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>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> brown: a summer showdown now looms in washington over filling key federal judgeships. the president set things in motion today with his nominees to take seats on one key appeals court. >> what i am doing today my job.

i need the senate to do its job. >> brown: president obama lashed out at senate republicans today for playing politics in delaying votes on past judicial nominations. he did so at a white house rose garden event announcing three nominees to fill vacancies on the 11-member u.s. court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit. it's often referred to as the nation's second highest court ruling on high profile cases of national significance. >> time and again congressional republicans cynically used senate rules and procedures to delay and even block qualified nominees from coming to a full vote. as a result, my judicial nominees have waited three times longer the to receive confirmation votes than those of my republican predecessor. so this is not about principled opposition, this is about political obstruction. >> brown: today marked the first time the president has held an event to announce nominees to any bench other than the supreme court.

his choices include patricia ann millett, a d.c. appellate lawyer georgetown university law professor cornelia pillard, and u.s. district court judge robert leon wilkins. the nominations come as senate majority leader harry reid was threatening to change senate procedure to eliminate judicial filibusters. today, though, minority leader mitch mcconnell warned republicans won't go down without a fight. >> we don't intend to be intimidated by him with a constant threat to break the rules in order to change the rules. if that's what's going to happen we want to know it now, not some other time. now. >> reporter: wnyc reportered to swil lick. >> by naming all three nominations now, president obama is teaming up with majority leader harry reid. he's saying "here are my three judges" and increasing the pressure on mitch mcconnell and senate republicans to give these

nominees up or down votes or explain why they won't. >> brown: last month the senate unanimously approved one of the president's nominees to the d.c. circuit. it was the first confirmation to that court in seven years. the heat. >> brown: the heated debate goes beyond the capitol to groups who closely follow courts and the judicial process. we're joined by caroline fredrickson, president of the american constitution society for law and policy. she was at the white house today. and carrie severino, chief counsel and policy director of the judicial crisis network, which is critical of the president's actions. we welcome both of you. >> thank you so much. >> brown: caroline frederick son your group pushed the white house to make the nomination, all three at one time. why was it so important? >> well, that is really important court. this is one of the courts that people say very frequently is second only to the supreme court and in some ways it's actually as important or more so because it decides so many more cases. and the kind of cases that go to the d.c. circuit are some of the most significant in our country,

including major agency appeals, some of the most important environmental regulations, health care, financial regulations, workers' rights, voting, national security, you name it. the most important cases go to the d.c. circuit and it's critical that it can operate at full capacity so that our nation's justice can be done. >> brown: carrie zef ree know, one prominent republican senator charles grassley, has criticized the president for what he termed packing the court. explain why filling the vacancys is packing the court. >> exactly. it's an incredibly important court but the president is in a situation where there are numerous federal emergencies on the bench, there's a lot of vacancys that aren't done. instead of filling them he has 70% of the vacancies right now. he's focused on the d.c. political circuit. it's political because his administrative agenda will be coming through that court. right now the court is perfectly balanced at four republican and four democratic nominees and has one of the lowest caseloads in

the country. i clerked in the d.c. circuit, i can say from experience it's a low caseload. they end up canceling hearings because they -- sitings because they don't have cases to fill them. so if you focus on the places where there are judicial emergencies, not trying to fill up the d.c. circuit so it will rubber stamp his agenda. >> brown: okay, several things in that response. >> i've heard this argument many timess, it's sort of orwellian in many ways because the reasons why the vacancies exist in the other court is because republicans in the senate have been delaying so long. they delay on the front end. they don't send district court nominees to the white house. they delay when they don't send their blue slips-- technical term about the senate to senate judiciary and how it processes. it's basically a permission slip for the senate judiciary committee to actually process district court nominations and circuit court nominations. then they delay before they have a vote before the full senate and this is a president who's faced the longest delays from senate judiciary hearings to the floor vote of any president in

