with our spending, our government and our economy. also, is it time to bring up google? the show starts right now. new york congressman charlie rangel found guilty today on 11 counts. >> we have tried to act with fairness led only by the facts and the law. >> no one asked for this assignment. sitting in judgment of a fellow member, a colleague, is very difficult task. >> well, while the findings are a blemish on his record, they're hardly enough to end his career. potential sanctions include expulsen, deniaial of privilege

censure or a fine. since yesterday, he decided to walk out and skip his trial altogether. the smart money says he probably wouldn't stick around for that talking to either. let's bring in our e-team to talk about rangel and the earmark debate. from the left, democratic strategist karen finney. on the right, gop strategist, brian donahue and as always, our washington insider and man of the money, lobbiest jimmy willi williams. don't say a bad thing about lobbyists. just about lobbyists with money. there's a difference. right. we will begin with dr. rangel himself and james, the only real question that occurs to me is charlie rangel indicative of

wh what happen to a politician? >> here's what i know. there are 435 members of the house representatives. 100 senators. two ethics trials going on right nouchlt one member has been found guilty. another, her fate awaits her. this is not indicative. the republicans when they held the congress, they had way more than this. the democratically led ethics panel has now convicted mr. rangel and so after however many years, 40 years in congress, this is a sad way to end your career. >> i would agree with that. what is your view on -- does something like this restore anybody's confidence? is there any benefit to at least bringing this to a conclusion for the overall political environment? >> well, this is a massive shift in politics in america. on november 2nd, the people said the era of big government is

over. with these types of things, the era of bad government is going to be over soon. >> come on. >> karen, you get the last word. >> what i find interesting is that this whole process was part of the new transparency and the new ethics that speaker pelosi brought to washington and ironically, the national journal reported yesterday that the gop leadership is basically going to kill the congressional office of ethics which means cases like this or remember a guy, mark foley, who was running around snatching interns. those things were kind of left to fester. >> another turn of trust. this is great. come back, where was it?

>> i knew you were going to say that. it was adobe the street. >> fine. speaking of down the street, nancy pelosi in a slightly different role, but hanging on. a poll of her opinion of her retaining leadership 47 say stay as leader, 45% say pick someone else. what is the advantage of sticking with pelosi? to me, it looks like there's an opportunity if toupt make a shi shift. >> she does have a respect of the caucus. she has the stat chur to work boehner and she is popular with the democratic base. democrats need that right now. they need someone who has credibility with the base and she's that person. >> november 2nd, two words for pelosi. you're fired.

that's what the american voters wanted and she doesn't want to leave. she's holding on. >> is he wrong? when you are the speaker of the house, the house gets swept, whether you're right or popular, is he not correct? >> i think they're both wrong is what i think. i think the democratic base didn't turn out this time. we know that. the only sector that the president won this particular time with 30 and under people. he didn't win independents. didn't win independent women. old people. middle age people. he only won young people. while i appreciate that speaker pelosi is popular with our base and that's fine, it's not all about the base. 28% of those folks went to the republicans this time. if we're going to win in 2012, win back the house, keep the is that the or win the presidency, we need the 33% of people that are independent. >> jimmy, we need both, basically. we need base. we need the independents and

look, nancy pelosi is the one person in this town who has gotten everything done that she was asked to do. >> i agree. yes. i agree. >> wait. >> billions and billions of our taxes. come on. that's what she was sent to washington to do? >> nor anyone has been able to do including presidents of the united states. she passed health care through her chamber. i give it to her. she's powerful and she's not a terrible leader. the country just wanted change this time and we got it. >> let's talk about earmarks. >> please. the vote from republican senators, there's been all sorts of conversation about the earmarking of money in our country, our congress. an issue you're surely familiar with and it has taken up the

political sort of avant garde if you will. the war cry for the tea party. and it goes at $15.9 billion spent on earmarks which is the total amount of earmark money that is spent, which amounts to less than 1% of the federal budget, which makes me wonder whether this is perhaps a symbolic gesture to approach earmarks, but if the issue in this country we owe a lot more money than we have, $70 trillion in long-term liableties, are we not once again barking up the wrong tree. >> this is, here we are. we are talking about dividing the pie when we ought to be talking about the size of the pie. how big is the pie versus how we're going to cut it up. >> the pie has gotten bigger every administration. >> you want facts?

