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tv   Viewpoint With Eliot Spitzer  Current  May 23, 2012 8:00pm-9:00pm PDT

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. >> cenk: it will be interesting to see how moderate or not moderate those candidates will be, but we do have that. that's awesome. "viewpoint" with john fugelsang next. ♪ >> good evening, i'm john fugelsang, sitting in for eliot spitzer, and this is "viewpoint." now every night here on current the governor brings you the most intelligent and informed analysis of stories that matter most to americans. i'm glad to balance that credibility out. in the past few days following facebook's massive stock sell mark zuckerberg lost 2 to
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$4 billion. he's being sued by his investors. he got totally unfriended by nasdaq, and you thought your honeymoon was a drag. a trio of investors filed a class action suit against facebook, zuckerberg and banks including morgan stanley goldman sachs, barclays merrill lynch and jp morgan chase. they claim that facebook withheld information from facebook's growth prospects from small investors. given inside information, something that is not supposed to happen in american finances the securities and exchange mission, and the regulatory authority say they're investigating, and the state of massachusetts has sent to morgan stanley, the bank that led the ipo, a subpoena. the bank said the class action suit is without merit. while morgan stanley insists it did nothing wrong and said it simply followed the same
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procedures for the facebook offering that it follows for all ipos and compliant with all applicable regulations. they told us that before they told anybody else. maybe that's the problem. for more on facebook's current status update i'm happy to be joined by bianca bosker with the "huffington post" and the one and only, mike papantonio president of the trial lawyers association and host of ring of fire radio. bianca heres what i find funny. facebook exists to sell us to advertisers. this is the first time that they tried to sell us the selling of us to advertisers. i think that's what the ipo is about. should people feel sorry for the people who bought in? >> i think you know, it remains to be seen. that's what this lawsuit is all about, right? some of the people who bought
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into the facebook ipo know things that others did not. if you bought into it knowing all the risks these reduced forecast, it's hard to feel bad. but the question remains did people buy into it not knowing all the facts that were out on the table. it's pretty touching when you see people who invested their college funds 11-year-olds putting this money in facebook and potentially getting really burned by it. >> were there any suggestions last week before this all happened that might have tipped people off? it seems that some people knew that this was not going to be a hot stock. >> look, there were these crowd source estimates and people thought it would close at $55, $40, even higher than that potentially. while you have a lot of people excited about facebook's ipo, there are the naysayers who like to take the point of view, this is why i'm being like this, it's hard to lead up to these things
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to distinguish everyone making a prediction about what is going to happen, and everyone is a little extreme in their views. >> you're the one i should ask, will this hurt facebook or are the majority of facebook users not care, they're tending their farms? >> they think the issue--it's sort of like where we give a lot to facebook and there are those who have given more of themselves to facebook in the sense that they bought into the company. now they're having second thoughts, already they lost money on the deal but really it's damaging for wall street. there is this--its reinforcing the sense that insiders are the ones who would cash in. mike papantonio, the question is about how this ipo was marketed. were there categories of investors? >> well, there were. there were the haves and the have nots. there were the mom and pop
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investors who have to count on this for their golden years in retirement. this is not the first time that this story has been told. since 2003 you might remember wall street made a pledge. the pledge was, yes, we've been engaged in criminal conduct. and thank you for not throwing us in jail. in exchange we'll make a pledge to you. the pledge is we'll be self-policing. we're going to change the way we do business. that was in 2003. now we see the biggest ipo in decades take place and it's simply business as usual. it's two different world john. one more the insiders, the country club of wall street, where they make decisions behind closed doors. in this situation understand the broker analyst the morgan stanley analyst said, look there is no guesswork here. i can tell you that this ipo is overrated. you put too much money on this ipo in value. the only people who knew that, though, were the morgan stanley
