thing and one ting only -- and that is a clown. it places me on a far higher plane than any politician." enjoy the debate. dylan's here to take us forward. dylan, what's on the agenda? >> all right. well, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. we start with defense today, though, martin, as theirs is perhaps no industry that has more toxified our economy as the industrial energy complex. the show starts right now. well, the big story today is playing defense. good afternoon to you. i am dylan ratigan. we begin with our money in our national defense. we are currently, as we all know, in the longest war in our nation's history. the cost of blood and treasure, simply staggering. yet when there are calls for cuts in spending or ending the wars, the military industrial

complex says, no, not yet. not now. not this month. and that's have been in this time of incredible economic distress here at home. if you think the debate is new, of course, think again. going back to 1961, republican dwight eisenhower, the general who won d-day and helped end world war ii issued this warning to all of us about what would happen if we were not careful. >> in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. we must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. we should take nothing for granted. >> well, since then, we've taken a few things for granted. we have had ten presidents since

president eisenhower. five were democrats, five were republicans. and yet the military industrial complex has spent and wasted trillions on defense across all ten presidencies. first up today, former three-star admiral and democratic congressman joe sestak. admiral, how relevant is this fact? 92% of senators had donations from the defense sector in 2000. 92% get money from defense. how relevant is that fact? >> it's very relevant. whether it's the health care industry, pharmaceuticals, even education. money plays an undue role in how politicians act. consciously and unconsciously. in particular, though, what has happened is that every congressperson's district has a depot, a shipyard in their district or state. and so, as you begin talking

about reducing the defense budget, you're beginning to talk about jobs. and unfortunately, some people who are very concerned about the growth of federal government tend not to see in some areas, this has become not only a welfare-type of job creation, but it also means that we're not stopping programs that aren't best for our warriors, as we have to potentially fight the next conflict. and that's the problem with the money that does flow from these lobbyists. >> and when you look, empirically, at what it means to have national military strategy, a national defense strategy, if you were, as an admiral, running a room, trying to define and prioritize defense strategy, both in information collection, logistics management, actual equipment, and mobilization, how would that meeting look like and are we even having it anywhere? >> i'm concerned that we're not.

if you saw, and i'm sure you did, secretary defense panetta's recent speech just a few days ago, he talked that we do have to address our future military under a strategy-based case. and yet, nowhere did he lay out what our strategy is to be. for example, since the fall of the soviet union, the entire size of our military, on the whole, has been based upon fighting two wars simultaneously. one of those is almost over, iraq. and the other, korea, has not had the army be able to defend korea for the past decade, because of its involvement in iraq. and yet, we've been told that is acceptable risk. nowhere have we had anyone lay out, what is the strategy for the future, except for the word "strategy." and so therefore, are we just holding on to relative cold war programs, platforms, and building those, which will give us a good military, or are we beginning to transform the

military to what we saw over these recent years, that knowledge, the ability to know who your adversary is, not more ships, not more aircraft, but to know is really the type of warfare capability we need for the future. >> and that's the definition of open source warfare, open source warfare, you have the ability to know where every digital point is, including the location and identity of the opposition. obviously, there's another component to this f these wars d the spending of these wars. and it is this. this is my other statistic of the day. only 0.05%, so one-half of one percent since the u.s. population, since 9/11, so that's a decade, has been on active duty. one-half of one percent of the u.s. population over a decade of war in multiple countries has been on active duty. this is significantly lower, as the chart illustrates than world

war i, world war ii, korea, vietnam, and gulf war, and i'm interested in your point of view on a country that would dare to run its military on the backs of one-half of 1% of the population while the rest of the population is told to never mind. >> this is something that you put your finger on that we have to think deeply about. i came into the military when there was still a draft, during the vietnam war era. and then we became a volunteer force. to some degree, we had to go there out of necessity. when we bring a sale or a soldier in today, we can often put them through a year of training, on very sophisticated equipment, before we place them in the field. and we need a return for that investment of three or four years. but it also means that our military is becoming a bit divorced from the society that it serves. and the society doesn't quite understand as well as it once did those who are serving.