they're simple. three tenths of 1% for 2010, the entire appropriations process was 12 billion out of a $3.5 trillion -- >> less than 1%. >> three tenths of one. it's .333. you can do the numbers. here are the facts. the 1991 highway bill. this is when the democrats controlled congress and george h.w. bush was president. in 2005, who was president of the united states. who controlled the congress? republicans. 6,371 earmarks. in 2011, we're going to have a highway bill. i can't wait to see what the republicans are going to do with those earmarks. it's not earmarks. earmark rs not the problem. i'm tired of republicans like mitch mcconnell. >> hold on, karen, i'm going to come to you. >> mitch mcconnell got $1

billion the last two years for earmarks. that's a $6 million earmark for every earmark that he got, but today, he's against earmarks. >> so, i want to ask you a question. we accept the fact that earmarks are a mine skul portion of the budget in this country. in question, a tiny percentage. you've got deal with medicare, defense. no one wants to deal with it. you've got these new politicians that have come in. they're going to stop government spending. they're sent to do it. they're on the tea party and this is an easier target because it is something that reeks of secrecy and the book room and the cigars. if we look at ourself as people who want this country to be more efficient, more free, more transparent, more competitive, are we just on another

boondoggle with earmark debate as we are with so many of these other debates that we're presented with that are largely a distraction. >> if you want to make a real impact, roll back spending to 2008. roll it back to precrisis. freeze discretionary spending. >> which is the size of the pie. >> but the second part to jimmy is and i'm always about cutting the budget and everything else. when i work for a member of congress, they needed to build a dam in the district. they needed to build certain things. there's certain things that districts do need, so it's important to have spending in certain district projects, but it has to be transparent. >> but it's not because it's on 535 different websites, i can't search it. they're disclosed, but not easi easily searched. >> the chairman of the senate appropriations, he will not put a single earmark into any

appropriations bill unless you first publish it -- >> it's not a searchable database. >> it is. he does that. let the lady speak. >> all of this is so ridiculous and goes back frankly to what dylan said at the beginning. this is a sham. this is an issue that somebody here in washington decided they could seize on so they could pretend like they're trying to solve a problem in washington and get re-elected. it's not going to solve the budget problem and the reality is we elect these people to come to washington to bring home the bacon. it definitely needs to be reformed although i suppose congress has so little credibility, perhaps why they figure they have to ban them than reform them. i want my senator and member of congress you know, understanding the needs of my district on the state that i live in whether i'm in a rural or suburban area,

getting our share of the pie for our community. obviously, it's the bridges to nowhere. >> studying the habits of bees or mafia museum, all these -- >> that's fine. >> wasteful, but again, a distraction because we are $70 trillion in the hole just for this year and we're talking about a flee on a dog's ass, excuse my language. but it's insulting. >> here's why earmarking is important. the predator drone. this is the thing we send inside afghanistan. that's an earmark, folks. let's cut out the predators so troops can just walk in blindly and get blown away because the republicans have found fiscal conservati conservatism. it's a crock. >> it's a flea on a dog's ass.

karen, you got anything to add to this? >> i'm just going to say it's a sham made up issue for politicians to try to pretend. >> taking a full highbrow all the way thanks to karen finney, james and myself. brian donahue, jimmy williams, karen finney, we'll talk to jim tomorrow. coming up, can the senate be saved? is it worth saving? obviously, it is, but how would you even begin the process reforms in a chamber such as this? we'll talk to senator byron dorgan who was leading that chamber. what advice does he have for those left behind who want to restore some to have credibility. cooking, you need a little website development. some transparent reporting, so you know it's working.

