we lead off with the president, who kicked his summer economics road tour into high gear in tennessee today. he announced a proposal for a middle-class jobs grand bargain. among his major selling points to the gop is a corporate tax break that would cut taxes on most corporations from 35% to 28%. and what does he want in return? come on, mr. president. what's the catch? >> i want to use some of the money that we save by closing these loopholes to create more good construction jobs with infrastructure initiatives that i already talked about. we can build a broader network of high-tech manufacturing hubs that leaders from both parties can support. we can help our community colleges, arm our workers with the skills that a global economy demands. all these things would benefit the middle class right now and benefit our economy in the years to come. so again, here's the bottom line. i'm willing to work with

republicans on reforming our corporate tax code as long as we use the money from transitioning to a simpler tax system for a significant investment in creating middle-class jobs. that's the deal. >> for more on what's in the president's proposal as well as how it may be received by republicans, we bring in new daddy and nbc news white house correspondent peter alexander. congratulations on ava alexander. >> krystal, thank you very much. i got to tell you something. she's already texting. >> it's crazy how young they start these days. turning to this speech, much less important than our children, of course, but turning to this speech, what do you think the white house is trying to accomplish here? >> i think in a lot of ways the white house is trying to lay the groundwork for what's going to be coming up in the month of september, leading to that deadline of october 1st where they have to come to some agreement on how to fund the government. a lot of big spending priorities

and budget issues ahead. the white house recognizes the pr opportunity in some ways that exists with a speech like this. one a week for the next several weeks with congress out in recess for the month of august. obviously, the language, this idea of a grand bargain for the middle class, the president insisting that he's conceding. republicans need to concede as well. the white house saying we're throwing out ideas, what do you have? republicans quickly just said we're not interested in what you're offering. they insist that the president basically is getting his way on both taxes and on spending in this issue. that sort of lays out the foundation for what we're going to be talking about, of course, for the next several weeks leading through the month of august into september. >> i'm sure the republicans rejected it before he even said it. so there you go. all right. thanks, peter. congratulations again. >> thank you. >> with us now is the politics editor for "business insider." we'll certainly get to the politics of all this. i want you to start with the policy and the economics of it. i mean, is this a sound economic

plan, lowering corporate tax rates, eliminating loopholes as the president said, and using some of that money to fund investments in infrastructure and the middle class? >> it depends a lot on the details. a reduction in the corporate tax rate would make u.s. companies more competitive against foreign companies. it would encourage investment, although it's not clear how sensitive investors are to taxes. there are a lot of different ways you can broaden the corporate tax base. that's something the president and congress would need to argument about. the ideas the president has put forward for how he would broaden the corporate tax base and how we would pay for that big cut in corporate tax rates are things that conservatives think would be quite bad for the economy and damaging to business investment. i think you could have a plan along these lines that would be very good for the economy, but we don't know enough about the plan to know how it would affect the economy. >> you know, josh, i'm not a real big grand bargain guy. that's not really my thing. i don't think there's a good record of the grand bargain

rhetoric getting us very far. i got to tell you, you look at this plan today, you look at the outline of it, it's basically a big chunk of a romney ran on and what republicans have been advocating for years in exchange for what? in exchange for some jobs. help me understand why that's such a hard deal for the republicans to swallow. >> wh what you want and what your guy who lost wanted plus jobs. why is that so hard to get? >> i don't think this is really a grand bargain at all. nor is it a corporate incomes tax cut. it's a cut in the corporate tax rate, but it's different from what mitt romney would have wanted to do. it is a big increase in the taxes on certain kinds of corporations, depending what their tax situations are. it would raise a little bit of revenue on net. that's where the president is getting this money to spend on investing in community colleges, on infrastructure investment. >> romney did want to go from 25

to 35. >> right, but he did not want so many offsetting, base-broadening things in the tax code that would generate more revenue. the thing the president is proposing is a small tax increase. that's why republicans object to it. if you came to republicans and said, let's cut the corporate tax rate by seven points, they'd be happy to do that. if you wanted to pair that with an infrastructure deal, i think you could get republicans on board with that. the sticking point for the republicans is the base broadening, the component that raises taxes on a lot of businesses. >> as much as i'd love to talk about romney, i want to focus on the narrative of this speech today. no surprise it was very much this us versus them mentality. the president specifically blaming washington republicans. republicans came out swinging as well, well before the president even spoke, especially -- i mean, this is from the local editorial board in chattanooga. they came out with some pretty harsh words. a letter to the president. part of the letter i will read says, forgive us if you're not