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friends, the people who they do business with. the people who are on their board of directors. the goldman sachs folks, the jp morgan folks. all the people they do business with. the other people were kept in the dark. you know what is wrong with it? because capitalism failed america again. what is wrong with it, john, you'll have the u.s. governor do nothing about it again. eric holder will do what he has always done. 13 trillion-dollar were stolen from the american public from the last mortgage burn down. there have been zero prosecutions from the department of justice on wall street. in america a child can be caught with marijuana and go to jail. in america a man with a briefcase can steal billions and go have a martini and we forget about it. you know what suffers? capitalism suffers. this story is not about facebook
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facebook. this story is about the underpinnings of capitalism and it will get uglier as we get along. >> thank you for that, and i think governor romney is so disgusted that you're so anti-growth. this could be a great way for people who have invested in facebook to the average folks who don't care about the stock market buffets book keeps them from murdering their bosses every day in their cubicle to learn about insider training and what it's all about. if people don't have faith in the market, the market suffer and we all suffer because of it. is there a bright side to this, and do you see this leading to greater awareness of how wall street malfeasance works for the layperson. >> i'm an attorney, and i'm up against these corporations every day. we handle tons of cases just like this. at the end of all this jp morgan is going to make $100 million. the u.s. government is not going to ask them to discourage those profits. the u.s. government might slap a
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few people on the hand, but at the end of it jp morgan will still continue to manage 2 trillion-dollar worth of america's assets. morgan stanley goldman sachs will continue to manage another 8 trillion-dollar. and the american public will be put in a place where they can't even trust their broker with their money. when that happens capitalism fails. that's the worse problem. >> john, i have to agree with you. facebook is us. we helped build facebook. that's our information, our time our eyeballs. >> and it went public like all your private information. >> facebook could not figure out the privacy settings. >> that's why i'm asking these questions. this is complicated as my privacy settings on facebook. i can't to ask you this. how could zuckerberg conceivably bounce back from this? do you think they have an incredible innovation waiting in the wings? is there something that facebook
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will roll out when that will drive the stock price back up. >> i'm waiting for this. right now they're making most of their money off of advertising. the question is what are they also going to do? what is the rabbit in the hat? i think that one of the things that they could do is launch--basically getting money from their users. not charging to access facebook but buyinge books or videos all through facebook. >> or private advertise instar gram and you have buy your photos. >> right, but they'll pay for popularity. i could pay and promote a post it that i write about the great dinner i had is seen by a higher percentage of my friends. >> i advertise comedy shows on facebook on a regular basis, and i think it's a great service. all kidding aside, facebook does make less than yahoo, and yahoo stock was valued around $15. why are people so surprised
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about this? >> facebook valuation? >> yes, that it wasn't hitting the stars the way we thought it would. >> this was the great silicon valley success story. this was the dream. from harvard dorm room to wall street and it's ended up being a bit of a nightmare. here it was they were going to ride in the sunset. he got married over the weekend. >> yeah, after they went public. >> yeah, i know. >> mike, let me ask you one thing. if we had better regulation of wall street if dodd frank wasn't quite so toothless, would this happen. >> even with dodd frank, even with volumer volcker rule greed is on wall street. right now, they're not afraid of
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anything. they're not even afraid of this senate banking committee that said they're going to investigate them. richard shelby, a republican, made almost $8 million in money from the very industry that he he says he's going to investigate. republicans are raking in money from this industry at a rate that is staggering. >> is it just a fire sale? do you think zuckerberg is surprised by this? is there a chance he's innocent? >> i don't blame zuckerberg for this. zuckerberg was told by jp morgan, first of all they asked the question should we make more stock available. jp morgan were like pigs at a trough they said make as much stock available. when you increase that available stock, exactly happened what we would have expected happened. they didn't care about
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zuckerberg. they didn't care about facebook. what they cared about was the up front money that they were going to make on the ipo exchange. and in ordered to that they had to convince zuckerberg to put a lot of stock on the streets. >> we'll be talking about this for a long time. i hope you'll be back because i invite people to be on eliot spitzer's show when i feel like it. bianca bosker, thank you. >> thanks. >> and mike papantonio, host of ring of fire radio, thank you for your time and expertise on this very complicateed subject. now colin powell went on tv and told mitt romney to wake up, coming up on "viewpoint." vice president al gore joins jennifer granholm. >>we're just getting started. >>the state of the 2012 campain. brought to you by spiriva handihaler. if you have copd like i do you know how hard it can be to breathe
