i'll tell you how the average american really feels about our nation also republicans are criticizing the state of the union as i am pain speech republicans are also sending out campaign material prior to the speech why are you doing as well as my family and the state senate in indiana passes right to work for less legislation because that what does that really mean like splaying why you may want to call it right to work for us that. the constitution requires the president to quote from time to time give to the congress information of the state of the union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he may judge necessary and expedient and quote from the constitution every so often the speeches given during times of bullying prosperity

low unemployment and peace is given when spirits are high when confidence in our form of government is unshakable when our nation's reputation around the world is admired and during those times the president can walk up to the podium flanked by his vice president and the speaker of the house and confidently tell the nation that the state of our union is strong the future is promising and a new generation of the of americans are such to inherit a better nation but tonight is not one of those times. tonight the state of our nation is grave and if the majority of americans were given their chance to speak out about the state of the union this is likely what they would say tonight forty nine million americans are trying to claw their way out of poverty including one out of every five american children tonight half of all americans can no longer claim to be part of the middle class and instead belong to the working poor or low income and those are the lucky ones because tonight forty six million americans

depend on food stamps to put enough food in the table for their families and i have five million american homeowners are dealing with the very real possibility of imminent foreclosure and literally living on the streets tonight fifty three million americans don't have health insurance and are one illness or accident away from financial ruin tonight students across america are saddled with over one trillion dollars in student debt these are not talking points and they're not slogans that can be found on signs at occupy rallies these are the real numbers real numbers that imply a united states of america in the midst of crisis and tragically these numbers don't even begin to tell the whole story because while forty nine million americans live in poverty and forty six million americans depend on food stamps and fifty three million americans don't have health insurance there are other americans who are collecting enormous wealth and are pulling further and further away from the rest of us over the last few through over the last thirty years eighty percent of

all new wealth created in our nation has gone to just the top one percent of americans. over the last thirty years the top one percent have seen their income shoot up two hundred seventy five percent while people in the middle class have seen only a major forty percent increase in income not nearly enough to keep up with the rising cost of health care energy and education as a result the united states of america tonight is one of the most unequal nations in the developed world ranking thirty first out of thirty four o.e.c.d. nations when it comes to wealth inequality we are more on equal the nations like pakistan and the ivory coast there are four hundred billionaires in america who now own more wealth than one hundred fifty million other americans combined in fact there are six americans the six walton heirs who own more wealth than the bottom thirty percent of americans combined roughly one hundred million people this is

wealth inequality not seen in america since just before the stock market crash of one nine hundred twenty nine and this wealth inequality is tearing our nation apart two thirds of americans believe there are strong class conflicts between the rich and the poor and hundreds of thousands if not millions of americans have taken to the streets in the last four months here protest against this inequality against what they see as a government an economy that favors the very rich over the struggling many. and how did our nation that supposedly respects free speech and the rights to peaceably assemble respond with mass arrests police brutality and constant criticism in the mainstream media that would have made thomas jefferson the rest of our founding fathers krynn our civil liberties are disappearing we now have to walk through radiation scanners display our new bodies to t.s.a. agents before boarding an airplane our phones could be wired stepped our internet searches retrieved in our library book records examined in the name of so-called

homeland security and in just the last few weeks new powers have been granted to the president to indefinitely detain americans who are suspected of being what he identifies as terrorists we've traded liberty for temporary security and as ben franklin once said we now deserve neither in the name of the so-called security we have now and manned drones flying all over the world in search of terrorists our war machine has spread out across the middle east operating both overt and covert wars that are draining our nation of critical resources and leaving thousands of young american men and women physically maimed mentally scarred and dead and we are now on the brink of what could be another war in the middle east as threats are being made against the world's oil supply flowing through the straits of hormuz this is all the result of our nation failing to adopt a comprehensive energy plan ever since jimmy carter who had one left the white house and ronald reagan who didn't took down the solar panels that sat on top of