and so i think this is really something that we have to think through. as you begin to maybe grapple with the issue of national service, a choice of americorps versus the military, one longer in years than the other, but i do think that there are less people, particularly in congress, that have a feeling and an understanding for military. my own party often won't even stand up and argue whether this platform or weapon is really needed, because they're a bit concerned about being regarded as weak on defense, where stopping that program and for less cost than pursuing something else in cyberspace warfare might be better. and yet, often people are worried, because they don't understand. and that is part of this issue we're talking about today. >> if you were to look at the political benefit to incumbent politicians of having a military where very few people participate, how beneficial is it to the power base to not have

too much of the population too exposed to too much war for too long? >> not helpful. look, i'm going to spend this november 11th, veterans day, in a maximum security prison in pennsylvania. i do it every year. i'm meeting with veterans. they just formed a new chapter this and i'm going to go to speak with them. 47% of our veterans who are in jail are there for a drug or alcohol-related crime. coming back from either vietnam or afghanistan or iraq with ptsd. people don't understand because they're not exposed who what we've placed our warriors in. i would argue that our military leaders are most conservative in going to war, because they understand what the costs can be, as you've seen with that tragic misadventure in iraq. and so this issue of having more families, more of our general

population understanding our military and being part of probably sharing that or some other form of national service, i think, would make us -- would potentially make wiser decisions in what we're pursuing. >> i really appreciate your exploring of those two data points with us, the 92% number in terms of the funding in our congress and obviously the participation levels. i suspect you voice the concerns of truly millions of americans and do so very eloquently, and i'm grateful for your own courage to come out and have this conversation in public. i hope that we'll have a lot of this conversation over the next year, admiral, and thank you. >> thanks for having me on, again. dylan. >> admiral joe sestak. coming up here on "the d.r. show," an attorney general who says our housing system is no way to live and says he's going to do something about it. delaware attorney general beau biden with us exclusively a little later in the hour. but next, new revelations that the u.s. considered using

cyberwarfare, think digital nukes, in the country of libya, no less. are hack attacks america's go-to weapon in the future, and what sort of vulnerability would it create for us relative to say, oh, i don't know, china or russia? the megapanel picks up the gauntlet. and all that plus robots playing ping-pong. you know it's a big show. 4g-- the next evolution in wireless technology.

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the november deadline for the debt supercommittee/$1.2

trillion, that's a month away. as the committee chips away at spending, they're padding their own campaign pockets using the auction for power system. this is actually a very good auction environment, because anybody on the super committee can be threatening to, you know, harm your business, which means you've got to, you know, send an auction check to make sure that doesn't happen. and according to the hill members, have advantage themselvesed to this auction, hundreds of thousands of dollars, in fact, from special interest pacs, trying to ensure whatever gets cut, it's not theirs. it's time to expose the auction a little bit. our super panel is here. this has been my argument against big government, small government. it's not big government, small government, it's bought government, not bought government. you look at 70,000 represented upton, 55,000 camp, 41,000, max baucus. 21,000, van hollen. he'll come around. he'll come around.

we'll get that number up. got to ease up on something. hensarling, $20,000, and toomey apparently needs to get some more money going. heads he needs to do somebody a favor. >> i'm very disappointed in these numbers. that's kind of paltry. >> pretty pathetic. >> i've ban lobbyist for seven years and raised way more than that for these guys. really, it's almost sophomore. we create a megacommittee, a super committee, the jesus committee, and they raise money like, you know, hebarain. >> but they can get it all to wait until next quarter. >> here's what i want -- i wonder if they'll raise as much as as they're supposed to cut. >> oh, maybe that's -- >> maybe that's the goal. i've got to raise as much money as i can slash from poor people. >> there you go. but the interest thing, we are coming to a place here, clearly, not just what's going on with

