picture with this heated argument as union protest spread to other states there's also a lot of pushback coming from republicans and the tea party what should this be a moment for american workers to join together and they're somehow just missing it the young turks and his ferry and will join me for that one next we'll speak with author laura dickinson on her latest book outsourcing war and peace now despite the gruesome stories that we've heard about blackwater and the like the government continues to award multimillion dollar contracts to these farms so it's all reliance on private contractors here to stay and if so what can we do to make them accountable then we'll discuss the case of raymond davis the diplomat who was ultimately exposed as a cia contractor in pakistan but the question here is why do we have to learn about this from the british press should the u.s. media have told us the truth instead of protecting the government former c.n.n. correspondent jamie mcintyre will give us his thoughts on it and you've heard of wiki leaks but have you heard of pailin leaks the manuscript

he values pushback, he values disagreement. he likes to thoroughly air out different opinions. he doesn't like to move or make snap judgments. he likes things to be carefully considered. so, it's been a wonderful experience working with milton and learning from him. >> susie: frank laurenso has been cooper's banker for nearly 40 years, and he says few people are more respected. >> besides saying that he is a wonderful individual, he is iconic in the real estate industry. that was reinforced when he went public in the early '90s, and it continues till this day. people will still come to milton for advice-- not just realtors, but our tenants. >> susie: but his biggest fan is the woman behind the man, cooper's wife of 61 years, shirley. >> i am very proud of him. he's... he's brilliant. he's wonderful. and he deserves everything that he has, because he worked very, very hard. and i'm proud of him. >> susie: although, over the years, he rarely brought his work home, mrs. cooper says even the shopping center king sometimes gets stressed. that was particularly true during the i.p.o.

this was not american pushback. chris: how did you get that reporting? how did you know they felt good about the ultimate outcome? >> you could see it in their public statements. you saw remarks in the past week and testimony on capitol hill. when the d.n.i. director clapper said the muslim brotherhood is largely secular. he was ridiculed because it's the muslim brotherhood. but what he was also signaling is that look, we have confidence that whatever government emerges from this, we're working on it. but we have confidence that they are going to emerge in the right mold, in the mold that we're trying to push. >> that goes to the confidence they have in their relationship. -- relationships. chris: these guys that do this for a living, i know we have good relations with like jordanian intelligence us with brittle but good, egypt's intelligence, saudi intelligence, have we been blind-sided to the street because we've been too pro government in those cases? >> our c.e.a. has had a real dilemma especially since september 11, 2001. we need our intelligence pa

closely in places like wisconsin which could spread to ohio or indiana, new jersey, which is the pushback against the new republican governors who are saying i'm going to keep the promises i made during the campaign. everybody is watching that very closely. >> the states are so important. when do we talk about some of these states? about every four years with a presidential. so they are very important states. they are swing states. this is the big debate of the season and it's an opportunity to test out messaging. >> and the key question here is how fast you do these cuts. what the president is arguing is, yes, cut, but do it slowly because the economy could be in trouble. that's what is at stake in wisconsin is the speed. gwen: fascinating time. we're going to another fascinating place which is in the middle east. last weeks jubilation in egypt became this weeks tensions in bahrain, yemen, libya, and iran where versions of the uprising we saw in tahrir square continue to play out tonight. the president today condemned the violence and urged restraint,but it is not at all clear what lever

. >> republican governors see pushback from unions as a badge of honor. for democratic governors, they need unions. >> reporter: unions are a strong part of the democratic base, so pushing to roll back union member rights to bargain creates political risk. >> we're at an unprecedented moment of reckoning. this perfect storm, i think, is the worst it's ever been. >> reporter: and unions don't have any sort of upper hand when it comes to public opinion these days. according to one poll, the favorability for labor unions is at nearly its lowest level in a quarter century with less than 45% expressing a positive view. erica? >> hill: quite a number, jim, thanks. turning our attention now to overseas and the wave of antigovernment protests. they started in the middle east, they have now spread to djibouti in east africa where thousands are calling for the president to step down. in bahrain today, soldiers opened fire on protesters, mostly shiites, who've been shut out of top jobs in government, a government dominated by the sunni minority. in jordan, fights br

going to change the political calculus in ohio but it's it's already the what has happened in the pushback is already occurred the way michigan and their new republican governor the way they're looking at this and it's not going to push this far so it certainly is a big moment but the ripple effects of already sort of started but they haven't started in such a way that we've sort of seen this. massive protests in every state capital it's they've been small in other states there's been talk about them talking about them going to other states but it's still i think we still don't know for sure whether or not this is that particular moment you're trying to talk about you know i'd say it's hugely important we have to see where it goes and bore you again we're talking about wall street if they don't get focused on the real problem if we accept somehow that we have to have this austerity will then it's going to be a dead letter because you're working in the wrong framework you're working from the right wing's playbook and you're going to lose there's no way around it so if they can't get there o

