The GOP stands for the Grand Oil Party, and no longer the Grand Old Party. Why? Yesterday the Republicans voted down a Democratic measure that would have ended the tax breaks for the five largest oil companies. Democratic Senator from New Jersey, Robert Menendez, shares his thoughts on the GOP opposition to a Democrat-led measure that would end a tax break for the five largest oil companies.
UYGUR: Democrats today said that the GOP should be renamed the grand oil party. A little clever but it`s also very apt considering the Republicans voted down a democrat lead measure that would end a tax break for the five largest oil companies. Thereby, protecting their bosses once again. These are the same oil companies that last quarter, that`s just a quarter of a year made $32 billion in profits, not revenue, profits. So instead of ending the most unjust subsidies in United States history, House Republicans passed a measure that would speed up proposed offshore oil and gas lease sales to make the oil companies even more money.
This comes one day after Republicans announced a task force to expand oil drilling. The task force is called House Energy Action Team. HEAT for short. It`s not named after the Robert de Niro, Al Pacino, Bank Heist movie, but there`s definitely a heist going on. The task force is made up of 26 House Republicans who have received over $4 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry over the course of their careers. It includes Mike Conaway from Texas, who`s gotten over $678, 000 from oil. West Virginia Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito who has received more than 340,000, Fred Upton, who has raked in $262,000. Now, let me ask you something — who do you work for? The guy who pays you, right? The same is true for the Republican Party. They work for the people who pay them. The oil companies, that`s why they keep giving away $40 billion in oil subsidies, as our next guest is about to tell us.
Joining me now is New York Representative Tim Bishop. He unveiled the legislation aimed at ending billions in taxpayer subsidies. Congressman, great to have you here.
REP. TIM BISHOP (D), NEW YORK: Thanks for having me on.
UYGUR: And how did that bill work out for you?
BISHOP: Well, it went down today. We offered one piece of it today. We offered a bill that on what`s called a previous question vote, that would have taken away one of the tax subsidies that the oil companies realized. It is taxing something called the domestic manufacturing tax credit. It cost the taxpayer about $1.3 billion a year, and it is completely unjustified, and completely impossible to reconcile with the prices that the oil companies are charging right now to the American people.
UYGUR: You know, I`m curious to what their argument is. Because first of all, they have lost the American people. You have a poll on eliminating tax credits, 74 percent find that acceptable, we should eliminate them. Only 22 percent find it unacceptable. Three out of the top five most profitable companies in the world are oil companies. Exxon Mobil just announced over $30 billion in profits last year. It goes on and on and on. So, what`s in the God`s green earth can they say when you guys say, listen, how about just stop giving them subsidies, what`s their big grand argument against that?
BISHOP: Well, their argument is if we take away the subsidies, that people will pay that price at the pump. And it is a nonsensical argument. These subsidies have had absolutely no impact on holding down price. These subsidies were in existence. When oil was $70 a barrel, when oil was $80 a barrel, when oil was $90 a barrel, when it was as high as $147 a barrel, and it`s had no impact on driving down price. So, we have no reason to think that taking away the subsidies will have any impact on price. And also, we all know that oil is priced globally, and the factors that go into the pricing of oil are many that include, in some cases supply and demand, in many cases speculation, in many cases geopolitical factors, in some cases fear, in many cases the value of the dollar, none of the pricing has to do with subsidies.
UYGUR: Yes, it is absolutely outrageous. Even President Bush said, hey, if it goes over $50 a barrel, we shouldn`t give subsidies and we`re over 100 now, and they`re still holding on to them. Because that`s where they work for it. Representative Tim Bishop, you got the right legislation, I wish you luck with it. Thank you for calling us tonight.
SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: When you look at $10 billion to $12 billion monthly payment by American taxpayers, much of which is being wasted, and sadly, portions of which are being diverted to fund our enemy, you have to ask yourselves, how long can we sustain this?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: That was Senator Dick Durbin today questioning how long we are going to spend resources fighting in Afghanistan, which is a very good question.
With the death of bin Laden, we find ourselves in another pivot point.
This time, involving Afghanistan.
Since 9/11, we have spent $1.25 trillion fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soon, that will be $1.5 trillion. Afghanistan has cost us more than $444 billion to date, and it‘s costing us an estimated $2 billion a week to operate.
Now, let me put that in terms of the budget battle. OK?
For weeks, Republicans and Democrats were arguing over cutting $38 billion from the federal budget. Well, that amount is equal to what we spend in Afghanistan in 19 weeks.
Now, think about that. All those painful cuts we made to important programs, we could have them all back if we just stay in Afghanistan 19 weeks less.
We already got bin Laden. There‘s almost no al Qaeda left in Afghanistan, according to our own intelligence.
Now, what would you rather have, all those domestic programs, or 19 more weeks in Kandahar? OK.
So you want to know some of those things that we cut in that spending bill to help make up your mind? Well, the Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services Departments face $19.8 billion in cuts. We could have recouped that in a little under 10 weeks in Afghanistan.
