His mother afeni, takes the family reigns. In 1997, the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation is created to provide training and support for creative students. That same year, the university of california, berkeley offers a course entitled the poetry and history of tupac shakur. Afeni shakur i speak to him all the time because it matters to me what he thinks about what were doing. It matters to me. So i believe that he hears me. To this day, Tupac Shakurs killer has never been found. [ music ] bill hey, good morning, everybody. It is a friday. We love fridays around the full court press. Thank you for joining us here on current tv as we come to you live from our nations capitol bringing you up to date on all of the big stories here in our nations capitol. 15 republican senators just refused to get up. Get over it. They wrote a letter to president obama asking him to withdraw the nomination of chuck hagel, which he is not going to do because there are enough republicans to join democrats do voigt for him. He will be confirmed next week we are one week from the sequester. President obama saying come on. We cant let that happen. Once again, boehner and mcconnell refuse to compromise. It looks like 800,000 civilian employees at the pentagon will go on furlough starting one week from today. That and a whole lot more to get into this morning on the fullcourt press, which we will do. Take your calls at 86655press. First, we get the latest todays current news update from Lisa Ferguson joining us from los angeles. Hi, lisa. Good morning. Hey, bill. Good morning, everyone. President obama inand Vice President biden are attending the Democratic Governors Association this morning andbam obama willing talking about a variety of National Issues about economic and trade issues between the two countries. Later, Vice President biden will join the two for lunch. Biden is also continuing his big push for Gun Legislation. Yesterday from connecticut, he told the nation things have change the 234d gun violence debate. It used to be politicians would not want to vote for it. Now, they wont want to vote against them. Thats a big change from the norm. Al large group of democrats are getting ready to make Gun Legislation a big part of their 2014 platform. Steve israel says the group will put gun violence front and center in its efforts to take back the house next term. Former president jimmy carter is saying obama is thankful for that leaked 47 video of mitt romney. It was carters grandson that helped get that out into the public. Last night carter and on piers morgan and said obama ran across room and thanked him for his help with the election. More bill press up next. Stay with us. Billy zane stars in barabbas. Coming in march to reelz. To find reelz in your area, go to reelz. Com the bar harbor bake is really worth trying. [ male announcer ] get more during red lobsters lobsterfest. With the years Largest Selection of mouthwatering lobster entrees. Like our delicious lobster lovers dream, featuring two kinds of succulent lobster tails. Or our savory, new grilled Maine Lobster and lobster tacos. Its back, but not for long. [ woman ] our guests go crazy for lobsterfest. My favorite entree is the lobster lovers dream. Whats yours . Come celebrate lobsterfest and sea food differently. Broadcasting across the nation, on your radio and on current tv. This is the bill press show. One week, one week to go before the sequester kicks in and this economy goes into a tailspin. Thank you, john boehner. What do you say, everybody . Guess what. Its a fred. Alleluia. Damn straight friday february 22nd. Alleluia. Bill and we love fridays here at the bill press show. Alleluia. Bill i am sure you do as well. For some of you, a short week for you rest of us we are taking a look at the big stories of the day and giving you a chance to sound off and tell us what you think about it. 86655press is our tollfree number. Congress comes back in session next week. They dont come back until tuesday. The sequester kicks in until friday. We will see if they can get anything done. I doubt it very very much in those three days that they are here. They like the sequester. They want it to happen. They want employees to lose their job at the pentagon. They want the economy to go in a tailspin. They want headstart and the pel grants and tsa and air Traffic Controllers and you name it across the board. They want them all to be severely cut medicare social security. It could be happen. We will talking about that and a lot more today. Take your calls at 86655press and look forward to your comments on twitter. Come on. Join us on twitter if you havent already done so. Tell your friends to, and you can tweet us bp show. On facebook welcome back toing. Com. No. Facebook. Com, yes bill press show. Yeah. Find us there. Welcome back toing. Com bill press. Peter ogburn will follow you on