so i tend to think of the obama administration when it took office in 2009 as confronting what i call the legacy of the first george of course george w. bush. obama needed to figure out what he was going to do in the wake of the bush presidency. the other george, less obvious, would be mcgovern. the republicans ever since the george mcgovern campaign of 1972 has been kind of a republican truth that the republicans can fall back on election time even when it isn't necessarily true that the democrats are weak on defense. and the fact that this isn't true shows up over and over again at the time of the persian gulf war the shock and awe of american high-tech weaponry that we saw at the beginning of the war actually was developed in the late 1970's in the pentagon of jimmy carter under a guy with a high-tech background named william perry. democrats and repblicans have both been familiar with issues and the use of force, and it's not a black and white democrats weak on defense issue. so the problem in writing this book was the had all worked aside one another in one administration after a

i think it is a disastrous deal but yes, i think the obama administration would be inclined to take it. since their diplomacy, both with respect to iran's nuclear weapons program and the ongoing civil war in syria, has been such a failure. being able to amass a successive diplomacy would give them something, even though the end result i think would be very, very risky for the united states and israel and our arab friends in the region serving it comes as the panetta report came out which is troubling, potentially, they are developing a missile that they think could hit the united states within three years. i mean, that report, ambassador, was pretty scathing. >> well, what is surprising people is that it follows years of reports from the administration that have down played iran's success with its ballistic missile program. let's be clear, these missiles are not to launch, you know, weather satellites, they are designed to be the vehicles to deliver iran's nuclear weapons, when they reach that stage, so, increasing the range, payload capacity and accuracy of iranian missiles is very mu

so the obama administration is hitting back. the obama administration has been taking official action on this type of thing at twice the rate of the george w. bush administration. has declared he is china's door mat. in a way no modern administration has been, mitt romney is calling him a door mat. he likes to make a big deal out of saying he as president would be more confrontational. mr. romney wrote on op ed saying he would take aggressive action against the second largest economy in the world. so aggressive he would start a war against the two greatest economies on earth. his plans were stated as a blunder. it was described as mr. romney's hulk policy. romney smash china. but for all mr. romney is turning green and shredding his shirts with biceps, when it comes to making realç decisions about countries in the market place, mr. romney has not been all that big in confrontation in the real world. in his book no apology, president bush's design to stand up against china had done more harm than good. he called president obama'

while obama is president. >> eric: you have that type of talk and the obama administration is attacking you and david axelrod, accused you of bellicose blovicating when you say these type of things. >> that is a lot of words for the campaign and i don't think they built it up, they probably had a dictionary to help them out. the obama administration's put itself in a very difficult rhetorical position, on the one hand they say the president is a great success in foreign policy and national security. and, on the other hand, the administration and its media allies say, you know, fundamentally there is not any difference between the obama policies and the romney policies which would seem to indicate that people should be comfortable electing governor romney. so, i think the obama administration is doing this entirely for political purposes, and i think they are waiting for an opening for a political attack and what they are not focused on seriously, unfortunately, is iran's continuing progress toward nuclear weapons. >> dave: of course they would dispute that and say they have been working

to help the obama administration. if you'd like to send the factor stimulus money, we can buy some more ties. now, listen. the fisker deal, is this in finland? >> it's being made in finland. it's a beautiful car. >> it snows, how can they get it on the road? >> they have an indoor facility. >> did we build that, too. >> well, we didn't. they had a billion dollars they raised in capital. >> let me get this straight. this is interesting to me. so they want electric cars, but bush was in this, too. bush was in this too. >> bush himself was not in this. >> not in the bush administration? my notes are no good? >> your notes are very good. the problem with it is that this money was dispatched by the obama administration. >> all right. so let's blame it all on bank bk obama. here's the vision. we're going to build an electric car in finland that's going to come back with the windmills. are they going to ship them back together. >> you've got a logistics issues there and the collision of factors. they were going to build them

the obama administration decision to pursue this work in a commercial manner as defined meant we would seek the best outcome with the minimum potential cost to the taxpayer. the results of that work speak for themselves. gm had its most profitable year ever in 2011, even though auto sales did not return to pre-crisis levels, it has grown market share and has a strong balance sheet. tragically -- [ no audio ] we were very careful to never get involved in specific decisions on plant closures, dealer closures or the like. we agreed with gm in the broad strokes which was to create a world class auto business and key components of that and they would make the detail decisions that needed to be made to implement those broad strokes. this approach applied to the same sad story of delphi. when delphi came to the auto team's attention, delphi was bleeding approximately $150 million in cash per month. gm was supporting delphi because delphi was the sole supplier for certain critical gm parts, so delphi liquidation would have shut down all of general motors. this was an unsustainable proposition.

