♪ host: good morning. the headline in "the new york times" this morning, "the gloves come off in the midterm elections." "the weekly standard" has an in- depth profile of the republican

south dakota senator in his 2012 possible gop presidential bid. "the president will attend the first of campaign rallies tomorrow afternoon, heading from iowa to virginia." with a theme throughout the papers this morning, divided government. a response to the president's weekly radio address yesterday, "can the two parties work together in the next congress"? for republicans, 202-737-0001. for democrats, 202-737-0002. for independents, 202-628-0205. yesterday from "the washington post," based on a weekly radio

address and internet address yesterday -- host: also this morning, "politics and policy."

host: we will get your phone calls in a moment, but first year is the president yesterday in his weekly address. >> many of the republican leaders were amongst the architects of the failed policy. grounded in the same moral philosophy, cut the taxes for millionaires and billionaires, cut the rules for wall street, cut loose the middle class to fend for itself. that is the echo of a disastrous decade that we cannot afford to

relive. host: paul pearson has this, "cough up in the middle. what is a president who do"? "had the president realized earlier that he never could have won over corporate america, he never would have attempted." host: with all of this we will get your reaction and we will hear from congressman kevin mccarthy in a moment. al, new jersey -- he hung up. moving on to virginia.

caller: as i told your screener, i do not want republicans -- i should say conservatives -- to work with democrats. if we have seen what democrats will do, people losing their homes. we are told that we are racist and stupid for opposing. yesterday john kerry said that voters are influenced by the truth and the fact, and to be honest with you i hope the conservatives takeover of congress and that they do not work with democrats. they will explain to the voters why obama is going against their will again. host: from "business week," "no

one should be under the illusion that there is an easy path to compromise. likely it is even more polarized than the current one -- host:a anna, ohio, good morning. caller: the two sides could work together, but the last couple of years are an indication that the republicans will not cooperate no matter what. they are the party of no. obama has reached out over and over again. to someone like me, i might get over it, they will work with you. i keep thinking that as far as the democratic voters go, we cannot be giving up so easily. no one said that these changes

would be easy. where were these tea party people when the bush administration was in office memo we had two expensive wars in blood, treasurer, tax cuts for wealthy, deregulation. they took us to the edge with wall street. i keep saying to voters that they need to keep pushing and keep the democrats in their. keep pushing, folks. host: you can join the conversation online, the twittered page is twitter.com/c- spanwj. or you can send us an e-mail and journal@c-span.org. we welcome our listeners that listen to was on radio. this is from the weekend edition

of "the wall street journal." host: one final point from her -- "what is the mainstream media getting wrong in getting right? of the media does not appreciate how livid people are with washington."

host: by the way, new polls are showing barbara boxer ahead in california. matt dillon says from arlington, texas, good morning, welcome to "washington journal." caller: thank you for taking my call. i just wanted to comment on how the movement that the tea party has, gosh, we are just tired all the losses and misplaced promises that the people always seem to give us. we had a grassroots movement for everyone. republicans, democrats, and tea party yeariers.

this new financial reform bill has nothing to do with that, they act like we will just forget about it. host: one of our viewers says -- "time for the next civil war." congressman kevin mccarthy will be in virginia, one of the events featured on our website, c-span.org, delivering the republican response to the address yesterday, responding to what the president said about the agenda reported by the gop. here is congressman mccarthy. >> we know that you wanted a government that was dedicated to the people, so that is why we wrote this pledge. if it is about you.

this pledge focuses largely on three things. a plan to create jobs in economic uncertainty and make an ump -- america more competitive, i plan to cut wasteful washington spending and reduce the size of government, restoring trust in government, and body in the american rejection of the notion that we can simply tax, barrault, and spend our way to prosperity, offering a new way forward that has not been tried in washington. host: the author of the new book, "mad as hell, how the tea party movement is fundamentally remaking our two party system." he will join us in a little while. joe, welcome to "washington journal." caller: good morning, i would like to make a couple of comments.

as of your first caller this morning talk about compromise and she called herself a progressive. that is just another name for liberal. i would suggest to her and other like-minded individuals who are -- they are like-minded individuals in that they are thinking as a group, which embodies itself on the fact that compromise only comes on their terms. let me suggest to all of the liberals out there that you basically cause all of our problems, including the taxes, the loss of jobs that we have, the increasing massive debt in this country. i would suggest to all of those people that change is in the

air. host: i am not here to defend either party, would you not say that they're both responsible for the situation we are in? republicans had the house for the first six years of the decades. caller: might i suggest to you that that question betrays your allegiances politically. host: not at all. i am asking you are both parties not at fault? caller: i will respond to you that the deficit over the last 20 months i believe it is between four times higher and seven times higher. host: i -- host: you are absolutely right. caller: let me answer the question. host: i just said that you were right. caller: and who is responsible for that? the republicans? host: not at all.

i am not here to debate you. you made the statement that liberals have caused all the problems, i am asking you if both parties deserve blame. host: have your jobs improved? has the unemployment situation improved? as the debt level in this country improved? this coming election is not about something that happened under the bush administration. this coming election is not about republican spending that perhaps cause an insignificant amount of the current debt that we have. my suggestion to you is that up -- is that the energized base will not favor progressives or liberals. whether or not you say both parties are responsible for the current debt, i disagree with you 100%.

obama never worked with republicans. it was either his way or the highway. he realized he had control of the presidency, the house, and the senate. he would not work with republicans. i think he said that he was post-partisan. that is another example of how a person can get away with a lot. the media, such as yourself, never questions the obama administration on their duplicitous nature, lying to the american public. host: i would have to disagree, i think that this network provides a forum for all points of view and questions all political parties. from the front page of "the washington post" this morning,

"november elections will be a big test of the movement's power." host: that is this morning from "the washington post." kathy, michigan, welcome to "washington journal." caller: thank you for taking my call. good morning, stephen. the president has a lot of work to do. the previous caller stating that both parties are not responsible is ridiculous, they're both responsible and the mirror each other in so many ways. i can give you an example of the

changes for health care with obama putting through that initiative. a doctor that excised something from a doctor's office for $182, the same person when to the hospital for medication because the pharmacy would not touch it, $500, two separate charges. his eyebrows went up and he said thank you for that information. the parties that are supposed to work together, that is their job. they are supposed to represent all of the people. in terms of compromise, bob dylan says that everyone loves compromise. we started to shed jobs in the 1970's starting with manufacturing. i have one word of advice for

the president, it really bothers me when i hear politicians say they are the best. no one is the best. we can be the best sometimes. i cannot handle it, it bothers me a lot and i wish that he would stop saying that. as far as the money, they are pouring money all over the united states. one of the projects that i do not even know what the cost, there are things going on. i just saw the bike trail here, with a sign up, probably due to the waterfall area of. things are being done but it is not going to happen in four years. it will take a long time and i expect anyone who represents me to be sensible and think about

the people. host: thank you for the call. more from the twitter page, this response to the earlier caller from maryland." "i would love to forget living in these last eight years." "does the gop pledge topped the contract"? host: newt gingrich will be featured tonight on "road to the white house" as he considers a possible presidential bid.

>> what you are in the minority, you have to yell pretty loud to get attention. when you are the brand new speaker, when you whisper of is more attention than you used to get -- when he whispered it is more attention than what you used to get. -- when you whisper is more attention than what you used to get. if you could be livid, you are clearly heading boundaries that i should have set regarding things that i did and how i operated that were in retrospect, wrong, i did not understand the context of this new job and i did not do it as well as i should have. host: our interview with newt gingrich tonight at 6:00 27:30, "rode to the white house." couple of other union notes from the political leaders looking more immediately to the midterm elections, "the gloves are coming off early."

writing about karl rove, "he is playing a lead role in building what amounts to be a shadow republican party." host: one of his advisers in this process will be joining us next week. illinois, good morning, you are on the air. caller: good morning, young man, in 72 years old. are you there? host: yes, thank you.

caller: i have been involved in politics since i was 25. are the democrats and pop -- republicans working together? of course they are. i will give you two points, president clinton served with a republican congress. republicans wrote a bill for nafta. he signed it. and then he signed a release to the chinese, and just before he left office he borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars out of the social security fund and they have been doing that forever. that is the point there. back in 1984 they told us it

would be a good idea to take us off the gold standard, where we would have to have enough money in gold to back up the dollars that we spend. they changed that. the country is working along and working together for their own purpose right there in the federal government. host: thank you for the call. we have this from "the philadelphia inquirer." the election, "rising and falling amidst the barack obama approval rating."

host: from our twitter paid on the question you're asking about divided government-- host: next is a viewer from florida, p.j., republican line, welcome to "washington journal." caller: thank you. i must admit that you have always been fair and balanced and you have always been my favorite host, although i have no problem with any of them. you are very good at what you do. yes, i think that they can work together if, as the recommended

talking heads are saying, barack obama moves to the right. i do not think that obama has really tried to work with republicans. i think that he is very arrogant and he speaks with a forked tongue. look at today, when you showed his saturday speech. he just looks and arrogant. he thinks that saying it makes it so. but the dirty little secret is that it does not. i do not think that he tries to work with republicans. i am a teacher so i cannot listen to you all except on the weekends, but i have noticed that many of the people that called just seemed to pare it. most of them are minorities, which is fair that they love

obama, i had nothing against him, i thought he was good for the country, to have an african- american. i like him as a person and i of course wanted him to succeed, but i really do think that it is all about him. i see that. host: what will happen in november? caller: it would be a mixed blessing. not necessarily a blessing if the republicans take over both houses. the conventional wisdom is obviously that they will not, that they will get one house, but i do none know if obama has the same thing that bill clinton had. bill clinton was a pragmatist. he worked both sides. where were the democrats going to go? they wound up with him. i do not know if obama is going

to do that or not. i am not prescient and i am unable to make that call. again, i want to thank you so much. you are fair. and you ask when some of them just make outrageous statements, you will say something. many of the other hosts do not. host: [unintelligible] go-ahead, sorry. caller: that is ok. you are the best at what you do. thank you for being there. hosts -- think you for being there. host: thank you. what grade do you host? caller: high school english, 10th grade, leningrad, as well as english literature. host: we should have you come back to ask why our kids are not learning enough in elementary schools and secondary schools. caller: i went back to teaching after many years of raising my

daughter who graduated from columbia and she just got her ph.d.. i am proud of her and i must say that to be honest with her, i had a better education in high school than even the teachers that are teaching now. they do not even know grammar themselves because they are just not getting it. i am really contemplating one of these days writing a book about all of the terrible things that are wrong in education. part of it is the teachers' union that will not allow teachers that are incompetent and do not do their job, they will protect them at any cost. just helping these children when they cannot read and can write. host: you write the book and i