facebook owned twitter this morning. Dan henning . Good morning. At the board with fill backert on the phones and cyprian boulding on the phone. My song has made it to number 1 not just whats being played on the radio. The bill board hot 100 chart the top 100 songs in the country, its been record sales and radio play basically. And now they have added in youtube plays which is completely changing the dynamic of what songs appear on this list because there are some songs that will appear on this list you will never everyone hear on the radio ever. But youtube could it be just somebodys own . Absolutely endoliths i sit on my basement and strum my guitar and put it on youtube. Like a legit band . Not necessarily but if its just a youtube hit, it might not make it because they still factor in the sales, too, on the radio clip. So given the new calculation, some things are whats number 1 . The harlem shake. What. You sit down. Sipcyprian is doing it. Hes got it. Hes got it. You know, guess what. I will go with you. Its not let me say something. If anybody tries to tell me thats music, i would recommend we att do a video. The most popular one is the university of maryland did one at the duke basketball game. The university of georgia swim team has done one which is huge. The Norwegian Army has done one which is huge. Which means its over and done with. Its got another week in it. Team press will not be doing this. If team press does it it will be without me. I am with you. I aint doing it. Bill you can watch dan and cyprian. Have fun guys. A lot coming up. Brian woodhouse communecations director with the dnc local here as a friend of bill a little later in the program. Martha honey has written a book about the cruise ships. She is with the center for responsible travel. Kind of under the heading of eco tourism talking to you about the evils of cruise ships in the waters of this planet and what we can do about it. Then we are going to go to the movies with ann hortaday with the Washington Post oscars this weekend. Lots to talk about. Did you have fish for dinner last night . I bet you cant tell me what kind of fish it was. But first. This is the full court press. Some other headlines making news as we head into the weekend on this friday laura bush may be a supporter of samesex marriage but she didnt want anyone to know about it. A new ad supporting Marriage Equality produced by the respect for Marriage Coalition used a clip of the former first lady supporting equal marriage in an interview on cnn three years ago, but here . Yesterday said they did not give permission to use that piece of audio and asked that the ad be taken down. Bill you know, i dont understand that. Gee, what courage on her part. It features obama president obama, dick cheney and colin powell. So what the hell, laura . Get off of your high horse. You are for it or you are not. If you are, and we know she is then big deal. Right. A tim teboyw is trying to stay out of controversy. He has cancelled appear appearance at a baptist church, set to speak to the 11,000 member of congregation but said new information has come to light which the forced him to change plans. That might be the fact the church is led by Robert Jeffries who has preached against homo sexuality, against israel and mormonism bill i think he ought to focus on his football career. He disappeared. A tough time for American Idol could not show business 411 has analyzed ratings. This past wednesday night was the lowest rated wednesday broadcast since 2002. While still number 1 in the time slots every week, the reality competition has lost viewers every week this season since it debuted in january bill American Idol is over. Maybe if they did the harlem shake they could come back. Bill here we go. Yes, indeed, a big day at the whitehouse yesterday. Michelle obama, it is coming up the third anniversary of her lets move Campaign Getting particularly kids to get exercise, eat healthy and to get exercise, emphasis on eat healthy. Its a great message with Childhood Obesity being such a problem in this country. The first lady invited to the white house kitchen yesterday a huge fanning and a very tall fan, a great big yellow bird. Hi. We are here in the white house kitchen looking for a Healthy Snack to eat. Gee i bet you could get just everything you want in this kitchen. But you know what i like to reach for . Uhhuh. Healthy snack like juicy fruits and crunchy veg daniels. Those look good. Some come in their own carrying cases like this orange. You have the hard peel. So does this banana. Eating healthy is easy and its fun and delicious, too. There she is, the first lady with big bird yesterday and the message of eating healthy. Eating fruits, eating vegetables and how about fish . Hmm. Well, be careful what you buy because you may not be buying or eating what you think. Now, this sort of ties into a story, peter that we just