and one of the problems with selecting tidbits of data and not really looking at it as an integrated whole is that just if you say your choice of what movies you see, what products you buy may label you as an anarchist, and the danger is with the anarchist right now it again goes back to the issue of funding for private corporations. there's competition among, you know, department of homeland security and other local agencies that receive dhs funding, say, of municipal police department to identify so-called terrorist threats. now we see the catch-all an around chris being used a lot -- anarchist being used a lot years after the animal rights activists this 2005 were deemed top domestic terrorism threats. now it's anarchist. i was at the republican national convention in florida the year before last, and the police

issued -- or the fbi issued a report of an anarchist threat because on top of the building there was some graffiti near, i guess, where some of the delegates were and a brick. and so taken alone and even though there were very few protesters there, they issued a report, the media carried it, and it continues to perpetuate negative stereotypes about individuals who are merely, in cases, exercising their first amendment rights but are being deemed because they question the status quo and corporate or government policies, they're now called anarchists. but the labeling is very real because, as you know, that can be used to stigmatize, alienate groups and even in the case of animal rights activists create federal legislation. the animal enterprise terrorism act that in many cases punishes

what we traditionally called civil disobedience and other forms of protests such as leafletting or chalking a sidewalk. they imbue those with sort of evil connotations and higher fines and higher penalties. >> so i just want to move on to when i wrote my article for yahoo! internet life on privacy, so it was just the year before 9/11, and i had all these concerns. and then 9/11, as they say, changed everything. it was suddenly on steroids. and now the argument is that for national security to find terrorists we have to invade all the private -- our government has to invade all the private space. and, you know, it was george washington in his farewell address who warned us about the imposters of pretended

patriotism. ben frankly warned us about sacrifice. i don't know if i read that in your book? >> those that would sacrifice freedom deserve none or something to that effect. >> yeah, for security. >> right. >> neither. and it's, you know, i just did an article today on they discovered, it was a very good article, i thought, in "the new york times" that the voluntary leaks of the government on august 2nd about the conversation between al-qaeda and the head of yemen was actually did more harm to national security than all of the pape ors -- you all saw that -- released by snowden, for example. but it's, again, an example of the cynical use of national security. that if the government does it, it's legitimate. and the fact is that most of the classified information shouldn't be classified, but it's routinely leaked as was the story about the success of that electronic surveillance because

hay wanted to -- they wanted to show that what nsa does is necessary. so it was actually shut down, the communication. you know, the government, if they leak, it's legitimate. if a whistleblower leaks something that's embarrassing, you know, for instance, we're spying on the leader of brazil and op the leading company in brazil or something, well, then that's, you know, espionage. and, which is what snowden is accused of. and seems to me the really ominous aspect here is the use of the national security argument to justify this vast expansion of the surveillance state. and i don't know if you want to comment on it. >> i think that with 9/11 as many of you know the patriot act pretty much had been written before, was quickly pushed through by people who didn't read it. but be i think because the

united states felt perhaps that our country was impermeable, could not ever be attacked, it gave our leaders an opportunity really to exploit public fears and shock. i think to take advantage of a tragedy. but one that was a criminal act, one that did not warrant stigma stigmatizing an entire group of people or country. and i think one of the things that ties into the whole safety issue which i'm especially concerned about is what we're seeing now called american exceptionalism that we as a country have a kind of pride and attitude that especially with the spying on allied nations, we feel that we can do whatever we

want, and when people that we -- countries that we've worked with and who are considered our friends find out that we've been spying on them, i think that does a lot of damage in this terms of our credibility. i also think, as you said, the obama administration, quite frankly, is just embarrassed by these revelations. and, yes, obama has classified more documents, i believe, than any other administration and yet gave information for the film makers of "zero dark thirty" on the osama bin laden nighttime raid. they do want to control information. the attacks on members of the press and on a free press is especially troubling to democracy. we saw that in the '60s where cointel pro, independent, free newspapers were targeted.

the government went and got records from banks of subscribers to newspapers, and as a result, those periodicals that reported on anti-war activities and other sort of left-wing activities mostly went out of business. and the fact that the corporate media now really dictates what information we'll see, i think all factors in combined with obama threatening reporters with charges of espionage or conspiracy and going after reporters is another way that our personal liberties are gravely imperilled. >> how do you explain it? i mean, he's brought, what, there were three cases of espionage brought before obama, there have now been seven? here's a constitutional law professor, i don't know, i voted for him twice. >> me too. >> i i stupidly panicked and donated more money than i could afford at one point.

how do you explain this? i mean, how do you -- >> corporations. he's beholden to them, as most of the last few presidents have been to get into office, and i think that in respects one of the facts i find very interesting is that a high percentage of three and four-star generals when they retire go to work in private security. then in turn off consult with the government -- often consult with the government. i think that's a conflict of interest, especially if they're lobbying to buy more drones or whatever it is the product that they make. but there's a blurring of the lines between some of the functions we traditionally think of as governmental functions with attendant oversight that we expect from them such as conducting intelligence. i think corporations need an intelligence apparatus to stay

in business. the more information we can gatter, the better it is for them -- gather, the better it is for them. and with a trend in a conservative supreme court that is giving corporations the same rights, free speech rights that people have i think that all of those factors combine to really rob a lot of us of our ability to choose and to engage in the kind of activities that hold the government in check. >> so you have, one of the strengths of your book -- we haven't talked about your book at all, but it as these great case studies and also a lot of documentation. can you give some of those case studies? i was going the suggest one. maybe you could talk about occupy a little bit and how the power of the state was used against people. >> in freedom of information act requests that came out at least

a year after occupy kind of lost some of its steam but not all, it came out that even before the first occupy event the the president of homeland security was going around the country and meeting with financial officials, bank representatives, local police departments telling them that you better watch out, there are going to be occupiers. they may be attacking local banks, having protests. they met with the chambers of commerce, for example. what this shows is the enormous amount of coordination between federal law enforcement agencies and local businesses. and it's also worth noting thatbe you don't know -- that if you don't know what fusion centers are, they were created a few years after the attacks of 9/11, ostensibly to help streamline intelligence

gathering and sharing across the country because the 9/11 commission report greatly criticized how that happens in this country. they partner with businesses, so it's not just law enforcement, but it's the private sector. and in at least one report, a pretty harsh report by the government, i think, general accounting office found that fusion centers were really pools of ineptitude, enormous hi wasteful if terms of -- >> i need you to explain what fusion centers are. >> a fusion center is a little -- well, an entity. i think there are about 80 across the country where different levels of law enforcement share information with, again, local businesses to a certain extent to try to improve some level of law enforcement intelligence gathering and sharing. one of the ways that they took