this show or the things we talk about, it struck me when i read this piece from tom ferguson, he had a price list, a straight price list, he said, if you want to control the head of the health care committee, it will cost you $200,000. if you want to control the financial services committee, it will cost you $200,000 plus you've got to raise $75,000. and then that price list is going to be more public this year than it's ever been, i'm sure of it. and it will be public for the democratic party and it will be public for the republican party. i just don't see how these politicians can continue to offer the explanations they're offering in the face of all this math. >> but two things, i would say, i'll play jimmy for a minute, or old jimmy for a minute, lobbyists aren't evil. >> lobbyists aren't evil. >> no, it's fund-raising that's evil. >> in the same vein, many of these places get money from aarp groups or labor unions. >> or sierra club. a lot of money flying around.

>> where the rubber hits the road right now, until we get money out of politics, is their votes. at some point, whatever the super committee decides, the congress has to vote on. it's our responsibility to go and see, how did our member vote, what kind of money did they take, and you have to hold that person accountable if they don't -- i know that seems paltry, but it's -- >> you're correct, there's nothing incorrect about that. i guess what's frustrating -- what's frustrating though, and that's honorable, and we appreciate that, we're looking for something. but what's frustrating about that, i think, susan, is that people are -- it's very apparent that the two options, if you will, chocolate or vanilla, strawberry or raspberry, whatever it is, for a country that understands a lot of choice and understands and sort of admires a lot of choice, we have 50,000 paint colors, 50,000 kinds of fabric, 50,000 kinds of house, 50,000 kinds of cars, we

have two choices for our largest political solutions and they're both being prebaked in an auction. >> and you also have to wonder, why aren't the occupiers of wall street down on "k" street, because, in fact, they could be shaming people into this. >> they are. >> going after the countries, but you can shame the legislators. why don't they push them and say, return that money. return any money you're going to take a vote on. >> susan, they freaking took over the hart building last week and had to be escorted out. >> she wants more! susan wants an occupation in washington. >> well, but if you're going to do it, you might as well do it right. get it done. >> there is a poll out today that shows that people are more angry, actually, at washington, than they are at even wall street. because i think that's where -- so they're mad at wall street, but let's be clear, they're mad at washington too, which includes "k" street and congress -- >> well, they watched the health care bill get sold off. they watched the banking bill get sold off. they thought they were going to

get health reform, they didn't. they thought they were going to get bank reform, they didn't. >> it will take somebody, i look at both the democratic party and republican party, and both are about the big tent party. o.k. but it's going to take somebody, maybe moderate republicans, we've got the blue dog democrats, i hope i don't get skewered on twitter for saying this, i probably will. >> that's o.k.. >> why don't people have the courage to step up and start their own party? i know plenty of moderate republicans who think that a lot of what's going on, where the tea party have taken the party, is shameful. i say to them, okay -- >> but the problem is, 87% angry at washington, ask how their individual congressman is doing. their numbers are going to be much higher. >> not much higher. >> well, look at the number that they get re-elected at, jimmy. >> well, would you -- >> 94% get re-elected. >> 94% is re-election and gerrymandering. it's like saying, of course the

harlan globetrotters win, they're playing the washington generals. they always win. let's move to something that's more exciting, like cyberwarfare. something that seems a little more hopeful and inspiring. >> what is that? >> something that really makes you feel good. here's a quote from the obama administration in "the new york times" today. these cybercapabilities are still like the ferrari that keep you in the garage and only take out for the big race, and not just for a run around town, unless nothing else can get you there. this is, again, inside the obama administration, characterizing america's capacity, jimmy, to exert cyberdisruptions, digital disruptions of some kind. your thoughts on this? are we looking at the equivalent of the digital move. >> that's so disturbing. because we've been in a war for ten years. why can't we perfect, if that's one of the newer ways to attack our enemies, why aren't we doing it? and actually, i think we are, they're talking about that we're

