lawmakers put goldman sachs in the crosshairs and the big event, lloyd blankfein on the hot seat. goldman is expected to deny they profited from the housing collapse and we'll be watching that very closely today. bill: indeed we will. also the disturbing image of the suspected chris may day body bomber proving the man who tried to detonate a bomb on christmas day was no lone wolf, he was in fact training with al-qaeda terrorists. more on that. ma march the other big, big story today, arizona, front and center in the immigration debate, governor jan brewer, signed into law a bill that gives police the power to stop and detain anybody who cannot prove that they are in this country illegally and take a look at this, a block from our phoenix affiliate, a message from po testers, a bit hard to make out but it says burn this racist city, and that gives smu indication of what the mood is like in arizona today. the governor says that she is only doing what the federal government should have already done. >> we have tried now in the state of arizona probably foro \on/zero well, we've been talking about it for, what, 15 years to secure our border, the la six years have been probably more resounding, you know, and not completely received by the federal government. i think the last year and a half, with my five letters that i have sent and have spoken to the president personally in regard to that, has been met with complete, total disrespect to the people of arizona. i mean, we don't even get an answer back from our letters in regard to securing our border. so given that, i think that it was time that arizonians did step you and that was one reason why i think the senate bill 1070 was signed. martha: that is a woman in the spotlight today, the governor of arizona. thousands are protesting. and people in d.c. are taking notice. lawmakers are now getting worked up about possibly pushing forward immigration reform on the national level as this pushes into the national conversation. we're going to have a fair and balanced debate on this superhot issue. bill: a couple of good ones coming up today. also martha, now to washington's war on wall street, congress has its sights set firmly on the biggest elephant in the room, battle number one, the powerful goldman sachs. that's its ceo, lloyd blankfein, he comes under the shadow of a lawsuit against his company. he's expected to deny that goldman did anything wrong. stuart varney leads our coverage, stu, good morning, one fundamental bottom line question, did goldman sachs hurt america. >> that's a very bg question because goldman sachs is accused -- here's what it's accused of doing, of creating an investment that was bound to fail and selling that investment as a success. now, that is a legal question. the lawyers are all over this charge of fraud. today, goldman sachs goes on trial in the course of public opinion. very different thing. it will look bad if it looks as though goldman profited from misery. goldman will look bad if it looks as though it was using government money to profit from misery. now, goldman in response is going to say this, that fabulous fabrice tourre at the heart of the investments, fabrice tourre is going to say we did not create an investment that was created in order to fail and lloyd blankfein is going to say we did not bet massively against the housing market. so basically they're going to say it's not my fault. how this is decided in the court of public public opinion will answer your question, did goldman sachs hurt america. bill: the court of public opinion is very important here, so is the law. >> yes. bill: many could argue that goldman sachs was just operating within the rules that congress set up years ago. >> yes. bill: or did it act outside of those rules and essentially break the law. >> no. bill: that would change public opinion. >> that is a question for the lawyers to decide. and there are two separate issues here. there's the legal question did goldman sachs commit fraud. if they d. they're found guilty, okay, they take a punishment of some sort. if they're found guilty in the court of public opinion, and that's where the trial is today, then the voters, acting through congress, will really crack down on wall street and you'll get this vigorous financial reform bill through. bill: a bill that was stalled late yesterday in the senate. stu varney, of varney & company, thank you for coming on. march march what do we know about lloyd blankfein, the man we're about to see on the hot seat. here's the background, he grew up in the northeast section of brooklyn, he received a scholarship to attend harvard law school, his first job was selling peanuts at yankee stadium, he did come from a modest past, here's the point, reading recently about a meeting with al sharpton, they talked about things they had in common growing up and because this has been become somewhat of a measure of what kind of person someone is, he has 2600 songs on his ipod. bill: that will help on the subway ride. martha: many from the '50s and '70s, he likes beet -- beatles and gloria gaynor. bill: selling peanuts when you're 13 years old and now runing this company? martha: the last thing he would have been called is a fat cat but that's what he's being called. bill: the numbers for forward automaker -- ford motor company, they had a blowout number for the only car company that did not take money from the government, saying the numbers could mean new jobs and saying it's boosting production throughout north america. sales climbed 37 percent for the quarter, reporting a 84 percent sales increase in the country of china. ford checks in big today. martha: in this news as well today, the sarah palin case goes to a federal jury today. a panel of eight men and six women will decide the fate of a former university of tennessee student accused of hacking into palin's personal e-mail account at the height of the 2008 presidential campaign. now, the former alaska governor herself took the stand during this trial, brushing aside the defense's claim that the hacking, which is nothing more than sort of a teenage prank, i guess, telling the jury about the disruption and the hurt that it caused her and her family. >> access and communication is so extremely important when you're thousands of miles away from your children. it was a big deal to have that communication stripped away. i don't know an action like this is a prank, when you consider how impacting it was on a presidential election. martha: well, let's go to jonathan serre. the defense says this was a college prank. what are the prosecutors saying about that