he's seen as a loser right now. >>> chuck grassley you will recall was the highest ranking republican over health care reform. >> we should not have a government program that determines you're going to pull the plug on grandma. >> grassley is boasting in a press release, i worked successfully to improve medicare payments to doctors in rural states like iowa and in turn access for beneficiaries as part of the health care enacted this year. chuck grassley taking partial credit for health care reform. i wonder for the tea party knows about that. senator chuck "i got pull the plug on grandma passed" grassley, today's worst person in the world. ♪ my subaru saved my life. i won't ever forget that. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. wellbeing. we're all striving for it. purina cat chow helps you nuture it in your cat... with a full family of excellent nutrition... and helpful resources. ♪ purina cat chow. share a better life. >>> on february 4th, 2008, nasa beamed the song across the universe by the beatles towards the north star. 431 billion light years into deep space in hopes that

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remember, chuck grassley was one of the main interlock tors, and he was going back to his constituents and essentially reaffirming the death panel lie. what corker did today was actually in good faith said that is not true. that's not the way the bill worked. in doing that is a fundamental signal of a kind of good faith investment in the policy outcome which whether you agree with him on policy or not the threshold needed to actually legislate, that being present makes a difference. >> do you think that means bob corker ends up being a republican vote for financial reform and anybody who is a likely pickup, as they say? >> well, look, it's the same sort of group of people. it is possible they get enough. the one thing i would say to balance out the good news of bob corker acting semi-responsibly, is progressives should scratch their heads and wonder if you can pull a bunch of gop senators onto this bill, whether the bill is as good as it is being billed. that should make you question the actual content of the bill. you wonder if the gop is able to sort of come onboard this bill if it i

senator chuck grassley is just plain against that health reform bill.r it, he said it would kill your grandma. he said parts that were his own idea were unconstitutional. he even went into cloud conspiraciville when he said it would conjure up 16,000 more irs agencies. now he's for it. iowapolitics.com posting senator grassley's press release in which the senator is now bragging on how much that health reform bill he voted against is going to be great for the folks back home in iowa. quote, i worked successfully to improve medicare payments to doctors in rural states. as part of health care reform enacted this year. i voted against it and it will kill your grandma, but if there's any chance you like it, would you mind giving me credit for it? senator grassley's up for re-election in november. needless to say. it'll hold your plants but it'll also hold 'em back. the solution: miracle-gro garden soil. the perfect mix of rich, organic ingredients, and miracle-gro plant food. just mix it in. and turn bad soil into great soil. helps plants grow twice as big.

chuck grassley of iowa. those rules on derivatives will get folded into the banking bill. in an interview with cnbc's john harwood, president obama said stronger financial regulations would be good for everyone, including, especially for wall street itself. >> we have gotten into one of those places where we need to update those rules of the road. and if we do so, not only is that good for the economy, not only does it protect consumers and investors, it's also good for the financial sector. because it will rebuild trust, and people will have confidence that when they're dealing with banks, when they're dealing with these institutions, that they, in fact, are playing it straight, above board, and they're competing on the basis of who's providing the best services and the best products as opposed to who's got the most creative accounting rules or who's able to concoct the wildest derivatives that may serve no economic function whatsoever. >> wall street firms have been hiring big guns to lobby on capitol hill. goldman sachs just brought on former white house counsel greg cr

senator chuck grassley, the ranking member of the financial committee and senate. calls it a taxpayer bailout and "instead of looking out just for california and new york and wall street banks, i'm looking out for the american taxpayers who are going to be stuck with the tab." joining us now a couple voices from the heartland john gallagher and lauren stefy, business columnist at "the houston chronicle." welcome to you both. without getting into the intricacies of the build america's bonds program which is an eye glazing exercise, if ever there was one. does it surprise either of you that two of the nation's most populous states, the largest states in the country, i ges with texas in there, as well, are the biggest issuers of these bonds? should we be surprised by that? jump all, go ahead. >> well, no, i don't think it's surprising. i mean, these are the states that have a big chunk of the population and it's sort of understandable that they would be the ones to ramp up the in a infrastructure projects that these bonds are helping to finance. >> a highway in new yo

yesterday republican senator chuck grassley actually voted in favor of democratic senator blanche lincoln'serivative reforms bill which is the hallmark and new standard for transparency in bank legislation. he was the lone gop vote on the plan. add to that senator shelby's new-found optimism that a deal with senator dodd might be possible. shelby's quote, we're closer than we have ever been. is the gop now getting on board? and if that is is, is that only so they do not have to come up with a stronger plan that actually deals with too big to fail? or actually stops the cops from being able to work for the crooks like the ratings agencies and regulators who currently get their money from the banking system? joining us now, house republican conference chair congressman mike pence of indiana. how do you react to the speech today, congressman? >> hey, dylan. what was not in the speech was probably more news worthy and noteworthy and disappointsing than what was in the president's speech. i didn't get to hear all of it. but the fact that the president really didn't address the issue of too big t

first his nomination was held up by chuck grassley because shanon suggested that they actually lower ariffs on brazilian ethanol and chuck is from eye way, the state of monsanto. and that was-- and he put a hold on it. then jim demeant over honduras and all of the politics around honduras froze his nomination. and after that the senator from florida, the countriesth appointed, lemieux, he froze shannon's nomination over cuba. which even if obama was to come up with a vision, a positive vision of hemispheric diplomacy which you could imagine what it would be, normalizing relations with cuba, dialing down the drug war, immigration reform, all sorts of things, applys as an equal partner with brazil, what stops them from doing that is nothing that happens in latin america, it is domestic politics. it is the cuban lobby, it is thing aro industry, it's the nra which won't allow a renewal of the assault rifle ban which mexico is demanding. every possible initiative that obama could take to modernize domestic relations, the obstacles and opposition come from domestic politics. it really is ki

