administrations past and what retaliations took place. dating back almost three decades the u.s. bombarded beirut during lebanon's civil war under the reagan administration. one month later shiite muslim suicide bombers struck marine barracks in beirut. more than 200 marines were murdered. fast forward three years later. the same administration ordered a bombing raid. under the clinton administration officials ordered attacks on al qaeda camps in afghanistan and a factory in sudan, a country that supported al qaeda. the radical group retaliated by attacking the ""u.s.s. cole" in yemen followed by the september 11th attacks. >> moreover, the chairman has indicated to me our capacity to execute this mission is not time sensitive. it will be effective tomorrow or next week or one month from now. and i'm prepared to give that order. >> while some critics argue an attack is too little, too late, others also say there's no such thing as just limited involvement and any interference could escalate. >> this could be a war in the middle east. it's serious. you've got to realize what this president has done to our military. and our military is so de

during the reagan administration, the government started handing out grants to police departments toes. creating incentives for police to arrest more suspects. in wisconsin, for example, just one drug arrest nets a given city or county about $153 in extra funding. but non-drug crimes like murder, rape, and burglary, they get no extra funding. no extra incentive for the police. but there's another financial motivation behind all this. the reagan administration also gave police the authority to keep the vast majority of cash and assets they seize when waging the so-called drug war. >> it turns out that whole departments have a monetary interest in increased drug arrests. >> most people don't realize that the financial incentives built into the system virtually guarantee that the overwhelming majority of drug arrests in the united states will be for non-violent, low-level drug offenses. >> a couple months ago we did a two-day operation. we arrested over 200 people, a majority of them for selling drugs. a lot of the money comes out of seizures from the drug profits. the bigger players ar

. >> and a lot were during the reagan administration. but they were over weekends when wall street doesn't trade. there was very little impact then. >> this second deadline, the debt ceiling, how worried are you about that? again if they can't reach an agreement now for the government budget boy that debt ceiling -- >> it is very serious. we have never defaulted. i can't see that there would be a default. >> arrange payments, prioritize the payment. >> if we couldn't pay the interest on our treasuries, the whole economy of the erld -- of the world would be at risk. we would be plunged into another recession i think. i think that's the most serious one they can't let go. >> i wonder if congress realizes the gravity of that. >> i think congress does. they are pushing for cutting spending which really in the end is what we have to do. we are talking about raising the debt ceiling. that means spending more even though the president says it doesn't. every time we raised it -- >> requires some judgment and intelligence that may be in short supp

bombed beirut under the reagan administration. one month later, the suicide bombers struck barracks in the country and more than 200 marines were killed. years later, a bombing raid in libya. under the clinton administration, officials ordered attacks on al qaeda camps in afghanistan. the radical group retaliated and attacking in yemen and following the attacks in september of 2001. these are all incidents weighing on the president's strategy which has no time line. >> the rationale for the president is as powerful today and if not more powerful each day. >> some lawmakers say we can keep the security strong if it is done correctly and international cooperation. >> every time the united states has acted decisively, there is no retaliation. >> keep in mind, many lawmakers are outspoken before a full debate, that doesn't mean they are on board with an attack. greg, back to you. >> elizabeth, thanks. >>> a giant in television journalism. david frost has died at the age of 74. he may be best remembered for the interviews with president

i joined the government, the reagan administration. so america, in a sense, gave me the chance to write the script of my own life. and i think that's the intoxicating appeal of america to outsiders, is it--it--it's a country that's sort of like a blank sheet of paper and you are the artist, and you get to create your own destiny instead of having it given to you. c-span: middle class in india vs. middle class in the united states--what's the difference in--in just living? >> guest: the middle class in india, like so many middle classes, is essentially defined by the triumph of the struggle against necessity. and that means you're middle class, basically, if you don't have to worry where your next meal is coming from, and you're middle class if you have a roof over your head, and you're middle class if you don't have to worry that your children will have a--get a disease and die and so on. so it's--the ability to triumph over grinding necessity defines the middle class in india. now obviously, the middle class here lives in considerably

