cut set to expire next month from white house advisor gene sperling and republican senator john barrasso of wyoming. >> brown: judy woodruff examines a new poll showing a drop in support for the tea party. >> ifill: from egypt, we have the story of hunger, corruption and revolution all making it harder for families to put food on the table. >> in egypt, this price crisis has not come down at all. i mean, for the common family, the prices of food are a daily crisis. >> brown: and margaret warner looks at the impact of the popular cholesterol drug lipitor going generic. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> intelligent computing technology is making its way into everything from cars to retail signs to hospitals; creating new enriching experiences. through intel's philosophy of investing for the future, we're helping to bring these new capabilities to market. we're investing billions of dollars in r&d around the globe to help create the technologies that we hope will be the heart of tomorrow's innovations. i believe t

senator barrasso and senator thune? mr. barrasso: well, you know, you would hear about it a lot, and this speaks to the problems that we have in this body when you write legislation in the cloak of darkness, behind closed doors, come in and vote at 1:00 in the morning and try to jam things through at a time when an administration calls for openness and transparency and then they do this sort of thing with -- with the books in a manipulative way to try to come up with ways to say that it saves money. in any other true, real busine business, people would go to jail for this sort of behavior, i would assume. the -- it's -- is it wrong, all the way wrong? we've seen other so-called bets that this administration has made which have the american people scratching their head. and just yesterday, it was noted that fannie mae, freddie mac, bonuses have been paid to ten of their executives to the tune of over $12 million. i've called for the president to cancel those bonuses. the white house is fairly silent on that. yet when senator

barrasso: it would. it would undermine the argument of the president who says well, this is going to pay for itself when, in fact, it is not. it is interesting, if you just ask people who are watching at home, people when you go to town hall meetings and you say do you think under this health care law that your health care is going to be better or worse, they will tell you that it's going to be worse. very few people think that their health care is going to be improved under this -- the law that the president has forced through. and then you ask this same group of people, a cross section of people in any of our states if they think that the cost of their care is going to go down like the president promised or go up, they all say no, no, it's going to go up. it's going to have to be either paying more, getting less, unhappy with it, which is why i think yesterday in ohio, two-thirds of the voters who turned out -- and the margin was over a million voters different between those who are for and against, th

barrasso to go over the medicare cuts if he would at this time. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. i would tell you i want to thank and congratulate dr. coburn for his significant leadership in this area. medicare patients all across the country are getting a thick book, 150 pages or so. the one in wyoming about 150 pages called "medicare and you 2012." under dr. coburn's leadership, we have prepared a report also called "medicare and you 2012," but it is, as i do every week, a second opinion about the big book that people are getting at home. the cover of this is quite distinct from the book that goes to other medicare patients around the country because this starts by saying your medicare program was cut $530 billion by president obama's controversial health law and used for a brand-new program for someone else. that is the fundamental problem here, madam president. when we talk about medicare, we think of our parents, we think of others, i think of so many of my patients on medicare. we need to strengthen medicare. what this administration did by taking $530 billion f

>> the program basically means high your arms and the term comes from the word barrasso so you are hiring arms to come and to labour in the u.s. to respect martha is a professor of anthropology here at the university of texas. what is the picture on the cover of your book? >> it is that mexican immigrants loading off and what i used for is a comparison of two pictures of different types of individuals of different classes coming to the united states. people just crossing the border, crossing the rio granda on foot and horses and people who have more money. they come in and ride the train and in my book i do how many individuals that were better off could afford train rides and i examine the whole infrastructure of the railroad system connecting texas to the u.s. perhaps if they wouldn't have been the train system most people would have come in 1910. >> what are you teaching this semester but the university of texas? >> the graduate level for the doctrine and master students to teach a class on oral traditions and history which is a class of how to do historical research, but also how to d

wyoming senator john barrasso is vice chairman of the senate republican conference. he joins us now. there couldn't be a worse time for this kind of thing to happen. it was apparently a friendly fire, terrible tragedy, and 24 pakistani soldiers are dead. >> your heart has to go out to those family of those that died. realistically you have to find out what nato finds. it looks like our troops were fired upon from this area, we called in additional air support, so we have to see really what has happened there, but you're absolutely right, there has been a shaky relationship between the united states and pakistan which has made -- which is worse because of our success with the navy seems going in to kill usama bin laden and you look at this and say how could he be hiding in pakistan, were the pakistanis incompetent or in cahoots. jon: in a military town. they have closed their border with afghanistan. we need those border checkpoints open to get supplies into our troops. is this in a way extortion on the part of the pakistanis? >> the pakistanis have received from the

barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i come to the floor today to talk about the environmental protection agency, the e.p.a., and they're implement ago cap-and-trade program for what's called cross-state air pollution. now, i oppose this new regulation, and i support the resolution of disapproval that we'll be voting on later today. led by the earnings washington bureaucrats are tying up america with red tape. they're tying up our nation and they're tying up the american people. this year alone, the e.p.a. has issued over 400 final rules. use thithese are rules that do e effect of law. that's over two rules per day so far that each day that the "federal register" has been open for business in 2011. imagine any business in the united states -- in our home communities -- businesses having to comply with two new e.p.a. rules each day that you're open for business, and of course if you don't comply, then you face thousands of dollars in fines. this is just business as usual for the e.p.a. thousands of rules are fi

barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, in 19 years since his graduation from the university of wyoming college of law, judge skavdahl has distinguished himself both as an attorney and a trial judge. after working in the private sector and clerking for u.s. district judge william downes, judge skavdahl was appointed by the former governor to serve as a district court judge for wyoming's seventh judicial district. during his time on the state bench, judge skavdahl earned the respect of the attorneys and the parties appearing in his court. he earned that respect for his integrity and his ethics to carry out his duties. he earned that respect for his reasoned decisions. he earned that respect for the manner, the manner in which he conducts himself in the courtroom and for being prepared and for his knowledge of the law. there is no doubt in my mind that judge skavdahl will bring those same skills and that respect for the law that he exhibited in the seventh judicial district to the federal bench. wyoming's federal j

barrasso: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent for to speak for up to ten minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: i come up to the floor as a i physician who has practiced medicine in wyoming for over a quufort a century, get over -- for over a quarter after century, get home every weekend to visit with my former colleagues, former patients. as i talk to constituents about the formerly passed health care law, they are concerned. that's why i keep coming back to the senate floor with a doctor's second opinion about the health care law. because what we know patients would like in terms of health care is that the care that they get -- they get the care they need from a doctor they want at a cost that they can afford. and for many, many people across this country, the cost that they can afford is a major, major issue, which is why i think so many people were happy to hear the president in his initial talk about what he was proposing for health care in this coun

let's talk about another person in politics, senator john barrasso 'cause he's calling out presidentabout it? because remember, $170 billion of taxpayer money went to fannie mae and freddie mac to bail them out. they're technically run by the government right now. many people believe that for moderate performance achievement levels that they shouldn't be paid this kind of dough. >> brian: the federal housing agency did it, a brand-new body was created in 2008. senator barrasso on what we should do. >> i'm calling on the president of the united states to cancel those bonuses and explain to the american people the taxpayers who bailed out freddie and fannie, why he continues to reward failure. >> eric: the bottom line is, we're not done bailing them out. we're literally quarter to quarter, 4, 5, $10 billion continues to go in there. it's crazy. theory being if you don't pay these guys 2 or $3 million, then they'll walk or so what? really? >> brian: here is what's wrong with that theory. if your treasury secretary, do you do it for the money? if you're secretary of state, do you do it f

john barrasso wants the president to step in, because he says the bonuses reward failure. more from the white house on that. martha: that's a big story. fannie and freddie's problems started in 2003 and result a government takeover in 2008, in july 2008, concerns over the companies, which are quasi government companies, caused their insolvency, that had a plan to provide unlimited government funding for them for 18 months. by september, both ceos were relieved of their jobs, they walked away with huge payouts in the millions of dollars, franklin raines among them whose name you may remember from all of that. later that month, fannie and freddie are removed from the s&p 500 because of their de prettied -- depleted market value, so at that point, not much later, we're seeing $13 million bonuses and we know the president has criticized that type of thing when it happens on wall street. we'll see whether he criticizes that closer to home. bill: we are not seeing it just yet. >>> we're going to show you remarkable video out of poland in a moment that you will not want to miss o

i always -- also want to thank senator barrasso from wyoming for his leadership and willingness to work with us on this amendment. with senator bennet, senator white house, and senator blumenthal. this is a critical issue for our troops and for their families and i think it was so important that we delivered and continue to deliver a strong bipartisan message to the pakistani government, to any official in their government that has anything to do with this issue during our trip, the message we delivered and thereafter. and i think we can deliver another message by way of this amendment on this bill. this amendment would hold pakistan to its commitments. the commitments it already made to its strategic plan to counter i.e.d.'s. mr. president, as you know well, i.e.d.'s are killing and injuring our troops at a terribly alarming rate and while we can never completely eradicate the component parts of i.e.d.'s, we can make life difficult for the bombmaker if we pass this amendment. we should recommit ourselves to this important mission and redouble our efforts to limit the availability of th

barrasso: mr. president, reserving the right to object. there are still questions that need to be answered and information that needs to be provided, mr. president, by mr. kopocis. i am concerned about the depth of his past involvement to change the scope of the clean water act beyond congressional intent. to me, this nominee still needs to explain his views on public and stakeholder input on regulations that he would be in charge of and explain his understanding -- his understanding -- of the role of congress versus the role of the environmental protection agency in terms of who makes the laws in this country. until those issues are clarified, i do not believe it is appropriate for this nominee to move forward. and, therefore, mr. president, i object. mr. cardin: mr. president? mr. mccain: mr. president, i ask for the regular order. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland has the floor. mr. cardin: mr. president, i'm going to yield the floor in one moment. let me just say to my friend from wyoming, i'm going to do my best to make

barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, first i would like to congratulate and thank my khraoerbgs the senior senator from yew -- my colleague, the senior senator from utah for his continued leadership on the issue of health care. as the ranking member on the finance committee, he has been a stalwart and strong supporter in efforts to get health care for american people, health care that they need from a doctor that they want at a price they can afford. and amazing in his fight against what this body and the house of representatives and what the president has forced on to the people all across this country, which to me has been bad for patients, bad for the providers for those patients, the nurses and doctors who take care of them, and terrible for the taxpayers. that's why week after week, mr. president, i come to the floor to give a doctor's second opinion about the health care law and why i'm so pleased to be here with my colleague today to join in the introduction of this piece of legislation. because as peop