The EPA alone face cuts of $1.6 billion. That could have been made back in a little over five days and 14 hours.
We cut contributions to U.N. and international organizations by $377 million. That is just a day and eight hours.
So when people say we‘re broke, it‘s not really true. We always find money for war. We can simply reallocate some of that money to create jobs here at home, for example.
This is all about making choices. We could have more pollution in the air that our kids breathe because we couldn‘t properly fund the EPA, or we could have six more days in Afghanistan. Who thinks that‘s even a hard choice?
This is a pivot point in our war on terror. It‘s a terrific opportunity to bring our troops, our money, our energy and our resources back home. Let‘s address our issues here instead of trying to rebuild nations abroad that we bombed in the first place. Hopefully, the president makes the right choice going forward.
So, if we got the guy in Pakistan no less, why are 100,000 American troops, at billions of dollars a year, where we fund both sides of the war as they hijack a third of the trucks that come in while we bribe them for the other two-thirds, why is that still going on in Afghanistan? With Osama bin Laden dead, pressure is mounting on the President to end the Afghan war and to get our troops and our tax dollars out.
In the decade since September 11th, 1,570 U.S. troops have been killed in that war, with nearly $1.3 trillion spent on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, an additional 4,500 troops killed in Iraq. Right now, the White House insists that while the death of bin Laden is a big victory, it is not a reason to change the President’s current exit plan.
Joining us now on the hotline is Democratic Congresswoman Chellie Pingree from Maine. She is starting an online petition, commending President Obama for bringing Osama bin Laden to justice, to ask for an accelerated withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in July, as she is promising to bring the petition’s signatures to the President.
Congresswoman in an ideal scenario, what exactly would you have the President do?
Well, the President made two commitments to us. One was to bring back Osama bin Laden and the other one was to commit to an accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan starting in July. I think, you know, we have all agreed, our troops did an amazing job, our intelligence was good, the president was a great leader in that. And we need to support him in his original idea of the acclerated withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan.
I sit on the Armed Services Committee. I will be honest with you, I opposed the war from the start. We listened to one general after another telling us next year it is going to be better, next year we will have this country rebuilt and we will be there. Well, it has been over ten years, you talked about the loss of lives, $7 billion a month, that $10 million an hour at a time when our country can’t afford the loss of lives and the blow to our economy, and it’s not working. The president needs to hear from members of congress, and supporters around the country, hey, we will be with you if you start withdrawing our troops.
At the same time you can hear the president at his west Point speech make it clear that his goals in the Middle East were less about capturing bin Laden than the following characterization. Please listen to the following:
Our overarching goal remains the same, to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.
At the end of the day, is it necessary to spend that kind of money to bankrupt our own nation, obviously, if the process, as long as we can pull this off?
Look, he did an amazing job with bin Laden: it was a targeted approach, we found where he was, we went in and got them. And let’s remind ourselves, it was in Pakistan. We have been told that there are less than 100 al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is where we have a major war going on.
You know, there are pockets of terrorism around the world. i support president in keeping us safe from terrorism, but I don’t think the war in Afghanistan, with the enormous nation building that is going on there, at a time when we could use some of those roads and schools here in our own districts, back in our own country. I think it’s not being successful and it’s okay to say, we had a great victory, now let’s change our tactics.
Matt Miller, do you agree with that and ultimately is it much easier just to keep blowing the money and shouting booyah and shooting things?
I hope not. I hope that the fact that the president pulled this off with the special forces with bin Laden will embolden him to take a more — a tougher stance with his own military brass come July because the ultimate dynamics as we understand them thus far is that the military is only going to pull out as few people as possible to meet some minimal political threshold that let’s Obama say that he is beginning to withdraw. The real battle is going to be how many of the 100,000 are you going to start to bring home. We got bin Laden and if there are only 100 al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan, as we look at the big picture and think we can’t build a nation in Afghanistan. I hope the Congresswoman’s efforts really bear fruit.
Mark Tapscott, do you agree with that? In other words, do you view the combination of the discovery of the Pakistani compound, obviously Pakistan, somebody in Pakistan was knowingly harboring Osama bin Laden, whether it was a person that sold him the cement or whether it was the people running that military academy and is there a relevancy to the compulsion to withdraw from Afghanistan?
Well, you know, I think there’s a lot of fuzzy thinking on these things and it is an obvious suggestion to say, well, now that we have gotten bin Laden we can get out of Afghanistan and that may well be true. But my question for theCongresswoman as well as I was trying to pose to the professor in the earlier segment, if you stipulate that we do have vital interests at all points around this globe, we have to have some kind of a coherent, consistent strategy for defending those vital interests. And that’s what I don’t hear from folks now who are saying, well, let’s just get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible.
What are we going do instead of that? We still have vital vital interests to defend. We still are going to need a strong military, and we still are going to have to have a coherent strategy for defending this country.
Ultimately isn’t that the necessary step between now and whatever happens next, Jonathan Capehart, going back to how we started the show today, how does the president effectively utilize this bump? Is there not an opportunity now to reframe American foreign policy for the 21st century period while he has this bin Laden bump?