history. so i think yes, of course there are vacancies. and i would say the other point is that it was certainly -- there was a strong push by the republican, including senator grassley and the other members of the senate judiciary committee in the leadership to fill all 11 seats on the d.c. circuit when president bush was president and they succeeded in doing so. the only change now that we have president obama and not president bush. >> brown: let me ask you about this. because when you said? your first answer that this is a blatant political move, you called it, isn't that in a sense the way the system works? the president gets to put out his nominees and one would expect that they might, i don't know, have -- be in alignment with what he thinks? >> absolutely. a president can nominate the people he expects to line up with his ideology. but these are the same judiciary committee members who were saying at the time of peter kiz will's nomination for example, it's amusing, the president was saying one of these nominations

has been since it was vacated by chief justice ron roberts. he was in the senate while that that nominee was sitting there 900 daysings, didn't even get a hearing. when we talk about judicial nominees having a long period from hearing to confirmation, that's just kicking one step? what you've characterized as a complicated process. day from the brookings institution clarifies that the obama nominees from nomination to confirmation have 240 days. bush's nominees were 283. so it's faster if you look at the whole process. >> brown: but i'm asking you about the principle of it. you've been a clerk yourself in the court and the supreme court. so the principle of appointing-- whether it's a democrat or republican-- what is wrong -- why is that packing the court? >> well, the d.c. circuit actually -- those spaces are not -- at a time we've got a budget crunch, there's been a move to move other seats to other courts. it's been done before and in terms of the resources spent looking at those nominations, that should be spent on places

where there are serious judicial emergencies not at the d.c. circuit. this is not a place -- this is somewhere wroo actually there's more seats than are negligence. why are we spending our resources there rather than the courts where you frequently have district judges in a have to sit in because there aren't enough circuit judges to hear the case? >> brown: what about to your side that the argument that the democrats often did the same to republicans and we just had sri vina vasen. >> right to the 11th seat d.c. circuit. it's clear there's politics in this. we have a president who got elected but i would remind us again come mass griffith was confirmed to the d.c. sir doubt the 11th seat under george bush when the case low was lower than it is now. we've certainly had economic problems at the time. i think the only real significant change here is who's the president. and it's hard for know understand how court-packing now is filling the existing vacancies when president bush was capable of doing that and i

would say the federal judiciary conference chaired by chief justice roberts just two months ago recommended that all 11 seats of the d.c. circuit be filled. >> brown: just thinking about sri sreenivasan, would any of these current three new nominees generate opposition or controversy if they were put forward individually rather than all together? >> i think putting them through all together is clearly a publicity stunt on the part of the president and has been --. >> brown: you think he's throwing it at the republicans. >> i think it was senator shupl who said look, holding up nominations one at a time would be one thing but in will force them to lay down and di side what they're going to do at once so it's clearly a strategic move. i think what makes it like court packing, we're referencing president roosevelt's attempt to pack the supreme court to get his agenda through is in fact even the president's allies have said is the reason we need these people on the d.c. circuit is not because of workload but because -- they didn't say not because of workload.

they said because we need to have someone who is going to be approving the president's agenda and his agenda is moving straight through the regulatory system and will be going through that administrative process. so that's exactly same thing that president roosevelt was trying to do when he was packing the court. it's a very similar parallel. >> brown: very briefly, do you expect will this will end in a clash in the senate? >> no doubt. but i do have to respond to how court-packing can be filling existing vacancies. that is just so orwellian it just can't even -- >> that term, pat lahey has used that term so -- that term has been used by both sides -- >> not to fill existing vacancies. i think there will be a clash. there's definitely mitch mcconnell made it clear today he is going to fight and i hope leader reid does the same. >> brown: caroline fredrickson, carrie severino, thank you both very much. >> thanks. >> thank you. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour, the military's top

