and the high level of being demanded. elect me because it will get rid of obama and b, because i'm entitled to it. can't wait for this guy. "the ed show" starts right now. good evening, americans. welcome to "the ed show" from new york as mitt romney hob knobs with donald trump, president obama is laser focused on number one kitchen table issue in america, gas prices. this is "the ed show." let's get to work. >> we can't afford a situation where some reap millions and the american ls get the short end of the stick. >> republicans throw spit balls from the sidelines. tonight, barney frank on stopping the speculators in his recent comments about obama care. alec announces a retreat in the face of boycotts. the color of chaing says they aren't buying it.

the secret service is now investigating mitt romney's favorite rocker. >> barack obama becomes the president in november again, i will either be dead or in jail by this time next year. >> the dnc wants romney to denounce those comments and the romney campaign is whiffing. >> we are patriots. we are brave heart. we need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in november. republicans want to kill the united states postal service. tonight, my commentary on how to save it. good to have you with us. thanks for watching. republicans continue to hammer president obama over gas prices. today the president struck back. he announced a $52 million proposal to con front the wall street speculators that are making every american pay more at the pump. >> i've asked attorney general

holder to work with chairman lebowitz, the federal trade commission, chairman ginsler and other enforcement agencies to make sure that acts of manipulation, fraud or other illegal activity or not behind increases in the price that consumers pay at the pump. >> the president's proposal gives more oversight and resource to the commodity futures trading commission. this is the agency tasked with policing the oil and gas markets. president obama explained the problem in simple language. >> chairman had a good analogy, he said imagine if the nfwlrks quadrupled the number of teams but didn't increase the refs. it wouldn't be fair. that's a lot of what's going on in the markets. >> here is where the president flipped the scrip on the

republicans. he's calling on congress to do the right thing. >> i call on congress to pass a package of measures to crack down on illegal activity and hold accountable those that manipulate the market for private gain at the expense of working families. >> it calls them to increase enforcement staff. civil an penalties against market manipulators would go from $1 million to $10 million. he made sure to highlight the way republicans have protected oil industry subsided. >> a few weeks ago congress had chance to stand up for families already paying an extra premium at the pump. they voted to keep spending billions of americans hard earned tax dollars on more unnecessary subsided for big oil

companies. here is chance to make amends. >> with the president putting republicans on notice mitt romney responded in statement. president obama's government by gimmick is reaching another new low today. the president's only solutions are to target oil and gas producers for higher taxes and now to dramatically increase federal regulation. john boehner, he must have read the same talking point memo this morning. >> instead of just another political gimmick, why doesn't he put his administration to work to get to the bottom of it? >> let's be clear, the only gimmicks are the ones used by wall street speculators to manipulate the oil markets. the biggest seller oil market in america confirmed it. on may 12th, 2011, the price of a gallon of crude oil was $98.93. on that very day exxon mobile ceo spoke about the actual price of oil during a senate hearing. >> what do you think the price

would be today if it was based on fundamentals of supply and demand? >> again, if you were to use a pure economic approach, the economist would say it's set at the price to develop the next marginal barrel. >> what do you think that would be today? >> well, it's pretty hard to judge, but it would be, when we look at it it's going to be somewhere in the 6 0 to $70 range. >> the guy that runs the biggest oil company admits it was 30 to $40 more than it should be. the reason is market speculation. >> the market decides again based on their view. it's really a view of the future because it's a depleting resource what's going to be the availability of oil sometime in the future. the market tries to decide that based on a things it worries about and it translates that back today. >> this is not a gimmick. this is his source of profit. it wasn't a gimmick to president george w. bush either.

