lee, general gao. at&t is all about connecting people across the world. think of that with a phone or a mobile phone, which also connect people through events like this, through the sponsorship of a beautiful dragon boat i can see lit up up there. that is gorgeous. we threw the switch on early tonight. thank you so much for letting us be part of your celebration. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, and think at&t for your continued commitment to our communities. finally, we have the chair of the asian amer

it is so nice to have counsel general gao and mayor lee here. i am a tiger.dragon, though. she will be breathing fire this year. if i look forward to moving forward with courage and strength for all our neighborhoods. thank you, everyone. >> i also want to recognize in the audience we have a couple members of the board. supervisor scott weiner is here, and supervisor olague. thank you both for joining us. our next speaker is phil ting. since assuming office in july of 2005, he has worked to reform the assessor recorder's office and find new revenues in san francisco. please join me in welcoming assessor recorder phil ting. >> it is an honor to join our mayor and board of supervisors. i want to wish you all a happy new year and an incredible year of the dragon. hopefully, this suspicious time for us all -- we all are facing challenges with our local and national economy. so i hope it is a good year for us in terms of job creation, as well as economic growth. [speaking a foreign language]

from commissioner ch ang to our guest from at&t, our tax collector assessor, phil king, counsel general gaoen chu, eric mar, and other board members who will join us. scott weiner, malia cohen who just came from china lot -- not long ago from a trip. thank you for being here. to our family associations, our department heads, our other commissioners and friends, happy new year, and welcome to our official celebration here at city hall of our wonderful chinese lunar new year. we just came from the official lighting of our new lantern. i hope you will stay tonight long enough to view all of its beauty and the lightness of it. there are a lead the lights on there. there are recycle cd's on the dragon boat. it is 76 feet long. it is, of course, my entry into the america's cup. anyway, i want to thank everyone for being here, for helping us celebrate. as we have been saying, this is one of the most exciting, attractive holiday seasons for the whole of san francisco and all of our communities. we look forward, and i hope you join me, in not only the very big chinese new year's parade of will happe

lee, general gao. at&t is all about connecting people across the world. while most people think of that with a phone or a mobile phone, which also connect people through events like this, through the sponsorship of a beautiful dragon boat i can see lit up up there. that is gorgeous. we threw the switch on early tonight. thank you so much for letting us be part of your celebration. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, and think at&t for your continued commitment to our communities. finally, we have the chair of the asian american heritage month committee foundation. this is a dedicated leader in our asian american community. please welcome commissioner who claudine at chiang -- commissioner claudine chang. >> [speaking chinese] at the beginning of every year, whether chinese new year begins in january or february, the city and county sets a great example for the other major cities in this country in the way we celebrate lunar new year, and especially with the leadership of all the members and supporters and volunteers of the chinese chamber of commerce. we

consul general gao says china and america have come a long way since the visit by former president nixon 40 years ago. >> 40 years ago our trade was neglect. nowadays china and america are becoming each other's second largest trading partner. >> the u.s. census shows china right behind canada as a multi billion dollar trading partner. president nixon's visit unlocked a door a secretive country. >> when i heard the news from the radio i couldn't believe my ears he was the first year college studentsent in china at the time. >> it was totally a shock. the president of america, our enemy will visit china? >> the counsel yul general says that helped begin rapid development in-to-a country emerging from thousands of years and america is on their radar. a if you report says there is a growing interest in luxury services like travel. >> china's people are gaining rich and more money. and there is benefiting the economy. the economy. >> san francisco is a destination for many tourists. he says it feels like home to him. >> about 400,000 chinese americans are here and american chinese new year. >