at the beginning of the obama administration, president obama right out of the gate made gun trafficking and taking on these mexican cartels a top priority. he was in mexico within three months of his inauguration. hillary clinton was there, eric holder was there, and they were all pushing that 90% of guns found in mexico and linked to these violent crime scenes come from mom and pop gun stores in the united states. well, that's not true. wikileaks, actually, released a bunch of state department cables that show that that's a flat-out lie. state department cables. hillary clinton is the secretary of state, and yet she was still quoting this pirg. this figure. and so instead of taking a step back and saying, you know, these cartels are actually getting their guns from china, central america, they're not coming to regulated mom and pop dealers to get their guns. they instead decided to flood mexico with guns, and the way this worked was they went to the gun dealers, and they said you need to help your country by selling to these traffickers who come in to buy guns. gun dealers say, okay, w

administration in general obama president obama has next to me to my mind has not forcefully. defended or sold the health care bill the way he should go and he's doing it the same kind of thing with this he's allowing subordinates to carry the ball. do you think can you talk a lot about the legacy that he's going to leave behind it's going to be the lethal presidency and in certain ways it normalizes this kind of policy which you know some would say is murder and so you know how do you think that we're going to see it go down the road how is this going to change the way that leaders really approach the subject hearing talk about the end of the piece how he has made it so that drones seem like the tool that you have to use unlike a nuclear weapon where you do everything to stop from having to use a nuclear weapon here you have to use one. you know. what i was basically trying to get at least was that. the use of the drone the use of targeted killing to lose the use of lethal operations the really the option of first resort when it comes to counterterrorism the last resort he ha

i think this is a problem for the obama administration. unfortunately for the republicans there isn't likely to be a resolution to this prior to the election. there isn't really any mechanism by you with which you can get to the bottom of the leaks and deal with this before the election. >> i disagree a little bit with liz on the contrast. i think there is a huge contrast which you saw laid out in that speech which is again contrast between romney talking about strong american leadership and what he has portrayed as the obama administration multilateralism, leading from behind, sort of spin its wheels. the other huge point of the contrast. >> chris: just to pick up quickly on that. when they he did take down bin laden, when ghadaffe is out of power is that something the voters really feel. >> put that next to syria and what is happening there. one of the other big points of contrast romney made in the speech is the economy. a strong american economy is vital for a strong national security. >> chris: we will get there. let's take a break. w

we will talk about the obama administration's failure to prosecute wall to executives, the future of wikileaks, and the growing surveillance state. but first, amy goodman goes to spend more protesters are celebrating a major victory after the country's high court opened a criminal investigation into the former head of spain's biggest mortgage lender. a former imf chief rodrigo rato. we speak with organizers of the historic may 15 movement, the indignados. >> maybe, eventually, maybe one of these guys will pay. we have this impression that no one -- they do what they won. they still, like, nothing happens. today, maybe, something will happen. i'm very happy. >> all of that and more coming up. this is "democracy now!," democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm juan gonzalez filling in for amy goodman. nato supply convoys have resumed in pakistan after the u.s. finally apologized for a deadly attack that occurred last year. pakistan had barred the nato trucks that carry supplies for the afghan war after u.s. forces killed 24 pakistani troops in november. on tuesday, the obama admi

the obama administration has two themes. one there is no foreign policy issue because he is the foreign policy president of all times. second which the white house has been putting out this past week is fundamentally on iran and anything else is there is no difference between the obama and romney policies which seems to be 2009 consistent lines. but i think the key point was made by prime minister netanyahu. after all these years of diplomacy and sanctions by the obama and bush administrations have had not one iota of impact on iran's nuclear weapons program. that's the key point. as we draw closer to iran having that nuclear weapons capability, some shard decisions have to be made. megyn: we are almost in august and there are still questions about what israel is going to do. is it considering bombing iran's nuclear facilities as we heard earlier this year center in it might be in the spring or summer. in the wake of all that, there is a report out of jerusalem from the associated press citing an israeli newspaper that the o

so the obama administration has changed course. better to stand with your friends than with no one at all. joining us now is the president of the president influential center for american progress. she also used to work in the obama administration as an adviser to the secretary of health and human services. nera, thank you so much for being here. first, you're a better political mind than me. do you see this trend, do you see sort of a change here in the way they are treating what many call cultural issues? >> throughout his history, the president has always believed in the politics of conviction, and he's believed that when you talk to his people honestly about issues, you gain political points. even when they are not totally popular, and now we're in a time where we're not trying to pass legislation particularly in the house, everything is literally ground to a halt, so he has the ability to actually talk honestly about these issues. and truthfully, after a situation after aurora, for him to not mention it at all, raised question

