Transcripts For MSNBC MSNBC Live 20110526 : vimarsana.com

a crush on justin bieber. that was fun. i ve got to hear that again. oy. when you re further right wing than cheney, you might be too right wing. everybody is claiming medicare didn t lose him that election. the fact is we didn t win. and part of the dr the small part of the reason we didn t win clearly had to do with medicare. we ve outlined a plan that frankly we believe in. i love the way he starts. yeah, we already knew you didn t win, and then he says medicare is a small part of the reason we didn t win. really? you want to go down that road, have at it, hoss. what do you say to maybe these weak-kneed. it s not the time to go wobbly. they re going to run the attack ads regardless, this is a time for leaders to be leaders. it looks like republicanser deluding themselves into thinking what s wrong is the sales pitch, but not what they re actually selling. listen to oklahoma trent cole. he says, if we just stay with our argument and do a better job developing it, we ll be fine, just fine. allen west says we need to be stronger in marketing who we are and oust message. and karl rove himself says, republicans need a political war college that schools incumbents and challengers in the best way to explain, defend and attack on the issue of medicare. i thought they had that. i thought it was called fox news channel. hey, anyway, republicans are all right, don t worry about that cliff. you ll be fine, just a little further now. no you have to give the republicans on one thing. they do stand their ground. so will the republicans be able to swing public opinion with enough ads bought by millionaires by the time we have the elections in 2012? or will they find themselves over that cliff he seem itching to walk off of the let s discussing. jim mcdermott, a democrat from the great state of washington, serves on the ways and means committee, and a proud member of the progressive caucus. welcome. hi, cenk. how are you? i m awesome. are you happy with that or not? i hope they stick with it. it s a losing plan. they knew it. ryan had polling before he went on the floor with it, and he went with it anyway. they simply thought they won the last election in 2010 on the basis of jobs and then pivoted, and set it s different. it simply is bad politics. here s what i m concerned about. honestly i would rather have them run for the hills. i no five republican voted no. i care about the policy more than anything else, but if they double down, is there any concern they might actually be able to swing public opinion? the american people have figured it out and decided that the republicans wants to get rid of medicare as we floe it, and give a voucher out to people. and that s not good. there s nothing he can do with advertising that will change the american perception of that. the americans have made up their minds on this. that s what new york 26 showed. people in a republican district said, this is crazy, we don t want these guys in here. congressman, of course, the key is for people to fight back. kathy hochlun did a great job and that s why she won the election. and some are concerned, including me, that the white house is going to do a deal where they say they re going to reform medicare. what will the draw the line on? what will you say, if you move up the age we get medicare, i m out? where do you drew those lines, congressman? there are two ways to deal with medicare. ryan s response is put the cost on grandma and whatever else she needs has to come out of her pocket. my review of reform is you have to start looking at drug companies and at pharmaceutical companies and medical prices, hospital prices, you have to start looking at the ways you control costs inside the program. it considerable done. so they re trying to say, you have to get medicare at a higher age, are you going to draw the line on that? absolutely i m opposed to that. the problem is now it ought to be 60. people are being laid off from jobs, they can t find jobs. you have more long-term unemployed than you ve ever had in our history. those people are desperate to have the security. so i think medicare should come down rather than push it up. jim mcdermott, always happy to have you on. see you again. all right. let s bring in a pair of old battleactions. bill press and pat buchanan. do you mind that? experienced. experienced battleaxes. that s cool, though, that s fun. i would like to be a battle-ax. i want to start with you tonight. they can t believe that, right? think medicare was probably the primary reason why they lost that district up there, which is a heavy republican district, but i will say this, they are showing some courage and grit not running away from their principl principles while they have suffered a defeat, i think bill clinton is why on this. he said simply because ryan s plan might not be the right one, we have to do something about medicare. because they re going to take us down to where this country may have to default. if we do in the maybe 2 to 6 years and obama is in the wheelhouse, he is herbert hoover and they have forgotten paul ryan. it didn t take bill clinton to say that. part of the health care reform plan reformed the way medicare is delivered in a way you don t have so much repetition and procedures, which according to the congressional budget office will pay $200 billion. this is classic political overreached. they get in office. there s that air gan of power. think ignore the polls, they re determined, they think they re right. they go and simply overreach. i think it s like political jonestown. you have to be all right, let s look, this could be the end. i mean, if you look at what happened to the 26th district, pat cenk, if you re if you re not concerned about that, i m surprised by that. look. they