not doing it in libya. >> well, i think what's actually going on is more than what we know. as always. >> i would hope so. >> yeah, exactly. i mean, certainly, if we paid for the biggest big gun of all, i hope we're using it and i'm fine if we're not exactly saying yet to our enemies that we're using it. at the same time, and we were talking about this before we came on the air, transparency. there's that balance between, you want to know, but you don't want to know. you want to know where the money's going and how we're doing these things, but then you don't want to know. what was interesting about that story, they sort of went through what the thought process was about why it didn't make sense in this instance, and similarly, going into pakistan when they went after osama bin laden, they went through the argument assist to some of the conversations they had about, i would like to hear one when they did use it, sort of what was the overriding idea. >> one of the things that the people talk about is that it's the same as the atom bomb in the sense of a slippery slope. you start doing a digital blackout for one country, and

then all of a sudden beijing is hornet and you wake up and it's not just a few blackberries that are gone. how do you view the slippery slope aspect relative to china and russia, specifically? >> the last time i went to china when i worked in the senate, we were there for two weeks. and we were told, they're going to go through your bags. okay, so they went through our bags. i knew that. >> but that's not the same thing as blacking out -- >> no, no, no, wait, wait, wait. hang on. >> in that article, they mentioned, is it an act of war? >> no, it's not an act of war. i expect my government to protect me. and if another government's looking through my e-mail and stealing my bank account numbers, i expect my government -- >> that's not what we're talking about. >> i expect my government to do exactly the same thing to their countries. >> so you're saying, you're comfortable every few months having all records of america obliterated and then restarting in exchange with the fact that we can obliterate other

country's records? >> >> no, i don't like a race to the bottom, but i expect my government to do exactly what it is to protect me and my fellow citizens. >> would your government make the defense spending, it has nothing to do with defending america and everything to do funneling money back to congressional districts where defense pork -- >> he's going after pork, which he knows i like. i love bacon. >> i think that the america rah-rah, yippie-ki-yay, we're tough guys for the last couple of years is starting to get a little long in the tooth. >> america is worn the hell out. >> guys, we have seen, there's been a number of instances of cyberattacks, how about against apple and other major american companies. we know other governments actually are doing it both to us and to, you know, our companies, so if we have that tool, do we not use it? >> i don't have much sympathy -- >> because you can shut down an entire government, you can shut

down their electrical grid, you can stop their defense shields if you want. that's a serious consideration. do you bring that ability -- do you have to notify congress on it? can you just act, you know, unilaterally, like we've done frankly with our drones? >> listen, the panel stays and the conversation continues. after this, responding to critics who say the occupy movement is just to preoccupy the media. time for the "your business" small business advice. here are tips to optimize your small business video content. choose the right place to host the content. third party sites like youtube will help to maximize total views. keep it less than three minutes and attach a text transcript to your video. for more, watch "your business" sunday mornings at 7:30 on msnbc. [ male announcer ] robitussin, advil,

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the occupy wall street protests that started here in new york last month have now spread to more than 60 other cities. >> the protests have spread to boston, new york, los angeles. >> 60 cities, they're like the hard rock cafe of leftist movements. >> what started ad ed as occupy street has seemingly turned into an occupation of earth.

today in boston, protesters descended on a planned chief by the fed chairman, ben bernanke, and from coast to coast and around the world, the message is very clear -- end the economic injustice. but is it possible that the only ones who truly care about the message are the protesters themselves and the media? our specialist today is tom hartman, a best-selling author who has written extensively about the unholy alliance between big business and our government. and more importantly, perhaps, on how we can go about separating the two. tom's new book is titled "the thom hartmann reader," and welcome to the set. let's cut right to the chase. you have a law that you say would make the amendment that we're work on unnecessary, that dates back to the 1820s. >> the amendment that you're talking about is the consequence of this idea that corporations are people and speech is money. and there was a time in this country when we didn't believe that. and this is a law that was