the white house our failure to move toward renewable isn't just causing strife abroad it's turning the planet against us the state of our union is under attack by freak weather last year there was a record breaking ten natural disasters that each cost more than one billion dollars more than seven hundred americans were killed in these natural disasters mostly mostly in freak mile long tornadoes that are becoming all too common as our planet gets hotter and hotter. and we refused to heed the warnings coming from japan's nuclear disaster at fukushima and also suffered the same consequences that nuclear power plant in a brassica came within inches of being flooded by a rising river we got lucky last year this year we may not and most troubling tonight americans don't have faith in our lawmakers to solve any of these problems i just mentioned as the approval ratings of congress the first among our three co-equal branches of government the branch of government that is most responsive to

the people stands at an all time low of just thirteen percent this is a house of representatives that was bought and fade paid for by a record breaking three hundred million dollars plus in secret corporate cash as a result of the citizens united supreme court ruling and is thus now one of the most corporate controlled republican houses in the history of this nation it's a wall street controlled house that set out to dismantle social security against the will of the majority of americans a big pharma and big insurance controlled house that voted to end medicare as we know it against the will of the majority of americans a richie rich controlled house that held hostage tax breaks and jobs for the middle class to ensure that the top one percent don't see a fraction of a percentage of a tax increase and oil industry controlled house that has defended taxpayer subsidies for giant trans national oil corporations while trying to cut back on employment benefits for working people a corporatist republican controlled house that is put at the top of their priority

list not helping americans fight a job but instead putting the president of the united states out of a job and this is a house that will be up for reelection at the end of the year again when over a billion dollars will be spent by special interest groups to make sure that their interests are protected. this is the reason why our state of the union is grave tonight it's because our democracy has been sold to the highest bidder and policies have been pursued to benefit that highest bidder at the expense of the majority of americans who just want economic security a good job a home anough money to put their kids through college and have money to take a vacation every now and then and enough money to retire at a reasonable age this is what the american dream used to me and it used to be available to the majority of us and it won't be again and till we root out this corrosive corporate influence is dragging our nation to the brink of collapse tonight the president will talk about help for the middle class will talk about

jobs about wealth inequality and about renewable energy and it'll all sound great but the truth is none of it will be possible unless something else changes we need a revolutionary change in america as the millions have taken to the streets since the ninety nine percent movement began have demanded and to achieve that change we need to get money out of politics and corporate personhood and say explicitly that money is property not speech tonight tragically the president will not call for a constitutional amendment to achieve all of these things and end the great selloff of our democracy but we the people the majority of americans who understand the true state of the union can still keep the pressure on him and the rest of our elected lawmakers go to move to amend dot org. this corporate takeover of our congress that i was just referencing in their own.

pseudo state of the union address is not accidental it was put into motion back in one thousand eighty six by a group of robber barons railroad actual robber barons claiming that the fourteenth amendment which was passed in eight hundred sixty eight to free the slaves also freed the corporations has one reference the word persons it didn't have the word natural before it which would be humans the supreme court pick this up dozens of times over the years most recently was citizens united but the fact of the matter is that no congress has ever passed a law saying that corporations are people or that money is speech. in. money is speech is that a property no president has ever pushed for it on the contrary many presidents have condemned it and going all the way back to grover cleveland in eight hundred eighty seven the year after the santa clara county decision in the supreme court where he said that corporations had become the masters of the people and that their iron heel was on our neck in his state of the union address in eight hundred eighty seven. as obama mentioned in his state of the union address in twenty ten when he

called out the supreme court for the citizens united case and sam alito said there and sat there and mouth not true when president obama predicted exactly what has happened over the last two years the six lotion of corporate money and billionaire money coming into our political system and wreaking absolute avick. this money power which has taken over congress we must take back and the only way we're going to take it back is through movement politics it's not going to happen through the political parties they're captive of all this money right now politicians democratic and republican a republican would love to not have to spend thirty to seventy percent of every one of their working days on the phone asking for money they'd love it but they are so captive of these of the of these organizations that they need us to create a nationwide movement that will push them to say money is property not speech