recommendations from the 9/11 commission to try to improve how we do intelligence in this country to make us safer. but they've been ineffective, and i think there have been many examples of, you know, large surveillance networks, large computer databases that we've poured billions of dollars into that have been sloppily managed by the private sector and that have pailed. >> yeah. well, it sort of brings up dwight eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex. and with the collapse of the soviet union, we didn't really have a sophisticated enemy anywhere. we tried to and with china, but china was funding us so amply, we couldn't go too far. and then this gift that doesn't stop giving of terrorism happened. and it sort of, you mentioned the 9/11 commission, and it really goes to the question of what do we have the right to know and what is classification. and i've been intrigued by this 9/11 -- here, okay, the whole

enemy is this al-qaeda and the 9/11 attack. but now as a lawyer and as a constitutional lawyer, we haven't had a trial of these people. we know very little about them. we have not had any kind of public -- who is mohamed, you know, blah, blah, blah? khalid sheikh mohammed. who are these people and what was driving them. so we have this enemy that we really don't care to know too much about and the 9/11 commission report -- i used to remember the page, i don't now -- but there's a disclaimer box in which these people on the commission who had the highest security, right? appointed by the president say very clearly we asked to see the key witnesses in guantanamo. we were denied that right. we then wanted to put questions to them, we were denied that right. we were even denied the right to talk to the people who questioned them. so you have a whole narrative of

what happened on 9/11 based on official leaks of information from the government to the 9/11 commission. no vetting, no examination. so let me ask you about the legal community that you have a lot of contact with as the executive director of the national lawyers guild and so forth. why are these people so out to lunch? why is there not more outrage in this community? >> in the community of progressive lawyers? >> no, lawyers. lawyers are supposed to believe in limited government, the rights of the individual. why are people asleep at the switch? why do we have to lecture them about the evils of totalitarianism? >> i think many lawyers and others are concerned. the government, the so-called unitary executive has become so powerful that the george w. bush

administration's legal counsel wrote memos justifying torture. it was an immediately sort of played out on tv programs like "24." torture's become normalized, and i blame the corporate media for being a part of that because they dictate the realities, what we see. it's really all about control of information. it's about secrecy by government, and that includes not letting us see dead bodies coming back from iraq, not seeing the damage and trauma that young american men who come back and women from the battlefields. it's about covering that up. and, again, with corporations giving us a kind of propaganda, a message to make us more perfect consumers but to also

vilify the act of speaking out against such things so that there may be angry voices saying that these things are wrong, but they don't get reported on in the media. .. who the police led on the roadway, took them through stoplights, leading the protesters feel they were allowed to go there but then they arrested him all. i think that we have such a sort

of singular one way message from government and corporate place through the media. and i tried to include some stories of little resisters, be at school children being refuse, upon scan in their lunch. we don't about that story. we are faced with an overwhelming amount of propaganda guys in the form of marketing, and as i mentioned earlier, brand loyalty to big business. >> as they say on tv, the book is "spying on democracy." let me ask you about the take away from this because generally, okay, privacy, so what? my ex-wife, ex-husband one of us. i can say it's shopping and using a credit card, using my fingerprint. what really you're talking about is the end of the democratic

experiment. we are playing it down now. i don't know why this discussion but this is a very depressing book. i hate to say it. it's an informative book but you are really talking about not, any, giving up some personal case, freedom and some will know this about me. we are talking about the totalitarian states, right? >> right. we are talking about the totalitarian state. >> basically the assumption of this book is that this thing protected in the fourth amendment, a space that's your own where you can regroup or you can meet with others, you can exchange letters. as brandeis pointed out, and others, it wasn't just in the home. it was in your communication. it's personal space. and without that personal space of the individual this whole idea of democracy, the notion,

doesn't mean anything. your observation of the moment. you have no time to thank. you have no freedom to thank. so the real message of your book is that this is a war on democracy. and yet it's done in the name of protecting democracy. that's always the case. you know, what stalin, what have you, as always to protect the rights and the values of the people. so again i get back to the question, why is this not more alarming? why do we sound like some oddball characters worried about this thing? knowing probably full well what we get out of this mean we'll probably give what you more of our privacy, right? i will probably look for some restaurant and give the information. i'll send an e-mail that anyone can see, right? make this phone call that can be tracked. local and take a picture of my

house, right? and everything about it. why isn't this more alarming? usage as what i think, i can't believe it's true but maybe it's true, that we trust the state? no, i mean -- but that is sure the assumption. it will only be done to the other. this isn't done now as i said at the very beginning of the whole assumption of our society which is a constitutional society of restraint on the state. a restraint on power, built on suspicion of power, built on the needs to protect individual rights. and yet as a culture, and maybe because of the dominance of, you would think about freedom as consumer sovereignty and freedom and the free to consumers, that we've lost that notion. do we think it's only going to be muslims that are going to be persecuted and we don't have to worry about it?

you are out there, you're dealing with people. what is the resistance the? >> i do think that children raised on the kind of technology that we have, and i mentioned in the book at disney world they have magic bands that you can wear on your hand to get through those long waiting lines if you give your personal identifying information, cinderella will greet your child on his or her birthday, just after they go over the magic reader, has a different name, but it's all made to be fun and friendly. i think with the government not come as i said, doing its job in protecting the most vulnerable people in our society, children who are raised now with

advertisements as i understand it in some classrooms, you know, coca-cola sponsorship in the cafeteria, one of the issues i was always interested when i was in graduate school was advertising to children during saturday mornings. because they would have a cartoon and then a television ad that was animated so the kids couldn't tell the difference. and children develop the ability to use computers far earlier than they develop the ability to discern between reality and fantasy. and i think although computers and technology has opened of our lives, ma i'd like to liken it to the internet, the creators of which wanted this to be, to foster more democratic communications, but in many ways we're seeing how it's been turned again to gather our

personal data to watch us, to control it. so think that we're any difficulty because so many people have been born along with the rise of technology to give us this enormous burst, and the internet has changed the world in ways that we couldn't have foreseen. so i do think consumerism and corporate control has made this more difficult. i do think it is a depressing scenario but i don't think it's beyond hope with awareness comes the possibility of change. i think the snowden disclosures were the most important revelation that we've had in decades. daniel from the pentagon said i think that we have a window of opportunity to recognize where we are, that we have choice. it's not going to be easy, but it's our job to teach everyone else that, you know, i me, i

came to berkeley. i've only been there a few times but i see people wearing jewelry and sort of feel like i'm back in the '60s a little bit. that was a period when it was great to protest or to be an individual. and now we've been taught to sort of don't shake the boat, don't be a creative freethinking person. we have to reclaim our autonomy and our sense of personal creativity. one very frightening development in the obama administration is a program he has -- i can't remove or the name of it, but it's basically, if you think a fellow government employee might be a whistleblower, you have a duty to turn the person in. what does that do? it stifles creative thought, and people think outside the box which is just what we need, especially to come up with ways to protect the country or fight

against this amorphous enemy with greater. again, being in a state of perpetual war is something operations love. we have an amorphous enemy that enables that, so i do think there's been a seachange with the snowden revelations, and i hope it's just the beginning as more things come out. >> we will open up to question soon, i think. but before we do let me really push this in a positive direction. i think we were just left to our nonmilitary, non-imperial lives, we would straighten this out because people don't like being entered on. they would pick those products and the cell phones, those carriers that gave them a measure of protection. i think of the number of companies that would recognize this is good rather than turning it over.