passed in wisconsin, and virtually every state had it. >> just how it was. >> they were all pretty much identical. and by corporation, i meant, corporations and unions. no corporation doing business in this state shall pay or contribute or offer consent or agree to pay or contribute directly or indirectly any money, property, free services or anything of value to any political party, organization, committee or individual for any political purpose whatsoever, or for the purpose of influencing legislation of any kind, or to promote or defeat the candidacy of any person for nomination appointment, or election for any political office. >> that's 1820. >> penalty, 1820s, penalty was five years in prison. >> but weren't they all rich white men at that point. you know, people -- women couldn't vote. >> hold on a second. >> so what did they need the money for?

>> she's got a point. women were property. let's be honest, women were property and there were slaves. >> not in all states. >> all these sorts of thing. it's an interesting situation, though, where we had very strict principles about money and politics, and we were like, and you can buy slaves and women as you see fit. and then we're like, hang on, maybe slaves and women are people, but we should be able to buy the government. it's like we traded one sense of fair -- if we're going to be fair to them, we have to put the government up for sale. >> it's the only obvious conclusion, is to make the government for sale now. how did it go away? >> how did what -- oh, this law? this the law, actually, was in 1954, wisconsin, found it and was like, oh, my god, what's this? in 1866, there was a supreme court case, and although the supreme court did not rule in that case, the corporations have rights under the 14th amendment as persons, the court reporter, a guy by the name of john

chandler bancroft davis, which the book is basically about, the court reporter was the former president of a railroad, he and steven field, one of the chief justices or one of the justices on the court were in the bag with jay gould and one of the other -- a couple of the other guy -- >> in the bag, in the bought sense? >> yeah. in fact, field, who was one of the supreme court justices, we found these papers in the national archive in d.c., they were telling him that if he would do this, they would run him for president the next election. so he was, you know, basically -- >> that sounds like quid pro quo, right, karen? >> sounds like it to me. >> so he wrote it on a head note, and they have no legal authority. then a decade later, the supreme court ruled quoting the head note and that has been quoted well over 30 times. >> how much did obama and the progressives hurt themselves by harping on citizens united and making it appear to be a lefty/righty issue -- >> it's not. >> when really, it's a 99 --

just in terms of political optics, where basically the people whose knee-jerk is, i hate barack obama, i hate that guy, i don't care what he says, anything he says i'm against, inherently creates the split on issues that are really 99, to take a phrase from the occupation. and really, this is a 100% issue. nobody seems to be comfortable in an auction environment. >> no, absolutely not. except i think the obama people backed off a little bit when they realized that united the the gave the union's ability to make a lot more money. so that changed their position a bit. >> well, you know, i'm going to take a slightly different tact on this, because i think it's really important. the media criticism i think we've been seeing of occupy wall street says to me that a lot of mass culture doesn't really understand the way movements have changed and the way technology-enabled movements have changed, and the same way we saw in 2008, in terms of grassroots organizing for a presidential, now what we're seeing around a movement. one of the things that have incredibly moving on sunday, i had the honor to be at the mlk

ceremony, every single speaker made the tie-in from the work of dr. martin luther king, fighting for social and economic justice to what the occupy wall street and the 99%. and you know, obama, to his credit, reminded everyone that there was a time when people didn't see mlk as this unifying figure. he was a communist, he was a socialist, he was a rabb rabble-rous rabble-rouser, he was this threat to the country. so i hope at some point history will view what folks are trying to accomplish here with that lens. because i don't think they're going away and i think what they're trying to say regarding these issues is really important. >> the interesting thing is there's obviously a desire to try to jam the occupation into some kind of leftist paradigm, because there's a whole economy based on making money through lefty/rightyism. there's a whole economy based on distributing power through lefty/rightyism, where it's been made obvious to us, barack obama was just as good to the banks as george bush was and as bill clinton was. and we've watched all of these