brass respond to sexual assaults in the ranks; president reagan's budget chief argues against government bailouts; and the science and the risks of chasing storms. but first, with the other news of the day, here's kwame holman. >> holman: conservative groups spoke out today about the abuse they say they endured at the hands of the i.r.s. it was their first appearance at a congressional hearing since the controversy broke. >> good morning. hole hole republicans in charge of the tax writing house ways and means committee called six organizations scrutinized by the i.r.s. when they applied for tax-exempt status. representatives of the groups told of waiting up to three years for their applications to be approved and having to answer questions about their political views. becky garrettson leads a tea party group in alabama. >> government agents made invasive and excessive demands for information they were not entitled to. the individuals who sought to intimidate us were acting as they thought they should: in the a government culture that has little respect for its citizens. >> brown: and john eastman said the i.r.s. disclosed

confidential information about supporters of his anti-gay marriage group the national organization for marriage. >> the effort seems to have been designed to subject our donors to abuse, to intimidation and, more significantly for our purposes, to chill them from the political fight that we're in the middle of. >> reporter: democrats joined in criticizing the i.r.s.' handling of the application, but washington state's jim mcdermott argued the groups were highly political some some questions were justified. >> none of your organizations were kept from organizing or silenced. we're talking about whether or not the american taxpayers will subsidize your work. we're talking about a tax break. >> reporter: the i.r.s. also faced new criticism for spending. a treasury department inspector general reported some 200 employee conferences held by the agency between 2010 and 2012 cost $50 million.

that included one training video showing workers dancing and another parodying the 1960s t.v. show "star trek." >> holman: new jersey governor chris christie moved today to fill a vacant u.s. senate seat with a special election in october. the seat was held by veteran democrat frank lautenberg. he died yesterday at the age of 89. christie could have named a temporary replacement to serve through 2014 and finish out lautenberg's term, but he said that would not be fair to voters. >> there are going to be a lot of consequential things that are going to be decided or could be decided in the united states senate in that 18 months. and i just thought it was too long a period of time for any person to have the sole authority to pick who represents us in the united states senate. i believe the people have the write to make that decision. they need to have a voice and a choice. >> holman: christie said he will appoint someone to serve as new jersey senator until the october vote. the governor himself is up for reelection in this year's general election, set for november.

a colorado judge today accepted a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity in last summer's mass shooting at a movie theater. james holmes appeared this morning to enter the plea. he's charged with killing 12 people and injuring 70 others. his action today sets the stage for a long mental evaluation before any trial. the deputy prime minister of turkey has issued a partial apology for a crackdown on antigovernment protesters. he acknowledged today that police initially used excessive force in raiding a sit-in at a park. but he said thousands of others who battled police do not deserve an apology. demonstrators were out in force again today in ankara, but this time, riot police handed them flowers in the same colors as the turkish flag. there were new assertions today of chemical weapons use in syria. a united nations commission of inquiry reported it has "reasonable grounds" to believe at least four such attacks have taken place. the commission could not

determine who used the weapons. but it did say both government and rebel forces have committed war crimes. commission chair paulo pinheiro spoke in geneva. >> crimes that shock the conscience have become a daily reality. humanity has been the casualty of this war. syria needs not a military surge; syria needs a diplomatic surge. >> holman: separately, the french government said it has confirmed sarin nerve gas has been used "multiple times" in syria, at least once by assad regime forces. in egypt, a court sentenced 16 americans to up to five years in prison for using foreign funds to foment unrest. all worked for non-profit organizations, and all but one already had left the country. they were sentenced in absentia. the judge also ordered that the offices of several of the non- profits be closed.