i think, and i am by the way a big defender of the internet. i used to edit ramparts in the old age, speed. people on internet can find all sorts of wonderful things, including tom paine and ben franklin, people like that. they can counter lives and they can find out -- who even heard of "the guardian" newspaper, not lots of people know "the guardian." they can read "the guardian" and they can read the interview with snowden and so forth. so i think there's a lot of -- what scares me, really washington again, i'm a big washington person, but this whole notion that you can't be

both the republic and empire at the same, which is i think what drove the founders that they saw france, england and spain. is going to be in the bar do not going to have accountability. the main push of our constitution was an anti-israel push, keep things local, on a local level. keep things manageable. and so i see that as the main -- to be optimistic given the same obama who was playing the harp and in some these things come and we see a reversal. we saw an incredible coalition congress of republicans and democrats voting against getting into another war in middle east in city. we see an opening to iran, for example, and the willingness to try diplomacy over war. and i wonder whether the big issue over privacy isn't a fight

over empire. if you want to have an empire you have to have secrecy. you have to have militarism. you have to have lies. and then the only way you can preserve democracy is by abandoning that and being a normal country. what the war on terrorism is all about really isn't effort to assert the imperative empire at the time when they really don't make much sense, when it's not economical. it's not economically viable and cost a lot, human lives and resources. do you see this as a source of optimism? did i overstate it? >> well, i think the empire issue is accurate. i do agree that in the last, even few weeks, we've seen enormous -- >> i should have thrown the

bullpen, tier. >> and the pope, yeah. now we have a pope that at least seems to be similar in some ways. >> i think that -- >> i was afraid of going to be attacked on washington, but i mean, i'm looking for some marginal signs of improvement. >> i think, again, we had a window of opportunity. i think one of the tasks before us is the sharing of more personal narratives and communicating in communities that we've got away from. let's replace the propaganda of a country that's been so focused on empire, all imam and pop shops that are gone because of starbucks and other still businesses one, will dictate

what kind of coffee we have and what choices we have. the most powerful that exists is the power of the people. and that's what i'm so proud towards the national lawyers guild because we defended protesters and individuals targeted by the government for over 76ers. we ourselves were spied on and infiltrated for four decades by the fbi. we got him to admit it. individual stories are really important to share, and once we lose that we lose community which i really think is what empire is fighting against. so i would just encourage people to try to be yourselves, speak out when you get angry like the fellow in network data, open your window and shout out i'm not going to take it anymore. and don't lose sense of the you are and yourself, your creative being. >> great.

[applause] >> we will take some questions. come on up to the microphone. it will have to be from the mic. >> hi. in 1999, a lot of journalists left to journalism. i was at woodstock 99. has anyone heard of woodstock 99? there were 400,000 people, and 200 weirdos. that's the .006%, and everybody who was heard about woodstock 99 heard a fabricated fantasy. it wasn't bad at all. to me, i could go on, but then the other thing which is really key is how many people know about the artsy thing you're

talking about? it's in every article that you buy from macy's. when i wrote to the president of macy's, he said, just cut them out, throw them in the trash. really? how many people know what you're even talking about? so you know, there's no way for people to know this. >> well, i think people learn pretty quickly when the phone is still, when they get all these robocall's, when the privacy is, you know, their identity is stolen. spent i was likely saying something different but i was in that journalism no longer exists the way it did in 1999, which contributes to the fact that people can't get information. >> all, i don't believe that. let me defend journalism. first of all, what we -- well, let me try.

the reason -- i'll do it. the bill that i talk about, the reversal of glass-steagall, was also signed by clinton, totally deregulated the derivatives market. all these things happened in the '90s. the media didn't cover it in an effective way. "the new york times," the "l.a. times," the "washington post" were cheerleaders for wild deregulation. we've had one lousy were after another that the media basically collapsed on. i don't think "the new york times" or the "washington times" reported on weapons of mass destruction. we can glorify the old days of journalism. we had mccarthyism. we had a tax on civil liberty, against segregation. we had lots of problems. it is true for old model of journalism which had some of the

things in it, you know, sending reporters around the world to cover the news and pay journalists, something i appreciate, being paid. we've lost that model but we get some positive things in their place. and as long as the internet is not shut down -- one thing i'm very concerned about privacy is i want people to trust online communication. i want people to be able to investigate, do searches and find things out without being watched all the time. i think people cannot be their own journalists in many ways. people can enter -- let's take somebody like professor, and probably one of the most interesting writers about politics of the middle east. why? because he can have a blog. you can get an audience. if his mother to you, but on

there are plenty of people who are stuck in their scholarly mode. they would write trash no one would read and now they can find a mass audience. there's a lot of debate on the internet. the things you were talking about, for instance, chelsea manning. i love the man but he was a bit -- now he is seen as a hero, having stood up. is a role model and people want to know -- i can do. i teach at the university of bath-students who probably haven't heard of ellsberg but i can tell you into a three hours they can learn a great deal about it and they can no more about the break-in of his office and everything else of what the government did. and so i think, i don't like to get bummed out by we lost our

old methods. i think what is -- [inaudible] >> i know. i understand. [inaudible] >> but tell me why it's troubling to go back to the mic and tell me why. i don't want to dismiss your question. >> i'm not argumentative, but i did not put down current journalism. i did not say the good old days at all. i didn't refer in any way to that. i said that there's something broken about journalism. i get a small reference that i was actually in the trenches, and they said that a simple thing that was mentioned here in the talk, like the little rdf, how many people know what they are, or the the, from the russian government of? i mean, yeah, i'm i know about it but there's something in the dissemination of information

that is the breakdown. it wasn't the good old days at all come and so, i mean, oh oh,y god. is it because i'm a redhead. [laughter] >> i think it's true in the mainstream media we don't read that kind of story. we don't, for example, protest where we know there were 3000 people, the police figures are far less, and you don't get in many cases the kind of reporting that some of us remember and maybe have heroes in woodward and bernstein good investigative reporting on one level in the corporate media have lost its funding, and it's rare but i do think we have a wonderful new medium in the internet where, and even with the evil cell phones that can take pictures.