greeted with the same level of southern phospitality. we understand you're in town to share your umpteenth job plan. if it works just as well, thanks. but no thanks. we prefer to keep it to yourself. i'm assuming many of the folks that agree with this letter probably didn't watch the speech. i'm speaking in a conservative place. many people don't like my policies. many of them simply don't like me. i'm curious, do you think he said anything that might have convinced some of these people, or is this just simply a nonstarter for what we're going to see in the fall? >> i don't think he said anything today that's likely to move forward the specific policy ideas he put out today. what i think the president did today that will help him is he's sending out this message to indicate that he's really focused on the issue of jobs and the economy. he's putting forward lots of ideas to grow the economy and

create jobs. though republicans may have sound objections to a lot of those ideas, they're not putting forward a come probli robust agenda of their own. that's going to help him going into this fight over the debt ceiling and over the bill they'll have to pass by september 30th in order to keep the government open and running. the president will be able to say, i have a plan to keep things getting better. all the republicans want to do is say no and create problems in washington. i think that may help him get what he wants. he wants them to raise the debt ceiling without demanding a lot in exchange for it. he wants them to pass a bill that will keep the federal government running on roughly the same terms it's been running over the last year. if he has a serious policy agenda and they don't have one to offset it with, that will make it easier for him to get that. that's the subtext of what we're really fighting about today. >> i feel like it's almost like they think jobs are like drugs. just say no. >> i think they think government is like drugs. they want to just say no.

what you just said, josh, they want to just say no and create problems to governance, as if it's the enemy. before the speech is even finished, perhaps even delivered, mitch mcconnell is out saying this is a serious blow to true bipartisan action. you know what's a serious blow to true bipartisan action? mitch mcconnell. he's been an obstructionist since day one. he and eric cantor. he writes about this in -- it's in the new, new deal. they laid out their daring cynical and political strategy. no honeymoon. all-out resistance to a president popular elect. the republicans are told by mcconnell and cantor, if the president was for it, we had to be against it. they had to stick together against the president. what are they talking about? we're still in economic trouble. they're just obstructing. >> i think it's been a successful political strategy

for republicans to some degree. it's been successful from the point of view of republican members of congress, who themselves have gotten re-elected. they will probably hold a majority in the house for several more cycles. if your goal is -- >> that's gerrymandering. >> it's not just gerrymandering. it's the nature of the political geography of the u.s. in any case, i think for a lot of these members from their own personal self-interest perspective, the strategy of obstruction is working and will continue to work. i think there are a couple silver linings. one of which is while mcconnell and boehner came out swinging, dave camp who chairs the committee in the house that writes tax laws, put out a statement with his democratic counterpart in the senate that was many r receptive. there may be constructive discussion coming up. >> maybe, maybe. >> maybe. i try to maintain a little bit of hope. i think while there are sound political reasons for republican obstruction, it would be impossible for the president to

cut a deal, especially if for some reason he's decided his plan needs to be deficit neutral. if he said, we'll do a deal where we finance this with debt, we saw during the bush administration republicans were happy to spend money financed with debt. if he would back away a little from his deficit hawk stance, i think we would have a better chance of reaching a deal. >> i thought one of the most important line, probably the most important line in the speech, was where he said we need a grand bargain for middle class jobs, shifting away from some of that deficit hawk rhetoric and moving the grand bargain from one about reducing the deficit to one about creating jobs. josh barro, thank you so much. >> thank you. up next, what the wikileaks verdict means for all of us. this goes beyond bradley manning. we'll get into it as "the cycle" rolls on. hey mom, is there a dressing room around here? no. mom, check it out! energy drinks. no.

