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tv   The Dylan Ratigan Show  MSNBC  March 29, 2012 4:00pm-5:00pm EDT

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melodious health and then you came back, and if i remember correctly, i gave you a little bit of a hard time, saying, what's the problem and all this. this is the lesson to everybody at home. >> what's that? >> if you harass your friends when they become ill, as i did however good-naturedly, the spirit world will smate you, as they did to me, to punish you. >> are you talking about your physiological karma? >> yes, i am. >> let it be known i wish you no ill. >> we have great cameraderie and love, it's our spirit world that judges us in the matter, and i think i was smote.
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"dylan ratigan" starts right now. >> well, a lovely spring thursday afternoon to you from midtown manhattan. i am dylan ratigan. glad to be back with you and thank you for being here this afternoon with us. also thanks to ari melber for filling in and it looks like i haven't missed a beat. we are going to talk about things, not the least of which is energy and gas prices which continue to lean on american businesses. just this afternoon, the president hosting veterans in the rose garden as they talked about wars and fighting and gas and pricing. >> on top of these record profits, oil companies are also
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getting billions a year -- billions a year -- in taxpaying subsidies. a subsidy they've enjoyed year after year in the last century. i don't want our kids to be held hostage in events on the other side of the world. i want us to forge our own destiny, forge our own future. we're going to do all of this by harnessing our own inexhausible resource. >> some of those tax breaks, as you heard from the president, date back to 1913. at that point there were only 48 american states. ford was still producing the model t. it's been a while. here's where we stand today on gas prices. a gallon of it will cost us, at the pump, anyway, $3.92.
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that's up 20 cents in just the past month, 30 cents from what you and i were paying a year ago. if you watch this program on a regular basis, you and i both know the real price and real cost of gasoline when you factor in our defense budgets, the wars and environmental damage that is done to our own communities and around the world, the actual costs that we're incurring, directly or indirectly, are more like $14. we begin our coverage with an iraq war veteran, jerome simms. he was at the white house today. what would you say you learned today or that you experienced or understood today that maybe you didn't yesterday, and can you share it with us? >> dylan, first, thanks for having me on today. actually, the first thing, really, is i'm glad to see the president cares about this issue and understands the need for leaders to put in place mechanisms to get control of the price of gasoline.
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>> there is a very powerful quote that i want to read for everyone's benefit and then ask you to elaborate on it a little bit. you said, and i quote, i remember as a kid seeing cars and trucks lined up for blocks behind gas stations just to fill their tanks part way. twenty years later, i saw cars lined up again, but this time in iraq. there the lines would stretch up to ten miles long under the hot sun, under constant risk of attack by extremists. i realized then just how vulnerable it makes any country to be dependent on oil, especially the united states, which uses nearly a quarter of the world's supply. describe to us how you see that vulnerability? >> dylan, this issue is about dollars and common sense. on the dollars side, it's easy for us as consumers and american citizens to feel the effect of these ever-increasing prices on
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gasoline. but on the common sense side, coming from the national security perspective, we are paying the price when it comes to our troops, our service members, having to go overseas in areas of conflict in order to ensure that we have these natural resources to have the energy that we need to continue to do the work that we all do day to day. >> one of the things that really has struck me as we report on this is how remarkably inefficient we are with the energy we do burn. it's not just that we burn a quarter of the world's oil, it's that two-thirds to three-quarters of the oil we do burn, we waste, whether it's station power generation, whether it's over land transportation, and it struck not just me, but former ceo of shell oil, how nice the match could be between our returning veterans and a new american 21st century mission for energy
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independence. take a listen to mr. ho hoffmeister. >> if we don't get our acts together as americans, we're going to live in the 20th century as it falls over, we'll be short of jobs, out of money and wonder what it did to us. what the military brings us is two great competencies. >> your thoughts on the ability of the veterans to lead this country and get myself and everybody else to fall into line with folks like you as you spear this independence for the 21st century. >> governor mccain has been campaigning on tapping into our talent, and our veterans represent the point of the sphere when it comes to talent, so we have this innovation when it comes to energy, knowing we
