in the direction we've got do you think because it seems like this day and age everybody is prepared for body scanners for use by the t.s.a. and people aren't that upset anymore i mean to pew research shows that fifty four percent of people say it's not necessary to give up civil liberties in order to curb terrorism but that's not necessarily an overwhelming majority is this a new norm that people just accept in a post nine eleven world you know i hope not but you know a lot of those polls are misleading and by the way the reason that some of these rights are in our constitution is because they can't be taken away by a poll or even an election majority cannot decide to take away not only minorities race but even their own rights if it's in trying in the constitution and our founding fathers were incredibly smart about that unfortunately the fact your current leaders in the government where there was a bush administration or the obama administration of simply just de facto taking

away some of those rights such is our right to be free of warrantless surveillance which is a fourth amendment but you know i'm afraid as as you're alluding to this some people growing up in this era don't get that you're not supposed to do warrantless wiretapping that's unconstitutional but they don't understand that you're not supposed to do indefinite detentions that's what dictators do where they don't give where they're detaining due process rights that's profoundly un-american and i hope that as a country we don't lose track of them well so then what ability though do you think american people have to change that because as you mention there seems to be bipartisan support to just pass an extension of the patriot act to give one example that you just used. yes well look we've got a challenge this is the most because unfortunately the people who promises change very very very little of it and so president obama said yeah ok i'll stop torturing

you know meeting not that he was doing the torture in the first place that we shouldn't attrition was but even they had stopped actually before obama came into office on an extraordinarily dishes which is kidnappings again before obama came in and obama out of the mercy of the his soul and and goodness of his heart and decided to continue not doing kidnappings and torture but outside of that they have done every single thing the bush administration has asked them to do and right now dick cheney and don rumsfeld brag about it all the time ha we got obama to violate everybody's rights just like we were doing so i honestly i don't have a lot of hope that we're going to a new democrat or certainly not a new republican who's going to come in and say hey this was radical stuff and we should get back to the american norm so i think we've got to do a wholesale change of the system because they rely on the democratic party has been a very false hope so when you think wholesale change in a system what exactly do you mean. look you know i always push for an

amendment to clean up our democracy because i think a lot of this is the result of money buying our politicians so there's washington post of course an incredible story on a whole industry that has arisen around homeland security and how it's course they make billions upon billions of dollars doing this so they're not going to let go of their security apparatus because they make tremendous amount of money off of it so the only way that we can begin to change any of this and on all of it is to take that money out of the system now which is extremely hard but i think we need a cost to show amendment to say that corporations cannot give politicians as an example why corporations because it's a crime court ruled that corporations have rights to free speech do you not believe in free speech. know i'm always a precision more than i do i just live in corporations are human beings endowed by

their creator with inalienable rights such as free speech corporations are robots they're machines they're not people they don't have freedom of speech rights and no what the supreme court has done is a travesty and it's a horrible decision and they've been making these decisions backs at least since ninety seven says but in reality. to some degree since eighty seven was tom hartman explains. that wasn't even really true the supreme court did not make corporations people but anyway we need amendment because this right wing supreme court has grossly violated our constitution and the activist judges that they are by considering corporations as people with pritam of speech rights you say that corporations aren't people they pay taxes does that give them the right to representation. absolutely and listen corporations have special rights and that's the problem ok so corporation is

a legal fiction literally so the government gives them rights that protects them from things that normal human beings are not protected from so for example if you're a shareholder in a corporation you are not personally liable for the actions of that corporation so if a corporation winds up killing somebody out of negligence out of pollution whatever it might be the shareholder is not personally responsible if you do that in real life a human being that you would be responsible and you would have to go to jail etc so corporations are created out of a legal construct and they have these special rights they don't get to have both they don't get to say hey you know what i'm not responsible for any of my actions plus i like all the rights of human beings so i can spend money buying your politicians and totally perverting your democracy that's not how it's supposed to work but you're also not going to have taxation without representation in this country so if i was to say to you let's threat corporations that have having to pay taxes and then wall street their rights to donate politics would you be ok with

that. i'll tell you what i'll know what i'm not ok with. my stash and. get to it as i'm answering this question the tax what we have in this country right now is taxation without representation for the real human beings in this country ok what because what has happened is the corporations have bought all of our almost all of our politicians so we don't represent all only people who are represented and they're not people because corporations they're the only ones who represent it and look there are five thousand different things that we tax that don't get to vote ok so for example we have tariff tax so there's every we do it we put a tariff on china so i guess china is a human being we should have all the rights of any american citizen that makes no sense of course we can do taxation on corporations. countries etc etc doesn't mean that they're human beings and out with any of the rights of our constitution only us american citizens should get that vote on what is the right notes topsy-turvy we