Sure, there’s an opportunity here, and whether he will take it, we will find that out in the next few weeks. One of the things that hasn’t come up here in this conversation is–and you are sort of alluding to it, why is it that if we got bin Laden in Pakistan, why do we have so many troops in Afghanistan–and that’s been the issue all along. We are in Afghanistan because we are afraid of a failed state on the border of Pakistan. We are more worried about a failed state on the border of a — of another country with nuclear weapons. And I think we can’t talk about pulling out of Afghanistan without talking about what that means to Pakistan and what that means to American interests in Pakistan.
Yeah. I agree with that. And that debate will clearly persist for days and weeks, as it should here, guys. Thank you so much for your megapanelification this afternoon. On remote, Jonathan Capehart, Mark Tapscott, and Matt Miller.
OK, we finally got Osama…. So should the middle class celebrate, hail Obama as the conquering hero, shout gleefully “mission accomplished”, after spending $1.5 trillion and, in the process, bankrupting our country as well as risking the solvency of social security and medicare? In my opinion, now it’s time to get President Obama … out of office. Why? Why?!
President Obama is not your President. He is no friend to the middle class of America.
Didn’t President Obama fail to fight for a single-payer healthcare program, which he vowed that he would do while running for President so that we would be spared those exorbitant health insurance premiums and costs, and so that the private insurers and pharmaceutical companies would not be raping us middle-class Americans out of billions of dollars every year?
Didn’t Obama also promise to tax the rich instead of appointing a Deficit Commission in order to hide behind their all-but-certain proposal to cut our Social Security and Medicare programs—as well as cut our safety-net social programs and raise taxes on us—all under his lame excuse for the need to “share the pain”? (Didn’t you just happen to notice that the rich have been excused from sharing any pain thus far?)
Didn’t Obama also promise to bring all of the troops home by now, instead of having our military involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, with military spending costing us $700 billion annually?
Didn’t Obama fail to create jobs as he promised over and over that he would do when running for President? (Didn’t you hear on April 27th Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s admission of its inability to do anything further on creating jobs?!)
Didn’t Obama bail out those Wall Streeters who caused our economic collapse and who continue to export jobs overseas so that now we have a bifurcated economy: the Wall Streeters making more money than ever with the middle class continuing its slide into poverty?
Recall that President Obama enlisted the economic counsel of Wall Streeters and advisors of former President Bill Clinton. Larry Summers had been the chief architect of Obama’s economic policy in his first two years of office, recently replaced by Timothy Geithner, a guy who never met a CEO that he wouldn’t hug. If President Obama was for the middle class, he would have appointed a voice of labor, such as Robert Reich, to be his economic advisor instead of a lover of Wall Street.
President Barack Obama, like former President Bill Clinton, is a centrist and corporatist. Both Presidents have never represented middle class America and never will. Back in 2008 Bill Clinton was worth $109 million. Do you realize that when Slick Willie first ran for President back in 1992 that he was only worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars? The ever perennial question is, how the heck did he accumulate so much wealth in such a short period of time? Politics sure pays well, doesn’t it?
It’s time for the middle class to find another leader. We need a voice for real change for middle America, a real Progressive, not another surrogate of the interests of Wall Street, the rich, and the multinational corporations, who finance the campaigns of Congress and Presidents. But the question is, why isn’t a Progressive challenging Barack Obama in a Democratic primary for the 2012 Presidential election? Where are the Bernie Sanders, Ralph Naders, Russ Feingolds, Howard Deans, Dennis Kuciniches, et al when our country so desperately needs a voice for the working class of America? Have they all realized that unless you kow-tow to the rich and powerful, you won’t get the required moolah to get elected?
I for one will not be duped again and vote for Barack Obama. In 2008 I voted for change, not more of the same. Since 1999, the middle class has lost 10% of its jobs. Where is the change Obama promised us when the big oil companies, the big banks, and others on Wall Street are reporting record profits? Where is the change Obama promised us when jobs are not expected to return to America for a very long time, if ever? And the jobs that may return will be at McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and the like? Our economy is no longer an industrial nation; it’s a McEconomy!
Please speak your mind, voice your opinions, and organize. We desperately need an independent voice to run in 2012, someone who will vigorously fight for the much needed change on behalf of the middle class. We need to organize into one united and loud voice and never let any politicians, particularly President Barack Obama, take our votes for granted. Never.
We the Corporations of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Market, establish Dominance, insure domestic Subservience, provide for the private Profit, promote the general Ignorance, and secure the blessings of Wealth to Ourselves and our Stockholders, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United Corporate Stocks of America.
The media, Republican Congressmen and Congresswomen, Democrats, and many individuals are criticizing Donald Trump’s use of profanity in a speech delivered at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on April 28, 2011; however, the 600 listeners from Republican women’s groups cheered and applauded and loved the use of the F-word, the M-F word, and other words that my mother would try to wash out of my mouth with Lifebuoy soap (yuck!) whenever I uttered them within her earshot. Republican women loving the F-words? Don’t you just love the irony here?!