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>> we are finally pulling out of the war in afghanistan or at least they promised us we're polling out. but i have a bigger quagmire for you. the war on drugs. it brings us to the number of the day 56. that's not a wrapper. that's the percentage of americans who according to the not exactly liberal rasmussen poll now favor legalizing and regulating marijuana. and there have been a ton of these poll recently. oh for some reason i can't recall all of them. they have shown the pendulum swinging towards the decriminalizing cannabis. washington grew it. benjamin franklin used it for printing paper. i'm not saying that he smoked
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it. it was as american as apple pie, and every knew if you smoked the top of the plant, you'd want to eat a lot of' pie. back then, the biggest drug problem in the colonies was the same as today logical. abraham lincoln said two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch spoking a pipe of sweet hemp and playing my hohner harmonica. whwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwhwh >> four years ago when former secretary of state colin powell came out in support of candidate obama it was a major coupe. on tour while selling his new book he remained coy on his new endorsement not so reserved in his thoughts of governor mitt
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romney. >> some are quite far to the right when governor romney not too long gay said that the russian federation is our number one geo meny? come monday, that's not the case case. >> that ought to sell a few books. but still trying to sell himself, mitt romney decided to sell the bedrock of his campaign his time at bain capital. he created create many jobs some of them not in asia. >> it gives me a perspective of how jobs are created, and someone who has not spent a day in private sector could understand. we get the unemployment iran to 6% perhaps a little lower. >> a millionaire at birth ceo who wants to cut taxes for the
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rich and deregulate wall street for president. we've never had that before. he has predicted what the unemployment rate will be in case you thought mitt pulled that out of his magic underwear. the "u" author of "herding dong can is,," and also joining us author two of my favorite guys. first off general powell. is this an endorsement of barack obama? because it seems like in his book tour he's trying to sell books. he's trying to make headlines, not make waves. he came out in favor of marriage equality, but he seemed to not endorse barack obama, which will sell books to his conservative friends, and he slammed mitt romney which will sell books to his progressive friends.
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>> i don't think colin powell has any conservative friends left after endorsing obama in 2008. but you look at romney's foreign policy team. i wrote a story called "mitt romney's neo--con war cabinet." he's surrounded by those powell battled with. and it's no surprise that powell would be freaked out but those who are advising romney. there is no space left for colin powell. the moderate nationalism that he represents has been moved out. >> he does support abortion rights as well. i see mitt romney and it reminds me of dole. it seems he's being pushed so far to the corner to appease the right i don't know if they're trying to solidify the base? do you think he's a neo--con. >> i think he is whatever people
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tell him to be. don't get me wrong, it was fun to watch colin powell say, come on mitt, think. but i don't understand going to someone who royally screwed up in that area and then we're going back to him for advice on that area. he royally screwed up in foreign policy. it's like going to charlie sheen and asking, how to raise a family. >> due but he does not know a lot about foreign policy. >> his idea was i'll go as far to the rights as possible and i'll surrender my people, but the fact that he does know that much like george w. bush is scary. he's malleable on this.
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will he have core convictions that he'll push back on or will he go along with his visors. >> in fairness, you can say the same about president clinton, he didn't have much foreign policy experience as well. now saying saying that the-- >> but clinton did not surrender himself with crazy people. >> yes, who does romney think he's going to appeal to? is this going to help him? i would think he has the right wing vote locked up. there is not going to be an evangelical challenger, why would mitt romney work so hard to pannedder to pander to them he
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wants to paint obama as weak. that's his whole strategy. he's trying to get to the right of obama on foreign policy so he can make obama look like the reincarnation of jimmy carter. >> i think his view on foreign policy is less talk about obama. >> exactly. he wants to be like ronald reagan. the only thing i can really see is that he can't recall a lot of things. bain capital, we're hearing a lot of about that and president obama to his credit is doubling down on his criticism of bain capital. i view this is not mitt romney creating jobs but wealth for his investors. >> yes. >> you can't look at his creation of jobs. forty-seventh in the nation. and you can't look at olympics. bain is all he has got. is obama making a wise choice taking him on.