we have rodney king, whatever instances of daily injustices. the mainstream media just doesn't cover and doesn't have the capacity to cover. i agree with you, and i think we are not going to read about rfd chips a lot. [inaudible] >> because it would or five people. there's a wonderful book by katherine albrecht, and they do blog a lot about a macy's shoe department now has chips in every pair shoes. and it's to get most of your clothes probably have a tag and there are ways to take it out. but we don't about that as much as some of us would like. >> i'm no fan, but sister sarah palin teaches us to collate the mainstream media. i think she had a point. and i do get a lot of information from the alternative

me. i'm part of a working group. we're trying to stop the awareness center that the citycan once to put in place, which involves not only the rationale now is trying, we designed initially to design terrorist attacks on the port of oakland. the city council is taking money from the department of homeland security for a contractor by the name of -- edisonian industry, understand the nsa west to do real-time surveillance of citizens and residents in the city of oakland. now, oakland, as you know, was involved in the occupy movement and we had about 10%. with the 47th largest city in the country but we had about 10% of the occupied related arrests here. my question is in the context of the work against this domain awareness center, alan attracted

to you, heidi boghosian, what kind of citizen our residents organizing are you aware of around the country against the government of these kinds of anticrime and also in oakland's case, explicitly political surveillance, use of these technologies? >> what an important effort your undertaking locally. i am not aware of that much organizing around the country. i'm interested in that, so that's, i know the get a lot of grants and makes up threat assessments in order to justify that funding. i mean, individuals involved in it admit, our community applied for these grants, we had to fabricate. and i've a few examples of some the things they made up.

they are ludicrous, laughable. so kudos to you, and i would be interested in -- i will try to find out what's happening more. thank you. >> i have three quick questions. one was, i read about the person from brazil talk about uniting with other countries throughout fiber optics and also the pipedream to route the outside the u.s. which would defeat the intelligence gathering of the nsa. and my second question would be in, how do you combat the tide of, amongst the young do not value privacy? go from extremes of someone from my father's age, column on cocoa estimate question would say, who wants to know? is some come young people to voluntarily give everything. so how do you educate people on

that? and the third thing, i'm not sure people are so aware of how much misinformation, when you aggregate so much information, no doubt they can target a single individual if they want to to a terrifying degree. but most of the information is inaccurate. like i'm a private investigator. i've access to database aggregators, and for example, if there's someone named roberta shir who lived on the street that you lived on, not even the same address, 15 years ago in l.a., you could come up with the aggregate that would show three evictions and several failures to appear for traffic violation. and it will come up by incrementing. i don't think people realize the amount of information that they'll have to slog through to try to clear the name of. >> wait a minute. yeah. i think the first question is, it's a really important one, and i think this brazilian example, it's not just brazil, it's

chinatown it's everywhere, is a recognition that are multinational corporations are protected by a nationstate, and that they may be multinational in other ways but it's a parochial concern and preoccupation. and it's a recognition that there has to be other areas of control and independence. and i think the snow the revelation may apply to germany and places were very important, and that these companies want to retain their position, particularly the cares and so forth. they're going to have to shape up and take on their own governments. so i think we are in a period, optimistic, where we become a normal nation. and i think if we can make that transition where we are a normal nation, we're not the center of the world, not the city on the hill, we don't have to control everything but it gives us a lot

more room to become more sensible nation and take care of our people. it concerns wages and jobs, all sorts of things, and that we may find alliances in her own country. sucking the opposition going to war in syria was a good example of that. you want to take the other? >> i'll take the second question, how to remind or educate young people especially that there are other options. one thing that struck me a few months ago, i was walking by a local kindergarten in the east village in new york were i live and it was an old sign that said something like 15 ways to reclaim community. it had things like communism say hi to a stranger on the street, open a door for someone, basic things. but i think that when you read in the mainstream is media or elsewhere about an example of someone, for example, takes a chance and maybe we have some

separate incidents in new york where someone will jump down and help someone. and that person is reclaimed a hero. and i think people love to latch onto those things because of the emotional about you that it puts us back in touch with how important humanity is, and one on one reaching out, and going outside of yourself to connect with someone else. so i would urge families to keep teaching young people that it's important to think beyond the ego, they give your neighborhood, your community. and again, don't let the corporations and an empire seeking government tell us how to spend every hour of our day. do something different. take a chance. have some fun. you know, there's a group in new

york that i mentioned in my chapter on spying on critical mass, and i know critical mass is big in san francisco. the one in new york is pretty much dissolved because they're so infiltrated by police, but one little bicycle group, they're an environmental group and they still go out on their bikes just as polar bears, and they, you know, have like a love they were people ride over the brooklyn bridge in the winter and they serve hot chocolate. these great things, be it in a protest or just for the fun of it, strike a chord in people because it's human. it's not the corporation and i think that's very important. and the last question about -- misinformation to you remind me about one thing we didn't didn't talk about and that's even with the chip. say you have a book with a chip in it and i give it to robert but i purchased it. so not only does have my book

but they know that he's connected with me. so it can attract patterns of association. begin in a vacuum, information just as you say when they gather things without the complete picture, it's so easy to have erroneous information. and there's a huge danger. because we can't correct it exactly. it's something people should be aware of the. >> i just want to give one little answer to that. i do think the ballgame is the empire versus the republic. and i think that the gap between -- think wages and jobs. by definition of an idle corporaticorporati ons general ledger is that two out of three jobs abroad no longer makes lightbulbs at ge capital. apple has these jobs basically a broad, low wages and so forth. it's the whole notion of your

community that is increasing income inequality, and a nationstate that basically has military clout to protect your overseas interests. what you end up with is a large, alienated population. and i see the main tracker is that a lot of people making the decisions are careerists. how to become a successful careerists quick you can get into the better law schools, the better position you get the toys come you can take care of your family, your extended family. but if your not in that league you don't have a particular skill or whatever, you're a loser in this society. this is a different america than i was raised in. my relatives, some of them have a high school degree. still have a good life. still had a place. if we no longer have that kind

of society, we're going to have a lot of dislocation. so the real issue becomes what is your community and what is your responsibility to that community? and a distraction from that this empire is war, his patriotism, it's all that sort of thing. but if you get back to what is your community, well, you get back to all sorts of things including privacy, including respect for the other. i think that is the big battle now. that's what i keep stressing, challenging the military-industrial complex. i think if we got rid of that, i think common sense will prevail. most people do not want to be spied on. they don't want all this information. they want their privacy. not just your father or grandfather. i think it's a normal human instinct to be left alone, to be able to find your own french it.