oberstar: but even a decade after it was enacted, the reagan administration came in and cut the grant program to a loan program. and funding diminished over a period of time. now, we still have 1/3 or more of the nation's streams and lakes that don't meet the standards of the clean water act. we have to advance the cause. that is the big challenge ahead of us. you just don't think of raw sewage in waterways in a developed country, and yet, that's what we have, and not just in pittsburgh, but all over. narrator: pittsburgh is situated at the confluence of the allegheny, monongahela, and ohio rivers. these three rivers are vital for industry, recreation, and drinking water. and each year, billions of gallons of combined sewer overflows discharge directly into those rivers. hecht: we're now having to face the consequences of the choice that was made to put in combined sewer systems. narrator: in 1994, the government adopted a combined sewer overflow policy to reduce csos nationwide. cities with combined sewer overflows now face an enforcement action called a consent decree. under a conse

ironically it was the reagan administration that proposed and it said bringing fugitives back should liberally interpreted by the countries, very, very important. what will happen if there is a murderer in the united states? he flees to italy and we want him back? the italians will say you don't recognize our system of justice. and a terrorist is a very real possibility. if the italians say you don't recognize our system of justice. we won't extradite. and people disagree with this verdict but she was convicted on the testimony of the accomplice with corroborating physical evidence that some would say wasn't that clear. do you know who was convicted on similar evidence recently? whitey bulger. accomplice testimony with old evidence that was kind of suspicious. nobody has a problem with that. >> so let me play quick will one other thing she said to matt lauer. just find out whether you think it is believable. here's amanda knox. >> i don't -- i don't want to be forever separated from them because at this point, meredith is a part of my life. and i only knew her for a very short amount

and the reagan administration and this not about blaming, but the reagan administration didn't do anythingit was an election year and he was in the last throes of his presidency. saddam hussein did think he could kuwait oil fields and get away from it. >> there are similarities and we are drawing them to the wrong focus there. >> i mean, it is interesting, brad, david axlerod said we have to respond or hesbollah and iran, it would be open season on chemical weapons because we didn't do anything. that is similar to the bush argument if not the united states, who, right? >> here's the difference, president bush led us into war and president obama is impeding us in the war. president bush had deliberation up on the hill. he had think tanks look at. it and the american people were conditioned and begin reasons why it is important. this has not happen under president obama and political people against the wars in iraq are now for a war in syria the american people are not convinced. as horrendous as it is for chemical weapons to be used. we are seeing a national community. we are not solid on w

all of this stuff one guy -- one of the twitter responses says reagan always wore a jacket in the oval office. there are so many scandals during the reagan administration they had to make their own wick wick -- wikipedia page. >> i take back everything about your awful record. you almost sold records. >> you should hear the hidden track on the album. >> what is it? >> a sub blip national -- sub blip national admission. >> it makes your blood boil. the desk he was using was a gift from queen victoria in 1880. by putting his foot on it, isn't he spiting in the face of britain? >> no because it is in the office. he got rid of the winston churchill bust and there was a drama with a special relationship. what i don't understand is the white house pr people. obama has done this whole desk thing before and got in trouble for it before. you would think the white house would just stop releasing photos of him with his foot on his desk. >> well, perhaps he was stretching his hamstrings. maybe sore hamstrings. maybe he likes to jog and they were getting tight. >> he is an athletic president. i thought he was trying to look like a hood ornament. right there he is l

reagan strategy that worked out just beautifully, didn't it? recently de-classified documents also show that during the final days of the reagan administration, the that iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in iraqi defenses. u.s. intelligence officials conveyed the location of iranian troops to iraq, fully aware that hussein's military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal agent. the real ronald reagan helped saddam hussein use chemical weapons, including sarin. in 1991, after the gulf war, the u.n. inspectors found all kinds of things in iraq made by u.s. manufacturers, chemicals, all sorts of components. and in 1994, the senate banking committee turned up dozens of agents shipped to iraq during the mid-'80s under license from the commerce department. including various strains of anthrax. subsequently identified by the pentagon as a key component of the iraqi biological war fare program. the real ronald reagan sold anthrax to saddam hussein, anthrax, donald rumsfeld, then working for president reagan was in baghdad with hussein at a time when iraq was using chemical weapons on an almost

