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Should the Government Pay for Information It Collects About Its Citizens?

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:43:00 EDT

GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight: the collection of information online and its economic consequences.

The recent revelations about surveillance have raised numerous questions about the use of data by the government and service providers. We close with a look at another concern about the information that's gathered: Is it deepening a widening class divide?

Economics correspondent Paul Solman gets that take, part of his reporting on “Making Sen$e of Financial News.”

PAUL SOLMAN: In Berkeley, Calif., the studio of Jaron Lanier, author, composer, computer scientist and lately, leading critic of the digital technologies he himself helped invent.

They're widening the economic divide, he says, darkening our future by destroying paid jobs, like musicians, which is how he once supported himself.

JARON LANIER, Author, "Who Owns the Future?": This is a shakuhachi. It's classical Japanese bamboo flute.

PAUL SOLMAN: Can we hear that?

JARON LANIER: Yes, sure.

PAUL SOLMAN: Lanier has also long worked in technology, still does, as a telecommuting consultant to Microsoft research in Seattle.

But in recent years, he's grown skeptical of the Internet. In 2010, he published "You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto," a critique of digital networks, like Facebook and Twitter, which he calls shallow and dehumanizing.

JARON LANIER: You don't do the "Begin the Beguine" or something like that?

I used to for money.

PAUL SOLMAN: But it was the computerization of the music industry that helped inspire his new book, "Who Owns the Future?" in which he argues that digital networks are destroying jobs and the middle class, exacerbating economic inequality by providing free stuff that's really paid for by the information the networks take from us and sell to other big companies.

What's the basic thing you worry about?

JARON LANIER: That we have used digital networks to organize our world, and digital networks have a certain negative side effect that none of us foresaw.

In a digital network, whoever has the biggest and best-connected computer is going to get all the power and all the money, and that centralizes the rewards so much, that it screws up the society and the economy eventually.

PAUL SOLMAN: So, this is the Googles, the Facebooks of the world?

JARON LANIER: Well, it's not just the usual suspects like the Googles and Facebooks.

So far, there are two kinds of industries that have been overtaken by the structure of digital networks. One is finance. And the other is what we call the creative industries, journalism and music and that sort of thing.

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, I can see the problem with respect to the concentration of power, but how does it affect the average person?

JARON LANIER: Well, what happens when you interact with somebody else's giant computer over a network is always at first there is some special treat for that you entices you to enter into their game.

In the case of finance, it was really easy to get cheap mortgages. In the case of consumer Internet services, it's free stuff. It's the coupons. It's free social networking and search.

PAUL SOLMAN: Free music, flee blogs, free almost everything.

JARON LANIER: Exactly.

So, what happens is, there is initial free stuff. The market contracts, because a lot of what used to be paid is made free, so that the economy gets a little bit smaller. And just notice that while you're getting all these free treats, there's more income concentration.

And in finance, it's created incredible rewards for the people with the biggest computers. And in the media industries, it's done the same thing.

PAUL SOLMAN: But is it only happening in pockets, or this is going to be pervasive?

JARON LANIER: It's coming to basically everyplace.

We already have self-driving cars. So, eventually, all the taxi drivers, all the truck drivers go out of work. We already have 3-D printers. We have robotic manufacturing tools. Eventually, manufacturing workers go away.

We will have automatic robotic mining of raw materials. We won't have all those people moving to the Dakotas to frack anymore. That will go away.

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, in economics, the cliched phrase is “creative destruction.”

JARON LANIER: Creative destruction is great, so long as there is enough rebuilding to make up for the destruction.

What's happening right now is all of the rebuilding, all of the wealth creation is happening around the biggest computers, and not out in the world.

PAUL SOLMAN: And Lanier thinks that's a recipe for disaster. There's plenty of creation in his world, of course.

What is this?

JARON LANIER: So, this was made by a guy who lived on the streets of Baltimore. And he made this out of garbage, some of the detritus of a motel that was torn down in Baltimore.

He called it the Abutar, because his name was Abu, the master flute maker of the ghetto.

PAUL SOLMAN: But even master Abu wasn't making a living, a harbinger, Lanier fears, of a grim two-tier economy.

JARON LANIER: The problems I'm talking about with mass unemployment due to people being left out of the information economy, that is still a decade or two away. And the reason I'm talking about this now is, I think we have enough lead time to fix it.

PAUL SOLMAN: So, what do we do about this?

JARON LANIER: It turns out that the very first concept of digital networking actually solved this problem in advance.

So, the first person to talk about digitally networked culture was a guy named Ted Nelson, who started his work in about 1960. And Ted's idea was that everybody who contributed over a digital network would get paid in little tiny micro-payments for whatever they did. And what that would do is, it would create an economy that would grow as things became more digital.

PAUL SOLMAN: So, for example, I'm driving, as I do now, and I'm part of a network. And I let people know if there is traffic up ahead. So, I would get paid for that?

JARON LANIER: A little bit, sure.

Or here is actually a better example. Right now, one thing that concerns a lot of people is that government agencies are putting up cameras everywhere. And so, as you walk around in a big city, you might be tracked constantly. I think the government should have to pay for whatever it does, including getting information from people, and should be constrained by its budget.

So, if they have to pay for collecting those images of you walking around, then they have to create a sense of balance about how often they do it.

PAUL SOLMAN: But you're not just talking about street corner surveillance cameras. You're talking about any computer network that is extracting information from me.

JARON LANIER: Right.

So, what we have right now is, we have thousands of computers, big computers around the world who are creating dossiers on all of us. Any information that exists because you exist should bring you rewards. You get ill, and you get better, and your medical case history and data gathered from your body becomes part of the medical databases that help other people. You get paid for that.

And, furthermore, it should be based on how valuable it turns out to be. So it might turn out that some -- something about your DNA turns out to help a lot of people 10 years later can be more valuable than expected. You should benefit proportionally to its value.

PAUL SOLMAN: But how do you force a computer network to pay me for something that they have been extracting from me for years for free?

JARON LANIER: I know when I talk about these ideas, it must sound as though I'm talking about this extremely complicated thing.

But you have to remember I have been through this once because I have been involved with the Internet from the beginning. And we -- a relatively small number of people brought about this pretty complicated thing already. What I'm talking about now to me is just a continuation of the same spirit.

And it doesn't seem any more complicated than what we have already done. It's just moving in a different direction that I think is more suitable to making a sustainable society.

PAUL SOLMAN: So, I have been naive when I have for number of years now thought, gee, free is good. Free is communal. Free may be the wave of the future.

JARON LANIER: Look, I helped make up the whole idea of free, open everything a long time ago. And there's a lot of great qualities to it.

However, if we create a world where everybody can benefit from the information economy, even if it's just pure information -- in other words, you actually get paid for your blog post or your social network activity if you're popular, that kind of stuff, then we can create a stronger middle class than we have ever had before as technology gets better. That is the big idea. That's the big possibility.

PAUL SOLMAN: Jaron Lanier, thank you very much.

JARON LANIER: This was great. I'm very happy that you're interested.

Some States Have Second Thoughts About Refusing Medicaid Expansion

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:36:00 EDT

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Now: why some Republican governors who have been vocally opposed to Obamacare are having second thoughts about walking away from an expansion of Medicaid.

Hari Sreenivasan is back with that story.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Medicaid is a crucial piece of the health reform law and its goal of providing new coverage to 30 million Americans.

Roughly 13 million of them are expected to receive coverage by expanding eligibility to the program, which provides health care to the poor. But the calculus changed after the Supreme Court decided states could opt out, even though the federal government would pick up 100 percent of the new costs for the first three years.

So far, 23 states, mostly led by Democratic governors and the District of Columbia, have said they plan to expand eligibility starting next year. Eighteen others with Republican governors are opposed. Those states could be passing on billions of dollars. Now some Republican governors who have been opposed to the health care law are pushing to expand Medicaid. That includes Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Arizona, where Governor Jan Brewer signed a bill to do so today.

We look at what's behind these changes in two of these states.

Mary K. Reinhart is with The Arizona Republic. And Karen Kasler is with Ohio Public Radio.

So, Mary K. Reinhart, let me start with you. What did Gov. Brewer have to do, and why did she do it now?

MARY K. REINHART, The Arizona Republic: Well, she had to get a bipartisan coalition of her Republican-led legislature to go along with what she's announced at the beginning of the legislative session in January that was a top priority. And that was expanding Medicaid.

It was a surprise, stunned observers, because she had -- we were one of the states to sue to stop Obamacare, and the governor needed to get this coalition behind her. She put these folks together. When negotiations stalled, the governor called a surprise special session. And in just 48 hours, this bipartisan coalition in the House and Senate pushed through Medicaid expansion, and got her to where she is today, signing that bill.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And she still doesn't admit that this is in support of Obamacare, right?

MARY K. REINHART: She admits that this tiny little piece, she supports. She says it's the law of the land. The election certainly was conclusive, with the reelection of President Obama. The Supreme Court made its decision.

And she is trying -- was trying to convince for the last five months opponents in the legislature, both the leaders in the House and Senate, that this was -- this was a done deal, and what Arizona needed to do was go along, do the math, look at the calculus, as you say, and realize that we're talking about insuring an additional 350,000 people, bringing in about $1.6 billion dollars in the first year alone, and upholding the will of the voters here in Arizona, who in 2000 said they wanted to expand our Medicaid program to insure people under the poverty level.

So, we had already had -- we had already been an expansion state. The governor said it was just a folly to not go ahead and expand Medicaid.

HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Karen Kasler, I want to ask you, what is the state of play in Ohio? Where is Gov. John Kasich now?

KAREN KASLER, Capitol Bureau Chief, Ohio Public Radio: Well, Gov. John Kasich, like in Arizona, surprised a lot of people when he supported the expansion of Medicaid.

He has been an opponent of what he calls Obamacare, but he said in his budget he took the avenue of, this was a way to capture 13 billion federal dollars over several year and a way to help Ohio's 1.5 million uninsured Ohioans, many whom are very poor and can't afford health insurance.

And so he spent a lot of his personal capital trying to get this passed. His proposal, though, went over very, very poorly in the state legislature, which is dominated by Republicans. You have a lot of Republicans in Ohio who are very suspicious of the expansion of Medicaid.

And so it was stripped out of both the House version and the Senate version of the state budget. Our House speaker had said that, of his 60-member caucus, 20 members -- and this is quote from him -- "would rather shoot themselves in the head than vote for Medicaid expansion."

So, right now, what's happening is that's out of the state budget, and it's being considered in a different way. We have a Medicaid expansion bill that has only one backer. But now there's a bill that dropped late last week that has lot of bipartisan support, which would reform Medicaid in Ohio by trying to contain costs and integrate work force development and measure health outcomes. And that appears to be the way that Ohio is going to go, Medicaid reform, rather than Medicaid expansion.

HARI SREENIVASAN: So, how does this affect his relationship with the legislature, especially with those 20 who would rather do something else?

KAREN KASLER: Well, it's certainly been an interesting thing to watch, because Gov. Kasich got a lot of what he wanted in his first budget cycle.

And Ohio is almost completely run by Republicans. There's a supermajority in the House and Senate. And Gov. Kasich is a Republican as well. And so there's been a real push on his part to try to get Medicaid expansion, but there's been a real resistance on the part of lawmakers to do it.

And so this is kind of seen as maybe a halfway point. The lawmakers who are putting this Medicaid reform bill together are saying that they want to improve the system before we start talking about adding more people to it. And so they are still leaving that door open slightly, but right now the path appears to be toward reform, rather than expansion.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Mary K. Reinhart, I want to come back to you and ask, how does the hospital industry see this and what kind of influence are they having in the conversation?

MARY K. REINHART: Well, like in other states, I think the hospital industry, the Chamber of Commerce, have been very involved in trying to push Medicaid expansion.

And they were right on board early on in Arizona. They have been carrying for a growing number of uninsured who are coming through the emergency rooms. We have had couple of Chapter 11 bankruptcies in Arizona. So, today, at the signing ceremony, one state lawmaker, a Republican, said, you have saved rural Arizona, you have saved our hospitals.

So, clearly, they were on board. They are also going to be paying -- they're going to be taxing themselves essentially to help pay Arizona's additional share of Medicaid expansion. So they're in all the way with an additional provider assessment to help pay our share of expansion.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Karen Kasler, I want to ask, how much money is at stake here? Quite a few members of the GOP in different states have said this first three years, free stuff is great, but that 10 percent is still a lot of money to us later on.

KAREN KASLER: And Gov. Kasich has said it's about $13 billion dollars over seven years. But that money issue is really critical to a lot of Republicans, who have been on the fence or even opposed to this.

They feel like expanding Medicaid, and then if there's a chance that the federal government wouldn't somehow follow through, that would be a difficult benefit to take away. And so that's been a lot of the concern from conservatives. And there have been some conservative think tanks that have actually put out reports saying that they're very concerned about the long-term stability of the system.

And so that has been a real issue here, is, will this money be there when Ohioans need it over time? But the hospital issue is really critical here in Ohio, too. We have a lot of rural hospitals. And we have a lot of urban hospitals. And they're very concerned about their long-term financial stability if Medicaid is not expanded.

HARI SREENIVASAN: So, Ms. Kasler, I want to ask, what is the timeline here? If the legislation that is making it so far doesn't include the expansion, what is next for it?

KAREN KASLER: Well, the budget needs to be signed by the end of the month. And that is not going to happen.

And there's been a concern that if indeed Medicaid expansion wasn't started by June 30, there wouldn't be time to capture all those federal dollars. But I'm told by lawmakers who are behind this Medicaid reform bill that they still think there's a possibility to go back and get some of that money, that there's no rush, that we need to improve the system before we add beneficiaries to it.

But, certainly, time is of the essence, because the clock is ticking here, and so there's a concern to get it done as quickly as possible. With the budget out of the way, maybe that would move forward. The first hearing for these reform bills is tomorrow. And so there's a chance it will move forward.

HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Mary K. Reinhart, quickly to you, too. This isn't the end here. People are proposing ballot measures.

MARY K. REINHART: Right.

There's a group of two former conservative GOP senators and some GOP activists. Really, the grassroots that's been opposed to this all along are going to be officially kicking off a referendum drive on Saturday. They're taking out petitions with the secretary of state's office. They have got 90 days to collect about 86,000 signatures.

If they're successful, our Medicaid expansion bill goes on hold until the next general election. Then there’s lawsuits that are soon to follow. It's not over yet.

HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Mary K. Reinhart from The Arizona Republic and Karen Kasler from Ohio Public Radio and TV, thanks so much.

KAREN KASLER: Thank you.

How Will Iran's New President Impact Relations With U.S.?

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:29:00 EDT

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GWEN IFILL: Joining me now to tell us more about Hassan Rowhani and what his victory means for Iran and the United States are Karim Sadjadpour, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Cliff Kupchan, Middle East director at the Eurasia Group.

Cliff Kupchan, you have met him. What is he? Who is he? Tell us about him.

CLIFF KUPCHAN, Research Director, Eurasia Group: Well, he's a very straightforward, thoughtful, earnest guy.

You ask a question, you get an answer. He's kind of the anti-Ahmadinejad. You ask a question, you get a tirade. So, I think it's a new leaf for Iran. I think we're out of the ideology and we're back into the realm of the real world. Now, how much power he has how far he can take Iran in the new world, it's a different question.

GWEN IFILL: Well, I'm curious about this, Karim Sadjadpour, because he's uniformly been described as a moderate, which means what by our standards?

KARIM SADJADPOUR, Associate, Carnegie Endowment For International Peace: Well, it's all relative.

If we were having this conversation 10 years ago, Rowhani would have been described as a conservative. But given the rightward shift of Iranian politics over the last decade, he was really the lone moderate choice that people had in this election.

And if you look at Iran over the last decade, this is a nation which has been suffocating under political pressure, economic mismanagement and tremendous external economic pressure. So, I think, for the Iranian people, this is the meteorological equivalent of a light rain after eight years of drought.

GWEN IFILL: But if you were to draw some sort of loop between Ahmadinejad on one side and Khatami on the other, is he in the middle somewhere?