ve lost a district, no doubt about it. they have a problem with this issue, but let me tell you, the united states of america has a hellish problem. we have a different sit for the third year in a row, the being o s budget went up there, voted down if you don t address this, then this country goes down, it s the man in the white house that s accountable. joe biden is reading a group to look at responsible ways, here s the problem. these phony republicans, they talk fiscal responsibility, yes statement they want to continue the subsidies to the wealthiest of americans. that s a total contradiction. no question you can t have it both ways. no question about it. we ve had that oil subsidy discussion before. i know where you stand, pat, but let s stay on medicare, and i want to see if we can get any kind of agreements. pat, you tell me if you re willing to go in that direction at all. bill, you go first. well, look, having worked in the health care thing last year, there are enormous waste of money in medicare the way it s delivered, the duplication of docs, the duplication of procedur procedures. do it, we talk about we don t do it, and built into the health care law is this panel that republicans want to get rid of, if they see too much overbilling, they can move in on a metropolitan or doc and do it. here s what i would do. i was with ronald reagan. they put together the social security commission. i didn t like the results of it, but clearly you had to give some here. age will have to go up, benefits have will to be peared back, then both parties have to be behind the thing and they ve got to come forward. it lends itself to democrat gogry let me tell you this look, when it came out, i said if i were a presidential candidate, i would say ryan clearly has shown courage, he s worked on this thing, you ought to respect him, but i would not embrace it as a presidential candidate, you have 18 months to a campaign and you don t lock yourself into a fixed position when you re an outsider, because the party in power does that. there s one other real iity e political dynamic has changed dramatically. the house is now in play. this is a battleground. are you up or down? let me tell you what s wrong with the analysis, bill. it s not going to be the issue for this reason. yes, it is. it s already an issue. no, it isn t, cenk. they re all going to be asked about it. let s show you tim pawlenty first. it s a year and a half to two years between the election. here s what will happen. they ll change in medicare, and that would be superseded, ryan. you are you are smoking, you are dreaming. guy also, hold on. tinchts let s see this and go to the clip and then get your reaction. we ll have our own plan with many similarities, but it will have some differences. the medicare part of our plan will have some differences, too. if i can t have my own plan and the bill came to my desk and i had to choose between signs or 23409, of course i would sign it. they all get asked, put on the record, but as pat said, there will be a different plan probably by the time the election rolls around. does this hurt them? or do they get beyond it, because at some point the white house makes a deal? first of all, i deny the premise. what makes you they they re going to get a plan done in the next 12 months. this will be the issue. it was the issue in and every candidate will have to answer that. you ve heard bill. let me tell you, if barack obama, president of the united states, does not get some kind of deal which involves the big items, medicare, defense, all those things barack obama will be alone responsible nice try, pat. so here we go, cenk, you can t defend paul ryan, so you attack barack obama. that s what they ve got doing. it doesn t work. you now you re going to agree that part of that package should be revenue increases. cenk, you re exactly right. the republicans are burned on this thing. you watch them back off any kind of deal as well. if there s no deal, who s on the ballot. it ain t paul ryan. but it could be tim pawlenty. i think we heard pat agree to getting rid of the tax cuts for the wealthy, didn t we? it seemed like it. and, cenk, half of all americans don t pay any income taxes, take a look at them for a change. bhil press and pat buchanan, thank you both. great as always. now when we come back, speaker boehner releases his new jobs plan and asks, where are the jobs? wait a minute, haven t we seen that exact speech before? and his bold new proposal, tax cuts. oh, come on, man. it s been 141 days since the gop took the house. you know how many theech introduced so far? we re going to tell you in a little bit. a major blow to governor walker. why did a judge rule hi antiunion law was illegal? updates on the republicans getting recalled. it s about to get a lot of fun over there in wisconsin. and more clues that sarah palin is actually getting into the race. get the bus ready, here she is comes. where is she going? we ll try to figure that out. 