promise that we will feature you on this network. thank you for calling. caller: you are so welcome, goodbye. host: the president will be talking about education tomorrow in a live interview with "but today show." looking ahead of politics, the cover story of "the weekly standard." "the presidential hopes of jump soon -- john thune." in new hampshire over the weekend, mitt romney speaking to the republican party convention , "mitt romney claims that obama is at war with business." here is part of the speech that you could watch in its entirety tonight. >> about one year ago i began to

get some hope that he had understood the mistakes he made in his first year. he had a jobs summit, as i recall, saying the government does not create jobs, only the private sector can create that. the conditions, not sure who put that in the teleprompter but it was right on. [laughter] which was exactly true. i looked to see that what he had done and to see if what he had none had actually encourage businesses to grow or if it had caused them uncertainty and they had pulled back. think about them one at a time. raising taxes does not encourage small business to grow. taking the tax dividend from 15% to 39% does not encourage people

to invest in growth. the takeover of health care by the government was a huge mistake can cause everyone in the field the ball back. [applause] his cap and tax bill would have raised the use of energy by an undetermined it amount without them knowing the future cost of energy. vilifying job creators after each other, bond investors, doctors, people in the medical insurance business, people that went to accompany me these moves in las vegas, they were all vilified and demonized. most disturbing was at how one. we were saddled with a $1 trillion deficit. people that were thinking about

growing a business, investing, hiring new people had to ask themselves what the dollar would be worth down the road and, as a result, the small business community, big businesses, they pulled back, doing the opposite of what was needed to get this economy going. proving something that ronald reagan said about liberals, it is not that they are ignorant but it is that what they know is wrong. host: that was mitt romney speaking yesterday, sounding very much like a candidate in 2012, one that most political observers expect him to be. you can read more online and tonight as part of our road to the white house coverage. george will wrote about 2012 in his syndicated column --

host: back to your calls, divided government -- can the two parties work together? linda is joining us from montclair, new jersey. democratic line. caller: good morning. my first thing, this did not just happen overnight and it is not going to be key -- cleaned up overnight. president obama has not been in office for two years, yet people are blaming him for unemployment and the economy when obviously it is something that has been coming for some time. that is the first point.

the second point is that people need a representative that works with them, if they wanted to. it is our responsibility to pay attention and hold them accountable. if they are not doing what they are supposed to be doing working with the other side, it is time to move on. the american people need to pay attention and wake up, rather than being worried about the race, creed, color, even ideals, of we need to work together to pay attention to our representatives, holding them accountable and if they are not doing what they are supposed to be doing, get rid of them. host: another viewer asks -- what if the american people vote them all-out, all of them?

of this e-mail -- "americans are not fully informed, of people that think that obama is the source of our problems with both parties working together. dallas, good morning. caller: how are you? i think if you are fair. they are not going to work together, of they have very little say so on what is going on as far as legislation is concerned. the 5000 lobbyists on k street are writing the legislation. as far as any meaningful legislation like health care bill that we have right out of the park, that was a giveaway to the insurance company, with benefits that will be so expensive and they will be

dropped by the insurance company because the lobbyists are in control. we need anti-finance reform and the only way that that is falling and have been is if we stop the millions of dollars that it takes to run a campaign if the airwaves belong to us, which is where the majority of the money is spent on campaign. during the election time, the net worth should be giving three times the candidates, which would help, free time. the lady calling about medicare and social security? of course they were. $7 trillion in treasury bonds to secure the debt in the social security trust fund. much of that was created under bush. every budget cycle has $180

billion to $250 billion. this is astounding. i do not know how long it was building up for, but i think that nancy pelosi with the health care bill, one of the reasons they have to get past, i do not know if she has gotten rid of some of the debt for medicare, but $37 trillion -- and then, to top it off, we, the people, do not matter. wall street is what matters. $26 trillion, it is a farce. it is almost -- when you have the corporations and big special interests, even though they will

not admit that it is quid pro quo. host: getting back to the business week column from online, 2011 will be a triangulating time for obama. " host: vivian has this comment -- hold them accountable, if they do not do what they are supposed to do, throw them out. then you should not vote for the do nothing party. michael, republican line. caller: it is great because i do not want to work with liberals. we have seen the agenda from the obama administration. as one of your earlier callers said, he is no pragmatist, he is

no bill clinton. he has his own agenda. i refuse to work with liberal ideologies. it comes through in many of ronald reagan's former speeches, where he sees the cracks in the foundation that liberals are trying to make in our country. we are seeing that come full- scale with this administration. so, the tea party people, they would come into office and at the end of your tenure, they would work for law offices, doing a job rather than being a career politician and that is the difference. when you know that you are there for a specific reason, for the betterment of our country, maintaining the principles that we are founded on, at the end of the day we understand. funny that you read that thing about hillary clinton. she is too prideful and too

self-indulgent in her own self to ever become his running mate. it is not possible. as long as she keeps doing things like going to the united nations and filing human-rights complaints, things that impede if upon our country, no one is ever going to except her except for a bunch of liberals, which is what we do not need. host: thank you so much. michael palladino, the story this morning in "the new york post." "the candidate, the wife, and his mistress." he is challenging andrew cuomo. recent polls show him between 10

points and 16 points behind. "the new york times" has listen up, saying that they, in the midterm elections, "think that empathy has rarely help the president."

host: steve, boston, and welcome to "washington journal." caller: you could run this show and as this question for three weeks, you will never get a democrat that says that they refuse to work with republicans. the second point that i want to make, thursday they had his dog and pony show, the pledge was that they wanted to cut taxes and create jobs. loans in tax savings for small businesses. they got one republican vote. they got three republican votes. one of them from a republican that is retiring, so he is not

answerable to the leadership of the party. there is, right there. this would be a republican bill in any other day or year. this would have been a republican bill. when it was put in by democrats that won the last election, it was why they had the majority that they had. just that one piece of business, if one republican could call and have an explanation how all but one republican could vote against that bill of small businesses right after they did a dog and pony show about the pledge to america, cutting taxes and creating jobs.

host: thank you for calling in from massachusetts. we have a look at the governor's race in massachusetts, charles baker now closing in on republican candidates, focusing on the economy, saying that the effect on the race remains unclear. cahill is the third-party candidate in the race. from "the sunday sun times," samuel jackson talked about -- sandy jackson talked about her husband's extramarital affair. the budget looms large in colorado as he faces perhaps the worst fiscal crisis in history, none of them offering concrete plans.

fort worth, texas, divided government, can they work together? caller: it has been proven throughout history that it is a power grab and it always has been. they always talk about cutting benefits for the masses, republican employees make an astronomical amount of benefits, yet they talk about cutting this and that. this has been going on for so long. i have been listening to c-span since it started, i really have, and i have enjoyed so much because i have learned so much,

but there's always this bitterness an argument. where jobs are being transferred overseas it is like an annuity, you grow and you grow. much more efficient, especially with plants that were automated. of we need a third party that will go out there and fight for the truth. host: is that the role of the tea party?

caller: i hope so, i hope that the two-party is not just a spinoff of neoconservatives that will take away from what our country is meant to be. host: from our twitter page -- barack obama is the most bitter partisan ever, he never let anything except protests. from " new york post code -- from "the new york post" this morning, "the cnn strange experiment with eliot spitzer got off to a rocky start even before his new show began, giving viewers a full monty of his split persona. one moment he was and a head discussing new york politics, then he shifted into attack mode, blasting andrew cuomo, calling him the dirtiest,

nastiest political player out there. host: dale, lincoln, neb., good morning. caller: i do not think that people understand what liberal means, it means open-minded. the grand old party that i belong to right now a change from the obstructionists' party it if people had been smart enough to vote for ross perot when they passed nafta o, the js

would be wishing out of the country. as far as working together, i remember when clinton and not a single republican voted to balance the budget. host: some of the books on the best seller list, steven hawking is "the grand design." "crime against liberty" that is number two. also on the top 10 list, "al viars," "empire of the summer moon," "and empire of the moon." taking aim of politics in this country, including the delaware republicans, here's an excerpt from last night's program. >> christina o'donnell is here.

>> have her come in. >> hello. [laughter] >> hello, my name is ted, this is jim. please sit down. so, we are handling the rnc role in the delaware senate campaign. >> ok. quite obviously the republican national committee did not support you in the primary. >> but you won fair and square and we are behind you 100%. >> thank you, nice to hear. >> the latest polls have you trailing because of trivial things from the past like talking about babbling in witchcraft. >> i was 16. have you ever not been 16? >> your claim that scientists were developing mice with human

brains? >> i do not even remember saying [laughter] that] -- saying that. [laughter] i guess that i did. >> and of course there is your anti-masturbation campaign. >> [laughter] >> that was from last night, "saturday night live" debuted last night for the season and everyone is fair game. scott rasmussen is our next guest, author of "mad as hell." nancy, good morning, look into "washington journal." -- welcome to washington journal. caller: if we want our government to work for us, we will have to get both the house and the senate to sit in that room that we give them instead

of spending more time raising money for their campaign, campaigns should not be financed and we should know who is paying for the advertisements coming out all over. the other thing i would like to know with the tea party, i am a conservative democrat. host: how long have you been out of work? caller: i was laid off under the former president, called back to work briefly, it has only been a couple of weeks this time and this prediction is short. the other thing that i would like to say, and i agree that we are packed enough already. i have no credit card payments

from being responsible and conservative, i do not want to hear about how everything will be lowered, i want to hear how we will be paying for things. the biggest problem for both parties i want to start hearing how you will start paying for things. host: this weekend in the weekend edition of "the wall street journal," by and talking about agenda items -- host: speaking of british politics and "the new york times," the older brother of ed

milliband, the former foreign minister, insuring that he will be the spokesperson for the labor party and successor to gordon brown, giving a challenge in a losing during the most recent election, claiming that 2 "scale the journey to regain power." nick clegg will be the focus tonight. our last call is daniel, joining us from boston, independent line. good morning. caller: i have a few things to say. it is very hard for you people to walk with those that do not walk with you. these suggestions in how this country can move forward, you are coming up with a suggestion

and the only thing that they say is no. very hard for you people to walk with individuals. that is what we are facing over the past few years. host: this call -- this e-mail from viewers -- they cannot avoid the lure of money. our question over the last 45 minutes or so, you can read more about that in "business week." one person who is keeping in close eye on midterm elections, scott rasmussen with his new book, "mad as hell." he will be joining us in a couple of minutes. first, a look at the guests and topics on other sunday morning programs.

