walmart. >>> here with the daily rant is our friend, david goodfriend. hi, david. >> hey, dylan. scott olson, a 24-year-old two-tour iraq war veteran, while standing quietly in front of a row of police officers preparing to disperse and occupy oakland gathering was hit in the head by what appeared to be a tear gas canister fired from police lines. olsen remains in the hospital with a skull fracture and impaired speech. hopefully he will have a full recovery. his fellow marines are rall]'g around their brother, semper fie. his fellow iraq veterans are doing the same. the oakland police department are claiming that none of their members fired a projectile at scott olsen. something changed last week. what by most accounts had become a nationwide movement from people of all walks of life turned violent. oakland was not the only city to witness this. government officials in multiple jurisdictions decided it was time to clear out the protesters. i guess, because too much peaceful assembly in one place is a threat to keeping the peace. someone was bound to get hurt. scott olsen has beco

now joining us for an early edition to have the daily rant is david goodfriend., thomas. work. we spend a lot of time talking about it, especially these days. not enough people have work, we know that. the official unemployment rate remains at about 9%, but as this show has discussed in great detail, if you count the people who are working part-time instead of full-time or who are getting paid far below their skill level, the unemployment rate is much higher. work. it defines us. if we're lucky enough to have it. when someone asks, what do you do? they're really asking about your role in society. teacher, firefighter, construction worker, nurse, lawyer, doctor. these aren't just jobs, they're statements about who you are, how you spend most of your waking hours. work. we even glorify the work ethic in sports. who can forget in 1995, when baltimore orioles' third baseman, cal ripkin jr. broke lou gehrig's record of 2,130 consecutive games played. the fanfare that night at camden yards, the celebration. all in honor of a guy who showed up to work every day, every g

. >>> time now for david goodfriend's daily rant. david, take t away. >> thanks, dylan.ek when the congressional super committee failed to come up with $1.2 trillion in budget cuts, deadlocked, and end in failure. after all, republicans have no interest in improving the economy before the election and only seem to start worrying about deficits once they lost the white house. they were never really going to agree to a deal. but as a result of the super failure, we now are on track for some major budget cuts. half of the cuts, $600 billion over ten years, are slated to come out of the defense department's hide. that is significant. our base line defense budget is now roughly two times what it was prior to 9/11. we spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined. former chairman of the joint chiefs, admiral mike mullen said that the biggest threat to our national security wasn't iran, north korea, or china, but the national debt. and yet the defense budget continued merrily long its bloated path from the bush administration, through the obama administration, the l

. >>> we have democratic strategist david goodfriend, and comcast network washington bureau chief robert traynham. newt struck a different tone that many others on the stage were putting out. how important was that moment for him, for newt, as we get so much closer to iowa? >> i think it was important to him. it differentiates him vice president, but the interesting thing, thomas, that rick perry couldn't do was that he talked about it in very compassionate terms, but also talked about it intellectually, which perry did not do a couple debates ago. it's interesting for newt to come out with this position, how forthright he was with it, he didn't mince words and was very, very direct, and the audience response. there weren't a lot of booms or consternation from the audience, so the question will become how about the electorate, how would they respond to this coming up upcoming primaries. >> mitt romney seems to always walk away as the default winner, but people watching? hindsight might think this wasn't one of his best performances. huntsman took advantage of that. >> we haven't done a g

. >> david goodfriend is a democratic strategicist and former white house strategicist.t's nice to have you with us. i know newt gingrich is trying to appeal to conservatives, but could this toxic language backfire? >> i think it could, and i'll tell you why. a lot of us in the democratic party looked at the tea party when it started, and at great risk politically. what proved out is the tea party represented a bonified feeling among american voters. i would say the same thing of the "occupy" movement. if you look at polling well north of 50% of the americans support the notion of taking money out of politics and support the notion of taxing high income earners a little more, support the notion of reducing some of the income inequality. to take this sort of cartoonish picture that newt gingrich is painting as gospel, looks past the fact you have retired police captains and moms and teachers along with young people in those parks, and ignores the fact that this is a bonified sentiment among the american people. that's politically risky, even on the right. >> right. out of

well, now david goodfriend has a daily rant on how money and influence is creating yet another injusticewe americans love sports, but we pay for that love affair through government subsidies that would make most wall street bankers blush. take stadiums, for example. billions of your taxpayer dollars have gone into building stadiums for professional sports teams. tax breaks, professional sports leagues enjoy non-profit tax status. they have their very own anti-trust exemption written into federal law. and the list goes on. with all these government benefits showered on professional sports leagues, you might think that the average american sports fan would get a lot in return, right? wrong. in what has to be the most obnoxious punk fake to the fan, sports leagues actually prevent fans from having access to the games that all of us help to finance. they're called sports blackouts, and they work like this -- if a stadium has not sold out a couple days before the game, the league can tell local broadcasters not the air the game. the problem is, ticket price have said going way up. the average

. >>> well, in the spirit of thanksgiving, here is our friend, david goodfriend on what he's thankfulthanksgiving is right around the corner so i've been working on a list of things i'm thankful for. that most american of holidays, thanksgiving is a time to take off work, join with family and friends, take stock of how much we have to be thankful for, and eat turkey. ah, the turkey. benjamin franklin once wrote to his daughter, i wish the bald eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. he is a bird of bad moral character. he does not get his living honestly. the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of america. he is besides though a little vain and silly, a bird of courage. mr. franklin's study of eagles versus turkeys leads me to the first item on my list of things i'm thankful for this year. i am thankful for all those americans of good moral character who earn their livings honestly, people of courage. this year i want to thank all the public employees. they teach my kids, they police my streets, they put out fire