don't get that at all ok well we're almost out of time but just look i said i mean yes or no the koch brothers they're people too i mean they contribute a lot warren buffett you're the guy for soros yeah that's fair and there's a whole separate question and we've had rich people in this country trying to influence our politics for a long time on the right side and sometimes even on the left side and i'm not addressing that issue yes the koch brothers are human beings and they can spend money to promote their ideas that is separate from what i'm saying i'm talking about corporations which is perverted the system all right well we certainly appreciate you coming on and explain to us why especially as they play such a role which you may not and maginot first when you talk about the anniversary of nine eleven thanks thank. thank you. and coming up a silent protest during obama's jobs speech or into lawmakers night school time award then we'll dive into obama's jobs plan a vote any of his proposals actually bring jobs to the millions out of work here in

the u.s. back in a moment. into that only a military mechanisms to deal with to bring justice or accountability. i have every right to know what my government should do if you want to know why i pay taxes. but i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of american exceptionalism. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so sleep you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else here sees some other part of it and realize that everything is ok if you don't i'm trying hard look at the big picture.

let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right. i think. either one of twelve. we never got the that says they are keeping safe get ready because your freedom. fighter.

all right guys it's time for tonight's tool time award and tonight it goes to congressman jeff landry the louisiana republican attended president obama's jobs last night on capitol hill but instead of just sitting there he decided to multitask and hold a silent protest during the thirty minute address the congressman sat in his seat and held that sign drilling equals jobs he worries a scientist older level when obama acknowledged that republicans might have different ideas on creating jobs he held the whole time now we understand the

congressman is trying to make a point but is this the time and place to hold such a protest is a speech by the president before a joint session of congress during economic hardship for the country really an appropriate time to be holding up signs and banners but you know one thing that we thought of earlier today in our meeting to be fair maybe you know hey the n.f.l. kickoff game was last night there was some confusion and concern about this speech in the game and maybe then coinciding at who is going to choose to go to what so maybe landry was just getting ready he was gearing up to hold a support sign were guard less is it too much for landry to hide his love for big oil for thirty minutes and listen to what the president of the united states of america has to say i think as we all know the boy has no trouble having their views and opinions heard in washington d.c. when they spend two hundred fifty. million dollars a year on lobbying congress i was back in two thousand and ten according to open secrets for your information i'm pretty sure they don't need the advertising for a freshman member of congress with an axe like this it's really not hard to

understand how congress has a fourteen percent job approval rating and not surprisingly this is not the first time congressman landry has had a public issue with president obama he was invited to the white house back in june to talk about the deficit crisis but he refused at the time saying this he said i don't intend to spend my morning being lectured to by a president who has failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt all right this is exactly why people are so disappointed with washington d.c. because people like this tea party congressman are so interested gente they refuse to go hear the president even speak newsflash this is a two party system and this kind of bipartisan squabbling is what helped get the country's credit rating downgraded for goodness sakes and congressman jeff landry really wanted to get some attention hey he could've just pulled a joe wilson. right those who claim the reform efforts would insure legal

immigrants. this is. the. proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. ouch it still is just like makes me cringe it's the famous you lie remark when obama was addressing congress on health care reform remember how the cable news channels went crazy over that outburst but congressman landry you mr chance you could have been the media darling for five minutes but as a consolation prize i'll give you tonight school time award. now speaking of jobs and obama's jobs he gave it last night i'm sure you heard he announced a four hundred fifty billion dollars plan but to what extent will initiatives like an eighty billion dollar infrastructure plan create jobs for some of the fourteen million unemployed americans and how would this plan help the united states stack

up with a country like say china because that's the often used comparison made again by president obama last night. building a world class transportation system is part of what made you cannot get superpower and now we're going to sit back and watch china build newer airports and faster will won't at a time when millions of unemployed construction workers could build them right here in america. so will those unemployed construction workers thirteen point five percent of that industry according to the bureau of labor statistics be put back to work all of china will this stimulate us industries in this construction of infrastructure and how do the efforts to compete stack up globally just to compare when it comes to something like building faster railroads china will spend three hundred billion dollars on there is through twenty twenty that's according to their ministry of railroads while in obama's last stimulus guess how many dollars were devoted to two thousand and twelve eight billion it's

a little less than three hundred billion now that's according to the us federal railroad administration so here put this plan and speech in the context of the global economy and that the u.s. is competing in is ryan event he's primary contributor to the economists free exchange economics blog he's also author of that kindle single you see there the gated city thank you so much for being here tonight thank you so you actually wrote a book on on nimbyism on the not in my backyard phenomenon and its effect in the united states on the economy so considering that and these comparisons to china as building of infrastructure and railroads and saying the u.s. needs to compete to do the same is that even possible in the u.s. given factors like exactly what you've written them well i mean certainly one of the things that trying to doesn't have to do with when they're building high speed rail networks and things like that is complaints from local residents i mean those because it's we're not necessarily be happy about a railroad running in their backyard but their system of government just makes it

