adopted a diferent form policy. hillary clinton said something interesting the other day. she was critical of the president's foreign policy and basically said he doesn't have one and i used to say that during the campaign but the truth as he does have a foreign-policy. and it's very different than that of truman and every president -- president since truman. here's foreign-policy as one based on the view that everybody has the same interest and all want the same thing and i don't believe that. i believe some people want to dominate and oppress the people and they want to take over the nation. i believe there are some people that are fundamentally evil and we have seen some of them on tv this week. one that promised -- premise was false in my view. hillary clinton tries to distance yourself from the foreign policy of the president. that would work better worship at the secretary of state for four years. [applause]

and she was the one with the picture were soaked with the russian foreign minister with the big red button reset and a big smile. can you imagine such a thing? did they not understand that people have very different ideas. let them are putin's objective may well be tube rebuild the russian empire but those mistakes combined with some other tactical mistakes in syria for instance to draw a red line and then say gosh i guess i can't react without getting congresses approval but right now he's willing to act in iraq without congresses approval. nonetheless couldn't do it than in that sends a message to russia and others in the world that is extraordinarily unfortunate for america. we have seen an explosion of very bad things throughout the world because the rest of the world has calculated what is happening. that is a dramatic reduction in our military capabilities and

there's a departmental review that was recently completed report on by commission including president clinton's department of defense secretary. just take a gander at that and see what's happening to our navy and air force and our army and what's happening to our nuclear capability and bats says to these other nations guess what? america is not here. america is going to be going there. we can compete. with china's building, investing enormously the military including the deep water navy. russia is investing in their military capabilities and other nations as well are expanding their military might and ambitions. i happen to think the president's policies, this going out with a personal charm offensive and believing the people all want the same thing. we can all get along and by the way the navy in the multipolar world militarily is the way to go. who else besides us if it's a multi-polar military world are

the others russia and china? is that who we want to see? i believe in having an american economy, and american diplomacy and an american military so strong that no one in the world would think of testing us. [applause] >> says a good republican i'm proud to say that i'd like to return to the principles of harry truman. i would like to once again say that we would be involved in the world. it's important to be involved in the world to keep bad things from happening. we had intelligence telling us that isis was being formed and i might come into iraq and attack a city there. what did the president due? watched as it spread across iraq. now it's difficult to pull it out. it's important to pull it out. this kind of group having to face the levant would be a

terrible conclusion for the world and for us. so i would turn to the idea of being involved in the world and not pulling back and saying bad things won't happen to us. that's like paying big cannibal t you lost as churchill said. we have to be involved. we are the leader of the free world and number two we are going to promote our values, for enterprise human rights human dignity and finally we are going to be strong. we are going to have a military that strong. we are going to link arms with our allies. we are going to stand with israel and we are not going to waffle about who is our friend and who is not. [applause] i think you have to see that. for american security for our safety, for confidence that her children will live in freedom and have prosperity. we have to have that as our foreign policy. foreign policy and domestic policy are inextricably linked.

they have to work together and i think the president has been effective in both areas as you might imagine. i have been, i was expecting that i would love his second term but i've been even more disappointed than i expected. i am hopeful that we will be successful in electing more good colleagues like you and more people will read your book and we will end up being able to pass legislation to get onto the president's desk and am ultimately taken to a new direction. america needs real leadership. [applause] >> are obvious goal is to build a coalition that can win a majority of the country. i have one last question before we go to the audience. it's an important one and pretty easy to enter from my perspective. if you had to decide would you choose and select juliette peppers or jared.

>> that's easy, julius peppers of course. [laughter] >> there's a packer fan. >> now we are ready for audience questions. i have cue cards from 14,000 people. i don't know how that happened. there are only 450 in this room room but we screened them quickly. what is the status of immigration reform in the house and is there a possibility for compromise between the house and the senate? >> i don't think there is right now. i think part of the problem is the administration has decided to go outside the purview of the law in so many different areas. we clearly have a crisis on the border. three weeks ago the house passed legislation to deal with that. legislation to deal with the trafficking laws legislation to deal with problems of securing the border. we have heard nothing from the

senate yet so while we have a border crisis right now a humanitarian crisis that needs to be attended to that first things first. if the president goes it alone again with his pen retain interest in the laterally right bus by changing immigration laws which is beyond the purview of the executive branch's power that the legislative branch's power and if he does do that i think you will poison the well and make it far more difficult. as a person who writes about immigration reform specifically on what i think what to do in the book and the person who has been supportive of immigration reform i hope he doesn't go it alone and i hope he sticks with a combine to the law confidence building fix the border and then maybe we can start talking. but we are a long ways from that right now. >> thank you. the next question, let's move on to health care. >> how much time do you have?

we want a system where everybody can have access to affordable health care including every person with pre-existing conditions and we can have that system without a cost of a government takeover. we can have a custom which is a patient-centered system where each of us as patients are the nucleus of that system and the doctors, hospitals and nursing homes in insurance companies are competing against each other for our business. it's a market-based system. the reason i can see you so well as i had laser surgery 14 years ago. it was elective and now that surgery is half as much as a cost 13 years ago and three times as good so it's not as if these great principles of choice and competition of quality are immune to the health system that they have not fully apply to the health care system. so i put in the book in great detail what kind of the patient-centered system we ought to go to and this is for all of

these programs. medicare, medicaid. we need an individual based patient-centered market-based system where we each collaborator and serve each other and providers have an incentive to innovate and create. that's a system we need to replace obamacare which will collapse under its own weight in my opinion. [applause] >> i'm sorry you can't see me more clearly. i apologize. how did the two of you manage to maintain your sanity with all the terrible things that were being said about you during the campaign? >> mitt do you want to go first? [laughter] >> more terrible things were said about me than him. i actually got some good advice when i was running for governor in massachusetts. the political strategist that i hired said he had a couple of rules. one of them was this, that i was not allowed to read the paper as it related to my campaign.

i have course could read about other things but no articles about the campaign at all and i could watch tv. and i said i want to read these articles and he said no because you are going to have some 22-year-old person who doesn't like you and writes an article and you will find yourself subconsciously referencing it or refuting it in your comments all day long. so i don't want you to read these articles. it was great advice. i did not see all the awful stuff that was said about me. in a presidential campaign poll and i were working. it was early in the morning event after event after event in late at night and a lot of fund-raising and a lot of rallies. it's exhilarating. i should tell you he might think at the end of the day you'd fall into bed that you can't go to sleep at the end of the day. you have so much energy. we will be in a crowd of 20,000 people cheering and jeering and this is important and it's great in the end of the day thank

heavens for the gideon of the bible. i can read that for a while and i was ready to go to sleep. it's a marvelous experience particularly if you don't spend a lot of time worrying about the attacks would come your way. i think it's harder in your family but frankly you are in it because you care about this country desperately care about american if you're worried about what people say you shouldn't be in the race. paul. >> you have to have thick skin but you don't have an permeable skin. don't let it get to you and if you believe when what you are doing just go for it and don't worry about the rest. >> how about your family's? >> my kids are pretty young and everyone treated them well. the media treated him well and the obama campaign they were all great. my wife doesn't like the criticism i get but she also learned how to grow thick skin as well. both of our wives are strong

women. they are very smart intelligent and strong women who understood the stakes of the country. >> this is interesting. do you think think of far -- for your college is necessary to get out of poverty. [inaudible] >> no and depending. it's not necessary. job training reform skills training is essential. i goes through in great detail how that happened to bridge the skills gap. we don't have to advertises it as much as we have. if we have to make a cool again that it's okay to get in welding degree and it's okay to get the high-value skills that can give you good livelihood. and on college tuition inflation if we just keep feeding the beast with more federal spending in one pocket and out the other we will just feed tuition inflation.

we need to get to the root cause of inflation but i would say say accreditation reform is necessary so we have real competition against a brick and. we all went to one of those but let's look at the fact that we are in a new society and let's have more competition so that a person who may be not able to go to college but can do it on line and then get their math course from m.i.t. and their theology from notre dame to engineering from the university of wisconsin allow them to bundle and put them together allow them to do innovative things and take down the barriers to entry that are already directed against these innovative ideas that are out there to allow people to excel at education and flatten the cause. we need more competition. we need less barriers and that to me is one of the ways we get at the root cause of college tuition along with transparency just like health care. does this degree viewer want to

go and what is the success rate? so that i know before going and what i can expect come i want these health care workers in these educators competing based on outcome and value. do i get a good job and do i get a good salary? make them compete in right now are not. [applause] >> we have one more question because after this probably the most important thing that these two fine gentlemen are going to do is participate in a cold water plunge. [laughter] so i can't wait to see that. >> i'm the plan g. and t. is the plunger. [laughter] >> my daughter dumped a bucket of ice water in my head.