CLIFF KUPCHAN: He is in the middle somewhere. But I think ...

GWEN IFILL: He's not a reformer?

CLIFF KUPCHAN: No. And that's what's very important for everyone to understand. He is not a reformer.

He is a child of the system. He served as the secretary of the national security council for 16 years. He sits on Iran's highest adjudicating bodies. He's very, very close to the supreme leader. So, he's a cautious man of the system who may pursue reform, but is not going to turn his back on the system.

And that is why I think, in my view, Supreme Leader Khamenei let him become president, because ultimately Khamenei does not view him as a threat to the system.

GWEN IFILL: If the supreme leader is the guy who gets the final say, how much power does Rowhani really have?

KARIM SADJADPOUR: Well, Iranian presidents have influence domestically, I would argue, more than they do internationally, in changing the strategic principles of the Islamic republic.

So, just like in Washington, when there is a new president, you bring in a whole new team, a group of folks to staff the bureaucracies, and Rowhani will be able to bring more kind of professional managers and technocrats into the system, those types of moderate forces that have been purged over the last decade.

But when it comes to, I would argue, the ideological principles of the Islamic regime and the Iranian revolution, resistance against America, rejection of Israel's existence, support for groups like Hezbollah, for the Assad regime in Syria, I would argue that Rowhani's influence is going to be more tactical than strategic.

He's not going to be able to change those principles, but he can do it so -- he can conduct diplomacy with a smiling moderate face, as opposed to Ahmadinejad.

GWEN IFILL: What about nuclear weapons? We have been watching Iran's nuclear capability grow. That's what obviously Israel is worried about. It's what almost everybody is worried about, tangentially or directly.

CLIFF KUPCHAN: Well, look, I agree with my friend Karim that we're unlikely to see change on Syria.

But I think the nuclear arena is different. This is where, in the debates, Gwen, he effectively linked Iran's nuclear position with sanctions with the suffering of every Iranian citizen. And it worked. So, in some ways, this election was a mandate for Hassan Rowhani to pursue a different nuclear policy.

I think that he will pursue a more reasonable position. I think he will bring in skilled diplomats and the atmospherics will change.

It doesn't mean we're going to get a deal, but it means I think we have got better chance today than we did last Friday.

GWEN IFILL: When you say we, does that mean the U.S. finally has someone to deal with, to talk to who is not going to come to well of the U.N. and declare that U.S. smells of sulfur, or whatever that was?

KARIM SADJADPOUR: Well, first, I agree with the perspective that this, for the Obama administration, was the best possible outcome or the least bad outcome of a very flawed electoral process.

And I think if you talk to someone like Secretary of State John Kerry or Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, even Obama himself, if they could push a button and normalize relations with Iran, they would love to, because Iran has significant influence over a lot of U.S. foreign policy challenges.

But I would argue this time around, as opposed to Obama's first term, they're -- they're -- what they're hoping for is less a rapprochement, which they probably see as unrealistic, and more detente.

But I would argue that the person who is perhaps most concerned with Hasan Rowhani's victory is Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel, because I think what he sees is the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. Iran is going to continue to pursue, he believes, the same hard-line nuclear policies, but do so with a moderate base, which is going to make it more difficult to coerce and pressure Iran.

GWEN IFILL: Is that what he should be worried about, Cliff Kupchan?

CLIFF KUPCHAN: I think Israelis get the reception. I think they know that at the end of the day that Iran will have some domestic ability to enriched uranium, that the world is, whether they recognize Iran's right to enrich, they will recognize that Iran is enriching.

And what Netanyahu is up to keep the pressure on to get the best deal, to get the most inspections, to get the longest lead time, if they do try to create a weapon, so that something can be done about it. So, I think he's worried. I think he will keep the pressure up.

But if we can get a good, verifiable, intrusive deal -- and I have been to Israel six times in the last two years, and that's what they tell you. They would support that. They will go along with that.

GWEN IFILL: So, these conversations, these talks that were under way and then were frozen waiting on the outcome of this election, do you expect them to start again?

KARIM SADJADPOUR: I think they will start again.

Rowhani will be inaugurated in August. And if you look at his previous team of nuclear advisers, they were all U.S.-educated. They came from merchant backgrounds. They were not ideologues. So, I think he has a mandate, at least from the Iranian public, to pursue a process of confidence-building.

You have a government in Washington that is interested in confidence-building. This is the first time that these stars have aligned since the year 2000. But I think our expectations should be tempered.

GWEN IFILL: Final brief question for both of you.

In your opinion -- I will start with you, Karim -- was this a free and fair election? We saw the turnout.

KARIM SADJADPOUR: It wasn't free, in that only a limited pool of candidates were allowed to run.

But, as opposed to the 2009 election, when people believed the votes weren't counted, this time, it looked, to the surprise of many of us, that the integrity of the ballot box was respected.

GWEN IFILL: Cliff?

CLIFF KUPCHAN: It wasn't free in the same way that Karim said.

But, but compare Iran to its neighbors, where there aren't any elections. There is still, I would point out, this remarkable, enduring democratic streak in Iran. And the Iranians really do care about the vote. It's a remarkable country. I think it was free and fair enough for me to admire what happened.

GWEN IFILL: Cliff Kupchan of the Eurasia Group and Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie -- Carnegie Endowment, thank you both so much.

KARIM SADJADPOUR: Thank you, Gwen.

CLIFF KUPCHAN: Thanks, Gwen.

Iran Elects Moderate Candidate Hasan Rowhani to Be Next President

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:25:00 EDT

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GWEN IFILL: Next, to Iran. Over the weekend, the country chose a new leader to replace outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. .

Crowds poured into the streets of Tehran on Saturday evening, cheering for the country's next president, Hassan Rowhani. The man widely described as a reform-minded cleric won Friday's election in stunning fashion. He captured nearly 51 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff and well ahead of several more conservative candidates.

PRESIDENT-ELECT HASSAN ROWHANI, Iran: God willing, this election will be a prelude to the changes that are demanded by the people. This includes, of course, revolution in the economic cultural, social and political fields.

GWEN IFILL: Rowhani's win was marked by a late surge, as reform voters coalesced behind him in a turnout that topped 70 percent. It was far cry from the mass protests that followed the 2009 election.

Violent clashes erupted then amid widespread claims that Iran's ruling clerics rigged the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The protesters were forcibly depressed. Rowhani has called for moderation and for reviving Iran's economy. In recent years, international sanctions aimed at Iran's nuclear program helped fuel rising inflation and high unemployment.

Rowhani presided over nuclear talks with the West between 2003 and 2005. But, today, the president-elect would not support ceasing Iranian enrichment, at least not without negotiations.

PRESIDENT-ELECT ROWHANI: We will make nuclear talks more active. This is the basic problem. The solution to the nuclear problem is just talks. Neither threats nor sanctions will work.

GWEN IFILL: Rowhani left open the door to improving relations with the United States.

PRESIDENT-ELECT ROWHANI: The problem complicated and difficult. There's an old wound that should be dealt with, with prudence. Of course, we are not seeking tension or increasing the tension. Common sense says our two countries should think about the future more than the past.

GWEN IFILL: U.S. officials cautiously welcomed Rowhani's victory, but State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the Obama administration wants to see more.

JEN PSAKI, State Department Spokeswoman: We look forward to him and are hopeful that he will fulfill the campaign promises he made to the Iranian people, such as expanding personal freedoms, releasing political prisoners, and improving Iran's relations with the international community. But time will tell.

GWEN IFILL: Israel is watching closely as well. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened military action to stop Iran's nuclear program. He spoke Sunday.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israel: While the elections no doubt express the dissatisfaction of the Iranian people with their regime, I don't see it producing the genuine change in Iran's nuclear policy.

GWEN IFILL: Israeli President Shimon Peres, by contrast, took a more hopeful stance regarding the new Iranian leader.

SHIMON PERES, Israeli President: He says he will not go for these extreme policies. I am not sure that he has specified policies what will be his policies, but it will be better, I am sure. And that is the reason why the people voted for him.

GWEN IFILL: Rowhani now confronts the challenge of satisfying demands for change at home and abroad, while staying in the good graces of Iran's hard-line supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

5 Things You Should Know About E-Verify

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:22:00 EDT

Functioning as a pilot program up until now, the federal database program E-Verify is set for some changes under a sweeping Senate immigration bill.

E-Verify -- an electronic program run by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security contrived to help businesses filter out undocumented immigrants from their pool of new hires -- has garnered renewed attention in recent weeks as the Senate debates a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

E-Verify

(noun)

1. An Internet-based system that compares information from an employee's Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to data from U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration records to confirm employment eligibility. (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services)

The program started in 1996 with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Employers can submit information from a potential employee's Employment Eligibility Verification Form, or I-9, through this multi-step process online, and the Social Security Administration and the USCIS will match it to government records and decipher whether the employee can work legally in the U.S.

On Tuesday's NewsHour, we'll talk to Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, and Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, for two points of view on the federal database's potential future under new legislation.

Under Current Law, the Program Is Voluntary in Most States

"E-Verify today is largely a volunteer system where employers can check the employment status of workers after they have hired them as part of the I-9 process," Calabrese told the NewsHour. "It's mandatory for federal contractors and in some states, and it's also mandatory for most government workers."

The program, while still voluntary, receives typically high marks for its usability, according to Calabrese, but its error rate is difficult to discern. The program, he said, currently skews to larger employers who can handle the processes with a how-to-manual spanning 80-pages.

Krikorian, a critic of the bill's architecture, told the NewsHour:

The point of E-Verify is to enable legitimate employers to know whether their employees are liars or not. Without it, if you give an employer an ID with a picture of Mickey Mouse and any combination of numbers in a 9-digit number, you can probably get hired .. In concept, electronic employment verification is one of the most important goals of immigration control. You can't have immigration control in a modern society without it.

The USCS website notes that "U.S. law requires companies to employ only individuals who may legally work in the United States -- either U.S. citizens, or foreign citizens who have the necessary authorization," and that diverse strength on the economy "also attracts unauthorized employment."

The program as it stands now looks like this -- with both a step-by-step process on how an employer and employee completes an I-9 form, as well as a self-check process where individuals can check their authorization status themselves:

Under the Senate Bill, Many Expect Mandatory Electronic Employment Verification

As part of the I-9 process, Calabrese laid out this potential process that would be mandatory for all employers within five years of passage:

You would start a new job. You would present your documents. Someone in the HR department would have to be trained in how to use the system. E-Verify would verify your work eligibility from those documents. If your photo was in the system, via a passport, perhaps, that would come up. If the system authorized you, it'd be, 'Congratulations and you're on your way.' Other times, if the system says you're not authorized, either because you're not supposed to be or because of an error in the system, you'd have eight days to contest that determination and you might have various procedural hurdles available, like appealing to judges.

The process, according to Calabrese, is not supposed to be a pre-screening system for potential hires. In fact, he said, if employers follow the procedural rules, "You're not supposed to do E-Verify until after you've hired someone."

In an interview with The Washington Examiner, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a member of the bipartisan group that drafted the legislation, reiterated a position he flagged on a Sunday show -- that strengthening the border security provisions of the bill was key.

[The Democrats] don't want anything to make the path to citizenship uncertain. But it already is conditioned. The path to citizenship in this bill -- the path to that green card -- it's already conditioned on the full implementation of E-Verify. It's already conditioned on the full implementation of the entry-exit tracking system. And, the last thing is, it's got to be fully conditioned on the completion of the specific border plan that we detail.

Add 'Biometrics' to Your Vocabulary

A flashpoint in the current Senate bill, biometrics is a branch of biology in which human characteristics are translated into statistical data.

"It can include pictures, fingerprints, iris scans and even elements like how an individual walks," according to Calabrese.

Last week, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, proposed an amendment he calls the RESULTS Act: "Requiring Enforcement, Security and Safety, & Upgrading Legitimate Trade and Travel Simultaneously." The provision stipulates a number of proposals. Among them is a fully operational E-Verify system and a biometric exit system in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection would track immigrants leaving the U.S. at all U.S. international airports and seaports.

In addition to an exit system, the Senate bill, Calabrese said, "encourages every state to provide a driver's license photo to a Department of Homeland Security."

And although Cornyn's amendment would require biometric data, Krikorian said the bill, amended by the Senate in late May to include a fingerprinting system, "would only require a biographic exit to prove that it was you."

Bipartisanship Aside, the Program Has Critics

For those Americans who are authorized to work in the U.S., critics say the impending legislation could lead to substantial headaches from unintended consequences. A USCIS study of the program, using 2009 data, found that 0.3 percent of applicants received tentative nonconfirmations (TNC) that were erroneous but ultimately corrected.

Resources for Employers and Employees Are Extensive

How to Enroll in E-Verify For Employers and Employees: Take a Webinar

For more on E-Verify and what is proposed in the Senate immigration bill, visit our Immigration page and watch Tuesday's PBS NewsHour.

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How Well Will Electronic Verification System Prevent Undocumented Employment?

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:15:00 EDT

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, we turn to the immigration legislation up for debate on the Senate floor.

Ray Suarez has our story.

RAY SUAREZ: Republican Marco Rubio of Florida helped craft the immigration bill.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, R-Fla.: Obviously, I think it's an excellent starting point. And I think 95-96 percent of the bill is in perfect shape and ready to go, but there are elements that need to be improved.

RAY SUAREZ: On Sunday, the senator called again for tougher border security requirements to win over conservative skeptics in his own party.

MARCO RUBIO: I think the debate now is about what that border security provision looks like. And if we do that, this bill will have strong bipartisan support.

RAY SUAREZ: New Jersey Democratic Robert Menendez said his party could support additional reforms, if they're offered in good faith.

SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ, D-N.J.: We're open to constructive elements of how border security can be further achieved, but not if at the end of the day you are just simply using that as an excuse not to permit a pathway to legalization.

RAY SUAREZ: Like Rubio and Menendez, Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is one of the “Gang of Eight,” who wrote the bill. He warned Republicans will pay a heavy price if the bill failed.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: If we don't pass immigration reform, if we don't get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn't matter who you run in 2016. We're in a demographic death spiral as a party, and the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community, in my view, is pass comprehensive immigration reform.

RAY SUAREZ: Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid has set a July 4 deadline to finish the legislation. That gives lawmakers two weeks to sort through more than a hundred amendments, among them, proposals to bolster the electronic employment verification system known as "E-Verify." The issue could draw added attention following today's raids on 7-Eleven stores in New York and Virginia.

Nine owners and managers are charged in a scheme to employ undocumented immigrants from Pakistan and pay them under stolen security numbers. E-Verify is also the latest topic in our ongoing series “Inside Immigration Reform.”

It's currently voluntary in most states, but that could all change under the new legislation.

We get two points of view now, from Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and author of the book "The New Case Against Immigration Both Legal and Illegal," and Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Well, it seems to me that from my last couple of employers, I was already proving that I have a Social Security number and showed a document. What is the current version of E-Verify doing? And don't employees already have to do that, Mark?

MARK KRIKORIAN, Executive Director, Center for Immigration Studies: It's true. You do have to demonstrate first your identity and also your authorization to work.

But it's based on paper. And so the employer just has to take pretty much at face value whatever you show him. As long as it isn't Mickey Mouse's picture on it, he has to accept it. What E-Verify would do is the employer in doing all of his normal paperwork anyway would simply have to check with Social Security and Homeland Security databases whether the number, Social Security number, name, and date of birth are real and whether they match.

So, the point is just to make sure that the stuff that is already being provided is genuine and that the person isn't lying to his employer.

RAY SUAREZ: Christopher, a version of E-Verify was already rolled out a couple of years ago. Was the federal government up to the task of matching the documents presented by workers with its own database?

CHRISTOPHER CALABRESE, American Civil Liberties Union: I would say no.

Certainly, the federal government has gotten better at this task, but the trick here is that, first of all, you have to be correct in the E-Verify system before you can work. So, if there is an error in the database, that means you cannot work. And when you look at entire population, a large one like the U.S., 154 million workers, even a small error means hundreds of thousands or even a million workers might not be able to work.

So, even a very effective system is going to potentially ensnare a lot of workers.

