and drug demand in the united states. is the u.s. willing to send the army into the projects of chicago, into the projects and tenements of new york, in los angeles, to do away with drug consumption there? i do not think so. i don't see any reason to believe this will happen. so the notion that maybe one day the u.s. will do this, and when it does, then the supply of drugs coming through from colombia or even being produced in mexico will dry up because demand has dried up. up. i quite frankly that is an ahistorical, foolish and e ignorant view of history. chris: chapel hill, tennessee, independent line, tony. john: thank you and thank god for c-span.

i'm so tkhrad we have it. -- glad we have it. my question is, by the way the people interested there is a back by gary westbound called dark alliance. it will tell you a lot about the drugs passed through the country and within more thing, if we do stop the war on drugs, the sheriff deputy and police department and c.i.a. and f.b.i. won't be able to confiscate people's houses and money and property and they are going to be out of money. and that will be a big problem. people, marijuana is not harmful. i don't care what anybody tells i. thank you so much for c-span. chris: let's take one more call and that is chicago, illinois, object the democrat line. lucille. john: thraeufpg you f -- thank you for taking my call. i agree with your guest. he has been the most -- i beg your pardon. chris: go ahead.

chris: john: he has been the most honest person i have ever heard on any program anywhere about this problem. i agree that the way we can really help mexico is concentrate on our country, the consumption in this country. if we stop the consumption here, no matter what it takes but stop it, it will automatically help mexico and everywhere else. thank you for taking my call. >> final thoughts. >> well, i think that our last question was very clear about this. if as she said quite rightly, we, meaning the united states, stop consumption. but the answer is no, you ñrwon. because you don't want to. because if you wanted to you would have done so already. this is something american society does not want to pay for. it is not just taxes. it is money and it is also

everything that goes with it. more militarization of society, bigger police forces. more people in jail. more testing, more invasion of privacy in schools and colleges, all over. the united states doesn't want to stop consumption. we have seen this now over 40 years. so, to keep on insisting on when you will or when you do and if you do and if you will, i quite honestly think is not leading anywhere. why don't we accept where things are, accept that the united states doesn't really want to reduce consumption and accept that both mexico and the united states are going to have to live with this. let's live with it legally. let's adjust our laws to reality instead of trying in futile ways to adjust our reality to our laws. >> the thoughts laid out by our gues

>> this weekend, the political cartoons of dr. seuss, published during the war years in the 1940's. also, the neocons and foreign policy going back to the nixon administration. get the latest book t b updates on twitter pretext mr. a, the government announced growth in the gross domestic product. president obama talked about this and other economic matters in his weekly online address, including his initiatives to lower the federal deficit. then susan collins with her party's weekly address. she discusses the interrogation procedures used against the terror suspect in the attempted christmas day bombing of the

detroit bound airliner, like 253. >> at this time leicester, amid headlines about job losses of 700,000 a month, we received another troubling piece of news about our economy. our economy was shrinking at an alarming rate, the largest decline in 50 years. factories and farms were producing less. businesses are selling less, and more job losses were on the horizon. one year later, according to numbers released this past week, the numbers have reversed. for the past six months, our economy has been growing again. last quarter, it grew more quickly than at anyñi time in te past six years. this is the son of progress, an affirmation of the difficult decisions we made last year to pull our financial system back from the brink and get our economy moving again. but when so many people are still struggling, when one in 10

americans still cannot find work, and millions more working harder and longer for less, our mission is not just to grow the economy. it is to grow jobs for folks who want them, and ensure wages that are rising for those who have them. it is not just about improvements in quarterly statistics, but a bigger paycheck, were security, and a chance to give your children a decent shot in life and still have enough to retire one day. that is why job creation will be our number one focus in 2010. we will put more americans back to work rebuilding our infrastructure, all across the country. the true engines of job creation are american businesses. i propose tax credits to help them hire new workers, raise wages, and invest in new plants and equipment. i want to eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment and help small businesses get the loans they need to open their doors and

expand their operations. as we work to create jobs, it is critical that we brain in the budget deficits we have been accumulating for far too long. that system will not just burden our children and grandchildren but can damage our markets, drive up interest rates, and jeopardize our recovery right now. certain core principles our families and businesses follow when they sit down to do their own budgets. that focus on what they really need. they make tough decisions and sacrifice for their kids. they do not spend what they do not have. they make do with what they have got. it is time the government did the same. that is why i am pleased that the senate has just restored the pay-as-you-go law that was in place in the 1990's. it is no coincidence that we ended that decade with a surplus. we ended the next decade with a 1.3 trillion dollars deficit.