things -- the fact of the matter is it's not left/right. and i would be interested in your thoughts, tom, if whatever this energy is will be able to make that leap? >> i think the country is pregnant with revolution, and i don't mean that in the violent way. martin luther king was a revolutionary. >> a different way to think. >> a fundamental transformation of society. and president obama in 2008 ran on the phrase, fundamentally transforming america, fundament fundamentally transforming america. and a lot of change happened. he did a lot of reasonable things, a lot of good things, but fundamental things vice president happened. the things like your constitutional amendment. >> or the $600 billion that was auctioned off under obama. or the $600 bill spent to auction off the drug deals or health insurance monopolies under barack obama. just a small thing. >> and not just under him. under both parties in congress, and it's because this law couldn't be passed right now,

because the supreme court -- >> well, tom, it's a really pleasure. i learned -- did you know about that? that law? >> wisconsin's law? >> i'm going to do a reading like thom hartmann. thom hartmann hits the "any." >> i heard it. i got one of those "any." you should have heard the "whatsoever." >> thom, it's a pleasure. check out the most recent book, "the thom hartmann reader." susan, karen, thank you both very much. we are now in phase two of our get money out campaign. and we have an opportunity to expose this auction together if we decide to do so. if you've received a political fund-raising flyer, maybe an e-mail, a solicitation on the phone, share them with the world. go to getmoneyout.com, click on "200,000 strong," since we're now well past that number and looking to our next double, scroll down to the bottom and

you can post your political solicitation stories. we'll start to create an archive and also be able to share with one another just ow absurd this entire situation has become. this is not left/right, this is about restoring a basic sense of fairness to the american electoral process so we can reclaim all of our rights collectively as citizens of this country. that goal is the reason behind our latest blog on dylanratigan.com. our friend, tom ferguson, on the reason that special interests own most of congressional leadership, it literally has the posted prices, so if you're interested in getting control of one of the committees of congress, just logon and you can see the number there. come up with a number, get it to the right person, and bang, bang, you're in charge. that's what they call modern democracy. you can dylanratigan.c dylanratigan.com. next, however, how far we have come since the days of pong. a robot duo putting the video game to shame.

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the all-american ping-pong turny. we were the first american to visit the land of china in a million years or something like that. somebody said world peace is in our hands. but all i did was play ping-pong. >> ping-pong. forrest gump did it for his country. for the three of you that might have seen it in "balls of fury," that was a movie, randy daytona played to avenge his father. well, now meet the ping-pong stars for the new millennium. robots roux and congress kong j debuted their skills in china. both have an impressive range of motion, both serving and returning balls. but the secret to their success is each in the eye. each eye is actually a camera, capturing 120 images per second.

it is that that enables the robots' processers to calculate the balls' speed, path, and angle, and where it will land in less than a second, the robot will predict where the ball will land within an inch of its actual location and fire it right back at you. now, for all of us humans, we can take comfort in the fact that while roux and kong can predict where your ball will hit, they cannot curve, slice, or shank the ball back to you, they can only hit it straight. so if you find yourself taking on one of these machines, aim for a corner of the table. advantage, humans. straight ahead, a game changer. delaware attorney general beau biden standing up for homeowners and he is with us exclusively, right after this. ♪ [ dr. ling ] i need to get the results from the m.r.i. see if the blood work is ready. review ms. cooper's history.

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and rushes relief right to the site of your tough pain. in fact, it's clinically proven to relieve pain twice as fast. new bayer advanced aspirin. extra strength pain relief, twice as fast. [ male announcer ] test our fast relief. love it, or get your money back. all right. back now with no way to live. millions of americans, as we all know, are struggling to keep their homes. details emerging today about the latest band-aid proposal that would claim to help troubled homeowners. bear in mind, it has no debt restructuring and no bank restructuring. it simply comes as state and federal officials are now pushing a plan to allow some, and the key word there is some, perpetuating the us and them reality here, some homeowners will be able to refinance their mortgages as part of a larger