Hey, this is a country of free speech. And I personally find it refreshing for a candidate to speak its vernacular. I am tired of the pilgrims and puritans dictating our use of appropriate language. The F-word is a word, and there are a lot of words that I don’t like, too, like “killing”, “wars”, “Exxonmobil”, “Bank of America”, “J P Morgan”, “Bill Clinton”, “Affirmative Action”, “illegal aliens”, “OPEC”, etc. However, it appears that no one is offended by their use. Go figure.
But why did those 600 Republican women love Donald’s speech the other day? What was Donald Trump saying that appealed so much to them? I’ll tell you.
Donald Trump deliberately and intentionally used the F-words in this speech to these Republican wives, mothers, and grandmothers. He was tapping into the anger of the American middle class. And he has been doing it very successfully over the last few months. Furthermore, what better way to gain media attention, albeit attention highly critical, than to be controversial, swearing like a brawler? Remember Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin…what happened to their media attention? You got it: Donald is stealing the camera. And it ain’t costing him a dime. This guy is not dumb.
People are angry about the state of affairs in America today: no jobs; high energy prices; huge debt; expensive wars; overly expensive healthcare; high taxes; etc. And in 2008, President Obama promised change; however, the American people see no change. The economy still sucks; there are no jobs; price of gas is up to $4 per gallon and will continue to increase to $5 per gallon; our military is now involved in three active campaigns overseas; the rich continue to get their huge tax breaks, passing the debt onto the middle class; Obama has appointed Commissions who will propose cuts to social security, medicare, and higher taxes on the middle class in order to cut our deficit; and on and on, more of the same, with no end in sight.
So the people are not only disappointed and disillusioned with Obama, whose approval rating is down to 40%, but disgusted and angry. And they are looking for a voice to express their anger. And guess what? Enters Donald Trump. Enters a candidate expressing their anger, galvanizing their anger, channeling their anger, providing the lightning rod for its striking, picking up their Cross of Gold, carrying their standard in another crusade against those “evil” Muslim countries who have been holding us hostage to their oil riches, costing us trillions of dollars in defense of their lands, and all those “evil” Asian countries stealing our jobs. Donald Trump is swearing and bellowing in all of the colonialistic fashion of a Teddy Roosevelt, using the bully pulpit, and, most importantly, sounding and appearing like a real leader, not like a wuss like Obama, who appears more like a referee than a fighter. The people want someone to stand up and fight for them. And that is the appeal of a Donald Trump.
Recall that Germany back in 1932 was angry with its state of the economy; and then entered Adolf Hitler, the Messiah, who promised to lead the people out of an economic depression. His anger resonated enough to obtain 30% of the vote, and with that mere 30% he forced his way into absolute power as a dictator, tyrant, despot.
Now what about the Donald? Can he win in 2012? I don’t think so; it would be highly unlikely. But if he runs as an independent, which is again highly unlikely, he could get as much as 30% of the popular vote. Why? Because the American people are angry; and if the economy and job market fail to improve over the next couple of years, and if inflation kicks in, the American voters will start looking for another voice, a candidate voicing their anger. These middle class Americans are tired of the Presidential trite phrases, “I feel your pain” (yeah, all the way to the bank, President Clinton), and “share the pain” (yeah, President Obama, the middle class shares the pain, while you, the rich, and the Wall Streeters share the gains). Like Governor George Wallace in 1968, stealing 10 million votes in that Presidential election year, Donald Trump will wreak havoc, gathering the votes of the angry middle class Americans and those wishing to cast a protest vote on American politics. It’s a win-win for the Donald.
And so enters Donald Trump, embodying the anger of the middle class, complete with the colorful language of F-words and M-F words….Don’t you just love it? Excitement in an otherwise dull, uneventful Presidential campaign. Imagine our center of government being moved to Las Vegas, where the velvet ghosts of Elvis and Liberace may replace the paintings and statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. I love it. And this is befitting our American politics since it has become as crass and corrupt as the Mafia casinos in Vegas.
Here’s the entire speech of Donald Trump delivered on April 28, 2011 in Las Vegas to 600 Republican women, who are wives, mothers, and grandmothers. LOL! You gotta love it!
Have you ever tried reading the lips of Republican Congressmen and Congresswomen when they recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag? Have you ever suspected that these Republican Congressmen and Congresswomen, and the entire members of the GOP, recite a different Pledge of Allegiance than the one we middle class Americans say? Do you know what they are really saying underneath their breath when the Pledge of Allegiance is recited at a public event?!
The next time you have the opportunity to witness Republican Congressmen and Congresswomen recite the Pledge of Allegiance, try reading their lips to determine to whom as well as to what they are really pledging. You might be very surprised.
Here is the official Republican, the GOP, Pledge of Allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the rich, to Multinational Corporations of America, and to the monies for which I receive, one nation under GOP, completely corruptible, with all power and money just for me….