he also called for a crackdown on market manipulation. >> americans understand by in large that the price of crude oil is going up and the prices are going up, but what they will not accept is manipulation of the market, and neither will i. in other words, this administration is not going to tolerate manipulation. we expect our consumers to be treated fairly. >> we have been down this road befr, haven't we? we go gown this road every year. the world markets are volatile and commodity speculators are unregulated. this was supposed to change with the dodd frank bill. it's not been enforced. the president moved in the right direction today. republicans have only themselves to blame physical they try and sijing this proposal. it's the right thing for america right now. will the republicans get on board? probably not. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. do republicans want to protect oil companies or american

consumers? text a for oil companies. text b for american consumers. you can leave a comment at our blog and we'll bring you the results later on in the show. i'm joined tonight by massachusetts congressman barney frank. great to have you with us tonight. i appreciate your time. this affects our economy and every family in this country. the president's trying to do the right thing. is giving more resources to the cftc an answer? your thoughts. >> it's part of the answer. understand that while george bush said he didn't like manipulation, he was president of the controlled congress. the regulatory bodies had no power over that. it was only when we passed the financial reform bill that we gave the commodities future trading commission and the securities exchange commission the power to act here. one of the things that the cftc

did was limit the amount of oil you can buy. let's be clear. we're talking about be who buy oil that doesn't touch it. they buy it for the sole purpose of market manipulation. they buy it to keep it off the market until the price goes up. they wouldn't know a can of oil from a can of beans. what we said was, you got to stop buying up this oil and driving up the price. unfortunately, the securities industry went to court and is trying to get that thrown out. the second thing the republicans did, we gave the cftc over derivatives in general including speculation and energy. the republicans in the house refuse to raise the amount of money they get. they get something like $250 million to try to regulate this multi-trillion dollar economy. what the president said is absolutely right. we gave them the authority under

the law. the republicans are trying to keep them from having the money to use it. >> why aren't the position limits being enforced that are outlined? >> this is a reason why i wanted a single led of the consumer bureau. the commodities future trading commission is a five-member body. three democrats and two republicans. when president obama took office one of the democrats was a man that didn't believe that speculation had impact on oil. he was willing to do that. finally, the president got a replacement and with the leadership of the chairman, the cftc did adopt these rules. the problem is they have been taken to court. we had a couple of cases where the industry goes to court and for the complaints, they keep trying to use the court to block it. today, they argued that congress never intended them to do this. i just got every democrat who had been on our conference

committee to file a brief saying, yeah, we did. the commodity futures trading commission did finally get the votes to put this in. they are in court fighting to defend it. >> now the question is, i think the american people think the president is going to right thing, but is it too little too late? it seems like a start. they're going to get more resources, but to control the speculators, you need these five people on the cftc to take action and do something. >> well, they did. of the five people, two are republican, three are democrats. if we had structured the cftc the way we did the bureau, it would have been done a year ago. gary worked hard. they are now being challenged in court to do it.

the other thing is the president and the democrats, we did push hard for more money for the cftc. i went to the floor of the house to try to do it. it's an obscure thing. it wasn't until gas prices skyrocketed in part because of speculation that this happened. we should throw in one other thing about gas prices. we've got people in congress who want to go to war immediately in syria. they want to go to war in iran. it's very good reason to be worried about iran and have tough sanctions, that that an impact on the price of oil. it's hypocrite cal of people to talk about more military action and say oil prices went up. hold up how did that happen? >> i want to ask you about an interview with a new york magazine. you questioned the timing of the health care bill. it's using that interview to say that barney frank thinks obama care is a disaster.

explain how they are misrepresenting your opinion and what you really meant. >> the technical thing they're doing is lying. what i said is we should have waited. the problem is we were doing health care in the midst of the worst recession, which we inherited from the republicans since the '30s. people were in an angry mood. it would have been better to have gone ahead with financial reform, to have pumped more and more into the economy to try to get the recession down and do health care. i said i'm for the health care bill and i would have liked, i think we had a better chance of having it done in a way that's more popular. my comments had nothing to do with the substance of health care and the republicans know it. it's case of them lying. >> they're lying about your position on this? >> my position is very clear. the time to do it. part of the problem was people did not realize in 2009 how

terribly deep the recession was. it was not a good time with people in a bad mood and unemployment going up. i think bill clinton made the same judgment. bill clinton was told don't start with health care. establish yourself. do some other things and get to health care. that's what i said. that's very clearly what i said and the notion that's a criticism, nobody believes including the propaganda putting it out. >> thanks for your time tonight. >> you're welcome. >> remember to answer tonight's question at the bottom of the screen. the conservative group alec says it won't work on social services anymore, but don't be fooled. there's a long ugly list of economic issues it's still pushing in states all across the country. color of change executive director joins me and hundreds and thousands of jobs are at stake in the republican assault