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...and? it helped balance her colon. oh, now that's the best part. i love your work. [ female announcer ] phillips' colon health. republicans no more earmark, we're breaking that down. this hour, gop members expected to vote behind closed doors. a nonbinding agreement, which means you wouldn't have to do it but senator tom coburn could force a formal vote on the issue by attaching it to the first bill brought to the senate floor. meantime, president obama welcoming new earmark restrictions which puts the ball squarely in the democrats' court and joining us now is democratic senator from north dakota, bye

ron dorgan. it's a delight as always of the you. if you heard the conversation we were just having, some off color commentary, if you heard it, i apologi apologize. the congress is the one with the checkbook deciding where the money gets spent, who gets spent with. obviously, there's an uproar about reducing government spending for plenty of understandable reasons. is approaching something easily understood going to alter our deficit and spending, anything else? >> i don't think it's understood at all. i did hear the segment with you. this issue reminds me of dancing around a bonfire. there is nothing that will be done if all earmarks just like that, vanish, it won't make a bit of difference in federal spending. that money, it will go downtown

to an agency, a federal agency and some gs-14 or 12 or 16 will make judgments about where it's spent, but mitch mcconnell had it right the first time. he said it. he's correct. getting rid of earmarks is not going to affect the federal budget deficit. we need a reduction in spending. we need to tighten or belt and deal with the budget. if republicans think they're doing that when their actions will have no impact, they're just fooling themselves. >> am i wrong to look at this as political prop where i can appear to be a tough guy and i'm not going spend the money and on and on and on, but guess what, when i talk to someone who knows what they're talking about like yourself, i learn quite quickly, it's meaningless. >> the human genome, that

started with earmark funding by somebody in congress. not all good ideas come from the congress. but having said that, most of the money goes down to an agency and the agency makes judgments about it. a very small part is carved off and those judgments are made by members of congress. they are by the way, your guest was quite correct. they were all now on a list disclosed to the public immediately and they're totally transparent, so i just think, we've got to deal with this federal debt and deficit. this administration came in with a very large budget surplus that president clinton developed and turned it into a very large set of budget deficits and we need to deal with those, but deal with it honestly. >> the symptoms of our problems, whether it's energy, education,

health care, i don't care what it is where intespend a lot of y and get weaker results than other systems and country. for whatever reason, clearly, there's an opportunity for innovation when you're spending a lot and getting a little. can you think of how the government's relationship with innovators, investment, education, could be altered in a way to encourage more problem solving morning or children, old people not to just worry about who can cut the budget, but who can create the next advancement in cheaper, more accessible energy, health care, which is what we need. >> how do we keep the edge. when i grew up, we were the biggest, the best.

now, people think their kids aren't going of the as good a life they had. we need to get our mojo back. we need education reform. where we send kids in through a classroom door, that we're sending them into the best classroom in the world. 60% of our oil comes from countries that don't like us. there are a lot of things we need to do. the lubricant of progress, you compromise. compromise is not a four-letter word and not a dirty word. >> so, to come to my last question as you assemble all of this, if you agree innovation is necessary, the disruption of advancement is the only thing that's going to get us out. we're going of the to build our way out of the hole. when politicians are depending on businesses threatened by the very innovation this country

desperately needs to save itself seems like a heck of a log jam. >> i agree. let's cut the waste, but then make smart investments in the things that will matter for this country's new edge. the retirement and your thoughts on how the actual process of the function of the senate might be improved? >> the senate survives all of us, actually, i served in statewide elected office continually since age 26. been a great gift and privilege,

but i'm leaving the senate. it doesn't work very well right now. that's not why i'm leaving. i have confidence that this ship is going to right itself. the american people aren't demanding both parties work together. >> we've got to build our way out of here. >> absolutely. >> a pleasure. just ahead here, how america's new cold war may be a cyber war. we are back after this. ♪ [ man ] i thought our family business would always be boots. until one day, my daughter showed me a designer handbag. and like that, we had a new side to our business. [ male announcer ] when businesses see an opportunity, the hartford is there. protecting their employees and property and helping them prepare for the future. nice boots. nice bag. [ male announcer ] see how the hartford helps businesses