>> network television talk programs are be aired on c-span radio starting today at noon. we begin with "meet the press" at noon with david gregory. the democratic campaign committee chair, chris van pollan. pope is turning to agitation with arne duncan and randy weingarten. at 1:00, "this week." guests include david axelrod, mitch mcconnell, and the queen of jordan. fox news sunday, chris wallace speaks with john boehner, kevin mccarthy, and house majority leader steny hoyer. bob schieffer will welcome marco

rubio, as well as the colorado republican candidate, kim bachs as well as sal russo. on "state of the union," they talk about tax cut debates with dick durbin, joe lieberman, and marsha blackburn. beginning at noon with "meet the press, "this week," "fox news sunday," "state of the union." listen to tell all on c-span radio, on your iphone, or xm satellite radio, or anywhere online at c-spanradio.org. >> jane addams was a vocal

advocate for social rights and justice, this weekend we have more on the contribution of jane addams to culture and politics. >> you do not get to choose the moment for the opportunity to see when your country comes your way. all that you get to choose is what to do when it does. >> nick clegg defends his decision, tonight at 9:00 on c- span. >> for all of the people in the book, there are many mistakes that they may have made. >> nearly 6 million african- americans migrated from the south. we have more on their journey tonight on "q&a."

>> "the communicators" has a discussion on strengthening the federal laws that limit personal data collection. perspectives from the market industry and consumer groups, tonight on c-span 2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us from new jersey is a pollster and author, scott rasmussen. the book is called "mad as hell, of the tea party movement is fundamentally remaking our two party system." thank you for being with us. call it -- guest: pleasure to be here. host: you write that our country is in the middle of a mass of populist revolt moving from the right. how could it be under-reported? guest: when we started this book, the entire tea party movement was being dismissed and that it would not survive past the election. it was not until the last few

weeks that there was a real, legitimate focus on the tea party with bill clinton and others saying that this is really real. others say that they will disappear, but at this point in time they are starting to get some recognition without an appreciation of what the movement itself is. host: how will it change american politics? guest: it is already changing it. the debate in congress this week about the bush tax cuts would not have taken place in that form without the tea party movement. .

host: this morning, the "washington post" takes a look at some of the key players in the tea party movement from americans for prosperity to tea party nation. and one of those is amy cramer, the chair of the tea party express. we talk with her this past thursday from atlanta, and discussed the genesis of her involvement in the movement. scott, i want to leten and get your reaction. >> i personally got involved about a year and a half ago when the tea party movement first started. but it really goes back in the fall of 2008 during the campaign and i had a daughter

that went away to college, my only child, and so i got on face book in an effort to keep up with what was going on in her life. and through twitter, i came together with some other conservatives. and there were rumbles through the conservative world about the out of control spending, the excessive government intrusion into our lives. and people were saying it's time for another american revolution, another tea party. so there were rumbles going on. and rick had a rant on the chicago floor trade about the morning meltdown and when he had that rant, what i say is that the fuel was already there and he lit the fire because he had a platform that no one else had. host: scott, your comments.

guest: well, first of all, the general tone of what was just described there is what we've seen. the frustration didn't just start because barack obama came in or george bush did something on. this frustration has been building for a couple of decades. a lot started even before the perot movement. the perot movement came in surrounded one individual, then you had bill clinton respond to it then the nation was focused on national security matters for a while. but the fact that voters kept voting for candidates who kept promising reducing taxes. that moment was there. the package of the bailout legislation, still the most hated piece of legislation. most americans feel that will hurt the economy. plus they sense it was a moral outrage, large corporation were bailed out while home owners

saw their investments wiped out. this is one of the keys about the tea party movement. it is authentic, it is not a topdown movement. it is built on frustrations growing for decades. and that's the pattern we have seen with other successful movements. when rosa parks refused to gli up her seat on the bus, that didn't start a civil rights movement. it started a public phase of it. it brought dr. martin luther king in to challenge our nation to live up to our ideals. but the frustrations has been building for decades before that. even if you go all the way back to the minute men who stood at lexington green. while that may have started the revolution, the reality is those frustrations had been building for a long time. the only thing i would say that seems out of kilter with the comments, i do hear this a lot, there are some folks saying we do need another revolution or a restoration or something of that sort.

the tone that seems to come through more than that is a belief that there is a political class that is trying to run their own revolution, that is trying to eliminate government by consent of the govern and what many tea party act vists are saying is that we need to stop that. >> you write 1.8 million people, a record turnout for barack obama's inauguration. you called it a great and positive event but also sowing the seeds for the 9/12 rally that took place september 12, 2009. what did you take away from this chapter? >> you know, you have to put all of this into context. barack obama's election, the stunning democratic victories in 2006 and 2008 were a reflection of frustration. voters saying we're going to vote against the party in power. what was perceived perhaps by president obama was that his job was to go and make

washington work a little better. but instead, people are saying, no, we want thinks to stop. we want people in washington to listen to us. barack obama channeled that energy but perhaps misread it. when he talks about the bush administration and those policies, what you just heard a moment ago was that a lot of people thought the problem with the bush administration, economic policies was it too much spending and president obama simply continued that trend. now, there are populous movements on the left and the right. it's o not just the tea party activists. there's a lot of common ground. people on the political left tend to share the same sense that nobody in washington is listening. seven out of ten americans believe that big government and big business tend to work together against the rest of us. the people on the left have a different solution than the people on the right. at the moment, though, the reason the anger and the energy is in the tea party movement rather than the left wing of

the populous spectrum, there's really two reasons. number one, there's a much smaller group of left wing populous. but also, people on the political left, while they may grumble about the obama administration, they may grumble about congressional democrats, they have a much greater level of confidence in their particular representatives than republicans do. three out of four republicans around the country say their congressional leaders are out of touch with the party base, they believe they're too liberal, too willing to compromise and just basically the republican voters say our guys in congress aren't trust worthy. >> this question from amy gardener the front page of the "washington post," the tea party has the nation's attention. now what? how do you answer that? and let me, answering it in terms of governing next year. >> well, the first thing is, a lot of people are frustrated with the tea party movement because they haven't put together a conventional

platform. there's only two things that most tea party activists agree on. one is there needs to be less spending, taxes and deficits, and the other is we need the government to list ton the people. what they're actually doing from a process point of view, when you see a little kid running into the street you want to run stop before they hurt themselves and then you want them to listen to an adult. and that's what the tea party is saying. stop before you hurt the nation. we want you to listen to us. in terms of what happens next year, that really all depends on barack obama and the leaders in congress. if the republicans gain control of the house, not a sure thing but they're favored to gain control of the house and they don't change their behavior from the last time, the anger will simply get higher and higher. the frustration will grow and there will be more calls, there will be moralelies, more efforts to challenge the political status quo. barack obama will have a choice

as well. will he continue to govern as if he is confident in the direction of his policies or will he call bill clinton and say how did you work after 1994? regardless of what the political actors do, the pressure from not just the tea party movement but from a majority voters will be to find ways to rein in the growth of federal spending. and i think that's one of the things underappreciated about the tea party movement. while only about one out of five say they're part of the tea party movement, most share the basic idea that federal spending needs to come down, most share the basic idea that the government is not listening. and when the tea party movement can reach out to those broad-based areas of support, they have the most impact. >> democrat line, charlotte, north carolina welcome. caller: good morning. steve, i'm a librarian, came to

the united states, got my citizenship when i was 18. been voting. and i follow polls, i follow rasmussen, i follow public policy. but i don't get, when you look at these polls, they're not following the young folks. because i know you have to have whatever method to use on polling. and i don't believe these polls that -- i'm a democrat. i came to charlotte to register people to vote for barack. i'm not happy with all his policies. health care, how do you get upset with people getting health care? i got health care through my job. but how do people get upset with letting more americans get health care? i just don't comprehend that. and i want you to tell us how you do your polling because i

don't respect your polling. plus, -- >> zpwroo host: how do you conduct your surveys? guest: we use a the same automated telephone system we've been using. there are more challenges coming in as fewer and fewer younger people are using land lines. from a polling perspective it's not a huge issue in 2010 because the turnout of younger adults is likely to be lower. younger adults, whether they have a land line or not tend to be much more supportive of president obama than their elders. and, as a result, if you get a good sample of yuck adults in your poll -- young adults it works out fairly well. in 2012 there will be methods

experimented with for folks who don't have a land line. host: comparing that to an actual person on the phone talking to a potential voter do you get a different feel when you're talking one on one versus the automated system? guest: well, the automated system has couple advantages. number one from a trending point of view, when we ask a person about barack obama's job approval, the person is hearing the exact same voice with the exact same inflection and the exact same nuance that a person heard on january 20, 2009. so there is a consistency you can't get with operator assisted polling. in terms of the actual results there are a couple of thing that is appear to be unique in terms of the gap between operator assisted polling and automated polling. in our system, we almost always get a higher negative rating for politicians, republican or democrat. not quite sure why that is. the favorable ratings are almost always the same.

it may be that people are uncomfortable saying negative things about a person they don't know to another human being. but when it comes to election polling, automated polls are at least as reliable. last year in new jersey, very hotly contested governor's race, three automated polls said chris christy said the republican would win, many of the old operator assisted polls said john corn inwould win. but it is good to produce a good or bad automated poll. or a good or bad operator assisted poll. host: still five weeks yet and a lot of turns yet to happen. but in delaware, chris teen oh donl, if they take a closorm of the polls down 12 to 15 points. and in nevada sharon engle is dead even or slightly behind

senate democrat leader harry reid. caller: in tware, the answer for chris teen is she's not the strongest more viable candidate in terms of winning the election. all polling show that mike castle had the advantage and oh donl was trailing. for a lot of tea party activists they didn't care much about mike castle. i think it high lights an important part of the tea party that they are not tied to traditional republican politics. having said that, when you get to nevada and sharon, all of the candidates that were in the mix near the end were going to be subject to an attack from the reid campaign. harry reid did a very good job of making sharon potentially unacceptable. this is a mud wrestling fight of election 2010. 58% of voters statewide now believe that sharon angle's views are outside the political

mainstream but a majority of voters believe that harry reid's views are outside the political mainstream as well. so you have a situation where voters are going to be unhappy with both candidates. i want to jump back just for a quick second. the caller mentioned something about health care. i think there's a very important issue of that topic. it is a driving force one of many things affecting election 2010. it is most unpopular with senior citizens who were the people who use the health care system most and who vote the most. but the reason that the health care law became unpopular is very easy to document. the moment the congressional budget office said it would cost $1 trillion, voters turned against it. moat voters wanted health care reform to reduce the cost of care, not to increase it. as we sit here today, a solid majority of voters believe that the plan that was passed will increase the federal deficit, will increase the cost of health care, will decrease the quality of care and will end up