>> on a regular basis, right? okay the last question. do you think the children in illinois have expanded to most states where they are supplied who were raised by gay and parents are more likely to lead happier lives now that the asexual marriage act is legal in illinois? >> i don't know about the illinois act but if there's a child that is an organ that is adopted that finds a home with loving parents than that as a child that is no longer an organ and that child is no longer homeless. [applause] >> i can't thank you enough. it questions. not a bad question coming from you to him. many thanks to all of you for coming today. just one request and that is

that you clear this audio because actually the two of them have to get to a press conference and rather quickly so we have a -- and i think if we clear the aisle and let them get through it would be much appreciated. [applause] >> thank you. >> thank you. [applause]

[applause] >> it's just such a pleasure for me to introduce two extraordinary women tonight in two extraordinary voices in our nation's public life. our guest of honor is the mother of two, a wife, a lawyer sunday schoolteacher community volunteer former democratic representative from the 20th district of new york and of

course now united states senator from new york in her second te term. but that's not all. as of two days ago senator kirsten gillibrand has added new title to her resume, author of a senator gillibrand's new book is called "off the sidelines" raise your voice, change the world. it's part memoir, part call to action, part inspirational guidance for women doing a great balancing act of modern life and by the way it's a great book for men too. i just want to say that to be sure. women across the country joined together to discuss a book every few months and share ideas about how they can use their voices to effect change in their communities and beyond. "off the sidelines" the book starts senator gillibrand's journey from a generation of formidable women from a career as a lawyer to her role as a wife and mother and of course she talks about what motivated her to launch herself into

elective politics. her energy determination and resilience whether bringing her sons with her to peek at the senate floor while she's voting are taking on the military grasp on the area of sexual assault have quickly made her a respected influential and extremely refreshing voice on capitol hill. senator does want to say that your candor and your humor and your sense of possibility are so evident in your book and so welcome in this town and i want to thank you for being such an inspiration to so many of us us. the great, great book and i hope you all were greeted. believe it or not it's a political book but it's actually a page-turner and it's a really fun read tonight with senator gillibrand is a friend and long-term customer and politics and prose andrea mitchell who is probably better known to you and most of america for her prize-winning reporting on abc news. she is hosted andrea mitchell reports "the daily show" on "msnbc" and explores the most important issues of the day from crises around the globe to

crises in our country and especially she has spoke with -- book is important intention -- attention on challenges facing limited to borrow a concept from senator gillibrand and from her book and if you read her book she talks about this, stop talking about having it all and to think instead about doing it all pays want to see say if anyone has done that in journalism at andrea mitchell. in case you're wondering both of these women have done the ultimate and that is the ice bucket challenge. so please join me in welcoming andrea mitchell and senator kirsten gillibrand. [applause] [applause] >> thank you so much. what a thrill to be back here to be with kirsten gillibrand

because the book is inspirational. it's funny, it's personal. i don't know if you saw jon stewart last night but you can find it on line. he was obviously really interested in finding out what is the challenge and why are many men on "the hill" frankly as other workplaces i'm sure including my own at times, why are men so incredibly stupid and boorish? [laughter] >> i was wondering what word you're going to use. which one is she going to pick? >> i was fortunate to have the senator on today and we got, i got so taken up in all of her answers that i don't think i else very many questions. he was just so much fun to have you on so thank you all for being here.

you offer empowerment and encouragement to women of all ages and i was very struck today when you talk about young powerful women. you are a united states senator. you can absorb it and i can observe it for women and their first job were interns how do they cope with male behavior that is patronizing, that is at a minimum often offensive all the way up to being blatantly illegal. >> the reason why i wrote these stories, included stories from my young career days. i told stories about my mother and my grandmother and women who marked their own way. they do did their own thing because i wanted to give the reader a chance to see themselves in a story. when you talk about someone saying something inappropriate to you it really is undermining particularly when you're young and you don't necessarily have the tools or know what to do in that circumstance.

i heard one story when i was a young lawyer and i had worked so hard on this case month after month worked all weekend and we are having a celebratory member or partner gets up and congratulate us. i'm running the case for him so he says i want to thank your son for all her hard work but don't you just love her haircut? she just looks so good these days. my mouth was open. i was dying inside and thinking i can't believe you are commenting on my hair. i just gave a book offered to for months and months and you are not recognizing me for my work silly for young person in the beginning of her career is so undermining and it makes you feel like you don't have value and it makes you feel at the work you have done has gone unnoticed. my advice to that young women is to push through it, you work hard and someday you might be in that spot. and when you are you can change the climate. you can change how people treat each other.

>> you write in the book i got called it. keep with no original thought, hey chuck schumer puppet whatever that is, the aggressive and comical and somewhat unhinged high school student played by the actors rhys witherspoon. [laughter] >> the reason why share these particular stories is because i want to illustrate the broader challenge that all women face in the workplace. when we look around the workforce has really changed. eight out of 10 families, moms are working. four out of 10 families moms are the sole or primary breadwinner is that a lot of are workplace rules are stuck in the madmen era really stuck when the time my mom stayed home. even things like paid leave for equal pay. we don't even have it in this

country and it goes to the overarching theme of do we value women? are we valuing all they have to offer? and loved geraldine farrar's quote when she is was vice president -- if not what women can do for america. about our voices and how important they are and how our worldviews and life experiences are different in that we share our views outcomes will be different. >> one of the stories you share is when you were first elected and you have had just had henry. there you are a senator and assigned to preside over the senate which means being out there on c-span from the world to see and you had to. until senator markey dolled another freshman -- you were in trouble. >> for those of you who are too

young for who are men you won't really understand this but for those of you who have nursed the baby you do know when it's time to nurse you need to nurse. it's something that has to happen and it's really uncomfortable if it doesn't. i couldn't bear describing this to a 20 something-year-old aide site just decided i'm going to solve this problem on my own. i urge them tonight as please have a morning time petey said like no you mr. call basically. i called a bunch of senators mark udall who i call my white knight of presiding orders and i described to him that i really needed to do with a baby during his hours and could i switch with him and of course he said yes. a lot of our workplaces don't even realize while their policies affect women negative negatively. one of the things we talk about is what i found is my life is challenging. i have real challenges similar

experiences to a lot of moms. how do you get the kids ready in the morning and get out the door on time. my job has flexibility so i can bring them to work. if i have to get to parent teacher meeting i can cancel my meetings during that time. the woman who is going clean a synagogue or the women who is working at the grocery store or someone working a double shift at the emergency room they work the hours they are told to work and i have no office flexibility. if their child is sick they may well be fire. those are some of the stories and challenges we need to talk about. >> talk a bit about your transition from corporate lawyer dartmouth educated and law school typical smart ivy league

graduate what made you decide to get into this political fray? >> i mentioned i had some pretty cool role models and one of them was my grandmother. my grandmother had a terrible -- she never went to college and she worked her whole life. she was a secretary of the state legislature of albany. been in the legislature in the early 1920s and 30s obviously women had very little power. but she had this notion that her voice was important and she had the view that she wanted to be heard on things that they were working on. was she realized what she could amplify her voice with other women and they could make a difference. it became essential to every campaign. they did all the work and all the door-to-door and over time she became powerful because you couldn't get elected in albany. so i learned attorney how important grassroots activism

is. so i always had in the back of my mind i wanted to do something in public service something and government and as i got older it became almost embarrassed to admit i wanted to run for offi office. >> how hard was it to make that decision? >> i'm a young lawyer working in big law firm in new york city pushing paper and they look up long enough to notice that hillary clinton is giving a speech in china. i had studied mandarin in beijing so he knew how powerful it was for a first lady to give the this speech about women's rights in beijing to the world. i just kick myself because i didn't know about the conference. i was invited to the conference. i wasn't participating in this national and worldwide conversation and i thought i need to get involved in politics. so i call a friend. she should join a women's