HAYES: In the spotlight tonight, grandma. The Democrats plan to keep Republican Congressman Paul Ryan`s hands off of her. Ryan`s district in Wisconsin has long been considered a lost cause for Democrats, who have offered up sacrificial lambs in losing elections since Ryan won his seat in 1998.
This year, they are pouring the party`s full resources into his next opponent, and they are starting early. Small business owner Rob Zerban has already announced his intention to end the political career of the Republican rising star and stop Ryan`s plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program.
Zerban has launch a website asking supporters to sign a petition telling Paul Ryan to, quote, “take his hands off our grandmas,” saying, “after taking contributions from health care lobbyists, Paul Ryan now wants to empower insurance companies instead of our seniors.”
Zerban`s campaign comes at a moment and in a place that many progressives are hoping will spark a national movement. Wisconsin protests against Governor Scott Walker`s plan to eliminate collective bargaining for employees have turned into recall efforts against Republican state lawmakers.
And Congressman Ryan said that attendance at his town hall meetings is exceeding the numbers he saw during the 2009 health care town halls.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PAUL RYAN (R), WISCONSIN: We`re taxing our employers, our businesses, a lot more than our foreign competitors are taxing theirs. The international average for the corporate tax rate is 25 percent. Ours is 35 percent. Hey, come on. Everybody —
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let him talk!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Liar!
RYAN: Let me — if you`re yelling, I just want to ask you to leave.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So are we seeing the next stage in the progresses counter- movement to the Tea Party wave of discontent that powered the Republican party back into control of the House?
Across the country, Republicans are now on the receiving end of political tactics they pioneered, facing angry constituents who openly question talking points and the radical schemes hatched inside the Beltway.
Joining me now is Rob Zerban, Democratic candidate for Republican Congressman Paul Ryan`s seat in Wisconsin, making his I believe national television debut.
Thank you so much, Rob. I really appreciate it.
ROB ZERBAN (D-WI), SEEKING DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION: Thank you for having me.
HAYES: First, tell me about your district. I was looking at the numbers of it, and I was kind of surprised today. It`s the first district. And Ryan`s won quite easily. And I think it`s considered a safe seat. But if I`m not mistaken, Obama won in 2008, isn`t that right?
ZERBAN: That`s correct. Yeah. He won — the district goes from — the west part is where Janesville, all the way east to Kenosha (ph), and it contains Racine as well.
HAYES: And what has motivated you to think that you have a shot, after trouncing after trouncing after trouncing against Democratic opponents in Ryan`s career in Congress?
ZERBAN: Well, we have seen Paul Ryan represent special interests, gas and oil companies, insurance sump companies. And I think it`s time that we have some real representation for the actual constituents of the First Congressional District, as opposed to special interest.
And the budget that Ryan — the Ryan budget is just icing on the cake as far as the amount of voter discontent in the First Congressional District.
HAYES: Are you surprised by what you`re seeing, in terms of people showing up at these town halls angry about the plan to end Medicare that Ryan has spearheaded? Is this coming as a surprise to you? Or have you sort of sensed that there was this sort of discontent already in the district?
ZERBAN: I`m not surprised by it. The proposal is so unpopular, you know. Taxing or reducing the taxes on the wealthiest and then balancing the budgets on the backs of those who will need Medicare is just a wrong proposal. And I`m not at all surprised by the reaction.
HAYES: I am wondering if you think the — I`d like you to comment a little bit about the sort of demographic bait and switch that the Republicans are pulling here. One of the things that`s really striking is when you look at people that are attending a lot of these town halls, you see people who are older than 55 often. And they`re angry.
And the response from Ryan in one of his town halls and Republicans around the country is don`t worry, we`re not changing things for you. And I wonder what you make of that argument. A, what it says about that plan, and, B, whether it`s resonating.
ZERBAN: Well, I don`t think it is resonating. I think you`re seeing seniors who are actually on Medicare and you`re seeing people who would eventually be taking advantage of this program, and they are all speaking out against it.
In fact, I was just out in Janesville yesterday meeting with a constituent. And this is Paul Ryan`s home town. And this gentleman told me how he has actually voted for Paul Ryan in every election. But this time, he just can`t do it.
And he`s hearing this from his friends. They just have a feeling that Paul Ryan has gotten so out of touch with the Wisconsin voters and what`s important to them, that they just can`t support him anymore.
HAYES: Finally, I want to ask you what the economic situation and the jobs picture looks like in the district. I know that there have been auto plants in the district. Some of those have been decimated over time, particularly even in the last several years. What is the job situation that the members — the constituents in the district are facing?
ZERBAN: Well, it`s pretty bad, Chris. We`ve seen the loss of the Janesville GM plant, the Chrysler plant close down. We have lost jobs there.
Paul Ryan has a credibility problem. In 1998, he campaigned as the paycheck protection candidate. And he`s been anything but. We have seen a mass exodus of jobs from the First Congressional District. And I actually — I like to refer to him as Pink Slip Paul.
HAYES: Rob Zerban, thanks so much for joining us, running against Paul Ryan in Wisconsin`s first district. Appreciate it.
