don't call. romney is very very comfortable it seems with people who are like him. political reporter versus the right wing blogosphere a washington journalist as out of a job out there as comments about mitt romney is this a case of censorship or just a political squabble we'll ask joe williams when he joins us and our studio. will have you signed off on documents that you've never read before most people would never do that but members of congress often vote on new legislation they've only been briefed on now one senator is trying to change the way lawmakers run the country. well we've heard it before wall street got a big bailout taxpayers got nothing now one state is working to help thousands of homeowners homeowners deal with the foreclosure crisis but is it too little too

late. it's thursday june fifth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wallander watching our t.v. well congress passes bills that have huge implications for the people and with the landmark legislation that affects everything from health care to our national security should lawmakers be required to actually read what they're voting on sen rand paul thinks so and he has introduced a bill that mandates senators to read each and every piece of legislation and make sure they have enough time to do so paul's proposal would give senators one day to read every twenty pages of text doing so is going to take quite a bit of time though here's a look at how many pages of the most famous laws contained obama's health care bill is one thousand eight hundred. pages the two thousand and nine stimulus bill eleven

hundred pages president clinton's nine hundred ninety three health care plan over thirteen hundred pages in president bush's two thousand budget bill more than fourteen hundred pages so is this really realistic and either way should lawmakers be well informed on what exactly it is they're voting on to talk more about this doctor or will wilmer leon joins us now welcome there you. know it's interesting the senate democrats when they released their version of the health care bill or and a hatchet famously compared the length of the bill to russian novelist leo tolstoy is or if he is and we actually have something to kind of exemplify how massive the of legislation actually are this is the authority of all of this in the obamacare recently taken on by the supreme court it's over a thousand pages so i mean is there really realistic that lawmakers are going to be able to read each and every page of these very extensive pieces of legislation well

the first thing i think it would be important to get senator rand paul to define what he means by legislators because they have staffs they have very large staffs in their staffs are responsible for going through these bills and their staffs do some reason provide their own particular bosses whether they be congress members or senators with the information that they need i think what's really more important here for the public to understand is that. the tea party. libertarians that i tell my students all the time it's this is the theoretical versus the practical in theory there are a lot of things we deal with public policy when we deal with legislation that sound good but practically they make no sense and this is one of those instances where rand paul is is playing to his constituents and he's providing a solution to. it is really not

a very large problem particularly if they went in some other directions and actually dealt with substantive issues instead of staying around the periphery and dealing with a bunch of foolishness for example senator rand paul should be talking to congressman. the senate on the con congressional minority leader from virginia whose name now just escapes me. eric cantor to get him to change the schedule so that the congress members stay at shuli in washington doing business instead of being out i think they get they get what they get one week off after every two weeks well that would help them spend time and all this bit of reading material. exactly so there are a lot. i didn't hear senator rand paul. complaining about why the senate was wasting so much of the americans time chasing around attorney

general eric holder and having contempt votes that they knew were going nowhere he needed to be complaining about that that was a total waste of time that time could have been spent reading the affordable health care and so there are a number of things that are actually substantive and actually matter than what it is that senator rand paul is proposing and this is this is leaves off his vest this is this is nothing but maybe he has a point i guess the argument that he's trying to make is oftentimes lawmakers will vote on things that they don't really know much of ballot and as you had mentioned earlier a lot of times they're just briefed by sapphire as. you know could it be a good thing that they are required to really you know know exactly what it is and these pieces of legislation and theoretically you would hope that you were elected representatives are knowledgeable about the things that. that they are voting on

but now how does senator paul plan to implement this is he going to require that every senator take an exam before and that they have to get a seventy or they have to get a seventy two on an exam before they actually vote on a piece of legislation again this this this. theoretically this is fine practically it's going nowhere and it makes no sense in fact it's willie senator paul is one of those who is guilty of some of the very things that he is charging for example he also proposed that they're only be one issue per piece of legislation i mean you're not able to sneak a bunch of different things that are unrelated into one piece exactly lismore somebody needs to ask him with the district of columbia. appropriations bill why did he add three different amendments.

