mark twain in 1902 knew how famous he was so he signed samuel clemmons, mark twain. he didn't want anybody else's name there. he wanted his. so that's the gift that he gave me. and that was so fitting. it fits my office perfectly and it means a lot to me. carl levin brought a handwritten note. i got this at an auction ten years ago not knowing why. it just dawned on me. best new year, carl. that was so nice of him to do that. i just -- it's hard for me to explain my appreciation but i'm trying to do that by outlining here what a wonderful human being carl levin is. what he did for me is an example of who carl levin is, how he thinks of people. he remembered the story that i told him about mark twain, and he said, i'm sure to himself, i got this thing i got ten years ago. i'll just give it to the senator as a friend. so he gave me that plaque just because that's how he is. he's always been attentive to the interests of the people of michigan and our country. he's the longest-serving senator in the history of the state of michigan. 36 years. his legislative accomplishm

mark twain was.ayne clemens -- excuse me, was chosen as territorial secretary of nevada, and he told his younger brother, samuel -- i'm sorry, mr. president -- he told his younger brother come west, and i'll find you a job. he'd been fighting, which he didn't like, in the civil war. so he came west with his brother. but his brother couldn't find him a job. so he bummed around for quite a while, and without belaboring the story too long, the fact is, mr. president, that mark twain finally went up to virginia city which was booming at the time, went to the territorial enterprise newspaper and got a job as a reporter. and he was stunningly good and important. that was his first writing that he had done. and that's where he started his fame. he would have stayed in nevada longer, but someone challenged him to a duel for some of the things he wrote. being the smart man he is, he didn't want the duel. he left town, went to california where he wrote two books, his experiences bumming around nevada until he

mark twain in 1902 knew how famous he was so he signed samuel clemmons, mark twain. he didn't want anybody else's name there. he wanted his. so that's the gift that he gave me. and that was so fitting. it fits my office perfectly and it means a lot to me. carl levin brought a handwritten note. i got this at an auction ten years ago not knowing why. it just dawned on me. best new year, carl. that was so nice of him to do that. i just -- it's hard for me to explain my appreciation but i'm trying to do that by outlining here what a wonderful human being carl levin is. what he did for me is an example of who carl levin is, how he thinks of people. he remembered the story that i told him about mark twain, and he said, i'm sure to himself, i got this thing i got ten years ago. i'll just give it to the senator as a friend. so he gave me that plaque just because that's how he is. he's always been attentive to the interests of the people of michigan and our country. he's the longest-serving senator in the history of the state of michigan. 36 years. his legislative accomplishm

and i want to end by a quote from mark twain. mark twain gives a talk to what he calls the mayflower tribes, the descendants of the mayflower. tongue in cheek as always and magnificent as always, he tells them: you guys deprived me of my ancestors. he begins with the first native american. he goes through quakers, through witches, and he ends with the slaves. and he says these are all my ancestors, for i am an exquisite, many-shaded mongrel. and that is the america i want to live in, the land of exquisite, many-shaded mongrels who, like that little kid named huck finn, decided that he will go with his heart against his deformed conscience, and he would save his friend jim and risk going to hell but doing the right thing. and that is the question i wanted to leave you with: how many of us today would rather go to hell but listen to our heart and do the right thing? thank you so much for your patience and thank you. [applause] >> >> we're very lucky to have charles here today. he is an accomplished young man with to a tight -- tiny

please give me permission, because mark twain has messed with my city for decades now. after his seventh visit to the city of cincinnati, mark twain was asked his impression of the queen city of the u.s. by a young journalist at a paper in louisville. he said son, if i heard the world was ending tomorrow, i would get to cincinnati as fast as i could eat has things happen there 10 years after they happen happenecause things there 10 years after they happen in the rest of the world. thank our note, i panelists for joining us this afternoon. we are going to take a five minute break. be back in your chair is at 4:00 for our latest and second panel. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> our q&a program is 10 years old now, and to mark a decade of compelling conversations, we are featuring one interview from each year of the series over this holiday season. the president of the university of houston on the role of colle

when mark twain writes "the gilded age" that's what he's talking about, crony capitalism, the kind thate are all too familiar with in our own times. it was also known for extreme inequality. great gulfs in the wealth. >> people at the bottom were paying the price for it. >> the people were paying the price. it wasn't nearly that poverty live alongside great wealth. it's that poverty was being created by great wealth. and that was a stunning shock to people living back then and caused them to rise up in rebellion. something that also distinguishes our second gilded age from our first. we have the same inequality. even more severe measures of inequality today and have had for the last 30 years. we do not have that enormous resistance to that -- to that social fact of life. that we had during the first gilded age. >> all right. why? >> i think one of the reasons is that people lival -- living in 1890, for them industrial capitalism and the technological revolution the market was new. it was shocking and it was disrupting all kinds of traditional ways of life. in fact, threatening to put th