mentioned briefly last week which is there is a current flap in the European Union about horse meat. It turns out that not a huge amount but some what people thought were buying as beef was either partly or entirely horse meat. Horse meat. People are upset about that even though there are people in countries that do eat horse meat, consume horse meat. Its healthy. I said before when i was living in schwitzer land i remember going and buying horse meat in a butcher shop that had a horse head over the door so you knew they sold horse meat. When i was in school we had that for dinner often. Its not poison. Right in the but you ought to know what you are eating. Thats the flap in europe that when you think its beef is it really horse meat . And how do we know . Now we found out, a big story in the New York Times that caught my attention because i try to neat healthy. I have lost some weight. I want to keep it down. I dont go for the big stake any more. I almost always go out and have fish, fish, fish. Well, here is the headline in the new yorkNew York Times. Survey finds fish are often not what the label says. Hmmm. By the way, there have been stories for this quite awhile. Last year, they did a survey up in new york city and they found out get this every one of 16 su. Hi bars that the reporter we want to, every single one of them mislabeled the fish that they were selling. Then they went to Grocery Stores and restaurants. 39 of the seafood from 8 39 seafood from 81 Grocery Stores and restaurants was not what people claimed it was. That was last year. Now, the latest, there is a group, Environmental Group called oceana does good work. They looked into this. This is what the New York Times article is all about. Oops. Hold on one second. I want to get those numbers from you. They looked at 1,215 fish samples. They bought 1215 pieces of fish. Onethird of them were not what they said. Wow. One third were miss labeled. They checked out red snapper, popular fish. I usually order if its on a menu, red snapper or sea bass. Red snapper if its there, i will get it. I love it. You thought you did . I thought i did. I dont know what i am eating eel or something. Not eel but out of 120 samples of red snapper, two 8 different species 28 different species of fish 28 different kinds of fish, and the problem was probably severe in setting urn california where i lived for so long and where fish and sushi bars, people eat healthy there. 52 of the samples bought and sold until Southern California 52 were not what people thought that they were getting. I think this is scandalous. I mean its outrageous. I want to know what i am eating. Right . Professor do you go powell is a food safety inspector. We can get this information. We need more information. All we neat is some data to go along with this trust thats en dickic in the food system and we have that data increasingly available through new technologies. You see reports like this new oceana report saying a lot of fish thats being sold is not what it says it is. Those tests are easier and cheaper bill we ought to be doing more of them. This is a real problem. Right . It shouldnt be that difficult. Years ago it used to be so hard to not sort of pass off ta talapia and fish and thats sort of the industry goto. Get it. Alapia if you are getting sauce, put sauce it on it and charge 4 more dollars for it. You are probably getting talapia most of the time you order fish. Right . Especially if you are getting something thats covered up in some sort of a i mean, if you are just getting a filet of fish, its kind of hard to hide it sometimes if you know what you are eating and you know the different types of fish that you eat. Bill how about bronzino. Is the answer to order the whole fish . I always say if there is a whole fish or a whole cut of something on a menu i will always go for that bays you cannot disguise a talapia as a bronzino. If you are ordering whole fish, you are getting whole fish. There are other fish you kind of know like swordfish or salmon. Right . Right. This white fish. You can color a white fish and call it salmon. These days, you probably could bill i would love to know what you think about this. 86655press. It makes me suspicious and uneasy because again, i want to eat hechty encourage people tom order fish but if you do, you ought to the at least know what the hell you are getting. Is that asking too much . I will think twice from now on bill particular at sushi bars. You would think those chefs, sushi chefs would care about their fish. Its phony phony fish. Thats where we are starting this morning 86655press. What do you think about it . This is the bill press show. Real, gripping, current. Documentaries. On current tv. For true stories. With Award Winning documentaries that take you inside the headlines. Real, gripping, current. Documentaries. On current tv. Alright, in 15 minutes were going