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[ male announcer ] new chips ahoy! chewy gooeys filled to perfection with delicious creamy fudge; every cookie is crammed with joy! a picture is worth 1,000 words. i give you this one. it shows a bus, a bus with a big constitution on it, one that sarah palin has never read. you can see one nation is spelled out in big letters, so that she can read it. sarah palin is about to go on tour on this bad boy, but where is she going? we ll try to tell you. stay with us. we created the electricity that powered the alarm clocks and brewed the coffee. we heated the bathwater and gave kelly a cleaner ride to school. cooked the cube steaks and steamed the veggies. entertained dad, and mom, and a neighbor or two. kept watch on the house when they slept. and tomorrow we could do even more. wee cleaner, domestic, abundant and ready now. we re america s natural gas. the smarter power today. learn more at anga.us. democrats just mauled republicans in the last congressional election on the issue of medicare. they have this great whipping stick to use in 2012, right? they re hurt, dawg, so what are the democrats going to do? they might be poised do what this they do best, snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. today joe biden resumed talks aimed at reaching a budget deal before a potential default, and he tales talking about over a trillion in cuts, but other democratic leaders have said medicare is on the table in these negotiations. does that make sense? i m not so sure. why would you do that? you have them on the ropes. why would you let them off? a lot of democrats say it s okay, because this would be medicare reform, not medicare cuts. now, is that a real distinction? and what does it mean? let s try to figure that out together. a guy who will help me do that could be a guy to shed light on it, jared bernstein, now a senior fellow at the center on budget and policy priorities. thanks so much for joining us. my pleasure, cenk. you see that vice president biden said we have a lot of big-ticket items. others have said it as well. first, is that a good idea, to put medicare on the table here? i m not in the room anymore, but the way i hear that, i know the way joe biden thinks about medicare, and how president obama thinks, as a key health care security issue for older persons, and the idea that you would take that guaranteed benefit away, replace it with a and you will not see in that the negotiation. i know, but that s easy. that s easy, right? i want to get into the details that are hard. i know they re not going to say we re taking away guarantee benefits. that s simple, right? but when you get into the specifics, they say they want to cut waste and fraud. that s also easy. they say they want to negotiate with drug companies. let s pause there for a second. i thought the obama health care bill did not allow us to negotiate with drug companies. where is that coming from? look, one thing they ll be sitting down and talking about is new way toss control costs in health care spending across the board, and i think that s precisely the distinct you want to make here. there s no doubt, cenk, and you know this as well as i do, that health care spending and it s worse in the private sector, is on an unsustainable course. what these negotiators need to do is preserve the guaranteed benefit, and in a balanced way get under the hood no, no, no, jared if they can shift to generic drugs under medicare, that s probably $100 billion in savings. that s what i m talking about. if that s medicaid reform, i m in, that s lovely. can we even do that? isn t that part of the bill we re not allowed to negotiate? there has to be new legislation that allows for that kind of negotiation. believe me, there are new ideas that can amplify some of these savings without affecting the experience that i think seniors have on medicare of this very favorable guaranteed benefit program. all right, look, if you open that issue back up, i think that s terrific. is there any chance the democrats will agree to the last two? on medicare, yes, i don t think so again, i m not in the room, but those are precisely the kinds of service delivery benefits that the democrats want to preserve. it s the key distinction between, as you well know, where the republicans want to take this and look, the republican thing is a big risk shift from government onto the backs of seniors, and the democrats are going to do everything they can to present that shift. at the same time they have to implement reform that gets the cost on a sustainable path. there are ways to do that that improve the cost-effectiveness of medicare and not hurt the consumer side. jared, last thing then, you re saying no actual costs star you know and suspect, not raising the eligibility age. is there anything else that would be on the table in terms of medicare for the democrats? so folks not wasting their money on treatments that don t do anything, in fact may be more harmful than good. that s the kind of reforms we need and what i believe the democrats will go after. jared bernstein, thank you so much for joining us. former chief economist for vice president biden. great pleasure having you on. thank you. now, when we come back, governor scott walker gets rejected today. that s fun. republican governors high hassic and christie are newt gingrich said he lived fryingally, and that story became a bigger and more important. it has a twist. we ll explain that. 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[ male announcer ] in 2011, at&t is at work, building up our wireless network all across america. we re adding new cell sites. increasing network capacity, and investing billions of dollars to improve your wireless network experience. from a single phone call to the most advanced data download, we re covering more people in more places than ever before in an effort to give you the best network possible. at&t. rethink possible. and now for our con job of the day, we ve got a great example of republicans pretending to speak for the people, while actually doing the bidding of the rich. you re going to love this one. last year former minnesota senator norm coleman helped found a right-wing think tank. they claimed to be a grass-roots group whose primary roles is to put center-right ideas into acby engaging the hearts and minds of the american people. great roots, democratic participation, the american people, that all sounds pretty good, right? the american people voicing their opinions, of course, would be terrific. you know how many people contributed to american action network? 