motive? >> reporter: martha, prosecutors are alleging this was a deliberate attempt to derail sarah palin's vice presidential ambitions. incidentally, the defendant chose not to take the stand during his trial. his attorneys have admitted that this was in their words, that he made some stupid decisions, their words, but they insist that this was a harmless frank, that he simply guessed his way into her e-mail and that there was no criminal intent martha: so if he's convicted, what kind of time is kernell looking at? >> reporter: depends on what he's convicted of. if he's convicted of the felony counts against him, he could in theory face up to 50 years in federal prison. if he's convicted of a misdemeanor, he would face a maximum of one year. of course, much of this will depend on whether the judge feels that he's already learned his lesson or whether this is a case where the court wants to make an example of someone, martha. martha: jonathan serre, thank you very much, we'll be watching for the outcome in that case. good to have you here jonathan. bill: should come today, right? martha: yes. bill: we talk about arizona and the epicenter of the immigration debate, what a story it's become, now there is backlash and talk of what washington is doing in reaction to it and whether or not the president is using the het button issue to address that. a fair and balanced debate. also -- >> martha: he was training for terror and now we have disturbing new images. do you -- do you recognize that face in that picture? that is abdulmutallab, the man who would be the christmas day bomber. everybody thought he was a lone wolf, right? here he is with a machine gun in hand, surrounded by al-qaeda operatives, this video and these pictures are simply stunning. bill: plus saving a piece of american history today. so who forked over the billion dollars, sorry, make that a million -- that would be an expensive sign -- who forked over a million bucks so save that hollywood sign? we'll tell you in minutes. >> ♪ >> ♪ hooray for hollywood. >> ♪ >> ♪ >> ♪ captioning performed by mediacaptioning. com martha: this is an interesting story, a fox news alert, but it's happening in new jersey today. if they continue to cut budgets, new jersey governor chris christie slashing aid to schools across the state and today it started as a campaign over the internet on facebook, one student saying let's all walk out of our classrooms today to protest the budget cuts that we're getting under governor christie, this brand new video is from mount claire, new jersey but we're told potentially thousands of students, seven schools in newark, we're also getting video from stockton high school, where students are protesting budget cuts. of course the governor has said the system is simply unsustainable and that these cuts need to happen and that teachers need to get more realistic about retirement pay packages and the like but this is a fascinating scene, we're going to keep a close eye on this development. bill: they coordinated this through the internet, through the facebook pages which everyone apparently has. martha: and the 18-year-old said that students are apathetic, they said let's show them that's not the case, and let's come out in force, and so far, they are responding. bill: in the meantime, martha, we've got this brand new picture, a videotape showing the suspected christmas day bomber, seems to prove he was in fact working alongside al-qaeda terrorists in yemen all along, abc news obtaining the video which shows training with al-qaeda in yemen, abdulmutallab wears a head scarf, holds a machine gun in this shot, he's charged with trying to set off a bomb in his underwear on a flight to detroit. steven, good morning, welcome back. in the early days of this, when this guy was considered a lone wolf, remember the administration was saying he acted alone? this is videotape and evidence that shows this guy was clearly part of the greater group, al-qaeda. >> reporter: what's interesting about this, according to the administration itself, he said in his initial interrogation, which lasted only 50 minutes, that he was part of this group and he had been dispatched by al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula and there were others that were likely to follow. what's hard to explain is why the president, three days later, called him an isolated extremist. doesn't make any sense. but the real problem i think is that we now are seeing on this video some of this colleagues in this training. what we didn't get at the time is the intelligence that's perishable, about who these people were. because we interrogated him for only 50 minutes, we didn't have an opportunity to ask him based on our intelligence, based on what he said, detailed questions about the kind of people he was training with, who he was training with, where they came from, what they were called, where they stayed. bill: but he was the one who gave the information to investigators who said well, he said there are more just like him, ready to come here. >> right. but in a 50-minute interrogation, that's not nearly enough time to go back to him and to get the details of what exactly the training was made up of, where they stayed, who was conducting the training, how it was financed. you know, questions that he may have been able to answer that could have given us a window into this group that we now know is a growing threat. bill: sounds like a similar story and draw the parallel here, okay? go back to fort hood, nidal hasan, in the early days of that attack on the post in texas, he, too, was considered a solo actor and was not considered to be the guy who was possibly inspired by this radical preacher in yemen and now we know. >> we do know, and what's i think disturbing about what happened in the past couple of days is that the administration is refusing to provide any details or any serious details, any documentation, about nidal hasan's personnel file, about the e-mails that he exchanged with this awlaki, who is this radical jihadist in yemen, we don't have access to that information, and the fbi as you mentioned, bill, said initially this guy is a lone wolf, he wasn't inspired, any e-mails that he exchanged with awlaki were benign is the word they used. in my view, none of the e-mails that you exchange with awlaki are benign but the fbi claimed they were consistent with his research. i think that's highly unlikely. it would be helpful to see them and the administration is refusing to provide them even to members of congress. bill: senators collins and lieberman are asking the administration to give up some