the death toll from floods in europe rose to at least ten today, even as floodwaters receded in the hard-hit city of passau, germany. rain-swollen rivers across southern germany, austria, switzerland, and the czech republic still were rising in other cities. thousands of german soldiers were called in to help sand-bag and get people out of the flood zone. wall street gave ground today amid questions about how much longer the federal reserve's stimulus efforts will last. the dow jones industrial average lost 76 points to close at 15,177. the nasdaq fell 20 points to close at 3445. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to gwen. >> ifill: the military's top brass crowded into a senate hearing room today to defend themselves against charges that they are doing too little to put an end to sexual assault in the military. at issue: who can be trusted to fix the problem. >> two two weeks ago i told my

commanders that combating sexual assault and sexual harassment within our ranks is our number-one priority. >> ifill: army general ode ode ode and the other service chief presented a united front on the damage done by sexual assault. but they also opposed any move to strip commanders of authority over prosecuting those cases. >> as we consider further reforms, the role of the commander should remain central. >> without equivocation, i believe maintaining the central role of commander in our military justice system is absolutely critical to any solution. >> we have found that successful effective, and permanent changes in our military are best done through our commanders, the chain of command. >> commanding officers never delegate responsibility, they should never be forced to delegate their authority. >> ifill: the bill's sponsor, democratic senator kirsten gillibrand of new york sharply disagreed. >> not all commanders are objective. not every single commander necessarily wants women in the first. not every single commander

believes what a sexual assault is. not every single commander can distinguish between a slap on the ass and a rape because they merge all of these crimes together. >> ifill: missouri democrat claire mccaskill pursued that theme saying the problem goes much deeper than military leaders comprehend. >> this isn't about sex, this is about assaultive domination and violence and as long as those two get mushed together you all are not going to be as successful as you need to be at getting after the most insidious part of this, which is the predators in your ranks that are sullying the great name of our american military. >> ifill: a recent pentagon study found as many as 26,000 sexual assaults went unreported last year, up nearly 7,000 from 2010. gillibrand warned victims do not believe the chain of command will treat them fairly. >> my concern is that you have lost the trust of the men and

women who rely on you. that you will actually bring justice in these cases. they're afraid to report. they think their careers will be over. they fear retaliation. they fear being blamed. >> reporter: but the chiefs argue that if commanders don't decide on sexual assault cases it could hurt unit cohesion. indiana democrat joe donnelly questioned odierno on that claim. >> why would a soldier think less of their commander simply because their commander doesn't handle this area? >> i want the commander fully involved in the decisions that have an impact on the morale and cohesion of the unit to include punishment. to include u.c.m.j.. that's their responsibility. it's not too much responsibility. in my mind, it sets the tone. >> reporter: but republican john mccain of arizona said the problem may already be doing more damage than the military

realizes. >> we have to ask ourselves if left uncorrected what impact will this problem have on recruitment and retention of qualified men and women? just last night a woman came to me and said her daughter wanted to join in the military and could i give my unqualified support for her doing so. i could not. >> ifill: the chairman of the joint chiefs, general martin dempsey acknowledged the issue deserves much more attention than it received during a decade of war. >> coming out of this period of conflict we've got soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coast guard who engage in some high-risk behavior as they come out of the conflict. so when you tie it all together, i wouldn't say that we've been i active but we've been less active than we probably need to be. is. >> ifill: despite their

opposition to the key portion of the gillibrand bill, democrats in congress agreed to work on the progress. everyone agrees on the breadth of the problem, but there is no single agreed upon solution. here with two views are eugene fidell, a senior research scholar in law at yale. he's spent his career practicing military law, and is a member of the defense department's legal policy board. and retired major general charles dunlap, executive director of the center on law, ethics and national security at duke university law school. welcome to you both, gentlemen, gene fidell, starting with you. what's the correct solution? >> i think credibility solution, gwen, is that it's time to bring the military justice in gin-- not similarbly respect to sexual offenses, but in general-- into the 21st century. there was a very impressive array of officials at the hearing today before the senate arms services committee, many of them in uniform. but if you'll forgive me, i want to put up a picture of the person who was the ghost at the banquet. it's this individual and perhaps

you recognize our last monarch george iii. because in key respects, we're still dealing with a system that was in existence when george iii sat on the throne of great britain. we've got to get past the 18th century and get into the 21st century when it comes to who decides which charges are brought against whom at which level of court-martial. >> ifill: general dunlap, what's your opinion? >> i disagree with my friend gene. i think we have thousands of military history to show that a commander-centric military system is what works. and we have to remember the united states has the most powerful military in the world and that's built on the system that we have i'm not saying that some changes would be made in the military justice system but we should not be giving to anyone other than a commander who has the responsibility, that complex responsibility of preparing human beings to kill other human beings, something for which there's no counterpart