leadership forum page on him to go to my first meeting. i have to pay a thousand dollars to join. that was my rent check back th then. i did it and i go to this party and she's looking out in the audience. i feel like she's talking straight to me and she says decisions are being made every day in washington and if you are not part of his decisions and you don't like what they decide you have no one to blame but yourself. i'm standing there in the back of the room sweating thinking she's talking to me, she's talking to me. i really felt like she had zeroed in to my core and i felt like this was my moment i have to get involved in politics. >> is so interesting that you say that because when i read that in the book i was there in beijing as a reporter covering hillary clinton. the pressure from the male

foreign-policy establishment in the white house state department against the first lady again is on a foreign trip in beijing the less and there were so much hostility against the whole delegation. tom kaine the then former governor of new jersey and later the 9/11 commission cochair was the only male in the delegation and it was a lot of women, madeleine albright obviously and it was just a really tough moment for her. she just stood up there and did it. >> it was transformative and it shows so much courage and leadership. i was just amazed. hillary has eyes been from a wall model someone who i've looked at to see she's going make a difference. a lot of times it's young women who we think i couldn't possibly do that. i'm not a hillary clinton but they don't have to be. what we have to realize is their

voices matter no matter where we raise them. it doesn't matter if you are talking about a school board or pta or your local community or having a community garden are doing a book drive for driver at risk kids in the neighborhood. your voice in life perspective is real and different and a lot of women will say oh i am sure someone is dealing with that and i'm sure somebody's fixing that. probably no one is doing that are fixing that nmap you is the only person in in the right place at the right time to make the difference. that is really what the book is about that every woman matters and if you are on the national stage like hillary or doing not-for-profit work at your church. >> how important are powerful role models for women such as having a woman in the oval office? >> i think it's essential. having a woman to look up to is so valuable and also mentors are important.

mentoring moments on have to be long well-developed relationships. i had a woman working for me and i'm a lawyer so when i run my first campaign the first person i hire to policy director. you never really hire a policy director but i felt i needed one so i hired her. she helped me my first congressional campaign in right before the end of the election she had an offer to work for bill. she said i have dreamed of working for bill clinton. she tells me about this job she is interviewing for and she said i am applying for the number two or three job. who is your boss? they haven't hired a boss yet. i'm like why are you applying for that job quite she said i'm not qualified. i could not run that. it was a division for childhood obesity. i said you know everything. i said you have to apply for that top job. she said really?

i said of course and sure enough she applied for it and she gets it. that was a small mentoring moment. it didn't take anything for me. i just gave her that encouragement and sometimes -- so i want all women to find one person i meant to find one person to mentor. find a young woman who is somewhere in her career on her way to achieving achieving and giver of advice you might need periods were so much. hillary was always giving me that. i was able to call her at my first campaign to look at a polling give me advice. she gives near two minutes every time i need a little bit of reassurance. when i did run she came to the district and she helped with fund-raising. she did everything. we should all seek to be mentors and by mentors and to be role models for each other. >> what's the difference in the distinction you make between mentoring and sponsoring? >> this is sort of a corporate america thing but in a law firm

for example or if you are on the latter in a corporation you need more than mentors. a mentor just gives you good advice and they will tell you based on the life experience by the sponsor someone who links their future to yours. a sponsor someone says i'm going to make sure you make partner and you will have to work on these three cases and they really believe in you so much that if you don't succeed they don't succeed. frankly it's essential that the company or law firm to have a sponsor. i never had one of the law firm and i didn't even know i needed one but really it is necessary and helpful. interestingly no sponsors going to pick you. you have to earn them and earn their support. a sponsor is eventually going to choose to sponsor you because you have already jump through 20 hoops and proven yourself. it doesn't just happen. you often have to earn a sponsor. >> what gives a male congressman or senator the entitlement to

feel that they can come and honest senators appearance and say you look porky or don't lose too much weight. as i like. >> my girls. >> my girls. >> you know cares then coming you are even pretty when you are fat. >> those comments did not affect me. honestly they happen in no industries. they happen in your career and dilute use those as specific examples to look at the broader challenge of what do women face in the workplace and why is it that there is this. of course we have to break the highest glass ceiling is but

there are impediments and challenges that bring women back down to lower wage jobs less responsibility and less opportunity. for example when you have a new baby, when you have a child who becomes ill or you need to care for the child, when your mother is dying and needed to be home with her where she needs 20 for seven care. most women in that family emergency happens they will either quit, they will reduce their hours are change industries. they will do something so they have the flexibility they need when they need it but we are the only industrialized country in the world. it's outrageous what happens is although women are murdered -- earning more than half of the college degrees we are not reaching our full potential in the economy or in the workplace because we don't have the support we need. that's the larger challenge. it's really just a touch point for these broader themes and elevating the debate about how

to support women in the workplace. >> when i covered the senate in the late 80s and early 90s when i was covering the bill clinton campaigned there were certain senators that you would know to stay away from or not get in an elevator with or not let your interns go near them. they were legendary. >> i don't think the senate is unique. i think it's an all industries across all places but some of it is generational. statements are made all the time and statements in different industries have an impact. i write about these examples in the chapter about appearance and the reason why i focused the whole chapter on it is because different industries have different requirements and different industries have different impacts were women and her appearance. when an opponent talks about a woman's appearance it really

undermines her in the campaign. it doesn't matter if the comments are positive or negative. anything about a woman's appearance undermines her credibility. my first campaign for congress in 2006 by opponent for started out oh she's just a pretty face saying she's too stupid to be a member of congress but then he found the ugliest picture he could've made. he painted the mailers greenside looked a little bit like a witch so i could be this crazed woman that you could not possibly trust with any power. he used the site of the coin both positive and negative to knock down my credibility. the advice of a given chapter is know the rules of the road for it and then make your own decisions. if you want to wear whatever clothing you want to wear wear any clothing you want to win some women have reached a point in their career where they -- back if i'm going to wear my glasses i'm going to wear my glasses. if i'm going to put my hair in

ponytail and going to put on your ponytail. i go with the conservative black suits, simple and no distraction that women need to know and then they can make their own decisions. >> this horrible issue of the nfl is getting so much attention right now not just because the video is so disgusting but because the basic line is -- acknowledged that he punched his way. we don't need a picture to say what the next step should be. how have we come to the point where an industry as powerful as the nfl and i'm a huge football fan myself, get away with this and perhaps they won't but the victimization of women and the pathology of women themselves

who feel because of economic or other reasons are concerned about a child who feel that they cannot break away and acknowledge the way they have been abused. >> i think it's a complete failure by the nfl. he admitted to beating his wife. we saw the video for dragging her -- him dragging her out of the elevator. i think it was disgraceful how they handled it but it's emblematic of a larger problem. there's an institutional bias that crosses cultures and crisis arena so you have the nfl protecting their star football player and the department of defense in the military and commanders protecting their favorite soldier. college campuses again the star young students and it's an institutional bias to protect their own to undermine transparency and accountability for their own benefit but overwhelmingly it's about how little we are valuing women. you will see over and over they

could kind of sexual assault cases how women are doubted in their disbelief and they are told it was their own fault and in some of these cases they are retaliated against because they expose what happened. i had to brave women coming to my office thing i would like to meet with the senator and my teenager i got to meet with them. these two women and then on to tell me these stories about how they're both raced on camp -- raised on campus. the school didn't believe them. they blamed them and retaliated against them. these two girls were so brave they started a movement. they went college to college campus to campus recruit men and women. they have now created an advocacy network to do with sexual assault on college campuses. they are working with a senator writing legislation in the legislature will be passed in the senate and they will make a difference. the message in the book is really that any one person can

change an outcome. any one person if she's willing to stand up and tell her story fight for what she believes and she can change outcomes and make them better. >> you were frustrated on the subject of outside prosecutors handling the rape cases in the military. what is the prospect for that changing that given you are up against the military brass and your own colleagues. >> the status quo is sometimes the hardest thing to fight against. we have to challenge the military. last year there were 26,000 cases of sexual assault but only about 3000 reported the crime. that's one in 10. when you talk to the survivors they say the reason i didn't report it is i didn't trust the chain of command. i didn't believe justice was possible and when i try to reported i was told it was my own fault and nothing would be done. so the stories are consistent. the one out of 10 who did

report, 62% were retaliated against for reporting the crime. you're talking about a military who has zero tolerance for sexual assault more than half the victims are men. i urge you to read it. this battle is not over and there. it will take time. we only need five more votes and with time we'll have more facts and we'll have more survivors come forward. we have the veterans community with us. we have the veterans of iraq and afghanistan. we have veterans from all the different eras and we have generals and admirals and high-ranking officers who are retired supporting our bill. this is not supported by -- and if you just listen to the survivors. if you just believe the victims they are telling you what you need to do but it's that constant undermining and lack of value for women and for their

