she says she will keep pushing to secure budget atonmy through a bill in congress. >>> you get paid a half million dollars just for being smart. there's a bit more to it than that. but coming up, we'll speak with a local writer who is a fellow. they call him geniuses. i'll do my best to keep up. >> you do that. still to come in this half hour, a senator's legend weighs in on watching the nationals head to the playoffs. topper. >> we have some clouds. right now, nothing on radar near us, however, we'll show you radar down to the south. different story. we'll tell you where those showers are headed. if they're headed for the ball park and what lies in store for our morning commute tomorrow. >> one airline takes those baggage fees to an even higher level. too many americans are struggling to find work in today's economy. too many of those who are working are living paycheck to paycheck trying to make falling incomes meet rising prices for food and gas. more americans are living in poverty than when president obama took office and fifteen million more are on food stamps. president obama a

which we actually, as a country, united states, supported for several decades, these guys have some atonmy and they were able to make an argument to that the departure of the head of state is going to be meaningful. in syria, the departure of the head of state without the departure of the mechanisms is not meaningful. >> host: well, saying that, how do you see the uprising in syria playing out over x number of months and x number of years? >> guest: well, i'm hoping it's not x number of years because the death toll has surpassed 20,000-25,000, some say 40,000. you know, we cannot be sure. in either case, it's such a human tragedy taking place in syria where every time i want to address the situation, i'm -- i'm really not able to think about strategy and things of the sort because it's no longer about, you know, an uprising that's democratic against the regime. sure, the regime has been, but the uprising has become deluded, infiltrated, and is actually engaged in practices that the regime used to engage in, and that's why one of the reasons there is a stalemate today because the -- the opp

that settlement building would stop and that a process leading to palestinian self-determination and atonmy on the west bank would commence, but settlement building did not stop, and both carter and the egyptians, for different reasons, did not make much of a fuss. reagan called for a settlement freeze without making an issue of it. george hw bush made a big issue of it and paid a steep political prize, which may have caused him re-election. bill clinton wanted very much a viable palestinian state, and he found settlement building continued whether israel was headed by labor and accelerated throughout the 1990s. barack obama made a settlement freeze jumping off point for his peace efforts and smacked down decisively from benjamin netanyahu and the israel lobby. the reason for these failures is over. israel, no matter what coalition was in charge, wanted to build settlements on the west bank more than the united states was committed to stopping them. the israel lobby, which i would describe as a loose coalition of groups and individuals who are committed to ensuring american backing for isra