>> mark twain and auster wilde. -- had janet yellen again would dollar still be trading at 116 and theuro dollar would be 124. she goes out of her way to talk about the strength in the labor oil.t and looking past and theybout the dots are much higher. there is a moving up to raise interest rates and she was specific. they said they would not close the door unless the economy was stronger than expected. andets are thinking june april. >> let's talk about inflation. what the statement gives, the press conference takes away. this is janet yellen and inflation is heading towards 1%. .hey could hike interest rates was that your takeaway? >> they would want core inflation to be 1.5. andgs like airplane tickets those are affected by oil and iron ore. what janet yellen was saying inflation,s using , youyou get a supply shop do not focus on the demand side. so, she was saying and the fed they do not see the lift off. >> let's talk about the lift off and the timing. she said, they may raise rates. after october, you know what that takes us to? she says it could be after the next couple of meeti

. >> please give me permission, because mark twain has messed with my city for decade now. after his seventh visit to the city of cincinnati, mark twain was asked whether or not his impression of the queen city's of the midwest was. by a young yournlist. he said son if i heard the world was ending tomorrow, i would get to cincinnati as fast as i could because things happen there ten years after they happen in the rest of the world. >> so on that note we thinchinge our panel for joining us this afternoon. [applause] thank you. wear going to take a 5-minute breek. so be back in your chairs at 4:00. we'll get ready for our second panel. >> on the next "washington journal" columnist terry jeffery talks about what he would like to see accomplished from the republican-led 114th congress. then clarence page talks about his book, culture warrior. "washington journal" is live every morning at 7:00 eastern and you can join the onversation. >> tonight book tv and prime time features books by african merican leaders. that's at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2. tonight, a conversation with

thrown open its pages to some of the most ferociously independent voices in american letters, from mark twain, jack london and herman melville to william styron, joyce carol oates and david foster wallace. as the president and publisher of "harper's" for the last 31 years,john r. "rick" macarthur has been as ferocious a champion of democracy and journalism as any of those illustrious bylines that have appeared in its pages. i've never known him to pull his punches, whether he's writing in harper's, or in his newspaper columns, or in such books as "the selling of free trade," an expose of bipartisan collusion to enact nafta, the north american free trade agreement, and this one, "the outrageous barriers to democracy in america." macarthur's fierce arrows of outrage are aimed at both political parties, but recently he's been especially incensed by democrats for abandoning their progressive roots to serve wall street, k street, and crony capitalists. rick macarthur, welcome. >> thank you for having me, bill. >> you have opposed these so-called free trade agreements for as long as i have known yo

please give me permission, because mark twain has messed with my city for decades now. after his seventh visit to the city of cincinnati, mark twain was asked his impression of the queen city of the u.s. by a young journalist at a paper in louisville. he said son, if i heard the world was ending tomorrow, i would get to cincinnati as fast as i could as things happen there 10 years after they happen in the rest of the world. >> on that note, i thank our panelists for joining us this afternoon. we are going to take a five minute break. be back in your chair is at 4:00 for our latest and second panel. national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> >> on september 23, i reached john mitchell, president nixon's former campaign manager, by phone about a story we were running that said he controlled a secret fund for undercover operations such as water gate. mitchell was quite upset reasponding jeessuff, several times as i read him the story. he then proceeded to discl

thrown open its pages to some of the most ferociously independent voices in american letters, from mark twain, jack london and herman melville to william styron, joyce carol oates and david foster wallace. as the president and publisher of "harper's" for the last 31 years,john r. "rick" macarthur has been as ferocious a champion of democracy and journalism as any of those illustrious bylines that have appeared in its pages. i've never known him to pull his punches, whether he's writing in harper's, or in his newspaper columns, or in such books as "the selling of free trade," an expose of bipartisan collusion to enact nafta, the north american free trade agreement, and this one, "the outrageous barriers to democracy in america." macarthur's fierce arrows of outrage are aimed at both political parties, but recently he's been especially incensed by democrats for abandoning their progressive roots to serve wall street, k street, and crony capitalists. rick macarthur, welcome. >> thank you for having me, bill. >> you have opposed these so-called free trade agreements for as long as i have known yo