in the civilian world, taking away that responsibility for discipline. let me tell you something: in the military if the commander isn't the centerpiece of something you are taking away the potential effectiveness of the program. it has to be -- it can't be given to some staff officer. >> ifill: let me ask you both to weigh on this because both of you are talking about the entire military justice system and the importance or lack of importance for the commander being central to it. but in these particular cases, these specific cases which were cited at this hearing about sexual assault in which people as we heard senator gillibrand saying, victims don't trust the commanders, they don't trust the chain of command to pursue what they need pursued. is that different from what you're talking about? what happens to the entire military justice system? starting with you gened any del. >> no system is every going to be perfect. that's something we have to get on the table. if you look at the civilian

system as a model it, too, has blemishs. it's clear in this era the decision making as to who gets sent to jail or who gets sent into a criminal trial is a decision that is heavily legal in content and made by prosecutors. that's in stark contrast where commanders who may have a little more than a couple weeks training as they ascend the lad interthe major command billets have to learn. that is the work of lawyers. it's the work of district attorney's. it's the work of the united states attorneys and in the military justice system the person with his or her finger on the trigger in terms of prosecution ought to be a lawyer. not simply an advice giver but a decider. >> ifill: general dunlap, is senator mccaskell and mccain right when they say that women should not feel secure anymore about being in the military because of the way that these charges are pursued?

>> look, sexual assault is a terrible crime. it's a terrible crime in the civilian society and if you look at the statistics from civilian society i think that -- i would hope that young women especially would continue to consider the militaryment but the fact of the matter is that the military-- as the supreme court has said multiple times-- is a different kind of society than civilian society so trying to build a civilian system into the military for this particular kind of crime is a mistake. it needs -- commanders need to be the central issue and the idea of non-legally training people making these decisions seems to be overlooking the fact that governors and the president issue pardons all the time and they're not even required to get legal advice as a military commander is. military commanders make extremely complex decisions based on very conflicting matters of fact all the time and

how they're somehow incompetent to apply rules and so forth and make factual judgments in this area is beyond comp comprehension. >> ifill: what if the person who is deciding how your case will be prosecuted is also someone in charge of you? what do you do, gene fidell, or what can a member of the armed forces do who fears retaliation? is that a real concern? >> it is a real concern retaliation can have a corrosive effect on the administration of justice as well as unit cohesion by the way. unit cohesion is a catch phrase dropped in into the conversation much the way it was in the now abandoned "don't ask, don't tell" policy. the problem is that a commander may be put in a totally impossible situation. here's why. commanders are going to be graded in terms of their own evaluations by their superiors on command climate. one element of which is how did

genders interact and are women at a disadvantage, for example. they have to worry about the welfare of those personnel who have been victimized in one way or another and they have to worry about the welfare and rights of people are their subordinates who may get charged with offenses. how do you juggle those things. >> ifill: how do you juggle those things? >> well, commanders juggle multiple things all the time. they're making life-and-death decisions on battlefields. i agree there are rogue commanders out there but we already have at least three statutory means for the kind of person who feels they've been wronged by their commander. article 138 already in the u.c.m.j.. >> ifill: the military code of -- the uniform code of military justice. just want to point that out. >> thank you. also congress it had law in 2006 and makes it -- it's always been northbound the u.c.m.j. that

judge advocates can go around the chain of command and raise things in the senior level of the jag chain and in addition there's inspector general which is is another statutorily protected option. so there is at least three options where people can go around the chain of command already in the law. >> ifill: well, we'll have to leave it there. >> we should keep in mind that the system in place now in 2006 there were 34,000 estimated sexual assaults. they dropped to 19,000. a 44% drop in 2010 and now we've seen an uptick. >> ifill: we're going have to leave that conversation for another time. eugene fidell at yale law school and general charles dunlap at duke law school. thanks very much. >> thanks, gwen. >> thank you, gwen. >> brown: next, another economic meltdown.