HAYES: Good evening from Washington. I`m Chris Hayes, sitting in for Lawrence O`Donnell. And welcome to the post we have now seen Barack Obama`s birth certificate era.
Remember when House Speaker John Boehner said this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: You know, the number one priorities for American people are cutting spending and creating jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That was January 25th, 20 days after he swore into Congress as speaker of the House. Since then, House Republicans have devoted themselves to going after spending. Not the massive defense budget or ongoing wars. They have also gone after Obamacare, the EPA, Planned Parenthood, NPR, FEMA, and on and on and on.
But what about addressing the speaker`s other number one priority, jobs? Which, by the way, according to the latest polling is the most important issue to Americans, along with the economy — more important think that the budget deficit. We learned today that since January, neither Speaker Boehner nor the president nor the Senate nor the Federal Reserve nor really anyone at all has done much to affect the jobs and economic outlooks.
Labor Department reports that last week, 429,000 people for new applications for new unemployment benefits. That`s the highest since late January. Also, today, the Commerce Department reports the growth of the gross domestic product for the first quarter of this year failed to meet estimates, slowing to an annual rate of 1.8 percent. That`s down from 3.1 percent last quarter.
So, it`s no surprise when we hear this poll today. Only 40 percent of Americans approve of how President Obama is handling the economy. That`s the lowest of his presidency. As for John Boehner, we learned that since he took over as speaker, his net approval rating has dropped 12 points to 42 percent.
Not everyone is doing poorly in this economy, mind you. Today, when national gas prices averaged $3.89, Exxon Mobil reported a first quarter profit of $10.7 billion with a B dollars, a 69 percent increase from this time last year. Royal Dutch Shell reported $6.3 billion in profits, a 30 percent increase from last year.
As for the stock market, it`s doing just fine as well — thank you very much. With stock indexes hitting 2011 highs.
So, how do you explain the bifurcated economic reality we continue to face, in which a small set of powerful economic interests are bathing in cash while most of the rest of the country struggles to get by? And what do they mean for President Obama and congressional Republicans?
Joining me now, former Republican congressman and director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Reagan administration, David Stockman. Also, senior political editor for “The Huffington Post” and MSNBC political analyst, Howard Fineman.
Gentlemen, great to have you here.
HOWARD FINEMAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Good to be here.
DAVID STOCKMAN, FORMER REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN: Good to be here.
HAYES: I want to start off listening to Ben Bernanke who gave this first-ever Federal Reserve press conference yesterday — big deal. And let`s take a listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEN BERNANKE, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: Indirectly, of course, to the extent we can help the economy recover, and help job creation proceed, then some of the people who get jobs will be those who have been out of work for a long time. That being said, we don`t have any tools for targeting long- term unemployment specifically. We can just try to make the labor market work better, broadly speaking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: This is in a response to a question, I believe, from “The New York Times” about long-term unemployment.
Mr. Stockman, what is your sense of that answer from Ben Bernanke. If the Fed isn`t going to be the one that gets job growth back and Congress and the White House have sort of left the playing field — then what are we left with?
STOCKMAN: Well, first, let me say, I thought that answer was pathetic, lame. It shows that the Fed chairman doesn`t have a clue as to why our economy has been failing, not just for the last few months of non- recovery but for the last 10 years.
And the reason it`s failed, and the evidence is clear — last month, we had 130.7 million payroll jobs. And if you check the record, you`ll see we also have that same number in November 1999. So, for 12 years, several business cycles, serial bubbles, the Fed taking the economy up and down, we have gone nowhere. We have not created one net job. And if you look at the composition, it`s even worse, because we`ve lost about 10 percent of our middle class jobs.
Now, I blame the Fed for the dire condition of the U.S. economy, because it`s driven the interest rate to zero. It`s offered free money to Wall Street over and over and over, a massive invitation to speculate. And that`s exactly what we have going again, a massive speculation with free money from the Fed, and everything from cotton futures to currencies to the Russell 2000, when even Bernanke mentioned by name, hit an all-time record today when we have Main Street still flat on its back.
So, if we want to begin to even lay out the path to something more constructive for the future, it has to start with fundamental change of policy at the Fed, and extracting the Fed from the grip of Wall Street because as I see it today, the Fed is entirely a tool of Wall Street, and it`s simply generating speculative windfall gains to a very small number of people in our society, while the rest struggle with this mess that we have.
HAYES: Howard, I want your take on the politics. By the way, if you`re playing THE LAST WORD bingo at home and you had the Russell 2000 in the first five minutes of the show, you win.
Howard, I want you to respond to this poll today out from — which says 29 percent of people, 29 percent of people consider us in a depression right now. What does that mean for the political dynamics for the White House, for congressional incumbents of both parties?
FINEMAN: Well, first of all, let me say, it`s fascinating to listen to David, who I have covered and listened to for a long time, going all the way back to the Reagan years. He is sounding like the populist guy.
HAYES: He sounds like you`re writing from “The Nation” magazine.
FINEMAN: And I think that`s very interesting. And indicative of the big problem here that he`s talking about. All that money was created out of nothing. But it`s money that could have been used if properly directed to the United States, to Main Street, to loans.