to the d.c. appropriations bill why did he added an issue related to gun ownership an issue related to abortion in an issue related to the unions. the d.c. autonomy budget autonomy bill why did he add three amendments that have absolutely nothing to do with district of columbia budget autonomy to that particular bill so he is one who is guilty of the very things that he is now railing against which is why i say he is actually proposing something that he himself knows and yet makes no sense and is a way little bit of hypocrisy there are quite a bit and i got to practice what you preach well one would hope one hope that rand paul could could do that well i don't what are the more interesting provisions of this appellate thing he says he is for fighting this timeframe so for every twenty

page as he wants lawmakers to have one day terror raids and we had this is a light year to what you're looking at as of the reading materials that i think that i know about that was how to work out a timeline with even to their point we were one hundred ten days away from the november election again congressman congressman or leader eric cantor he's the one the republicans are the one who have set the legislative agenda so what what what what senator rand paul the people that he needs to actually be talking to are not trying to appeal to his constituents what he needs to be doing if he's actually trying to do something substantive is he needs to be speaking to the individuals that are responsible for setting the agenda in terms of legislation not proposing some ridiculous requirement that for every twenty pages you get one day to read it again that's why they have staff doesn't seem to add up they have a no not at all and i thank you so much for coming on the shuttle pleasure as

always that was dr welner early on he's a political science press professor for howard university. well a political reporter in hot water for making controversial statements reporter joe williams was talking about mitt romney's coziness with fox news and said this on m s n b c. it's very interesting that he does so many appearances on fox and friends and it's unscripted it's the only time they let off the leash so to speak but it also points out a larger problem that he's got to solve if he wants to be successful this come this fall romney is very very comfortable it seems with people who are like him that's one of the reasons why he seems so stiff and in some town hall settings why he can't relate to people other than that well that statement cost him his job at politico and a firestorm of attacks accusing williams for being racist towards a white people but williams says he's a victim of what he calls the right wing noise machine

a machine that controls the message that gets out to the public and punishes those that don't agree with their world view to talk about what this means for the media and even freedom of speech joe williams himself is here to tell us of. his experience so joe all right what do you think is going on here is it all being blown out of proportion well no reporter wants to be the story and unfortunately that that's worth pharma so right now and i never expected to be here i never expected what i thought was pretty much an innocuous through a con comment to result in such a strong reaction but in a way it kind of proves my point the fact that there was so much of a reaction on the right to what i said to the degree where they tore through my twitter account they looked at almost every aspect of my background to make me the story rather than what i was saying it pretty much proves the point that i was trying to make all along which is that very very good and very very disciplined pushback and they know what kind of result they want to listen and what do you make

of these attacks that there are launching against you cue thing you of being racist against a white people what do you think about that. i've got to be careful here again because i think that generally speaking most people are fair generally speaking racism is a very is very tricky to explain very tricky to document but in order to assume that i'm a racist would have to sort of engage my whole career because i've been working in majority white environments my entire life and my entire professional career practically so to be racist against whites is pretty much a nonstarter to me and kind of a distraction from what the central issue is so you think those comments were taken out of context i think that were taken out of context because it's nothing that no one else has already said or before with almost was common knowledge i think perhaps what triggered the fire storm is the fact that i in artfully described it and me being an african-american adds that extra sort of topspin that conservatives

tend to look for when they're trying to one out and root out really you know issues of reverse racism which seems to be the favorite trope these days i mean could you see how perhaps that comment was could be interpreted and that way. i could it's a bit of a stretch to me but i mean we because it is common knowledge and who among us can say that we're not comfortable around people who are like us that's the very nature of tribalism of an effort to be yourself and be comfortable in the person that you are so i think that perhaps it was taken a little out of context maybe blow in our proportion i can understand why people stay said what they said that doesn't necessarily mean they were agree with you know another thing in addition to to the comment that you made on m s n b c your tweets have come under a lot of activity behind i think there was like that there that really was going on well we have a few of those tweets we wanted to bring to light here here they are one of the as it dropped in the mike like it was hot. obama knocks romney c.e.o.