that's the dire prediction of a former white house budget director, who argues in a recent book that wall street and washington are broken. newshour economics correspondent paul solman has the first of two takes on the government's role in the economic recovery, part of his regular reporting on making sense of financial news. >> solman: libertarian david stockman has been a controversial figure since he quit the reagan administration as budget chief in 1985, blaming it for failing to take deficits seriously. he became rich-- and legally embroiled-- as a leveraged buyout financier. he faced accounting fraud charges that were later dropped. now he's become visible again as author of "the great deformation," a hefty screed that attacks the left and right alike. but mainly, it attacks government economic intervention. it begins with the crash of '08. stockman thinks it was long overdue.

>> that was mr. market bringing discipline, bringing resolution to very reckless financial behavior. we should have let it continue. goldman would have went down, morgan stanley would have went down. it would have burned out there. it wouldn't have spread to main street. the main street banks were in good shape. we basically made a mockery out of free markets and financial discipline, and we'll never come back. >> solman: but the theory of the time was that because large financial institutions were so interconnected with one another, that if one went down, like goldman, and owed lots of money to lots of others, those others would go down, and dominos. >> right. that was the common theory, the contagion effect. there is no economic basis in history for the idea of contagion. >> solman: economic historians point to the onset of the worldwide great depression of the 1930's as evidence of contagion, but stockman thinks

they're flat-out wrong about that, and wrong about the danger, five years ago, of contagion leading to a financial collapse. moreover, government, as the lender of last resort, he says, just makes matters worse. >> we shouldn't have bailed out the banks or a.i.g. >> solman: and you think we shouldn't have bailed out the auto industry either? >> no, absolutely not. when we bailed out g.m., the only thing we did was move 40,000 jobs from below the mason dixon line, where they would have been produced in hyundai plants, or honda plants, or toyota plants, or b.m.w. plants, to north of the mason dixon line. it was all about the electoral college; it was not about jobs. >> solman: but it would have been traumatic to detroit and everybody who had an auto job. >> well, of course. but if we're going to say that washington will rescue anybody who is big and noisy and threatens a trauma, then we're going to have total socialism, we're going to have an ossified

economy, and we're going to have crony capitalism like you have never seen. money will dominate everything, and we crossed that rubicon when we bailed out detroit in 2008. >> solman: what do you mean exactly by "crony capitalism," particularly if you're including the united auto workers among the cronies? >> crony capitalism tries to get a different outcome than would occur on the market by using the tools and machinery of government. as long as you want the government intervening at will any time there's an emergency, a crisis, a threat of something going wrong, then money will win, because they will hire the lobbyists, they will hire the lawyers, the accountants, and all the rest of them, and you will get stupid things like washington bailing out goldman sachs, and having goldman come back within one year with $28 billion of surplus. >> solman: so, you think our economy, perhaps our society as a whole, is on the one hand

wussified-- we can't take any pain-- and on the other hand controlled by a group of people in whose interests it is to preserve things as they are? >> sure. it's two sides of the same coin. the purpose of washington is to prop up the powerful. if you're running a small business in indiana, they're not going to bail you out. you have to have size, you have to have clout. we have a very unfair system today where the bus drivers are paying taxes so that we can give social security to old people that are rich, and we can bail out companies like g.e. capital and goldman sachs and a.i.g. and all the rest of them that never should have been near the taxpayers' dollar. so we would have had a serious recession, but no great depression, no black hole. >> solman: but if you were in government then, you would have been willing to roll the dice on it? >> absolutely, because we're in serial bubbles. >> solman: stockman blames the federal reserve-- under alan greenspan and ben bernanke-- for inflating bubbles for years by