and so, the obama administration's changed course. better to stand with your friends than with no one at all. joining us now is the president of the influential center for american progress. she used to work for the obama administration as secretary for health and human services. nura, great to have you here. >> great to be with you, ezra. >> you're a better political mind than i am. do you see a political trend, a change in the way they're treating what would be called cultural issues? >> i would say throughout his history, the president has always believed in the politics of conviction and has believed that when you talk to his people honestly about issues, you gain political points, even when they're not totally popular. and now we're in a time where, you know, we're not trying to pass legislation particularly on the hill. everything is literally ground to a halt. and so, he has the ability to talk honestly about these issues. and truthfully, after a situation like aurora, for him not to mention it at all i think raised questions w

and first the bush administration and the obama administration has had the judicial review. the only people who can challenge which surveillance are people who can show their own communications have been monitored because that's not information that the administration's released. so you're in this situation where this extremely far-reaching surveillance statute, definitely the most far reaching statute ever enacted by congress is essentially beyond the reach of the court. >> it sounds like one of the issues is there's insufficient standing to bring it to fed cal report and one legislative improvement might be to find that standing in such a way that you don't know about yourself so there might be others and some that therefore stand in the federal courts issue identified? >> i think that would be an improvement to the law. that said, we believe we have standing in the case that we are litigating before the supreme court and the second circuit agreed with us, but you believe that there's still this issue with regard to standing and as you said, it's something by the very natu

i mean, for 18 months or so, the obama administration has gone out of its way and bent over backwards to go through the u.n. so it hasn't had to end up in a war. but sometimes wars happen. it's because you have two irreconcilable sides. a minority dominated regime that is brutal, that has a proven track record of being unable to reform, ruling over one of the youngest populations in the middle east outside the palestinian territories. these two forces are just swirling around each other like a hurricane and anyone who's visited syria over the past year, or the areas around it, gets that. western policymakers, though, thought that oh well, maybe it would settle down or maybe eventually people would go home. that didn't happen. so i think what we're looking at here is a conflict, and a hurricane which has been gathering for some time and of course it's harder to deal with a hurricane if you don't take procedures in advance to get people to safety and to deal with a fallout and that's what the obama administration i believe is doing now. host: our guest is andrew tay. let me go back to t

you have republicans supporting the obama administration and democrats criticizing the obama administration. i hope that everybody in the room duly notes that. i would point out that since the faa amendments of 2008, there has been no federal court to my knowledge that has declared any part of the faa amendments unconstitutional on fourth amendment grounds. there is a case where the supreme court granted certiorari called a clapper versus amnesty international. but that is on the question of standing rather than on the question of alleged fourth amendment violations. that being said, it is now my pleasure to introduce today's witnesses. kenneth waynestein is on the staff where his practice focuses on the corporate internal investigations. he is also an adjunct professor at georgetown law school. he serves as an assistant attorney of the southern district of new york and columbia. later he served as u.s. attorney in d.c. and then was assistant attorney general for national security. he served as fbi director robert muller's chief of staff and as president bush's homeland security adviser. he

has the obama administration made the economy better or worse? you see worse now at 49%. that is a change as well from march. if i can skip down a bit. best describe views given the current economic situation. government the problem. 64%. government is the solution? 23%. a lot of polls out there ple is this star.is this starting t, steve? are we seeing a changing landscape in the race? >> what is striking if you look at that poll is the change in people's optimism about what is coming in the subsequent years. you had people for a long time describing the economy as not a good economy. 80% saying it's recession. we're optimistic about where we were headed. you're now starting to see increasingly in polls across the american electorate, people expressing much more skepticism. cynicism about where we are headed. that is a big problem for president obama. >> bret: casey, you have been on the trail a bunch. in all honesty, between now and the election as we have seen already, you will see poll, after poll, after poll to show this to be a close race. it's just a handful of vote

." >> the international aids conference returns to the united states after the obama administration lifted a two- decade ban barring people with hiv from entering the country. 34 million people are infected globally. we will speak with dr. elly katabira from uganda, co-chair of the aids conference and president of the international aids society. >> ending the epidemic will be difficult. [unintelligible] the best example has been said before, nobody thought we would and a barrel drugs, but we have them. >> an to calcutta, india. sex workers are barred from entering u.s. and holding alternative conference. we will take a look at the aids epidemic in black america and speak with congress member barbara lee of california. >> we need to make some noise. we need to put eradicating hiv and aids at the front burner of our political agenda, both here and abroad. >> all that and more coming up. this is "democracy now!," democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. syrian troops continue to bombard the city of aleppo in a bid to reclaim areas held by rebel forces. there have been repo