settlement with big banks over fraud closure. you only qualify if your mortgage is underwater and you're up to date on your payments. no mention of the fact that your mortgage has to be owned outright by the banks, which, by the way, only one in five of them actually are, which leaves out 80% of the markets. i don't mean to laugh, but we've been sitting with some of these silly solutions for now. our next guest is not content with any of the silly solutions. i'll tell you that right now. he's not here to play small ball and he has made it his mission along with a few other gentleman and ladies in this country to hold the banks accountable for their behavior in such a way that we can discipline, and shall we say, encourage our way into a system that actually resurrects a positive future for the people in this country as opposed to what we're dealing with now. joining us exclusively to break it down, a man recently hailed as a political game changer by "the huffington post," appropriately so, delaware attorney general, beau biden. it's a pleasure to have you. >> a pleasure to be on, dylan. thanks for your coverage of

this. >> what frustrates you the most about the nature of the -- the framing of the conversation, so far? >> it's the framework of the investigation. look, we have a lot of colleagues that are doing a lot of good work, but eric schneider and i take this position. if someone came to me and said, look, you've got me for home improvement, and you know i sold bad gutters or faulty gutters to a little old lady, you got me on that, but i built the foundation and built the roof. and before i settle with you on the gutters that were a fraud, i want you to guarantee to me you'll not look at the foundation i built and not look at the roof. that's the essence of what the folks have asked eric schneiderman and i to do, and others. and the reason you see eric and i not as active as participants in the current multi-state investigation is that we're simply unwilling to give up our right, in fact, our duty, to investigate this entire spectrum of issues. look, servicing didn't cause the meltdown. servicing is what this

investigation is about. but attorney general snyd schneiderman and i are focused on origination claims, securitization claims, and a little old thing calledm mers. my view of the world, these banks have almost, my hypothesis is, they've lost track of who owns what in america. they literally have lost track of who owns what. the borrower is so disconnected from the person who owns the mortgage, the investor, it's been sliced and diced 15 times. so that disconnect is having serious consequences for the borrower. and at least the foreclosure crisis, in my state, for instance, in my state, we'll have over 6,000 foreclosures this year, in little old delaware. we're one of the leading states in the eastern seaboard for foreclosures. the banks are incentivized.

25 years ago, you knew your banker, you could go refinance or work it out or do some kind of loss mitigation. you might not get it, but you have a discussion. borrowers in my state can't even get their lender on the phone. and when they do, when they do and if they do, they're being told, look, do it for -- pay $900 for -- versus $1,000 for 90 days. if you do that, we'll modify your mortgage. 91st day comes along, 95th day, 100th day, the bank comes along and says, we're foreclosing. they say, wait, we have a deal. they say, what deal are you talking about? they haven't talked in-house in the bank. that's what people are doing in my state. eric schneiderman and martha coakley, attorneys general all across the country are doing workshops about counseling on how people sort through this. look, not everybody deserves a modified mortgage, but some people do. and those that do at least should have a meaningful discussion. people can't even have a meaningful discussion with their lender.

that's the most frustrating thing to me. and that's why i'm not leaving any investigation off the table. >> there's an exacerbating factor that lays on top of everything that you just said. which is that the actual financing that gets put into the marketplace for home loans, a huge percentage of that financing comes from the u.s. government, by virtue of fannie mae and freddie mac. now, in defense of the taxpayer, there are certain representations and warranties and standards, effectively, that fannie mae and freddie mac require if they are going to purchase a pool of loans. there have been consistent, i guess they call them, dipstick tests, where you can kind of look inside of one of these blended securities to see whether, in fact, they are compliant with the government's standard to be sold to the government, so you can get government money, so you can keep making loans, and a remarkably large number of those

