Where i am and i will read the introduction to a the books then 78 hours after that. [laughter] they did not tell you that . Then we will take some questions at 4 00 in the morning. Im a long as serving independence in congressional history into may say why . That i believe most Political Parties are heavily dominated and making millions of working families dont have the life they should be having with the levels of government and i have chosen to be an independent. The democrats civil least annette and i begin my political career are running for the United States senate on a thirdparty ticket end i received the though back in 1971 iran for the third party with 2 down 01 . [laughter] not the trajectory we were hoping but i may not be very bright but i am persistent came back and ran for the senate again against my now colleague patrick leahy. He wanted and i lost a leg up 4 in the threeway race then two years later iran for governor in elections every two years in vermont and i got 6 percent at that point i took the hint maybe getting elected is not what my life would be about then i started to work on historical film scripts having a pretty good time. Then 1981 people come up and say you should run for office . A number of friends said with looked at the Election Results if you wanted in burlington which is the largest state you cut actually wind so we put together a wonderful coalition of unions and Senior Citizens and women advocates and Police Officers cater on board and on Election Night we won by 14 votes defeating the incumbent that will probably go down in history is a Major Political upset of the vermont history. Then we had recanted i ended up winning by 10 votes. The rest of the democrats and republicans who were not supportive of fact they fired by secretary the first day i took office i had to run the city for the first year with a previous mayors administration. White obama running with the bush administration. Although difficult but one year later we rallied the people and we want a number of seats to have exciting things from 1987 and 1988 my liberal friends think they should not run and on Election Night republicans with 34 percent i have 31 percent democrats got 19 percent. Two years later iran for the state seat and i won by 16 points. After 16 years running for the senate in 2006 when you know, the senator chose not to run for reelection and running again as the wealthiest guys in this state up to that point the most anyone had spent was 2. 5 million but he spent 7 billion. We raised 5 million but we won by of very strong margin in 2012 so that is my political history. So now i will take you and tell you a little bit about the book. I tried to do everything i could with what i believe it was a very bad tax agreement between brock obama and the republican leadership. At a time when they have a trillion dollar national debt, the most uneven distribution of doubt from any country it seems to be totally obscure to provide hundreds of millions to millionaires and billionaires. Furthermore this is a lame by confirming the democratic president , Democratic House the democratic senate, the basic tenet pushes a trickledown theory, disagreement laying the groundwork for more bad decisions in the future. Unfortunately i was absolutely right and with the republican budget of today. Second tax breaks to the rich is only one component of an economic and political system which is grotesquely failing the americans. The middle class of america is collapsing, poverty is increasing and the gap between the wealthiest and everyone else is getting wider. How did this happen, why did it happen, what can we do about it . These are issues that need to be talked about and talked about in a way that is not often hear heard in washington. Over the 20 years ive served in the house and senate, i had examined these issues. Issues too often ignored by my colleagues in congress, from a wide bridie of perspectives. Now with an excellent opportunity to bring them together and make the connection. What does it mean, morally and economically that in 2007 the top 1 earned over 23 of all income in this country, more than the bottom 50 . For the top 1 owns more wealth, than the bottom 90 . Given the enormous political power that goes with his concentration of wealth, in terms of law capabilities, Campaign Contributions and media ownership, is the United States on its way of becoming the darkest form of society. With almost all power resting in the hands of a tiny few. What does it say about our economy and the political choices we make about it on capitol hill. That today, despite all of the huge increases in productivity and technology that we seen in recent recent decades, a two income family now has less disposable income than a one income family did 30 years ago. Why is it americans work the longest hours of any people in the industrial world . What is the correlation between the United States havent by far the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country while we also have more people in jail. Doesnt it make more sense to invest in our kids then in jail and construction. How does it reflect in our political and legal system with the crooks on wall street who cause this horrendous recession now earn more money than they did before their banks were bailed out by the taxpayers. How come none of them are in jail . What does the financial reform bill mean when three out of the top four too big to fail banks in this country, are now larger than they were before the wall street collapse. With assets over half the gdp of this country. What does it mean to the Economic Future of our country that over the last ten years we have lost 22000 factories and millions of good paying manufacturing jobs and it is