack, the suspect fled the Albertville high school toward the center of the town of 28,000, police said.

In 2002, 19-year-old Robert Steinhaeuser shot and killed 12 teachers, a secretary, two students and a police officer before turning his gun on himself in the Gutenberg high school in Erfurt.