RAY SUAREZ: So, do you think the new E-Verify, the new generation E-Verify proposed in the Senate legislation has a shot at working?

CHRISTOPHER CALABRESE: You know, I think that you're still going to have a lot of workers who are going to get caught up in the system that aren't going to be able to work because of errors in the database.

And that's going to be a real problem for them. I mean, this thing about this bill that is maybe -- or about this program that's different than many other things in the bill is this affects everybody. So, whether you have anything to do with immigration or not, you're going to be under this new mandate, and that mandate may mean that you, through no fault of your own, suddenly need to sort of prove your work eligibility to the government. And that may prove tricky.

RAY SUAREZ: Mark, a step in the right direction?

MARK KRIKORIAN: It's clearly a step in the right direction.

The idea that hundreds of thousands of people are somehow going to be denied employment because of mistakes in the system is just not true. First of all, you have to be hired first. You're already working for the employer. Only then do they check. They don't screen people ahead of time.

Number two, something like one-third of all new hires last year were already screened through the system. It's voluntary, but it is pretty widely used. We have used it for a number of years. We have never had any problem with it. But some people do get what's called tentative non-confirmation.

Basically, it's an initial response that says, something seems to be wrong. Double-check everything and see what the problem is. Most of the time, you know what that turns out to be? It's women who took their husband's name when they got married, but didn't tell Social Security.

And, frankly, I think I would want to know about that when I was 25, not when I was 65. So, in a sense, it's almost a public service making sure that the information in your Social Security account is correct early on, rather than trying to fix it later.

RAY SUAREZ: Many of the supporters have tried to shift the burden to employers to check whether someone is legally authorized to be in the country and work, say, we can fix this quickly. Social Security cards have never had pictures on them. They have never any kind of physical data on them.

Make it a hard card, a non-counterfeitable card, something with biometric data on it, and make the immigrant carry it. What do you think?

CHRISTOPHER CALABRESE: Well, there's a couple of problems with that. The first one is, it couldn't just be the immigrant who carried it, because if you didn't have a card, that could mean either you were a citizen or you weren't work-authorized. It would have to be a card for everyone.

And that would be a tremendously expensive proposition, I think tens of billions of dollars. Imagine everybody in the United States run through the DMV, through some sort of federal identification system, because that would basically be what it would be. It would be issuing a new identity credential.

And so, that's a very expensive proposition. And, honestly, I'm not sure it solves the problem. Remember, the people who don't want to comply with the immigration system now aren't complying. Right? You could have a very high acceptance rate, a very high compliance rate, but if it wasn't the people you were trying to get at, the folks who want to hire undocumented workers and don't really care what their credentials look like, I'm not sure any of these proposals actually get at those people.

And that's a huge problem. We could have a very expensive, very invasive system that actually doesn't solve the problem you want to solve.

MARK KRIKORIAN: The interesting thing that people don't get is that most illegal immigrants work on the books now. Our estimates are something like 60 percent of illegal immigrants who have jobs working on the books with regular employers, and they have lied to the employers about who they are. Social Security actually estimates even more, maybe 75 percent.

So, this isn't just an issue of people huddled in front of the Home Depot working for cash. Most of the problem can in fact be addressed by a better -- by an E-Verify system that is applied universally. It's not a magic bullet. It's not going to magically fix everything all at once, but it is one of the most important elements, because if people have a very hard time finding work, then it becomes much less appealing to come here or stay here as illegal alien.

RAY SUAREZ: So, in the short time we have left, let me get a quick shot at the waterfront from both of you on how we can do better what E-Verify sets out to do.

Christopher?

CHRISTOPHER CALABRESE: Well, I think one of the things we can do is enforce existing wage and hour laws. Put some of this money we're spending towards E-Verify towards finding the bad employers, actually sending in testers to see if they're not complying with the law, and bringing down the existing penalties that we have on those employers. It's much less invasive than a giant system targeted at everybody.

I think it's something that keeps ordinary folks who really don't even realize they're being affected by this discussion from having to grapple with a giant federal bureaucracy in order to work.

MARK KRIKORIAN: If you don't like E-Verify, you need -- the only real solution is to let illegal aliens work again. In other words, you can't have a ban on illegal immigrants working, but not have some way for legitimate employers to actually know whether they're hiring people who are authorized to work or not, because this isn't an issue of crooked employers.

You're always going to have some of that. That's what we have police and other things for. The issue here is legitimate, law-abiding employers who want to do the right thing, but now have real difficulty in telling whether somebody is legal or illegal. And the way the law is now, if you look too closely, you can actually be sued by the Justice Department for discrimination.

So, E-Verify is important for employers, as well as the country as a whole.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, the debate is under way on Capitol Hill.

Gentlemen, thank you both for helping us explain to the public what's at stake.

CHRISTOPHER CALABRESE: Thank you.

MARK KRIKORIAN: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, online, “Five Things You Should Know About E-Verify.” That's on the Rundown.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Arizona's Proof-of-Citizenship Voter Requirement

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:09:00 EDT

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JUDY WOODRUFF: The Supreme Court issued a 7-2 decision today striking down Arizona's law that required people to show proof of citizenship when they registered to vote in federal elections. The ruling affects several states with similar laws, and will block others from adding requirements to the voter registration process.

The court found a state law cannot trump the 1993 voter -- Motor Voter law, which streamlines election sign-ups through a national form system.

With us, as always, is Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal.

Hello, Marcia.

MARCIA COYLE, National Law Journal: Hi, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, tell us a little more about the case that the justices were asked to decide.

MARCIA COYLE: OK. All right.

The election clause in the federal Constitution, it gives states the responsibility to set the time, place and manner of federal elections. But it also gives Congress the power to alter those regulations. As you said, in 1993, Congress enacted the Motor Voter law. And that created a simple unified form to register to vote.

In 2004, Arizona enacted Proposition 200, and that required state voting officials to reject any registration form that didn't include concrete evidence of citizenship, such as driver's license, birth certificate. The issue before the court was whether that requirement conflicted with the federal form, which only requires the applicant to attest, sign that the person is a citizen, under penalty of perjury.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What did the justices do? What did they say?

MARCIA COYLE: Justice Scalia wrote for the majority. And as he was during oral arguments, he was very skeptical of Arizona's argument that, under the federal law, which requires states to accept and use the federal form, the terms accept and use means only to willingly receive the form and use it as part of the state's registration process.

He said this was a mandate in the federal law for a specific purpose. And if Arizona and other states could tack on to the federal law different requirements, pretty soon, the federal law would no longer have a very simple and unified form.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, they knocked down what Arizona has done, but there was also language in the ruling that gives some hope to states and maybe even Arizona about a pathway they can choose if they do want to tighten voting requirements.

MARCIA COYLE: Absolutely, Judy. This is the second part of his opinion.

He said, well, Arizona, you can go back to the Federal Elections Assistance Commission, which oversees the federal form, and ask it to include a state-specific requirement like you have in Proposition 200. If the commission rejects your request, you can file a lawsuit and challenge that decision in federal court.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, is there -- is there clarity here or how do you read it?

MARCIA COYLE: Well, I think it's one of those two-sided decisions. He did provide a road map for the states if they want to add requirements onto voter registration forms.

On the other hand, he also spoke to the elections clause and the power that Congress has given here as being quite broad. I think ultimately what we're going to see is states are going to try to add some state-specific requirements to the federal form.

Justice Alito wrote a dissent in which he said, basically, well, this is a remedy that is just not going to work, because right now there is no one on the Federal Elections Assistance Commission. It's not functioning.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Marcia, this was a 7-2 decision, unusual split among the conservatives. You had Justice Scalia writing the opinion, a couple of other conservatives joining with him. But then you had, as you just said, Justice Alito and Justice Thomas dissenting.

MARCIA COYLE: Well, I have always believed that the conservatives on the court, as well as the more liberal members on the court, are not monolithic blocs.

And the conservatives Justice Scalia and Justice Alito have differed on First Amendment cases. Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas are not clones. They also have differed on First Amendment and even some criminal law cases. So, while it is surprising to see it, it's not unusual.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And you write about this, in fact, in your book.

MARCIA COYLE: I do, "The Roberts Court: The Struggle for the Constitution."

JUDY WOODRUFF: By Marcia Coyle. But it would be so much easier if they did fit into some easy explanation.

MARCIA COYLE: It would certainly be easier for those of us who write and talk about the court.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Marcia, there are still some very high-profile cases the justices have been deciding on. We don't know how they're going to rule. What is the thinking about what's taking so long?

MARCIA COYLE: OK.

They're very difficult cases. The three that we're all sort of watching closely involve affirmative action, the University of Texas case, voting rights, the challenge to the heart of the Voting Rights Act, and the two same-sex marriage cases.

The court traditionally wraps up a term in the last week in June, which would be next week, really. We have one decision day scheduled for this week on Thursday, next week, probably two, maybe three days for the court. If it does want to wrap up, who knows? We're only told when a day is a decision day, but not what decisions are coming.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We're on the edge of our seats.

Marcia Coyle, thanks.

MARCIA COYLE: My pleasure, Judy.

GWEN IFILL: Online, we will have live coverage of the Supreme Court's end-of-term decisions as they arrive. And on the days opinions are issued, we will carry developments from inside the court from SCOTUSblog on our home page.

News Wrap: U.K. Government Reportedly Hacked Email, Calls of Foreign Diplomats

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:06:00 EDT

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HARI SREENIVASAN: As the G-8 convened, a London newspaper reported Britain has hacked into e-mails and phone conversations of foreign leaders and diplomats. The Guardian said classified documents show it happened at a 2009 summit. The report said British intelligence even set up a bugged Internet cafe. Several countries, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey, called for full explanations.

The man who leaked word of secret surveillance by the National Security Agency has spoken out again. Edward Snowden held an online chat on the Guardian website. He defended what he did, saying -- quote -- "It was seeing a continuing litany of lies from senior officials and the realization that Congress wholly supported the lies that compelled me to act."

Snowden was last known to be in Hong Kong, but he said today -- quote -- "I have no contact with the Chinese government. I work only with journalists." He also said he doesn't expect a fair trial, if he is ever charged and returned to the United States.

The government of Turkey kept up the pressure today in a bid to put an end to protests. Riot police fired water cannons and tear gas at small groups of demonstrators near Istanbul's Taksim Square. Police ousted the protesters from a park there over the weekend, ending an 18-day sit-in. Meanwhile, in Ankara, thousands of striking union workers waved banners and flags today in a peaceful rally appealing for a more democratic government.

KAZIM AYHAN, Turkish Protester: We are here to protest the ruling party's pressures. We protest against unfair working conditions, their ignoring our demands, and limits on freedom of expression.

WOMAN: We thought that common sense was on vacation. We thought it would return, but it didn't. We want wisdom and common sense. We're here to protect our children and prevent people from crying. We want to live in a normal country.

HARI SREENIVASAN: In response, Turkey's deputy prime minister suggested today the military could be called out if the police are not enough.

The most destructive wildfire ever to hit Colorado is now 75 percent contained. Rain swept through the Colorado Springs area Sunday, helping put out flames. Fire crews hoped for more of the same today. The fire has destroyed nearly 500 homes and killed two people. Authorities said today they're getting closer to pinpointing exactly where it started.

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 109 points to close well above 15,179. The Nasdaq rose 28 points to close at 3,452.

Those are some of the day's major stories -- now back to Judy.

Fate of Syria, U.S. Aid to Rebels Dominates Attention at G-8 Summit

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:02:00 EDT

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GWEN IFILL: The “Group of Eight” summit was alive today with talk of Syria, and the U.S. move to intervene there more directly.

The international gathering convened in Northern Ireland.

And the G-8 leaders arrived today, Syria's bloody civil war overshadowed the conference's usual focus on trade deals and unemployment. The U.S. decision to send arms to the Syrian rebels guaranteed the issue a place in the summit spotlight. At the same time, it fueled a growing dispute between Washington and Moscow.

President Obama and Russian President Putin met privately on the sidelines of the meeting today in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. Publicly, at least, The tone was conciliatory.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We do have differing perspectives on the problem, but we share an interest in reducing the violence, securing chemical weapons, and that we want to try to resolve the issue through political means if possible.

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russia: Of course, our opinions do not coincide. But we are united by the common intention to end the violence, to stop the number of victims from increasing in Syria, and to resolve the problems by peaceful means.

GWEN IFILL: But Putin was much more blunt in London yesterday, without President Obama at his side. Criticizing any move to aid the rebels, he cited a notorious incident involving a rebel commander.

PRESIDENT PUTIN: I believe one doesn't really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines in front of the public gaze and cameras? Are these the people you want to support? Are they the ones you want to supply with weapons?

GWEN IFILL: Putin also defended Russian arms shipments to the Assad regime.

Back in Moscow today, the Russian foreign minister accused the U.S. of mounting military exercises in Jordan as a cover for implementing a no-fly zone over Syria, something Russia opposes.

ALEXANDER LUKASHEVICH, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman: I think we fundamentally will not allow the scenario. And reports that our American partners are doing preparatory works at military complexes related to this in Jordan are also a direct violation of international law.

GWEN IFILL: And in Damascus, Syrian President Assad condemned the U.S. move, telling a German newspaper that Europe will pay the price if it does the same.

In Washington on Sunday, former Vice President Dick Cheney took the opposite tack, warning that President Obama is doing too little too late in Syria.

FORMER VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY, United States: You had an opportunity earlier to provide support without having to get American forces directly involved, and they took a path. Now they're going to do it. But the question is whether or not they're a day late and a dollar short.

GWEN IFILL: White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough answered critics across the spectrum by saying the president has no intention to rush to war.

DENIS MCDONOUGH, White House Chief of Staff: We want to make sure that Syrians who want to take charge of their own country have the ability to do that. We have to be very discerning about what is in our interests and what the outcome -- what outcome is best for us and the prices that we're willing to pay to get to that place.

GWEN IFILL: The Syrian conflict itself is increasingly devolving into a sectarian war. On Sunday, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, a Sunni, cut diplomatic ties with Damascus. He demanded that Shiite Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon leave Syria.

And late today, the Obama administration announced it would send an additional $300 million dollars in humanitarian aid to those affected by the Syrian crisis. That brings total U.S. assistance to nearly $850 million dollars since the civil war began.

Pitch Your Questions to Mark Shields, David Brooks for 'Doubleheader Live'

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:47:00 EDT

Watch the "Doubleheader Live" with Mark Shields and David Brooks beginning at 5:15 p.m. EDT Friday. Leave your questions for the guys below or tweet using the hash #doubleheaderlive.

Friday is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, so we thought it would be the perfect time to sit down with our boys of summer. That's right, Mark Shields and David Brooks, NewsHour's one-two political punch. The guys are here in the newsroom most Fridays to do a segment we call the "Doubleheader" where we address the sport of politics and the politics of sport. And this Friday, it will be live.

Is there anything you've ever wanted to ask Mark and David? Now is your chance. Pitch your questions to the fellows for the special "Doubleheader Live." Leave them in the comments section below or tweet them @NewsHour using the hash #DoubleHeaderLive. We will address as many as we can starting at 5:15 p.m. EDT Friday. You can watch the live stream in the player above or on our homepage, pbs.org/newshour.

You can subscribe to Hari on Facebook and Google Plus and follow him on Twitter @Hari.

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After Retiring, Bored Into Working

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:52:00 EDT

Watch Video David Thompson is "semi-retired." After his official retirement, the NASCAR buff decided to take a part-time job at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C.

"I just did not want to totally quit working."

David Thompson didn't want to sit around in retirement. A fan of NASCAR since he was a kid, the 66-year-old now shares his knowledge and passion for the sport with others as a part-timer at the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

"It gives me a chance to get out, meet the public, and enjoy life," Thompson told us. "It's just a fun place to come to and work everyday."

Thompson is one of many once-retired Americans who have decided to head back to work because they enjoy it. They want to feel useful and have something to do.

So, is retirement as we know it a thing of the past? How long are we likely to work? We have spent the past year looking at the factors -- demography, economics and just plain personal preference -- that help explain what's happening to the American workforce as it ages in our special project, New Adventures for Older Workers.