past and first in the first two thousand and twelve campaign rally. there ok another one here. a handout jars a great upon that was in response to the obama two thousand and twelve dems target romney with the buffett rule so kind of you know plan on him kind of you know of the notion that he's the sort of touch rich person exactly exactly i mean but there is one more there i think we're missing at we want to pull that last one up there. infamous there it is there. yes ok are both ok either and romney and that is flat said or that when we. want to say to some of these things i mean do you think you can you could have taken it too far i think clearly i think clearly you know twitter is

a medium where people are encouraged to play fast and loose i didn't have necessarily a proper decorum as a reporter considering that i was representing my organization that i regret to this day that i wasn't a little bit more cautious with my tweets particularly since it was a personal account even though it was a personal account that was viewed by political as representing me and them both professionally and and in the realm of journalism so to that i absolutely think was poor judgment i think i made a big mistake and certainly sitting here without portfolio at the moment i do absolutely regret doing that so to say you do think i mean it you said it was in a personal capacity but i mean you know when you're right articles you're going to you're absolutely not well and therefore what you are saying we'll get going to exactly in public i think is a little bit on the. on the on the edge of his to be able to me whether or not constitute a public figure in the in the realm of say a presidential candidate or a congressman or. regular time t.v.

host i mean i don't think that i occupy that space at least not yet but certainly as a representative of myself. some of the soap was importation and some of that probably should have stayed in you know in the computer and not gone out to the wider world because twitter the medium is the message and you're basically mumbling into a bullhorn that has a tape recorder attached none of it ever dies and all of it can be amplified or distorted given the right set of circumstances and i notice that you have since taken down your twitter. lived it i've made it private mainly because now i am representing myself and going through what i've been through where i've become the story instead of covering the story which is something i've spent my career doing without this kind of controversy i think is a better use of my twitter account and even so there are still ways that people have looked to and tried to take advantage of it to try to portray me in one light or another so i think the larger lesson for me here is you know caution is the watchword when when dealing on twitter but it also again proves my point which is

that the right will not stop when they believe a reporter is biased whether or not there's justifiable evidence to do so they will they will continue they will they will push they will push they'll push and they'll rally their forces to get whatever penalty they think is appropriate right down on this or and that and you had a you know you blame this this of right wing noise machine that's wrong what do you mean by that exactly what i mean by that is certain elements of the extreme right we're talking about radical folks in journalism to name some of the loud examples that you name some out loud. i would consider breitbart dot com is a big media empire part of that i would consider a daily caller. d.c. fishbowl to a degree and some others that are out there that seem to have taken upon themselves to be watchdogs for the media whether or not they have the credentials to do so whether or not breitbart for example was involved in this surely sharod scandal and has done a number of things that have since been discredited they've been affiliated with some other folks who have propagated themselves as reporters but instead really

have an agenda reporting is and what is that it won't and that agenda is to bully and silence. and negate basically some voices on the left and a friend of mine and i were talking about this and he he said that it's like a basketball game where you keep following a felling a foul and pretty soon the ref starts calling them because they come become so commonplace and because you can't continually stop the action to track every single incident and they kind of depend on that it's fairly organized it's got a distinct agenda which is to advance conservative causes republican cause even though not necessarily affiliated with the republican party tend to fall in their area of influence but get even that kind of work still it way is that there's kind of it is no is machine going on on both political sides of the spectrum i think so i think to a degree but again i think the right has honed it to an art form because we're talking about ten years worth of everything from to make an example rumors about