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big news today out of ft. meade. bradley manning found not guilty of the most serious charge against him, aiding the enemy. manning was convicted on 19 lesser charges, including another severe national security crime, espionage. sentencing could begin as early as tomorrow. right now we want to focus on that aiding the enemy acquittal. manning confessed to 19 lesser counts, but the military prosecutors didn't think that 20-year sentence was enough. they pursued the serious aiding the enemy charge. by rejecting that charge today, the judge refused to create a

pres dent that leaking to the media would be legally equivalent to leaking to al qaeda. we start with nbc news chief pentagon correspondent. why did the government make this case such a priority? >> throughout the case, the prosecution had argued that bradley manning was guilty of aiding the menemy because many f the 700,000 documents he leaked through the wikileaks website ended up in the hands of al qaeda, including osama bin laden at his compound there in abbatabad, including the detailed information, identification, and ways to track down every u.s. service member who was in iraq at the time. you can see the implications there. but the judge in her ruling today of not guilty pointed out that there was no apparent intent on the part of bradley manning to directly hand over that information to the enemy. the prosecution certainly didn't

prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. so there, in fact, you have the not guilty charge, or not guilty verdict on aiding the enemy. in the 19 other counts, there's a total of 154 years of potential sentence. if the judge handed down a consecutive sentence for each of the counts. according to military experts i'm talking to, that's probably not likely. now, in talking to legal military experts, they say that in some cases this case is ground breaking not only because of the scope of the leak but because it's the first venture by the u.s. military so deeply into e-law, electronic law, which is becoming so pervasive in the civilian world that now it's going to become a part of the military jargon. >> all right, jim. thank you for that report. joining us now is an expert witness from the manning defense

on legal and media issues. he's a professor of entrepreneurial legal studies and a co-director of the berkman center for internet and society at harvard law school. thanks for being here. >> my pleasure. >> so you've written a lot about this. one of the things that concerns people here was not only the leaks and the nature of them, which we just heard the report from the pentagon, but a very new and very extreme precedent that the government was trying to set that would basically treat a leak to be the media, a leak to "the new york times" or nbc news as equivalent to not only wikileaks but to leaking or working with the enemy. tell us about that and your legal analysis of that and what today's verdict tells us. >> you're absolutely right, ari. that's exactly what was so dangerous about that issue. that's exactly what was so threatening about the article 104, aiding the enemy charge. essentially aiding the enemy

includes not only helping but communicating with with the enemy. it includes not only communicating directly but communicating indirectly. what the prosecution tried to do was basically say manning gave the wikileaks, wikileaks put online, so did "the new york times," so did "the guardian." al qaeda read the internet and therefore manning was communicating indirectly with al qaeda. so the effect of that theory would have essentially been as soon as you have classified materials and you hand them over to any media organization, and that's actually absolutely critical for everyone to understand about this case. wikileaks was the medium, but wikileaks was not the subject. the prosecution twice, at two different stages of the case, was explicitly asked by the judge and explicitly admitted that from their theory, it doesn't matter whether it went to wikileaks or whether it went

to "the time" or msnbc or anybody else. it was about the fact you had a medium available online and al qaeda could reach it. >> as you wrote, the prosecution's case seemed designed to terrorize future national security whistleblowers. in a media landscape where most media organizations have a corporate boss, do you assume we're going to see media acting differently in a post-manning world? >> i think it's very difficult to tell. i think a lot still depends on what the judge will do with the sentence. i think what the judge did with aiding the enemy was absolutely critically important because that was the one major charge on which she would have had less judgment, less discretion in terms of how the sentences would line up. now we have to wait for the sentencing and see whether this kind of leak can result in decades of imprisonment or

whether at the end of the day it will be something like 10 to 20 years, which with the way in which the military works with time off and credit, et cetera, would be much less substantial. but this is absolutely central to what the government has been trying to do. when we look at the war on whistleblowers more broadly, it's exactly about trying to create an environment where people of good conscience who see wrong in the area of national security will be scared out of their wits not to do it. that has been consistent throughout these prosecutions. the manning prosecution was the flag ship of that strategy. >> i think one of the central sort of philosophical arguments within this is who is a whistleblower and who is a leaker. with manning, i heard a lot of conversation about were these 700,000 documents that he leaked, were they actually detrimental to our national security? did they actually put people's

lives at risk? did they actually damage our diplomatic relations? but is that really the question, or is the question whether manning cared whether they were to damage our national security? in some ways, it's impossible to prove what would have happened in a non-bradley manning world when these documents did not get out. so which was the relevant legal question here? >> i think a good legal standard would look at both those questions. we care about the objective reality. we care about the intention. so we should look at both of these things. if, in fact, you have hundreds of thousands of documents that cause immense damage and there's no real intention, we should worry about that. if, as it was in this case -- if on the other hand you have very little damage but the intent to harm, we also care about that. we care about both. in this particular case, it is absolutely clear that manning's intent was to inform the public about things that he truly believed were wrong.