he's not getting a lot of pushback from the democratic side or is he? >> he's getting some. you heard him today in the news conference refer to it as grumbling in his own party. this, the white house really loves. they want to look like they are making tough cuts about programs that the president and his party care very much about, that he's going against his own party because that's a real appeal to independent voters in the middle trying to show that you can do the tough thing. i think what's working to the president's advantage and in talk to go some white house aides i think they have this sense too. is the bill that is on the floor in the house right now about this year spending cuts, the democrats are so focused on pushing back on that push by republicans to cut $100 billion out of this year that they're not as focused on the things that they're not thrilled with in the president's budget but you can only pick one fight at a time. >> just very quickly speaking of that this year's fiscal budget there's only a couple of weeks left. is there a possibility they're not goin

haleh, there's this huge uproar but also we're now seeing we just saw in these clips real serious pushback in bahrain, yemen, we saw libya yesterday, we saw iran the other day. governments are fighting back. are they able to? >> i think in some countries like iran they have succeeded. in other countries they may not. we see two threats taking place in the middle east. one is the clampdown we saw in iran, yemen, bahrain and we might see in algeria if it happens, you know? but then there's the other trend which is the trend we saw in tunisia and egypt. but what's interesting is that for the first time i think i agree with you that you have the younger generation taking the matters in their hands. >> brown: that's the similarity you see throughout? >> through the region until a few months ago we always expected that if there was a change, a revolution, it would have been the people in the cities, the middle-class. but, no, these are the children who grew up under this regime in egypt. the children that grew up under mubarak, in iran the children who grew up in the revolution. so you have a wh

i don't think that's going to happen i think one of the reasons you see the public pushback on the extremism and ideology trumping problem solving in wisconsin is because people see it as fundamentally mean-spirited, ideological, and fundamentally unfair. >> are public employees the scapegoat of the moment when people look for sort of rationals? >> yes. in times of scarcity there's a great danger that any group of people suddenly become scapegoats. and for some governors instead of focusing on the problem, they focus on scapegoating public employees. unless in the case of fire and police unions greater numbers of them are registered republicans or vote republicans. and then they're not so angry at them for organizing and having their voice heard. >> governor perry, do you want to jump in there? >> we're a right to work state. so in texas, our public employees are pretty well thought of, actually. i don't see -- they're not surrounding the capital of the day. >> there are -- >> we have people dom austin all the time. please come. we like them to be there, be interactive go back and forth and

. >> why did we pushback at torch borut.you were with jerry bernstein and we were talking about at that time, and they said that gary said they had everything trained, the new in exactly where he was and it had to do with the generals pulling back. >> the generals if there's a blessing from all of the war it perhaps is the fact the next crop of generals want be bureaucratic paper pushers, that they will have seen their troops died in the ground to the generals, when we had a bin laden taught in the tora bora mountains decided it was bad public relations to lose our own troops to do our own dirty work if you will. and then they found the two afghan commanders to hire to go into the mountains. garrey was on the ground, said the names back to us my people did the naim traces on the gentleman. both of them fought with in london against the soviets and both of them were commanders for the local mujahideen tribal chieftain who lived in the tora bora area. both of them were his commanders so they were clearly going to be a daily an

one of the reasons you see the public pushback on the extremism and i hadology is because people see it as fundamentally unfair. >> people look for sort of a mags national. >> in time of scarcity there is a great danger that any group of people become scapegots and some governors instead of that they focus on on that. greater numbers of them are registered republicans and then they are not so angry at them for organizing and having their voice heard. >> governor perry? >> we are a right to work state. in texas, our public employees are well thought of. and they're not surrounding the capitol. >> there are teachers that have come to austin. >> we have people come to austin. please come. we like to be interactive and go back and forth. how boring would it be if there weren't people out front with their expressing what they love. that is -- >> my point is that -- i keep going back like a broken record but our states being able to compete against each other, that's going to be the future of how strong america is, if we truly believe that the laboratories of innovation are in this -- the

i think one of the reasons you see the public pushback on extremism and the ideology trumping problem in wisconsin is because people see it as fundamentally mean-spirited, ideological and fundamentally unfair. >> are public employees the scapegoat of the moment when people look for sort of rationales for this recession? >> yes. in times of scarcity, there's a great danger that any group of people suddenly become scapegoats. and for some governors instead of focusing on the problem, they focus on scapegoating public employees. unless in the case of fire and police unions greater numbers of them are registered republicans or vote republican and then they're not so an reat them for organizing and having their voice heard. >> governor perry? >> well, we're a right- to-work state so in texas our public employees are pretty well thought of actually. i don't see the -- >> well, they're not -- >> they're not surrounding the capitol. >> teachers who are coming to austin -- >> look, we have people come to austin all the time. i mean, police come -- [laughter] we like them to be there and be int