to do the young turks. I think the number one thing that viewers like about the young turks is that were honest. They know that im not bsing them with some hidden agenda, actually supporting one party or the other. When the democrats are wrong, they know that im going to be the first one to call them out. They can question whether im right, but i think that the audience gets that this guy, to the best of his ability, is trying to look out for us. [ music ] this is the bill press show. Here we go. Its 26 minutes now after the hour. We are one week from austerity, one week from sequester, one week from disaster here in our nationscap capitol. Do you really know what you are getting when you order fish in a restaurant or buy fish at the market or have sushi at your favorite sushi bar . The new yorkNew York Times reports a oceani oceana report says no, in Southern California 52 of the time, you might get fish. Doug powell food safety professor, the answer is give people nor information. Its about the democratize democratization of information. A lot of people know where theyre food is grown and be able to follow it up. Its hard to disagree with that lets do it. Be able to trust it. Comments peter . We are on twitter bpshow. Sheri clark says i have a friend who worked in fishing. Misidentifying fish has been common a long time. 75 of the fish come from foreign countries. Not only misidentifying the speaks hes but a lot of times they will sake this is locationen but its brought in from other places. They will say usually, like local or locally grown or locally caught or Something Like that or fresh caught or Something Like that. Greenwol says you must never order fish. Always turkey or chicken. I dont know if i agree with that. I think what we said earlier is probably the best way to combat this is order the larger cuts, the bigger like whole fish if you can. That way, you know. There is no faking that. Im sorry. We dont have time. Appreciate your call. Yeah, it used to be not so long ago, the big controversy over fish was fresh or frozen. Right. When it sizfresh is it really fresh or was it really frozen and they are thawing it out. Now, its fresh, frozen or fake . My god. Yeah, the austerity about to kick in a week from today. What are some of the con sequences . We will tell you next. This is the bill press show. [ music ] those types are coming on to me all the time now. She gets the comedians laughing. Thats hilarious . And the thinkers thinking. Okay, so theres wiggleroom in the Ten Commandments is what youre telling me. You would rather deal with ahmadinejad then me. Absolutely and so would mitt romeny. Shes joy behar. And the best part is that current will let me say what the hell were they thinking . Only on current tv. [ music ] heard around the country and seen on current tv this is the bill press show. Thirtythree minutes after the hour, the full court press on a friday morning, february 22nd. Good to have you with us today. We are coming to you live from our nations capitol. A big sign of a comeback yesterday. This economy keeps improving. One more reason why we dont want the sequester to happen because we dont want to disrupt and reverse the economic recovery. Ford announcing yesterday that they are expand agnew plant out in the cleveland area, going to spend 200 million renovating its cleveland engine plant and adding adding 450 new jobs to that plant. Good news. Good news. Good news all the way around. And again, that could be all undone by the sequester. We are going to do other impacts of the sequester here on just a minute in the fullcourt press and take your calls at 86 situation55press. First, just a little timeout for what we call our incomeathome listener shout out where we identify somebody who has taken advantage of the opportunities with income at home. Com and had a good experience. Todds shoutout goes to melissa one of our listeners, heard about income at home. Com. She was in a situation where she was working away from home of course, away from alreadyher kids. She wasnt that happy with it. She heard about incomeathome. Com. She reports she has doubled what she owned in her own job and loves being able to work from home at her own Kitchen Table and be close to her kids. Good now melissa. Now, lets go to our next incomeathome shoutout. That could be you. If you are tired of living paycheck to paycheck, if you are sweating job security and you are tired of working long hours at a job you dont like do what melissa did. Go to incomeathome. Com. Visit incomeathome. Com. We talked about with the sequester about the cuts in the pentagon. Pentagon saying they have already informed 800,000 civilian employees that you are going to have to take one day a week off without pay starting in march if the sequester goes through. Reporting this morning on the domestic side, here is another think about this. Think about all of the federal