that was centrally shown by the defense over and over again in the trial. it also seems very clear that the damage that was caused, even though there were hundreds of thousands of documents, was relatively mild. we don't know for sure because some parts of the case were held in secret, which is a real problem with this proceeding as it is with the fisa court. but it looks like the damage was not enormous. the intent clearly was to open for public debate. those two together make it, i think, quite clear that the prosecution overreached extremely. >> but you make a good point in that it is clear what his intentions were in leaking these documents that ultimately did end up in the hands of our enemies, which is why many of us, like myself, are surprised that he was acquitted of aiding the enemy. you made a point he wasn't directly communicating with the

enemy. how much of the outcome of this is impacted by the fact he did willfully communicate, that he did stand up and say what he did was wrong? how much of that impacts the outcome of all of this? >> it's hard to tell the extent to which he was willing to actually take a significant responsibility impacted the judge's decision. it's important to remember what the prosecution did here was unprecedented. aiding the enemy is the kind of offense you saw for people handing over information directly to enemy forces. it's the kind of things we saw used against pows who collaborated with the koreans in the korean war. that's the kind of offense we're talking about. it is simply unprecedented to take a leak to the press and call it aiding the enemy. i wouldn't understated fact that the judge as a professional looked at what was truly an unprecedented proposal and said, no, i'm not willing to go there. now, the fact that manning

actually came out and said, look, here are are the things i agree i violated, i did what i did, here are 20 years worth of offenses. these are -- it's not as though he was pleading to some marginal misdemeanors. isn't that enough? isn't that enough of a price to pay in order to deter frivolous leakers? and the trial was really about whether we go from something more or less balanced that can morlts -- more or less deter frivolous leakers. we don't need dozens of years. we certainly don't need life in prison without parole. >> right. that was the question ultimately. if you treat it as a capital crime, which has the potential of life.

thank you for spending time with us. up next, "the real housewife" star is indicted for more than bad reality television, which is also an indictable offense. and shocking rel vagss about the calories hiding in some of your food. but do you even care? food for thought and food puns coming up next.

the news cycle begins with a high-power breakfast in washington. no, we're not talking about eating your wheaties. vice president joe biden hosted former secretary of state hillary clinton this morning at his office. clinton lunched yesterday with the president, adding, of course, to speculation of clinton's possible 2016 presidential bid. president obama met with mideast negotiators this weekend. secretary of state john kerry and special envoy were also on hand. kerry says formal talks will start in the next two weeks with

the hopes of reaching a peace deal in early 2014. in central florida, a 30,000-gallon tank of propane is leaking after sploexs rocked the facility overnight. the blue rhino propane plant uses these tanks to fill smaller propane tanks. all workers are accounted for. at least eight are injured. and in critically important news from new jersey, two real housewives stars are out on bond. teresa giudice and her husband joe face charges on bankruptcy fond. they bailed out on $500,000 each. that's a lot of cookbooks and fabellinis, which are her signature cocktails. an arraignment hearing is set for next month. >> important news. it may not make you flip a table like teresa, but you might be soon shocked to learn the number of calories in some of

your favorite foods. >> important news. >> calorie counts may be coming to a menu near you as a proposed federal law requiring the number of calories be included on menus. new york city, seattle, and philadelphia already require this law, but does it really make a difference? according to a new research poll, while 71% of customers say they want healthy options, only one in six actually factor in calorie counts on average. so is it worth the change? let's spin. all right, guys. on my subway ride to work this morning, i was reading "the wall street journal," as usual. i was reading an interesting -- the cover of their health and wellness page. they actually put products together saying this versus this, which is worse? the first that stood out to me was a chocolate frosted donut versus a multigrain bagel. i always order the multigrain bagel. i feel like i'm an educated person when it comes to food. but i'm wrong.

you can see here, the chocolate frosted donut has less. the other one that stood out was sandwiches. obviously, you would automatically think the veggie sandwich is the healthier choice. the ultimate porker sandwich is better for you. >> that's an amazing name. >> it made me think, you know, the real problem is now obesity is considered a disease. the real problem we face today is education. so many people aren't educated about the choices that they're making. so why not have labels on menus? i think it should be on every restaurant. obviously we're looking just at restaurants that have 20 or more chains. the only way to begin fighting obesity is to enable people to make the best choices for them. this is just my personal opinion. >> attack on big business. leave the small businesses alone. >> well, i totally agree with you, abby. it is a burden on smaller bi ee businesses, so i understand why there's the necessary of making it open to chains. the place this is really