harder, and harder harder to buy products manufactured in america . How does it happen that ceos of large corporations boast about the outsourcing their production and jobs to china but when hard times hit they come running to u. S. Taxpayers for bailout . And on, and on, and on. Those were some of the themes i want to talk about in my remarks and i want to tie some of the dots together. What does it feel like to day in and talk for a to have hours when you cant leave the floor and eat, or most and partly the question asked of me time again, especially by the media how commute can go cant go to the bathroom how is that . That is my secret, im not not telling. You will never know. [laughter] and you do all this with a National Television camera on you. The answer is, my profound answer is, its hard. Try it sometime. Interestingly enough, the aftereffect hit me a few days later when i found myself very, very tired. During the speech itself my legs began to cramp up a bit and my voice also became horse. When i walked onto the floor i had no idea how long i would stay there, none at all. When i was mayor of burlington in the 1980s, i sometimes gave speeches for longer than an hour, and that was it. When i last three hours, five hours, 20 hours, i really didnt know. What i was clear about in my own mind, however was i wasnt going to in my own mind, however was i wasnt going to read from the phone book, or sing songs, and youll be happy to know i didnt sing any songs just to eat up time. I wanted to speak for as long as i had something relevant to say. While i didnt have a prepared script for this speech, i mostly worked up a previous speeches i have given given or articles i had occasionally written, i would read a few lines and pages and go on from there. Twice, collies came from the floor and engaged in a colloquy, i was grateful for the support of my effort. I also wanted to talk about the book that has contain some repetition, what you want . Want . It was a do have hours. This was not an accident, and giving the speech i was more than aware that most people were not going to listening to it in its entirety. I suspected that people would tune in for one hour and then move on with their lives. I made a point to to keep returning to my basic themes. Was i surprised about the kind of attention the speech receive question mark are kidding, the phones in both the washington offices never stopped ringing, in vermont all of my Staff Members took thousands of calls and emails, the Senate Television whites that crashed because of the huge number of people who wanted to watch the speech live, online and apparently cspan2 had an exceptional day. According to the New York Times my speech was the most tweeted event in the world that day. What do you know, the most tweeted event. Someday i will learn what twitter is all about. [laughter] they were stories, and newspapers around the country and it was covered widely in national media. The number of people signed up its friends on friends on my Facebook Page doubled, and the visits on my website went sky high. Some people claim that obama had an unscheduled impromptu press conference with former president bill clinton who defended the press deal to divert Media Attention away from what i was doing on the senate floor. It turns out clint was in the white house,. Despite my best efforts and hard work of many other members, we lost the vote on the tax deal that a pres. Obama worked out with the republicans, a very bad agreement was signed into law. Did my eight have our speech work . Yesterday, if art this country is going to move forward in a new direction, if were going to save the middle class and save our National Priority we have got to cut through the Corporate Mainstream media and start focusing on the lifeanddeath issues that working families really care about. The very strong response to my speech tells me there is a hunger all over america for a discussion on economic, the counterattack of the freshest assault that are taking place against working families and for a practical plan on how we can reverse these politics to favor the rich over the middle class and dissemination our nation. If our speech helped educate some about these issues, made them aware they are not alone with their concerns, and pointed the way to the future, it was well worth it. Thank you. What i would love to do now, is take any questions or thoughts people may have. We do have microphones you do not have to shout. Yes thank you for everything what is your advice on what congress is going to be doing about. [inaudible] perhaps people dont know what the Citizens United is about, for many years we have had a Disastrous Campaign finance system which nearly favors the people who have a lot of money and corporate interests. Those of us who do not, a year or so ago the Supreme Court passed a disastrous called the Citizens United decision. In their wisdom we found five people in the same room, the only five people in america, who actually believe that a corporation is a person. Five people in america and they all have to be on the same Supreme Court at the same time. Essentially that decision does is says large corporations, that you be in a person, have First Amendment freedom of speech rights, therefore you are able to express your freedom of speech by putting 32nd ads on television, telling the world how horrible Bernie Sanders is or anybody else. By the way, you can do that in secrecy, you dont even have to reveal who you are. You can come up with a phony name, and affording organization. This is a disastrous decision which makes a very bad Campaign Finance situation much worse, we sought in the last election, you will see a lot more of it. Essentially what will happen is a handful of