Page 54 - Abstraction News Today

>> well, its always worthwhile to have somebody whos been at the lowest level of abstraction, have that person at the highest level of abstraction at the top of the food chain because he has an appreciation of what its like at the bottom. except that in the case of the defense secretary, he is not making the kinds of decisions that really have an impact on the lowest level, the bottom of the food chain. having said all that, this would be the first person to serve as an enlisted man in war to be...

For being out there actually defending this country. lets start tonight with former nebraska senator bob kerrey and the atlantics steve clemens. senator, its always an honor to speak with you. the president today said chuck hagel is an american patriot when he announced the nomination of the former senator from your state to head the pentagon. lets take a listen. >> chuck hagel is the leader that our troops deserve. he is an american patriot. he enlisted in the army and volunteered for vietnam. ...

Cuts then. >> bret: speaking of polls, fox news poll out today. federal government is providing too many services. 49%. too few services 20%. right amount, 25%. lot of questions about sending. people are concerned about spending. if you ask them about it, they know pass on things to their kids grand kids, that you cant handle $16.3 trillion in debt. >> unfortunately its abstraction. when you offer people real cuts they generally say no, i dont want them. i want cuts to cut somebody else. let me ...

Were different opinions about whether congressional republicans or president obama would be blamed if there is a recession. >> weve got to get this behind us once and for all. >> i dont want to do it, the president doesnt want to do it, but we need to solve the problem. we cannot allow the reckless position to drive us into a recession, a recession which the republicans will own. >> this does real damage to the economy and to millions of people if going over the cliff. this is not an abstraction...

They are facing a group prepared to fight them. >> but this does real damage to the economy and to millions of people if going over the cliff. this is not an abstraction. you could begin a recession. and senator durbins idea in and the polls support him that the republicans will own this recession will last about one month, because presidents own recessions. presidents own dramatic improvements in things. we live in the obama era. not the john boehner era. >> the other thing, john, is the potent...

To fight them. >> but this does real damage to the economy and to millions of people if going over the cliff. this is not an abstraction. you could begin a recession. and senator durbins idea in and the polls support him that the republicans will own this recession will last about one month, because presidents own recessions. presidents own dramatic improvements in things. we live in the obama era. not the john boehner era. >> the other thing, john, is the potential political blood that could be...

That he can in fact block boehner into collapse, which then leads me to ask the question, so whats the inaugural address going to be like, whats the state of the union going to be like, and whats the budget going to be like? because if they decide that they are going to be able to run over the house republicans for the next two years, youre going to see very dramatic demands that are different than if in fact they are facing a group prepared to fight them. >> but this does real damage to the eco...

Year on record. we had record droughts. were seeing disruption across the planet. its important for people to understand this. we started putting carbon at industrial scale into the atmosphere starting in the industrial revolution. theres already more than 100 years of that in the air. weve already warmed the earths temperature by about 8/10 of a degree. people will look at this and say, well, there were bad storms in the 1930s. indeed, there were. the best way to think about this is to think ab...

Im going to disagree with some conventional wisdom. i dont see a lot of personally aggrieved parties to this remarks. i think there are a lot of -- i just havent talked to people, how dare he say that about me. im not going to vote for him. first of all, i would say about 85, 90% of the country doesnt see themselves as victimized or entitled or whatever the words he used. so i mean i do think there is a level of abstraction in that video he can hide in and actually be protected from. obviously t...

Least not from politicians. its more of an abstraction, not part of the whole. we want to talk about why that is. joining me, we have tonja, founder of lives behind numbers, a blog that tracks poverty in the united states. steven, the author of "the peoples history of poverty in america" an associate professor at columbia university and steve gates, chicago youth programs and john reel, assistant to the director of senior services america inc. tonja, i want to start with you. i was a guest on th...