11. not 11,000, not 1100, just 11. you know how much they gave, though? $2.75 million. will you look at that. it turns out those 11 folks were really witch. who could have seen that coming? the group got two checks for a million. the smallest donation it received was for $25,000. now, what do you think? is that grass-roots support for republican ideas? or is that rich people just buying our elections? what was the result of all that money? they bought, as like these, to attack democrats who actually cared about the middle class. how can you tell the taxpayers this we re not so tough to spot. he scrip us with the wasteful stimulus. and congressman is wall paper washington with our tax money. washington insider jack causie. he graduated from the obama/pelosi team that gave us the wasteful stimulus. you get a sense from all that? the theme is, whatever you do, more tax cuts and not spending on the middle class. no, we don t want that. who spent all that money to make sure republicans win? it turns out we have no idea, because of new laws, the american action network isn t required to disclose that at all, which is pretty convenient. the group s president claims more donors contributed after the start-up, but of course he wouldn t say how many or how much they gave. sure, we had plenty of variety. the third koch brother came in and gave us money, and another koch sister. isn t that grassroots? for the record, we don t know if this was the one group the koch brothers did not give money to. they claim to be supported by average americans, while getting on 11 chex from wealthy donors is our con job of the day. that s why we ve partnered with rebuilding together to help revitalize communities in need. vote for your community at maxwellhouse.com. each day was fueled by thorough preparation for events to come. well somewhere along the way, emily went right on living. but you see, with the help of her raymond james financial advisor, she had planned for every eventuality. which meant she continued to have the means to live on. even at the ripe old age of 187. life well planned. see what a raymond james advisor can do for you. welcome back to the show, everybody. joining me now is our power panel. i enjoy it every time. ryan grimm, josh trevino, he is a conservative. i don t know how he got onto the power panel and lidda borders. she s also former president of the atlanta city council. first question for the power panel is sarah palin, is she for real? there are new signs she s inclined to run palin s political action committee announced she will launch a one nation bus tour of historic sites on sunday. good, she might learn something. what better way to kick off a tour at the rolling thunder motorcycle rally. it reminds me of when i was a kid, rolling, rolling, rolling thunder. this comes on top of a new poll that shows her in second place among the gop candidates. here she comes. wow, let me start with you, josh, what do you think? is she for real? is she a real candidate? yes, i actually think she s going to run, and this is part of the buildup. rolling thunder is not a about choice for her, and so i think this is preparatory to a presidential run on her part. all right. we do know that, but josh, you ve got to tell us, are you in or out? do you like her as a candidate? i think there are other candidates that i would probably consider before sarah palin. what do you think, ryan, does chef a solid chance? she s at 15%, number two right now. if the question is, is she a real candidate in terms the might she run? sure, she might run. she can hop on a bus and drive it up and down the east coast, she ll sell books, whatever merchandise she has on her site, she ll keep her name out there. sarah palin inc. rolls on, but can she get to the white house? no, quite simply she s not. too many people dislike her too strong her. the numbers don t add up. in terms of being a real candidate in terms of actually being able to win, forget about it. now, before we get to you, will is lisa, i want to show a clip from the new documentary. she s rolling all this stuff out. let s watch a piece of it. for the 22nd time exxon mobil had submitted its plan to begin drilling, but still had not drilled. where i come from, your word is supposed to be good, but at least if your name is on a sheet of paper it has to be good. the state said drill it or lose it, exxon challenged the state decided rather to litigate than continue to allow them to delay development. i know this is supposed to show her as a hero, but they re talking about when she increased the royalty for the alaskan people and actually nearly doubled the amount of money that the oil companies have to pay. doesn t that make her progressive? is her big selling point she s a huge progressive? if you want to sell her as a progressive, i wish you godspeed for that. cenk, we have no idea what sarah palin is going to do. it s much too early to tell. but more importantly, the american people are really interested in more than just a personality. we are interested in having people be pragmatic problem-solvers. we had need to do what we would do for anyone looking for job. so from a no labels perspective, we want to see people who are interested in working together and getting the job done, true public servants who will be focused on the people ace business and the country s business. i m getting a sense she went over thr 0 for 3. how much is tiffany s really going to cost gingrich? the washington examiner reports that christy evans, formerly a top staffer is a registered lobbyist for tiffany s, the high-end jewelers, where they enjoy an extraordinary line of credit. a wonderful coincidence for them. josh, in the beginning i thought this was not a big deal, the guy is rich, he bought a lot of jewelry, but it looks like there s a lobbyist involved and at the