on the post office. the senate took up a bill to postpone the agony of cuts today, but it's not a long term solution. i think democrats should take page out of michelle bachmann's play book on this. coming up, conservative

coming up, conservative legislative group alec is raising the white flag when it comes to pushing voter i.d. and stand your ground laws. one of the groups calling for a boycott says they're not buying it. the executive director of color of change joins me next. allen west is doubling down on his comment about communists in congress. the dnc is calling for mitt romney to denounce his supporter newt gingrich for his crazed rant against the president. tonight ted nugent says mitt romney agrees with everything he says and we will play you the

tape.

in the fight against alec progressives have won a big battle but not the war. they announced they are shutting down work on voter issues like stand your ground laws that's pushed throughout the country. alec says it will focus only on economic issues, but don't be fooled. so-called economic issues include these, state union busting measures. repealing minimum wage laws, repealing paid sick days around

the country. requiring a super majority to raise taxes. how about repealing capital gains taxes. alec has lost ten corporate donors including coca-cola, pepsi and kraft because of pressure from groups like color of change. the group says alec move is nothing more than a pr stunt aimed at diverting attention from its agenda which has done some serious damage to our communities. let's bring in executive director of color of change. when we first talked about this a little over a week ago, you thought this was going to have an impact. do you believe this group that they're going to change their focus when it comes to pushing legislation? >> absolutely not. the voter i.d. laws and the stand your ground laws are part of the larger agenda of laws that you just showed the viewers. these are all part of the same package intending to hurt our communities, but also the laws they worked to pass all around

the country are still in place. people are still dealing with them. essentially they have went out and spilt oil until the water and said we're not going to spill anymore oil, but we're also going to clean it up. >> is this any kind of a victory? a move in the right direction? >> i think it's a signal that alec agenda was so outside of the mainstream, so indefensible that they're no longer going to defend it. for corporations that stand with them, the at&t's and state farm that continue to stay with alec even after hundreds of thousands are people, this is a signal to them that they won't even defend their mission. >> how is it going to play out to keep the pressure up, to follow through to make shoe they do not push forward the template, play book type of legislation on legislators where over 2,000 of them are associated with them?

>> we're going to continue to keep the focus on alec and watch state legislators and hold them accountable as well. they'll have to answer to it and continue the pressure on corporations. there's still well over 100 corporations that are still standing behind this organization even after now they stepped away from some of their horrendous policies. >> you've slowed them down. have you damaged them? >> i think we have damaged them. two weeks ago, three weeks ago no one now who they were. >> i think in the progressive community, i think everything knew who alec was. there's been quite a bit of reporting. the general public, you walk up to somebody and say you hear what alec is doing, it wasn't until the stand your ground law that got a great deal of publicity because of what

unfolded down in florida was really an opportunity, was it not? >> it was an opportunity to make the connection between our safety and our communities and the agenda that alec has pushed. the larger agenda of bringing corporations and state legislators behind closed doors to push laws that no one asked for and no one wants. >> all right. when you take a look at your future right now, do you think that some of these corporations that have gone away from them, and there's a number of them, coke, pepsi, kraft, you think they will go back someday or maybe in a different form? >> we're going to be watching. we're not going away. we will continue to raise the voices of every day people. we commended them today for making the right decision but that doesn't mean we will not be vigilant in monitoring their relationships. >> it was the social media that did this?

>> certainly the use of technology giving people the ability to use information in realtime. >> you did the right thing morally? >> i absolutely believe it. >> do they have more legislation that you're looking at that will be damaging? >> yes. they are continuing to push laws around mandatory minimums, around education. a number of laws that still impact our communities and still sit beside these discriminatory voter i.d. laws. >> you have to stay on them. they're talking about economic issues. look at this law up in michigan, the financial managers law which disenfranchises everybody on a city commission or county commission that was voted on if they don't have the budget right. here comes the financial manager appointed by the governor, that's an alec law. >> the public relations have been all over the place. last week they said the only thing they pushed was economic issues. the question that we instantly asked was what about voter

suppression and stand your ground is in their economic interest. this week they say we're not going to push these laws anymore. they're all over the place. for american who is are watching this issue and staying tuned, we cannot trust alec. we cannot trust the back room they make with state legislators legislators. the way they move money in politics. this is about putting sunlight around how democracy is done making sure all of our voices are heard, not just the rich and powerful. >> thanks for joining us. a group of house conservatives was asked a simple question, are they excited about mitt romney as their nominee. you won't believe how much they tripped all over themselves trying to answer that question. why did mitt romney strap his dog to the roof of the car? ann romney said it's because the dog loved it.