voices and what they are saying and that is why this call to action to me is so important. >> in that regard the message you want younger women and other women to have. it's a passion of your work and engagement and involvement. despite all the obstacles, despite all the frustrations in politics today in the gridlock. >> is that their voice matters. my mom lived a very different life. she was only one of three women in her law school class. she wanted to be a hands-on president mom always baking, i was cooking. i remember her with her phone in one hand filing a detail on adoption case and cooking dinner and sweeping the floor at the same time. the reason why she was such a role model for me when she was different. she decided i'm going to live my life the way want to live it. by the time she was my age she was a second degree black belt. how many mothers do you know try

to get a second degree black belt? none. i watch her do what she wanted to do and that gave me the confidence that it's okay for me to be different and it's okay for me to find my own way. that's the message i want to give to all women. i want women and young girls to know that they can be themselves and ambition is not a dirty word. they can dream it do anything they set their minds to not be afraid to try to achieve and not be afraid to fail. one of the lessons in the book is just because we lost the vote on sexual assault in the military doesn't mean we are going to lose the battle long term. i now know what my opponents say about it and i know what they think their best arguments are and i know now how to defeat them. don't be afraid to fail. don't be afraid to reach for big things and this is not about words. >> you said it all. kirsten joe brown "off the sidelines" it really is

inspirational. it's deeply personal and funny and truly an instructive book. thank you so much. let me explain. i have this little job for you to cover his speech if i have to be on the air by edit clock on capitol hill because the president is giving a speech tonight. the senator has kindly -- so you will have a chance to ask her questions but unfortunately i have to go and do this thing. >> i am so pleased. [applause] thank you. see later you later. >> thank you all so much. [applause] >> now we are going to take questions from the audience or just stand up and come up to the microphone and ask away.

>> come to the mic and everybody can hear your questions. thank you. >> so you talk a lot about women and violence and i'm a domestic violence survivor. i spent two and a half years with a -- and they got to the point where they refuse to prosecute because the final episode started because i reached for a bag of items that he stole from me and that was the i caused it from the district attorney, female district attorney. it's unpublished but i have a book i've written about it. it's half fiction and half not fiction and publishers have no idea what to do that. my question is i'm looking for ways i can get involved because it's an issue i care deeply about and is much as i think

that everybody knows how to help a friend who has been raped and all the things she should do nobody knows how to help somebody of a partner. what would you recommend? >> i would definitely work with some of the women groups that are in the city. there are a number of shelters specifically for women trying trying to convert suffer from domestic violence and from abuse and drug addiction. i think it's called as three village. i watched a documentary about these women and the saddest story was almost every woman who ended up homeless after drug addiction and losing everything her children in her family and her hot home almost every single one started with sexual violence being raped when they were eight years old, been raped by a group of kids in high school. it always started with violence and women lose their self-esteem. they lose their trust. they look for strength anywhere

whether it's through alcohol or drugs or risky behavior and they cannot recover. when you are violated in the hands of someone you love and abuse by someone you trust it undermines her sense of security, your sense of self or sense of what is right and wrong and i hear this over and over. the trauma that is faced by someone who is abused by someone they love or trust is devastating. in the military contacts when you were abused by someone in your chain of command or a brother you are fighting within iraq who don't know how to recover. and one woman said it's like being raped by your brother and having your father decided case. there's nowhere to go in and it undermines your hope for the future. the post-traumatic stress that women and men are facing what

sounds at the same thing you have to go to and recover from its life-altering and it takes every bit of help from a very good therapist to a nurturing environment in a safe environment to recover and it takes years. i would go work for a street village. i would look for veterans group that need help because a lot of men and women coming home are suffering from very severe trauma because of sexual abuse. the rate of suicide is very high. my office can find some great organizations here. >> i have been in contact with them. >> i think being able to offer empathy and understanding and to be knowledgeable about trauma is valuable. and that is not present on so many college campuses of the people that are present to help these men and women, they are

not trained so they blame the victim. the das offices are much better. this debate about well these are crimes and why are you going to local va -- d.a.? they are either laughed out of the police station or blamed or told it was their own fault and the cases are dropped. we have a huge societal problem and it really goes to do we value them enough and we really don't. we do not value women enough. we only pay them 77 cents on the dollar. >> hi thank you for being here. you said yourself you had an interest in public service from a young age thanks in part to grandmother's leadership but i'm wondering what it would take for young girls and young women to say i'm interested in politics instead of i'm thinking about it or maybe that's something i want to do.

[inaudible] >> i don't know the answer but there was a study done by american university and it shows that women rarely have ambitions to be in elective office. they asked women and girls of all different ages do you see yourself as the mayor mayor, could he be president someday? would you ever run for office in the overall in the over round and wet with snowe, no no. the only group that an aspiration to be in public life for people who were involved in competitive sports. so maybe keep your girls and sports and maybe they will be more willing to get in the game. i think it has to do with the notion of not being afraid of failure. when uke play competitive sports you learn early on just because you lose doesn't mean you don't get back on the field and play harder next time. i think having girls play sports is very helpful because you are not afraid of failure and you learn to compete. the political context a lot of

women will say i hate the negative ads. to mean into aggressive and to nasty. if you say that women don't thought through what is it's not about you. it's about what you are fighting for and frankly you are the only one that cares about that cause. if you don't know what is going to address climate change her childhood obesity or whatever her passion is. if you run you can make a difference and they will say oh really? i can make a difference wax she will respond. women respond when they are needed and when they are told they can do it. i liken this whole call to action to what rosie the river was during world war ii, this iconic poster a woman with her sleeves rolled up. 6 million women enter the workforce because of that campaign and they did because they were told they were needed and they were told that they could do it. we need 6 million more women voting holding elected leaders

accountable and hopefully running for office. we have to tell our girls that they are needed and are women that their voices are unique and important and without their voice and perspective the country's lesser off because of it. >> i have a question about the undermining common to talk about earlier. i work some place for the happens a lot. i find it difficult in knowing how to react to that. did you speak out about it and if so how because i don't want that to create a backlash. >> you have to make your decisions according to a role you play in the office and who makes the comments. obviously if someone is sexually harassing a unique two reported someone in your office because that is unacceptable and illegal. ..

but when i was told in that situation is a young twentysomething do you look so great after i worked my off, that heard and i was so disappointed and i thought that would've really hurt my career if anybody was in that room who didn't know me well and didn't watch me work so hard for so many years.

that would've undermined me if there were two or three other partners to read and work with me. they would've made the judgment. that would've crashed my future possibility i think. so women have to be vigilant and you have to figure out, do i need to address it or don't i? is this going to hurt my career? how do i fix that? do i go to the partnering a something myself? to have another partner say something like that really wasn't good. you have to figure it out. you cannot know unless you are not women choose the best course. my advice is don't let it get you down because it happens in all industries all the time and it does not mean you're not worth every bit you think you are. that is the message particularly for younger women because it's deflating. it really hurts. >> thank you for commenting. i'm industry, which hasn't been kind to women which has been verified their recent surveys is the technology industry based largely in the silicon valley. surveys have shown these are

male-dominated and they hired very few scandalously few minorities. what can be done to change that? how can women change to fit into these kinds of jobs? >> well, one example are jobs that require proficiency in science, technology, engineering and math. those are the stem fields. eight out of nine are the fastest-growing industries require proficiency in stem. from the minorities are going into science technology and not, they will not have opportunities in this fast-growing industries. for also not going to have the benefit of brilliance and parts of innovation in those industries where we want all the brightest lines. you've got to go get those kids early. you've got to inspire the third-grader with how to build a rocket in the fifth-grader thought to build a robot. and keep the hands-on learning and tell young girls their ideas

are important. i use an example in the book about henry and his briefcase class. my son henry loves trains, slovakia mistake you're just plain trains with his favorite friend at the time and her name is sadie. cd of course is putting people along the tracks and talking about where the people are going and what they are doing and very typical. but what i've realized at that moment is boys often want to build things that break things and things with wheels, things go fast. the cd features were just important because issues interested in where the people are going about the people are doing, imagine what kind of engineer she would eat. she would design a train system that met the needs of the people in concern herself with where the people were going and what they needed to do. [applause] so i might sadie to be as interested in science, technology and not because i want her brilliance as a city planner. we had to teach her gross you can help people being conce