warranties and representations anecdotally, in the dipstick tests, show a tremendous amount of loans that do not comply with government standards. and yet the government has been and continues to buy these securities. do you -- why is that? >> i can't answer that. i can't speak for fannie and freddie. i have a lot of questions of fannie and freddie. as you know, they own the bulk of -- they are the investors. well, they're wholly owned by the taxpayer of this country. we own fannie and freddie. >> we own our own bad mortgages? >> we own our own bad mortgages, so we can do something about that. that's why from our perspective, we've had the wrong parties a t the table. just to deal on this investigation purely with the servicing issue is to so narrowly limit it, it doesn't allow us to do all the whole investigation, that require us to have all of the parties at table. fannie and freddie, with the biggest investment portfolio, other investors, private and third party investors, originators, some of whom aren't even left anymore, or left

standing, as well as the attorneys general and the federal government. i have a bunch of questions for fannie and freddie. the reality is we need to look really deep into, and we are looking deep into, whether representations and warranties were breached when these mortgage-backed securities were securitized. there's an open question, that's what we're investigating, whether or not when they securitize these mortgages, whether they were actually assigned to them when they were bundled into a trust and sold as a security. that's an open question, and as you know, that's a big question, and it has serious consequences. now, because what it raises the question of, what happens when those representations and warranties are breached? and do you have the ability to push it back. >> or are we in a too big to fail scenario when the u.s. government is funding this casino. it's a pleasure to speak with you and have the encouragement

of knowing that you and attorney general schneiderman and the others that you mentioned are very much aware of these issues and are working aggressively at this point to try to take them on. so we are all, i think, encouraged and look forward to learning whatever it is that you're able to discover in this investigation. >> thank you for doing what you're doing and covering this. it's not worth being in public life unless you're doing your job and investigating things and that's what i'm paid to do and that's what i'm doing. >> we look forward to learning along with you. coming up on "hardball" here, chris asking the big question facing the gop presidential field. is the new front-runner herman cain serious? but next, rethinking the rules of engagement. imogen lloyd webber with a daily rant on america's use of drones. and my job is easy. hide big things. you're good... [ crash ] [ laughing ] [ screaming ] [ tires screech ] and if you named your own price on car insurance, you could be paying for this yourself.

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as you can see, imogen lloyd webber is here and she's got a little daily rant for us, although i'm not sure how little it actually is. >> it's quite a big rant. we need to have a proper international debate and make a collective decision about the rules of engagement of armed drones right now. or we are in danger of our world looking like a james cameron "terminator" movie. armed drones are remote-controlled pilotless aerial vehicles that are able to hit targets of interest, including killing individuals. so far only the uk, israel, and america are known to have deployed them, although the u.s. leads the way by far. the first strike by an armed drone took place in pakistan in 2004 under then president george w. bush. under obama, they have become america's go-to tool of choice in both its conventional and shadow wars, being used by both the military and the cia.

now, on first look, you cannot blame the obama administration for being so enamored with drones. they allow u.s. forces to attack targets without risking american lives and are relatively cheap. however, the obama administration is being incredibly shortsighted. it's not just that drones do inevitably sometimes kill the wrong targets and can thus radicalize local populations and lead to more terrorism, or that they are known to have security flaws, witnessed by the computer virus that hit a base in nevada where the u.s. military fly their drones. it's also that where drone attacks stand in law is murky at best. is it okay to assassinate people, even americans? who pulled the trigger? civilians cannot engage in war, but cia members are civilians. america has seemed to unilaterally decided that they can send drones overseas to kill

its enemies in countries they have not declare ward on. unsurprisingly, the world is now involved in gna new arms race. over 14 nations are developing armed drones. what happens when everyone else starts using drones the way the u.s. has done in yemen, pakistan, somalia, and elsewhere? if america protests, the u.s. will be looking mighty hypocritical. a science fiction scenario is becoming real. experts believe that unmanned aircraft will eventually take over most tasks currently undertaken by manned systems. and that drones will one day be the size of insects and birds and that swarms may be used to overwhelm modern defense systems. the international norm that is being created by america is incredibly dangerous to america. unless america, the leader of the free world, voluntarily submits to sorting out the international law on the use of armed drones right