at the same time it's hard not to look at administrations past and what retaliations took place. starting 30 years ago the u.s. bombed beirut under the reagan administration. one month later shiite muslim suicide bombers struck marine barracks and more than 200 marines were killed. years later a bombing raid in libya. muammar qaddafi survived and admitted his involvement in the pan am plane explosion in scotland. officials ordered an attack in a factory from sudan. the radical group attacked, followed by the deadly september attacks in 2001. these are incidents weighing on this administration's strategy which right now has no time line. >> the rationale for the military response the president has requested is as powerful today and will be as powerful, if not more powerful, each day. >> some lawmakers say we can keep u.s. national security strong if an attack is done correctly and with proper international cooperation. >> every time the united states has acted stkpaoeu civilly there is -- decisively there is no retaliation. >> while many of these lawmakers are outspoken for a full debate before any u.s. action is taking place that doesn't me

. >> when olly north and i were in the reagan administration. en president reagan wanted to make a point, he went before the american people. when he wanted the defense spending to be raised. what he wanted to talk about arms control, he always went to congress and the american people directly. >> let me ask you, colonel, what is the point of being the commander in chief if you're not going to address the american people on these issues? this is not some trivial matter, is it? >> no. no, it is not trivial at all, lou. and think about this, john kerry, the former anti-war, anti-military activist is now the leading hawk of the obama team. it's also clear they're making it up as they go along. you just pointed out a moment ago that you heard a lot from him but you saw hagel and the chairman, but you didn't hear much from them. whe senator corker asked why no support since authorized by the president back in june, kerry and hagel both waffled. the hagel said the authorization -- in fact the objective is to deter assad from using chemical weapon degra

it began in the 1980's during the reagan administration or nixon administration with the war on drugs. we don't really see the crime drop start until the mid-1990's, so the time lines don't really add up. the drop in crime has been in violent crime, rape within murder, assault and property crime. swat teams again, 75-80 percent of these raised are on people suspected of drug crimes. drug use has remained pretty much steady for the last 30-40 years, and the drug supply hasn't really changed at all. if anything, drugs are more available in higher purity forms that are more pure than ever. >> i know you want to make sure that people know that the book is not an antti cop book. go ahead. >> yeah, well, i mean, it's an on thety politician book. you can rail at cops and say mean things all you want, but that's not going to change anything. if you have a system loaded with add in tentatives and policies, you can feed great people into it and still belt bad results. the criticism and reform needs to be directed at the politicians who put these things in place. >> the book is "the rise of the

didn't want them to wage, the things that spring to mind are the boland amendment during the reagan administration where congress knew the president wanted to go to war in central america or at least join some existing wars in central america and the congress wrote a law that would have prevented, at least in law, president reagan from doing that. he violated that law and secretly got involved in central america and the iran/contra affair. are there other examples of ways presidents have legally or illegally defied congress' explicit views? >> yes, and not only in wars that we would necessarily disapprove of. you go back to 1941, franklin roosevelt was desperate to get the united states in a position where we might have to fight against hitler and the imperial japanese. this was an isolationist country, very isolationist congress. he got into pretty dicey situations in the north atlantic where there were american vessels that were in pretty grave danger of getting hit by a german sub which would have been terrible, but roosevelt would have known that would have provided a pretext to get the kind o