keeping interest rates low. since the housing bubble burst, the fed has been fueling the economy by creating money to buy u.s. bonds and mortgage-backed securities. but in doing so, says stockman, the fed is just inflating yet another bubble. >> the problem is, you're creating a system of bubble finance, where interest rates are so low that people can speculate. so what this is, is a gambler's dream. >> solman: so you think we're cruising for a bruising? >> i think we're doing what einstein once said is the definition of insanity. he said, "if you do the same thing over and over and expect a different result, that's a sign of insanity." we're doing the same thing over and over. >> solman: as stockman tells it,

low interest rates have created financial markets full of speculators addicted to cheap debt. as a leveraged buyout dealmaker, he was one of them, and became rich in the process. when you were in the midst of all of this, doing leveraged buyouts, you were part of the bubble. did you think you might be doing something wrong? >> i'm not saying there's evil people running around wall street. i'm not particularly saying myself was evil, okay? i'm saying if all of the system is geared towards massive borrowing and speculation on leverage, everyone is going to do it. now, i had a company that went bankrupt, and as a result of that bankruptcy, i had huge problems for years. >> solman: well, you were prosecuted. >> yeah. but then they dropped the case, okay? >> solman: they accused you of accounting fraud? >> yeah. but it turns out that there wasn't any accounting fraud. it was a company that was way over-leveraged in the auto business, an auto supplier. i had five or six times debt-to- cash flow on the company. it was crazy-- never should have been done. that was reckless. but it was a pretty good wakeup call to me that it was

widespread throughout our economy. why did i have so much debt on the company that i had to go bankrupt? because i could come to wall street and raise it in a half a day. >> solman: the last question. paul krugman called you a cranky old man. and the essence was that you are putting all of your faith in a free market that surely has its own excesses, its own degradations, its own horror shows. >> i struck a raw nerve because i said you guys are pedaling nothing more than debt, and debt, and more debt, and more money printing. and it's not sound economics, and it's going to fail. and they didn't like that. >> solman: david stockman, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> brown: we'll hear a very different take on this in the coming days, from nobel prize- winning economist and new york times columnist paul krugman. online now, you can get a sneak peak at krugman's response.

>> ifill: we'll be back shortly with, but first, this is pledge week on pbs. this break allows your public television station to ask for your support, and that support helps keep programs like ours on the air.s reporting on our "copg

with climate change" page on our web site. >> brown: finally tonight, chasing storms, science, and risk. the national weather service said friday's deadly tornado near oklahoma city was stronger than initially reported. meteorologists now classify it as an ef-5, the strongest ranking possible, with winds of 295 miles per hour. it was also the widest twister ever recorded: 2.6 miles. the storm and subsequent flooding killed 18 people.

ray suarez has more. ray >> tornado on the ground! >> suarez: a storm chaser sounded the alert friday evening as the enormous black funnel filled the dark sky just west of oklahoma city. three of those killed were storm chasers themselves. tim samaras, 54; his son paul, 24; and carl young, who was 45. they were working for discovery channel. this was all that remained of their truck after it was caught in the open. a colleague says escape was all but impossible. >> it was really wild tornado. it was rapidly evolving. multiple tornados turned into one larger tornado and the larger tornado went one way and switched directions or quickly went another way. it was a really hard storm to track. >> suarez: indeed, this weather channel vehicle was picked up by the same storm and hurled 200

yards. only one of its chase team of three was seriously hurt. it was all testimony to how inherently dangerous this profession is. but another colleague says tim samaras was known for his caution. >> he knew what he was doing. he didn't chase for notoriety or television or selling video. he chased because he genuinely wanted to learn more about severe weather. >> suarez: the storm prediction center in norman, oklahoma, said the men killed friday appear to be the first scientific researchers to die in pursuit of tornados. for more we turn to a professor of research in the university of oklahoma, he's done research in the field. professor, let me begin by asking what a storm chaser is actually doing. why do these people ride toward those ominous looking funnels when everybody else is trying to get away from them. >> those of us looking from a