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>> obama needs to take him on with bain, but paint romney as a creature of wall street. you can't just say oh, he laid off these workers and piled up these companies in debt. this is why it matters now. romney is a personification of what happened with jp morgan goldman sachs. obama's ability to take on wall street has not always been the strongest. i don't know if he can make this argument if he's trying to raise fun weremoney from the very banks. >> sarah palin, when she said i can see russia from my house. if she had already been an ambassador to kazakhstan, it wouldn't matter that she messed up. but and mitt romney, it's already what people view him as. >> ari makes a good point. a lot of folks thought he would
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make a wall street reformer. we want him to be like governor eliot spitzer, yet we have not seen anybody in cuffs. can obama reasonably make this fight? >> i think he has to go further. >> he depends on the same investors. >> he think he has to get rid of some of those contributers. he basically needs to say the money is drying up any way from wall street because of financial rereform. i'm not going to keep holding these lavish fundraisers at the very moment we need to have reform. he should tell supporters i know i'm going to lose money from the banks, i need you to make it up. it would give him credibility to go after romney on bain. i don't think the president will do that because the super pack money going against them but that's what the president needs to do to have credibility on this issue. >> the list is the same. the top 20 donors are nearly the same for romney and obama. >> there has been a very interesting shift. in 2008 obama raised a lot of
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money. now they're presenting romney 10 to 1. if obama talked about who romney's five biggest contributers were over and over and over people would get the message who is supporting romney. but the problem is-- >> he can't. >> they're weighing down his campaign. he needs to get tougher at wall street. >> the irony is that wall street reform that seems to have alienated wall street from obama, it wasn't the reform we were hoping for. it's a great pleasure to have both of you here. i hope to have you back when governor spitzer is here. i'm inviting people to come back on his watch. ari, and lee thank you both for your time. what a pleasure. jim cramer's adadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadad
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>> still to come, where exactly does the bible say thou shalt wear protection? the church verse versus contraception. and brian kilmeade, al sharpton and prince charles deejays. >> women who put out, right, barbara? [singing] >> that's awful. >> that's it? ♪ >> rabbit huntin' ain't fun when the rabbit got the gun. >> i created this new category normal nuts. >> facebook isn't the epitome of the.com that lost people
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fortunes, not at all. >> suddenly you go back and realize, wait a second maybe this was just like all the other social media that went public, which was disastrous. >> four wives. four wives. >> it's just his schtick. that's why his ass got schtuck. >> i try to be polite to all my guests, and i think you're dreadful. i don't want to talk to you any more. >> that's fine. >> what would a romney presidency be like? day one, machines trucks, mexicans and the american flag, people wearing hats ties tractors, american flags, dockers, more american flags black lady again. hey, let's have sex in the field.
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>> oh, no kilmeade thinks it's only trial periods? brian, i think we can make it happen. call me. coming up, cardinal dolan's >>(narrator) gavin newsom, lieutenant governor of california, and former mayor of san francisco is on current tv. >>every night on cable news networks everyone's focusing on what's wrong. i want this show to move past that. i love creative people, and with all the vexing problems we have we need creative thinking. >>(narrator) with interviews with notables from silicon valley, hollywood, and beyond. >>at the end of the day this show's simple. it's about ideas. ideas are the best politics. ideas can bring us together. >>(narrator) the gavin newsom show. friday at 11 eastern/8 pacific. only on current tv.