billionaires and very wealthy corporate people will sit around the room and say, okay there putting 10 million in vermont, 20 million california, so this is a small sum of money to win a senate seat or house seats. It is a horrendous decision. What decision. What we have tried to do, on the floor of the house and senate is at least passing legislation that would minimize, minimize the impact of Citizens United. So with legislation that has been brought forth which did not get republican support, if i put an ad on television attacking mike opponent, which ive not done, i would not run a negative ad, i would have to have my name on tv and take responsibility for this ad. So we said fine, if you are a ceo of a corporation who is paying for this ad, get your face up there and say you take responsibility for the sad. We thought this we thought this would discourage a lot of corporations from doing that. Second of all, we wanted to make sure that a chinese company, company and the United States who is owens significantly by chinese interest that they should not be allowed to participate in american politics. Thirdly we wanted to do is say if you utilize that, then your opponent, someone attacked me using that, i would be able to get the cheapest of possible available to respond. Anyhow, we lost those votes. We couldnt get republicans, what. Your question is should we go forward with a constitutional amendment . In general i have to tell you i am am not a great fan of constitutional amendments. People think everybody who has a problem we need a constitutional amendment to solve it, that kind of weakens what our constitution is about which is a good document. On this issue i think we can make the exception to that rule, i do believe that certainly constitutional amendment is one of the options we have that a memo should simply say that a corporation, everyone to everyone shock and surprise is not a person. The last point i would say is we had a town meeting, we have a lot of town meetings of vermont, we had one a few months ago, and ben jerrys, so ben was there and jerry was there and ben was very funny and he said, you know i am ben, i am a person, this is jerry, this is a person, is a person, ben jerrys, not a person. [laughter] so in a nutshell that is about it. The idea that we give corporations First Amendment rights is absurd. I am wondering what would you recommend. [inaudible] Global Warming is a huge issue. It saddens me very much that today in the congress you have a majority of people in the house, almost all republicans, including intelligent people, who are willing to ignore virtually the entire Scientific Community who tells us of global is were real, it is today causing very Serious Problems and those problems are only going to get worse in the future. You have the cia telling us in terms of national security, global warnings which can lead to wars, as people around the world fight for limited resources because of drought, floods, food shortages, you have the cia, the defense department, the Agricultural Department all over the world and yet the anti science feeling on capitol hill is such that we certainly, at this particular political moment are not going to move board on Global Warming. But answer your question, we can, we can talk about education, and healthcare, what are they answers. The main point i want to make is the solution is not going to come inside the beltway, it is going to calm in cities, and towns all over this country where ordinary people begin to stand up and organize, and get out on the street and say enough is enough. I can tell you, without any any fear of contradiction that what goes on in congress is far removed from the reality of the life of ordinary people. That is true whether its in economics, or healthcare, what goes on in health in congress is theres an invisible wall infiltrated by corporate interests that shape the discussion and debate, you have a Corporate Media out there that will talk about everything in the world except issues that are most important to ordinary people. Global warming is a huge issue and right now i dont think theres anyone who thinks there were making series advances for that. What we may be able to do is get some investment in Energy Efficiency and the state of vermont has done a good job in that area. Get some investments in Sustainable Energies like wind, solar, geothermal, and get some investments in Public Transportation. As Public Transportation. As you will notice, for example and just this recent to prevent republicans from shutting down republicans obama obama had to give up on millions of dollars on highspeed rail. So instead of investing in Public Transportation and rail we had to cut back in that, i see it very much that the debate goes forward on the budget, you will see more these cutbacks. To answer your question, and the other question on your mind, we can mind, we can turn this thing around. I believe that we can area there are very few people in america, not located inside the capital who believe that it makes any sense at all to give 1 trillion in in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country, to cut the Corporate Tax rate at a time when many corporations making billions of dollars already paid nothing in taxes and then having given huge tax breaks to people who dont need it. Cut back on infrastructure, cut back cut back on the needs of our children, cut back to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in medicaid, medicare, very few people believe that makes any sense at all. Our job is to cut through a medium which is in many ways discuss this issue and take on big money interests who funds the members of congress, Large Campaign and educate. If we do that we will win this fight. Thank