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cannot continue relying on foreign fossil fuels and needing to create alternative energy for our nation. our veterans have the skills and leadership ability to move forward and lead the way in making these form of energies available to the american public. >> we couldn't agree with that more. i'd love to introduce you, if you don't know her already, petty officer liz perez and some of the naval officers i know are working on this. you need a lot of people working on this and the more everybody is able to meet each other and form a broader network it seems it will be even more powerful. wonderful to make the acquaintance by way of tv and thanks for your time today, terron. >> thank you, dylan, and thank you for being vigilant. we know dan from yahoo finance and commerce, money and economics. you sort of brought a nice
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perspective to this, which is compared to a few years ago, for someone beating the drum on efficiency all the time, we've moved in that direction. >> even compared to a year ago, i just saw a number of december. we drove 1.5% more miles than we did the year before, using about 3% less gasoline. that's a 4% improvement. it may not sound like much. you do that two or three years in a row and you're talking serious business. >> what have the efficiency trends been and is this a reversal for this country? >> if anything, i think the efficiency trends were negative for much of the '90s and 2000 when gas was cheap, we were buying hummeasurs and suvs and investing in things like oil. when oil was $4 a gallon, we should have realized at that time, hey, oil can be expensive, gasoline can be expensive, i better change some things. and people have. in the past couple years, i call
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it sort of the greening of america's car fleet. we sell 1.2 million cars a month, 15 million a year, and they've done all this stuff. not just the hybrids and the electrics, it's the eco boost that are now becoming standard. their cars are 15, 20% more fuel efficient than they were. the chevy cruise is a cheap car, 40 miles to the gallon. >> what about residential heating, home, commercial. how are we doing on that? >> one of the big opportunities, we have all this natural gas that is stranded in this country that can't be exported because it's not easy to do that, and it's at a ten-year low. so people are saying let's burn natural gas to make electricity, they're saying let's use it as a transport fuel. that requires a lot of infrastructure. the big win will be in the northeast if you could use natural gas to heat your home.
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it costs a lot of money to do that. you have to get lines put in. so the companies are in a much better situation than consumers are to adapt to this. >> for stationary. because they have more money. walk us through a little bit on the subsidies and the different subsidies. in other words, how much does what happens in washington and the variable subsidies -- i don't know what should have a subsidy and what shouldn't; i'm a reporter in new york, right? but i know we give different b subsidies based on our politicians versus whoever has the subsidy gets it. >> we tend to subsidize the industries that get big whether they're environmentally useful oren virn mentally harmful. there are subsidies for ethanol, subsidies for renewables. i think we can place too much emphasis on it. distribution is getting busted
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now, because gas is very high, oil is very high. but refiners are closing down in the northeast part of the u.s. now, you would think this would be a good time to be a refiner. you're charged a lot for the end product. but the situation is the market -- and people are reacting by deciding to use less gasoline. so the refiners have to pay a lot of money for that input, which is oil, and when they sell it, there's no sort of bidding for it because people are reducing -- it's in the context of declining consumption, so that means your fixed costs are very high. we're taking refining out of the system. that is boosting the price of gasoline but it's also kind of self-defeating for that whole industry, because the more gas remains high -- >> the less we want to use it. >> absolutely. we may be dumb but we're not stupid. >> it's great to see you and it's encouraging as any takeaway from your appearance today is that we drove more and burned less gas. and that's a wonderful
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statistic. >> right, and that should continue over the next several months. >> cool. dan gross, you can always check him out. over at yahoo finance, over here on the dr show, as accusations in the trayvon martin shooting continue to fly. what does this controversy really expose about conflict resolution in american culture? and speaking of didvisive politics, our specialist in the moments to come. and later, eagle eye, my friends. developing news this afternoon on a story that we have been watching very closely all week long. hi, i just switched jobs, and i want to roll over my old 401(k) into a fidelity ira. man: okay, no problem. it's easy to get started; i can help you with the paperwork. um...this green line just appeared on my floor. yeah, that's fidelity helping you reach your financial goals.