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>>you're welcome current tv audience for the visual candy. >>sharp tongue, quick whit and above all, politically direct. >>you just think there is no low they won't go to. oh, no. if al gore's watching today... >> in the bible when god said be fruitful and multiply there were exactly two people on earth. we're now at 7 billion. it would seem michigan accomplished. the bible does not for bid birth control. i'm at no point does jesus say thou shall not wear a jimmy hat. and despite the absence of anything like this in the bible, several catholics have filed suit against the obama administration, claiming the mandate that employer pride workers with birth control coverage is a violation of their religious freedom.
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the over 40 plaintiffs including the university of notre dame archdiocese of washington washington, d.c. new york the michigan catholic conference and catholic charities. if jesus never mentioned birth control, is this issue about religious freedom or keeping your numbers up? isn't this issue really about women's health? and where do celibates get off telling other people to have kids. if the bishops had confidence in their people make it available and tell the flock never to use it and see if they use it. joining me now is executive director of catholic united james salt. are the catholics serving what some call a right wing political agenda. >> this is certainly in service to a political agenda but more
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importantly we think this is an insult for those who live in constant fear of persecution, i'm speaking of christian in iraq for these catholic organizations to some how compare their religious liberty to the religious liberty of those who suffer and die for their beliefs is an insult. >> that's a valid point and it seems to me its more of a religious health issue than a religious freedom issue. >> this isthe catholic church is more known for its public politics abortion gay marriage and in this instance contraception than being the voice for the poor and marginalized which is what jesus called us to do. >> james, has anything like this mapped before where the church has sued the u.s. government?
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>> not to my knowledge. it's incredibly frightening to groups like ours who want the church to be profound church to influence the culture not to be a church known for its divisive reactionary politics. this is driving more catholics away from the faith. this is what we take to the bishops to remind them. there are many good reasons to be catholic in america today but their leadership is not one of them. >> let me ask you this. one of the things that i like about pope benedict, and i say this as a child of two former catholic clergy, he's someone who has defied expectations. the right can't pidgeon hole him and the left can't pidgeon hole him. when i see rick santorum running on birth control as an issue. the last two popes were against the iraq war. benedict himself said all nations on earth have a moral
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responsibilities to provide healthcare to its poor citizens regardless of their ability to pay. i don't see an outcry from catholics on issues over this. i hear right wing catholics who freely disobey the pope's rule when they use birth control which is spiritually insignificant, i'm confused by their motivation. >> i want to remeantime you that pope benedict has been an outspoken advocate on the financial. >> and that's what made jesus flip out in the temple. it was the tax the fee on the poor the interest on loans. >> this is what is at stake today. cardinal bernadine had this beautiful con sect of the seamless garment. that everyone was connected. the death row enmate, the dignity that they had was
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comparable to the dignity of the unborn child or the mother of three on welfare, they were all integrated. but what today what we see in the catholic church is a hierarchy that says certain threats to dignity is more important than others. that's incredibly scary. that's what groups like ours are working to resist. >> people want to use the story of onan to say that's the proof that god is opposed to birth control because onan spilled his seed as it said in genesis. but onan was disobeying by getting his dead brother's wife iimpregnant eightated. it's an interesting story kids. read up. >> it served a very political agenda. i believe that cardinal george and the bishop of philadelphia are very focused on overturning roe v. wade.
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everything that they do is about helping republicans and diminishing the effectiveness of democrats. if you look at the catholic church in the last eight years what is it principally known for? it's known for denying john kerry communion, and resisting the president obama can speak at a flagship university. and it's not for the poor and marginalized. >> and that's not what we hear a lot about. and he was against the dealt penalty. now why do you think notre dame is suing this administration? >> well, i think their reason that they gave is they don't think the administration is negotiating in good faith. in some sense we agree that there is room for the administration to give a little bit. we firmly support the administration's accommodation of the religious liberty of these organizations. but if you wanted to make this
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debate whether contraception should be available to every american then expand health and funding. to include organizations who are morally objecting to the services. let's take the bishops out of the equation completely and ask is this about politics or finding a solution? that's what we would ask the administration to give a little room on. >> james i thank you and catholics united on behalf of all catholics and people of faith who believe birth control is a way of fighting poverty and on his worse day jesus didn't play victim. thank you so much for your time tonight. >> thanks john. >> now who is flip flopping more, mitt romney or the people jennifer granholm is politically direct on current tv. >>the dominoes are starting to fall. (vo) granholm is live in the war room. >> what should women be doing? >> electing women to office. (vo) she's a political trailblazer. >>republicans of course didn't
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let facts get in the way of spin. >>do it, for america.