scientific vooupt want to get close to we can make measurements. some of us use mobile doppler radars. for these we don't need to get too close to the tornado, usually two, three, four, five miles. but the people who want to get very near tornados to make measurements of temperature and pressure have to get closer and leave their instruments in the paths of the tornados and hope the tornados come over those instruments. tornados are so small relatively speaking that we need too get very close. >> suarez: and there's no other way to gather that intelligence besides putting yourself at considerable personal risk? >> well, of course, with the radar we try to stay relatively safe distance from the tornado. but we need the observations, especially to verify theories and to verify computer simulations. >> suarez: for some of these people, professor, is there also an element of thrill seeking? an appetite for risk that goes

along with seeking out these storms and heading into the face of them? >> i think for some of the amateur storm chasers, not the scientific storm chasers, there's the thrill of the chase. people are out to get as close as they can, to get the most spectacular video and the most spectacular photographs. and that's really dangerous. >> suarez: how do you do the benefit/risk calculation? when you note there are important things that need to be learned about these storms, about what's going on inside them. how do you balance that against the very possible risk of injury and sometimes death? >> well, we know that there are problems in chasing tornados but most of us are -- play it very safe. we try to keep a safe distance from the storm but if we can use our remote instrumentation to make measurements so someday

we'll understand exactly what the structure of tornados is and to be able to forecast which storms will produce tornados and which won't, we'll be able to save lives. so in the long run there's a tremendous benefit. >> suarez: it's been revealed that the twister that hit el reno was the widest ever measured at 2.6 miles wide. a tremendous storm. it took 18 lives and some of the dead aren't even identified how do you safely approach a tornado like that? are there best practices? are there a set of guidelines for people who are in this game about what to do and what not to do? >> i don't think there's a formal set of guidelines. we operated very safely out there on friday and we got east of the storm probably five to ten miles and turned our radar on and let the storm come to us. as soon as the storm got within

two or three miles we retreated and moved down the road another five or ten miles. for the people who go and take pictures and videos, i wouldn't recommend getting within two or three miles from the tornado. that could be dangerous and also debris from the tornado can fall well outside the tornado. >> suarez: those people interest me. with the proliferation of cable shows and the open solicitation by local news channels of "show us your own video of the storm" amateurs are encouraged, people who aren't taking any scientific measurements at all, frankly, they're encouraged to get out there and take the most jaw-dropping pictures. would you ask them would you want them to stay at home? stay someplace safe insaid? >> i'd prefer most of them stay away. there is some benefit to having amateurs out there taking pictures. they send them the national

weather service and the national weather service is made aware that there is a tornado out there. they may be in some locations that the sign scientists are not. it's very valuable. but right now it's gotten to the point in which there are too many people out there. we try to make measurements with our radars and sometimes we can't find a parking space in a very rural area. sometimes we get caught in traffic jams when we're trying to get to another location and it's very difficult because there are so many people out there. also there are a few people out there-- very few, fortunately-- who drive not safely. so i think the real risk is having too many people out there. >> suarez: professor bluestein from the university of oklahoma, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> ifill: >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. president obama moved to fill three empty seats on a powerful federal appeals court, setting up a confrontation with senate republicans. and the military's top brass

defended themselves against charges they are doing too little about sexual assaults. but they opposed a senate bill to strip commanders of authority over prosecuting such cases. >> brown: online, we got a flood of responses from our recent report of student loans. kwame holman has the details. >> holman: last week, when president obama stressed the importance of keeping student loans from doubling, we heard from readers across facebook and twitter. you can join the discussion. has student loan debt affected your post-graduate life? see our story on the rundown. and today, in ask the headhunter, what you should never, ever disclose to a potential employer when discussing salary requirements. that's on making sense. and we continue our live chat series with the newshour's correspondents. tomorrow, talk with jeff by tweeting newshour with the hashtag #askjeff. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. jeff? >> brown: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll have margaret warner's next report on sectarian strife in lebanon. i'm jeffrey brown. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you on-line, and again

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