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. well, the father of florida shooter george zimmerman, the latest to weigh in on the controversy on a florida television station. listen to him doing so. >> his firearm was shefld. trayvon martin said something to the effect of, you're going to die now, you're going to die tonight, something to that effect. he continued to beat george, and at some point george pulled his pistol and did what he did. >> well, police surveillance appears to contradict those claims, showing zimmerman with no blood stains soon following the shooting.
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this has ignited everything from the race debate to the gun control issues of this country, but it has exposed ultimately a dangerous culture of conflict resolution in america, the opposite accident if you will, of david kennedy's principles of don't shoot. think of the florida laws as, shoot. karen finney, susan del pursio. karen, when you look -- forget all the sort of details and who knew what and who did what, it's pretty much impossible to conjure a situation where killing another person is an acceptable method of conflict resolution. >> well, absolutely, but you know, dylan, one of the elements in this that i think is very consistent with a lot of what we talk about on this show is we didn't go from florida in 2005 to now 30 states having laws like this by accident. there were certain -- the gun
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lobby, there were big interests that were behind pushing these laws. they pay a lot of money through the american legislative exchange council to have access to legislators, to then be able to -- they create model legislation that then gets adopted in these states. so you're right in terms of the model, but we also have to say, you know what, gunmakers and those who sell guns, you may not make the kind of profit that you want to make in pushing these laws if we decide we're going to go with a different kind of conflict resolution. >> do you echo that, jimmy? in other words, through the lens of money and politics as the corrupting sort of grease of policymaking, how insidious is the role of money in politics in the making of these types of laws which i call shoot laws. they're sort of the opposite of the don't shoot philosophies espoused by people like david kennedy. >> people know this about me,
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and i think i've said this to you on your show before -- by the way, welcome back. glad to have you back. i believe in gun rights. i don't like telling people they can't have guns. my problem with this law in florida, and apparently a hell of a lot more states than florida, it says to the average citizen, you can be law enforcement. that's a problem. the money and politics issue, listen, everybody has a lobbyist and we've talked about this. the snack foodi issue, the guns $69 million spent on lobbying. that's not a lot of money, actually. the thing that karen alluded to, how much money was spent in the states? who wrote the model legislation being pushed by alec that's now sitting out there in 36 states? it's the exact same language being pushed through 36 state general assemblies.
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that's a big problem. >> susan, it says, anyone not committing a crime can use deadly force if he feels, is the word -- if he feels threatened with great bodily harm. one person's feeling could be very different from another person's feeling. it could be whether or not they were drinking that night, did they get a good night's sleep? it strikes me as insane that anyone would pass a law that based upon how you feel, you can kill somebody and it's okay. >> that's obviously very subjective, but what's interesting is the writer of the law immediately came out to say, this is not what i intended, and yet it's the result of this type of legislation. you also don't see the presidential candidates coming out and saying anything immediately because they're afraid of the nra because that goes back to moin aney and poli. >> to bring this back full circle, it says you, citizen, how you feel -- >> i feel different from one day
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to the next myself. >> that's right, how you feel that day. so you can say to yourself, i think that means i can go buy a gun. and who profits? walmart sells guns. walmart is a big supporter of alec. by changing these laws, by lowering that barrier to it's how you feel, you're then supporting the sale of guns, which i'm with jimmy, i actually support second amendment rights, but i don't support the idea we're just going to let everybody going around shooting people if that's how they feel today. >> the law says if you feel that way, then it's okay. >> yeah. so maybe i'll feel that way tomorrow. i don't know how i feel today. >> it depends on yhow you feel. see what kind of night's sleep you get. panelists, i want to turn our attention to someone who this week took the fight for campaign spending transparency straight to a government agency that has the power to help all of us learn more about which of our publicly traded companies are spending their shareholders'
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money, which may be your pension money, to get laws adjusted for their unique benefit. new york city public advocate bill deblazio went down the steps to the securities and exchange commission who had the power to change the rule to force companies to disclose what money they spent on elections. his efforts are shaping up to be the largest public pressure campaign -- god bless him -- ever to be waged on the sec. money 70,000 letters of support, and i hope many more to come, from concerned americans. mr. deblazio back with us in new york, and i want to be really clear with everybody, bill, you're not here with a grand agenda to say whether or not money should be in or out of politi politics, you're simply saying, show us what you're doing, and the interesting thing is that's even difficult. what does it tell you that the mere campaign for transparency about the money? forget changing the money, that
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the campaign for transparency is met with such resistance? >> dylan, you're exactly right. the fact we even have to beg and plead the sec commission to do its job and simply give us the information we deserve as american citizens -- by the way, as shareholders, too -- we have a right to know if companies were investing, if companies were buying products from our facts, making these kinds of political contributions. why shouldn't that be a matter of public information if they're, quote, unquote, a publicly traded corporation? so the sec could act, two commissioners have to act. two only. luis aguilar has already said he would stand up for this, mary schapiro. with those two votes, we could literally make every american in america to have to disclose this kind of political spending.