important is on the kids menu. sometimes you think you're ordering your child something that is decently healthy, and it's just horribly bad. also, the kids menu seems to be sort of like a curate d-list of the worst possible things. if you order your child the same entree at different places, there's huge differences. the mac and cheese at panera has 490 calories. >> you're just happy when they actually finish the meal. we can't expect them to eat half of it half of the time, right? just getting them to eat is the whole problem. >> i'm not worried about that. >> i'm not worried about calories. i don't worry about calories for them. maybe it's because i'm a dad. i'm not worried about calories that much for myself. i mean, i can't -- >> but we're not talking about you all the time, toure. we're talking about other people here.

>> wow, wow. i speak for many americans who say i can't do the calorie counting. i don't want the numbers on the menu. i'll work out more. i'll handle it later. i assume that everything that tastes good is bad for me. >> ari has a great, important story. >> looking at "the wall street journal" article, the idea of having some national regulation to at least have what is basically transparency. we take it for granted when you look on a retail context on the back of the item, you can get that information. that was because consumer advocates and others said you're entitled to it. it's always a bad sign if someone is selling you a product and they don't want to tell you what's in it. it's not like there's any other place to get the info from a restaurant. let's make a lean forward ad right now. >> wow. >> you bring up an interesting point. even if we have the nutritional facts out there for us, there's a lot still hidden. like the sugar content. a lot of people say it's a

killer. >> to your point, i used to get blueberry muffins for breakfast thinking it was like a healthy little item to start the day. there's fruit involved. it's a baked good. 444 calories and 22 grams of fat. so the whole time i thought i was making this healthy choice, and i wasn't. so a little bit of data for some of using help. >> somehow i have a feeling ari still gets the blueberry muffin for breakfast. guys, great conversation. up next, crazy politics virginia style. our virginia political editor is back. she'll talk the fbi, the present governor, and the future governor as "the cycle" continues. krystal predicted the future. is that my first krystal ball joke? many more where that came from, guys.

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between republican governor bob mcdonald and the cooch, well, just being the cooch, it's begging for us to talk about it. bob mcdonald will return all of the remaining gifts in effort to stem a scandal that's threatened his tenure as governor. the gifts included a rolex watch, $15,000 shopping spree for the first lady, and tens of thousands of dollars toward two mcdonald daughter weddings. he insists one wedding gift had already been repaid. meantime, the race to replace mcdonald is heating up. if we take a look at the money, mcauliffe doubles at the end of june. why is the red state giving money to the blue guy? the cooch's hard stance on

social issues have put some on the sidelines. ralph northam is running for lieutenant governor of the state. thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks so much for having me on the show today, krystal. >> of course. i wanted to start with that. we are seeing this trend of republican donors sitting out in this race, at least at the top of the ticket. i wanted to get some context from you. are you seeing that discomfort from the sort of republican business establishment in your race, and do you think this is just a virginia thing, or is this more of a nationwide trend? >> well, certainly we're seeing it in virginia, krystal. the extreme right, the agenda they brought forward into richmond for the last couple years, it's really gotten people's attention. especially the issues on women's reproductive health, the

mandatory ultrasound bill we dealt with two years ago, and this last year the bill that would criminalize most forms of contraception here in the commonwealth of virginia. when we look at running the commonwealth of virginia, we have to run it like a business. we have to be all inclusive. we shouldn't be discouraging people from coming to virginia. we need to welcome them all. so people are fed up with that. we're seeing that as we criss-cross the commonwealth. >> when you talk about the extreme right, you can find no better example than your opponent e.w. jackson. quickly, he's called gays and lesbians perverted. he says liberals who support gay rights have done more to kill blacks than the kkk, and the great society programs are worse for black people than slavery. i should be asking you, how could you possibly lose to this guy? what i'm going to ask you is, as

virginia becomes more and more purple, how is it that virginia and the right continues to flirt with these extreme candidates? >> well, you know, what we're focusing on -- and i appreciate the question, but again, we want to run virginia like a great business. we want to retain the businesses that we have here and attract new people to business. again, when women look at moving to this state, when they look at bills that will criminalize forms of contraception, that will criminalize in vitro fertilization, and you mentioned the lgbt community. we welcome those people here in virginia. that's a message we criss-cross in the commonwealth. >> former democratic party chair ed rendell said governor mcdonald was one of the best governors in the country. he said that this weekend. what do you make of that?