about what people think can people think can do is important not to lose sight that these industries need them, and do. >> thank you. >> we have time for tumor questions. >> one, too. sorry guys. >> i feel really lucky. so i am from the burbs than i had a pretty cushy coming in now, life coming up. i didn't know a lot of people who would serve in the military and you talk about the scourge of sexual assault in the military you are trying to address, which i think is great. i don't know a lot about the military, so when i hear that senator barbara mccaskill added misery seems to have a different approach to your proposed solution, i don't really combat it with a lot of expertise. i was wondering if you could address the contrast. being that women agree on a lot of things, but we disagree on many things, too. but claire and i agree on a lot

more than we disagree. now we are working hand in glove on the sexual assault a college campus issue. i still think the way the women in the senate work is really special. women in the senate have a quarterly dinner. barbara mikulski when she was senator and there was finally too, she said i'm going to start having a caucus. the two women started having dinner and she kept the tradition up for 20 years. so now we have these dinners with women senators and what we do is get to know each other as people. we get to know each other as friends, women, daughters, sisters, mothers and wives and we care about each other. it's not surprising that every bill i've ever passed in congress have had a strong republican woman helping me get it done. so is lisa murkowski, sylvia collins and olympia snowe saying why are with first responders? it was susan collins who led the charge "don't ask, don't tell" the repeal of nature we had this

on it for public and those who need it. sexual assault a military coming 20 out of 20 women agree on nine out of nine reforms had only one reform that only 17 out of 20 agreed on. we have seen women have often, not always, often had this to position that they want to find common ground. they want to build consensus. they want something done. it's one of the reasons they work so hard. i want more women who want to cross party lines to be practical, get things done, and move from there because that is often how we are bill. if we had 51% of women in congress and we certainly wouldn't have wasted the last two congressional sessions on whether women should have asked us to contraception. [applause] we would have passed out all the other things to care about like national security and the economy and everything else. with 98% of american women having use contraception, it would be off the table. so that is the difference i

think that women's voices are different and unique and have a different style of work and that would be very good for government if we had more time. last question. it's all you. >> the pressure of being the last question. so i actually know any internet, the two people you are talking about or survivors of sexual assault on college campus and i else when i want everything taken a semester off from my college in d.c. is so i don't have to be with my on campus every day in a thick graduate and be a successful student with them not being there. so i wanted to ask you for the survivors on college campuses in the survivors of old and domestic and general awareness brave to come forward like that, what would you say to them so that they would be as brave to come forward and tell their stories and step up in fire and empower them? >> and most important thing they needed to get whatever support they feel they need. telling someone, telling a trusted person so if they need any kind of support, whether it's counseling, health care,

whether it anything, guidance, advice, they need to get the support they need and then they should do what they want to do because not every woman is owing to want to report to her school. not everyone wants to report to him for his name. they have to make their own decisions. what i found is when women are empowered another option and when they know the lay of the land in what it will look like and how you fooled your perpetrator accountable, they can make an informed decision and they do pursue cases. it is very empowering -- this one woman named emma in colombia, nothing was done on her case. she is now protesting medicare in a mattress on her back all around columbia to show her school the burden she is carrying because they didn't address her rape. she stood up in front of 100 cameras and told her story because she demanded some kind of justice. she's empowered. so sometimes it makes a

difference to stand up to fight for yourself because you're controlling what is happening. each woman or man will make their own judgment about what is best for them and i am here to work very hard to be their voice and to demand what is right and demand the kind of accountability we don't have today. that's what i feel very blessed that i get to do. the thank you for coming. [applause] >> thank you. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon, welcome to the cato institute. i am vice president for research here at cato. it's my pleasure to welcome you to a book forum today, where we'll be discussing the latest book from ralph naadir, "unstoppable: the emerging

left-right alliance to dismantle the corporate state." you heard that right. ralph nader is speaking at the cato institute. and that little popping sound you hear is heads exploding all over washington. the same sound you hear when people discover store the third time the koch brothers support drug legalization, because when you look at the world through ideological spectacles and see everything in terms of left versus right, the most interesting things in the world become invisible. in particular, if you look back at recent american history, important parts of the story get lost. so when we think back to the 1960s, and opposition to the military draft, we think of this as a heroic left-wing cause. student cad cals opposing the war and -- radicals opposing the war conscription. but the other part of the story is that one of the most influential opponented of military conscription was none

other than milton freedman, leader of the chicago school and economic adviser to goldwater and nixon, but who had long opposed the military draft, had made the case against it in his seminal and then served on the nixon commission which paved the way to move to an all-volunteer army. at the end of his life, freedman said his proudest policy accomplish. was his role in ending the draft. likewise, when we look back at the heyday of deregulation, what do we think of? we think of ronald reagan and the rise of conservativism, when in fact many of the most important deregulatory initiatives of the '70s and '80s occurred during the carter administration, and indeed, airline and trucking deregulation, the leader in congress, was none other than ted expend his young aide, steven breyer, and one of the

most influential supporters outside of capitol hill was none other than our guest today, ralph nader. flash forward to today and ralph nader once again sees interesting developments in the blind spot of partisan conventional wisdom. the prevailing picture of american politics today is that of polarization, left is left and right is right and never the twain shall meet. ralph nader sees something else. he looks past the cable news sound and fury and sees the possibilities of left-right convergence in a number of key policy areas. in particular, he sees potential for principled libertarians, conservatives and progressives, to form a left-right alliance of outsiders against a corrupt and overreaching bipartisan washington establishment. the most promising causes for such alliance that landfill identifies are, one, opposing

the massive civil liberties violations of the surveillance state. two, fighting bloated pentagon spending and military overreach abroad. and, three, campaigning against corporate welfare and bailouts for privileged insiders. the common denominator is a suspicion of power, power that can be corrupted by using public power to enrich private purses, and power that can be abused by turning the coercive machineries of the state against the people it is pledged to protect. of course this is a blind spot for the establishment. if there's one thing that washington insiders are united on it's love of power, and a complete lack of suspicion of power. oh, sure, there's suspicion of the other guys having power, burt paw in the abstract is just -- but power in the an instruct is just fine for -- in the abstract is just fine for

washington insiders. the trick is making sure it's in the right hands. for libertarians, suspicion of power is in our dna, so any effort to reorient politics in this direction should come as welcome news, and for my part i can't think of a better leader from the progressive ranks than ralph nader, whose whole car has been characterized bay principled opposition to unchecked power. notably in recent years, it's easy to find people on the left criticizing civil liberties abuses during the bush administration. they got a lot more silent, the people on the left, during the obama administration. but ralph nader has maintained that even raised the decibel level as civil liberty abuses have been consolidated and

expanded. of course, ralph mader and libertarians have real differences and those differences are rooted in different conceptions of the power to be worried about. ralph is much more worried than i am about corporate power, and we libertarians tend to worry more about expansions of government power than ralph does in particular instances. but what we can certainly agree on is that when big business and big government get in bed together, we're very unlikely to ooh and ah over the baby pictures. in any event, libertarians are 0 a tiny minority in american politics so when anybody wants to extend a hand to us, i believe it behooves us to be hospitable and, hence, today's event. let me bro dues our speakers for what i think is going to be a wonderful discussion.

i'll start with the commenters. after ralph speaks our first commenter will be dan mccarthy, who is the editor of the american conservative, a magazine which of direct relevance to today's proceedings has served as a standard bearer for realism and restraint in foreign policy in contrast to the more -- i mention this with special humility has dan was right about these things back when i was dead wrong. it took the dismal experiences of occupying afghanistan and iraq to beat the whole cold war hawk out of me in addition to his work at the magazine he has wherein for numerous other publics click the spectator, reason, and worked on the 2008 ron paul campaign. tim carn yes, our other commenter, a senior political columnist at the washington examiner where his beat is the often salad intersection of business and -- squall quid business of business and

government. he examines barriers to competition in all areas of american life. the author of the big ripoff. how big business and big government steal your money, in 2006, and obama-nonics in 2009. and our main speaker today, ralph nader, surely here is a man who needs to introduction, as the sagos, but it's my job to introduce him, and i we got rid of all the unnecessary jobs in washington, then where would we be? so in a public career, now spanning a half century, ralph nader has been an activist, author, critic, gadfly, coalition builder and presidential candidate. he is particular a founding father of the modern consumer protection varmintal movements. a career that made ralph naadir one of the 100 most influential

figures in american history. i met ralph about a year and a half ago in an event related in his book. before that the last time i actually saw ralph nader on stage i was a freshman at princeton university, 18 years old mitchell roommate and i, both very libertarian and at the time very rah-rah proreagan, win to see ralph nader expecting to seedr one of satan's henchmen. so if my present-day self could have whispered in the 18 university self's year that approximately 100 years from now you'll host an event with ralph nader, my mind would have been blown. so it's my great pleasure to introduce ralph nader. [applause]