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>> that's why i've been so enthusiastic in supporting your efforts because i do feel it's at the bottom of a tree here. how did the sec react in the one meeting that you've had with them so far? >> you can imagine that the notion of protestors on their doorstep was offputting to them, the sec is not used to a lot of protest, they're not used to reaching in and telling citizens to do your job. we want to blow by 100,000 signatures, we're at 75,000. people should go to elections.com and weigh in now. but i think it's a little unnerving to the sec to say, hey, you're supposed to be a transparency issue. we're watching you because you're not doing your job. we're going to encourage the public to watch. i'm going to see chairwoman mary
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schapiro in a few days, and i hope she'll say, okay, we're ready to weigh in here. >> what do you expect all of us to do before you meet mary schapiro to give you more leverage? >> go to elections.com and say, look, if the sec doesn't act, we will literally not know before the fall election who is trying to buy this election. it's that simple. if the sec acts, we actually start to uncover the vast array of money interests trying to avert our political interests. they are empowered truly in this process. but if the sec sits on their hands, they're part of the problem. >> i just -- i sit here, i get a little speechless because i can't even believe that we have to waste resources with something as stupid as this when there are so many larger issues
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to be addressed. can you conjure a scenario in which they wouldn't do this? >> unfortunately, i can't, dylan, and i'm sure one of the excuses we'll hear is the sec has so much on its plate and this issue is complicated. first of all, it's not complicated. s calendar this right away, get the public in on this discussion. i think the public will find it really uncomplicated. democrats, republicans, independents across the board overwhelmingly want closure of spending by political organizations, want to start getting money out of politics. in terms of time and energy, yeah, they've got a lot of things on their plate, but this has to happen now, and of all the simple actions -- finally, someone in government could do something at the federal level to address what is a crisis. >> and it's simply asking --
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this is a transparency issue at its very root. it is -- it's absurd. i'm not going to carry on anymore, bill. >> i have to say anyone who is afraid to disclose has to ask themselves the question, am i making the right choice? if they're shareholders and their consumers might be upset at what they find, no need to make that in the first place. >> bill deblazio on the tip of the sphere on transparency at the sec when it comes to our money and our democracy. what an annoying dance craze have to do with the budget battle on capitol hill. ♪ white rice? when you pour chunky beef with country vegetables soup over it... you can do dinner. four minutes, around four bucks.