in light of the recent reports by the va inspector general and gao i'm concerned about the effectiveness these programs and i know senator burr has represented additional funds but we need to make sure we use them wisely. another also a lot of nonprofit groups out there trying to do their very best as well to help in the housing shortage for veterans. first the gao found in the report without complete data and i'm quoting the va does not have information needed to plan services effectively allocate grants to providers and track its overall goal of ending veteran homelessness by 2015 end quote. the second finding is the black of oversight to ensure the safety of women veterans and community programs. the inspector general found that the last 10 years 22 homeless female veterans were placed in per diem facilities approved for only male veterans and this is unacceptable. this alone should cause serious concerns. it's even more concerning that it appears to be a staff had little regard for the women's safety and security and i find that disturbing to say the least. lastly the inspector gener

definition, we rely on a vast majority of the information to come from inspector generals, in some cases from the 3,000 people at the gaour process is we leverage those people, and often there is no hearing because the matter is taken care of at that level, too. >> now, one of the things that ison suggested he would ask at the hearing is the gri. the fact that it happened at the gsa whose sole purpose is to stave taxpayers' money we can objectively say is troubling. >> dana bash exclusive. i'm going to add that to your name. >>> facebook drops $1 million to buy the start-up company instagram. what start-up company might just be the next billion-dollar baby? [ male announcer ] fighting pepperoni heartburn and pepperoni breath? fight both fast with new tums freshers! concentrated relief that goes to work in seconds and freshens breath. new tums freshers. ♪ tum...tum...tum...tum... tums! ♪ [ male announcer ] fast relief, fresh breath, all in a pocket sized pack. >>> time to take a look at the latest in the tech world. katie is back. this week facebook bought instagram, the photo-sharing service, for $1 billion. i have to s

but what caught my attention, gao, not to be confused with the gsa, i might add. >> the general accounting office, very different division, which studied this. they're quoted as saying that this idea, this program to pay the $8.5 this, experiment is badly designed, unlikely to provide meaningful results. i take it you took that phrase from the gao study and went to the white house and said, look, this is a bad idea, according to the gao? >> that's right. if the first place, have you to ask, how could the administration get the authority to raid the trust fund with over $8 billion to give out to these companies just before the election? and the answer is, they said, well, we are doing demonstration projects -- >> what does that mean? >> that's the question the general accounting office, bipartisan office said, what demonstration project you? are not demonstrating anything. you are just giving the same mon tote insurance companies they would have got otherwise, obviously. you are not proving anything by t. it is not a legitimate demonstration program. tell not produce any usable results. so

your reaction to the gao report on how we can streamline, get more efficiencies, i think you're already on that road. senator hutchinson? >> thank you madam chairman. mr. attorney general, we will have questions for the record, but i wanted to pursue this public integrity units misconduct against senator stevens. the court appointed counsel after you moved to dismiss the stevens. the court appointed council after you moved to dismiss the case, the court appointed council to investigate the botched prosecution of senator stevens and found the prosecutors engaged in systematic concealment of evidence, but they were not guilty of criminal contempt. according to the summary that was put out in the public, the full report coming later, it said that the court said despite findings of widespread and at times intentional misconduct, the special counsel, mr. schulke recommended against contempt charges because prosecutors did not disobey a clear and equivocal order by the judge as required under law. judge sullivan said, upon review of docket and proceedings in the stevens case, mr. schulke concludes no such order existed in this case. whether the court accepted the repeated re

collapse and saved a million jobs but the special inspector general saying too much positive top spin from the treasury. this echoes a earlier gao report that says the same. a widely-held misconception that the tarp would make a profit to the new report. no concrete plan from treasury to get banks out of tarp and we see hundreds of banks still in the tarp program. rick: do we have a list of deadbeat banks and worst offenders? >> the worst offenders is general motors, aig and al ally financial. gm still owes $27 billion. 40 billion owed to tarp. ally financial not public and still struggling, owes 15 billion. we own 77% of the aig. both of those companies, their shares are underwater. taxpayers have yet to break even on the shares. that is why treasury is still holding onto the stocks. back to you. rick: i wonder if they will get a call from check shun agencies. liz macdonald, thanks very much. >> sure. jenna: the battle over illegal immigration reaching the highest court in the land as the supreme court hears arguments today on arizona's controversial immigration law. one. toughest laws in the entire country. we have a live repo