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multigrain cheerios. new signs that today we may be fighting a cold war with china on the internet. a new report shows that for 18 pi minutes last april, web traffic routed through china.

the senate, nasa and several other government agencies were all affected. others were dell, microsoft, ibm. the report says it's not certain the redirection was intentional, but could have allowed surveillance by specific users and sites by the chinese. in related news, china just took the top spot ton list with the fastest supercomputers, with a computer with a speed of 2.57 -- that has intel inside. still ahead here, from the white house fence to the front lines of america's wars, what should happen with don't ask don't tell? i think that's the fed's policy. it's the topic of our "daily rant." plus, are we gets closer to the

real truth about the fraud being uncovered in our government. we'll talk to ohio senator brown about whether it could up end the housing market and the perpetuation of the too big to fail banking system. but first, time to break up google. the idea may not be as farfetched as it sounds. ♪ [ upbeat instrumental ] [ rattling ] [ gasps ] [ rattling ] [ laughing ] [ announcer ] close enough just isn't good enough. - if your car is in an accident, - [ laughing continues ] make sure it's repaired with the right replacement parts. take the scary out of life with travelers. call or click now for an agent or quote.

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one of what do most incumbent politicians have in common with google? they want to hold on to power. take the monopolies of the internet age. here's the thing. if history's any indication these guys will not be able to hold on forever, the perfect old

school example, it was broken up in '84. at&t held on to power so long while americans paid the price with higher rates and worse service. spend a lot. get a little. probably because you've got a monopoly system at work. you have a lousy product, with no choices, probably because you have a monopoly system at work. for its part, google has already caught the eye of some courts, the justice department coming close to filing a suit against the dropping and after google rfpped its ad deal, but that was not stopped david. tradecomet.com claims a search giant turned on them when they became a threat.

monopolies in american business have long been frowned upon even though we've gotten insurance monoop by ordained by the government. the hypocrisy is evidence. but when it comes to information, americans seem to embrace these monopolies. experts say the downside will be seen sooner or later where the innovation becomes more a will to maintain power at the customer's expense. joining us -- columbia law school professor tim wu, the man who first coined the term net neutrality. his new book -- why is animation monopoly specifically such a liability? >> information is a product like no other. it's not like orange juice or rubber boots. it gives you a lot of power.

so having concentrated information is more dangerous. >> when you look at the information market if you will, of somebody who is ignorant, do you feel that google as the controller of digital information or monopolist for digital information, is customer driven in the sense that they're incentivised to give a customer who wants to learn something the best possible information or is that not their incentive? >> i think for now, it is. you know, the question is, between right now and in the long-term. right now, i think google has only state and power and come to power by providing a greatç prugt. the real question is in a few years when google starts to be

challenged. that's when its incentives start to change. >> why is it so important that weather it's the press, the government, whatever the power is in this country are are vigilant about monopoly power. why is it such a big deal to pay attention to? >> information monopoly gives an unusual level of power over what americans think, over what americans do. and so we always have of the a special vigilance for these markets. standard oil was an important monopoly, but it was oil. the difference is that information was a product when you only have one seller of it that can control people's minds. this is something totalitarian countries have always understood.

in the united states, we have to be careful because the government doesn't do that, but the danger of private companies doing that. >> when you look at the quality of debate, a country that spends more than anyone else in the world, but is 37th. second behind iceland, but can't come close. for a country that subsidizes energy resources that are filthy from countries that want to kill us. how much do you think the political ability to not address these problems and instead getting arguing about earmarks which represent three tenths of 1% of the budget -- >> your question answers itself. what can i say. i don't know why we end up focusing onç superficial issue. you're right. something is broken. >> i hope you can help us fix

it. tim wu, among other things, originator of the phrase, net neutrality, a debate that will continue. thank you. up next, what will our lawmakers do about the foreclosure crisis and more importantly, the much larger scandal that resides inside of our federal government tied to flawed underwriting, accounting standards and a re z refusal to engage a banking smm which is profitable -- poorly underwritten assets in the u.s. government while paying executives a small fortune for creating them. your government at work. we'll talk to ohio senator sherrod brown right after this. while i was away e-trade's techno-magic --