every time we spend, we must find somewhere else to cut. i have also proposed a spending freeze. as we increase in things we need, we cut spending on things we don't, like programs that are redundant and obsolete or simply ineffective. spending related to medicare, medicaid, and social security will not be affected, and neither will national security. all other discretionary government programs will. finally, i have called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, a panel of democrats and republicans who would sit down and hammer out concrete deficit reduction proposals by a certain deadline. we have heard plenty of talk and yelling about deficits, and it is time to come together and make the painful choices we need to eliminate those deficits. this past week, 53 democrats and

republicans voted for this commission in the senate, but it failed when seven republicans who had co-sponsored the idea in the first place suddenly decided to vote against it. it is one thing to have an honest difference of opinion about something. i will always respect those who take a principled stand for what they believe, even if i disagree with it. what i will not accept is changing positions because it is good policy. i will not accept opposition for opposition's sake. i am eager and ready to work with anyone who is serious about solving the real problems facing our people and our country. i welcome anyone who comes to the table in good faith to help get our economy moving again and fulfill those countries promise. that is why we were elected in the first place. that is what the american people

expect and deserve. that is what we must deliver. thank you so much. >> less than one hour. that is right, less than one hour. in fact, just 50 minutes. that is the amount of time that the fbi spent questioning abdul mutallab, the foreign terrorist to try to blow up the plane on christmas day. then he was given a miranda warning and a lawyer. not surprisingly, he stopped talking. how did we get to this point? how did the obama administration decide to treat a foreign terrorist who had tried to murder hundreds of people as if he were a common criminal? on christmas day, the skies above detroit became a battleground in the war on terrorism. that day, the bomb being carried by abdul mutallab failed to

detonate, thanks to the courageous action of the passengers and crew. nearly 300 lives were saved on the plane, and more lives were scared on the ground. -- worst bear on the ground. the government security system failed long before abdul mutallab boarded his flight to the united states. it failed when his visa was not revoked, even though his father had warned our embassy in nigeria about his son's ties to islamic extremists. it failed when the intelligence community was unable to connect the dots that would have placed abdul mutallab on the terrorist watch list. it failed when this terrorist stepped onto the plane in amsterdam with the same explosives used by the shoe bomber, richard reid, or than eight years ago.

but today i want to discuss another failure, a failure that occurred after abdul mutallab had already been detained by authorities in the troy, an error that undoubtedly prevented the collection of valuable intelligence about future terrorist threats to our country. this failure occurred when the obama justice department unilaterally decided to treat this foreign terrorist as an ordinary criminal. abdul mutallab was questioned for less than one hour before the justice department advised him that he could remain silent and offered him an attorney at our expense. once of for the protection our constitution guarantees american citizens, this foreign

terrorist lawyered up and stopped talking. when the obama administration decided to treat him as an ordinary criminal, it did so without the input of our nation's top intelligence officials. the director of national intelligence was not consulted. the secretary of defense was not consulted. the secretary of homeland security was not consulted. the director of the national counter-terrorism center was not consulted. they would have explained the importance of gathering all possible intelligence about yemen, where there is a serious threat from terrorists who sites are trained on this nation. that would have explained the critical nature of learning all we could from abdul mutallab, but they were never asked.

president obama recently used the phrase that we are at war with terrorists. but unfortunately, his rhetoric does not match the action of his administration. the obama administration appears to have a blind spot when it comes to the war on terrorism, and because of that blindness, this administration cannot see a foreign terrorist even when he stands right in front of them, fresh from an attempt to blow a plane out of the sky on christmasñi day. there is no other way to explain the irresponsible and dangerous decision on the interrogation. there's no other way to explain the inconceivable treatment of him as if he were a common criminal.