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having afib not caused by a heart valve problem increases your risk of stroke. ask your doctor if you can reduce your risk with pradaxa. vanguard: the documentary series that redefined tv journalism. >>we're going to places where few others are going. >>it doesn't get anymore real than this. >>occupy! >>we will have class warfare. >>i'm being violated by the health-care system. >>we're patrolling the area looking for guns, drugs, bodies. >>we go in and spend a considerable amount of time getting to know the people and the characters that are actually living these stories. >>the award winning series "vanguard" new episodes coming soon. only on current tv. >> the global warming lawsuit against the u.s. government filed by a teenager coming up. but first let's check in with governor jennifer granholm in the war room. what's on the show tonight?
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>> thanks, john, welcome to "viewpoint." glad to have you sitting in for eliot. >> thank you. >> on my show though, if the president is going to hold on to the white house obviously he needs the youth vote to get out and vote. tonight in "the war room" we'll delve into the critical issue canand we've also got markos who is going to talk about the policies of polarization. that and more at the top of the hour. make sure you send people my way way. >> it's thrill to hear you quote harold akumar. >> my children think it's funny. >> funnier than the last two movies. i thank if you have an opinion, you better back it up. >>eliot spitzer takes on politics. >>science and republicans do not mix. >>now it's your turn at the only online forum with a direct line
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to eliot spitzer. >>join the debate now. >> welcome back to view point. i'm john fugelsang. now i was watching fox news because i'm a thinker. and i was shocked to hear conservatives calling governor mitt romney a flip flopper. now i understand how governor romney got the wrap. it's true that the man changes positions like a yoga teacher on tainted meth. he supported planned parenthooded, now he wants to defund it. and healthcare mandate is his pre-existing condition, and he was a pro gay equality now he rails against gay marriage which means it will take three years before he can claim he was always for it. on the surface he's a flip flopper, i call him reversible mittens. but when you look at his history, a clear consistent pattern emerges. mitt is always been will be to say, do or anything anything in order to get elected.
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in that sense he has been steadfastly a constant human wind sock and has never wavered in his career. the real flip floppers are the g.o.p. voting base. and you want proof? well my friends, our republican friends went through seven different frontrunners in one short prime race. romney was the clear frontrunner frontrunner, but whereas obama is the man the g.o.p. really loves to hate this man is that man they hate to love. and so the next frontrunner was the person who won the iowa straw poll, that is congresswoman michelle bachmann. i was rooting for her cause i think america's ready for another president who thinks that rwanda was jj's' sister on "good times." but in the later summer the frontrunner fog went to texas governor rick perry. the man who thinks arab spring
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is a saudi deodorant. i enjoyed his campaign empty for how much governor perry and govern romney despised each other. then the herman cain train went off the track. and the conductor could not stop chasing coo boost. so for a very brief time he saw the surge of congress ron ron paul. but the man is one gotham city acid spill away from being harvey dent. you can follow jesus or you can follow ayn rand but you don't get to follow both. which led to the rise of newt gringrich. the world's least likable man in the world's biggest popularity contest. and so the last frontrunner became former senator rick
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santorum. every g.o.p. candidate got to be frontrunner with the exception of jon hundreds man who happens to be a very fine man but the man's campaign with as so depressing sarah mclaughlin did infomercials to keep it from being euthanized. so i ask you who is more inconsistent? the man who consistently flipped more than a crack house mattress or the prime voters [ male announcer ] this is corporate caterers miami, florida. in here, great food demands a great presentation. so at&t showed corporate caterers how to better collaborate by using a mobile solution in a whole new way. using real-time photo sharing abilities, they can create and maintain high standards from kitchen to table. this technology allows us to collaborate with our drivers to make a better experience for our customers. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ ♪
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>> all right, congress passing comprehensive climate change regulation are somewhere between horrendous and i don't think so. in the absence of any federal