plif gotten a sweetheart deal. is that a real problem? as long as you and everybody else continues to say might have it s not a problem. i think this is a blip in the radar farce newt and his campaign go. is it a real problem? not right now. i think it s an interesting discussion, but with all due respect to tiffany s, and god knows i love everything that comes in that blue box, most americans are not interested in focusing on jewelry. what we re focused on is jobs. people are concerned about their families and how they ll pay for their mortgage and cars and milk and bread and diapers. and cenk, as long as we re talking about this, he s in trouble. even if you say he might have gotten a sweetheart deal, we re still talking about him having an extraordinary line of credit at a tiffany s when tiffany s employs his former staffer. that s just not good stuff for him. you know, that almost, you know, it can t cost him anything if he didn t have anything to lose. he, like sarah palin, never really had a real chance to win. he s also selling a bunch of merchandise. this is all good for him. when you re somebody like palin or gingrich, no presses bad press. that s kind of a mistake to put them in the same box. they appeal to very different demographics. they appeal to consumers. they re not looking for voters, they re looking for consumers, people with credit cards and can go to the web sites and buy their things. that would be a surprise to the campaigns. here s the deal, both of these candidates it shouldn t come as a surprise to them. let s move on, guys. my analysis of that is it didn t seem like you were thinking that gingrich was getting any benefit out of that tiffany s deal, that s for sure. so today, how republican leaders unveils the job agenda. my question is, is it really a jobs plan? they would have you believe so. look at what they said in the presser today. we are unveiling a plan for america s job creators both house and senate republicans are focused on creating a better environment for private sector job creation. we ve been focused as a house republicans on jobs since day one. this will create jobs, this is the republican solution, and i m proud to be a part of our house republican plan for america s job creators. i too am proud to endorse the plan to create jobs. helping americans get back to work is our number one priority. ryan, they mentioned a lot of jobs in there, but in fact the proposal boils down to lowering taxes again. is that really a jobs plan? they it is proposed immense amounts of deregulation, challenging regulations that are on the books. interestingly, a cornerstone of their jobs plan involves patent reform, basically allowing corporations to get patents easier. it s hard to see what that does for a small business. small businesses aren t usually in the big of applying for patents. what large corporations do when they can extend the length of their patent is they charge more to consumers and to small businesses to use whatever it is that they have. all that does is pull money out of the real economy and send it to the executives. am i hearing correctly that small businesses aren t involved in patents? do you want to stand on that? once in a while you re going to have a look at the patents that result in profits? the number of those that are going to go to small businesses and small inventors, the guy in the garage is minuscule. this is economic ignorance. one of the major engines of business is inventions. where is the bipartisan one at a time. guys, guys. cenk, he s talking about economic ignorance. where is the american solution? what was the approach? why didn t we do it the right have and have everybody at the table? here s what i need you to answer. didn t we do tax cuts under george bush? and what did it lead to? about 8 million jobs lost. i m curious to how long has barack obama been in office? is it his responsibility now? what s the employment unemployment rate? but, wait a minute, you guys created 10% with your tax cuts. we are taking our eyes off the ball. we have a fiscal crisis in this country and we are taking our eyes completely off the ball, why in effect have we moved off talking about the deficit debt and the debt ceiling. everybody is just talking about the republican answer to job. because we have nearly 10% unemployment. where is the american approach to jobs? guys, we ve got to leave it right there. interesting. we ve got to leave it right there. all right. you guys were fired up. josh trevino, ryan grimm, lisa powers, we appreciate it. thanks for having us, we appreciate it. thanks, cenk. thanks. governor scott walker feeling the heat in wisconsin, it s not just walker. we ll show you the absolute disaster that s happening for republican governors across the country. that s next. your finances can t manage themselves. but that doesn t mean they won t try. bring all your finances together with the help of the one person who can. a certified financial planner professional. cfp. let s make a plan. didn t taste so vegetably? well, v8 v-fusion juice gives you a full serving of vegetables, plus a full serving of fruit. but it just tastes like fruit. and try our deliciously refreshing v8 v-fusion + tea. i agreed with rand paul today, and lived to regret it. i ll tell you that interesting story of bipartisanship gone wrong. stay with us. in financial transactions. on devices. in social interactions. and applications in the cloud. some companies are worried. some, not so much. thanks to a network that secures it all and knows what to keep in, and what to keep out. outsmart the threats. see how at cisco.com cisco. the republicans seemed ascendant in 2010, but now not so much. today a wisconsin judge struck down the law taking away collective bargaining for many of the state workers. whili nots quite time to family didn t, and a new poll finds his approval rating is just 43%. 