welcome back. a bunch of house conservatives got together for a meeting they called conversations with conservatives. they streamed it online but couldn't seem to get the camera in focus or maybe the blurry picture was deliberate. kind of like a witness protection program for conservatives. here is the best part. a simple question was asked of the group. are any of you excited to have mitt romney as the nominee? here are some of the answers.

>> i would say first we're excited about the opportunity to defeat barack obama. >> i'm excited. i've not endorsed any candidate. i'm excited that the process is over. i'm excited that we have potentially a no, ma'am mi who is going to be taking it to obama. >> the excitement, the passion in this race, as jim jordan said will come from getting barack obama out of the white house. >> well, texas congressman louie was even more blunt. >> if you're not sure about wanting to support mitt romney, whether you're liberal, whether you're very conservative, you ought to be excited because he's been on your side at one time or another. >> after a couple of people stood up for mitt romney, the congressman said this. >> so that i'm not totally misunderstood. i'm not as excited as i am desperate.

>> joining me now is congressman from minnesota. good to have you with us tonight. >> good to be here. >> it really doesn't matter who the nominee is. the focus is defeat president obama, and they'll accept romney on this point. what are you hearing on the hill? >> i'm hearing pretty the same thing the quiet conversations between people who know each other but won't go on camera, that's the line. that doesn't surprise me at all that's what those gentlemen said. louie, god bless him for his candor. he's been on your side one time or another. >> is this a good sell point to point out how determined they are to remove president obama. >> they are so determined, they have taken their eye off their core mission of congress which is to promote the general welfare. we're not dealing with jobs. we're not dealing with anything.

we're not dealing with tax fairness. we saw the buffet rule rejected. we're making it so that people can bring their polar bear trophies from their hunting expeditions into the country. that's what we did in congress today? >> what? >> yeah. they changed some parks. they proposed some park changes that would allow for roads to be put through public and parklands and that you could bring a polar bear trophy into the country. they're banned now because they're endangered, but that's kind of what we're doing today. >> we have millions of people out of work and this is what the republicans are focused on. >> yes. >> some of them paint add doomsday scenario. >> we see this as truly the election of this republic survive.

>> does this sort of thing unite conservatives against the president? >> i don't think it does because the truth is if you're motivated by a negative emotion like hatred of the president, i don't think that gives you the kind of energy and zeal and enthusiasm that you need to really get out there. people are excited about obama. we're going to be pushing for our president who had such a great record of achievement in passing legislation. >> in the latest cnn poll enthusiasm for president obama is much higher than for mitt romney. that's encouraging. i want to ask you. i know you testified on capitol hill today about racial profiling in america. tell us about it. >> we had an excellent hearing. senator durbin and senator graham convened the hearing. they brought forth a congressional panel. it went onto several members and all talked about racial po profiling in america.

the general consensus was two points. one, when you pick out somebody based on a profile and not criminal behavior is you're wasting law enforcement services. also, it's un-american and outside the american way to pick on somebody just because their race, religion or something like that. >> how would you monitor that, and how would you enforce it? >> we first need to collect data. when police officers make stops they make all kind of data points in their reports. one could be the race of the american you're stopping. without regard to whether you make arrests or not. you can use that data over time to help training and help show, are we selecting out one group more than another. if so, is there a law enforcement basis for it? if not, that's good news. i think it starts with tracking what you're doing so that you

can review your practices. >> congressman, great to have you with us. there's a lot more coming up. stay with us. republicans democrats have ruled post offices. >> the u.s. postal service is teetering on bankruptcy and debating whether to save it. mitt romney is flip-flopping on making his dog ride on the top of his car and you won't believe why. ted nugent goes off the deep end while stomping for mitt romney. >> our president, attorney general, our vice president, hillary clinton, they're criminals. we are patriots. we are brave heart. we need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in november.