right? i think that the desire for that. but then we only buy products that enhance that. so we won't stop at -- shop at macy's if they can track us. that will become a news story and people will be shocked by it, i think. and as you a question. we're here at berkeley. did i miss it that they take of the person who's in charge of homeland security? did i miss something? since when -- i remember a day -- there was some defense department. how come this came and went without anybody raising a question? that's absurd trained to be head of, biggest university system in the country, that you're involved in suppressing freedom, and frightening people. anyway, i wanted to say that tonight. >> thank you for that because i

was intrigued by your question re: comments about why lawyers are outraged being a lawyer. my name is sharon and i were the national lawyers guild also. i was thinking about the famous lawyer that resides at the berkeley law school, john hughes, who actually in addition to being the rider of the memo was idly the first author of the president's surveillance program. he's the first person who consecrate the surveillance program that we are now so i went off. i just have to share this because many people have heard this story about john ashcroft bedside and jane's and the stand at the bedside. that was about the president -- the president's surveillance program written by john and john alone with the one who initially authorized war was wiretapping on u.s. citizens. so actually, that was somewhat of us david.

i would like to comment on what it means that we have people like john teaching the next generation of the lawyers? and as you point out, i'd like to get both of your comments on the. >> well, michael avery, warmer guild president has written a book this year on the federalist society. and the federalist society which operates offered in secrecy has really done an excellent job of men touring young law students to it's been heavily funded. and really has changed the landscape, the legal and political let's get in this country over the last three decades because they've written

thousands of amicus briefs, friend of the court briefs, sponsor with a call sort of intellectual legal debate on campuses and elsewhere, where they invite liberals to debate them. but they very cleverly moved young conservative attorneys into judicial clerkships, corporate law firms, positions of power, federal judicial positions, and influenced some of the major supreme court decisions and really shifted the landscape to the right. so i think that's a factor in we have the individuals you mentioned interpreting the laws, including with the fisa court and everything we see to facilitate a growing surveillance apparatus.

[inaudible] >> the foundation gives them a lot of money, and other organizations. i would recommend, if you're interested, there's good articles on the focus of society online and there's the book, it's called i think how conservatives took back the law from the left by michael avery. but as benefactor -- that's been a factor into the bush administration and reagan administration they really took hold. >> i don't want to kick anybody out. i do believe in academic freedom but i don't mind it, this professor or that professor. i think they should have the ability to challenge him, take him on. that to my mind is not the problem. the problem is not a lawyer or that lawyer. is the law schools.

it's the business schools. where have they been? what do they teach? do they have ethics classes? as far as i can see, i mean look, i've spoken at the kennedy center an open question was, how did however get to be such -- if you look at really the terrible things had been done in this country it's not by the extreme right or the tea party people. is by people we want to have dinner with. it's by people who can talk a good game. lawrence summers, right? i don't know. robert rubin. these people are the ones who really messed up economy more than anyone. if you look at the crackdown on occupy, which i do think was the most significant social movement, political movement since the civil rights movement, it seems to me it was a crackdown by liberal mayors, including in new york.

the other ones are called the cops. our members speaking along with robert rush. we were at the l.a. occupy. we had a wonderful. a week or two before the mayor crackdown on. i couldn't believe it. what was going on? it felt like we don't have homeless people in l.a. that is downtown l.a. now. it's all one big in getman. this was actually the best spot, and so my question really is, where are the moderates? where are the liberals? you're always going to have these other people. i want to be positive because, the reason i am positive is i think it's not working. by the thing, i mean imperial america. it's not working. and the breakdown of public schools, income inequality,

opportunity creates discontent, and people know it. i get in a lot of trouble. if you go to wikipedia, my page, you'll see i'm accused of having supported rand and ron paul. not quite true. but i have pointed out that rand paul does oppose drones and does oppose the federal reserve's. interesting little issue. a little off subject but our federal reserve gives $85 billion every month to help bankers. i would say bank stirs. really, every month -- were going to argue about the budget, close down the government and to are the people who object to it? ron paul, you probably think people probably think is an outlaw or limited or what have you but ron paul is saying why are they making these big decisions? who elected them? where does this money go? why isn't there any give back?

i looked at elizabeth warren on the other side. i look at people like that who are really principled and stand for something. and so i see a movement in this society. i see movement away from the empire. i see a criticism of wall street and oligarchy and all that it was not there before. icy energy coming in where a collapsed labor movement is having -- and lets the california which i think is the promised land right now. i think this is the bellwether for the nation. and look what happened to california. we have prop 187, right? demonize latinos. something they're the most important voting bloc in the state. southern california, now is -- right, makes the state solidly

blue. we have failed language leadership in the state and jerry bridges signed off about six different progressive measures, the second coming of jerry, you know. it's not the conservative he once was. so i don't want to go through another evening in depressed. i think we're going to win on privacy and on the surveillance state. i think it's the consumer niche. i don't think people want to be spied on. i don't think about these things in their coats. i don't think they want big brother, and our job is to get the information out that this is not necessary to your security. it betrays you. your security, and after all, we've betrayed the basic idea of this country that freedom is not an indulgence. freedom makes you stronger. free expression drives out bad

ideas. that's a you get to truth, and we have to take risk. we have to have open debate, ever lost that message. i think if we stick to that we are going to win, i do. i'm so sorry you are not -- >> i wanted to start by thanking both of you for being here this evening. i found it extremely interesting, very informative and i deeply appreciate the work that you are doing. [applause] >> when i found myself in this situation to talk to someone such as yourself i was like to ask one very specific question. because you're so deeply focused on something that so important that a lot of us don't have the time for the luxury or the ability to focus on, your headlights extend much further into the darkness and we do. we've been talking of something is right now are right on the cusp of right now like the thumbprints for apple. but i know that you guys are aware of stuff, or just

beginning to see stuff on the horizon that we have no consciousness of. can you help give us an idea of think you're starting to see, things to start to pay attention to? what are you worrying about at nights? >> onboard about the military-industrial complex very much. trace people, demonize them, and -- the new jim crow. i'm very aware of that, and it extends beyond racial identification. the african-american community has been particularly hard hit. my own son teaches in the oakland schools here, the abandonment of public schools. you know, frankly, i don't know if you've ever read, a biography

of colin powell is a book i recommend to people. he was in my class at city college of new york, a school of never saw tuition at the time and would free textbooks in class. when i think of how supportive our society in the bronx was to us, and now one of the kit the area around usc where i teach and the breakdown of society, the breakdown is everything. the abandonment, gene, this whole population we have. and my friends, can you get to be a winner? can you get into banking or something? when i think back on how -- the very of -- every idea of going to work for a bank was loathsome. you agree and so forth.