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Are Social Security's Fiscal Concerns Overblown?

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:04:00 EDT

By Paul Solman

There have been dire warnings about future fiscal shortfalls for years, explains Paul Solman. Photo courtesy of Dave Reede/Getty Images.

In his weekly Social Security Q&A, published earlier Monday, Larry Kotlikoff makes the case that Social Security's funding gap is much larger than the 75-year shortfall the government projects. Social Security's fiscal gap for infinity, he argues, more accurately captures the challenges to keeping the system solvent for today's children. His point, which he's made on the Making Sen$e Business Desk before, deserved a response.

Ah yes: the long run. No, I'm not going to parry Larry by quoting Keynes: that in the long run, we're all dead. As Larry rightly points out, there are kids, grandkids, greatgrandkids to think about, as Larry might put it, ad infinitum. Moreover, if you believe Richard ("Selfish Gene") Dawkins and the basic tenets of evolutionary biology, all that really matters is our progeny, our DNA.

No, I'm simply going to remind Larry, and the many tens of thousands of you who typically read this column, that economic history is littered with predictions of long run doom for governments that spend more than they "earn." Here's the fittingly beloved Adam Smith himself, in the fifth "book" of his "Wealth of Nations," published in 1776: "The progress of the enormous debts which at present oppress, and will in the long-run probably ruin, all the great nations of Europe, has been pretty uniform."

Uh, not exactly. Not Smith's own United Kingdom, for example, which did just fine, despite similar laments from many contemporaries who declared the burgeoning English debt of the 18th century unsustainable.

The thing about forever or infinity is that, by definition, it never ends. Britain was famous for issuing its IOUs as bonds called "consols." They had no maturity at all. That is, they paid an interest rate in perpetuity because it was presumed that even if the sun were to eventually set on the English Empire, it would never set on a borrower known as "England."

As for the eventual solvency of Social Security in the United States, I will defer to a greater authority than I, Alicia Munnell, the Peter F. Drucker Professor of Management Sciences at Boston College's Carroll School of Management, who also serves as the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

I recently confronted her with Larry's dire forecast. I have cited her response here before on this same issue, but it deserves repeating. [Note that the interview was done before the release of the 2013 Social Security Trustees Report.]

Alicia Munnell: Big numbers happen over a long period of time and other stuff also happens over a long period of time.

Paul Solman: Changes, you mean?

Alicia Munnell: We have benefit commitments, but we also have people earning longer, and payroll taxes being paid for longer and perhaps at a higher rate. I find the most useful way to think about the deficit to Social Security is in terms of the payroll tax. So, how much would the payroll tax have to be raised to solve the problem for 75 years, which is Social Security's planning horizon, and how much would it have to be raised to solve it for infinity? And for [a] 75-year time horizon, the number is 2.36 percent.

Paul Solman: So right now, the payroll tax for Social Security is 12.5 percent, split between employer and employee. So it would have to [be] up to something like 15 percent?

Alicia Munnell: Yes. Half. Right. So that's 1.2 percent more from you and 1.2 from the employer. Now think about that number. We recently had a payroll tax cut of 2 percentage points, and I couldn't even tell. And then they raised it again by those same 2 percentage points, and again I couldn't tell. I think some low earners felt it, but there wasn't jubilation when it happened and it wasn't cataclysmic when it went back. From the employee's perspective, the change that we're talking about is half of what we just went through in terms of this payroll tax cut and then increase.

And that's if you say, I'm going to solve this whole problem just by raising the payroll tax. If you do anything else -- raise the taxable wage base or do any number of things -- the amount you need to raise from the payroll tax becomes smaller. I think that's a more sensible way to think about Social Security's finances than this $200 zillion trillion dollar shortfall.

To be fair, 75 years is only part of the story because we have an increasing ratio of retirees to workers, and so when the 75-year period moves forward, you lose a year of surplus, [and] you pick up a year of deficits.

So if you just solve the problem for 75 years, it's not enough. To really solve it, you've got to have something like a 4 percent increase in taxes, 2 percent for you, 2 percent for the employer. But I think solving it for 75 years would be just fine and all those numbers are manageable.

In other words, a lot can happen from here to eternity. We can grow the economy like mad. We can raise taxes. We can cut expenses. Or, we could just keep owing ourselves and others and borrowing against the future. When will that come to an end? You tell me.

This entry is cross-posted on the Rundown -- NewsHour's blog of news and insight. Follow @paulsolman

Weekly Poem: 'From the Grandiloquent Dictionary'

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:45:00 EDT

By Hailey Leithauser

Judder

When Junk gives a shudder, like a tractor more quaint than intact, like lapsed reactors, pipes worn and contorted, a Toyota that's done for, or outdated aorta.

Katzenjammer Think of the yowl of three senile felines. Think of a buzz saw's black, sauerkraut whine. Imagine ten screeched, unleashed violins. Imagine the dawn that follows the gin.

Metrophobia

I, too dislike it, or at least I find too much of it bromidic and unrhymed, muffled in a fog of cottony prose, frightened of shadows or stepping on toes.

Hailey Leithauser's poetry has appeared in the Gettysburg Review, Poetry and in the Best American Poetry and Best New Poets anthologies. Her first book, "Swoop," won the Poetry Foundation's Emily Dickinson First Book Award. That collection will be published in October.

How the Government Is Fooling Us About the Solvency of Social Security

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:24:00 EDT

By Larry Kotlikoff

The government should be budgeting for infinity, Social Security expert Larry Kotlikoff argues, if Social Security is to remain solvent. Photo courtesy of Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

Larry Kotlikoff's Social Security original 34 "secrets", his additional secrets, his Social Security "mistakes" and his Social Security gotchas have prompted so many of you to write in that we now feature "Ask Larry" every Monday. We are determined to continue it until the queries stop or we run through the particular problems of all 78 million Baby Boomers, whichever comes first. Kotlikoff's state-of-the-art retirement software is available here, for free, in its "basic" version.

Tom Harris -- Austin, Texas: My wife died, and I started taking survivor benefits at 62. I am now 66. Should I start collecting my own benefits, which would be higher, now? Someone said if I wait until age 67, I would get more than at age 66. Is that true?

Larry Kotlikoff: Yes, you get about 7 to 8 percent more every year that you wait. But to start collecting the maximum possible benefit for the rest of your life, you should wait until 70. It will then be 32 percent larger than if you take it now, and 7 to 8 percent larger than if you take it at 69. Suppose you live until age 99? Suppose you need elder care? Social Security is best thought of as old age insurance to be used as protection against outliving your savings.

Also -- and this is critical in your case -- if you take you own benefit now, you will eliminate your survivor benefit. As discussed in my column "Three Rules for How to Get the Highest Social Security Benefits," the way to maximize your lifetime benefits is to let one benefit grow while taking whatever else is available for as long as possible.

Robert Wimer -- Belgrade, Mo.: I'm 64 but will be 66 in 18 months. I claimed $24,000 in 2012. Would I be better off taking Social Security at 66 or 70? Will it still be around in five-and-a-half years?

Larry Kotlikoff: If you can swing it, money-wise, you should suspend your retirement benefit at 66 and start it up at 70, when it will be 32 percent larger, as I explain in my first answer this week. That's provided, however -- and readers of this column must never forget -- that if you're already taking Medicare Part B, you should pay your premiums out of pocket.

As to Social Security's longevity, yes, it will be around in five-plus years. A 40,000-person strong American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) is on notice to protect it, if needed by attacking congressmen with their canes. Recall the attack on House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., in 1989, when he dared to propose that oldsters contribute to their own catastrophic care insurance.

MORE FROM LARRY KOTLIKOFF: Not Everyone Thinks You Should Wait Until 70 to Take Social Security

But when you question the solvency of Social Security over the long run, you certainly make a good point -- a point I, as an economist, have been reiterating in these columns, including one on what I consider the real problem with Harvard professors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff's research relating real economic variables to the amount of government debt.

In another column, I exposed the fiscal cliff for the generational con job I think it was. In yet another, I returned to one of my favorite (or, really, least favorite) themes: the fiscal war on our children. And then there was the Making Sen$e Business Desk column laying bare the full extent of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's fiscal folly.

Economic theory makes strikingly clear the dire long-term state of Social Security. But even economists who understand how far out we need to budget -- and there are precious few of them -- don't like to make public what our theory says, for two reasons. First, it's not an answer people easily comprehend. Second, it's not an answer that politicians, whose attention most economists secretly crave, want to hear.

The answer is: governments need to budget out to infinity. And that leads to a very grim view of Social Security's finances not for you, Mr. Wimer, but for your children and grandchildren, their grandchildren and so on.

Now I admit, infinity is a very long time. But economic theory also tells us that in budgeting out to infinity, we should place less weight on distant government expenditures and tax receipts. Specifically, we should include in our budgeting, not actual future expenditures and taxes, but their present values.

Just as it says, "present value" stands for the value of something right now -- in the present. And the value right now of getting one dollar in the future is smaller the longer you have to wait for it. The reason is simple. You can put aside less than a dollar today, earn interest on that saving, and end up with a dollar in the future. If you can invest at 3 percent, you only need to put aside 41 cents today to end up with one dollar in 30 years. So 41 cents is what one dollar in 30 years is worth today.

The fact that economics tell us to discount -- as in make less of -- each dollar owed or received in the distant future, however, doesn't mean a government can ignore those obligations and receipts, especially if there are loads of future obligations relative to receipts.

Take the just-released 2013 Trustees Report on Social Security's long-run finances. Table IVB6 shows an infinite horizon fiscal gap of $23.1 trillion separating the Social Security system's projected costs and taxes after taking into account the several trillion in the Social Security trust fund. To give you a sense of how massive this shortfall is -- and it grew by fully 8 percent last year alone -- it is 50 percent larger than U.S. GDP and almost twice the size of total federal debt held by the public.

Table IVB6 also reports Social Security's fiscal gap over the next 75 years. It's much smaller -- only $9.6 trillion, and that's the number people tend to use in discussion. But that number is only 41 percent of the actual economic gap: $23.1 trillion. Thus, the 75-year fiscal gap hides three fifths of the system's true long-term shortfall.

Eliminating the infinite horizon fiscal gap would require an immediate and permanent 4-cents-on-the-dollar hike in Social Security's current 12.4 percent Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax rate. That's a 32 percent increase, implying that Social Security is 32 percent underfunded! Alternatively, we could cut all Social Security benefits immediately and permanently by 22 percent.

President Obama keeps telling us that Social Security just needs to be tweaked. He should take a look at Table IVB6, and so should the press, which, as it does every year, has completely ignored this true and truly terrible assessment of the system's financial status.

Some people will, no doubt, view paying 4 cents more per dollar earned as no big deal. Paul Solman, the proprietor of the Making Sen$e Business Desk, is one of these people. But let me publicly remind him that A) at age 68, he's close to retirement (well, within 20 years anyway), and B) he should think of those far from retirement, like his grandkids. Should they be asked to pay another four pennies of every 100 pennies they earn over their entire lives to keep the elderly's Social Security benefits unchanged for everyone, including those like Paul and Warren Buffett? That doesn't quite meet the sniff test.

Social Security began reporting its infinite horizon fiscal gap in 2003. Back then it totaled only $10.5 trillion. On an inflation-adjusted basis, the gap has risen 74 percent since then, leaving the system in far worse shape than back in 1983, when the Greenspan Commission supposedly "fixed" it.

But the Greenspan Commission, like the current trustees, looked out only 75 years. In so doing, it ignored not just the 30 years between 2057 and 2087 that have since moved up into the 75-year window, but all the years after 2087 as well, when most of today's and tomorrow's children will still be alive.

Ignoring the distant future when our kids' welfare is at stake is morally repugnant. But it's also forbidden by economic theory, and here's why.

Economic theory doesn't tell us whether any given dollar the government takes from us should be called "taxes" or "borrowing." Theoretically and practically speaking, it's not a meaningful distinction. If the United States runs an implicit deficit in terms of its future obligations, as Social Security has been running, it's going to have to make the deficit up eventually by collecting taxes.

Nor does economics distinguish between calling any given dollar that the government hands back to us a "transfer payment," as we usually think of Social Security benefits, or "repayment of principal plus interest," as if the government were making good on an IOU to its citizens.

Economics is about real policy, not the language used to describe policy. But the government's choice of words, not its actual fiscal deeds, will dictate its cash flow projections and the fiscal gap it reports over any finite budgeting horizon, be it the 10-year horizon Congress uses or the 75-year horizon the Social Security Trustees favor. That's why an economist like me insists that it should use an infinite time horizon.

And, by contrast, that's why Social Security's $23.1 trillion fiscal gap over an infinite horizon is kept off the books: It sounds better, to politicians, to talk about 75-year obligations for the simple reason that their total is lower. And because, if you call FICA contributions "payroll taxes" rather than "paying future debts," you don't raise the question: "Just how large are those future debts?"

In short, then, limiting Social Security's gap to 75 years is not justified by economic theory. It can be any size anyone wants to report. So 10-year, 25-year, 50-year and 75-year fiscal gaps literally have no economic meaning because they measure our labels, not our policy.

And if you want to talk truly big picture, for the U.S. government as a whole, projecting the current gap between revenue and expenditures indefinitely, the infinite horizon fiscal gap is a whopping $222 trillion! To close that gap would require not a 32 percent immediate and permanent tax hike in Social Security FICA taxes or a 22 percent immediate and permanent cut in Social Security benefits, but either a 64 percent immediate and permanent tax hike in all federal taxes or a 40 percent immediate and permanent cut in all expenditures apart from servicing official debt.

Look for Paul Solman's response this afternoon.

This entry is cross-posted on the Rundown -- NewsHour's blog of news and insight. Follow @paulsolman

PBS NewsHour Expands with 'NewsHour Weekend'

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:35:00 EDT

PBS NewsHour correspondent Hari Sreenivasan will become the new anchor for "PBS NewsHour Weekend" which launches on Sept. 7. Photo by NewsHour

Starting Sept. 7, the PBS NewsHour is expanding its family, adding a "PBS NewsHour Weekend" newscast on Saturdays and Sundays. The 30-minute show will be anchored by veteran NewsHour correspondent and director of digital partnerships, Hari Sreenivasan. The program will be produced by New York PBS member station WNET and broadcast out of the Tisch WNET studios. The show will be carried by most local PBS affiliates.

"We are so fortunate to be a part of the next chapter of the NewsHour, bringing this trusted brand to audiences on air and online on the weekends," said WNET President and CEO Neal Shapiro in a press release.

"PBS NewsHour Weekend" will continue NewsHour's tradition of delivering in-depth analysis of the day's national and international news. It will also feature original field reporting and allow local PBS member stations the opportunity to include local news at the end of the broadcast.

To Sreenivasan, the move to weekends is a natural next step. "It's an evolution in NewsHour's commitment to being a reliable, trusted news source that's available anywhere, anytime, weekdays, weekends and online," he said. Besides the shorter format, solo anchor and different skyline, Sreenivasan also hopes to bring a few more changes to the anchor desk.

"I'd like to infuse the public in the content creation and content distribution using different tools to see how we can best engage with smart audiences," he said. Sreenivasan and WNET's team plan to use social media, Google Hangouts, live chats and other platforms to connect with audiences and also to connect viewers with the program's guests.

Sreenivasan will continue to produce reports for the weekday NewsHour broadcast, allowing for a seamless convergence of the two programs. Through the expansion of the NewsHour's extended online coverage seven days a week, Sreenivasan hopes to increase the program's range of sources to help produce and distribute content, widening NewsHour's audience.

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How the Immigration Reform Debate Could Make or Break Marco Rubio

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:30:00 EDT

On Sunday, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. said the immigration bill is nearly "ready to go."

Two weeks remain until Congress is scheduled to break for the Fourth of July holiday, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has declared is the deadline for his chamber to complete work on a comprehensive immigration reform bill. With the clock ticking, and amendments piling up, backers of the proposal took to the Sunday talk shows to tout its prospects for final passage.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a member of the bipartisan group that drafted the legislation, reiterated his position that the border security elements of the package must be strengthened in order for the measure to stand a real shot at winning passage through both the House and Senate.