at the same time, it is hard not to look at administrations past and what retaliations took place. starting almost 30 years ago, the u.s. bombed beirut during the civil war under the reaganonth later, shiite muslim suicide bombers struck marine barracks in that country, more than 200 marines were killed. years later, the same administration ordered a raid in libya. moammar gadhafi survived, later admitted his involvement in pan am plane explosion over lockerbie, scotland. under clinton administration, they ordered attacks on factories in sudan, they supported al qaeda. they retaliated attacking the uss cole, followed by the deadly september 11 attacks in 2001. these among wars involving president george bush are all incidents weighing on the administration's strategy, which now has no time line. >> the rationale for the military response the president has requested is as powerful today and will be as powerful if not more powerful each day. >> reporter: some lawmakers say we can keep u.s. national security strong if an attack is done correctly and with proper international cooperation. >> every time the united states has acted decisively, there's no retaliation, because w

looked at this quite closely and it looks to me like a lot of this really had its genesis in the reagan administration there was a whole taskforce that the rating restoration put together it was staffed with people from david koch's organization citizens for a sound economy had a role in that effort and others to basically say that was the predecessor for america's respiratory had or had a role on this commission to try to privatized how could be privatized more of american government at the federal and state level and since that effort in the one nine hundred eighty s. that's really taken hold that's when private prisons were born in the mid one nine hundred eighty s. to try to privatized our prison system there's a report this past week from in the public interest that documents that in contract after contract in state after state c.c.a. and geo group the two biggest for profit prison companies in the country if not the world have obtained contracts to guarantee them ninety percent occupancy rates to ensure that they've got prisoners filling their beds whether whether we've got enough prisoners or n

it's important to consider programs like section 8, we have to recognize how it rose under the reagan administration, and it rose yet another way to subsidize the private market to have the federal government pay private landlords, and so in some ways, section 8 is simply turning the federal government into one of the largest clients of slum landlords across the country. >> one final question for you. >> in the book, you said in the beginning, you talk a lot about the legacy of private property ownership, and it's developed over natural history, and private property, and so i guess going to our proposal about communal land ownership, home ownership, i'm wondering what kind of contradiction, ideological contradictions you see surfacing and the idea, to fight over levels, and particularly amongst people of color who have really been restricted from property rights and those attached to it, throughout history. >> i think that's a really good question. i think that we're pretty -- i want -- i don't want to speak for everybody, but recently, in the united states, we like contradiction; right? you need ca

. >> this was developed by a harvard economist in the 08's t was enacted by the reagan administrationbush administration as a way trying to bringth costs down. medicare costs were oing out of control. gerri: did it work? >>co no. basically costs kept growing because people gamed the system. one aspect the way this distorts the way people change the system. as go entory rolling, -- gastroenter rollgy, one of the biggest things is hepatitis-a, hepatitis-b. they don't get paid triesting those patients. so all the gi docs paid colon no, sir scopepies. gerri: they want you to have a colonoscopy every 20 minutes. and think can costs thousands of dollars. that i es unbelievable. dr. scott, respond to the ama had to say about these. we got a statement. cbc, codes we're talking about is one of several sets of codes used within the health care system to provide a common language that accurately and consistently describes, medical, surgical, diagnostic services provided by physicians and other health professionals. medical doctors and other qualified health professionals write cpt codes and hund

. >> former assistant secretary of defense to the reagan administration bing west joins us.od evening. >> president assad said you should expect everything. how do we know if that's an empty threat from a man who is under siege because his military is fighting with rebels or whether we should be concerned? what can he do? >> well, i heard you uh saying that this is a rough night. it is with all the zig zags of president obama . i think mr. assad had it exactly right. you can expect anything and we have certainly heard it tonight. president obama's war appears to be over. news. the bad news is it now looks like president obama has conceded the power to president putin of russia. that's not good news. our objective towards syria had always been to re move the assad regime so that we cut the link between iran and the greater middle east. the first thing putin will ask for is our guarantee that we keep assad in power. assad can't turn over chemical weapons if he's not in power. already, putin has checkmated president obama. i think that's a shame. >> i think there is something -