costing much more than projected. that's where the frustration lies. and that -- health care is not a core issue of the tea party movement per se, but it is something that ties into the concern about out of control spending. host: the book is called "mad as he will. hell. paul joining us on the republican line. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. and during the previous hour i have to say that the slap at c-span for some kind of liberal bias, and its coverage of public affairs, was just ridiculous. you folks do a great job. but on to mr. rassmusen. i guess my pet peeve with the tea party references is i can't quite get to the point where i understand the use of the word party. i know it's just semantics but to me, a political party has some accountability as far as its policies and the

consequences of its positions on issues. is it really appropriate to be calling the phenomenon a party? i mean, i think of common cause as an organization that takes up the common good but does not have a political affiliation. why would the tea party and common cause not be able to find some alliances? we think of one as liberal, one as conservative. but we're talking about the public interest here. maybe you can react to why the word party is in there and why it really applies. guest: it's certainly not a political party in any sense that we would recognize and it has grown out of the references to the boston tea party back in 1773, so that's the connection. and essentially that tie draws right back to the sense of being overtaxed or concerns about fiscal policy. if you do go back to the 1770s,

the british were saying about the colonists that, well, of course they want us to provide all these services, of course they want us to provide for their defense. how can they not be willing to pay taxes for all the services they want? much the same argument that comes out of washington today. why are the american people not willing to pay enough taxes? and most people are saying we're overtaxed already and there is a need to reduce the spending to the level that the nation can afford. when you talk about the tea party, where it's going, i think it's important to recognize it's not really an organization. it's not a group. it is not a functioning hierarchy. there are no clear leaders. there are thousands of local chapters. they all have different approaches and ideas. it grows out of a real grass roots frustration. and where it goes from here not only will depend on what the political leaders do but on how the world around us reacts to this movement. it may eventually supporting

third-party candidates. probably not the most productive roots. some will try to influence the democratic party. what may happen is a lot like the progressive movement at the end of the 19th century it tried every approach it could. eventually the movement itself fizzled out but many of the progressive movements key ideas were incorporated under roosevelt, wilson, or franklin roosevelt during the new deal. and i would expect many of the tea party platform will become incorporated in many more mainstream organizations over time. host: responding to my earlier question, the people of delaware voted in record numbers. they will elect her to congress. guest: there was a phenomenal turnout increase in delaware. i think they were expecting about 30,000 to 40,000 people. nearly 60,000 showed up. that is a part of the story of the tea party movement in this year. it has supplied energy in

republican primaries that was utterly lacking in the demoralized political party. this year for the first time in 80 years more people voted in republican primaries than in democratic primaries. so that gives you the sense of the intensity. at the same time, while that intensity is going to help -- and by the way, i think the enthusiasm shown and the turnout shown in delaware is something that should be a real cause to people like harry reid who are in tight races because the turnout was much stronger than projected. but the reality in delaware is that mike castle, while he was not -- while he was a front runner, he was not a sure to win. this is a very democratic leaning state. it was a state that voted strongly for barack obama, that would vote for barack obama again today. it would be an upset of major proportions tor christine to win that election. host: let me turn our attention to the one paragraph.

you write that what is now missing from obama's governing initiative is a theme, strategy, and approach leading different people to draw different conclusions about who obama is and what he is doing virtually all negative. to the extreme left obama is not a true pop list. to the center he is seen as offering a litany of policies and to the right his presidency is perceived to be a systemic overreaching attempt at expanding the role of government, requiring significant resistance. guest: and that's why it's tough to be president. he is getting it from all sides. we have noted a slight uptick of enthusiasm among liberal democrats for the president. so there is some easing of that as the mid-terms approach. but one of the things that you have to remember is how barack obama got elected. i wrote a column in the "wall street journal" just after that election noting the similarities between his campaign and the campaign of ronald reagan in 1980, the most memorable comments, the most

memorable promises down the stretch by barack obama where he was going to cut taxes for 95% for all americans. and by doing that he was signaling that he would not be a traditional tax and pend democrat. he won in virginia and indiana that hadn't gone for democrats since the beatles were a brand-new act in america. when obama took office things seemed to go in a different direction and where the change began, and all of the things we just identified in that paragraph, began with the stimulus fight. a lot of democrats were upset that the president wasn't pushing for a bigger stimulus and a more spending oriented stimulus. the president himself, despite campaigning on tax cuts, presented tax cuts in that bill as a concession to republicans and he couldn't understand why they wouldn't compromise. and when the house republicans in that election stood up and said none of us are going to support this plan, that was the first time we saw any uptick in

support for republicans in congress in many years. so barack came in on a great campaign theme of hope and change. he talked about being a little bit different and cutting taxes. things haven't worked out that way. now, part of it is the economic environment. there are other issues involved. one caution in this, a lot of republicans these days are mocking the notion of hope and change. and that's a huge mistake. the american people are still looking for that message of hope and change. they've come to believe that if the politicians are going to supply the change, there is no hope. but they are still looking for a brighter future for america. and what they're looking for is not to be governed from the left or the right or the center. the american people want to govern themselves. host: scott, joining us from new jersey. marie in reston, virginia. welcome to the washington journal. caller: hello. yes. i love my country. i am a native american.

and there's no way i would ever not love my country no matter what the government does. left, right, or center. we have to work with the country. and all the anger is so destructive. and the term tea party is hurtful to me, because i do know that back in 1773, some people that revoletted in boston, they dressed up as native americans to make us look bad to the british. and i thought that was terrible. i thought that was a cowardly thing to me. and to me the term tea party is hurtful. i wish they could call themselves the patriots or something, something that sounds more positive. and there's no reason for anyone to hate their country

and be so angry the way they are against the government that is in power. we have to -- i think that people, because in the past republicans and democrats have a history of trying to work together to get things done and, you know, just not showing so much madness and anger. host: thank you. guest: you know, that issue of loving your country but being angry at your government is part of america's tradition. it does go back to the earliest days in our country. one of the things that is really overlooked in the political environment today is how little respect there is for our government. right now, as we sit here today, only 21% of voters, one out of five americans believes that the government has the consent of the governed. a real crisis of legitimatesy for a nation that was founded on the belief that the only legitimate source of authority is consent of the governed.

and this is not something that barack obama and democrats have created. it's not something that republicans and george bush created. this is something that both parties have worked together to create. they have distance themselves from the american people, they have created a major gap between a political elite that is well connected and looks out primarily for its own interest and then the rest of america. and it is that gap that is causing people to say what is going on? you can look at presidential elections going back to the 60s and consistently americans voted for a candidate who promised lower taxes and spending, and yet taxes and spending have kept going up and voters are saying that's not the way it's supposed to work. host: you mentioned the 1960s, which is a perfect seg with you which into -- wu, when kennedy met nixon, the real story, a look back at the 1960s presidential debates and the first one took place 50 years ago today.

guest: you know, in that debate, one of the things people forget about the tone and the style, the candidates had up to 9 minutes to answer some of the questions. senator kennedy would look to senator nixon and refer to him as my colleague and friend and comment on some positive ideas that he had. richard nixon would say the same to senator kennedy. and there was not a campaign manager on the planet who would let his can date go g out and answer a question for 9 minutes in a debate in today's world. the debates themselves have become just a forum to see if anybody makes a mistake, creates a gaff or commits a gaff. it's an interesting switch in the way that television has worked. host: and walter jackson says that basically the president has not done what he campaigned when he was running, referring to president obama. is that in essence the core problem that this president is now facing? or did he achieve what he set out to do in his campaign in the first 18 months of his

administration? guest: well, this president first of all the job approval number while they're weak is not terrible. he still gets very good marks from democrats and his numbers will not go down much lower as long as democratic party activists continue to support him. the president has struggled with a bad economy which has brought his numbers down somewhat. but what is hurting him a little beyond just the impact of the economy is not a question of whether he kept his campaign promise ors not. some say he did. some are saying we're getting tax increases coming he broke that promise. that's an irrelevant discussion at this point. what is relevant is that most people see the president's instiveragest in terms of dealing with the economic problem as wrong. he proposed recently spending $a billion on infrastructure plans. some on the left thought that was small or too little too late. but a solid majority of americans, 61% said you know what? if you would just cut government spending, that will create more jobs than the

infrastructure program. so that is the fundamental divide between the president's instinct to have the larger government and the public believing that's not the way it works. and when i say this, i'm not describing the economic impact. i'm describing the political impact and the political perceptions any time a politician says i'm going to increase spending to help the economy, people don't believe it. they don't believe that will work. host: and walter jackson is saying he the president has done what he campaigned on. guest: and again, you can take parts of it. he certainly promised to get something through a health care. nobody expected it would be an unpopular bill for democrats to campaign on but he did get that done. his next challenge will be to keep it from being repealed over the next couple of years. the president in terms of tax cuts you can make the case that he did cut taxes for 59% of

americans buts there a widespread expectation, half the nation expects their own taxes will go up before this president least office. there have been spending concerns at deficit levels that were not implied by the president's campaign. but looking back to what he said, franklin roosevelt promised to balance the budget. he didn't get that done but he remained one of the most beloved presidents because he connected on a key issue of the american people at that time. he provided reassurance during the great depression. ronald reagan said the government is not the solution to our problems. government ft is the problem. when he was in charge, confidence went up because voters felt they had someone they could count on who shared vare views at the top. host: and gary said. jim joining us. go ahead. guest: i was going to say,

that's one of the other things. we like to talk about barack obama got 53%. it was a great victory. he did win. he had a chance to build a lasting mandate had he worked to maintain that coalition. but even right from the start some of those 53% were voting for him simply because they wanted hillary clinton but he was the next best option. some were voting because they didn't care who it was as long as it wasn't a bush or mccain. and some did like specific policy ideas. and the first task a president has to do is to find a way to unite that coalition and give them confidence going forward. that hasn't worked out so far. but we'll see what the president does after the mid-term elections to see if he can rebuild that. host: good morning. thanks for waiting. caller: good morning, people. how are you? host: fine. guest: doing great. caller: with few exceptions the tea party movement is one of mag ignant ignorance. now let me be really specific.