"I think it's an excellent starting point, and I think 95, 96 percent of the bill is in perfect shape and ready to go. But there are elements that need to be improved," the Republican said during an appearance on ABC's "This Week."

"I think the debate now is about what that border security provision looks like. And if we do that, this bill will have strong bipartisan support," Rubio added. "If we fail, we're going to keep trying, because at the end of the day, the only way we're going to pass an immigration reform law out of the House and Senate so the president can sign it is, that it has real border security measures within it."

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., another member of the so-called Gang of Eight, said Democrats would consider other border security provisions, so long as they were not being offered as a way to derail the overall bill. "We're open to constructive elements of how border security can be further achieved, but not, if at the end of the day, you're just simply using that as an excuse not to permit a pathway to legalization," Menendez said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Menendez also dismissed talk that Rubio might walk away from the compromise without additional border security enhancements to the plan. "I think he is so into this process that I think he would lose out not to continue. And I have no indication that he has no desire or intention not to continue," Menendez said. "He's been a very good ally in this Gang of Eight and has been very helpful in bringing people to the bill as has Lindsey Graham and John McCain and Jeff Flake."

Still, Politico's Manu Raju and Carrie Budoff Brown report that by charting his own course to sell the immigration proposal Rubio has unnerved some of his fellow Gang of Eight members:

The Florida Republican has spent hours strategizing in private with the bipartisan group of senators, but he hasn't appeared in public with them since late April -- nixing requests for press conferences after the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the immigration bill, according to Democrats, and most recently, for a joint interview on Univision.

His public absences from his partners show the difficult line he is walking on immigration -- trying to woo conservative activists wary of the bill while keeping the Gang of Eight bill moving.

It's a Senate trial by fire. Rubio is attempting to master a treacherous legislative process that has confounded lawmakers with decades of experience. The success or failure of the immigration overhaul bill will largely determine whether his efforts are seen as the shrewd mechanisms of a kingmaker or the political naiveté of a third-year senator.

Politico's Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman, meanwhile, write that Rubio's work on the immigration bill has brought with it some political risk, the most worrisome of which to the senator's advisers being the potential for the Florida Republican to get labeled as a Washington insider.

The political consequences associated with immigration reform also are on the minds of Rubio's fellow Republicans.

Graham, R-S.C., said the GOP could do further damage to the party's brand if it blocks a bill from moving forward. "If we don't pass immigration reform, if we don't get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn't matter who you run in 2016," Graham said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We're in a demographic death spiral as a party and the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community in my view is pass comprehensive immigration reform. If you don't do that, it really doesn't matter who we run in my view."

Menendez agreed with Graham's assessment. "I would tell my Republican colleagues, both in the House and the Senate, that the road to the White House comes through a road with a pathway to legalization. Without it, there'll never be a road to the White House for the Republican Party," said the New Jersey Democrat.

For lawmakers, the more immediate concern is the bill itself, and the fight over more than 100 amendments that have so far been filed.

The Hill's Ramsey Cox looks at six amendments worth keeping an eye on, including Texas Sen. John Cornyn's border security proposal, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy's provision to provide equal protection to immigrants in same-sex marriages and Rubio's modification to the English language requirement in the bill.

The Washington Post's David Nakamura and Sandhya Somashekhar note that Republicans are also using President Barack Obama's health care law as a way to impede progress on immigration reform.

Despite the slog ahead, Graham said he has "never been more optimistic" about the plan's chances for passage. "I think we're going to have a political breakthrough, that Congress is going to pass immigration reform. I think we're going to get plus 70 votes."

Such a result would ramp up pressure on the Republican-controlled House, where GOP leaders have indicated they would prefer to pass a series of smaller measures rather than the comprehensive plan being debated in the Senate.

SEVEN DAYS A WEEK

The PBS NewsHour is announcing Monday an exciting expansion -- the addition of "PBS NewsHour Weekend."

Starting Sept. 7, Hari Sreenivasan will anchor 30-minute Saturday and Sunday broadcasts. They may have a shorter format but the goal is the same: in-depth analysis of the day's national and international news and original field reporting.

"It's an evolution in NewsHour's commitment to being a reliable, trusted news source that's available anywhere, anytime, weekdays, weekends and online," he said.

"We are so fortunate to be a part of the next chapter of the NewsHour, bringing this trusted brand to audiences on air and online on the weekends," WNET President and CEO Neal Shapiro said in announcing the move.

The program will be produced by New York PBS member station WNET and broadcast out of the Tisch WNET studios.

Sreenivasan said the new show will allow local PBS member stations the opportunity to include local news at the end of the broadcast, and outlined a few other changes that will further connect viewers to the PBS NewsHour.

"I'd like to infuse the public in the content creation and content distribution using different tools to see how we can best engage with smart audiences," he said. That could mean Google Hangouts, live chats and other social media platforms.

The changes come as recent news stories have highlighted challenges facing the show in an evolving media universe. We'll have more detail on Monday's NewsHour. Watch here.

LINE ITEMS

Mr. Obama began his trip abroad with a speech to youth in Belfast. He's expected to have a full plate at Group of Eight meetings this week before giving a speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Also on the trip, First Lady Michelle Obama this week will visit Trinity College and explore archives "documenting the Obamas' Irish ancestry."

A new CNN poll released Monday found the president's approval rating has dropped eight percentage points over the past month, with half of respondents saying they don't believe Mr. Obama is "honest and trustworthy."

"The drop in Obama's support is fueled by a dramatic 17-point decline over the past month among people under 30, who, along with black Americans, had been the most loyal part of the Obama coalition," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "It is clear that revelations about NSA surveillance programs have damaged Obama's standing with the public, although older controversies like the IRS matter may have begun to take their toll as well."

Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA, said Sunday there is a "misunderstanding" when it comes to the government's surveillance programs.

Roll Call's Shira Toeplitz and Abby Livingston detail how the Supreme Court's ruling on the Voting Rights Act could scramble Texas' map.

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is answering the NRA's ad against him with his own television spot.

The New York Times' Trip Gabriel examined the relationship between Kentucky Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul.

The Fix looks at the most interesting gubernatorial races this year and next.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Friday said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition that immigrants contribute to the economy and are more "fertile."

Bush also called former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a "formidable force" on the left.

Thomas Jefferson was very much into winemaking. Read his letters and others from the Founders at the National Archives newly released online document trove.

This 1993 reminder of the United States' record arming rebel forces is making the rounds on the Internet.

With federal revenues up higher than expected, addressing the debt limit is now "clearly a post-August recess issue," House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast Friday. He and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., will soon embark on listening tour across the country as they tackle tax reform -- the specifics of which they wouldn't address.

Ashley Parker of the New York Times writes about Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn and his controversial border security amendment to the Senate immigration bill.

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of Mr. Obama's DREAM Act decision. On Friday, journalist-turned-advocate Jose Antonio Vargas will debut in Washington his documentary on the topic, "Undocumented."

Christmas is saved. Thanks, Rick Perry!

Photos from the annual Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game.

The Supreme Court has two weeks left in its term, and still 19 cases for which to announce decisions. We're watching a few major topics that have yet to see the justices' opinions: affirmative action in higher education, the Voting Rights Act section 5, and California's Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which both involve same-sex marriage.

The NewsHour homepage will host SCOTUSblog's live coverage of Monday's decisions, which will come beginning at 10 a.m. For more in-depth Supreme Court coverage of the 2012-2013 term, visit our page.

NEWSHOUR ROUNDUP

The NewsHour on Friday looked at the administration's decision to aid the rebel forces. Jeff Brown spoke with former State Department official Vali Nasr and former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Watch the segment here or below:

Watch Video

Mark Shields and David Brooks discussed Syria, Edward Snowden and surveillance programs Friday night. Watch here or below: Watch Video

And Christina hosted the Doubleheader, with the guys weighing in on Hillary Clinton's ambition and the Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game.

Watch here or below:

Larisa Epatko will live blog the Guantanamo Bay military commission Monday.

Our data team has some interesting infographics examining the NSA's surveillance program.

While Common Core curriculum standards are intended to provide comparable preparation to all students, that may not set up all students for success in the workforce, argues economist Robert Lerman.

TOP TWEETS

Split screen on Sky News: Obama's remarks in Belfast and Prince Philip leaving the hospital
— Julie Pace (@jpaceDC) June 17, 2013

My first #selfie w my mom @HillaryClinton back stage at #CGIAmerica. #ProudDaughter pic.twitter.com/84sEBHsRGn
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) June 14, 2013

FLOTUS #FollowFriday: @HillaryClinton announces a new effort to improve the health & well-being of America's kids --> http://t.co/wKyZOhJwRC
— FLOTUS (@FLOTUS) June 14, 2013

"There are far worse things to be accused of than trying to create good journalism and finding a way to pay for it." - @JudyWoodruff
— NewsHour (@NewsHour) June 14, 2013

.@TerryMcAuliffe at Catoctin Creek Distillery in Purcellville. Smells awesome. #vagov pic.twitter.com/tn3SYfrupN
— Ben Pershing (@benpershing) June 14, 2013

Simone Pathe and Meredith Garreston contributed to this report.

For more political coverage, visit our politics page.

Questions or comments? Email Christina Bellantoni at cbellantoni-at-newshour-dot-org.

Follow the politics team on Twitter:

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Follow @burlij Follow @kpolantz Follow @elizsummers Follow @tiffanymullon Follow @meenaganesan Follow @ljspbs

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Live-Blog: Gitmo Hearing on Suspected 9/11 Mastermind, Co-conspirators

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:00:00 EDT

Courtroom drawing of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (center) and co-defendants attending a pre-trial session on Dec. 8, 2008, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Sketch by Janet Hamlin-Pool/Getty Images.

Updated at 5:10 p.m. EDT: Lawyers representing the men who allegedly lay the groundwork for the 9/11 attacks on the United States went through a series of procedural motions Monday in a Guantanamo courtroom.

Most of the day was spent determining how classified legal information would be handled during the trial, which could be years from now. The hearing continues on Tuesday.

Monday's hearing was transmitted via closed-circuit TV to Fort Meade in Maryland, where we live-blogged events.

The case, United States v. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed et al, is one of two military commission hearings underway at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The other is for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian who allegedly orchestrated the 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.

The pre-trial hearings occurred seven weeks after President Obama renewed his pledge to close the U.S. prison in Guantanamo. On Monday, he was set to name Washington lawyer Clifford Sloan as the State Department's special envoy for shuttering the detention facility, according to the Associated Press.

Closing the facility would mean transferring the last of the detainees to federal courts in the United States -- something that Congress has blocked so far.

4:53 p.m. EDT: David Nevin, attorney for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, said his defense team felt that restrictions placed on their meetings with their client in 2011, including time limits and their inability to discuss jihad, would prevent them from "providing meaningful representation." Especially with the allegations of torture, they felt they needed more time, he said.

(Read Rear Adm. David Woods' order of Dec. 27, 2011 on defense attorneys' access to detainees. Woods oversaw the detention facility that year.)

4 p.m. EDT: James Harrington, representing Ramzi Binalshibh, brought up the subject of alleged torture of the detainees.

In response, retired Adm. Bruce MacDonald in charge of the Guantanamo military commissions said the United States has publicly disclosed it water boarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and MacDonald said he is on the record as saying "I believe water boarding constitutes torture."

1:50 p.m. EDT: Just before military judge, Army Col. James Pohl, called for a lunch break, James Connell, the counsel for Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, took the courtroom podium and asked about the definition of "contraband".

When they returned, retired Adm. Bruce MacDonald replied that the Guantanamo prison commander decides what constitutes contraband.

Earlier this year, defense lawyers said guards confiscated confidential legal mail from the prisoners' cells. Military lawyers testified in February that they were required to inspect the mail for staples and paperclips and then deliver it.

It was one of several attorney-client communication matters that came up at the hearing.

10:15 a.m. EDT: One of the defense attorneys, Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz, asked why a court order required "monitoring and recording" of attorney-client meetings including phone calls.

Retired Adm. Bruce MacDonald, the Pentagon's top official responsible for the war court, testified that the monitoring was to make sure no one else was on the line. He said he didn't know why a recording requirement was included in the court order.

Defense attorneys for the suspected 9/11 plotters and for the alleged orchestrator of the USS Cole bombing had expressed concern that there were listening devices in the rooms where they met with the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The officer in charge of the prison said earlier this month that the devices, made to resemble smoke detectors, had been removed.

9:30 a.m. EDT: After a series of technical problems, including microphone glitches, the hearing at the Guantanamo courtroom began.

Two firefighters were part of Monday's audience in the Guantanamo courtroom. Spectators sat at the back of the courtroom in a soundproof-glass room. They could hear the proceedings on a 40-second delay. That allowed time for the court security officer to press a button and obscure the audio with white noise if something deemed a national security secret was said.

The defendants -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Waleed bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali -- who all were wearing white robes, sat with their attorneys within the courtroom at separate tables. They could follow the proceedings with the help of translators.

Original Story:

The alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States and four suspected co-conspirators appear in a Guantanamo court Monday for the first time since detainees went on a hunger strike earlier this year.

A military judge will hear pre-trial motions, including defense efforts to dismiss the case based on problems with the Military Commission Act of 2009. View a list of the motions (PDF).

The hearing could last throughout the week. We'll be live-blogging the hearing -- which is being broadcast at Fort Meade in Maryland via closed-circuit TV feed from Guantanamo -- here on the Rundown and on Twitter.

The defendants are:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, raised in Kuwait, is identified in the 9/11 Commission Report as the "principal architect of the 9/11 attacks."

Waleed bin Attash, a Yemeni, allegedly ran a training camp in Afghanistan where two of the 9/11 hijackers went.

Ramzi Binalshibh, also a Yemeni, is said to have found flight schools for the hijackers and helped them enter the United States.

Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, a Saudi, is accused of providing money, Western clothing and credit cards for the hijackers.

Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, a Pakistani, allegedly provided $120,000 to the hijackers for flight training and other expenses.

They could get the death penalty if convicted.

View all of our World coverage and read about Gitmo by the Numbers.

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Alleged 9/11 Plotters Have Another Day in Guantanamo Court

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:54:00 EDT

The courthouse used for detainees at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is an old airport. Photo by Larisa Epatko.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, identified in the 9/11 Commission Report as the "principal architect of the 9/11 attacks," is slated to appear in court with four suspected co-conspirators on Monday.

The hearing is scheduled to start June 17 and could last throughout the week. It is on a series of pretrial motions, including motions to dismiss the charges because of problems with the Military Commission Act of 2009.

Mohammed, who grew up in Kuwait, allegedly presented the al-Qaida leadership with the plan to hijack several airliners and fly them into targets. He was arrested in Pakistan in March 2003.

Four other men are charged:

Waleed bin Attash, a Yemeni, allegedly ran a training camp in Afghanistan where two of the 9/11 hijackers went.

Ramzi Binalshibh, also a Yemeni, is said to have found flight schools for the hijackers and helped them enter the United States.

Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, a Saudi, is accused of providing money, Western clothing and credit cards for the hijackers.

Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, a Pakistani, allegedly provided $120,000 to the hijackers for flight training and other expenses.

The five suspects are being tried at Guantanamo Bay in a war crimes tribunal known as a military commission. The charges against them include murder and terrorism, and they could get the death penalty if convicted.

The five appeared in court in May 2012 at their arraignment, which was repeatedly interrupted as they complained of torture and prayed during unauthorized times.

We'll be live-blogging the hearing -- which will be broadcast at Fort Meade via closed-circuit TV feeds from Guantanamo -- here and on Twitter.

Related Resources

Arun Rath of PBS' Frontline and Josh Meyer, co-author of "The Hunt for KSM" describe the defendants' last court appearance in May 2012: Watch Video

Daniel Benjamin, who was on the National Security Council under the Clinton administration, and Zachary Abuza, associate professor at Simmons College in Boston, discuss what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's March 2003 arrest meant for al-Qaida.