i extended -- one reason i bring up the pope, for instance, we lost even the raid strength -- a concern for the other. at good samaritan. we've actually lost any notion of concern for the other, accountability. it scares me if we don't get that back. i guess if you want my real concern, the division in these two americas. and if you look at the statistics on income and what's happened, the whole game of the last what, eight years, all the money we spent, the indebtedness as a society, it's almost all gone to that top 1%. it's astounding. if you want a prescription -- eight, nine years ago basic economic crisis, what can we do to destroy america? right? if someone came along and said i'm subversive, on the

manchurian candidate. initially had to destroy america, right? first, i'll create an economic crisis by totally deregulating the banks, right next wall street. out eliminate every significant regulation. i'll let greed run wild. they will also people in homes. they'll package them into securities and seven. all these things that will come close to the great depression. and then to get out of it will make the banks whole. will make the rich people safe. we will protect the 1%. they will get all the gain and we will leave the society so severely divided outsourcing, that we of alienation as the norm. right? that's where we are now. history fighting, true subversive. my own optimism is that most people will come to their senses and said we can't go on like this. we have to think another way, and hopefully that will also include some people i know in california to be pessimistic on this prop 30, and silicon valley

did vote for an increase in taxes to be able to support education. that may not be the revolution but it's a step in the right direction. even rich people can go live on some island somewhere and they've got to make this place work. >> thank you. >> i would just add, with all of that is we are such a punishing country. this sentence that we meet out the individual so broken the law, life plus 100 years. other countries look at us and we've lost the sense that the punishment are going to a state correctional facility should be to rehabilitate. it doesn't. it makes people more perhaps

inclined toward more criminal acts. but i go to visit a person imprisoned maybe every six weeks, and i see, now he is in general population because he was moved off of death row almost two years ago. but the families in the visiting room, these beautiful, mostly men of color, it's just tragic. and when you read about what's now called the school to prison pipeline, the harsh ways that children are being punished for being children, for me the acting out. they are handcuffed, taken in, arrested and it changes their lives. how did we as a society get to this point? so i think that frightens me because i see options being cut off for young children. and a society that seems to have

lost its commonsense. so i think that punishment and everything that robert mentioned, along with the prospect of a potential state, national identification program. that prospect frightens me. i do think we can fight the. >> let me play my row as moderator, which i haven't done very effectively, and talk about his book for 50 seconds or so. what thrills me about this book is it was published by city lights books. and lawrence is now what, 95. and i think -- about to be 95 or he is 95. anywhere, and i worked for lawrence at city lights books i think for three years when i lost my fellowship here at berkeley. i had wrote a book and had some trouble.

anyway, i love the idea that you talk about community resistance. that something like city lights books which have been going on all this time since 1955 is actually more powerful as an institution and a never produced -- they used to produce little tiny books. this really great book, and i was so thrilled to find -- this is unquestionably the best book on the most important problem that we face right now, and additionally want to recommend it and get people to buy it and thank you. >> thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you, everyone. heidi will sign books. >> thank you so much. [inaudible conversations]

you are watching booktv, nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2. is pa >> introduce you to some of your on the bus with us and that is natasha trethewey, who is a u.sa poet laureate. what is a u.s. poet laureate and what do they do?ty mple >> the job is pretty simple. it's to bring poetry to a wider audience across the country. i are to open literary season at library of congress in the fall by giving a reading, a closing lecture in may to end the literary season and to choose the two poets or the one polk in some years who is to receive the fellowship and introduce the putt for reading at the library. >> tube get it? >> guest: there is a stipend that comes with, a is not funded by the american public. there is an endowment that does

that. >> host: what is the scholarships that you refer to? >> the scholarship just recognizes and american poet who is doing extraordinary work. >> guest: are you a poet? >> host: you have to be a poet first. >> guest: -- start writing some poems. the pilot laureate is chosen by the librarian of congress and he is given that duty by congress. congress enacted the law that made the position of the laureate ship in 1986 used to be the consultant in poetry for many years and a first consultant was joseph cost lander in 1987 but in 1986 it change to a different title, united states, gloria consulted. >> host: what is your position in a state of mississippi? >> guest: i'm the poet laureate in the state of mississippi, the outgoing governor haley barbour

selected me as the poet laureate. >> guest: is that a term position? >> guest: in mississippi east the lifetime position but with my term the previous poet laureate died and they decided to make a term position and is now four years. >> host: we can characterize authors like to give the brand as joyce carol oates or a novelist or historian. can you characterize pellets the same way? >> guest: plenty of poets write in other genres. you might also call me a nonfiction writer because i have a book of nonfiction but i am thinking about something my southern predecessor said and that is the historical cynicism, the poetic sense shouldn't be seen as contradictory because if poetry is the little myths that we make, then history is the big

myths that we live and in our living constantly remake and so for me that suggests there are lots of links between the different genres 11 though we may call someone a poet or non paula, i feel i am someone for whom the historical sense always animates the work that i do. >> host: where did you grow up? >> guest: i moved to georgia later on. >> host: why and when did you start writing poetry? >> guest: i wrote poems peer leon. my father might say even sooner than i will tell you. in the third grade my earliest memory of writing poems happen then. i was riding in a class and had a teacher who with the librarian in my school bound a little collection and put them in the school library. >> host: how many collections have you written and published? >> guest: four collections of

poetry. >> host: collection of poetry. are they related? >> guest: i work, kind of project and all the poems circle around a historical question i pose for myself. something i try to grapple with in language. imac that robert frost's's idea about the twenty-fifth poem so even though there's a whole collection of individual poems the book itself becomes the 20 fifth poem, the hole, the unified whole of all the things, all the parts. >> host: what is the theme of fraud? >> guest: my father is also a poet and for all is a book dedicated to my father. i think of that in many ways as an intimate conversation held in a very public place, in a book, between me and my father. it is about the history of ideas

of racial difference across time and space, things that i think we still contend with in our discourse and everyday lives as well as internet discourse and families, my interracial family. >> host: pulitzer prize winner. >> guest: not that one. >> host: in 2007 you won the pulitzer. our is poetry taut across the school? is it still taught in schools? >> guest: i don't know. i don't know how much students are getting in school. i teacher freshman seminar in emory university and my students have various varying degrees of experience with poetry from their high school. some have a lot more of it, some took creative writing as well as the study of poetry as literature, some haven't had much at all and it does vary depending on what school you go to. >> host: natasha trethewey, you