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network television was just saying farewell to jerry and the gang. the last time our congress who we all vote for was able to pass a budget on time. that was 14 years ago. michael jordan was on top of the nba when we last passed a budget on time, and people were dancing to the macarena in celebration of a budget passed on time. fast-forward to now. in a much different way than seinfeld, our current climate is almost comedic. we passed the paul ryan budget, which, as you know, will be doa before it even arrives in the other chamber. >> the senate has announced in the third year in a row that
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they're not going to bother doing a budget. budgeting is one of the core fundamental, rudimentary aspects of governing. if you're going to govern, if you're going to lead, you must budget. >> which takes us to our specialist today, congressman david schweiger, from illinois. hi, david. >> thank you for explaining the macarena. >> they danced macarena because congress passed a budget on time. imagine how they'll dance the next time. we can go back and forth on budgets till we're all blue in the face. but ultimately the congress's ability to pass any budget is a function of the culture of the congress itself. and i guess my question to you, as somebody who showed up new and really in an effort to shock the culture in the congress, coming out of arizona in the tea
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party, what is your view -- what is the root of the cultural dysfunction? >> dylan, that's actually a brilliant question. i will tell you, i believe the dysfunction is even far more than what we see here in congress. i actually believe it's also in our society. much of our society does not want to actually deal with the reality of the math in our demographics. back in arizona, i do town hall after town hall after town hall all based on the budget. and we'll get people who will come and protest the projections even in the president's own budget numbers. how do you build a culture of sort of honesty and math when you have -- i hate to say washington that's lied for so many years? >> that's the multi-trillion-dollar question, karen finney, and that's not something any of the five of us are going to solve. but interesting, karen, in your views of sort of the deteriorated culture which -- i
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guess it strikes me that when you have the lesser of two ooefevils of a system, the culture naturally deteriorates. >> absolutely. the vote today, obviously, congressman, if you disagree, say, but this was largely symbolic in that, you know, you knew when you voted for it that it had no shot on the senate side. as far as i understand, there were -- there wasn't even necessarily support from senate republicans, so there wasn't going to be a process. and it felt more like this was a vote so that folks who were you will for election can go home and say, this is what i voted for. in addition to the deterioration of the culture, there has also been added to it this culture of, you know, we're going to schedule these votes that we can then use so that we can say in our campaign literature, here's what i voted for, here's what i did even though you have nothing to show for it. >> i'm going to have to disagree with you on a couple of those
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points. if you and i were to step back a decade ago, even two decades ago, okay, there is a house budget, we're the republicans. there's the senate budget, they're the democrats. pass a senate skbubudget and dot the system is designed to do. do the press releases, bang it out, but you work on it. how do you actually step back to that level of debate and function where you draw the public in to understanding what's up ahead of us when you can't even get the other side to play? they grab up their marbles and walk away. >> obviously the other side would say that about what's going on with republicans, just in fairness. >> you pass a budget, you can make the debate saying, here, we're going to show you what's wrong with yours. go in conference committee and debate it out. right now we're the only side putting real math on paper. and the senate doesn't do anything. so in many ways, you're actually in a game of kabuki theatre with yourself. >> go ahead, susan.
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>> congressman, you just mentioned having to go to town hall meeting after town hall meeting explaining the budget, but how do you go back now after you're closing in on your first term and say, this is what i did for you? constituents at home are probably trying to know, then you have a primary and after that a general election. explain to them, this is what i've done, this is what i've been able to achieve, when really congress has achieved very little. >> it's more complicated than that. we actually broke apart in my little freshman office the medicare actuary report, to put it in a real live gdp and what was happening in doc fix. we did a series of town halls on that. the first town hall we had a lot of protestors, don't touch medicare, don't touch the health care law. by the third one, they would show up and say, oh, my god, why isn't the white house telling us the truth about the math? much of what i'm doing right now
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is trying to be truthful about math. >> your campaign premise, at least in the silo of what susan just mentioned, really goes towards your efforts to disclose information, congressman? is that what you would argue? >> it's a combination of that, and also, look, everybody is tired of seeing the republicans fight with the democrats and, you know, conservatives, liberals. i will make you a premise right now that washington, d.c. is not about conservatives and liberals, it's about those who do math and those who live in mathematical fantasy, because that's how you get reelected. >> i don't know that that would be disputed and goes across both parties and all the rest of it. by the way, it's way easy to get reelected in the fantasyland. a pleasure, congressman, a pleasure to have the mega panel as well. thank you, jimmy, susan and karen. straight ahead here, developing news at this hour here on msnbc. we are live in a tree.