there are lies, dang lie s and statistics by mark twain and has statistics. some are straightforward and not misleading. what do they say? the statistics say it's an amazing weekend for online shopping. take general advisors, while the stock is a huge bumper, we're fond of the work they do in analyzing the e commerce numbers what does what does channel advisor tell us? in internet research by figures by the internet media, victor anthony, we learned that quote online sales up 23% year over year from thanksgiving day through cyber saturday. that doesn't sound like that much of a decline or how about this? amazon up an average of 32% and that's before factoring into today's sicyber monday. i got a good fuel for what they do but if you want another source, com score. not as good i think as ecom but the national retail federation, definitely. com score, the chief of online numbers says e commerce spending rose 32% on thanksgiving day to 1.01 billion, huge gain. how about black friday up 26% to 1.5 billion. i say fabulous. now offline, mall based shopping. come on

and in 1867, it was mark twain who handed the letter from the american people to alexander 2 and thees so much to russia and is indebted to him for so many ways that to forfeit that friendship would be an unjust act and would be a treason. so i believe in the current what weks peerns in the media as well, president obama and a certain part of the politic are committing treason to that spirit of friendship. >> i think you lost me with the civil war. >> i think i get the point that you're making. but what i'm wondering about, if this dmik turmoil continues for much longer in russia, and it looks like it will do, you don't believe it will be the president that gets blamed for it, you believe it will be the west? >> i'm not talking about the conspiracy, i'm talking about the geopolitics. no conspiracy here. there is no turmoil. look at the streets, yes, there was a certain discomfort among the people who brought bags of cash, et cetera, and so on. and i wouldn't call it turmoil. i would compare it to people queuing up for an iphone. certain parts of the population gets panicky. look at h

get humor from, as well as being educated, i don't think we've had something like this since mark twainlle, a cameo from even former president clinton. >> i love it. i love the colbert report. love stephen colbert. he was the fancy shmancy cliff notes of politics. it was a great send-off. no one can ever underestimate the impact that he's had in terms of mixing pop culture and politics and making politics something where we don't feel alone. >> well, i've got to leave it there, liz, josh, and michelle. thank you all for your time tonight. have a great weekend. >>> we'll be right back with america solving problems. [ narrator ] mama sherman and the legion of super fans. wow! [ narrator ] on a mission to get richard to his campbell's chunky soup. it's new chunky beer-n-cheese with beef and bacon soup. i love it. and mama loves you. ♪ [ inhales deeply ] [ sighs ] [ inhales ] [ male announcer ] at cvs health, we took a deep breath... [ inhales, exhales ] [ male announcer ] and made the decision to quit selling cigarettes in our cvs pharmacies. now we invite smokers to quit, too, with our co

mark twain said -- and i quote -- "the proper office of a friend is to side with you when you're in the wrong. nearly everybody will side with you when you're in the right." with no apologies to mark twain, if these eternal agreements were the price of friendship we'd all have fewer friends. friendship can transcend policy preferences, as mark's and i do. we agree on most everything. there are a few things we don't agree on politically but that doesn't matter. it doesn't matter because he's my friend and he's a friend of my wife landra. mr. president, it is no secret there are many people, the republican leader and his wife reached out to console me and landra during our terrible accident and then with the cancer that was ravaging her body. but she pulled through that. but one reason she did, i'm convinced, is mark pryor. mark pryor who had almost died from cancer called my wife often, often, texted her often to tell her you're going to be okay, don't be afraid. my wife loves mark pryor. we were talking about the elections not long ago and i said i've never prayed to win an election, an

as mark twain once said, history does not repeat itself. but it does rhyme.orget the past, we may repeat it. that is one of the many reasons why this war is important. the biggest outcome of the civil war was the abolition of slavery. our multiethnic cultures are an expression of how we have changed. we are more tolerant, more integrated, and more varied in our demographics and culture. in fact, in 1913, the anniversary of gettysburg, african-american veterans were -- today, we embrace and celebrate our differences. furthermore, no other conflict has so profoundly changed our society. the political and social impacts were immense and shaped america. for example, the 13th amendment, slavery was banned. 14th amendment, citizenship for all born in the united states. 15th amendment, voting rights for all citizens regardless of race. the 1862 homestead act was passed. women's rights gained momentum's and jim crow's laws were passed. the civil war also set the stage for modern medicine, providing thousands of physicians with a vast training ground. what we take for