the two big issues are the tarp and the bailout. the tarp was initiated of course under bush actually, although there was problems within it, saved the financial industry that from a total collapse. so it had to be done. number one. number two, the american economy is fueled by 70% consumer spending. the absence of consumer spending that leaves one spendor of last resort, the government. that's why your bailout came. and every economist, every economist that i can think of that's legitimate has claimed, including the congressional budget office, that the stimulus program did indeed save or reduce the disastrous impact of the recession. the tea party movement are opposed to both of them. they would have voted against both of them. if the tea party movement had

had their way the banks would be in total collapse, we would be in a severe depression. now, what kind of leadership is that going to bring to the united states, that kind of ignorance? host: well, let's start with -- caller: before i answer that question about the bailout, that's a great point to identify the different spect trums. you started out by saying it is fueled by racial hatred. there is no credible evidence. there are some people on the fringe that are going to be extreme and do inappropriate and stupid things. there are going to be some people who will be racist who show up on the right and the left. but that is not where the movement is. in terms of the bailout, what you have just described is the gap between the american people and their political leaders. you say that the bailouts saved the world economy. we have been reading a lot about that in different publications coming out of washington recently. however, it's not just the tea

party that disagrees with that. it is the majority of americans. most americans say that looking back it was the wrong thing to do, it hurt the economy more than it helped it, there's a couple of reasons they believe that. number one, the debt issue. number two, there is the belief that the bailouts removed the fundamental principle of our economy, which is accountability. there is the belief that if you have a company and your company does well you should keep the profits. if your company goes poorly you should go out of business and they felt that remiving that level of accountability was a problem because now the market appears to work that if you're big enough and well enough connected company, you can get the taxpayers to bail you out. only small businesses and individuals have to play by the old rules of accountability. and you have to understand that at the same time that this bailout was being used to help one side of the political class help their friends on wall street there was another series of things happening. people who had been brought up to believe that the way you

take care of your own financial nest egg to drive that consumer spending had always been taught that one of the best things you do is buy a home, pay your morning, and watch the equity grow. right now, only half of home owners nationwide believe their home is worth more than the morning. not only that, fewer than half, only 48% believe the value of their home will go up in the next 5 years. so you have have people who say, wait a minute. the corporate players broke the rules and got rewarded. i played by the rules and got burned. my 401(k) has gone down at the same time. how is this helping? and here's where the real comes for the nation's political leadership. how come, if what you're saying is true, if you really believe, if you're a leader of this nation and believe the bailouts saved the nation, why can't you explain that in a way that most people can understand? when the bailouts were first presented, 28% of americans thought it was the right thing to do. two years later, 25% think it's

the right thing to do. that is is either evidence that they followed a bad policy or that there has been a failure of leadership. and one of the things that is really troubling in the current times is that the political leadership does not feel an obligation to win the consent of the governed for their policies. host: cleveland, tennessee. republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing this morning? guest: doing great. caller: my question is this we've been talking about this movement going on for a couple of decades now. do you believe president obama may be trying to align america with the idea of the strategies of the european union? guest: look, i think president obama had a tremendous political ear and instinct for the democratic party during the primaries and you have to remember that when he started running his primary issue what he wanted to be talking about

was the war in iraq. he had a different position from hillary clinton on that. i don't think the president was focused when he started the campaign on combhick issues or -- economic issues or a grander strategy. are his views to the left of the political center? of course. that doesn't mean that he had a hidden agenda or a hidden strategy. i think if anything, this president has been pretty clear about what his goals are. and he seems sometimes a little surprised that not everybody agrees with them. but that is just a part of the nature of the event. and the way campaigns unfold. host: let me conclude with this piece from jacob wiceberg. he writes how do you respond to

that? guest: you know, that's a great perspective. it sounds like a teenager who is upset that his parents want to know where he is going when they take the car. people in the political class are upset because voters are demanding some accountability and demanding to be listened to and they don't like it. and, unfortunately, that's the way the system is supposed to work. in fact one of the things that doug and i put in the book is the sense that the political class needs to acknowledge how little they are trusted. they need to acknowledge that the american voters deserve more respect and deserve to be treated like grown ups and deserve to have adequate information so that voters can make the final decisions. and one of the ways we suggest doing that is to say because congress is not trusted by the american people, because it does not have the moral authority to deal with the nation's leading problems, what they should do is when there's a major piece of legislation, say something like the health care law, or a -- any change in

social security or medicare or any time that congress wants to raise taxes, congress should put together their best plan and then submit it to the american people for a vote. and what they would find is that far from being anarchistic or unhappy, or belligerent. if the american people have a legitimate say in the policies of the federal government, they will prove themselves far more willing to make the hard choices than any group of politicians on the planet. host: the book is called "mad as he will how the party -- making our two party system. thank you very much for being with us here on c-span. please come back again. guest: will do. host: it is sunday morning. when we come back the author of a new book called immigration and the american dream. the impact that it's having ill legal and legal immigration here in the u.s. and the

economy. our guest will be with us in a couple minutes. but first a look at the week's events as viewed by the creative pens from some of the cartoonists from around the country.

host: we welcome peggy. thanks for being with us. guest: thanks for having me. host: you have a number of myths about immigration and we selected three of them. i want you to elaborate. the first is we can stop illegal immigration by closing the job magnet. latinos are the fastest growing blitcal bloc in the united

states and that comgrabts do the jobs that americans won't. guest: immigration is about jobs. really when you get down to it you listen to immigrants who come in and they say, well, they're all coming here for jobs. and most of the controversies about immigrants are about jobs. i thought that was kind of interesting to read the defense bill and everyone said we've got to get back to jobs. the whole dream act thing is about jobs, giving people a visa for jobs. so obviously jobs is the magnet. and all of this business about having a fence on the border, people say, well, that's not going to stop illegal immigrants from coming in. that's probably true. it won't stop them as long as there's a jobs magnet. so it is true that if you stop the jobs magnet and mainly it's just a matter of enforcing our labor laws and it starts right in our homes and gardens making sure that the people we hire

have the legal permit to work. not only the legal permit to be here because a lot of immigrants who come in have legal permits. they come in as tourists or even on as students but they don't have the permit to work. that's what we have to get a little bit stronger about. host: you also write our immigration process is overwhelmed, underfunded, undersupported and totally unfair to american workers, citizens, and immigrants legal and illegal especially to wanna be immigrants. guest: i don't think i used the word mon citrus there totally. but anyway, the irony is that it probably is easy, not easy but probably easier in some ways to come in illegally than legally. but it's not necessarily that the system is broken. the thing is that immigration law is a work in process. it's always having to be

tweaked. and because it has to do so much with the labor market, i see there's two roles of immigration law. one of them is to bring in the workers that the country needs. every country has immigration laws, and one of its main purposes is to bring in workers you truly need. the second the s to protect the workers that you have. and there's going to be friction between those two goals so there has to be a balance. you have to balance it to be fair to the immigrants who come in. and immigrant workers are wonderful. what's not to like about ab immigrant worker? they work hard, enthusiastic, willing to work for less benefits. but we can't all be first generation immigrants. we have to protect the labor that we have, too. host: your subtitle says political hype and his tearia. how do you battle that? guest: hopefully by being on shows like yours. by being aware of some of the hype that's used especially in the press. it's really interesting some of the words that are used like

anti-immigrant. you'll hear, you'll read even in a news article anti-immigrant republicans today have a new law out. anti-- they're not anti-immigrant. some people will finally admit, well, they're not anti. they're anti-illegal immigrants. ok. what does that make everyone else? let's not label. in qq where i worked before as an editor, we say don't use the word anti-unless, the group is known, self-identifies as antii. i don't know anybody, nobody who talks about immigration that self-identifies as being antiimmigrant. and they're not. you talk to lou dobbs, they're not anti-immigrant but that label is thrown out all the time. that's just a little hype. another hype, the word undocumented. most of the people that are being called undocumented have

documents. they're often fraudulent documents. and the problem with that is that if you're in the country illegally, it's only a misdemeanor. but if you use a fraudulent document, that is a felony. it is when you and i use, it certainly is when a person who is illegally in the country uses one. so don't call them undocument. even schumer is saying let's call it what it is. they're an illegal immigrant. i like to say foreign national living and working in the country illegally. but i can't use that in a news article. so illegal immigrant. i know the migration policy says unauthorized. so you're starting to see that more. a lot of this is words. but you can tell somebody's agenda by the words they use. and certainly using undocumented or anti-immigrant is one side of that spectrum. the other side is probably someone who calls them illegal

aliens or something like that which is the word that's used in legislation. but alien does have a bad connoteation. that's probably the other side of the spectrum. thrazz whole spectrum of words, fascinating watching the wording change. there's lots of examples. host: we encourage you to join the conversation. give us a call the numbers on the bottom of the screen for our radio audience. our or twitter or e-mail. our guest, peggy orchowski. immigration has suddenly become all about making the most

profits off the backs of the cheapest foreign labor possible dismissing the american worker. guest: i'm not sure what part you're reading. i did not use that kind of language. i'm really careful about it. but what's happening, let's talk about what's happening to the american worker. we're in a recession right now. and even though we have had an emphasis, it's very interesting to follow immigration law because it's been different focuses. and in my book, i've gone to, because i'm a congressional reporter and follow along, immigration reforms' about reforming laws, of course. so it's very interesting to see where in congress, which committees have jurisdictions for various things. since the time we had national immigration law which was in the 1880s, immigration law was out of the labor committee. again, it was about workers.

but in the 1950s, after world war ii, it changed to the judiciary committee. there became more of a civil rights emphasis on immigration. and certainly the 1965 reform act echoed that immigration law went into the judiciary committee. all of a sudden it's become about ethnic rights, about certain groups having justice in immigration. i think it started with the holocaust, really. we were very bad about having about bringing jews in. and then of course the 1920 immigration law said we prefer immigrants from northern europe. and in the civil rights movement of the 60s we couldn't do that any more. so the 1965 law ended the national quotas. it said we are going to bring in people from every country in the world. there was only one limit. and the limit still exist today. no country can have more than

7% of the visas that are given out. green cards i'm talking about, gin out in one year. so it caused a couple of unintended consequences and one of them is that we started having huge waiting lists. we put an emphasis on family reunification. the emphasis on work skills went was taken away. especially in the 70s and 80s, something like 80% of the green cards were given to extended family members. we're not talking about immediate family. we're talking about extended family members. so the work, the emphasis now on green cards became not on workers but on family members. so because we still need workers, because immigration law still has to bring in the workers that the country needs, we started having all these temporary work visas. this plethora of alba fa bet soup. you've heard them all of work visas. and those are temporary.