bill clinton when he was first sworn into office about being a philly with vince foster suicide and that never died we have brought obama continually being painted as a birth or even though there's ample evidence is overwhelming evidence it is evidence that no other president has had to produce that he is in fact born in america you have in my particular case you have them trying to portray me as a biased distasteful journalist although my record over twenty eight years you simply can't make that claim so to the greed that happens on both sides you could make that case but i think that the right is more organized the more diligent they're more dedicated to this sort of thing because they actually have websites that do this and if you compare with say talking points memo or firedoglake or some of them they are perfectly willing to criticize the horses that they believe in if they don't think they're going the right direction they're perfectly willing to follow the facts where they lead on the right however it seems as though they have a pre-determined destination facts be damned they're going to get there and that's what their purposes all right well now you are kind of facing the consequences of

this i mean would you say would you go as far as to call it an attack on your freedom of speach. that's an open question that's a very good question i mean speech is free but sometimes you have to pay for it and in my case that's what's happening right now i think that. free speech and free speech bullies i guess to coin a phrase only work if there are people willing to stand up and say hey that's wrong and hey i'm going to not be silenced and say what you believe and i think that in the context of for politico i might have taken it a bit too far for them as an organization but i think that the only way to keep this civil and to make this dial down a bit is to stand up to the bully in the schoolyard and say ok fine we're going to we're going to push back. last we just want to ask you what is it what is it's been a rough kind of council that we've. sort of military leaders very you know what's next what's next for you that's

a good question i think you through some options right now and i've got a bit of time to sort of regroup and figure out exactly what it is that means most to me i know where there are love journalism and i know that i've been a reporter for such a long time and this is what i love to do i love journalism and politics hopefully it'll work out for me i'm not too worried that i'll be ok one way or the other think i will and you know there are enough options that i can move on when i have to william joe excuse me thank you so much for coming in pleasure video and sharing your story with us that was a journalist joe williams and former reporter for politico. we turn now to the fight against foreclosure. california now the first state to crack down on the biggest banks making it more difficult for them to prey on homeowners and foreclose on them the law but block lenders from foreclosing while the homeowner seeks alternatives and it takes it a step further by allowing homeowners to sue the banks to stop the foreclosures from happening and a troubled housing market could this be the beginning of

a reforming industry and could it be a glimmer of hope for thousands of homeowners that are struggling to make ends meet and to keep their homes to talk about this is warren mosler founding partner of a.v.m. lp welcome there. so first want to ask you what the excuse me here. this new law does it empower homeowners and how so. well i'm not an expert on war but it doesn't go into effect i believe until january you know so unfortunately they're going to be in the same difficulties they've had ever since. thing went bad in two thousand and eight ok when it went. and what they're going to have to go through at the time i don't know i mean. maybe you can help me tell me what you know what you think it's actually going to do for somebody who's in a position. i think they had me here was because of the proposal i had on the table

originally familiar with that tell us about that proposal. and it was read by james galbraith into the congressional record he testified in front of congress with it but nothing happened the proposal was. briefly that anyone who was going into foreclosure. would have the option of staying in their home as a renter at fair market values and the government the federal government would buy their house at the lower of whatever was the fair market value. and then two years later the government would sell the house and that person who is a renter would have a right of first refusal and access to the normal government funding chan's the whole idea was to keep people who actually want to stay in their house want to make reasonable payments as a tennis and in their house and not disrupt the neighborhood and have it all move along smoothly it's very similar to something that happened right after the guard or after and during the great depression of the one nine hundred thirty s.

unfortunately we didn't adopt this and it's just probably just getting worse and worse and unfortunately california here i think is going to be picking up the tag ends of something that's you know very close to having run its course by the end of the year and of course if they're in california foreclosure is a huge problem over seven s. that made it seven hundred thousand homeowners face foreclosure i mean your proposal and this new law that was just passed to what extent do you think that it would be able to help these people are struggling and keep them in their homes. my proposal isn't going to happen and so they're just going to have to do the best they can with this latest proposal which is going to help them deal with the banks now to the extent that the banks have misbehaved and apparently there's quite a bit of evidence that they have we should have had the full force of the federal government on them right away banks are government agents they're federal charters they're strictly regulated and supervised by the government and any failures of