>> thank you very much. thank you all for coming. this book is a long time in being conceived, and goes back a long was in terms of my experience with people of different ideological labels, and it was quite clear to me, many, many years ago, that power structures believe in dividing and ruling, and if they can distract attention from the areas where different groups agree, to where they disagree, they can pretty much change that strategy of divide and rule into an institutional awareness level, and so you see all these arguments and all these descriptions about red state, blue state, conservative, liberal, you see#a the polarization word used all the

time. and it is true. left-right, do disagree rather interminably on things like reproductive rights, balanced budget, school prayer, gun control. with variations on the margins, those are generally areas of disagreement. but the areas of agreement are extraordinarily numerous and very fundamental. they're fundamental in termed of procedural rights of any society that calls itself democratic, such as civil liberties. they're fundamental in terms of the misuse of taxpayer dollars. president eisenhower warned us against. very fundamental in terms of preserving local, state and national sovereignty from excessive surrender to unaccountable transnational systems of corporate governance,

like nafta and the world trade organization. they are fundamental in terms of law and ordinary for the rich and powerful, not just for street criminals. they are fundamental in terms of giving volt -- voters more voices and choices, that means lower ballot access barriers. we have the highest ballot access barriers in the western world. and more choice for voters, and structurally it means with we give candidates more rights to get on the ballot, we are irrevocably giving voters more rights to have the choices of both agendas and candidates. now, those are pretty important areas, and there are more areas of convergence between left and right. this book is for serious people who read, think, and are very

serious about our country's future and its place in the world. some bry sat ritz might say, you he can get all those people in one room of disagree. the left-right convergence operates from very justins from inception to victory, depending on the issues. it operates, and it's already there in terms of public opinion. we have large majorities behind the issues i've mentioned. the polls on breaking up the big banks that are considered too big to fail, they come in at around around 90% because the people fear that wall street will crash main street again. the polls come in very high on prosecuting big-time wall street crooks. that comes in off the chart. people think there was wrong-doing in the crashing of

our economy and unemploying eight million people and burdening taxpayers with a gigantic bailout, not to mention the shredding of worker pensioned and the savings of people. and, yet, nobody was prosecuted and nobody went to jail in contrast to the savings and loan scandals, where there were prosecutions, convictions and jail terms served by over 800 officials of the s & ls, a mere 25, 30 years ago. so things are getting worse in terms of wealth. in terms of what franklin del know roosevelt called fascism. he called it in a message in 1938 to the u.s. congress asking for the contraction of a temporary national economic commission to investigate concentrate it corporate power, and he said, and i'm paraphrasing him, except for that word, which he used -- he said, whenever government is controlled by private economic

power, that is fast ship. and corporate welfare is a phrase people on the left use. it amounts to extraordinary power over government agencies and departments to turn their capitalist guaranteed system, and i used corporate, to contrast the capitalism we associate with small business, who, if they don't succeed, they're free to go bankrupt and big business, if it doesn't succeed because of mismanagement, crime, or other irregularities, they go to washington, or if they do go to bankruptcy, it is immediately tied to a government bailout. as we saw with general motors not long ago. the basis of the convergence to go even deeper is the preamble

to theyñ constitution, which is wow be the people, "not wow be the corporations." the word corporation, company, political party, none exist in our constitution. so, it's interesting to raise the question, well, then why do they control us? why do big corporations and political parties control us? it's largely an out of control judiciary that ascribed increasingly constitutional rights across the board, with the exception of the fifth amendment, self incrimination to artificial entities known as corporations. and so the sovereignty of the people began to be subordinated to the sovereignty of the transnational corporation. the basis for the convergence, then, runs in the following stages. it starts in terms of public opinion.

as abraham lincoln said, with public sentiment you can achieve anything. without public sentiment you can't achieve much of anything at all. the number of convergences in terms of public opinion, i reduce to 24. partly because i ran out of space. there are at least 24 significant areas, including the opposition to the use of imminent domain to seize homes and private businesses, and allows the state to level that area and give it to a corporation like general motors or4n fisa. the supreme court ruled that was okay. it's interesting that a 5-4 decision, and four of the 5-4 were liberals. so, a major convergence of opinion that simply is wrong. it's one thing taking private property for building a highway or a bridge or whatever.

school. but when you take private property from the powerless and then give it to the powerful private property of corporations, that's wrong. and following the kilo decision, the new london case, the 5-4 case i just mentioned, about 20-some state legislatures immediately passed legislation saying, not in our state are you going to have imminent domain on private property to be transferred to private property. indeed, at the statelegislative level, a lot is going on that could not go on without left-right legislatures, juvenile justice reform, reduce something horrendous sentences passed in 15 states. it could not have been passed without right-left cooperation by the state legislators. moreover, what we're seeing in

many state legislatures is a re-evaluation of the war on drugs, which is a severe economic and civil liberties dimensions to it. we are also seeing increasing questioning of economic development policies that require taxpayers to fund stadiums, ballparks, and assortment of companies that wouldn't have otherwise made it on their own. now, i had a talk with ed crane, who had michigan to do with the cato institute, and he said, ralph, i oppose all corporate subsidies, unconstitutional wars, civil liberties restrictions, the patriot act, and the federal reserve run amok. i said, that's pretty good start, ed. those are not minor issues, are

they? so the question becomes, how do you turn large major-tary an left-right opinion operationally so it moves into coverage by the press, then being put on the table of candidates at local, state, national elections, and then it becomes part of debates and then the media covers it and the pollsters cover it and basically we're off to a strain of political dynamism from which there is no return. they become part of the public discourse. surprising as it may

inside power is corporate. so it's important to ask yourselves on issue by issue another what stage from public opinion convergence to becoming more coherently visible to being recognized by the media and the pollsters and to me put on the table by the candidates.

and to be part of the public discourse. and interesting one is the minimum wage. the minimum wage is an anathema to libertarian. but it isn't just libertarians and liberals converging, maybe libertarians or conservatives would never call themselves corporatists, liberals and progressives, and when you come in 70-80% for a restoration of the minimum wage to what it would have been at the level of 1968 adjusted for inflation, which would be just under $11 an hour now, at 7.25 federal now, when you do that, you know there are a lot of conservative workers in wal-mart and elsewhere who are notlb going to sacrifice the necessities of life for their family and reject moving up to the 1968 inflation adjusted level because they're

conservatives. and this raises an interesting point. that at a high live of an extraction is where you -- abstraction is where you get most disagreement because political power brokers realize they can get people disagreeing, fighting each other, rooting themselves in immoveable positions, at abstract levels of general festival, -- philosopy and general labeling, but when you bring it down to where people work, raise their families, at the community level, the reality begins to weaken the ideological abstract rigidity that people might hold otherwise. in the book, i took an opportunity to see how corporatist masquerading as conservatives, and conservatives vastly outnumber corporatists.