>> well, you know, governor mcdonald, to his credit, has done some good things for the commonwealth of virginia, restoring rights to nonviolent criminals. i think that's a big step in the right direction. you know, then when we talk about the importance of business to virginia, he put a transportation package on the table this past year. it's not a perfect package, but it was a bipartisan -- >> do you agree with ed rendell? >> well, what i just wanted to finish my thought, with that bipartisan transportation plan, we have put about $1.3 billion of new revenue in the transportation that we didn't have since 1986. so the governor has done some good things. obviously what has happened over the past few months is unfortunate. it's a reason that we need ethics reform desperately in the commonwealth of virginia. you know, i introduced legislation two years ago that would put more teeth in our ethics program. it was defeated in the house. we had it passed in the senate.

i think that virginians deserve better. they're going to see a lot of legislation in the 2014 session that will stop some of the stuff that we've seen in the last few months. >> as we've all said, virginia is a very interesting place when it comes to politics. it has moved recently from a reliably red state to a complete battleground state. if we look back at the 2008 and 2012 presidential election, president obama won largely due to the continued shift in demographics. in 2012, for example, romney carried 61% of the white vote in virginia, but that didn't help much because obama carried 93% of the black vote, 64% of the hispanic vote and 66% of the asian vote. that's according to exit polls by "the new york times." in the end, romney lost the state by more than 115,000 votes. actually, not too many votes if you look at it from the bigger picture. in an off-year election, does your strategy change or will it once again come down to these certain ethnic voting blocs? >> it's certainly going to rely

a lot on what happened in 2012. you know, when we talk to virginians and listen to them across the commonwealth, they're interested in transportation, infrastructure, things that will improve our economy, bring jobs to virginia. they're interested in a world-class education system in the commonwealth. they're interested in providing excellent health care to all virginians. we need to get away from the social issues. you know, there's no excuse that a group of legislators, most of whom are men, by the way, should be telling women what they should and shouldn't be doing with their bodies. >> amen. all right, state senator ralph northam. thanks so much. >> thanks for having me. >> of course. up next, ever wonder why so many successful skilled pro athletes get themself into some serious trouble? aaron hernandez, anyone? up next, one star who turned his life around and has a message for guys bringing shame to their game, phoenix sun and former washington wizard caron butler

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it's been hard to turn on the news this summer and avoid news of athletes gone wild. it's like the moment you learn your child's a sports fan and it's chased down with worry. the bad always seems to drown out the good. caron butler is living the good. he's a small forward for the phoenix suns. he's made nearly $100 million

over his career, chosen as an all-star twice. when he was 11, he was already dealing cocaine in wisconsin. he got arrested 15 times before the age of 15, including once for bringing a gun to school. at 15, he spent nine months in juvenile prison. there he decided to turn his life around after a month in solitary confinement. he's with us in the guest spot today. caron butler, welcome. how exactly did you turn your life around? >> i have to say just prayers and having a strong foundation. my mother, my grandmother, those people that just never gave up on me. they stayed with me. i prayed on the situation and just kept moving forward. i was blessed. >> some guys come from a rough situation, like you did, like aaron hernandez did. then they get into that fortune place, that dream space of being a professional athlete. millions of dollars. then think revert or whatever. why does that happen? >> i think a lot of things. you know, peer pressure.

just -- you have to remain humble when you reach that point in your life. you know, i realized my blessings, and i knew where i came from. you know, i never wanted to go back to those situations. i wanted -- i've been given this platform. i wanted to and i wanted to bring people up with me and my family and be a good role model for my family and hopefully i inspire when you see stories brs aaron hernandez, do you feel like that can casts a pallor over all professional athletes? do you want to see more about the sort of good things that athletes are doing? >> i was saddened by the story for numerous reasons. but you know, i think it's good to, you know, put the athletes that's doing some special things you know out there on the platform and highlight them. so many guys out there doing great things and i surround myself with them. you look at guys like dwyane wade and chris paul and you know, that's just in my sport. and you know, there's so many