corporations are corporations not people we need a national movement just just like back when in those in the seventy's sixty's and seventy's when when in just less than six months we passed a constitutional amendment to allow eighteen year olds to vote we need another one to say that's it corporations are not people go to move to amend for more information. coming up president obama delivers his state of the union address tonight will likely try to instill a positive spin but what does our state of the union really look like for the average american will ask our pal. culture is that so much given to each musician on the mark with egypt's unfinished

business a year on the revolution that you have to do spirit appears to have stalled the military rulers who replaced with. wealthy british style. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds or reports . of this nature and discover it's. communicate with the want to. test yourself and become free.

see what nature can give you. even before the president stepped to the podium to give his state of the union address conservatives are laying out their call her arguments republican national committee sent out an e-mail this morning entitled state of failed promises. which hits on the typical conservative talking points of slender a death in obamacare things that are cliched talking points for hannity and limbaugh conservatives say the state of the union address is nothing more than a campaign speech this year and appear to be backing up that argument with their own campaign material in the form of that flyer so is there anything the president is saying tonight that can lead to real compromise in action in congress for more analysis of the president's state of the union address and how it will be received on both sides of the aisle and welcome my panel tonight brian darling columnist of human events and director of government studies at the heritage foundation and

richard follower democratic strategist and advocacy director for young democrats of america welcome to you both thanks for all young the president is promoting insourcing. giving tax breaks to companies that bring their jobs back home this is actually something that passed congress when nancy pelosi was speaker of the house and got filibustered by republicans in the senate. brian let me start with you i don't get what's wrong with that well here's first of all this is going to be a campaign speech republicans are right it's going to be the president's occupy congress speech where you when exits finger at those evil members of congress republicans and democrats blames them for all of the problems that he's created for america to the extent that a president is trying to get his agenda forward and if you want to call it a campaign speech that's fine but hasn't every president on that you've been he had control of both chambers of congress he had a sixty vote majority in this first year he did not have in this area here he did not have a filibuster proof you know his version your he did he in and then scott brown was

sworn in he lost his filibuster lieberman is not a democrat he's. owed this and ben nelson this is why the demo i think said nelson has a has a rabid weasel on his head i mean it's just it's i guess you need a hardcore leftist to occupy congress you need to examine it but in any case. richard your thoughts on well if the republicans had their way would be pretty simple there would be no so the union address because they keep saying this are going to present giving a campaign address with the president is addressing the nation about the strength of the union and i think what you can hear from the president tonight he's going to say this the union is strong but we could be stronger and we could be stronger republicans in congress get to work and stop you know fussing at the president really passed meaningful legislation we haven't seen one piece of legislation from the republican congress that created one job they profess to be the party of jobs that were are the jobs while in fact this has been the least productive congress in the history of the united states and it's because of the democrat controlled senate the house has been already productive they passed a budget they passed

a ryan budget and one of the senate to that private to turn medicare into a voucher we go to decide how to deal with it but you're saying they're not being productive they're. bills every week they go through a silent death in the senate and beyond it that to be true if you want to be with the most productive congress is in american history was the nancy pelosi congress and you guys go to the republican the tea party voted them out and they were more productive then the john boehner congress has done absolutely nothing while they were productive doing bad things that i was sure the mule's felt and i disagree a job that is not a real institutional obamacare bill that forces americans to buy a product in the stream of commerce what the president also put to put two million young people back on their parents' health care insurance that so they now have health care it also got rid of preexisting conditions it's unconstitutional to do this that has not that has not a little debate the jury's still out on that one little has it made health care better do you think i've learned consumer being on health care is a better thing and people being able to get health access to health care without brings the conditions that's