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bad mortgage services a more than a technical issue. we must all acknowledge that not every borrow r home ought to be saved or can be saved. >> right now, congress taking up the issue of fraud closure. the afternoon, the senate banking committee, hopefully, this hearing, the first of many needed to uncover the extent of the actual fraud. not just the foreclosure fraud or charges of shoddy paperwork which may be a coverup portion

of a far larger, system hidden inside of an unaudited federal reserve, fannie, freddie and giant banking business. alts, warning that the mortgage mess threatens to rock the shaky economy because it is built on that underwriting and fraud. sherrod brown has stepped out of the hearing to speak with us, trying to knave gait with us one of the most complex issues out there. what was the subject of today's hearing? >> most of it was how to get to the bottom of this. most servicers are gaming the system like they have for a number of years. too many banks want to foreclose

first and ask questions later. we have written letters and another from senator mendez and me, to push the regulators to come down harder on these serviceç abusers. the attorney general in ohio one of the leading attorneys general on this issue has gone after the service of users that with lawsuits. it's clear they're finding ways to more than nickel and dime these homeowners who are about to lose their homes by charging them fees, going through temporary modification. too often forclosing when they didn't need to. >> and you and i both know that in order to save the pensions, retirements and functionalties of our financial system as it exists where we basically take the pension of requirement moneys to wall street, turn it into credit and lend it out, which is the current financing system in this country, which

means if you lose the money, the government's got to bail you out. that we are due still further investigations. i was talking to james lockhart yesterday on this show. james responsible for the government interface with fannie and freddie. i said, what percentage of the debt are nonconforming, don't comply with warranties and guaranti guaranties, with the rating agency. here was how he answered that. >> they actually have teams now that are going through defaulting mortgages to see if the paperwork matched to what they were told and if it doesn't, they're pushing them back to the banks. >> what you're telling me the s that there are people reviewing the books. >> less than the private label mortgage-backed securities. >> are you surprised that it's almost 2011 and we're still dancing around figuring out what

percentage of the presidentiaer the trillions we're giving to our government were valid? >> i guess i'm not surprised, but it's very disturb inging. there's a man that wrote, and had a year of cancer treatment, said dealing with a service provider was worse than dealing with chemo therapy. cuyahoga county in cleveland, one of the most troubled areas in terms of foreclosure, the judges don't really believe the lawyers representing the judge representing the banks in many cases that they really did look at these loans. this whole issue of robo signings, which the banks claim they don't do anymore. where people spent no realtime

looking at t in the information. that's what we absolutely need. the attorneys general around the country to weigh in on and the treasury department and other regulators in washington. we're makining progress, but nowhere where we need. >> when you look at the effort that you and others put up during the financial reform debate to address too big to fail, the agencies working for the banks, to address the lack of transparency for any marketplace, all these things that you and others like ted kaufm kaufman, bernie sanders, fought very aggressively to do and ultimately, from a -- for somebody like myself, i'm obviously not going to be happy until you see what i think is a real solution. a lot of it did not get done. do you feel like those who have your world view of fairness of ending the extraction and

corruption in the banking system have more power today or less power than a couple of years ago? >> we'll see with the new congress coming in what that means, how aggressively they're going to go after this corruption. i feel like we have a little more power right now because i feel the more the public learns about this, the more those ofçs who have fought, the more empowered we are because the public's learning more. the more they push the regulators, the more the public speaks up and pushes their members of congress. the banks now how to game the system. just like with credit cards. they know how to nickel and dime or dollar and five dollar you to death with all their fees and charges. they're always in some sense, a step ahead of the sheriff. that's why these investigations are ongoing. we need aggressive attorneys general around the country like