more that give back to the communities, that inspire lives and try to be a pillar in the communities and really does some magnificent things. >> it's incredible all that you've been through. just looking at you. you spent time in prison, 15 times before you were 15. you never would guess that. you found a purpose in life. and here are you and doing so many great things. you have it all together. so many athletes revert back to their old ways. they spend all their money at once. would you like to see more systems in place to help athletes dealing with emotional issues and how they spend their mo en. >> there's a great deal of systems in place now. the nebraska has a lot of systems and classes that you can take like future leadership programs, one that i took this summer in las vegas. it shows you the business side of basketball. it shows you if you want to move into management, you can do these things and this is how you go about doing these things. guys that deal with peer

pressure or drug and alcohol abuse or whatever the case may be, these classes are here for you. you've got to search and find them and be willing to put in the time for them classes. >> caron butler, thanks for being here. best of luck with the suns. beat the lakers. speaking of sports players who are doing what they shouldn't, there are multiple reports today more mlb sus pengs are coming down this week. if you were the baseball commissioner and it was your birthday, would you suspend a-rod for life. >> jacquie watkins says lifetime was good enough for lance armstrong for drug use and lying. why shouldn't a-rod get the same. let us know what you think while we await the decision. the sports world has been kind of a downer. the political headlines haven't been all sunshine and puppies either. next, crystal ball brings us a look at the brighter side of life as only crystal ball can. we had never used a contractor before and didn't know where to start. at angie's list, you'll find reviews

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of feels pretty good to be back lear in my chair and since i've been back, i've been thinking about all the things that have happened since i left to have my baby, the adorable lowell maxwell. when i left, immigration reform was stuck in the house. there was saber rattling about the government shut downs. republicans were voting to repeal obama care again. nan general, opinions of washington were at all-time lows. and now that i'm back, immigration reform is still stuck in the house. republicans are still voting to repeal obama care and there is still saber rattling about the debt ceiling and government shutdowns and naturally opinions of washington with are at all

time lows. what is this, groundhog day? this is quite a depressing view of viewing our nation. but i think to focus on the progress in washington or more accurately the lack thereof is to miss where the real action is. in fact, the way i see it, this has been an incredible summer of progress and hope, not because of any politician because of the hopeful stirrings of grassroots activism we have seen sprouting in some of the most unlikely places. in north carolina, a state changing but still red protesters have faithfully turned out every monday to protest the extreme anti-worker anti-woman and anti-minority actions taken by the republican legislature. they're calling the entire nation's attention to the real focus of the gop. in many texas, rick perry, ted cruz texas, wendy davis rode a wave of the citizen outrage to successfully perry's latest attacks on women's health. the legislation wogs eventually pass but not before texas republicans learned there's hell

to pay when you mess with texas women. and across the country, fast food workers are finding their voices and standing up to their employers demanding their humanity be recognized through the basic dignity of earning a living wage. we've also just gottennous this week a citizen led movement against rush limbaugh that sprang to life after his despicable comments about sandra fluke has persisted quietly since and had a real impact. cume mu lus media which carries his show is reportedly dropping his show at the end of the year. he will find a new home. let's hope it turns out when citizens raise their voices demanding basic decency in our national dialogue, advertisers will continue to listen. most of the actors in each of these stories aren't paid political operatives or big donors. organized interest groups jumped on board but were not the notetive force. these were normal people who said enough. average american who's said if not me who, if not now when.

folks who suddenly realized the great secret and strength of our nation, that they are themselves powerful. and that many together there is no moneyed interest or intransigent legislator who can stand in their way. victory does not come immediately and there are always bumps and bruises and battles lost along the long road towards justice, but the first necessary step is, the most critical step is to feel and know that power. this summer, as washington sleeps, the nation awakes. now to a man who never sleeps, martin bashir. it's all yours. >> i just wanted to thank you on behalf of my wife and my daughters because of your work in drawing attention to rush limbaugh's outrageous comments about sandra fluke. thank you for your service. good afternoon. it's tuesday, july 30th. and the president is ready to make a deal in the volunteer state. >> have a seat. >> tennessee. >> tennessee.

>> tennessee. >>. >> we took on a broken health care system, invested in new american technologies, changed the tax code, saved an auto industry. we've seen an endless parade of posturing and phony scandals. the stakes couldn't be higher. we should be doing everything we can to create more good jobs, doing nothing doesn't help the middle class. we need to raise our minimum wage because right now, it's lower than it was when ronald reagan took office. >> we're lacking action. >> if folks in washington want a grand bargain, how about a grand bargain for middle class jobs? i'm going to keep on throwing ideas out there to see if something takes. i want everybody to just hear the honest truth. i've run my last campaign. so i don't need to spin. ♪