that saddam was using gas but essentially encouraged it and this was during the reagan but this is during the reagan administration so no other country in the world has been exposed to chemical weapons in the matter that the iranians have in the last fifty years and this is definitely a very traumatic experience for the iranians so while on the one hand they're very supportive of the saudi regime view that as being a critical strategic relationship that they have and at the same time when there are indications that assad has been using gas it has created a tremendous amount of. conversation some of them very public in iran that indicates that some members of the iranian regime believe that assad was the person behind the attacks and they're certainly not particularly comfortable or how. at the same time they're opposed to the idea that there would be strikes that would get rid of assad and in his place either some sort of pro-american regime or more likely that syria would fall into the hands of al qaida and elements controlled by saudi arabia because at the end the day. from the perspective of these powers that a

various government agencies tell nonessential personnel, it's a specific label -- >> i was in the reagan administrationwe shut down the government six times. essential personnel make up 40% or 50% of the personnel in the bureaucracy. i want people who watch cnn to understand it's not like saturday and sunday when the government really shuts down, there's nobody in the offices, or a government-paid holiday when nobody's in the offices. there is actually people in the offices, the military doesn't go home, the border patrol doesn't go home, the ships don't go into dock. i just want them to understand the social security checks are still cut. we're talking about the rest of the government. >> point taken, sir. i want to talk about the debt ceiling, though, because as you know, the debt ceiling is whether or not we pay the bills that have already been incurred. this is the spending that has already taken place that the house, the senate, president obama have already allowed to happen, and not raising the debt ceiling as you know can cause serious harm to the american economy for a number of reasons. why is

you know condemning reagan for closing down the mental institutions and cutting slashing funding to mental survey been well it's been it's been that way since the reagan administration and that's that this exploded in the united states yeah it's funny we've had thirty years of basically not paying attention to mental illness in this country it's a real tragedy and i think that's part of this this thing that's coming home to roost and i think you nailed it i agree with you on that i think we have to pay attention that that we have to pay attention to the breakdown of the family not having father figures in the home look at the areas that are the gun violence is the worst and it's it's those issues not that the the rights of law abiding americans to exercise their right their second amendment right by the way it is the second amendment so the founders thought it was important enough to make it right after the first fact the second amendment is there to protect the first amendment so it's not we'll leave you with a lens on them with the last word on that thanks so much for being with us tonight thank you tom appreciate it richard coming up right now republicans in cong

level to enacted the ability of college tuition goes back to the early years, 81, 82 of the reagan administration. it is criticized as being the elitist rather than lower middle class. cutting property taxes was seen as a right-wing libertarian movement in the 70s and 80s. >> i agree. i don't think the parties or as part his parties would take to make them. i don't know who came up first, but schumer circulates again with her new, original or republicans. this is a bipartisan cause. you could be on any site and say you know, the middle-class needs help. i'm not going to align with either party. >> one other providers that without getting into economic policy is that wearing them rbi to subsidize college tuition directly or indirectly, the more it's going to increase. that's what happened over the last 30 years. it's not the evil college bureaucrats are scheming to do this. it's a natural with economic model. >> okay, i agree, yes. >> any other questions? >> all of our political leaders were military veterans in america furs. george w. bush and barack obama, the new generation, are they less pay s

the time , but you see really more and more of this dehumanizing of drug offenders from the reagan administration and from a lot of members of congress. this was actually a bipartisan. i mentioned in the book that the leading democrat in congress was very, very critical of the reagan drug policy. not going nearly far enough. and so sort of a bipartisan race to an all-out war on drug offenders. yes, william bennett, reagan's education secretary and our first official drugs are who have one point said he would have no moral objection to publicly be heading drug dealers and then you have gates also who at one point said he thought that drug users cannot dealers, should be taken out in the street and shot. that was the position he had to walk back with his sun was, what -- call with drugs a couple times. you really do see this ratcheting up of the rhetoric. this has an effect on the way these policies are being carried out on the ground. he creates these joint task force is now. he start creating these federal anti programs * making the military equipment available to police agencies to use. police d