We rescued banks, but the banks didn`t turn around and rescue people. We created money for housing, but didn`t put it in the right places. We created money for investment, but didn`t put them into the United States.
Now, everybody loves the free market. But if you`re going to create that much money, you`ve got to find a way to spend it here. And I think that`s what David is saying, and I think that`s very, very important.
But the reason 1/3 of the American people think they are in a depression is that not, they haven`t seen any of that money. They haven`t seen any of that money in any way, shape or form. That`s just simple.
HAYES: I want to stay with you on the politics on this for a moment because we were talking this morning in the production call and said, you know, the conversation in Washington is like, if you go camping and you`re in the middle, you pitch a tent in the middle of the forest being consumed by a forest fire and you start arguing the tent about who`s going to drive on the way home or what color the tent is, or who didn`t bring the fort, and it`s unbelievable to me how absent the jobs reality is from the conversation in Washington.
Are you surprised by that?
FINEMAN: Well, I`m not surprised by it because it`s difficult right now to get immediate results from. That`s part of the problem.
The president doesn`t want to necessarily highlight the unemployment rate because they can`t pound the table better. Now, he`s been president for a while, OK? So, the more he focuses on the most glaring problem that we have, the more it begs the question of what kind of job he`s been doing. And by the way, he`s at his lowest level of job performance.
So, the natural thing now for somebody two years into office is to, you know, talk more, shall we say systemically, OK?
Now, the Republicans, they want to talk about spending cuts because it`s a nice big abstract thing that plays into the small government ideology of the base of the Republican Party. And they don`t want to talk about the immediate effects of the budget cuts they don`t really have the guts to talk about, because that will cost jobs.
HAYES: Right.
FINEMAN: And not just federal jobs, not lazy federal workers, but we`re talking about firemen and policemen, and people in the community, local people who also need jobs. So, there`s a perverse incentive not to talk about the main thing that`s at the center of the problem.
HAYES: David, you served in Congress as a member of the Republican Party. You were director of OMB, part of the famous before my colleague William Greider, who wrote about the lessons you learned when you came to Washington. In watching this Republican class come to Washington, what do you make of their performance so far?
STOCKMAN: Well, it`s very disconcerting. When it comes to this anti- spending rhetoric, the Republicans are all hat and no cattle, as they say in Texas. When you look at what they have actually proposed, the entire defense and security budget, $700 billion, is taken off the table, apparently because they have to kiss the ring of the neocon bishops who would otherwise not support the plan. Then they take all of Social Security, all of Medicare, off the table, $1.4 trillion for the next 10 years.
When you do that and you say that taxes can`t be raised out of religious principle, then you`re left with the safety net. And so, they take out a meat cleaver and make unbelievably deep and unrealistic and untenable cuts, even they must know that, in the safety net and that turns the fiscal debate where we should be getting engagement between the two parties into what I called the other day the beginning of a class war.
And it`s really unfortunate because I believe we don`t have that much time to address our real fiscal problem: we`re heading into a ditch, into a ditch where the president is saying tax the top 2 percent, when everybody is going to have to pay higher taxes, and the Republicans are saying balance the budget on the back of the poor, which isn`t going to happen and shouldn`t happen. And that`s the dilemma we`re in right now.
HAYES: David Stockman, thank you so much for your time. Howard Fineman, great discussion. I wish we could keep it going.
FINEMAN: All I have to say is wow
HAYES: I know.
FINEMAN: — on David stockman. OK, it`s amazing.
HAYES: This is where we are, folks. David Stockman, Howard Fineman, thank you both. I really appreciate it.
This weekend is the White House Correspondents Dinner. That’s like the Oscars for politics. Everybody here in D.C. gets very excited about it.
But Dana Milbank of the Washington Post explained something very interesting about it today. He said that the first event is at the offices of the American Gas Association; that’s for the White House reporters. And then the next party is put together by the Motion Pictures Association of America.
Let me ask you something. Do you think that the American Gas Association and all the other lobbyists are putting this party together out of the goodness of their hearts? Do you think that they’re just butteing up the reporters and politicians just because they like to?
I don’t think so. Look, don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I’m not into it. I would love to go to the White House Correspondents Dinner. By the way, i joined here late, so I didn’t even get in. It’s not because I don’t want to go. I would love to be there. I hear that Sean Penn will be there. It’s going to be great. There’s an MSNBC party; I’m going to go to that. Last night I got to hang out with Rosario Dawson. I love Rosario Dawson. She’s one of my favorite actresses. Don’t get me wrong. I’m just as guilty as anybody else.
But here’s the thing. What we have to be careful about is the lobbyists are trying to seduce us. Dana Milbank is right. Our job is to hold these guys accountable, whether it’s the politicians, the lobbyists, whatever. I know the famous quote about you’ve got to be able to take their money and drink their liquor and still do legislation. That’s for politicians, but it’s also for the press. We shouldn’t do any of those things, but if we do, we have got to be enormously careful not to fall into that trap. You’ll know that we have succeeded if the American Gas Company stops having those parties, saying we’re wasting our time, those guys will hold us accountable anyway. But we’re not there yet.