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action on the issue, 17-year-old alex loorz and four of his friend are taking on washington, d.c. themselves. now loorz who founded the group "kids versus global warming" five years ago to educate his peers about climb change is suing the federal government including epa ledge for lisa jackson, demanding a 6% reduction in car done carbon dioxide starting in 2013. this friday a federal court will decide whether or not this case ask proceed. here to tell us about this very unique lawsuit is the 17-year-old plaintiff himself, alex loorz and his co-counsel in the case, thank you for your time and devotion to the issue. alec is it your idea to bring
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this to an actual lawsuit? >> it's been a collaborative effort. i've been a climate change activist ever since i was 12 and i spent my entire teenage life pushing for changes in our homes, communities, and calling for actions in the streets and my organization "i matter" organized a march that marched in communities in over 200 places in over 45 countries. but for this first few years of my journey i was feeling like that wasn't enough. we need something serious that will get to the core of what this issue is about. changing light bulbs and riding bikes and march something great, but we need something that will change the system at it's very core. i was thinking that-- >> please go ahead, please. >> well, i began to think that the judicial branches may be not as bought out by the big corporations and maybe we could pursue something there. then i was connected with this group of attorneys who had been working on this legal approach
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called "atmosphereic trust litigation" that said our government has legal responsibility to protect our planet and atmosphere for future generations. i decided this was something i wanted to devote myself to and be the lead plaintiff. my organization, we committed to gathering youth from all around the world mostly around the country to be plaintiffs in cases from all over because it's really our generation who is going to be affected more than anyone else by climate change. we'll have to grow up and deal with the consequences of the decisions that are made today. it's really our future that we're fighting or. it's our atmosphere that is not being protected under these well-founded laws. we're holding our government accountable to their legal responsibility. >> right on. i thank you. you answered the exact question about the judicial branch that i interrupted you for. phil i would like to go to you for a moment. is there any precedent for this
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kind of suit. >> you know, this suit has a background going all the way back to rome law through the magna carta where the sources are key where people are protected by the sovereign. and if not, the people can go to the sovereign through the courts and get the government to do its job. it's worked in navigational waters. it's worked in rivers, lakes, and now it's going to work for the key natural resource, our atmosphere. >> and in keeping in really tradition for all american history that all change comes from the people and the leaders have to catch up eventually. >> absolutely. you know, a lot of this comes from the civil rights movement, for example what happened with big tobacco. if you think about tobacco, it took the courts to get all sorts of measures through so that people would be protected. same thing in the civil rights
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cases. >> exactly. lbj would never have signed it if dr. king and all the thousands of people who fought for civil rights had not done their workforce. >> absolutely. global warming is being treated like segregation. 1955 people said segregation was great and we don't need to worry about integration. that was 50 years ago. >> alec, do you think president obama would side with you on this issue or do you think he would be more partial to the manufacturers' point of view? >> that's a good question. he definitely said he cares about climate change and it's a top issue for his administration. we actually had some of our team personally delivered a letter to him in a private meeting a couple of weeks ago. the week before this hearing that was just friday, the 11th. i think that he--you know, he's caught up in a lot of politics
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and craziness and all the stuff that goes on in dc that i could not even begin to understand but i think we as young people we can provide this sense of moral authority and kind of get past the politics and the finances and the debate and get to what this is really about, which is our survival. we really just want to have the opportunity to grow up on a planet that understands that nature and the future of our generation is just as important as money and power and convenience that run our decisions now. >> i think you're right i thank you both. how can people learn more about your crusade? >> yeah, our website is www.imattermarch.org and facebook@i matter march.org and we're training people to be activists in their community. >> brilliant. i wish we could have had more time. it's a very important issue and i'm inspired by the work you're doing. i hope you get good news from the judge on friday.
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