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because you've earned a say. developing news here this afternoon on eagle watch spring of 2012. across the country, folks are glued to their computer screens, not on their facebook page, not following twitter, but following all the action on a live webcam 80 feet in the air in a tree. we take you there now. streaming video here of balanced eagles in a nest in decorah, iowa. the nest, by the way, tough to tell when that was shot, six feet across. two of the eggs have matched in the last couple days. the nation now waiting with baited breath for the third with mom or dad, i can't tell, standing by, as you see there. here's a tape from moments ago of the two newborn baby eaglets
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who have already arrived named d-12 and d-13, very cute names. d is for decorah and the number signifies the number of baby balanced eagles born in that area in the past few years. scientists also give them numbers like 12 and 13 instead of names so that we emotional human observers don't get too attached to the little buggers. america's national bird officially declared an endangered species in 1957, but after a public and private conservation effort and a few decades of work, the species have abounded. there are an estimated 45 pairs. still they continue to be protected under a myriad of state laws, and we should mention this particular story comes to us courtesy of our own eagle eye, director dominic -- dom, can you look at the camera? thank you. that's good, thank you very much.
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the guy is waving but he won't even look at me. dominic, god bless him, has been keeping watch all week between directing shows here at msnbc. he is on eagle duty providing all of us with hourly updates. if you yourself want a bird's eye view of the action, you can see the url up here on the screen so you, too, can watch the eagles while you work. and from a symbol of america to made in america. the folks that want you to keep jobs at home by simply deciding to buy your products from their site which only sells things here in america. it is just on live, and the creators here with a big announcement for us, right after this. i take insulin,
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haha... you people sure do talk funny. geico®. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. time for you -- now for an update on a new web retailer selling things exclusively made here in america. if you buy anything from this platform it will be something you're buying from america, made in america, creating jobs in america. after the launch of the business in december, keepamerica.com is now live. i invite you to go there now. launched today, it offers more than 1,600 items at launch from beauty items to home goods, all of them stamped with the made in the usa label, all of them tied to jobs in america. the idea, pretty simple, based in part on a statistic set by
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economists. if each one of us in america was to spend an extra $64 a year -- a year -- we would create 200,000 u.s. jobs by simply spending $64 a year extra in america. nowhere near the 30 million we all know we need, but heck, it's an awful nice start, and back to us now is david selatar, president of keepamerica.com. >> thank you. >> hardest thing about getting to this point. >> it's been a long six months, a lot of work, a long seven-day weeks meeting vendors, meeting suppliers, getting people on board. >> that has to be the challenge, creating the inventory. if i remember correctly, you want to sell electronics to beauty products, i can get my easter pen there, whatever it might be. some things, fiif i remember
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correctly, he's teasy to source america. other things difficult to source in america. how did you solve that problem? >> electronics, honestly, it's so rare to find anything -- it would be unfair to have a category with one product. right now we're gathering intel. we do have some items that are going to be on the site soon that are assembled in the u.s., but as far as 100%, it's sad to say that electronics is a category that's nonexistent anymore in this country. but as far as apparel, as far as supplies for your pets, toys. it was a difficult concept to source, but we managed, again, to travel around. we have brands like kcrayola, little tikes. we actually had a lot more success than we thought we would with the toy concept.
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>> you also have some additional announcements that you wanted to make today in context of the launch of the web site in a somewhat formal fashion. >> absolutely. like we said, searching the products is a challenge. we want to help our cause and invite the consumer to give us a hand. so we did a new contest, actually, on our site. it's ending in about two and a half weeks on our site as well as on our facebook site where anybody who uploads an american made product gains five entries to the contest, if you invite a friend and they join, you get an additional entry. the grand prize in the contest is a 2012 ford mustang. on april 14, we're going to pick the winner, on the 16th notify them, put them on our site and one lucky american will get a brand new beautiful car. >> if i go where? >> keepamerica.com. >> if i go to keepamerica.com, i upload an image of an american-made product, and if i
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do that, i get five digital raffle tickets for this ford mustang. >> that's right. it's free to enter and someone is going to win, so we're excited about that. and it's giving us the opportunity to gain more products and give more exposure to the american public. >> it's a win-win because you obviously want to have more customers, so this is a way for them to give you information, and everybody has the same goal, which is american-made products, and if you're the lucky winner, you get an american-made sports car. so what's the problem? i hear people behind me saying there's more. >> this is the first time we're announcing it nationally and publicly, and we're very excited about this. this is a cause very near and dear to me. besides the economic state of this country, another huge, huge issue that has touched every family whether it's your family or friends is the cancer issue. we've decided as a company to
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donate all of our profits to battling cancer from today through july 4, independence day. 100% of all of our profits will go to cancer research and battling cancer. my mother, actually, thank god she's with us and healthy today, but over five years ago she was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma, had a stem cell transplant. unfortunately i lost a cousin a few weeks ago. we want to do everything possible to raise money for cancer as well as create jobs and manufacturing. >> a shift in business which is to align customers with the community at large, and i have tremendous respect for it. i thank you for not just talking about it but actually doing it. >> thank you so much. more to come here, and not just here. all night long, in fact, "hardball" is up next. the white house more optimistic about their chances with the supreme court and the health care debate. chuck todd will explain it. but first, the art of giving advice.