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the detrux of the united states postal service is one of the to priorities of the republican to do list. they are doing all they can to privatize it. they want to destroy jobs. this is a story i've told you i will follow and continue to cover it. hundreds of thousands of jobs are at stake that will affect this economy. first of all, something i want you to keep in mind. zero taxpayers dollars go toward funding the post office. that means none of the taxes that you paid yesterday or today will go to the post office. it funds itself with revenue pps the republican assault on the post office started in 2006 when a lame duck session rammed through a bill requiring the post office to pre-fund 75 years of retiree benefits in a ten-year window. these overpayments have caused the post office to run substantially short of money and into debt.

how about if they did that to your business? to solve the problem the postmaster general said here is what i'm going to do. we're going to close more than 200 mail processing centers which would put 35,000 jobs at stake. he suggested stopping saturday delivery. what good does that do? we're doing backwards and delaying delivery of first-class mail. that's no good either. this is on top of 3,700 post offices that could be closed down and more than 200,000 jobs lost. today, finally, the senate took up a bill that would really just postpone this agony. it's not going to reverse it the way i think it should happen. it's going to postpone the agony. the legislation would save more than 100,000 processing, more than 100 processing facilities from immediate closure allowing the areas to maintain overnight first class mail for three years.

it would force them to evaluate the needs before they are closed. it would delay cutting saturday delivery for two years, and at that point the postal service could only move to a five-day schedule if it was the only way to cut costs long term. it's a bunch of mumbo jumbo. they don't have to do this. this is unnecessary. here is the problem. it's the congress back in 2006 that was run by the republicans and the lame duck session. this bill is only going to delay it for few years. there's no need to shut down post offices or processing facilities and lay any of these people off. senator bernie sanders, it seems like we have to rely on him for everything. he explained it on the senate floor today. >> the major crisis facing the postal service is the fact that they have a burden of having to

provide five and a half billion dollars every single year in future retiree health benefits. $5.5 billion every year which is imposed upon them in 2006. according to the inspector general of the postal service. the $44 billion in that account right now is all that it needs because when that $44 billion accrues interest over a 20 year or so period, it will have enough money to pay out all of the future retiree health benefits that it has to do. >> americans, i ask you to grasp this story. they already have enough money to take care of retirement for the next 75 years but they have a bill of $5.5 billion, which is on their expenses because congress forced them to go down the road. why? because they want to kill the unions and destroy the voting black.

they want to destroy any infrastructure and working folks of america and they want to privatize. they want to privatize what the postal service has been doing. they want to privatize everything. here is what i want the democrats to do. i'm getting sick and tired of hearing mitt romney and every other republican out there saying if we get power the first thing we're going to do is repeal obama care. really. i want to hear the democrats pull a page out of michelle bachmann's play book is say they hold the senate and keep the white house is they're going to turn this law around that is going to give the post office an opportunity to innovate, to get current, to give them a chance to compete and take this $5.5 million bill off their books every year that the republicans put on them because they're trying to destroy the jobs. darrell issa is the perfect dude for the republicans to ramrod this through.

this is a culture war in america. we treat workers like a piece of furniture. we move them around and give them no say. they want to take away their voice as well. to destroy what these postal workers have done is not an answer and is not better for america. rural america will pay a heavy price because you're not going to have that service. every radio station have shipping and delivery service. shipping and delivery expenses. where do you think the expenses are going go for small businesses in america if they gut the postal service? well, i thought republicans were business friendly. the hell they are. they're not worker friendly. they're not business friendly. the democrats need to stand up on this and tell the american people that if you get power, you will turn this rotten law around and make it in favor of the american economy and the american workers.

coming up, mitt and ann romney are defending strapping their dog to the roof of the car once again. we have the video. stay with us. [ male announcer ] that. right there -- reminds you

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who let the dogs out? who, who? >> well, it's a story that just won't go away for mitt romney. the tale of after 1983 family road trip to canada has followed him through two election cycles and it goes like once again ann romney has to clean up the mess.

she was giving the job of defending the decision. >> the dog loved it. >> the dog got sick? >> once. he ate the turkey on the counter. he had the runs. >> romney says he now regrets the incident not because it was a cruel thing to do but because it's been a political headache. >> we got two questions most often. first about shamus, which is you know is out there forever. would you do it again?