and his kennedy center mark twain prize ceremony airs on pbs november 23rd.university at the till center. >> that's all the time we have. thank you. goodnight everybody. >> jimmy: no, no, no. sorry. [ laughter ] you didn't want me to do any of that stuff, but i wanted to do it any way. >> well thank you. >> jimmy: i wanted to give you a plug. >> well thank you. i appreciate that. >> jimmy: thank you for being a -- how am i doing? [ laughter ] >> um, boy, it's that crisp, autumn new york weather. [ laughter ] go outside, get in your lungs. >> jimmy: talking about something else? >> yeah, i mean, you really, yeah, you get it in your lungs and you really feel invigorated. >> jimmy: but thank you for coming on -- >> thanks for having me. >> jimmy: and doing this. i know we -- >> and thanks for calling me over on my first shot. that's amazing. >> jimmy: i think you have a really big career ahead of you. >> why thank you. [ laughter ] >> jimmy: i really do. i think you have a really -- i saw something there. yeah. but you remember that moment, you called the -- did

about electronic books because children who can't afford books can download thousands of dickens, twain, hugo, all those things, on to their little twices and read them and not have to pay for them and not have to murder millions. it goes both ways. >> they can go to the library, too. just saying. >> when you live in the hood, there's many other issues that come up that don't come up in other places. >> the thing about murdering trees, though, i live in maine, and there's so many trees there. [laughter] >> trees to spare up there. >> when you stop cutting down the trees and making paper with them, they're closing big paper manufacturing places. when you cut down the trees, when you stop cutting down the trees and making paper, then what happens is little condominiums sprout up. those are the real kind of enemies of -- those are the real engines of straw. so you have to keep buying things on paper in order to save the forest. [laughter] >> all the political issues involved in ebooks versus print books you didn't think of. walter, this is a bit of a cheat because i already know your answe

hank stuver, the washington post today put him up there with mark twain and will rogers, i can do noetter than that, anyone? satire closes on saturday night meaning a good show lasts no more than a week. well, steven colbert lasted almost 500 weeks. nine years he's been on the air playing that stubborn, uninformed right winger who is so uninformed he helps the rest of us get it right. i remember him being truly mean in a business of killing audiences where saying you had a good night in comedy. he made us happy, always happy. the dunce he was playing was so hilariously out of it. i thank mr. colbert for being so good, so good foe us, so good if i'm not being too pop pass here, for our country. soon, we will learn who the real steven colbert is when he takes over for david letterman. i think we're going to like this guy. a lot. that's "hardball" for now, "all in" starts right nou. >> tonight on "all-in."

>> i think it's like mark twain said, the rumors of sony's demise are greatly exaggerated.re a great company. they do a lot of great work. i have got a movie in the theaters with them now. we're glad to work with them again. we've got a project, a fantasy movie called "fire and ice." i don't think we're going to offend anyone unless you're an evil ice wiss azard, i think we safe there. but more seriously, the liability issue is a more specious one. the boston marathon was bombed and ran again. office buildings were bombed on 9/11 and i go into an office building every day. airlines were taken down. reasonable measures were taken to ensure the safety of the american people. i would never not focus on the safety of the public, but we can't cower every time some third generation die gnat tick dictator of a to thorring totalitarian regime makes an empty threat. the think the fact is it shows the strength of america. the fact that this government is so preoccupied with the efforts of seth rogen and james franco who i hope don't end up rooming with salman rushdie, but we've got t

there were people that might say twain is my opinion and i don't vote on any award.ael reid has done as much to elevate the ceiling of american letters as anybody in this country. [applause] and i know him through cruncher were mumbo-jumbo. broke down, freelance, a long, long history of the an individual and not being to anyone's win. i will read the poem. but who speaks. i was very close. i followed them in 1960. i talk about every night now. this particular blues being in 1936. i followed him and about 25 years ago, a crew from france did a film and the french -- 1000 times more sophisticated than americans when it comes to conscience because they wanted to do to them than they thought i was writing the poem and immediately someone translated. you know, i would read and then someone would read it in french. and at that point, i gave willie kent the book and said willey, this is the book that i did about you. he said i didn't know you were writing about me. i told him that all he needed to know is that he was singing the blues and singing the blues while. now, i am