they are not supposed -- they're called nonimmigrant visas. and i think a lot of lawyers make a lot of money with what they call adjusting, you adjust it to a green card. but it's not easy. you have to get -- it's not easy and it's ikes pencive. and it's not the intent. even the student visa. it's not the intent that they stay. all of this is the protecting america part of thing. the third unintended consequence is people started staying illegally because the game has been for years especially since the 60s that anyone who comes in, once you're in the country no one is going to check. there's really been no enforcement. inside the country. we talk about border enforcement, but talking about enforcement inside the country, that's really most americans don't like the idea. we know immigrants, we work with them, our kids go to school with them, they're wonderful people. they work hard. they're doing good for their families. we don't want to ask if they're

here illegally or not. so basically we haven't. and like i say, because we have so many temporary visas that aren't enforced, millions of people are staying and working illegally. there's been very little sanctions for companies that hire people illegally. they don't have to check if the documentation that you give them that's a loophole that they don't make the companies check it if that document is valid. so, yes, we have millions and millions of people that we didn't have before here and working illegally. and only about 10% of those work in the fields. work in the bend-over work. a majority of them work in construction, they work in hospitality. you can't say that americans didn't do those jobs. i mean, when i came here ten years ago to washington, d.c., all the construction jobs were done by blacks. and i'm not talking digging ditches i'm talking the skilled workers and brick layers and

tilers and plasterers and carpenters of all times. now you hardly see a black working in those jobs. what happened in ten years? all of a sudden you have people like wade henderson who is a wonderful civil rights activist but i've heard him say and i have it in my book that he says that blacks shouldn't do manual labor. they should go to college. they should move on. we've moved beyond that. so you have to ask, well, who is going to do the manual labor then? and the wages have gone down. even the economists who say illegals aren't taking jobs of americans do admit that wages in many of these jobs where illegal workers especially dominate, they've gone down from what they were. host: the american immigration and the american dream. she spent many years at cq. graduate of the university of california where she earned her undergraduate degree and her doctorate at uc santa barbara. new york.

good morning. caller: good morning. i'd like to add to this interesting topic. good morning. guest: hi. caller: i think the majority of americans would agree that if you're already in the country, let's just make them citizens as long as they're not here on crime or floins, we have to we'd out those type of people that are here for criminal acts or felonies. but if they're here working and try to better their life, let's go ahead and draw the line, make them all citizens now. but every time you hear law, law, immigration law, reeko law doesn't matter what law it is, there's no strength to it if you don't have penalization. you've got to back it with penalization. you've got to have strong laws on the book to back. are we going to stand up against and stand for these laws or are we going to not? this is the fault of our government today with every aspect. not just immigration. we cannot try to coddle and be compromisele to everybody's side. host: your response.

guest: it's so hard because we're dealing with people immigrants that we all know. and again, like i said our kids go to school you work with them, they work in your homes and gardens. but it's true and there are the type that says what part afillegal don't you understand? there's a spectrum in terms of dealing with this law. you know, the party can be a case made for people who have been here i would say at least ten years and this is kids, too, who have been here at least ten years who have had a clean record. however, the felony thing is difficult. in 2007 when they tried the immigration reform bill the second time, remember, it had nt passed cloture the first time in early june. and then late june when bush came back from europe he said we've got to do this. they said, ok, we're going to say we're not going to legalize

people who commit felonies. well, as i just said before with undocumented, people who use false documents are commiting a felony. so suddenly a large part of this group that they want to legalize are commiting felonies. so what are you going to do about that? host: from our twitter page. guest: of course they do. they do work. and if you consider a benefit particularly cheap labor, cheap vegetables and fruits and all those things, i mean, yes of course they contribute a lot. but there are economists who say because many of them are poor they work on the less educated angle, at least a good portion of them do, their contributions don't match the costs in the schools. and the problem in america that other countries don't have, our schools and our hospitals are locally funded.

they are not funded by the feds. so when the 1983 that supreme court act stip lated that emergency rooms and schools were not allowed to ask your status, you had to serve anyone because apparently there was some states that weren't allowing illegal immigrants kids to go to school or be served in hospitals. so the supreme court said you're not allowed to ask. well, some people say this is the mother of all unfunded mands dates. there's no funds for that. and yet, all of a sudden the schools and hospitals and especially in the southwest, even in my hometown we've lost two of our wonderful hospitals. our county hospital was a jewel. we lost that and we lost the catholic hospital a lot because so many people illegally in the country who didn't have insurance who didn't pay. host: and you are from? guest: santa barbara, california. host: next, wayne in summerville, south carolina.

good morning. caller: good morning. let me clarify something to begin with. you're using the wrong term for these people. they are called illegal aliens. they are not immigrants. number two, let's make it clear. you broke the law to get here. you've already commited document fraud. you steal identities. you work illegally. and i'll just tell you something on a personal note and i'll have a question at the end. being there a life long construction worker from a family of life long construction workers all the way back second, third generation, this was an avenue for a lot of folks to make a decent middle class living and raise their families. we have been decimated. this is the worst kind of class wafere i have seen in my life. and i feelics lirke a veteran who served this country that the rich and the elite and the people who don't care have spit in my face along with the rest of us construction workers. now here's my question.

can you tell us me any other country in this world where you go to their country and you have a baby on that soil that that child becomes an automatic citizen? because i bet you there isn't another one. guest: thanks. and i'm sorry about your story and i do think construction workers have been hit the hardest and i wish the media when they talk about illegal immigration, they always show a clip of illegals working in the fields and again i said that is a very small minority. and that probably is an area where we need more immigrants. host: you said about 10% work on the farms? guest: in the farms. and you know, some of those jobs maybe no human should do. maybe those should be mechanized. they are in the past and they are in other countries. but the greatest majority of illegal immigrants work in fields like conconstruction. and there are people who say the pathway to citizenship is

destroying many americans especially black americans, white construction workers, everybody. their pathway to the middle class. so this is something i think we have to be more honest about. let's not just talk about illegal immigrants as if they're farm workers. and then, on the other side of the spectrum, about 40% of illegal immigrants came in legally. like i said, we have never enforced immigration laws. once you're here. so students, people who come in on tourist visas, people who come here on a business visa. there are hundreds of thousands of irish people who are here many of them just came in on tourist visas, have overstayed the visa. every time you go to a hearing on immigration there's these darling kids, i like to talk to them with bright green shirts on called legalize the irish. i mean, this is not -- i write for a hispanic magazine. i think the hispanic latino cent rick view of -- centric

view of illegal immigration that is only about farm workers is harmful to the latino people. it's starting to look at latino and every time you see latino, oh. you came over illegally. it's not -- again, it's part of the hype that i think we just have to be more honest about this discussion. we have to talk about what illegal immigration has done to our construction workers because there's lots of honorable americans who work in construction. . .

caller: did scenes so outdated and unfair to other people. sure as a magnet, if you are talking about magnets. after 9/11 with the laws that changed, many saudi arabian ran away, but they had privileges before that were not very well known. they could pretty much come and go, even without a visa. guest: by said before, immigrants and allow all are a constant work in progress.

things change, conditions change. the cuban thing was a very good example. it was politics but the politics there have changed. there were something like four waves of cuban emigrants that were highly educated immigrants. by the way, just refer to the other one, an immigrant is a person that comes to another country, leave their homeland, comes to another country to stay and work. often with the aspect of getting a citizenship. just to make things simpler, and i talk about this in my book, there are three kinds of immigrants. permanent legal, which of a green card holders, they're called legal permanent read it -- residents. there are temporary, like students, we live with something like 1 million legal green card holders every year.

we give out 2 million temporary visas every year. then there is the category of illegal immigrants. no one knows it really, how many there are. 1986 they passed an amnesty, giving it to illegal immigrants who were in the country before 1986. they figure that there would be about 1 million. meaning ted kennedy, who really pushed that lot, actually saying in congress that this was a onetime thing only, this will stop illegal immigration because we will give amnesty to the people who are here. and then we will enforce the labor laws and the border laws and interim enforcement laws. we did the amnesty and people are still coming out of the shadows and applying for the 1986 amnesty.

so, they miss the the numbers by about three times. it is very possible that the number now, the official number is around 11 million. it could be 15 million, 20 million, who really knows. host: we are talking to peggy orchowski. sasha says that illegal eastern europeans do more constructions then southern americans in new york. guest: there are many ethiopians here. again, i have been going all around the country talking about the book and i love going to different states in hearing about their immigration issues. many of them, most of them are not about mexicans. this latino centric, the reason there is this view is because

democrats have not really wanted to talk about this issue. it is really a democratic issue, it deals with labor, minorities, jobs, so many red flags. they have basically allowed the hispanic caucus to drive the industry -- immigration debate. >> it also -- host: it also plays into electoral politics as well. guest: the latino vote, if you want. host: dallas, thank you for waiting for peggy orchowski. caller: listening to the conversation, i know that there are a lot of points on this conversation, but some of the ones to bring up are about documents. here in the united states, as a u.s. citizen we like to travel to another country, you will need a passport. but if we keep adding documents

like visa, passport, immigration is out of control. these are the points that i see every day where i work. the of almost three different documents that you can use to do business with someone. as well as taking advantage using illegal documents. it is a never-ending story here, we always see the same pattern. as well, since they had the opportunity to make different documents, they take advantage as well by giving profit. the government takes advantage. host: i read about this in the book. we all use the word visa wrong. it is a document that a foreign

national gets at a u.s. council office in their own country that gives them permission to come to a port of entry. for many countries, european countries are european -- are of visa waiver countries. no one can come through the port of entry without having a passport and a permit. some of the visas that you can get our 10-year multiple entry visas, meaning to you can use it to come to a port of entry for 10 years multiple times. it is amazing how many people will show that multiple entry 10-year visa to employer and say it is their work permit. it has nothing to do with that, it just gets you to the port of entry. once your at the port of entry than the passport office people stamp, in your passport, what

permit you have. and you are taking a card, something you are supposed to produce at any time when asked, saying which permit you are there on and how long you can stay. you can get the cards on airplanes when you come in from foreign countries, it specifically says that this is not a work permit. employers have to be careful the they're not showing in multiple- entry 10-year visa. a tourist visa is not a permit to work. because of all of this to go -- the government has developed a system that they call e-verify. it is voluntary right now and there is a debate about whether it should be required. arizona requires it, i think. eventually we will get to like other civilized countries where we check the permit for work.

green card holders had every privilege of american citizens except that they cannot vote or serve on a jury. host: we are speaking to peggy orchowski, the author of " immigration and the american dream, battling the hype and hysteria." one viewer says that the enforcement of immigration laws has always been opposed by the chamber business commerce. is that accurate? guest: yes, it is interesting when you look at the political spectrum. as a congressional reporter you can get into conservatives and liberals. but here you have ted kennedy and president bush on the same page on immigration. how do you explain that?