Slideshow: Inside Guantanamo's Prison

View all of our World coverage and follow the military commission proceedings on Twitter:

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Live Coverage of Supreme Court Decisions

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:49:00 EDT

The Supreme Court could make landmark rulings on three major issues this month, weighing affirmative action in higher education, the Voting Rights Act section 5, and California's Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which both involve same-sex marriage.

That regular ritual of a justice reading decisions from the bench begins at 10 a.m. Monday. SCOTUSblog's live blog, below, starts at 9:15 a.m.

For NewsHour coverage featuring National Law Journal correspondent Marcia Coyle, visit our Supreme Court page.

Live blog of orders and opinions June 17

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A Peek Inside the Secret Court That Approved NSA's Surveillance Program

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 14:30:00 EDT

PBS NewsHour journalist Allison McCartney recently joined Visual.ly in San Francisco for a residency program focused on data visualization and infographic projects.

McCartney explored the complex story of the National Security Agency's extensive surveillance in her latest project. "The program is complicated and not much is known yet, so we decided to show you what we do know with the help of visuals," she wrote on Visual.ly's blog.

The administration, lawmakers and the intelligence community have claimed the National Security Agency (NSA) programs that use data from private companies to track millions of American are legal. One mysterious court has been tasked with determining whether these programs cross the line, but their decisions are secret, and made without public debate.

The surveillance program that first made news involved collecting the metadata on millions of telephone calls with help from telecommunications giant Verizon. The program is complicated and not much is known yet, so we decided to show you what we do know with the help of visuals.

We start with a flow chart about how the NSA-Verizon program works and the players involved, and move on to a graphic that breaks down the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and the elusive judges assigned to oversee each FISA application. At its peak in 2007, the FISC approved nearly 2,500 applications, but only denied four.

Wondering what they are? Sorry, that's classified.

Click on the image above for a larger version.

Take a look at some of our other recent visualizations:

Hot Spot Chicago

State-by-State Gun Legislation

Staggering Differences in the Cost of Medical Treatments

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Shields and Brooks on Hillary's Hints, Congressional Baseball Game

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:02:00 EDT

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NewsHour political editor Christina Bellantoni guest-hosts the Doubleheader with Mark Shields and David Brooks.

Mark Shields and David Brooks got a little edgy in Friday's Doubleheader. It may not be the segment's first mention of sex, but it definitely will get your attention.

I am still filling in for Hari Sreenivasan, who is finishing his honeymoon but will soon make his triumphant return.

Under "sport of politics," Mark and David weighed in on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's moves of late. She's joined Twitter and added to all the presidential ambition speculation with a big speech at the Clinton Global Initiative in Chicago.

She even tweeted a selfie with daughter Chelsea, so David and I took one too.

Just like the last time I sat in for Hari, we talked about baseball for the "politics of sport" section. Specifically, the annual Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game.

It had a, shall we say, embarrassing result for the Republicans, who used to dominate in wins of the coveted Roll Call trophy.

I admit it took all my composure to not promote the Congressional Women's Softball Game, happening June 26. I am playing in the game a charity event pitting female members of the press against female members of Congress. It's a great cause, and feel free to support it or buy tickets for the battle now. (For the record, the Bad News Babes press team claimed victory last summer.)

Finally: Get excited! Hari is hosting a special "Doubleheader Live" version on June 21. We will be streaming live from our newsroom and you can join in. Leave questions for Mark and David below, or tweet us at @NewsHour using the hashtag #Doubleheaderlive. Join us!

Please subscribe to the Morning Line.

Follow @cbellantoni

This video was shot and edited by Joshua Barajas and Justin Scuiletti.

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Could a Surplus of California Milk Fulfill China's Cheese Needs?

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:43:00 EDT

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JEFFREY BROWN: And finally tonight, we conclude our weeklong look at food security and how climate change is affecting what we produce and how we eat.

Special correspondent Susanne Rust reports on how China's growing demand for dairy products is affecting California farmers, the economy, and global trade.

It's part of our series “Food for 9 Billion,” in partnership with Public Radio International's "The World," Homelands Productions, American Public Media's Marketplace, and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

SUSANNE RUST: At the Culinary Institute of America in California's Napa Valley, a group of pizza executives is taking a cooking class. They have come all the way from Asia to try cooking with California cheese.

Davis Wei works as a cheese buyer for the largest pizza chain in China.

DAVIS WEI, Cheese Buyer: I definitely like dairy. I'm very passionate about it. Just look at my figure, and you can tell that I really love this type of food.

SUSANNE RUST: Wei is here on a tour of the state's dairy industry organized by the California Milk Advisory Board to drum up business.

Ross Christieson heads up the organization's international efforts, and he's bullish on milk's future.

ROSS CHRISTIESON, California Milk Advisory Board: Many people in the industry believe we make too much milk. My view is, we don't make enough milk here in California. If you take a global view of the international dairy market, there's actually a shortage of milk around the world.

We know a lot of these markets in China will grow 10- or 20-fold over the next few decades. By being there now, we can be at the start of that growth and we can capture that growth in the early stage.

SUSANNE RUST: Milk production is a nearly $8 billion dollar business in California, and the state is the country's largest producer.

But the business is changing, and that's raised a host of economic and environmental issues. To some, China looks like a great new market for milk; to others, it's a symbol of what's wrong with the old way of doing business.

For one thing, California dairies have been going bankrupt. Ray Souza has been producing milk in Turlock, Calif., for over 30 years, and manages a herd of about 900 Holstein cows. But he's worried. Nearly 300 dairies in California have gone out of business in the last five years, including three of his neighbors.

RAY SOUZA, California Dairy Farmer: To the south of me, that farm was seized by the bank, and I happened to witness that. And it was kind of a sad day to see everything those people had worked for lost.

This was a functioning business. The dairy family had been here for years and years and years. Father, mother, and children were here involved in the operation, the daily operation of the dairy. But it's one of those things where feed costs got high, and through no fault of their own, they were not able to sustain the business.

SUSANNE RUST: The problem is the cost of grains, like corn and soy, which are used in dairy feed, has reached record highs.

RAY SOUZA: My corn costs, which is a prime source of energy for dairy cows, has darn near tripled in the last five years.

SUSANNE RUST: Why? Supplies are tight due to an increased demand for exported grain, the use of corn to make biofuel, and a drought in the Midwest.

Feed prices have affected dairies across the country, but California was particularly hard-hit.

Bill Schiek is an economist at the Dairy Institute of California.

BILL SCHIEK, Dairy Institute of California: In California, the traditional model of production has been one where you bring in -- purchase feed from the rest of the country and transport that to California and feed it to dairy cows, and it's a very specialized operation.

SUSANNE RUST: By importing cheap feed grains from the Midwest, instead of growing them on the farm, as dairies in other states do, California producers are able to raise more cows and produce more milk on smaller parcels of land. It's a model that worked when grain was cheap.

BILL SCHIEK: I don't know that were going to see those kind of prices return again. There's simply too much demand for feed in the world today.

SUSANNE RUST: While feed costs have gone up, the price of milk, which is controlled by the state, has lagged. Historically, California dairy producers have coped with low prices by increasing production and selling more milk. So, despite the loss of hundreds of dairy farms, milk production in the state has never been higher, says Dan Putnam, a forage expert at the University of California, Davis.

DAN PUTNAM, University of California, Davis: We have increased production per cow at about two percent to 2.2 percent per year relentlessly for about 30 years in California, and that even continues today.

What that does is, it creates a real problem for the dairy producer, in the sense that a couple of years goes by and they have another five percent more milk that they have to figure out how to market.

SUSANNE RUST: So who's going to buy all this milk? Remember Mr. Wei, the cheese buyer for a Chinese pizza chain? He's part of a growing middle class in China, who, as incomes rise, are consuming higher-protein diets, including more dairy.

In fact, milk consumption in China has tripled in the last decade, and Chinese milk producers are desperate to ramp up. Recently, leading Chinese dairies came to the World Ag Expo in Tulare, Calif., to acquire the latest technology.

Leon Sun is with the Shanghai Dairy Group.

LEON SUN, Shanghai Dairy Group: Our main priority in this World Ag Expo is trying to expose ourselves to the world dairy business. So that's why we have to fill in the gaps very quickly. Everything that we can absorb and import into China and boost our production and revolutionize everything.

SUSANNE RUST: The Shanghai Dairy Group is also here to import alfalfa hay, a high-protein feed supplement that will boost milk production for cows in China.

DAN PUTNAM: They now have fairly large dairies outside of the major cities in China. And these dairies are every bit as modern and as advanced as many of the Western dairies.

And they are rapidly learning how to increase milk production per animal, but a key missing ingredient is high-quality forage crops.

SUSANNE RUST: Alfalfa is California's largest acreage crop and also one of the most water-intensive, using about a fifth of the state's precious water.

Despite China's land mass, it has a shortage of water and arable land, so a few years ago Chinese dairy producers began buying alfalfa from California and other Western states.

DAN PUTNAM: Exports to China are definitely increasing. We have seen a pretty dramatic rise since the year 2005-2006, and I think all expectations are that it will probably increase again this coming year.

SUSANNE RUST: Not everyone is eager to see that happen. Critics complain that California shouldn't be shipping its valuable water supplies to China in the form of alfalfa.

What's more, environmental advocates point out that dairies cause serious environmental damage, and question if California should support such a large industry, much less seek to supply China.

TOM FRANTZ, Almond Farmer: Here's some smaller lagoons. Those are manure separators right there, those tilted things.

SUSANNE RUST: Tom Frantz is an almond farmer in Kern County who heads a group called the Association of Irritated Residents, or AIR.

TOM FRANTZ: Ten dairies that are all new since 1990. It's a relatively recent phenomena in the last 20, 30 years that you see dairies with more than 2,000 cows. And now, I mean, the biggest dairy about 50 miles north of here has 18,000 animals.

SUSANNE RUST: A 2012 report from the University of California, Davis, found that one of the leading causes of nitrate pollution in groundwater comes from dairy manure used to fertilize cropland.

TOM FRANTZ: But, by aerating there, they're getting ammonia to go up into the air.

SUSANNE RUST: In addition, according to the Central Valley's Air Pollution Control District, dairies are a major source of pollution in the area.

Fermenting dairy feed and gases from the cows themselves contribute to ozone pollution and greenhouse gases. Brent Newell is an environmental lawyer with the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment.

BRENT NEWELL, Environmental Lawyer, Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment: Already, California communities are overwhelmed by the amount of air pollution that comes from these facilities. The effect on groundwater is really unacceptable.

So continuing to produce milk to put on a ship and ship across the Pacific Ocean to China to satisfy some kind of growing demand in China for dairy products really makes no sense at all.

SUSANNE RUST: If the Chinese continue to develop their own independent dairy industry, California will lose much of its market for surplus milk, and California farmers will pay more for alfalfa as exports to China drive up demand.

In this complex exchange of resources and money, China may well end up the global food industry winner.

JEFFREY BROWN: On the environmental issues in our story, the dairy industry sent a statement saying, Central Valley farmers abide by some of the nation's strictest water quality regulations, including sampling and testing manure and soil, as well as monitoring groundwater.

They noted that air emissions are also regulated and cited a U.N. study showing California dairy farms lead the world in a number of sustainable farming practices, including having the world's lowest emissions of greenhouse gases.

And you can watch our entire “Food for 9 Billion” series on our website.

Shields and Brooks on Syria, Snowden and Surveillance

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:31:00 EDT

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JUDY WOODRUFF: And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Welcome, gentlemen.

So, we just listened to Dr. Brzezinski, to Dean Nasr.

David, where do you come down on this, having heard the president basically change policy?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I have been leaning more interventionist as the months and weeks have gone by.

I have -- you know, obvious caution, what Dr. Brzezinski, talked about are there, who are the people we're arming, all that sort of stuff, what is the endgame? But I think it's sort of outweighed. It's outweighed first by the humanitarian needs. Second, it's outweighed the possibility that Assad and really a rogue regime will be there forever and will win

Third, it's outweighed by the collapse of the region around there if that rogue regime does win. And, finally, I think the big story in the Middle East is Iranian radicalism. And I think we have a lot to fear from an Iranian client state, a victorious Hezbollah.

I think we have a lot to fear from that. And so I think it's a continuum of no action, total boots on the ground, which obviously is not going to happen. I think the Obama administration has tilted a little toward a little more interventionist, too little to do any good, actually. But I think that probably a little more tilt to try to prevent all the things I described.

JUDY WOODRUFF: How do you see what the administration is doing?

MARK SHIELDS: Well ...

JUDY WOODRUFF: Are they moving into the right direction?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think, Judy, after listening to that discussion, which was a good discussion, with Dean Nasr and Dr. Brzezinski, I think you have what the problems are for the administration.

There is not a compelling case that has been made that people say, OK. I mean, there's a lot of individual discrete reasons. I mean, Americans don't like to see children suffer. And 93,000 people, according to the U.N., have died already, and thousands more continue to die. One-and-a-half million have fled into Jordan.

Jordan is an ally, and its stability is threatened, and the reasons that David cited, that -- the prospect of Assad being in the saddle with Hezbollah at his side and Russia playing this kind of a role there, you know -- but, at the same time, I don't know, Judy. It has a feel of Fast and Furious.

Remember Fast and Furious, the gun policy in the bureau of -- the Department of Justice and Bureau of Arms and Tobacco did?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

MARK SHIELDS: Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

Just get out guns, and maybe they will get to a Mexican cartel, and we will find out and we will trace the guns that way. We're going in and providing arms. We don't have a reliable ally, an identifiable ally. We don't have that most elusive subtype in the entire world. And that is a rebel who believes devoutly in religious freedom and pluralism and believes in democratic elections.

I mean, so ...

JUDY WOODRUFF: You're saying it's complicated to pick sides here.

MARK SHIELDS: Complicated, beyond complicated, and I don't think the president has made the case for it yet.

DAVID BROOKS: That's sort of stacking the deck, expecting a rebel force of the ACLU. You're not going to get that in the Middle East.

MARK SHIELDS: Well, you have got al-Qaida. You have got al-Qaida.

DAVID BROOKS: That's part of it. There's no question. We probably should have been involved in forming the rebels a little earlier and a little more aggressively, though some of that has been done.

So, I do think there is a group there. But the downsides -- and, again, the downsides of having an Iranian client state, of having a mass-murdering regime are significant. Now, the -- now, we can have this academic debate about what outcome we like.

The reality, of course, is we have very little influence. We certainly have no influence, given what the administration is doing, which is a few anti-tank and some bullets and rifles. This strikes me as just a sort of gesture, political gesture.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But what about Dr. Brzezinski's point? He said there's a lack of clarity that defines the administration.

DAVID BROOKS: That's true.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And he -- and you were saying that this is a step in the right direction. But his point is, if you keep going in that direction, are you going to end up in a war with Iran?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I mean, foreign policy is like art. You have to draw lines.

And so I'm a little dubious about slippery slopes. This whole debate is a series of parallels. Some people, like Bill Clinton earlier in the week, sort of drew an implicit parallel to Rwanda. We can't allow this to happen again. Other people are drawing the Iraq or the Vietnam parallel.

I think the Iraq and Vietnam parallel, we are so far away from really getting deeply involved in Syria that we're not even close to that kind of line, and we're not going to go there. There's no support at all in the country for that sort of thing. And so I don't buy that kind of slippery slope argument.

MARK SHIELDS: In the final analysis, if we're going into this war, and we're talking about going into this war, an army doesn't fight a war. A country fights a war.

And this would be -- we have gone through 12 years of wars where, Judy, the president -- neither president -- neither President Bush nor President Obama has ever acknowledged the fact that the country is at war. I mean, there's been none -- there has been no sense of collective mission.

All the sacrificing, all the fighting, all the dying is one percent.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Because it's a volunteer force.

MARK SHIELDS: And that's again -- a volunteer force, that's right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Who are serving multiple terms.

MARK SHIELDS: Multiple terms, at the cost of enormous, enormous personal injury and damage, and as well as to their families. I mean, so, you know, I just -- I just don't like to talk sort of cavalierly about doing this.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, there's not a human being on earth who's talking about that. There's no single American who says we should be sending soldiers over there or troops over there.