. >> republican governors see pushback for unions as a badge of honor. for democratic governors, they need unions. >> reporter: one new poll shows u.s. support for unions down to just 45%, and now conservative activists are calling upon their members, including tea party groups, to join this rally, which could, rebecca, make for a very busy day. >> cynthia bowers in madison, wisconsin. we appreciate it. thanks. >>> and now to one of the 14 democratic wisconsin lawmakers who left the state, delaying a vote on governor walker's sweeping bill. the senator joins us live from chicago, it's 148 miles from where he serves in madison. good morning, senator, thanks for being with us. >> good morning. how are you? >> i'm doing well. and we want to talk about the fact that you have fled your state. you are delaying this vote. your state constitution says that you're compelled to vote. are you breaking the law as a senator of the state of wisconsin? >> oh, no, not at all. in fact we're actually doing our job. we standing up for the thousands and thousands of people

he gets pushback from the left, and he says, okay, i'm not going to do anything.he's not going to say anything in the state of the uni. about two -- union. about two days later an unname presidential aide said, well, he was thinking of lifting the tax cap, but he didn't want to go that far. i think by definition leadership means you go first. so if the president wants to get it done, he's going to have to be willing to stand up and take some heat on it. and whether you like what president bush did or not, he stood up and took the heat -- >> and he lost. >> and he lost, but if you want to get this done, you have to take some risks. and if president obama doesn't do it, he's not going to get anything from it. i think that's the long and short of it. >> heidi. >> >> can i chime in from the president's left? [laughter] >> oh, don't sell yourself short. >> don't sell him short, sorry. [laughter] >> but, you know, first of all, that assumes that the commission was a balanced commission. it was not, much to our disappointment, the president appointed two well known hater

the political pushback. i would hope that you would share the concern, many of my constituents not just about the estate tax or death tax, but the narrowing of the tax rate that fewer and fewer people are paying taxes with its federal income tax that fewer and fewer people are paying. how do you think we could address that? >> if you look at our tax system today, there is a lot of fun fairness across the system and you refer to one piece of it which some people think is unfair which is lower income americans pay payroll taxes but many don't have to pay the income tax as a whole. >> a vast majority of the use to pay a payroll tax but i will take the other side. it's also true that as many of our most successful executives said, you can be a -- you can be a very successful businessman today and pay lower tax rate than people who work for you and that doesn't seem fair either. we were trying to propose some initial reforms to help lead us with a simple and fair system. >> and i can appreciate that as well. on t

increases and after opening bargaining position there's no change in benefits but the predominant pushback on the commission from work was not from the republican side, and i think to be realistic we ought to recognize that this is a dialogue between the white house and the left on the social security. >> if i could just sort of follow on from this the president is dealing with his own party. when the president can to office, there was talk then he was going to appoint a commission to look to the deficit and they were on the verge of doing it and he didn't go with it. eventually he said i'm going to appoint a commission and they come up with a set of proposals which he gets pushed back from the left and says i'm not going to do anything, he's not going to say anything to the state of the union. there's a story in "the wall street journal" where on named presidential aides say thinking of proposing to cut benefits and reducing cost-of-living adjustments and tax cuts but he didn't want to go that far. i fink by definition leadership means you go first. some of the president wants to get it d

that may be a false premise, and i invite pushback on that, but as i said, as a devout, radical incrementalisti'm ready to be bolder. some of you may have noticed that yesterday was the beginning of baseball season, pitchers and catchers reported, so i always am reminded of the great baseball philosopher, yogi berra who said when you come to the fork in the road, you've got to take it. i think we have to take it. the good and bad news i think is there really are not many options out there. joe alluded to this earlier. the work that chairman thomas did and senator breaux are mimicked in ryan, rivlin and some of the other proposals. we'll talk about the elements in a moment. the alternatives to a program that looks more like that, more competitive, that's more of a defined contribution as opposed to a defined benefit is to ratchet down on provider payments or increase taxes. in some cases, along with it, continue to promise people that you're going to do that by swinging the benefit pot. we've tried that. albert einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again

increases and after opening bargaining position there's no change in benefits but the predominant pushback on the commission from work was not from the republican side, and i think to be realistic we ought to recognize that this is a dialogue between the white house and the left on the social security. >> if i could just sort of follow on from this the president is dealing with his own party. when the president can to office, there was talk then he was going to appoint a commission to look to the deficit and they were on the verge of doing it and he didn't go with it. eventually he said i'm going to appoint a commission and they come up with a set of proposals which he gets pushed back from the left and says i'm not going to do anything, he's not going to say anything to the state of the union. there's a story in "the wall street journal" where on named presidential aides say thinking of proposing to cut benefits and reducing cost-of-living adjustments and tax cuts but he didn't want to go that far. i fink by definition leadership means you go first. some of the president wants to get it d