i realize that immigration, as with many issues, it does not run left to right in spectrum. i took the two ends of the spectrum into a horseshoe, the bottom of which is filled, which is interesting. there is a real libertarian cents amongst the people that think like bush and the kennedys. on the right is a corporate libertarian. when bush was first elected he said that anyone can get a job in the united states and they should be able to get a work visa. how easy is that? people talk about having global labor unions so anyone can get a job here. what? scab labor? anyone willing to work cheaper than americans? he did not talk about that. so, yes, the chamber of commerce

is right there. we need as cheap labor as possible, and that is what it is about. immigrants, they love them, they're good workers, do not worry about the american workers. i left you have civil libertarians. kennedy was a civil libertarian. they tend to look at immigration as a civil right. of course, it is not a civil right. to emigrate is not a civil right. to be in the country illegally is not a civil rights. it is not a civil right to emigrate. kennedy, people like that, they want very loose immigration laws because they see it as a humanitarian thing. on that side you also have a lot of churches coming in,

evangelicals and catholics. looking at the top of the horseshoe, that is more what i would call -- david bruck says the term economic nationalist. some people call it american first, but i do not want to put a pejorative term monnat. on the left there are democrats that want to limit immigration. environmentalists who are very worried about the impact on the environment. population growth people. and there are a lot of blue dogs, fiscally conservative democrats, here they come, again, just like on health care where they had a huge impact, in immigration they are worried about the huge impact. with legal immigration we can control the kinds of workers, the numbers, that is the whole

idea. host: from the book, "despite the romantic and dramatic stories, there's only one main reason why people migrate from one country to another, work. -- work." last fall, chicago. caller: how are you? host: fine, thank you. caller: my grandparents went through the process years and years ago. they have to be sponsored, doing what they're supposed to do. in my opinion there are no legal rights. i am tired of hearing this demand for civil rights. supposedly there is a loaw on te books where americans can deny entry to any person coming into the united states. why not enforce that? guest: there are two kinds of enforcement. many democrats agree that voting enforcement needs to be stiffened, especially on the

southern border. the hard one is the internal enforcement. when it existed, and it was taken away in 2005, the imf had constricting points, mainly concerned with the legal immigrants and naturalizing the people that wanted to be naturalized. nobody wanted to do internal enforcement. after 9/11 the biggest impact on immigration was that the department of homeland security was developed and within the bureau and apartment there are two bureaus to deal with immigration. two of the deal with enforcement. immigration and citizenship services, and then there is the immigration and customs enforcement.

for the first time in our history we have an agency that does internal enforcement, which is where much of the controversy will come from. arizona, they are not talking about forssmann on the border, they are talking about interior enforcement. when you are inside the country. the internal enforcement will be the hot political issue. because americans for some reason have a gut reaction against it. we do not want identity cards, which would release all the problem. we do not want employers to have harder sanctions. internal enforcement is the biggest issue we have to confront. host: peggy orchowski wrote the book, thank you so much for being with us. guest: thank you. host: every sunday afternoon on c-span radio we have the chance for you to catch up with sunday

morning programs in their entirety and commercial-free. >> we begin these with "meet the press," joining david gregory with mike hens and the democratic national campaign committee chair. arne duncan and randy weingarten. at 1:00, "this week." guests include david axelrod and mitch mcconnell, as well as the queen of jordan. "fox news sunday," chris wallace talks with john boehner, kevin mccarthy. as well as steny hoyer. "face the nation," bob schaffer of wellcome's marco rubio.

and he will also welcome the colorado republican candidate for senate. at 3:30 p.m. they talk about the tax debate with dick durbin of illinois. as well as republican marsha blackburn. again, they begin airing at noon eastern with meet the press. 1:00, "this week." "fox news sunday clothes close at 2:00. "face the nation" at 3:00. "state of the union" at 4:00. listen to them on c-span radio or online at c-spanradio.org.

>> this weekend on "book tv," theoretical physicist and author, michio kaku. join our 3 our conversation with your calls and could messages, on c-span 2's "book tv." >> you do not get to choose the moment when the opportunity to shape the country comes your way. all that you get to choose is what you do when your best. >> the british prime minister defends his decision to form a coalition government tonight at 9:00 on c-span. >> for all of the people in the book, there are many mistakes they might have made in their lives. >> between 1915 and 1970,

nearly 6 million african- americans migrated from the south. at 8:00 on a "q&a." >> "washington journal" continues. host: for the next 45 minutes we want to focus on legislation that could potentially protect student athletes and we are joined by dr. gerard gioia from the children's national health care center. we have a line set aside for those of you that our athletes for parents -- athletes, parents of others that our athletes. 202-737-0001. for the parents of athletes, 202-737-0002. what was your message to congress as a physician who had seen what was happening around the country? caller: that sports -- guest:

that sports are an important part of children's development in the life and we need to make sure that we put in the proper projections to maximize benefits. this particular legislation is looking to do that, on the field as athletes, off the field as students. >> -- host: one of the students testifying before the committee, she told her story, she plays soccer. >> i have been playing my entire life. this year will be my fourth year as a high school soccer player. until recently i was hoping to play division 3, but circumstances changed when i discovered a concussion on friday, august 25. practice was almost over and i was in the midfield. i jumped up to block a kick with my head. i do not remember anything that

followed. i was told later that my friend and teammate had gone up to the ball and we had collided. judging from the bruise that i found later on the right side, i assume that i landed on that side of my body and that i hit the ground hard. the next thing that i remember is setting up, unsteady, to see my teammates huddled around me. my vision had gone blurry and i had severe television. everything was black around the edges. i was helped from the field and my vision cleared. i sat out the rest of practice. for the rest of the day i discover that i was having severe balance problems. even with the slightest nudge it was a struggle not to fall down. i also had a lingering headache and fairly constant dizziness. later that day my boy friend seemed -- said that i seemed dazed and confused. i felt very out of it.

hard to explain if you have never experienced it before. i arrived to school the next morning and was given preliminary talks by my athletic trainer, told that i had to be cleared by a doctor. after a week of conclusion paperwork, i was clear by my doctor to play. i was anxious to play and thought i had fully recovered. the only thing standing in my way was a computerized test. before the start of the season all athletes at my school are required to take a baseline concussion test that measures memory and reaction time. about two weeks after i received a concussion i took the test to see if i was functioning normally. i could tell that i did not do very well and was not surprised when i was called back to take the test a second time.

i could not remember the words that they were asking or the patterns of the numbers. mike trainer told me that my test results were inconsistent with test results significantly below my baseline data. and around this time i started to notice other symptoms. lingering headaches. for getting things, not just from day to day, but from moment to moment. my sleeping patterns changed. i slept more, feeling constantly tired, yet i had trouble falling asleep. school became more difficult. the special and more complicated subjects. 45 minutes in my class. my concentration would be completely gone and i would develop a terrible headache. a problem for me, as i am taking five advanced placement classes. it was taking me twice as long to read articles and it was a battle with my concentration. host: that is the story of the

23-year-old conca chang. she is a soccer player, not football. guest: that is right. this injury happens potentially in all sports, including soccer. host: what does congress need to do? guest: universal standards in the country to protect athletes, also making sure that when they return to school as students that we can provide them with proper support and proper care to both assist their recovery and at the same time, allow them to benefit from school. host: how often is there a misdiagnoses? with long-term repercussions?

guest: not putting together our formula, like a blow to the head, something that moves ahead significantly with signs or symptoms associated with that, dismissed far too often. host: about 3 million sports related concussions occur annually. if you are a parent that has dealt with this, 202-737-0001. if you are an athlete, 202-737- 0002. you can join the mess it -- the conversation with twitter as well at twitter.com/c-spanwj. guest: there is certainly a breakdown where kids are going back when they should not. the biggest issue is in youth sports, a particularly high school, where we do not have team physicians on the sidelines.

only 42% of the high schools have certified athletic trainers that are looking for these kinds of problems. if any other sport on a saturday afternoon, without a trained professional, but we are trying to do is look towards how we train parents and coaches for the signs and symptoms of these problems. host: charleston, south carolina, good morning. elizabeth, are you with us? caller: yes. host: go ahead. caller: i am calling to ask questions about head injuries. how long after the injury occurs is the victim able to get help? my son had an injury over one year ago.

we are seeing signs of low concentration, depression. i wanted to know how long this injury as a life. guest: out what we want to see is the injury identified right away at the time of the event in treatment put in right away. what we know is that when we delay recognition or diagnosis of the injury, we see a much more prolonged recovery. we also know that in a small number of individuals, this can be a much more long-term problem. but the sooner that we can identify and institute friedman of the injury, we are much better able to help a youngster. legislation is meant to put that in place. host: concussions represent 9%

of high-school related sports injuries. girls have a higher rate of concussion than boys. guest: when you look at the recognition of this problem, it is likely higher than that. when we look at similar sports -- lite sports, soccer, basketball, the number of athletes that have the injury, girls have a higher representation than boys. we are still trying to understand why that is. but the message is that this is not simply a boy and football problem. it is unfortunately equal opportunity, possibly even more so with girls. host: we are talking with dr. gerard gioia, of the children's medical center based here in washington, d.c.. rob, good morning. caller: steve, you are doing a

great job. thank you. doctor, my question is, could we just been noticing these things more? the you know what i mean? girls playing a lot more sports these days as opposed to 30 years ago? lots of sports to get hurt at? people are now more knowledgeable, they are much more into their children, taking them to the doctor more often. you get what i am saying? guest: absolutely. the question is, are there more concussions then there were before. we do not know the exact answer, but by working hypothesis is that we are simply more aware of these injuries now, putting together the signs and symptoms for understanding how these things play out. i think that the largest reason for these increased numbers is

the awareness and ability to detect that. the issue is that we need to recognize every injury. host: there are a number of states considering a bid, requiring dr. evaluations before student athletes can go back on the field. guest: based on two laws that were put in place, these laws require the coaches, parents, and student athletes be educated about the in it -- about the injury and that the athlete can only return if they are cleared by a proper health care professional. host: one of our viewers -- cheerleaders get thrown into the air without a net, i would not

let my daughter do that. guest: cheerleading is a recognized sport in some states, it is simply an activity in others. regardless that is a sport that needs to look at safety. hope it -- host: marcus, a parent from new orleans, good morning. caller: good morning. considering my son in high school, he plays football. he was tackled antiblack out completely. the injury, from my point of view, was caused because they were not trained well enough. he plays football for our high school and we train to the

entire summer before school started. the comment that the doctor may was that soccer was a lite sport, but it is not. it is a very aggressive sport. there is nothing helping you, nothing to protect you from the other player. you are both likely to fall and get hurt. host: thank you. what about the issue of training and the length of training before you compete? guest: with all injuries, the better condition you are in, the stronger you are, the more likely will protect yourself from injury. it is very important that student athletes are well conditioned, that practice with

a team that spends time practicing and working together. these are all preventative time -- types of measures that we can take. host: michael, ore., good morning. caller: my question and concern, with so many head injuries in the world soccer, of professional and highs will as well, do the major corporations, like nike, could they developed a nice, padded had here? host: without work? guest: the issue with equipment being studied, there are companies looking at that question. with this injury it is important to recognize that protective equipment only does certain

things. the injury is because of the sudden movement of the entire head and the brain inside of it. a padded structure, like a headband, or other kinds of things like that, or even helmets in football and lacrosse, can only offer so much. the heads still move inside of that. but it may be just one piece of the puzzle as be better put that technology gathered. we are still love their yet, but there is a lot of study of people that use those kinds of equipment. host: our guest this morning is dr. gerard gioia, the next caller is to resell from kerry, north carolina. caller: these rekeyed head injuries and chronic impact on the brain long term, i

understand that some of the studies have been run on football players that had had low impact injuries where they are finding brain damage now. i am wondering, does madison address this? are we looking at this outside of neuropathology? pediatricians and neurologists, are they starting to look at the issue of what we do to our young kids when we send them out there? guest: the question of the sub- concuss of blows in how they may affect a youngster is still wide open. as you mention, there are initial findings with a specific players where there may not have been known concussions, although that is a recognition problem that raises its head.