. >> brown: the vote was 13 to 8, with one republican-- senator chuck grassley-- joining all 12 democrats. the derivatives measure is expected to be folded in to the broader reform bill. the full senate could begin debate on that measure next week. >> brown: to help us understand more about derivatives and how the bill would change things, we turn to two people who actually understand this world. lynn stout is a corporate and securities law professor at the university of california at los angeles. she specializes in securities regulation. david skeel is a professor of corporate law at the university of pennsylvania law school. >> brown: lynn stout, i am going to safely assume that most of us don't really get derivatives, so start there. what is the simple definition and what is the problem they've come to raise. >> some particular kinds of of derivatives can be be very complicated for an outsider to understand. i think they make more sense when you boil them down to the fact what derivatives really are are just bets. they're bets between parties over what's goingç to happen in the future

host: yesterday in committee, senator chuck grassley voted for a derivatives regulation package. here is the resulting story in "the denver post" this morning in 15 minutes, we will have two reporters this morning, one from new york and one from washington to talk about the financial reform. next telephone call is from pennsylvania. good morning to sam on the line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning. i am 70 years old. all my life, they have been putting taxes. i think i'm still paying taxes on the civil war. i do not know any taxes that the government has put on that they have not taken off. even if they have the vat tax, i just see more taxes in the future. they threatened to cut my social security in half. if they take $500 of my social security, and they take $1,000 for the vat tax, what good is that? we have to be sensible. we have to drop down all our spending to we have to go back to basic american spending. that is going to hurt everybody, but we have to do it. we have to start eventually. we have to start taking our medicine. thank you. host: next is west

watchdog, at the request of senator chuck grassley, found less that 1% of the agency's 3,500 employees. but 17 of the offenders were senior s.e.c. officers. with salaries ranging from $100,000, to $222,000 a year. >> trust me. these guys are addicts. there's no question about it. this isn't going to end until, you know, someone really puts a stop to it. >> reporter: the report cites examples as recent as four weeks ago. but the most shocking thing is most of it started in 2008, just as the financial system was melting down. the s.e.c. would not comment on any of these specific cases. but they say they take the allegations seriously. and deal with them on a case-by-case basis. that being said, elizabeth, i'm told that at least some of the major offenders in this report, are still on the job. >> jon, you just mentioned it was happening in 2008. that begs the question, if the financial meltdown would have happened if the people weren't watching pornography on their computers. >> reporter: it's hard to say. there were plenty of people apparently at the s.e.c. not watching pornography. and

senator olympia snowe and susan collins of maine, senator scott brown of massachusetts and senator chuck grassley of iowa. they talk about mr. grassley, a conservative facing reelection in november, surprised colleagues recently supporting strict new rules for derivatives. santa rosa, california, elizabeth, democratic live. hi, there. caller: ideally think that there should be -- i really think there should be something to protect common people from fraud on wall street. it still would you think of the debate in the senate and they voted to stall the bill and not move forward on this? caller: i think it is lousy. host: anything else? caller: i really think that there should be -- i really think that there should be a step -- i really think that there should be some regulation protecting -- i think there should be some regulation to protect the public from bank fraud. host: thank you, elizabeth from california. a lot of time for your calls in the next half hour or so. but we want to learn more about the president's commission on debt. a bipartisan commission on fiscal responsibility and a reformed

when you have sarah palin and senator chuck grassley over the summer come talk about death panels would and did actually read for everybody? it would be a completely non-partisan tool selwyn barack obama said over the summer he had not supported the public optioned he would go to his campaign website to support the public optioned within what is fact show and what is not. >> maybe we need a lie-detector no politicians should be allowed to speak. [laughter] >> whenever it is some kind of innovation is essential because you can really have a functioning democracy when it has been destroyed and that is the case i know when it comes to the media we are abscess with fact checking and despite the fact we have citizens hundred the bloggers you cannot do without editors and gay people to make sure that you can turn your readers trust. >> are you the optimist about technology and the media? i think many people worry what happens means we don't give investigative journalism anymore to the extent they are not challenge by realities which reinforces the worry about that? >> first of all, i am greek

agriculture committee reported derivatives regulation with the vote of one republican senator, chuck grassley. kara scannell, what does this do for forward movement of the financial regulation process? guest: there's still a long way to go. have to reconcile it with the bill that dodd has. they will have to meet somewhere halfway. even grassley said it by no way guaranteed that he would vote overall for the financial regulation reform bill. host: louise story, what does the debate in washington look like with the advantage of your distance? guest: they're discussing things people in new york for talking about years ago. it seems like it takes a long time in washington for these topics to move through. wall street has already kind of moved behind this. in a sense, there is this disconnect. in washington, is about reform feedback on wall street, is making profits. host: what is the response in washington? guest: congress always takes a little bit longer. the new york fed was ahead on the derivative issue in 2005. in some ways, wall street wants to make a profit. it will take a lot more muscle t

and chuck grassley, by the way, the only bipartisan proposal that's on the table right now is the one that she forged and managed to get some bipartisan support for that. so i commend my colleague from arkansas for her work on that committee. and it's going to involve all of us here to come up with some answers on derivatives. in fact, my friend from tennessee would love to sit in that chair of his and have a good laugh as we end up having a battle on that. you're going to be involved in that, whether you like it or not, in resolving. and on the issue of too big to fail, you too, the presiding officer and the senator from tennessee what done about 95% of the work. and there are some issues here that we're going to try to work through in the next couple of days and present to our colleagues what we believe is a fair resolution that will deal with those issues, tha that will guarantee i hope once and for all about whether or not anything in this bill is dined to per pitch wait the too-big-to-fail concept -- perpetuate the too-big-to-fail concept. let me address the issue of the underwri