of that information so they can see it. in conclusion, as we wrap this up here now, steven, that was the posture then. in the fall. and over christmas. has the posture changed now in this administration today, in the spring? >> well, it's unclear that it has. we haven't seen anything that indicates a change. we don't know, for instance, whether this high value detainee intelligence group would be called in to interrogate somebody like an abdulmutallab if he were to try to conduct that similar kind of attack again. what we need to do is place the emphasis on gaining intelligence so we learn as much as we can about our enemies, immediately after a failed attack like this. it's unclear that they've internalized that lesson. bill: that may be something perhaps we figure out when the next attempt comes our way. stephen hayes from the weekly standard, stephen, thank you, we'll talk again. >> thanks bill. bill: har martha, what's coming up. martha: look out, you know we're nearly $13 trillion in debt in this country and it's becoming a very serious situation and today we're going to hear from president president's new commission that was formed to tackle this problem. so now we want to know, what is it that they will recommend? will it be serious budget cuts, or will it be bigger taxes? and could that -- could a v.a.t. tax be part of their solution? we're ten minutes away. bill: also, we have a question, has an internet scoop backfired? does apple have a criminal case on its hands, we ask? we investigate, next. bill: what had been one of the hottest internet scoops turned out to be a police matter, a california computer crime task force raiding the home of a blogger who posted iphone prototype picks, the warrant saying the computers and other devices may have been used to commit a felony. here is jason chen, raving on the future must-have apple product on his blog. roll this. >> hey, i'm jason chen, this is the new iphone, here's some of the new features. you know, the front camera? two volume buttons are now separate. the whole top side is metallic instead of plastic, bottom characters are the same, the center spot has moved to the side and when you pop it out, it's a microshin. bill: sounds like a benign review, right? that was pretty flattering. he paid five grand for the prototype. a silicon valley watering hole. if you have a regular old iphone, a legal phone, fox news has a new app for you, receive the fox news alerts and read the news stories and streamline video, listen to radio, what else can you do there? browse through photo galleries and watch the latest fnc clips on demand, all for free, the best price of all, right now, online, for free. martha: here's a name for you from the past, manuel noriega, remember him, u.s. officials put him on a plane last night headed for france. this is video from the miami international airport. he served 20 years behind bars in the united states for drug trafficking and other charges. now, french authorities want him to stand trial there, they said bring him here, we want to charge him with money laundering in that country. steve harrigan joins us with more. i guess he wanted to go to panama, right? >> reporter: he did, he was hoping to go back to pan marks a country where he could face possible murder charges but the whole thinking was since he was in his early 70s, he might get a lienient deal, perhaps house arrest, instead he was a whisked away, put on an air france jet and taken to paris. already this morning he's been before a french magistrate, a french judge, they're trying to determine whether to let him out on house arrest or keep him in jail until that trial begins. he faces money laundering charges in paris, he's accused of spending millions of dollars from the sale of cocaine to buy three paris apartments. he spent 20 years in jail here in a federal prison and could be facing a term of ten more years in france. martha: as is sometimes the case with the somewhat colorful characters on the international scene, he was once a cia asset, right? what happened with that? >> reporter: certainly. he at one time was a key intelligence asset for the u.s. he was a strong man and absolute ruler of panama, then he became an embarrassment, sort of the pattern we've seen with saddam hussein happened with manuel noriega, it eventually took a u.s. invasion to topple noriega, so he's gone from the pinnacle of power to the low of lows, 20 years in jail here, a possible ten more if he survives. he appeared very frail and he's had at least one stroke. there's no telling if he gets that 10-year sentence whether he'll live it out. martha: what a story. steve harrigan, thank you very much, reporting on manuel noriega. bill: remember that night, 1989, it was like wooho! in a moment the heat is on in arizona, turning into a blistering campaign battle. already, john mccain, al sharpton, the president already in the mix, wait until you hear what they're saying about what some consider a racist law. that's coming up here. martha: there he is, rod blagojevich going on the record last night with greta van u.s. everyone -- vansustern, he says the prosecution in the trial is trying to cover up the truth. >> the tapes will show what the truth is. i have said play the tapes. why is it my accuser is trying to prevent the truth and full truth from being heard? i believe part of it is he's covering up the fact that he told this big lie that foreseably led to a chain of events that would remove a governor from office. martha: this is fascinating. he's basically saying patrick fitzgerald and prosecutors made all these tapes but now they only want to use certain parts of them. he says the other part will be what sets him free. we'll talk about that when flushr flur bill: welcome back, everyone. it will be one of the main stories throughout the morning, the debt commission set to begin meeting in washington. we'll see the president in a matter of minutes, a debt commission that will get together a bipartisan group, democrats, the slight majority on board that panel. they will talk about how you get the country out of its current debt issue. which is huge, by the way! about $41,000 for every american citizen. before you get overly optimistic, there will be no findings released until about the first of december. so that's after mid-term elections. and it's been since 1983 since any recommendations out of any debt commission were actually put into law or put into practice. martha: really? >> bill: but you remember the early '80s and how tough the times were in the united states then, so some would say the mirror or parallel of the '8