>> certainly not with the attention it's received. >> this guy just doesn't get it. he literally scared the crap out of the dog and now he says he wouldn't do it again because he's tired of hearing about it. he tells you all you need to know right there. that's all you need to know about mitt romney. he says he will do anything to make a bad story go away. bottom line, the dog should get to ride inside next time if it does happen, mitt. mitt romney's surrogate, ted nugent makes hateful remarks about president obama over the weekend.

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"the ed show" survey tonight, do republicans want to protect oil companies or american companies. 98% say oil companies. 2% said consumers. where's the outrage over ted

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to talk about liberals and hate talk. how about this one? rocker ted nugent once said barack obama could suck on his machine gun. he believes the democrat party act as a modern day slave master to the poor. if those comments didn't stop mitt romney seeking his endorsement. he agreed to gun laws to get his blessing. romney should not have been surprised to hear what ted nugent had to say. >> if you don't know that our government is wiping its [ bleep ] with the constitution, you're living under a rock. four supreme court justices signed their name to a declaration that americans have no fundamental right to self-defense. that sounds like a stoned hippie. if you want more of those kinds of evil, anti-american people in

the supreme court, then don't get involved and let obama take office again. i'll tell you this right now if barack obama becomes the president in november again, i will either be dead or in jail by this time next year. if you can't go home and get everybody in your lives to clean house in this vile, evil american hated administration, i don't know what you're made out of. if you can't galvanize and promote and recruit people to vote for mitt romney, we're done. we'll be a suburb of indonesia next year. our president and attorney general, our vice president, hillary clinton are criminals. we're patriots. we're brave hearts. we need to ride into that battlefield in november and chop their heads off. any questions? >> yeah. you want to chop my head off.

the secret service is investigating the comments. the romney campaign said divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from. mitt romney dlooefs everyone needs to be civil. hold it right there? can somebody bring out some tape of some democrat that talks like that about chopping heads off. ted nugent is not backing down. he believes mitt romney agrees with him. >> mitt romney is a great american. mitt romney believes in the first amendment. mitt romney knows what i'm saying is true. he puts it into words for him. i put it into words for me. >> i'm joined by eugene robinson. great to have you with us. it's about rhetoric at this point, no doubt. the romney campaign jumped over

hilary's comments even though she's not part of the campaign. why isn't mitt romney con deemed these comments and do he need to do this? >> this is no comparison between that and this. this is different not just in degree but in kind because there's not just criticism, there's not just political incorrectness or whatever in what he was saying, there's menace there. it's no surprise that the secret service has decided to at least look into this because he sounds delusional and it's delusional people you need to watch out for historically. this is completely different. add to that the fact that mitt romney went out of his way to try to get ted nugent's

endorsement. >> that's the story right there. this candidate went out and sought his support because he knows he's in the sack with these nra guys. you saw those guys standing around watching him and agreeing with what he was saying. that's who mitt romney needs to get. he has to sure up that base. romney sought this guy out. shouldn't that be enough for the romney campaign to be connected at the hip to this guy. >> that should be more than enough and more than enough for a stronger statement at least. they ought to cut the guy off, but at least a stronger statement than this sort of both sides should be nice sort of thing that they like to do. the most chilling thing to me about the clips you played are the people who were just kind of nodding along as they listened to this. you know, at an nra convention, eh.

>> it is spooky. there's a portion of our society, those people are followers. what we need to do on election day is chop their heads off. let me lighting it up as we move forward. what's more problematic for romney, ted nugent or birther donald trump holding a campaign for the romney campaign? >> i don't know which one is. that's a pick six. we got do see what the trump has in mind. >> no doubt. great to have you with us tonight. the rhetoric just continues on. it pointed out that mitt romney gave a lame statement. he did not give a definitive statement. i think it's a question of leadership. great to have you with us. thank you. that's the "the ed show."