corporatist happen to be more in power. how corporatists misinterpret or conveniently avoid it, recognizing that their principle starting with adam smith, were almost uniformly as worried about corporate coercion as they were about government coercion. it's just that corporate coercion spills over into government coercion, as its principle instrument of control in addition to direct corporate coercion on, say, consumers or other recipients. adam smith, who is probably the most widely read political philosopher of his time -- he even went into customs reports. he read travelers who went all over the world at that time in trading, and wrote their

accounts, a voracious absorber of knowledge. he believed in public education. he believed in public works. he warned repeatedly about businesses getting together to collude. he was against government regulation because he believed it would always be taken over by corporate power and used against the people. twisted. even someone like frederick haiy was someone who advocated in the words of his biographer, regulatory mechanisms to prevent fraud, deception and monopolies and said there was a strong case for government providing, quote, some minimum of food, shelter and clothing sufficient to preserve health and capacity to work. and for organizing a comprehensive system of social

insurance for sickness and accidents. he was against medicare:÷ and medicaid because they weren't universal. they were discriminatory. so, it is important to also show that there is a larger convergence between many of thec heralded liberal philosophers as well as the conservative philosophers. i want to say just a few brief words on the issue of government waste. this is one of the early convergences, as far as i was concerned, and what really convinced me that left-right convergence is likely to be the only political re-alignment that can get things done in this country in the next 12 years. you can see it bubbling up even in congress, with over a year

ago differs and liberals in the house of representatives, defying john boehner and nancy pelosi, almost passed a bill to block the dragnet snooping of the nsa of the american people. you can see it in the passage of the whistleblower protection bill of 2012 and the false claims act of 1986, to give public employees the rights and the protections to blow the whistle on corporate and other fraud on the taxpayers, on medicare or pentagon contracts. but in 1983, our groups were fighting a project called the clinch river beard reactor, and it was on the clinch river in tennessee, a pet project of senator howard baker, who sadly just passed away yesterday, and it was the pet project also of

westinghouse and general electric and it was supported by ronald reagan. what was interesting about this was it already spent $1.3 billion and there wasn't a shovel in the ground. and the projection was that it was going to go three to four times over the original cost estimates. now, our side didn't like the breeder reactor because of safety issues, of plutonium proliferation, and risks, and we weren't getting very farred, and senator bumpers called us up from arkansas and say why don't you connect with right wing groups. i have been hearing mumbles here. so i called up fred smith. libertarian than fred smith. and he was running a competitive enterprise institute. and he says i don't like this for taxpayer protection reasons.

it's a waste of taxpayer dollars. so, we created a group called taxpayer protection group, the umbrella group of left and right, and we went to work on capital hill, against all odds, by the way. taking on the nuclear industry, ronald reagan, powerful legislators and the congress, and the lobbies of g and westinghouse is -- of ge andz@ westinghouse is pretty much unsurmountable. the vote came in the senate. we won 56- 40. that was the end of the clinch river breeder react or. now, why did this work? because a new group was formed, wasn't very elaborate, which was the umbrella eve both sides -- over both sides and the people under that umbrella went to work everyday and only had the clinch river on their mind.

the problem with think tanks like heritage, progressive policy institute, economic policy institute, cato, is they've got a lot of issues. all those groups have come out years ago with attacks on corporate welfare they put out reports on corporate welfare. but the next stage didn't occur. they didn't get into an operational mode to do something about it. and that to me is the problem. unless we start nonprofit advocacy groups that are singularly focused on conventioning issues eric not a going to happen because every day people go to work for cato, heritage, public citizen, economic policy institute, they have other priorities for which they get funding, and those other priorities for which they get funding are usuallyw left-right disagreement issues, and so they're not about to have the elbow room or the space to

work on what the idealistically believe in that we call convergence. this happened with john kashich, a perfect example. house budget chair, many of you know. i persuaded him in 1998 to hold the first hearings in american history on corporate welfare. imagine that? the first hearings. and he invited grover nord nordquist and me and others, left right and it was a marvelous day, but the press hardly reported it because they knew it was going nowhere. they read john kashich as saying -- he is a sincere person, believes in restricting corporate welfare. at the time he even criticized the blooded -- bloated military budget but it would not move to the legislative stage.

governor kashich of ohio received three letters from me when he was elected and afterwards, saying, now you can do something about corporate welfare at the state level, and i've received no answer. now, that's because there is no infrastructure for convergence to push these matters further. when i was debating milton freedman, i got him to agree that there should be regulation of pollution. he didn't think there should be licensing for doctors. he thought the american medical association was the worst cartel but agreed there should be regulation against pollutants, much of which you can't see, sense, long-range damage, all the rest of it. not exactly market choice. i was debating ronald reagan once, and i challenged him on corporate subsidies, and he came right back and he said, i always

tell my friends in the business world, not to put their hand in the washington trough. and so he came out against corporate subsidies. but when he became president, he didn't challenge corporate subsidies, and the constant expansion of corporate welfare proceeded under his watch by and large as well. now, again, this lack of an infrastructure. public opinion convergence may raise the alarm in the minds of politicians, but it doesn't get very far unless it can be cogently visible and get media and get polls and start to get on the table of one gyy more of the political candidates' various levels. so, i have a chapter in my book called "dear billionaire." some people think i'm on a kick trying to find enlightened

visionaries. and i figured the following. in have been more billionaires in the united states. some of them don't even know they're billionaires. but they are. in terms of their net worth. there's got to be a few enlightened ones in their%/ 70s 80s that are no longer thinking of just amassing wealth. they're think can of posterity. one of the favorite words of our founding fathers. thinking off their children and grandchildren and very worried before the where this country is sliding, and where the world is going. and so to start these connector, nonprofit advocacy groups to convergence for left-right alliances to dismantle the corporate state, it's going to require some of these groups 0 who are not conflicted with other agenda priorities for which they are receiving funding day after day. i want to end on this note.

brink has the priorities of the bloated military budget and empire, civil libertied and the patriot act and crony capital limp. there's another libertarian in new hampshire, steve ericson. his big thing is term limits, gerrymandering, and election reform. i point these differences out because there will be differences of priorities. these are shifting alliances. they don't have to be written in stone. there will be different priorities, and there will be some disagreements over means to an end, although there are less disagreement on means to the end when you're opposing something and you want to abolish it, and so the aggregation of concentrated power is so'i(nñ hy that there's plenty of stuff to oppose, and abolish without boiling down into differences of

what road do you take to a commonly agreed upon end. last point i want to make is -- this is very important -- crony capitalism, the binding phenomenon, the convergence of big business with big government, run by corporate democrats and corporate republicans. that is the convergence we're up against with the left-right alliance to dismantle the corporate state. that is inextricably linked to a double standard in enforcement of the law to the weaken forcement against the corporate crime wave. whether it's corporate damaging your health and safety through products, soil, air, whether

it's corporate corruption and takeover of government, whether it's looting the taxpayer dollars, the issue of corporate crime does not come close in terms of political attentiveness to the issue of street crime. i call corporate crime, crime in the suites. i'm prone to rhyming. crime in the suites has got to raise itself in terms of something which liberal and progressives are much keen early sensitive to than the consecutives and liberal -- conservatives and liberals i spoke to. not that the latter are insensitive. there's just a different level of urgencies. just like conservatives and libertarians have a different level of urgency about government waste and programs that don't work, than liberals and progressives.

but the impunity and immunity of corporate crime and all its complex manifestations, as well as itself global presence of evasions, brings down the very principle of the rule of law in this country. if there's anything conservative liberal economists have agreed on, it's that without the rule of law, without the freedom of contract, without access to the courts, for wrongful injuries,

we have lost the freedom of contract because we cannot go across the street to another vendor because the contracts are pretty much the same, involving unilateral modification, compulsory a. arbitration. i hope i conveyed enough -- it's easy to elicit disagreement. that's with what this is about. we agree we disagree, but now we have to focus on agreeing where we agree, and turning it into operational change for our country and its place in the world. thank you. [applause] >> ralph, thank you for those remarks and thank you also for this book. "unstoppable: the emerging left-right alliance to dismantle the corporate state." i should say this book does

contain just fascinating material, both for conservatives and libertarians. ralph mentioned friedrich hayak as one of the libertarians he finds chon ground with. many others as well and many traditionalists conservatives, too; so wherever you're coming from on the left or right, among conservatives, libertarians or liberals or progressives you'll fine something in this book you didn't know before and will find very compelling, and it will change the wail you look at the political spectrum. so let me thank also the cato institute and brink lindsey for his very kind introductory remarks. ralph's book really gives us a new set of tools for deal waiving very old problem. a problem that the left and right by themselves have both been inadequate for addressing. a problem that was very well diagnosed about half a century ago. carl oglesby, leader of students for a democratic so i vote, left

wing student activist group during the vietnam war era, was asked to name the system, what was this system which the new left was opposing, what was responsible for the vietnam war, the militarization of our campuses and the sense of ennui and hopelessness starting to overtake an entire generation. carls oglesby called the system corporate liberalism. named very well in the fact he got the essence of the system right and the name itself conveys something of the difficulty we face in fighting the system of corporate liberalism, because the name corporate liberalisms sounds as if i might be capitalist mick, might have something to do with free markets, that's what the word corporate sometimes means to men conservatives and libertarians but is it the and they ralph's book shows very effectively that the kind of political economy that we have is not really a true free market. in fact it is a system that is crony capitalist and libertarian

pop lists such as tim kearney have been doing brilliant work expecting how government and big business are in bet together -- in bed together. so corporate liberalism is not capitalism and you can oppose corporate liberalism without opposing capitalism. in the grand coalition of left and right there are people who have critiques they make of capitalism, but they're free to do that and those who support capital him are free to say we want a capitalism but don't want crony capitalism, favoritism, don't want corporations to have special government privileges they use to attain monopolies. corporate liberalisms sounds like it might have something to do with freedom. liberalism denotes the idea of human rights, perhaps democracy, many of the good thing that come with our system of government and historical freedoms.