banks and. in many cases are failures of government regulation failure to have sufficient regulators watching what they're doing the regulators can change management any time they want they can shut them down the bank's money that they went out is ninety percent of it is f.d.i.c insured money it's federal money so to say that banks or private industry is just a mistake they're not private free enterprise yes they get the price risk and shareholders gain or lose by how they price risk but fundamentally the institutions as a public institution and we need to recognize that and you know to understand what the dynamics of what's going on here so this is it is an absolute failure of government. and you know i mean going back to this new law in california what what it what it would allow home our homeowners to do is to sue the big banks to prevent them from foreclosing and on their homes i mean like how do you think that that that this kind of put more power to the homeowner give more power to that to the homeowners. it does some but right now a homeowner can protest a foreclosure has

a hearing and generally they lose because they're behind on their payments and if there's any more abuse and that did it there are channels open but they're expensive and they're difficult and yes anything to smooth that process i think could be a bit of be a big help you and how this is california is the first state to pass a law that's kind of i mean but we see the crisis the foreclosure crisis that the state and other states are and so i mean has it too little too late. yeah for most people the horse is already out of the barn and hopefully we'll have a better system in place should another cycle like this happen which hopefully we've learned our lesson that that won't happen either but unfortunately still life is a work in progress and we got it wrong and paid the price in two thousand and eight up until now two thousand and twelve and we may do a little bit at the end to have corrected things but unfortunately as people get

hurt life moves on but they're saying that perhaps this could be the beginning of a changing industry and the way you know that the system as it is right now which is seems to be failing a lot of people. well on the housing strike i mean i think in the housing front it's probably two thirds of the way through there been a lot of changes made the whole mortgage process is a lot different than it used to be in the foreclosure process is different than it used to be and. you don't have the. going forward you're not going to have the whole rebel foreclosure type thing going on again like we did in the past so a lot of the changes have been made to be more changes made and you know hopefully we learn from our mistakes. and as i say i just want to ask you because california is the the first state to pass a law like this do you expect other states to follow suit. maybe a few but i think in most states again the horse is already out of the barn and we're four years into the problem and they're just going to let it work or to put

it work out on the way it's been working out and ultimately you know you said it was a little a little bit a little too late what does need to be done to fondle a fix the system. well we we have to understand and learn that banks are public purpose entities or government entities and this is a this is a failure of government regulation government supervision that's watched over this whole thing and not taken action where it shouldn't and. you know we need to look at it from that point of view these are not this is not private industry is not free enterprise of words this is does our government work doing this to us and congress has to take that responsibility and you know are just it's just regular supervision so this doesn't happen. thank you so much for coming on the show in a way again on this that was a war and melissa founding partner of a.b.m. lp. well the alona show is coming up in just a half an hour let's check and check in with alone to see what's on today's agenda

lauren what are you working on over there lona that is that's all right hey listen we've got a busy show for you today it's ok lauren is going to be on our show because we have our financial check up happening a day early so we're going to look into some of the biggest banking scandals that are out there right now like the entire barclays investigation and all the other banks are investigation under investigation we'll see just how far it could extend well also talk about the trans-pacific partnership agreement because all this week negotiations have been going on in san diego california of course in secret so try and see what details we can get from that and then there's a guy out there a name andrew blake i think you might know he's our web writer here on our team. we got to do here or there he's definitely a character we've got a new part of the show where he talks tech to me about some of the biggest stories that are out there in the tech world well i'm looking forward to that alone and thank you for that update that's coming up in a half hour but that's going to do it now for the news from one of the stories

we've covered you can check out our you tube channel that is youtube dot com slash r t america we post all of our interviews in full online you can also check out our website it's our teeth usa our web producers are busy working on stories that we don't always have time to get to on the air and to see what i'm doing when i'm not reporting the news you can also follow me on twitter as well is of all that's going to wrap it up for this hour we'll see you right back here at five. decline of american power continues. things in our country so bad might actually be time for a revolution. and it turns out that a popular drink of starbucks has a surprising him radio.