TRUMP TOLD THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THERE ARE THE SECURITY STATE AGENTS WHO THINK THAT THEY RUN THE GOVERNMENT AND HE STOOD UP TO THEM AND CHALLENGED THEIR ORTHODOXIES AND PIETIES AND SHOWED AMERICANS, ESPECIALLY PEOPLE IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ON THE RIGHT, THAT THESE INSTITUTIONS ARE NOT NOBLE OR BENEVOLENT BUT ARE HIGHLY PERNICIOUS. THEY […]
Joe Biden said, if you're fully vaccinated, the chances that you can get severely ill, not even die just get severely ill, are very low. And the statistic that he gave is, out of every 160,000 people who have been vaccinated, only one ends up going to the hospital with a serious illness. So the […]
Glenn Greenwald: "So you have huge number of journalists who believe that, they have the right to lie and even when they get caught, they don't care because they know their audience won't hold it against them." Continue reading →
THAT'S WHAT THEY ARE USING JANUARY 6TH. IT'S DEMENTED TO COMPARE 9/11 AND JANUARY 6TH BUT IT'S SO CENTRAL TO THE AGENDA OF THE SECURITY STATE, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, TO ESSENTIALLY INITIATE A SURVEILLANCE REGIME, A DETENTION REGIME, AGAINST PEOPLE ON THE RIGHT WHO ARE AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT. AND THEY’RE ALREADY DOING IT. AND THEY […]
Carlson: So now we’re arming the Taliban and marooning our own citizens in Afghanistan. Who could possibly have seen that coming. Glenn Greenwald is one of the few journalists who did see it coming. He writes for Substack where all … Continue reading →
And so that is what I call the birth of this woke industrial complex. It is a new leviathan, a new monster, that is far more powerful than what Thomas Hobbes might have envisioned 400 years ago, and it is the biggest threat to individual liberty today. It is not big government alone. Its conservatives […]
FBI CIA NSA are not only spying on American citizens but also are illegally unmasking their identities to journalists who support our fascist government Continue reading →
The government is instructing social media companies what should and shouldn't be allowed to be on the internet, these are the people least competent to judge what is misinformation. Continue reading →
Google, Facebook and Twitter should be treated as state actors under existing legal doctrines. Using a combination of statutory inducements and regulatory threats, Congress has co-opted Silicon Valley to do through the back door what government cannot directly accomplish under the Constitution. Congress is giving Big Tech immunity and more power in exchange for it censoring […]
THE SECURITY STATE HAS EXISTED SINCE THE END OF WORLD WAR II. THEY'VE BEEN OPERATING IN SECRET AND WITH NO DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY FOR EIGHT OR NINE DECADES NOW. DWIGHT EISENHOWER WHEN HE LEFT OFFICE WARNED THE COUNTRY ABOUT THE DANGERS THAT THEY POSE. Continue reading →
Darryl Cooper, AKA @MartyrMade, is a podcaster who had a Twitter thread go viral with 13k retweets and 20k likes of the first Tweet alone. This one is 36-Tweets long. It makes very cogent arguments of not only why millions of Trump supporters believe the 2020 election was stolen, but also why we are justified […]
COVID-19 antibodies have been found in blood samples as early as September, 2019. China knew about the virus' transmission to humans months before it announced such to the world. Why has the media and our government not investigated this gross negligence, if not mass murder? Continue reading →
Democrats and elites are making straight white men the enemy of their new world order. Blacks, hispanics, gays are now the good guys; straight white men are the bad guys. Continue reading →
This ruling class of administrative state, big tech, corporations: all of these people think that they can get rid of Trump and we'll go back to normal. They're wedded to a broken system that has sold out the American people. And now they're going to try to sell out the American people and the middle […]
The real threat is collusion. When journalists strike secret alliances with the very people they're supposed to be holding accountable, we are in deep trouble. Lies go unchallenged. Democracy cannot function. And that's what we're watching right now. Continue reading →
The CIA from the very first days of the Trump administration, even before he was inaugurated, devoted themselves to sabotaging the administration because Donald Trump questioned just a few of their pieties. And that can't be done in Washington. Whoever does that must be destroyed. And so the CIA and the Deep State operatives became […]
The problem is the corruption that is absolutely pervasive in the U.S. news media. There are newsrooms all throughout New York and Washington DC, where top editors are explicitly saying they do not want this story investigated. And they're being clear that the reason that they don't want to investigate it is because they think […]
So Apple isn't fighting for diversity. They're doing exactly what they appear to be doing: they're trying to keep wages down and keep their workers compliant by importing labor from abroad.This isn't about diversity. It's about exploitation. It always is Continue reading →
Accountants CPA Hartford, LLC
Accountants CPA Hartford Connecticut is an accounting firm in Hartford, Connecticut offering a variety of accounting & tax services.
10
Accountants CPA Hartford, LLC