it is ill liberal if we oppose corporate liberalism? the fact it is not ill liberal to oppose corporate liberalism because corporate liberalism is a hitch critical system of economics, politics and foreign policy. corporate liberalism is responsible for such things as the normalization of torture over the past decade, for the vastly growing surveillance state, which grabs the metadata of every man, woman and child in the united states, and in fact around the world, and the corporate liberalism is also responsible for the erosion of rights that date back to the magna carta in some cases even earlier. now we have detention without trial, detention without charge in many cases, as a result of the direction that our government has taken in an acute way over the last decade but in a gradual way over the last half century at least, if not even longer. so corporate liberalism is

something that is crosssive of many of the things we love most dearly. the free market, of freedom in government, and indeed of human rights and basic decency. so why is it so difficult? why does ralph have to wright this book in order to show us how to fight this system? why is that not everyone simply recognizes the evil for what it is? again, here i think the name is accurate because it kind of shows us how a confusion has been introduced into our political discourse which cripples us and makes us incapable of fighting the system which both left and rightic highses is extremely dangerous. it's very easy for people in the main stream or establishment of the republican or democratic parties to say if your against corporate liberalism -- they use many other words -- itch your against this, you must be against free markets. you're against corporations? that means you obviously are some oater of communist. or liberalism. are you against liberalism, the

idea that humans everywhere are entitled to democracy and human rights? if you're against that, then you -- if you're against american military operations abroad, then you must be against the universal ethics that liberalism has traditionally espoused. so there's this conflict, and there's also the complication which ralph nader's book helps to solve, that whenever the corporate liberals, whenever the establishment in both political parties, wants to prevent any kind of left-right collaboration, they simply say, look at your allsful you may have differences with the main stream of -- or the establishment, rather, of the republican party, with the leadership of the democratic party, but aren't you actually closer whether you're on the left or right to the establishment in either party than you are to the extreme on the other side? isn't someone like ralph nader really against all kinds of market freedom and isn't even a compromise kind of crony capitalism better tan progressivism which may seem to be totally opposed to what libertarians believe in terms of

market economics? nader's book, with -- disspells the myth and shows it's not the case that american progressives are opposed to capital jim, root and branch, but opposed to its abuses and libertarians and conservatives are as well. but there's a deeper and even more fundamental difficulty that we face in going to war with corporate liberalism. and that its that corporate libbal rhythm has enmisched itself in our very way of life. in our way of thinking but institutions of our economic life, in our ways of conceiving foreign policy, and indeed in our government. and corporate liberals are able to say some of justification that you have to be cable not to throw the baby out with the bart water -- with the bath water, and in trying to attack corporate liberalism you will be doing damage to the free market and will we doing damage to human rights, liberty and democracy. because there's been such a historical convergence, the bad

kind of convergence, between corporate liberalism and the american way of life we find ourselves confronting an intractable problem and that's why ralph nader's book is val valuable because it shows us practical steps we can take in starting to separate the american way of life from this perversion of the american way of life that represents corporate liberalism. i explore difficulties in foreign policy in the cover store of my most recent issue, and talking about modern libballism tends to go hand in glove with empire. novelty -- not because it has to but a things have einvolved in a dangerous way. ralph nader's book shows us the building blocks we can use to start building a much bigger picture over time. and it starts with much common sense practical ideas as auditing the pentagon, conservatives believe in

economic rigor and efficiency, progressives believe the pentagon is an institution that has committed a great many abuses. surely we can come together and say the pentagon should be subject to the same sort of auditing almost every other government agency is. this has not been the case until now, and it's something that does i think bring together left and right in a very practical and efficient way. as we walk through these kinds of practical steps that bring us together and that help desspell the myths that prevent us from cooperating i think we can then begin to address the three most fundamental questions the country is facing and i believe as we step back and consider these three questions, we realize they really are questions that can't be answered by left or right alone. that really are not -- they're questions that cannot be answered by some of the more reflexive responses that you get from conservatives lookber tareans or progressives. the first of these questions is, what kind of economy do we actually have in this country? is it in fact a free market economy, which liberals -- people on the left look at our

economy and look at various abuses, look at the plight of the poor and the middle class and say, well, if this is the free market, we're opost officed to the free market. is it in fact the case that the economy we have is a free market economy or is it a mixed economy? or some other kind of economy? the second great question i think we're going to wind up address as we walk through the practical steps that ralph nader presented it the question of what kind of government to we have. >> guest: do we have a democracy and do we have a mixed constitutional regime, perhaps of the sort the founding fathers aspired to? or something else, deformed system, programs al oligarch di, die, and there are -- taking a lard look at the way the political system works and have come to dark conclusions. the final question, very gig one, is what kind of foreign policy do we want? what is america's place in the world and what strategy is appropriate to achieving it? this question has gone unaddressed for so long that a

certain insider establishment which has very little transparency and makes decisions behind closed doors hayes been able to use ideology and rhetoric to get us into a number of wars that have had tremendously negative implications for our economy, civil liberties and our very souls. so i think ralph nader's book, while it can't possibly answer all these questions in a comprehensive way no single book could, it does show us the beginnings of the answers and ground in such a way we can start to find out how to address the problems of corporate liberalism. thank you very much. [applause] >> thanks, dan. thanks, ralph, for writing the book, thank you, cato, for hosting us. i had a lot of positive stuff and a lot of criticism to give since it's been so positive i might lean a little heavier on the criticism in my comments.

i did want to talk about -- first of all i'm now a suburban conservative libertarian catholic dad but i was born a limousine liberal in greenwich village, brought up by liberal parents. my dad was an antitrust lawyer who used reagan rig's name as a curse, and all that we inherited from him was a healthy distrust of big business, and i don't think enough of the right and libertarians started off with that healthy distrust. but the idea that pro business and pro free markets were identical i think dominated the right and prevented any interesting discussion on this topic until the bailouts, and then when barack obama was elected, having gotten a million dollars from employees employeef goldman sachs, the most anybody rayed from a single company, obama and goldman sachs broke the record in that period whenb,

mccain feingold existed and then passed the stimulus with the sport of the chamber of commerce, passed obamacare letting the hospitals and drug companies rye -- that woke up people on the right to the idea that the single biggest in the of free enterprise, the single biggest threat, is the big business lobby supporting more regulation, and i say that to conservative audiences all the time and usually the followup line is, it's not ralph nader. he's not the biggest enemy. holding him out as a bogeyman to the left and that was before this book, and i think this will make it very clear that if what you're fighting against for is free enterprise, then your biggest economy is corporatism so you have to ally with the left, and the most important things i think in "unstoppable" are the warnings to libertarians

that you're being played, being used by big business. at one point he writes the corporatists runs let the libertarians and conservatives have the paper platform, the party platforms, and then they throw out a welcome mat for big business lobbyist with their slush fund whos anything but libertarian or conservative in their demands. i spent hundreds of columns and two books trying to wright this and in one pave you put very well what the dynamic in the republican party is. in fact my first book i was looking for a blush on the back and i -- a blurb on the back and a went to a republican congressman who voted appropriately and the chief of staff came back and say the congressman loves the book but is not going to blurb it. i said why not? he said, who too you think funds or campaigns? it's the family research -- it's not in the family research council. so this the problem. the concentrated benefits go to

the ryenç sippants of corporate welfare. there's not a lobby against corporate welfare, ralph nader also emphasizes the need for institutions to the point that somebody with sort of a libertarian sense like me doesn't like the constant creation of institutions, but it's true. there is a lobby right now, the biggest, most important fight in this regard is the export-import bank, corporate welfare agency, i'll talk about that more later. there's a very strong lobby to keep export subsidies going. there's a very tiny lobby against the export subsidies bus the victims are the guys who don't get the loans because they're guaranteed for somebody else, or maybe whose competitors get them. they're never going to be as concentrated and organized as recipients of the subsidies. others interesting warning in the book was for conservatives particularly. i consider myself one. but nader writes, since established ways and