We're sending -- the question is, we're sending maybe anti-tank guns. We're sending some riflery. The question is whether we're sending anti-aircraft. The question is whether they're going to do a no-fly zone, on the outside.

MARK SHIELDS: What is the mission?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, the issue -- the mission is prevent a mass massacre.

MARK SHIELDS: And how we will know when we have succeeded? And how we will know when we have succeeded? When we stop the massacre?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, that would be a start, for me.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we may not resolve in the next few minutes.

So let's talk about another -- another story we have been watching for last few weeks. And that, of course, is the government surveillance. Since I talked to the two of you last Friday, it's been revealed that a 29-year-old former government contractor named Edward Snowden, who we think is still in Hong Kong, David, is the one who spilled the beans.

Is Edward Snowden a hero, a whistle-blower, as some say, or is he a traitor who violated his oath?

DAVID BROOKS: He's a betrayer. He betrayed his oath, which was given to him and which he took implicitly and explicitly. He betrayed his company, the people who gave him a job, the people who trusted him. He betrayed his friends, who are all now going to be suspect, and they won't be handing responsibility to a lot of 29-year-olds in the future.

He betrayed the democratic process. It's not up to a lone 29-year-old to decide what's private and public. We have -- actually have procedures for that set down in the Constitution and established by tradition. And he sort of betrayed that. He betrayed the cause of liberty, because, if you don't have mass data sweeps, well, then these agencies are going to want to go back to the old-fashioned eavesdropping, which is a lot more intrusive.

So I don't have a lot of sympathy for him.

MARK SHIELDS: I don't think he's a traitor, to the best of my knowledge.

He is -- he didn't sell secrets. He didn't provide secrets to an enemy or to an unfriendly entity. He didn't put at risk Americans, to the best of our knowledge. He didn't reveal projects of plans or programs that were going.

Is he a hero? I wouldn't certainly categorize him as a hero. The president says, I welcome this debate. That's healthy for democracy. There wouldn't be a debate, Judy, if we didn't have this disclosure. I mean, that's a little bit disingenuous, to say that we welcome this debate.

What we have had is, we have had no debate. What we have had since 9/11 on all the security measures that we have taken, the debate has been overseas. It's been rendition. It's been Guantanamo. It's been Abu Ghraib. Now, for the first time, it's a question of, what is the trade-off? What are Americans willing to do to give up their own privacy without court orders, to let the government? And the appetite for secrecy for every administration is absolutely limitless.

DAVID BROOKS: I think we have had a bit of that debate, warrantless wiretaps. There's been a lot of that sort of stuff.

But I agree with Mark that the openness should have been there and the ...

JUDY WOODRUFF: Openness to what degree?

DAVID BROOKS: Just that this policy existed. I don't think it's news to the terrorists that we are doing this.

MARK SHIELDS: No.

DAVID BROOKS: So, we could have -- we could have ...

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, you don't think he revealed that much, or ...

DAVID BROOKS: Well, we know some details. He apparently told the Chinese the stuff we knew about them. That was harmful to America. That was being a traitor.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And there's a Chinese newspaper, government newspaper today saying the government should use him to negotiate with the U.S.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes. So, if he wants to stay in China and not ...

MARK SHIELDS: He would be a lot more heroic if he hadn't -- if he weren't in Hong Kong. There's no question about it.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes.

MARK SHIELDS: But, I mean, let's be honest about it. He did sacrifice and surrender his own job, quite conceivably his own freedom.

I mean, this is not without cost, what he did. And I have to tell you, what I find the most offensive of all the criticisms of the guy, whom I don't know and probably will never meet, and that is that he was a high school dropout.

We have had Ph.D.s named Wolfowitz and an MBA named Bush and a Ph.D. student named Cheney take us to war, and a terrible war for this country that's cost division and cost lives and caused suffering. And we have had a lot of high school dropouts in this country named Washington and Lincoln and Mark Twain and Will Rogers and Rosa Parks who've made great contributions to this country.

And there's something terribly snobbish about Washington's credentials, if he just had gone to an Ivy League, if he had a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago like Paul Wolfowitz or been like Doug Feith or Richard Perle. I mean, it's just -- that really is ...

DAVID BROOKS: He had to attack Chicago.

No, I don't attack him for being a high school dropout. I do attack him for being a grandiose narcissist. When you work for an institution ...

MARK SHIELDS: Is that a felony?

DAVID BROOKS: No.

MARK SHIELDS: Thank goodness.

DAVID BROOKS: It's a plague around here.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we're not going to get personal.

DAVID BROOKS: When you work for an institution, any institution, a company, a faculty, you don't get to violate the rules of that institution and decide for your own self what you're going to do in a unilateral way that no one else can reverse.

And that's exactly what he did. So he betrayed the trust of the institution. He betrayed what creates a government, which is being a civil servant, being a servant to a larger cause, and not going off on some unilateral thing because it makes you feel grandiose.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So he should be prosecuted?

MARK SHIELDS: No, I mean, but he obviously -- there's a calculation involved.

He was willing to sacrifice what was, according to all reports, a six-figure income, a prestigious position, I mean, and he was willing to sacrifice that or trade it for making public -- I mean, you can call it narcissism, but -- or call it a martyr complex, but he did do this, instead of, you know, leaking it out or whatever.

All administrations hate leaks, unless they look good by them, unless the leaks are made by them themselves.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes.

MARK SHIELDS: And, no, I mean, this is -- but I just don't see what -- John Boehner calls him a traitor, and Dianne Feinstein calls him a traitor.

DAVID BROOKS: Can I just make one political point which struck me this week powerfully, which is the polling?

I thought -- and I think I said on the program last week there would be a lot of revulsion against the program. Not in the polls. By 2-1, 60-odd percent say, no, this NSA program is a good thing. We have more to worry about from -- we'd like to see our privacy invaded to make us safer.

MARK SHIELDS: It's -- I would say this, if you look at the polls and particularly Pew, what you see is a total reversal. Our politics are totally polarized. Democrats who opposed this under George W. Bush now endorse it under Barack Obama.

Republicans who embraced it under George W. Bush now resent it and oppose it under Barack Obama.

DAVID BROOKS: Right.

MARK SHIELDS: So, I mean, the polarization just seeps into national security.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, on that note, we're going to say good night.

But, before we do, I just want to remind everybody watching that Mark and David always go to our newsroom on Fridays and they record something called The Doubleheader. They have done it today. You are going to see it tonight on television.

One week from tonight, it is going to be a special Doubleheader, because they're going to take your questions live. And we're trying to drum up as much of an audience as we can.

That's why we are talking about it tonight.

DAVID BROOKS: Going to hit double digits.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You're both getting nervous about it.

MARK SHIELDS: Do you think we will get to a dozen people?

Is it 5:00 Eastern next week? Is that when it is, 5:00 Eastern?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark and David, thank you.

MARK SHIELDS: Thank you.

As Assad Makes Gains, Will New U.S. Strategy for Syria Change the Dynamics?

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:22:00 EDT

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JEFFREY BROWN: And we return now to Syria and the options on the table for the U.S.

We invited a member of the Obama administration to discuss the change in Syria strategy. Our request was declined.

But with us now to assess the White House decision, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Carter. He's now a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And former State Department senior adviser Vali Nasr, now dean at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Welcome to both of you.

Dr. Brzezinski, many questions still about how much, the timing, et cetera, but what's your initial reaction to this announcement that the U.S. will be providing some arms?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, Former U.S. National Security Adviser: It's kind of baffling because there's no pattern of consistency.

You know, we started helping the rebels, whatever they are, and they're certainly not fighting for democracy, given their sponsorship, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as far back as early spring of last year, 2012, without saying it publicly. I assume there was a presidential finding approving it, but we're doing that. Since then, I'm not at all clear as to what our policy actually is.

JEFFREY BROWN: So it didn't -- it wasn't clarified by yesterday's announcement?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: I think that was even more baffling, because it refers to a very small number of casualties allegedly inflicted by chemical warfare. It doesn't refer specifically to the date involved, although the president drew a red line. It certainly is material to know whether those acts followed or preceded the presidential warning.

And, besides, why should that be the issue, especially if the scale of casualties inflicted by that kind of arms is so limited? Ninety-three thousand people, allegedly, have been killed, and, incidentally, not like what the official line sometimes is, by Assad and his henchmen, but by both sides. This is a civil war, a brutal civil war.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, let me -- Vali Nasr, you have been on the program. You have talked about wanting to see more action by the U.S. government. Is this the kind of first step or a step that you want?

VALI NASR, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University: Well, it is a step.

But I think it's problematic, because, as Dr. Brzezinski said, it's not clear what objective it's supposed to serve. We haven't said what it is that we want to accomplish by providing arms to the rebels. Do we want to just address the humanitarian issue? Is our objective to reverse the recent gains the Assad regime has made? Is this punishment for the use of chemical weapons? Is it to shore up our sagging credibility in the region?

So it's not clear whether this is enough or it's too late, unless you know what it's for.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, what do you think it should be for? Because there is a debate right now at the White House, right, about what to do and how to target it.

VALI NASR: Well, I think our goal was to try to arrive at a diplomatic solution to this crisis in Geneva.

We can't go to Geneva for a diplomatic solution if Assad has just scored big gains on the ground. So our goal ought to be to reverse the gains that Assad has made on the ground.

So we have to be -- if we're going to do this, we have to do it with a view to change the dynamics of this war, at least in the direction that it's going. And secondly, we ...

JEFFREY BROWN: Does that include with weapons and even more weapons that they're asking for?

VALI NASR: Well, it would require more weapons than we have announced.

It also would require probably a strategy about how we're going to -- who we're going to give the weapons to, how we're going to give it. And I think larger issue is that our credibility, the credibility of American foreign policy is now at stake, and then we have to essentially use any kind of intervention to reverse that.

JEFFREY BROWN: What do you think about a strong -- more weapons, a stronger involvement, and this question of our credibility at this point? You raised the red line question.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Well, weapons to whom, first of all?

As we know, there are a great many factions competing for power on the ground in Syria, and most of them are not very friendly to us. So, weapons for whom? It so happens, unfortunately, that those factions which we consider to be allegedly democratic are the weakest. So what are we going to accomplish by infusing a few more arms for groups that are the weakest?

If we're going to engage in political warfare with a strategic outcome, and we insist on a victory for those who allegedly are with us and a victory particularly for us, we have to do it whole hog, not just from the air, not just by supplying some arms to some not particularly strong groups, but we have to do it by, in effect, invading the country.

If we invade the country, will it just stop with fighting in Syria? Might we conceivably collide with the Iranian forces? Do we really want that at this stage of history in the Middle East, as we are getting ready to disengage from Afghanistan?

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, what's the response to that?

VALI NASR: Well, those are all dangers that are on the table and we have to take them into consideration.

The Syria crisis has now become very complex, with many issues that we have to be able to sort out and address. But, going forward, you know, essentially, we're dealing with dynamics of two separate wars and two separate issues here. One is the war between the rebels and opposition and the Syrian government, in which we have said that we would like the rebels to win.

The second one is really the war between the different factions within the opposition, the jihadis and the extremists vis-a-vis the other ones. So the key question is, which one are we trying to influence? Are we trying to influence generally the rebels as it stands against Assad, which has all the dangers and problems Dr. Brzezinski says? Who do you arm? How do you arm them? And what is the danger of having to confront the Iranians and the Russians?

And the other argument is that, regardless of whether Assad survives and leaves, ultimately, there's going to be a battle between different factions of the Syrians. And the question is, do we want to arm a faction of the Syrians that would be sort of the counterpoint to the jihadis? If so, is this the right time to start building those relations?

JEFFREY BROWN: Is there an alternative? Because, if the U.S. does little or nothing, and the Syrian government wins, as now the battlefield perhaps looks like it's been turned, doesn't that affect our interests in the region and the world as well?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Well, of course, it doesn't affect them positively.

But we have to think of the alternative consequences. If we get involved in a protracted war, we are again in a war in the region, this hurts us also in Afghanistan. Secondly, if that war produces a collision between America and Iranians supporting Assad, is that better than an outcome in which perhaps Assad stays in power?

Better still, of course, an international Geneva conference. But let's just think of who ought to be there. Should we be there with the French and the British, the two countries which are most hated in the region, former colonial powers? Are these the right countries with whom we ought to be dealing? Of course, Turkey ought to be there.

What about China, what about Japan, what about India, all of which are dependent on a stable flow of oil from the region? They have stakes in that region. They might prefer some sort of a compromise solution and might be prepared to give the political support for it. They might also be able to influence the Russians.

But to simply go in on the hope that, somehow or other, by doing something which is not very precisely described for groups which are not very powerful -- and, in fact, the one that favors us is the weakest -- is not a strategy. It's an evasion of strategy.

And there's a kind of lack of clarity which has defined our posture there for the last two years.

JEFFREY BROWN: Just in our last minute, what about the prospects of this international conference, which is supposed to be later in the month? Who should be there and what are the diplomatic possibilities at this point?

VALI NASR: Well, I think the diplomatic possibilities are limited. I think Dr. Brzezinski is right that it cannot be just the French and the Russians, who actually drew ...

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: The British.

VALI NASR: The British -- who drew these borders that are now being contested.

But the key question is also, what is our objective out of the conference? We're trying to go to a conference saying that the result of the conference would be removal of Assad from power. That's not being supported by developments on the ground. He's actually winning.

So, you know, even our conception of the conference is wrong. And I think the best purpose for the conference would be to try to arrive at a cease-fire, try to create certain traction for the international support for a political settlement, and ultimately find a way that the worst that's happening in Syria doesn't impact the entire region.

I think the best we can hope for at this stage is to contain Syria and then find a way to maybe gradually wind down this conflict.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, very much to be continued.

Vali Nasr, Zbigniew Brzezinski, thank you both very much.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Thank you.

VALI NASR: Thank you.

Six Months After Newtown, Battle Over Gun Control Continues

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:19:00 EDT

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JEFFREY BROWN: Today marked six months since the massacre in Newtown, Conn., an attack that brought tears and outrage and prompted a new debate over gun violence and rights.

Margaret Warner has a look at how the day was commemorated.

CARLEE SOTO, Sister of Victoria Soto: If we can take that moment now, please?

MARGARET WARNER: The sister of slain teacher Victoria Soto asked for twenty six seconds of silence today, one for each of the victims killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

They were gunned down on Dec. 14, after Adam Lanza killed his mother and then stormed Sandy Hook. Police said Lanza shot 20 schoolchildren and six educators, before shooting himself. Today's moment of silence was followed by a daylong reading of more than 6,000 names, all victims of gun violence around the country since the Newtown tragedy.

The memorial was organized by Mayors Against Gun Violence, a group funded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that has been working with some of the victims' families. Some of those families have been trying for months to persuade lawmakers to back tighter gun control measures, including background checks.

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The amendment is not agreed to.

MARGARET WARNER: But that legislation failed to pass the Senate in April. Now some senators, including some who voted no, are said to be discussing an amended bill.

Families came to Capitol Hill yesterday vowing to support it.

JILLIAN SOTO, Sister of Newtown Victim: We will continue to fight until Congress stands up and does something to make us safer from gun violence.

MARGARET WARNER: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsed the effort, but had a warning.

SEN. HARRY REID, D-Nev.: The writing is on the wall. Background checks will pass the United States Senate. It's only a question of when. I want to be very, very clear, though. In order to be effective, the bill that passes the Senate must include background checks, and not a watered-down version of background checks.

MARGARET WARNER: Gun control advocates have had mixed success at the state level. Several states, including Colorado, Maryland and New York, have passed tighter restrictions. But other states, like Arkansas and Mississippi, have eased them.

Just yesterday, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, vetoed a bill mandating background checks for all purchases in his state.

SEN. JOE MANCHIN, D-W.Va.: I'm Joe Manchin.

MARGARET WARNER: The National Rifle Association is fighting back as well.

JOE MANCHIN: As your senator, I will protect our Second Amendment rights.

NARRATOR: That was Joe Manchin's commitment.

MARGARET WARNER: It plans to spend $100,000 dollars running this ad in West Virginia, asking voters to remind Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who co-sponsored bipartisan Senate legislation, to support gun rights.