54% disapprove of the job he s doing. this week officials cleared the way for recall elections of three gop state senators, including hanky-panky hopper, and hanky-panky kapampgy. those are the nicknames i gave them. they re like a wide receiver doing a crossing pattern and ray lewis is just waiting for them. right there. that s not the place you want to be. a new jersey court has rejected governor christie s plan to strip away education funding that would give poor kids an opportunity at a better life. now he s just at 40% approval rating, and republicans think this guy can run as president? in ohio, governor john kasich has seen his approval rating plunge to just 33%. but if you think that s bad wait until you get a load of florida. governor rick scott is sitting on a 29% approval rating. 57% disapprove of the job he s doing. that s disaster on top of disaster. that s ray lewis hitting you on top of the head. not where you want to be. john nichols for the nation all over the wisconsin labor dispute from the start. john, great to have you here. let s start in wisconsin. first tell me about what the judge did and what you think the relevance might be. it s a pretty relevant development. judge mary ann sumi, has had this case for about two months. the basic question was whether the law was passed legally. she ruled today that it was not, that the wisconsin state senate as well as the assembly, which happened to be it controlled by a pair of brothers, had both acted illegally. they violated the state s open meetings laws which required that citizens be alerted as well as democratic legislators to when this action would be taken. that s a big deal. this law is, as of now, null and void. the ruling will be appealed. there s also at the possibility that republicans in the legislature might try to take the law up again, but the problem is, as you ve outlined in the opening here, people are really turning against these republicans and the republicans are starting to get skittish. let s talk about that, as we explained will, look at the approval ratings. 29%, 38%, 43% for these republican governors. that looks horrible. is it possible it s just a temporary blip and they ll go back up, or like george w. bush, once they fall, they can t get back up? well, i think that all of these bad ratings are rooted in policy, not just personality. these governors came in based on pretty effective campaigns in 2010. the problem was they didn t tell people what they were sincerely and seriously goods going to do. as they ve started to act as governors, they are becoming increasingly unpopular. when they started to cotton onto his agenda, they turned against not only the agenda, but him. i think the same thing is happening to the republican governors. it seems like one of the driving forces is the labor movement, speaking of which richard trump ka said we may go grassroots. look how well it did on wisconsin. do you think that s a good idea? i think it s a fabulous idea. when you build real coalitions rooted in your unions, and take in folks who aren t union members, to push back against this austerity agenda, against this cuts agenda, you build a base of popular support that is not only effective on the ground in your state, but that ultimately feeds up into the federal process. president obama s reewon t be hurt business money being shifted to the states. at the end of the day you get more bang for your buck by organizing on the ground, john, thank you for joining us tonight. we appreciate it. now, when we come back, how badly is washington broken? well, there s a great example of it today. that story is next. 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[ male announcer ] in 2011, at&t is at work, building up our wireless network all across america. we re adding new cell sites. increasing network capacity, and investing billions of dollars to improve your wireless network experience. from a single phone call to the most advanced data download, we re covering more people in more places than ever before in an effort to give you the best network possible. at&t. rethink possible. look, i want to be clear with you guys. i m a progressive, not a democrat. why do i tell you that? i don t care what team democrat is up to if they re not being progressive. if they aren t, what s the point of supporting them? a great example is the patriot act. i didn t like it under bush, i don t like it under obama. not all of it, of course, but the warrantless wiretapping, the national security letters are a disaster. they take away our rights and they re a violation of the fourth amendment. why would i like that same exact concept just because a democratic president does it? i don t understand that. i don t see why i would change my opinion on it. so rand paul today opposed some of those provisions. while i totally disagree with him on 85%, i agree with him on this issue. nothing wrong with that, that s terrific. now, this issue i don t think should really be ideological. we should agree that our still rights should be protected. we shouldn t let the terrorists scare us into taking away our rights. but both the bush and obama administrations have done terrible fearmongering on this issue. see if you can tell the difference between this and and a push press release. failure to pass this legislation poses a significant risk to u.s. national security. the bottom line is that if these provisions are allowed to lapse even temporarily, the nation will be less safe. they go on to warn about, quote, enhanced threats. i ve seen it all before. the same kind of nonsense from bush. are there terrorists out there? of course there are. the question is should we give up our freedoms? i don t think we should. if you vote no on that,