have a lot more coming out. >> guest: i have one i am writing. >> host: and? i don't know, it is doing 2014. >> guest: thanks for reminding >> booktv.org. >> and now on booktv, ann coulter talks about her latest book of essays on politics, culture and the media. this is about an hour, 15

minutes. [applause] >> thank you. ooh, that's loud. >> good evening. >> good evening, john phillips. so good to be here with you. >> isn't it great to be in orange county? >> better than that, i just found out yorba linda's the most conservative town and the most conservative county of california. [applause] if amnesty goes through, that will be utah. [laughter] the only place republicans can win. >> now, even though it's phenomenal to be in orange county, we love being here at the nixon library, a lot of right-wiggers, a lot of conservatives shy away from president nixon because, after all, he was impeached for having the nsa spy on our citizens -- [laughter] /-- for siccing the irs on his

political opponents and for abandoning diplomats in posts abroad. [laughter] >> and for telling a lie to the american people. [laughter] if you like your health care insurance, you can keep your insurance. [applause] no, i know. it's like the standards of treason. i'm a lawyer, and so we look at precedents, and if you look at what people have been tried for treason for, you know, tokyo rose, gosh, i can think of a lot of people we might want to try for treason over the last few years. but apparently, we've just dropped, for example, jane fonda. apparently with jane upon the ca we just famously -- fonda we just famously dropped any prosecutions for treason, and apparently it's the same thing for impeachment. nixon did resign, was technically impeached unlike bill clinton who was

impeached -- [applause] one of the articles of impeachment -- and this is all covered in my very first book -- against president nixon drafted by the able senate staffer hillary rodham clipton -- [laughter] was lying to the american people. and what did he lie about? it was something he provably did not know was a lie when he said it. he said the white house was not involved in the break-in of the democratic offices at the watergate hotel. and then later it turned out it was a group he had known colloquially as the plumber ors and they had done some other black bag jobs for him, to wit, broken into daniel ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. let's think about what that was for. daniel ellsberg had stolen classified documents from the pentagon, gave them to "the new york times," new york times prints the pentagon papers. the pentagon papers did not cover the nixon administration.

he was protecting the democratic administrations of lbj and kennedy. their conduct of the vietnam war. he was protecting the executive branch and the existence of classified materials. so, yeah, they broke into daniel ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, and service some of the same guys who broke into the watergate -- the democratic headquarters. liberals are utter obsess es. every weekend you can find them going into the library of congress to listen to the the nixon watergate tapes, they are so obsessed with richard nixon. you would think they'd hear richard nixon pacing around his office saying what makes me so angry is that they think i would be stupid enough to break in to the watergate hotel democratic office. so he didn't know about it beforehand. he thought it was stupid. he did not think his people had anything to do with it. that was considered an

impeachable offense when it was richard nixon. now we have a president who told a lie he knew was a lie, and he lied in order to get a heinous policy, a heinous law through that is going to take away 94 million americans' health insurance policies as we now know they knew in 2007. but apparently -- in 2010. but apparently, that's no longer impeachable. [applause] oh, and one more thing. sorry, we won't talk about nixon all night, but we are in the nixon library. but just one more point was, again, for nixon obsessives, liberals seem to know very little about his presidency. nixon never had any of his enemies audited. he went around the oval office fuming and saying, you know, they audited me when i was running for president. democrats audit their enemies all the time, oh, a tradition

that has continued with both clinton and now obama. so he, okay, yeah, maybe he asked for his enemies to be audited, but, you know, he surrounded himself with good people and decent people and honest people who said i'm not auditing people for political reasons. no one was ever audited. nixon himself was audited as president. now flash to current president, you know, famous romney donors suddenly find themselves not only being audited, but visited by the epa -- [laughter] visited by the ins, that one guy that was written up in the "wall street journal," i forget his name, he has a big ranch. he employed two guest workers, and for that the ins comes in and starts examining him. and, i mean, we know from what has come out about the irs that they're denying tax-exempt status to groups based on their politics. >> now, in previous books you have said that it's tough love

for liberals, only you don't love them. >> yes. [laughter] >> in this book -- >> that's my approach. >> there is a tough love for conservatives, but you do love them. what's some of that tough love that you dished out in this week? >> well, the theme of this book is that life is a horror when democrats win -- [laughter] [applause] it covers many, many, many, manies aspects of that -- many aspects of that, the crime rates, oh, new york city. [laughter] oh, it's about to find out what it's like when a democrat wins. and as i write at the beginning of the book, whenever democrats get huge majorities in congress and have a democrat president, really, really bad things happen to the country. after barry goldwater loses an

historic landslide -- oh, and footnote, why did he lose? because he was a libertarian purist who had to vote against the 1964 civil rights act because it had restrictions on private businesses. barry goldwater, i mean, i'm annoyed at him over this, but i'm almost tempted not to defend him -- [laughter] goldwater's department stores were integrated before, you know, federal buildings in washington were. he integrated the arizona, as governor of arizona, he desegregated the arizona national guard before harry truman allly desegregated. he wanted some provisions of the 1964 civil rights act to be tougher on contractors and unions that refused to stop discriminating on the basis of race. but he was a purist libertarian, so he, he voted against it because it had restrictions on what private businesses could do. thanks, barry goldwater. thanks, that's fantastic. i mean, the idea -- this is

described a little bit more in my penultimate book, "mugged," the idea that that was the beginning of republicans taking the south is simply false. as i go through in that a, the southern states barry goldwater won in 1964 were the states richard nixon and ronald reagan either lost or did worse in. we finally started to take the south only when the old dixiecrats died out. okay, anyway, '64, loses in an historic landslide. what do we get after that? teddy kennedy's immigration bill of 1965 which was specifically designed to change the demographics of this country. we've been taking in about a million immigrants a year since then, 90% of them from the third world. the majority of them go on welfare and, oh, gosh, democrats are doing much better in elections now, aren't they? we got the great society programs. the last time the democrats had the house, the senate and the

presidency was in 1993, 16 blessed years ago. and what's the first thing they did in 1993? tried to pass hillarycare. national health care. they just waited, waited, waited 16 years, and as soon as they had it again, they rush in with obamacare. if an alien landed and said, huh, why do you have obamacare when most americans hate it, the answer is because the democrats had 60 votes in the senate. of that's why i'm attacking some conservatives right now. well, if they happen to be conservatives, i'm attacking republicans who attack other republicans. until we have a majority, a veto-proof majority -- [applause] in the u.s. senate, i don't care how bad the republican is. do not primary our own, particularly our own in safe seats. let's take, you know, wyoming,