mark twain was asked what husband city of the midwest was. and low wist bill. >> he said i would get to cincinnati as lock as i could. i'd be happy like the rest of the world. [laughter] >> conservative. -- thank now on for you for joining our panel. >> this week's renewable energy summit. first we'll hear from lester brown. aauthor of 4r7850 books including great transition shifting from fossil fuel to wind and solar energy. then a crferings circumstances. bob irvin who says there is a fresh water crisis in the u.s. nd around the world. then she will look into the impact of large scale farming. >> the energy summit was held in aspect, colorado earlier this year. up next, two keynote speeches. you'll here fromlesor brown. and the great transition. mu had been grumpy. but wind and solar energy. the i. will go unextinct. [applause] >> thank you, chip. thank you for organizing our day and thanks for the invitation to come back again. my topic as i recall is the great transition, the great transition is a shift from coal and oil to solar and wind

in fact, so a lot of the centrifuges appeared to have been destroyed around the i would of twain -- the end of 2009, 2010. within six months they had recovered from that, previously they had only 164 centrifuges in a cascade -- sort of a configuration of multiple centrifuges -- and they increased the number of those, they increased the number of gas, and ultimately, they didn't come out too far behind what they would have been heading anyway had they stayed on track. but i should point out, though, that iran's uranium enrichment plan was set back by many things. they started in early 2006-2007, and it took, you know, from 2007 to 2010 for them to really get up to speed. and that was because there were other sabotage going on, there were also sanctions, diplomatic efforts to halt the program. there were sort of multi-pronged approaches to try and slow down the program. >> host: what was it like to try to research this? >> guest: it was a pretty complicated book to write. i was trying to do multiple tracks. so i had the uranium enrichment program that i needed to look at, iran's nuclear h

please give me permission, because mark twain has messed with my city for decades now. after his seventh visit to the city of cincinnati, mark twain was asked his impression of the queen city of the u.s. by a young journalist at a paper in louisville. he said son, if i heard the world was ending tomorrow, i would get to cincinnati as fast as i could eat has things happen there 10 years after they happen it -- because things happen there 10 years after they happen in the rest of the world. >> on that note, i thank our panelists for joining us this afternoon. we are going to take a five minute break. be back in your chair is at 4:00 for our latest and second panel. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> the new congress will see the largest majority with 247 republicans to 188 democrats. and the u.s. senate -- 45 african-americans will serve in the house of a zen it is come january. two of them, republicans, texas an

samuel clemons wasn't that mark twain was. clemons was chosen as a territorial secretary of nevada and he told his younger brother samuel, sorry mr. president. he told his younger brother, come rest and i will find you a job. he came west with his brother but his brother couldn't find him a job so he bummed around for quite a while and without belaboring the story too long the fact is mr. president that mark twain finally went to virginia city which was booming at the time, went to the territorial enterprise newspaper and got a job as a reporter. that was his first writing he had done. that is where he started his fame. he would have stayed longer but someone challenged him to a dual for some of the things he wrote so being the smart man he is he didn't didn't want the duel. he left town and went to california where he wrote two best-selling books which were his experiences bumming around nevada until he found a job. these were bestsellers. these were great books. so the point of the story though, he went to virginia city as s

and i want to end by a quote from mark twain. mark twain gives a talk to what he calls the mayflower tribes, the descendants of the mayflower. tongue in cheek as always and magnificent as always, he tells them: you guys deprived me of my ancestors. he begins with the first native american. he goes through quakers, through witches, and he ends with the slaves. and he says these are all my ancestors, for i am an exquisite, many-shaded mongrel. and that is the america i want to live in, the land of exquisite, many-shaded mongrels who, like that little kid named huck finn, decided that he will go with his heart against his deformed conscience, and he would save his friend jim and risk going to hell but doing the right thing. and that is the question i wanted to leave you with: how many of us today would rather go to hell but listen to our heart and do the right thing? thank you so much for your patience and thank you. [applause]

and i want to end by a quote from mark twain. mark twain gives a talk to what he calls the mayflower tribes, the descendants of the mayflower. tongue in cheek as always and magnificent as always, he tells them: you guys deprived me of my ancestors. he begins with the first native american. he goes through quakers, through witches, and he ends with the slaves. and he says these are all my ancestors, for i am an exquisite, many-shaded mongrel. and that is the america i want to live in, the land of exquisite, many-shaded mongrels who, like that little kid named huck finn, decided that he will go with his heart against his deformed conscience, and he would save his friend jim and risk going to hell but doing the right thing. and that is the question i wanted to leave you with: how many of us today would rather go to hell but listen to our heart and do the right thing? thank you so much for your patience and thank you. [appla