a better thing right and so you create this brand they've been battling you know what is bad is that we have a third payer system that's ruining health care whether it be insurance in the tax treatment of health care and health insurance or a government go to a single payer system that now we need no government involvement in health care and that's a problem or up to about seventy three percent government money flooding the whole lot if you want to be entirely at the mercy of people like steven j. holmes lay who makes a couple hundred million dollars a year you know from from his being the c.e.o. of you know health care or his former guy the former boss who you know bill big wired to one point seven billion dollars in tax treatment to help us here i mean is that every single one of them want to point seven billion dollars was money that was taken away from some child who needed surgery right so let's get rid of the preferential treatment of health insurance so that we don't have so people get their money and they can pay for it on their own these identify one developed country in the world that allows for profit health insurance companies to operate human capital one works just want and we have the capitalism has been functioning

for centuries one developed country in the world that allows for profit health insurance companies to offer primary. health care health care insurance will the nih that there is a reasonably free market health care system and we're going to be outlawed what we don't want to be like canada and england and canadians where are they going to get their health care if we socialize our health care they keep going to and i've had to come to the united states you and i both know that that's a canard and it's phony but richard tonight the president is laying out a new vision for america much i think much like kennedy high tech manufacturing our own clean energy security not tied to unstable parts of the world these are his words your take on how that's going to play in congress and with the american i think how that's going to play with the american people as the american people are going to understand this president is about making forward progress moving the country forward and i think what we've seen from the president we've seen him not take a very hard sense that we're moving this economy forward actually said you know the

economy is growing but it's not growing fast enough but the truth of the matter is is in the past twelve months i've seen private sector job growth only under president obama we see more job growth in the past month and we saw in two thousand and five under george w. bush on top of that we've seen less regulation on small businesses and the middle class under president obama that we've seen under george w. bush these are the facts and the facts are that the economy was so abysmal of george you know deregulation of the banking industry five percent unemployment no we were. do you think you do these these banks were incentivized to hand down to george w. bush mortgages to people they couldn't afford it and then we bailed out a lot of democrats you know hamas leadership when he was a senator we bailed out wants to do because george bush and hank paulson wanted it to happen right and president obama supported all of the bailouts are not ok i'll give you the back to support the bailouts but let's look at what the bailout money did for the auto industry in michigan put it put people back to work it put young people back to work on top of that now the auto industry is making profits. out of

wall street because you know it is now making all the wall is it was one of the top manufacture of cars are you there even on back this company you support bailouts these are not about. ours are not a matter of supporting bill as a matter of supporting the middle class and working class about that scrawny one little bit when you bill o'reilly stand alone you build a wall to bail out the rich and the wealthy and you give them more money so they can do more damage not on gonna run you bail out the auto industry bailout workers middle class people unions you bail out on us what they want to do is what's wrong with an equal day's paper an equal day's work unions inflate raija is that when you bail out of the union he says oh my god i can't i don't know why i asked her i didn't know we can't have it why did we have a me had i had i have to the bottom like we've had ever since ronald reagan but that is i great thing i'm going to they did not help the auto industry the inflated wages were one of the reasons why the auto industry needed a bailout nonsense it was it was a great depression caused by george w. bush it sounds like something that mitt romney would say when he's working to bain capital he fired the workers who were in the union so he could hire them at lower

wages we all know the fact the facts are true the facts are true me created more jobs and the president how many jobs and how many jobs to get rid of is the real question we should ask ourselves here but going back forces but going back so true dominoes well let's talk about the facts though the facts are pretty simple the fact is this where there are labor unions there are higher wages there's a better standard of living there's better community development there's less faith tallies on the job the workers are safer they have better lives for their children why would we not want that in this country why are americans not joining unions in the private sector the unions are dominating and i've got to realize that all of these unions and hopefully your industry busting unions well i mean i if you look at where unions are gone now they're lobbying for higher taxes because they're dominating the government sector so they almost sort of have a case for them but if you pay in advance shares work there's no reason there mitt romney makes forty five million dollars a year and he only pays fifteen percent in taxes where his secretary thirteen point nine percent taxes on a secretary i don't have thirty five percent in taxes that's just unfair that's