kentucky. let's put these aside. safe republican seats, and let's spend those millions of dollars taking out mark begich in alaska and mary landrieu in louisiana and mark pryor in arkansas. [applause] there are five big, fat targets for republicans in the next, in the 2014 senate elections. and unless we win elections, we can't do anything, republicans. [applause] >> is that about purity, or is it about ego? >> it's about a lot of things, both things. ego in wyoming, i'm sorry to say because i love liz cheney. if only she had moved to south carolina and primaried lindsey graham, we could all be friends. [applause] you have, as i describe at the beginning of this book with, you have some show-offs, i mean, leaping ahead from the senate elections to the next presidential election. all i ask of you republicans is

only consider -- and i've made this mistake, so i'm not blaming you -- only consider senators and governors in a presidential election. i mean, i've supported your own duncan hunter. when i was in high school, phil crane. [laughter] pete dupont, he was technically a governor but of a very small state. i know, he was so wonderful, but it's the equivalent of being a congressman. you have to be a senator governor from at least a state in the top 50% of population. pick out the best ones. okay, so we have ego and the last election. i mean, there were a lot of showboaters. in the, as recently as the last election, i was a huge supporter of herman cain. no inspirational figures. i know you're all falling for ben carson. i love him, but he is not going to be the nominee, but it's just going to distract us, and we don't have time for 312 primary debates this time. we really need to win. so sometimes it's ego. now a lot of it is purity like

these idiot libertarians. [laughter] i mean, tomorrow there's a governor's election in virginia with the magnificent ken cucinelli running against -- [applause] the dirt bag terry mcauliffe -- [laughter] and for the past month, i mean, virginia's going, going blue too many government workers in virginia. for the past month, cucinelli's been down by ten points. guess what the libertarian's polling at? oh, ten points. thanks, libertarians. interestingly, in the past -- we'll see what happens tomorrow -- but interestingly, cucinelli's been closing the gap, and i hi that is because of obamacare. so this is a big opportunity for us republicans to take back the senate, get a nice veto-proof majority in the senate and, frankly, it doesn't matter what happens at the presidential election. [applause]

>> one of the reasons that virginia is turning from red to purple is because of illegal immigration. >> uh-huh. >> the demographics of virginia have changed dramatically from where they were ten years ago, twenty years ago. and this crowd here in california, southern california specifically, they've seen the demographics of california change dramatically because of illegal immigration as well. what's going to happen to the country if california is no longer reagan country or nixon can country, it's now via rah goes saw country? >> right. >> what's going to happen to the rest of the country if there is no stop, if we don't throw the brakes on? >> no, it's horrifying. as always, california is leading the rest of the country. you guys used to lead us on things like property tax limits. [laughter] we liked that. you did give us nixon and reagan, and now a republican cannot be elected statewide in this state.

that will be the entire country if not only amnesty isn't stopped, but if the current form of legal immigration isn't stopped. we were talking about this on radio, so any of you who were listening to us, some of this will be a repeat. i just, i don't understand why it is considered unfair for america to skim the cream of the world and get the best immigrants we can get. no, that's not fair. that top model should be forced to date short, balding losers and not good looking rich guys. [laughter] that's not fair. [laughter] maybe college football teams should -- no, you can't take the star linebackers from high school, you need to take the blind midgets. [laughter] that's our immigration policy. and i notice that our immigration policy also seems to really help the very elite of the society, the wall street,

the people with nannies and gardeners and pool boys, and the ones who need lots of cheap labor. it's very bad for the weakest among us, for low wage workers, especially african-americans, especially hispanic-americans. white collar or blue collar white workers. they're the ones who get hurt the most. that is not the republican party, chris christie. wall street is the democratic party. democrats are the party of hollywood, wall street, the elites, the lute accurates. they can have mark zuckerberg and george sor ross and george clooney. [laughter] we're the party of the huge, vast middle class, and we care about all americans. that's my first objection to our immigration policy and amnesty. and it just, i mean, republicans believing their own bad press that we're the party of wall street? yeah, okay, maybe they'll give you some money. i promise you in the end they're voting for hillary. and secondly, the point you

raise. if this isn't stopped, the entire country becomes california, and it'll happen slowly at first. you'll just start noticing, huh, that's weird we lost that election. i thought we were going to win that one. much like the last election. two crucial facts about the 2012 presidential election. one is mitt romney and probably the main reason i was such a strong supporter of his -- other than the fact that he wasn't the other guy -- [laughter] was that he was the best presidential candidate in my lifetime on immigration and amnesty. [applause] and given that, hmm, i happened to notice that pew research for the people or whatever it's called, pew determined, that romney won 20% of the young black male vote. which is in recent history for

republicans is mind boggling. usually republicans, i mean, it drives me crazy, but usually republicans get about 3% of the black vote. and i think that is because young black males want jobs, and they don't want to be competing with people who have just set foot in this country. the second fact about the last election is if this country had the same demographics as it had in 1980, romney would have won a bigger landslide than ronald reagan did against jimmy carter. we were all kind of feeling hike this is 1980 -- like this is 980 again. this is going to be reagan beating carter. and then like gallup polling, many of us were quite surprised on november 6th. [laughter] when reagan ran, romney won a higher percentage of basically every demographic except asians and hispanics, the two largest immigrant groups we've had recently. romney won a much larger percentage of the white vote

than reagan did, but when reagan ran in 1980, the country was nearly 90% white, it is now 63% white. thank you, teddy kennedy. it's a sweet fact about the american people that the democrats looked out at the voters and saw we can't persuade them, we can't get them to vote for the democrats, let's bring in new voters. and that's what they did. >> well, and when you talk about the immigration system, it's not just illegal immigration. you also have to look at all of the people that we're taking in from other countries as rough fee jewishs -- refugees, including syria. whenever there's refugees that are dished out from the united nations, half of them come to the united states. and of those that come to the united states, the majority go to california, or california picks up more than any other state in the country. >> oh, look. >> but that's how the tsarnaevs got here. >> oh, yeah. that's how the blind sheikh, the egyptian who shot up the empire state building got here. no, sometimes they're being persecuted in their own countries for a reason.

[laughter] but our immigration policy instead of being used to help america, we're solving all the other countries' problems. yeah, send us all your terrorists and losers and welfare recipients. no, i'm thinking our immigration policy should be, we should be bringing in people who are better than us. not worse than us. [laughter] we want to get the average up. [applause] >> now, you can't talk about amnesty without talking about john mccain -- >> or chris christie. >> -- who is also an outspoken critic of waterboarding. >> yes. [laughter] >> which you talk about in the book. >> yes, i do. this is one of my favorite parts in the book is just a short section on waterboarding. just in case any of you have heard the girls on