we have in ohio. >> who has been on this program a couple of times. i love that guy. do you think we'll get a legitimate audit of the trillion dollar books that are less perhaps sensitive to the homeowner because it's not as tangible as a foreclosure, but are directly central to the debate of how much money we spend in this country and what our liableties are as we talk about cutting, spending for teachers, hospitals, cops, but we can't get claw backs or an audit for the multitrillion housing finance bailouts where huge percentages of that may not even be legitimate paper. >> and we need that. from starting with the homeowner herself or himself, that they are really given the information and asked the questions before the foreclosure proceedings start instead of afterwards all the way up to the agencies and

audit you're talking about in all that paper. >> it's always a pleasure. i call you sherrod sometimes, but i hope -- >> i call you dial to your producer. >> you can go a lot of ways with that. >> thanks. >> have a good afternoon. sherrod brown. time now to get your feedback via twitter and other viewer tweets two ourç twitter questi about how you'd fix washington. we got a very nice response even if it is a bit -- add a little competition and engagement and you'd be hosting the show. it's the stuff i've learned from your show. i'll take that as a compliment.

we just have to let the dog loose so to speak. you got something to share, logon now and tweet us your thoughts. find me at dylan ratigan. coming up on "hardball," michael smerconish. charlie rangel. earmarks and of course the failures of courage and conviction when it comes to don't ask don't tell, which is not only a gay in the military policy, but at the federal reserve. we're back after this.

president obama and the defense secretary robert gates meeting behind closed doors this afternoon in a dwrouing continue ver over the military's don't ask don't tell. monday, 13 gay rights activists chained themselves to the white house fence. a vote could come up this congress. that's the subject of today's "daily rant" from jonathan capehart. >> cindy mccain sent shock waves through the the political world and gay community when she took direct aim at don't ask don't tell. >> our political and religious leaders tell lgbt youth they have no future. they can't serve our country openly. our country treats the lgbt like second class citizens. >> that's pretty strong coming from the wife of senator john mccain, the man in charge on keeping the man.

i guess too strong because within 24 hours, mrs. mccain retre retreated. who's john mccain leading any way? not the american people. a poll from february showed that 75% of americans believe that gays should serve openly in the military. he's not leading service members and their families. according to leaked findings of a pentagon study, a majority said they would not object to serving and living with openly gay troops and john mccain isn't following the senior members of the military he said he would listen tg. both gates and mullen have said publicly and often that don't ask don't tell should go. so my question to senator mccain is, what are you afraid of? why are you defying the pentagon leadership? the american people? after serving this country so

valiantly, why are you standing in the way of others who are trying to do the same thing, but are denied supply because of who they are. it is a shameful policy. senator mccain should be ashamed of himself. >> if you were to look at this through a political lens, and through the lens of a political con skistituency from the right there a political strategy and a fine rant by the way. >> thank you. >> is there a political strategy that you can envision as you put on your political analyst had that would lead someone to decide i'm going to fight for don't ask don't tell to be held in place because i have some political victory than i win through this. >> i can't figure out who the constituency is. who's he leading? social issues were not part of the 2010 campaign.

it was about the budget, deficits and spending. >> jobs. >> and jobs. not really any social issues. we know he banked really hard to the right when he was running, trying to save his nomination, which he did. why he's doing this -- why he is still doing this after making hints during presidential campaign that he would follow this course of action that president obama is taking is beyond me. it really is actually rather sad to see john mccain going down this route. >> let's talk about the other and perhaps most important figure in this, the president. whatç political strategy do yo believe the white house has been navigating with i don't know how you would describe the way they have sort of tried to do this, but it's hardly been with sort of clear and unwaivering

leadership. >> well, i would take issue with that, dylan, because while some could say the administration was sort of slow moeing this, dragging its feet on this, a lot of things were happening out of camera range, out of the public eye, that have gotten us to where we are right now. remember when secretary gates and chairman mullen went to capitol hill to testify on behalf of repealing don't ask don't tell? that was a huge deal. it didn't happen overnight. that took months and months of prodding. i think the president and administration has done as much it can to get this done because don't ask don't tell is an act of congress. it's going take an act of congress to get rid of. >> you keep coming back to the gates and mullen aspect i think for good reason. is that the most potent political currency that exists now to make this happen? >> yes, because members in the building behind me