un-american like going to tell you where is the justice and the liberty and the equity that you guys like you as well but i will say on his little yes brian i would like people i. i agree with the buffett rule which the president is going to propose tonight that people like mitt romney should pay at least the same tax rates and barack obama there should have easily was the designer to let's not forget he was first found himself should pay a least the same taxes that their secretaries paid that their janitors pay that working people pay and with that i got to thank you both richard bryant it's been a great conversation brendan richard follow it thank you very much. it's the good the bad of the very very. slowly arguably the good chicago resident ryan garcia garcia

a thirty year old sales rep from chicago has made a very unusual new year's resolution to a random act of kindness each day this year the inspiration for this unique and heartwarming resolution comes from garcia's newborn daughter we hope to influence him to be an excellent role model for already garcia has sent letters to soldiers in afghanistan raised awareness for cancer and bought distributed dozens of pairs of socks and gloves to homeless residents of chicago is even set up a website where people can comment on his mission as well as suggest new random acts of kindness that republicans should take note and remove their website that pledges to cut one government program each week that provides that same sort of kindness check out ryan's blog and send him ideas at three six six random acts or the bad kentucky governor steve bashir last week governor bashir proposed his twenty twelve twenty thirteen budget prefacing it by saying we should be making substantial investments in our physical and intellectual infrastructure to bring

transformation to our state but it sounds great but the budget actually cuts fallen into an already under. funded education system by six point four percent at the same time government governor bush sure was quick to preserve the tax breaks given to a biblically themed amusement park in the state so while the governor was adamant about investing in the state's intellectual wellbeing instead decided to invest in what critics are now calling the ark park not only is this a blatant misuse of taxpayer money to support religious theme parks it's also setting his state and this nation back when it comes to being able to compete in global economy and the ugly the cat killer in russellville arkansas take a burris the keep it campaign manager for a congressional candidate in northwest arkansas told the police monday that he found his family's cat brutally slaughtered over the weekend with the word liberal painted on the corpse burris lives in a heavily conservative portion of arkansas and is the campaign manager for ken aden

who is hoping to win a seat the the seat of freshman republican representative steve womack in a statement to the press. hopefully one of these days congressman said it is one thing to engage in civil political discourse and for republicans and democrats to disagree with each other which is an expected part of the political process taking it to this level is beyond acceptable mr ayton is absolutely right taking political discourse to the level of savagely killing an animal just to make some sort of political statement has no place in our society and is fairly. coming up after the break mitt romney released his tax returns but don't think this makes him more relatable to the average joe did his returns really tell us about his well.

we have seen the damage their dad's done to acknowledge the environment mark chemicals what the poor props we do not want any more molds. our core system is to say that was a dismal experience and i'm just just appalled but that's allowed to go on. eating this unfortunately because we don't know what's in it there's no labeling there for it being used like the board to the experiment being used is getting. old now we have more questions than we have had three guards. like.

to the tree this month by particles that make up the fabric of the universe find what you're looking for in the deep siberian forests prevent a fire was the health of lasers in fibers pull out your template of a new gaming religion and let the teacher begin all of that here in no with severe sputnik knology on stage here on r.g.p. we dump the future coverage. thanks for being with us that past the hour with a quick recap of your headlines loyalists of late libyan leader moammar gadhafi to seize control in the town of bani walid saying that the administration of the area is now in their hands. damascus greenlights an extension to the arab league mission in syria this comes as six gulf states withdraw their support questioning the

regime's commitment to the peace plan. that will do nicely reports emerge that iran is accepting the goal of the payment for its oil exports effectively bypassing the latest round of sanctions imposed by the u.s. and europe. and in the u.s. we have a president obama deliver his annual state of the union address to congress and economy took center stage with obama promising reforms to make it fair for everyone . now we head back to washington for the big picture with all hartman don't go away . welcome back to the big picture on job harben coming up in this half hour mitt romney released his tax returns yesterday and said last night that he pays all.