we need to understand the effect of the forces to the brain and how they play out. right now i can tell you that the cases that have been recorded, we still do not have a good link as to how that might play out at the youth level. the list to say, it must be researched more carefully. clinicians are taking that into consideration, but the main connection right now is that they are not with a recent study which showed that more of these kids are coming to emergency rooms from you support provided concussions. which is an awareness problem. people are concerned, so they get to the emergency setting. the type of injury we are seeing

in the emergency room is different from before. the type of work we are doing is trying to better prepare the emergency rooms so that they can not only diagnose the problem, but they can send the child home with specific guidance. host: by the way, on our website we have a link to the hearing of recovered from the house committee looking into the issue of concussions and other sports related injuries and what congress is now considering and as well what other states have done. toledo, ohio. caller: we have got to quit meeting this way. i have spoken to you three times over the past two years. host: glad to hear from you.

caller: i teach at the university of toledo community college. this is an interesting subject. very interesting. we are working medvedev de the technology here that will reduce the concussions through impact. this is a great subject right here, it could not comment a better time. last week i was at a football game with my grandson, seeing the impact on the field makes me even more concerned now as a grandfather. 11 years of age, 12 years of age, putting that kind of impact on the football field. i just wanted to say that right there we will be following you, doctor, on your research and organization. thank you so much for bringing the message this morning. host: this is from brian -- will

affect private athletic clubs as well as school teams? guest: there is a provision in their, and the private club or schools that uses the public field, even if it is for one day or one hour, must demonstrate that they are following the nonstandard. host: virginia, good morning. we will go on to tie in north carolina, good morning. caller: i am a survivor of tv i since 1990. my question, football players, they have helmets that protect them from concussions. bicycle riders have protective head gear. what it be possible to have soccer players having some type

of apparatus that will protect their head from the accident that happens to them, as mine did on a bicycle. host: second call on that. guest: protective equipment is important. helmick manufacturers are actively looking at this question. bio-mechanical engineers are very active, they are the ones doing this work. this is all about it buffering force taken to the head. the way that i view it is the way that we view crumple zones in cars, they have been engineered so that if you hit an object it crumbles away. the zone is effective in those low impact, 15 miles per hour

accidents. same with your helmet. they might be able to take away force, but high impact is not going to move that had substantially. we have to look at other solutions. look at have we coached the game, rules are enforced, all of those protective elements. host: this e-mail -- should these programs be banned given the harm that they can do to the developing brain? guest: we are looking at not abolishing the sport, but trying to make it safer. with current knowledge and what needs to continue to develop, how do we make it safer? how do we make sure that the benefit clearly a and wave their wisdom. looking at the sport, the rules, and how we coach these things,

including injury recognition when it does happen, kids in general do recover from this injury, but the problems are much more significant if they have this second injury that compounds is significantly. taking them off the field after the first hit, we are reducing the risk substantially. host: we are speaking to dr. gerard gioia, mary is a parent the joins us from long island, new york. caller: my son was a soccer player and a good 15 years ago. what impact will this have years later? he did suffer concussions as a teenager. i am concerned about the impact,

especially affecting girls. i will hang up. guest: the issue of heading was raised 15 years ago and some work has been but that in terms of the by mechanics. the basic view right now, in most kids, and remember that nothing is 100%, but i and most kids if you are purposefully heading the ball you are actually propelling yourself ford's it, so that the force is distributed through the mass of the body, reducing the load on the had substantially. when the head is struck in an un-prepared way, the load is much greater on the head. the issue of prepared and not prepared is really the issue here. i can tell you, in our clinic is

a rare events the number of times someone was purposely trying to do that and sustained a concussion. partly it is preparation, conditioning, next frank, all of these kinds of things. host: the house education and labor committee took a look at the issue of safety standards on the athletic fields, of this twitter message -- how do you change the culture? guest: a great question, how do you prepare against brain injury and school achievement and performance. if your goal is academic achievement, you do not want to be messing around with brain injuries. really it is about getting that message across.

concussions are different from injuries to the knees or shoulders. you do not want to be looking at these in the same way. we are trying to get that point across. it can seriously influence your future. host: we have divided phone lines, but you can also send us an e-mail, journal@c-span.org. jeff is a coat from washington, maryland. -- jeff is a coach from washington, maryland. good morning. caller: how are you? my issue is these artificial turf services becoming more common. recently playing on those services, we have -- playing on those surfaces, we're seeing more head-to-head contact and it is becoming more prevalent as these substances become more and more common.

guest: surfaces are more and more important. there is not a lot of good information at this point about the different types of playing surfaces. certainly when you look at sports like hockey, where the ice is very hard and unforgiving, where the walls of one can hit, those are important services -- srufaces that we have to manage. i do not know of any data that is linked where we have to look at all of those factors. host: how typical is that kind of injury on the soccer field? what is a long-term prognosis? guest: very typical scenario, she is an active player running up and down the field, struck by another player or the ground,

these injuries occur. the long-term prognosis is very good. it was identified right away and we put in place an athletic trainer assessment protocol managed in the clinic, schoolwork managed as well so that her brain is not overworking. we are really putting all of the things in place to help the recovery. host: a number of states already have laws in place. the washington, d.c. government , they currently have laws in place. caller: we actually have students playing that should not be playing from the beginning. there are many sports that are active in the student is likely

not diagnosed in the beginning. there really exert a lot of energy. in texas they did not even have that hit. this boy was running a touchdown pass and he collapsed and died at the other end of the field. it turns out that at a younger age he had suffered from asthma. the next thing you know, the kid is dead. promising student, a student, did not even play football again a scholarship. i think that many students should not be playing, the examination is beforehand.

guest: the american sports caucus is looking at this entire issue of the importance of pre- participation examinations. we need to make sure that the athletes on the field who are physically capable are not at risk. a very important point that we identify those issues at of time. host: if you are a parent, 202- 737-0001. mark, of palm beach, florida. caller: i am calling as a parent and a coach. i used to approach a lot of tai chi. host: did you ever come across any kind of concussion or serious injury on the field? guest: tight she is a low impact sport typically -- tie chief --

tai chi is a low impact sport, typically. american sports bar significantly center around competitive modes of winning at all costs and coaches are having to become more sensitive to the relief of children, certainly better screening. i do not even know how good the screening is these days. the last caller made a good point about hidden illnesses and such. the point about not being difficult to assess in a young person that appears healthy otherwise, all of a sudden they fall over did -- i am out of breath trying to say all of these things -- the point i wanted to make is that there are ways to help the brain recover from injury and illness. there is a lady from dartmouth, she published information a few

years ago about daydreaming and how it helps a person recuperate focus and function, how it is an actual functional benefit. we really do not teach that in our culture and i think we have to address that more. we need to look at the science of relaxation and how it can help people. host: earlier you brought up challenging the brain without overloading the brain. guest: one of the things i said i and my testimony is that a child's job is learning. school. what we are thinking and learning we are using a lot of energy. when the brave and is impaired and you overworks the brain by trying to concentrate on learning, it probably overloads the brain more than we can handle and we think that that delays the recovery.

we think the close to 90% of the kids in that clinic are saying that their symptoms are getting worse whenever they tried to concentrate. if that is related to the kind of treatment and length of recovery, we need to look at that closely. host: cincinnati, ohio. caller: my grandchild plays football, he practices two hours every day in he is only six. is that too young for children to play football emma i have often been asked -- is that too

young for children to play football? i have often been asked that. do have to make sure the coaching practices are appropriate and that there is no undue risk and that it is being officiated properly and that coaches are trained on this injury. an important point in all of this legislation. we now have some very good training materials through other organizations that are video training for the coaches on what a confession is, what are the symptoms, and what do i do i would build my confidence by new jersey, good morning. caller: omy question is,

generally in lacrosse, why do boys and men wear helmets and women do not? guest: coming from the great state of maryland, where lacrosse wings of the brain, certainly the game is meant to be played differently. the way that lacrosse is coached and officiated, there is not supposed to be the kind of body blow that would produce concussion. we certainly know that the boys and men's game, checking of the body is allowed and helmets are therefore put on the head. the national governing body is looking at this question of how the game has evolved and whether girls should be wearing helmets or not. a complicated issue and one i know they have been considering.

host: glenn, good morning. caller: i have a grandson and a nephew that played football as well. my question is, is there any known research or product out there that could possibly help to keep the injuries -- not to keep them from occurring, because it is the impact that takes place in a contact sport, but is there any kind of product that someone might be working on that could address health situations? guest: there is some interest in what helmets' might be able to do in the helmeted sports. prevention is a multi-pronged issue. it is the preparation of the athlete, the coaches, these officials, along with protective

equipment, following the rules properly, all of those things working together. one might argue secondary intervention, pulling the individual off the field. host: this is the general theme of the conversation going on online, parents to see sports as a way for children to get to college. that we push sports. albert is joining us from vermont. good morning. caller: my question is the long- term effect of mild concussions that are not detected. a friend of mine played high school football, college ball, develop alzheimer's in his middle-50's. from my reading, that could have been a part of the problem. guest: we are trying to understand how those long-term problems connect back to sports.

the prevailing thought, and this is where we have to do research -- unfortunately research takes time and the problem is that we want solutions, understandably. i think that in our research, certainly in our hypothesizing, some individuals might be more prone, genetically or otherwise, to these long-term problems over others. they might have a history of more hits over others. we are trying to figure out what that equation is in terms of results of long-term problems and how we reduce that for certain individuals. we do not have the answers right now but i think that we do have the variables that we need to look at. host: frank, vienna, maryland. caller: you have a comment about girls being more highly representative of these injuries and boys. i have three kids. two girls, one boy, one of the

things that i quickly recognize that high school was the boys' sports got what ever they want it or whatever they thought they needed as far as equipment was concerned, whereas the girls had to fight tooth and nail to get the equipment that they needed. guest: obviously we need to make sure that there is equity in the protection of girls and boys. host: that last call is from michigan, calling them for dr. gerard gioia of the washington, d.c. children's medical center. caller: pardon me, i have a head injury myself that is not sports related, but the question is why play a game where inherently you have to wear a helmet to play it? i will hang up to listen to the response. guest: well, i guess that is probably a cultural question in not one th