The White House also may be making a new push of its own. Vice President Joe Biden will be hosting a gun control event on Tuesday.

Painful Options Ahead: Detroit to Default on $2.5 Billion Debt

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:11:00 EDT

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Today, the city of Detroit and its creditors were presented with a series of painful options. Retired city workers were warned of significant cuts in pensions and health insurance, and creditors were told the city won't be able to pay them back.

The day started with an announcement that the government already defaulted on some debt. It got worse from there.

Ray Suarez has the story.

PROTESTERS: Make the banks pay. Make the banks pay.

RAY SUAREZ: A handful of protesters picketed outside the Westin Hotel this morning, while, inside, Detroit's emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, laid out a last-ditch plan to 150 creditors to accept pennies on the dollar in order to help keep the city running.

Orr told reporters afterwards that Detroit's finances are beyond dire and that his plan to avoid filing bankruptcy "is going to be hard, it's going to be difficult, but what choice do we have?"

During the meeting, Orr said the city would stop payments on its unsecured debt to bondholders, cut health care and pension benefits to current and retired city workers, give an independent authority control over the water and sewerage. The changes help tackle what Orr said was up to $20 billion dollars in debt and liabilities.

He was appointed three months ago by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to try to turn around Detroit's finances and operations. But there's been skepticism among some residents about the plans and about whether Detroit's finances are as dire as Orr has said.

Abayomi Azikiwe protested the meeting this morning.

ABAYOMI AZIKIWE, Protester: We feel that the bankers and the creditors who are here today with the emergency manager are not going to negotiate in the best interest of the people of the city of Detroit. And we are saying that the same financial institutions that Mr. Orr is negotiating with today are responsible in large part for the crisis that exists in Detroit.

RAY SUAREZ: Once a booming Midwestern city, Detroit has suffered a big population loss and now ranks as the poorest major city in the U.S. More than a third of the population lives below the government poverty line.

We get more on the plan spelled out today and the reaction to all this from Matt Helms of The Detroit Free Press.

Matt, welcome.

From the beginning, Kevyn Orr didn't sugarcoat the situation. But, even so, was something this extreme expected today?

MATT HELMS, The Detroit Free Press: Well, I think we'd been warned to expect something drastic, but that doesn't -- the warning certainly doesn't prepare you for the scope and the risks involved here, and, you know, especially the cuts that, you know, the creditors, retirees, pensioners, city workers are going to be asked to take.

RAY SUAREZ: Who are the main holders of Detroit debt and who is it that's being told to expect just pennies on the dollar?

MATT HELMS: It's everyone.

It's retirees. It's pension plans. It's the city's unions and representing current workers. It's bondholders, the insurance companies that backed those bonds. And bondholders can range from major institutional investors to, as one of the creditors told me today, mom and dad investing in a mutual fund.

RAY SUAREZ: How did Detroit get to be an estimated $17 billion to $20 billion dollars in debt? It's had shrinking revenues for some time. It's had very heavy legacy obligations for some time. Were there always institutions that were ready to line up and continue to lend the city money?

MATT HELMS: There certainly were. And they did up until last year, when the crisis hit.

And the last round of borrowing had to be backed by the state because Detroit's credit rating had really just gone into trash territory. The state helped float $137 million dollars in bonds to help stabilize the city through what they hoped was going to be an agreement to keep it out of the appointment of an emergency manager.

That didn't work. And here we are today perhaps just weeks away from a Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy filing.

RAY SUAREZ: As we mentioned earlier, Kevyn Orr already announced that the city had defaulted on an obligation as of this morning. How much was it and to whom?

MATT HELMS: Well, it's to a number of creditors, but it was a nearly $40 million dollar payment on a complex structure, a finance structure called participant -- I'm sorry -- a certificate of participation obligation.

And we know that the city has also kind of triggered terms for default in the past as well, but has been able to negotiate with creditors to extend payment dates. And, you know, there's a long line of vendors, for example, who provide goods and services to the city who have gone months without payment.

RAY SUAREZ: Now, the emergency manager said the odds of a bankruptcy were 50-50. And, indeed, it would be the largest municipal bankruptcy ever. But why isn't Detroit considered bankrupt already?

If it missed a payment today and is telling people that it owes money, that it's only going to give them, in some estimates, 10 cents on the dollar, why isn't it already considered bankrupt technically?

MATT HELMS: Well, I guess, technically, it already is bankrupt, but as a spokesman for the emergency manager told reporters today, there's a difference between being bankrupt and being in bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is the process of resolving that debt.

And the -- really, the difference between the two is whether you go to court to resolve it.

RAY SUAREZ: Today, the spokesman for Kevyn Orr mentioned that they would give the institutions involved a couple of weeks to digest the news that they got today. It must be terrible to hear, but are there some hard-and-fast dates, some deadlines that are looming in Detroit's future that aren't the kind of things that you can give people a couple of weeks to think about? What's the next chapter in this drama?

MATT HELMS: Well, at best we can tell, if the negotiations don't go well, we could know within a couple of weeks whether Kevyn Orr thinks that there is no option but -- except for bankruptcy.

Beyond that, these talks, these negotiations with creditors could extend into July or August. And, you know, there are a lot of bankruptcy experts who say they doubt that an out-of-court settlement can be reached and that the best Kevyn Orr can hope for at this point is to get maybe 80 percent to 90 percent of the creditors lined up, so that when he goes in and files a Chapter 9 petition, he's got a majority of the creditors lined up, and that can help persuade a federal judge to get the recalcitrant creditors on board with the deal, even cramming down, in the jargon, terms on creditors who are so far fighting the deal.

RAY SUAREZ: Have any of the creditors been heard from today, any of the institutions you mentioned earlier that might be expected to get a lot less money back from the city?

MATT HELMS: Many of them are not commenting. We have heard a lot of from the city unions today. They're worried. They're scared. Their members face pay and benefits cuts.

And there is even talk that vested pensions, which under Michigan law typically are protected from being cut once you are a retiree, that that may not be the case here in Detroit, and that Kevyn Orr and the city of Detroit may have to battle in court if necessary to reduce pension benefits for retirees who are already living on fixed incomes.

RAY SUAREZ: Matt Helms of The Detroit Free Press, thanks a lot for joining us.

MATT HELMS: Glad to be here.

NewsHour: Not Just a TV Show

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:07:00 EDT

In a recent New York Times article, media reporter Elizabeth Jensen underscored the financial and new media challenges faced by the PBS NewsHour.

Jensen cited anonymous public television sources who critiqued the NewsHour's broadcast format and its website:

But with a deep financing crisis forcing layoffs and other cutbacks this week, some public television employees believe that format -- and a general unwillingness to embrace the digital realities facing journalism -- may be jeopardizing the program's future.

The article also quoted Frank Sesno, director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, who said the NewsHour should hone its multimedia tools. "You can't just be a TV show anymore," he said.

In response to the article, NewsHour deputy executive producer Kathleen McCleery and CEO Bo Jones have offered the following:

We maintain the future for the "PBS NewsHour" is bright. The program is strong. We are committed to the best reporting possible, on air and online. While these are tough times for many news organizations (ours included), we have many funders -- PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting plus corporations and foundations -- all of whom continue to support our unique brand of journalism. We recognize changes are necessary and we've been making them in ways that will best position us for the future. Plus, we are doing all we can to bring in new resources.

Tonight's broadcast is a fine example of our commitment to deep, thoughtful analysis of the critical news stories of the day. We'll devote about 12 minutes to the crisis in Syria with the latest news plus analysis from two of the best thinkers available, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Vali Nasr. We'll examine the financial plight of one of the nation's poorest cities, Detroit. We'll conclude a series of reports about food security around the world with an in-depth look at the California dairy industry. And our regular team of Mark Shields and David Brooks will offer civil but sharp insights into the week's political stories.

We strongly disagree with the criticism of our online efforts. We have indeed embraced the digital world in a vigorous fashion. We have a team of smart, serious journalists who understand and work well in today's interactive world. Witness our most recent reporting, Paul Solman's "New Adventures for Older Workers," a brilliant pull together of important information for baby boomers and others.

There's much more to highlight, including:

In-depth reporting from Lebanon on the spillover of the Syrian war from Margaret Warner more coverage to the immigration debate than any other news outlet: an 8-part series from Ray Suarez and Google hangouts with Hari Sreenivasan historical context on Watergate gleaned from the NewsHour's own archives viewer engagement on the Supreme Court's consideration of the Voting Rights Act and an acclaimed story on the dangers of so-called bath salts.

The fact of the matter is that we are not "just a TV show" any longer.

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News Wrap: Iranians Head to the Polls to Choose New President

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:07:00 EDT

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KWAME HOLMAN: Millions of Iranians voted for a new president today, as their leaders rejected criticism of the process. Long lines of men and women could be seen outside polling stations in Iran and at embassies around the world.

Six candidates were allowed to run, but only Hassan Rowhani was considered a moderate. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected U.S. criticism the election is stacked in favor of hard-liners. He said today his response is, "To hell with you if you do not believe in our election."

In Turkey, activists weighed whether to end a sit-in at an Istanbul park that gave rise to widespread protests against the government. Last night, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with a delegation of protesters. He offered to let courts and maybe a referendum decide on the park's future.

Today, he called it a final warning.

PRIME MINISTER RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, Turkey: We told the group that visited last night that we are asking them to show determination and support now, to speak to our youngsters, to let them take this step, and don't make us use different methods. Then we said goodbye to them. I hope this will end today and we will take our steps in determination.

KWAME HOLMAN: Erdogan has called his supporters to rally in Ankara and Istanbul this weekend, raising the prospect of more tensions with the protesters.

A Chinese newspaper today urged China's leaders to talk to Edward Snowden, the man who exposed U.S. surveillance programs. Snowden also has said the National Security Agency hacked targets in Hong Kong and mainland China thousands of times. Today, the Communist Party-backed Global Times addressed that allegation in an editorial.

It said, "The Chinese government should let him speak out and use it as evidence to negotiate with the United States openly or in private."

U.S. officials have repeatedly accused China of cyber-attacks on American targets.

A record-breaking wildfire near Colorado Springs, Colo., has claimed new victims in property and lives. As the fire burned today, officials said they found the bodies of two people who'd been trying to flee on Tuesday. So far, the fire has destroyed 389 homes over 25 square miles, but local Sheriff Terry Maketa said it slowed in the last 24 hours.

SHERIFF TERRY MAKETA, El Paso County, Colo.: I know that circumstances can change, and we're going to expect a little bit of wind today. But you notice we have some cloud cover. That's to our favor. And the winds were calm throughout the night for the most part. And right now, we're not sitting here talking into the wind, so that's a good sign as well.

KWAME HOLMAN: The fire now is the most destructive in Colorado history. There's no word yet on how it started.

A military judge has barred the suspect in the Fort Hood, Texas, shootings from arguing he acted to protect the Afghan Taliban. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan is charged with killing 13 people and wounding nearly three dozen in Nov. 2009. The judge ruled today there was no evidence that his fellow soldiers posed an immediate threat to anyone in Afghanistan.

The U.S. House today passed a defense bill that includes mandatory two-year prison terms for sexual assaults in the military. It also would strip commanders of the power to overturn sexual assault convictions. The overall bill envisions $638 billion dollars for defense in the coming year. But President Obama has threatened a veto because it blocks closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The latest data on the U.S. economy left something to be desired today. Factory output barely rose in May, and consumer sentiment fell in June. Wall Street reacted with a Friday sell-off. The Dow Jones industrial average lost nearly 106 points to close at 15,070. The Nasdaq fell nearly 22 points to close at 3,422. For the week, both the Dow and the Nasdaq lost more than one percent.

Those are some of the day's major stories -- now back to Judy.

Obama Policy Shift on Arming Syrian Rebels Triggers Concerns

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:02:00 EDT

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JEFFREY BROWN: The prospect of sending military help to the rebels in Syria sparked a range of reactions today from friend and foe alike. The policy shift also triggered a number of questions, including, what kinds of arms will be sent and how soon?

BEN RHODES, U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser: I can't give you a specific timeline or an itemized list of what that assistance is and when it will get there.

JEFFREY BROWN: Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes offered few details today, but he said the president's decision means dramatically increasing military aid to the rebels.

Initial reports suggested the assistance could range from small arms and ammunition to anti-tank missiles. In Turkey, rebel leaders of the Free Syrian Army welcomed the announcement. But they also made clear they hope for more and larger weapons.

LOUAY MEQDAD, Political Coordinator, Free Syrian Army: We need all the weapons that they can offer for us. The international community, they should -- they should use all their powers to help us, because we need help.

JEFFREY BROWN: On Thursday, in the U.S. Senate, Arizona Republican John McCain sounded a similar appeal.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-Ariz.: These people of the Free Syrian Army need weapons and heavy weapons to counter tanks and aircraft. They need a no-fly zone. And Bashar Assad's air assets have to be taken out and neutralized.

JEFFREY BROWN: The rebels also called for a no-fly zone over all or part of Syria. But France and others said today that would require approval by the U.N. Security Council.

The U.S. decision to authorize military aid followed a finding outlined yesterday at the White House. In a late-day statement, deputy National Security Adviser Rhodes said: "The Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year."

Today, the Syrian government charged the U.S. findings were -- quote -- "full of lies" and based on fabricated information. What's more, Syrian state television claimed it had an intercepted phone call between rebels showing they are the ones using chemical weapons.

MAN: Everyone is now using masks. Our heroes want to attack the pigs with poison gas.

JEFFREY BROWN: Russia, the Syrian government's main weapons supplier, also rejected the chemical weapons claim and the move to arm the rebels.

ALEXANDER LUKASHEVICH, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman: There is little doubt that the decisions made regarding additional supplies of weapons and military equipment to illegal armed groups will increase the level of confrontation and violence against innocent civilians.

JEFFREY BROWN: Moscow further warned the decision could undermine U.S. and Russian plans for a Syrian peace conference in Geneva.

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said he, too, opposes putting more weapons in Syria.

SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON, United Nations: Providing arms to either side wouldn't address this current situation. There is no such military solution. Only political solution can address this issue sustainably,

JEFFREY BROWN: Germany's foreign minister raised another concern, that radical Islamist fighters in Syria will somehow get hold of American weapons.

GUIDO WESTERWELLE, German Foreign Minister: We need an end to the violence as soon as possible and the start of a political process. But whoever opts for weapons delivery must make sure that those weapons do not end up in the wrong hands.

JEFFREY BROWN: Up to now, President Obama had raised the same concern, but at the White House today, adviser Rhodes said it's been addressed.

BEN RHODES: We have relationships today in Syria that we didn't have six months ago that gives us greater certainty, not just that we can get stuff into the country, but also that we can put it in the right hands, so that it's not falling into the hands of extremists.

JEFFREY BROWN: The turn of events comes as the Syrian regime has captured one key town and is now stepping up attacks on rebels in Aleppo, plus pushing to regain control of the central provinces of Homs and Hama.

The Syrian crisis is expected to top the agenda when President Obama holds a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at next week's G8 summit in Northern Ireland.

Later in the program, we will have a debate on the American response to the Syrian civil war.

Without Money to Retire, Paramedic Works Out to Keep Working

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:51:00 EDT

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Joel Peters, 62, plans on working as a paramedic for as long as he can perform the physically demanding job. Video shot and produced by David Pelcyger.

Sixty-two isn't too old to be a paramedic, at least according to Joel Peters.

"I have to stay in shape because it's a physically demanding job," he told us. "That's how you survive."

Peters should know. He has worked twelve-hour shifts in a hospital emergency room in Taos, N.M., for 25 years.

Peters and his wife Jackie are able to meet their financial needs as long as he continues to work. After that, things are less certain.

"When I see myself not able to keep up with what's going on, I will bow out. My next question would be, am I in a position to do that? And that's going to be the tough part."

Peters is among the majority of Americans who do not have enough saved for retirement, and are therefore staying on in the workplace.

Editor's note: this post originally incorrectly stated the number of years Mr. Peters has been working as a paramedic. This has been corrected.

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