president obama administration went throughout, this is a result of an overtaxed military. everybody understands how men in uniform are under the most severe stress. there are going to be instances with individual cracks. why in this case, there is absolutely no evidence. within hours, again and again and again the tea party is blamed in a case where you have a real suspicion you are told not to bring it up. >> the abc report was just horrible journalism. they have screifd. >> and hijack hussein. >> i think there are two different situations. in the fort hood situation, the shooter at the time is a u.s. service member and they are not sure what akbar, because he says that, you don't treat him. you have a reasonable suspicion. >> sean: but the president refused to call it terrorist. he said it was workplace violence. >> that is what it looked like at the time. >> because he says that. >> what did they say 9/11 highjackings. >> anybody that says it. >> he followed a ideology. >> it has to do with the tea party. this is obviously such an issue of the tragedy of the victims whi

the obama administration con tobaccoed that it would not get in the day to day affairs of gm. it was in your place to advise gm to talk with the uaw and was this advice based on prudent bankruptcy proceedings or was it about expediency. >> i don't think it was about bankruptcy or political expediency. i think if you go back to that point in time the it made a determination that it was going to terminate both the hourly plan and the salary plan and it made the decision on the salary plan and i was reminding general motors that given their relationships with the uaw that they needed to get out in front of the communications and not substantive advice to general motors. >> this was prior to the pbgc terminating the plan. >> correct. but if i recall, and i don't have perfect recall, but i think if you recall, the pbgc at that point had started the process of thinking of a tomorrow nation of the delphi hourly and salary plans. >> all right. thank you for putting that on the ridiculoecord. with that for the second round we'll go to mr. cummings and as i went -- what was my total tim

administration's drone policy right when it comes to when it comes to killing u.s. citizens abroad which we have done and so esquire did a great lengthy feature piece about this today which i think it's about time i think of the more people that want to. we go in-depth and talk about this the better but to me it probably the most poignant part is when they were talking about . on the right this was on his sixteen year old son and they bring up the point that this administration has never ever spoken about it they've never acknowledged the fact that we killed this sixteen year old boy and so you know what kind of what kind of justice is that is the question what the drone policy is one that is certainly an evolution and it has made an impact on the fight against terrorist organizations so this administration is caught in a very difficult place where it has not acknowledged up until very recently that even had a drone policy now it is publicly acknowledged it but the legal mechanisms for targeting and identifying which targets to hit those are very much under wraps we

administration and according to the obama administration all military age males in a strike zone count as combatants unless there is explicit intelligence possed humourously proving them innocent so someone has to prove their innocence after they're dead president obama lawyer by background personally approves the kill list now how does the administration get away with this take no prisoners policy double speak is one of the ways illegally executing people is fine as long as you call them militants as pointed out by the london based investigative journalism it's very hard to reveal exact numbers they put the total of civilian civilians killed in drone strikes in pakistan at around eight hundred whereas if you believe the new america foundation chart it's half effect analysts say the reports by pakistani officials are not always reliable because of their dubious position on the one hand they test at the allow the drone strikes on. the other hand they condemn them the public publicly condemn them arguably to resonate more with the sentiments of the population in pakistan that is furious

of obama's administration shabby treatment of israel. the israeli people deserve better than what they received from the leader of the free world. he is romney on the plane to israel today. israel is fearful of a nuclear attack by iran and governor romney will make the case he would be tougher with iran than president obama. he said in an interview with an israeli paper, quote, in a time of turmoil and peril, it's important that the security of america's commitments to israel will be as clear as possible. when israel feels less secure in the neighborhood it should feel more secure in the commitment to the u.s. they have had rocky relationship with benjamin netanyahu. obama and netanyahu disagree over the settlements and approach to iran. but the president said they have unshakeable commitment. he announced $70 million to help israel expand the iron dome missile defense system to protect from hezbollah rockets. >> it's a program that has been tested and prevented missile strikes inside israel and is testimony of the leadership that we wil

the obama administration came up with their pitch. the obama administration came up with their pitch. >> it failed miserably. >> we're going to punish you if you don't do what we say. that pitch is pretty clear. let's see what the republicans come up with. >> i'm just unclear why two simple ideas don't count. why they don't count at all. should be part of the equation. >> bill: it's not enough. juan, you want to say something. >> i will give you that yes. i wanted to say to mary katharine large number of people who say repeal it say we want single payer. they wanted the government to do more. >> that's not true either. gallup poll. >> it's more than 20% of the people say that. >> i'm going to stop you on this mick crow stuff because it's boring. >> i'm so glad. >> wrong. like to correct. >> you just said exactly what's right. where is the republic idea. >> they have to be better. they have to be better if they want to get the president out of the white house. they have to make an urgent deal. like i just did in the talking points memo