a lot easier to build those kinds of infrastructure investments. at the same time they're spending a lot more money than the u.s. is. ending on its infrastructure improvements and some of that is because they need to catch up to where we are they it's faster growing there's a lot poorer than we are they're going through a development phase that we went through a long time ago but that doesn't really give us an excuse to neglect investments we need to make we haven't spent nearly the kind of money that we need to spend on roads and infrastructure in general and certainly obstacles from neighbors or something is going to be in the way but there are things we can do to go ahead and push forward projects and be built but just basically yes or no when obama says something like that we need to commit to compete on high speed rail infrastructure with china is that really rhetoric going to be it would be impossible right it's rhetoric i mean we don't need to spend ten percent of our output like china and spending on our infrastructure we do need to spend more however and i think you know the president is using a rhetorical tool to try to get across the point that we're not doing what we need to do maybe it's

a little bit but the bottom line is we're spending about half of what your experience in europe is as much similar country to us in terms of their development level they spend about five percent of what they produce every year on infrastructure investments we spend about half that we really ought to be doing better still below europe and i think you accuse the president lionel that but when the true bending the truth with the eighty billion dollars in this infrastructure project that obama is proposing what would that create a lot of jobs for all of these unemployed construction workers or unemployed americans who create some jobs and i think in this economy some jobs better than no jobs i think you know there's a couple things remember about infrastructure investment. when we're talking about the weak economy one is that it's kind of what we call a capital intensive sort of project and that it takes a lot of big equipment a lot of materials not necessarily a lot of manpower to build a high speed rail system for instance and so we're not going to put millions of people back to work building rail systems the other thing is that you know remember

though is that these are investors that need to be built anyway you know we need to build them and we need to be in making these investments for the. twenty years we haven't done that so whether or not we're creating a lot of jobs on these individual projects it's a good time to spend this money because the u.s. can borrow cheap treasury bill rates really low and we can get labor for cheap because there's so many people looking for jobs so it's going to save taxpayers money to do it now it's going to create some jobs it's not going to create enough jobs to bring us back to full employment that doesn't mean it's a good and not a good idea so what helps the country's bottom line because it needs to make these investments but isn't this supposed to be about jobs i mean certainly that's the context in which the president is pitching pitching and i think one reason is because i'm erica may be more willing to spend the money that they need to spend given the promise of additional jobs i think it's going to be realistic that this is not going to put the fifty million unemployed workers that we have all of them back to work it will create some jobs but i think to really put all of the americans it was like a job back on the job we're going to focus on other things and the payroll tax cuts

are a bigger step in that direction there's more money going there and it's likely to create more jobs and then there's other things that the fed can do but the infrastructure bit is just one small part of it it's one small part there are other things in this bill other things that could be talked about some say are what about looking bigger picture a competition with china when it comes to manufacturing and trade you know how is the united states supposed to compete when china subsidizes their industries with billions and billions of dollars in state loans and they subsidize fuel and electricity and do all of these other things that we don't in the united states i mean it's definitely a good point and something that a lot of leaders have paid attention to the currency issue is one thing that mitt romney mentioned last week in his jobs plan as well as a direct subsidies and i think you know there are things there that we would consider to be unfair trade practices. i think there's a good argument that says how far do we want to push trying to trying to get these things fixed because it's actually a relatively small part of the broad i mean i think the big problem that we look at

when we talk about a country like china is a the fact that they are making investments to make their infrastructure as up to date is part. and b. that their workers just don't earn very much money i mean they're poor country still and so it's going to difficult for american workers who tend to be more productive in a lot more to compete with chinese workers in a lot of those cheap industries speaking and competing i want to play what president obama said about free trade last night where all that. and it's time to clear the way for a series of trade agreements that would make it easier for american companies to sell their products in panama and colombia and south korea. helping. thank you. you were just talking about workers affected by global competition who do free trade agreements help. well they hope the consumers certainly i mean that's the big reason why i think a lot of people support them is that in general they move production to where it's most efficient that makes good for the u.s.