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our resident therapist tells us how to avoid the easy traps and show that you really care when you want to tell someone what you think they ought to do. happy progressive customers. i plugged in snapshot, and 30 days later, i was saving big on car insurance. i was worried it would be hard to install. but it's really easy. the better i drive, the more i save. i wish our company had something this cool. yeah. you're not... filming this, are you? aw! camera shy. snapshot from progressive. plug into the savings you deserve with snapshot from progressive. [ coughing continues ] [ gasping ]
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[ elevator bell dings, coughing continues ] [ female announcer ] washington can't ignore the facts. more air pollution means more childhood asthma attacks. [ coughing continues ] log on to fightingforair.org and tell washington: don't weaken clean air protections. diarrhea, gas or bloating? get ahead of it! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap a day helps defend against digestive issues with three strains of good bacteria. hit me! [ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips'. i'm michael bazinet, president of creative digital imaging of bangor, maine. we have customers all over the united states. we rely on the postal service for everything that we do. the eastern maine processing facility is vital to our operation and our success. if we lose this processing facility we could lose clientele because of increased mailing times. we would have to consider layoffs as a result of that.
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closure of this plant will affect all of us. ♪
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this turn on the cass couch, we take a look at the mirror on ourselves, whether it's on the tv, the bar or the streets, noah says all of us are a society infatuated with giving each other advice. here's what you should do, man. the problem is, he says we all stink at it. so who better to educate us on the art of advice if you're so inclined to give it than our resident therapist noah cass.
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lay it on us. can we get better at it? >> it's so great. in a perfect world, it would be the exchange of creative ideas, we would listen to each other, build upon ideas, come up with new innovation, but it's not. like you said, we suck at it. when we're asked to give advice, we take the power of position always, immediately. we stop listening to anything the person is asking and we go on our soapbox and start giving them a monologue. >> to tell them how it is. >> to tell them how it is. when someone is asking for advice, they're not necessarily asking you, where can i go get a sha sandwich, they're asking you for a dialogue because they respect who you are. immediate we will start cutting them off and start giving them that monologue and the person becomes an introvert. because naturally, asking for advice is a humbling aspect. >> so you have some pointers for us that when we ask for advice, we can actually intervene on
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ourselves to do a better job. >> try to watch yourself while speaking. stop talking and start really listening. second is you're rarely 100% right all the time about a given subject. if you don't know the answer to a question someone is asking, don't be afraid to say, i don't know. i'm not sure. please ask somebody else. >> oh, my gosh, you never do that or you always do this. >> the famous therapist says avoid musts, shoulds, have tos. they'll always get you in trouble. and show that you actually care. when you care about someone, you don't preach to them, you don't mer memorialize, you don't patronize. >> do you condescend?
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>> well, most do. you make your body fit their tone. >> and you're not aware of yourself in that concept. >> it's the self-serving ego. everything is being thrown at us at once. observe yourself having a conversation and allow yourself to have the patience to wait for mother person to finish talking before you speak. >> there are no absolutes. listen. this sounds like it goes beyond advice. i feel like you just told me how to live my life. >> i would never presume to tell you how to live your life. it's the other way around. >> the whole point is we can't tell each other. that's the whole point of the segment. >> just listen. >> it's a delight to see you. happy spring to you. >> thank you very much. >> that will do it for us. it's a delight to see all of you as well. happy spring to you. thank you for being with me and with us this afternoon. "hardball with chris matthews" gettin

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