the problem obviously as the president mentioned is that when that happens a lot of workers are just located and some of them need additional training they need support while they're going through training so they continue to pay their bills and don't lose their house and over the past in the twenty years the u.s. simply hasn't done a very good job at doing those things and so we're going to continue to to liberalize trade we need to make sure that we're supporting work workers along the way so i think i just heard you say that we lose jobs not necessarily i mean it depends a lot on the industry some jobs are going to move abroad some jobs are going to move here actually i think one thing that's been interesting is that companies have been increasingly willing to hire workers here all right we have to leave it at that according to the economic policy institute they say we could lose a couple hundred thousand jobs in some of these trade agreements and i guess we'll see what ends up happening i appreciate you being here to clear this all up for us and we have got to go now she may have taken a day off let alone a left behind tonight fireside friday that next and then happy hour i don't think my catch is the v.p. and house speaker engaged in

a very serious thing and plus being anti-aging get tough talks for a show pulled from the air back in just a minute. ensure that only a military mechanism can do the work up to bring justice or accountability. i have every right to know what my government should do if you want to know why i paid taxes. but i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of american exceptionalism. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like sleep you think you understand it and then a glimpse something else you hear see some other part of it and realize that everything is all you don't i'm trying hard welcome to the big picture.

let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right here. i think iraq is in need of money well. whenever the government says they're going to keep you safe get ready because of her freedom. for five ft. five.

to tonight's fireside. this sunday's going to mark the tenth anniversary of nine eleven the largest terrorist attack on u.s. soil so we talk constantly on this program about the numbers the lives lost in our wars instead the doubling costs of defense spending the expansion of our surveillance state the erosion of our civil liberties but this sunday at least for a moment probably just about everyone out there is going to try to remember where they were that specific to what they were doing how they heard the news and for some it's going to be more painful for others as they are member lost family members or friends some who were there and survived are going to recollect those

horrible memories and i don't have a deeply personal experience to offer like those who sacrificed their survived or whose loved ones died but i do want to speak about people like myself and terms of my generation the ones that have grown up in the aftermath of that attack during his war on terror on the day of september eleventh of two thousand and one i was fifteen years old i was a sophomore in high school i was learning about modern european history studying shakespeare was a learning about current affairs not about al qaida or the taliban not even the gulf war or the soviet war in afghanistan i was a learning about the middle east to the countries in which soon enough america would be at war and our soldiers would be dying i were history in some way would be made public opinion changed forever so you can say that that's normal you were fifteen you didn't need to know about that stuff yet but now for so many people my age and those even younger than me that's become a really big problem since i was fifteen years old we've been a country at war globally most of us know far too little about where and why it's

happening about the region the history the culture. of the. afghanistan with this notion of revenge that it drifted into iraq based on lies but now it's pakistan it's yemen somalia for other purposes it's also libya and for those who are younger than i am they might not even remember a time when their country was in a war these days most people probably don't even feel it either so far removed from the battles that are going on or using more sophisticated weaponry the casualty rates are much lower and let's not forget of course the media coverage of what's going on is sparse the most gruesome stories of what happens are covered up by the government everything is peachy keen speed spin that our military generals try to sell to congress to the media that goes a largely unquestioned and for both fear of looking soft on terrorism and national security and fear of disrupting the business flow for military contractors who line their pockets i bring factories to their districts our politicians let these wars

go on so if you're my age especially if you're younger chances are you might think that all of this is normal it's just how the world works it's just how things go and most of everything around you reaffirms that if that's the case why would anybody go out and protest call for any of this to end and that makes me want to tear my hair out it makes me angry it makes me scared constant global war is not and should not be the norm neither is being told you should live in constant fear or give up all of your rights for surveillance except of the government can skirt the rule of law and make exceptions can torture indefinitely detain and put citizens on assassination lists we should not and we cannot just accept any of that we need to bring it to an end and that starts by having open honest conversations about it about the cost in lives and dollars and perceptions in values not by letting an entire generation growing up thinking that this is the way it has to be

. all right it's friday night it's about time it's time for happy hour and joining me tonight is are two web writer andrew blake and telling us on the nader reporter and blogger for think progress dot org thanks guys for being here absolutely right they're having and so a show that aired on fox fox or it was called the college experiment it was getting a lot of negative attention because of the way it for trade asians on the u.s.c. campus but you can see for yourself here. colorado utah this is for you. cool around the you got to be. a huge dog all come welcome to. you know what the see if you can if you. don't and you'll go to the

park go there come closer you talk. all right so many people consider that segment very demeaning i can see that asian americans and fox sports says it regrets that the segment ever aired and it was pulled from the network immediately what it was because it is going too far was that really that not p.c. is a great the fox and this is offensive are going to take it off the air it was to do the little bit more often i mean it is they took off their lives. so it's a start of you got to start somewhere but why do you think i mean i want to because it was actually the first time i'd seen those clips i thought it was going to be far far worse i thought it was going to be more intentional i mean those sort of people that has drawn accents big deal i think that's what they were going for i mean i got ahead it's a fox this is the first time i've seen a minority on the network. that's a positive but it's nice to know that there's a.