employees who have something to do with aviation. And with our safe airports, you know, and the save skies. Skies. Here is what he they expect to happen, the first cuts. When the first cuts take effect there will be delays in traffic, reduced takeoffs and slower security lines. What they will do in terms of traffic is they say because they will have fewer air Traffic Controllers. Ray lahood says unlike the pentagon where they will furlough one day a week, it will be one day every 2 weeks but that means air Traffic Controllers will be fewer of them on the job, fewer tsa people on the job. There will be fewer customs officers on the job so what we are going to see are longer lines at tsa. Thank you, john boehner. More time sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off. Flights leaving later, flights arriving late. Some not going off at all. Its going to be like bad weather. What they do in bad weather is instead of claims being six or seven minutes apart, they are like 20 minutes apart. Figure that out right . Man. Yeah. The other thing is for people coming here from other countries or for americans coming back with fewer customs agents there will be longer lines to get back into the country. Insaithe. Insane. Yeah. Not to mention last year, we had a couple of close calls with air Traffic Controllers and now we want to put their responsibilities up in the air. I am not sure thats the best thing to do right now. I think its clearly not the best thing to do. Pardon the up in the air pun. Yes mean to do that. Influence right over my head. I have a trip to san diego and to Las Vegas Next week. All right . I count on getting to national the plano leaving on time, relatively on time and getting there. Now i dont ebb know. You cant be sure the flights going to leave if this thing kicks in. Coming back we have talked about this a lot. I encourage you to go billpressshow. Com. My column on this subject this week. At a time other people to blame as the republicans. Jay carney pointed this out. In the briefing, republicans, they feel that they can let the sequester happen and they wont get blamed for it because they say it is the president s idea. Jay carney pointed out why the republican fingerprints are all over this baby. Speaker boehner, chairman ryan, Eric Cantor Kevin Mccarthy all voted for the sequester. They all encouraged their membership to vote for the sequester the they did such a good job, they got an overwhelming majority to vote for the sequester bill 174 House Republicans voted for the sequester. Yeah. I mean, okay. The president signed it. Right. He signed it because it was the only way to get the because republican intransi gence. It was the only way we could lose the entire faith and credit of the United States by refusing to to. The president never would have been able to signed it if republicans hadnt angseptember it, embraced it, voked for it and afterwards john boehner said, man, i like this. I got 98 of what i want. This is totally unnecessary. Its clear. All theyve got to do the president put forth a plan, more spending cuts . Just what republicans say they want but also is new revenue for flu closing tax loop 40ez. That will take care of it republicans have decided they are going to draw the line here again and they think they can get away with it because they will just blame it on president obama. I want to point out again, his Approval Rating is at 55 , congress at the best, at best is 15 in the gallup pole. Its 9 in the palo pinto p pole. They think they are going to reverse that by blaming it on president obama. Crazy bill its going to do a lot of damage if it happens. It looks like it will. Hey bill . How are you doing . Thanks for your call. Whats your point . Ists reading the constitution under treason. It includes giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Bill thats what its all about. Right . If you are an elected official and you know see quest sequestration and you know that will harm theski how does that the no benefit our enemies. The republicans poo poo this but the Congressional Office that provides numbers to both sides of the aisle say this will slow our economy by 1. 3 . Thats a fact. A fact. And reverse the economic recovery and get us into they use the word a recession. Right . Right. And the republicans are voting for it and again they think, william, American People local understand. They wont blame us. They will blame president obama. I dont think American People real that didb jim. They are giving aid to the enemy if they are weakening us in the pacific. John boehner, benedict arnold. Leon panetta said these cpas always wrap themselves in the flag and say we are promilitary, propentagon. No, they are not. They are saying hear them, please, American People. Dont be fooled boo this. They are saying we dont care if we cut the pentagon across the board across the board by 50,000,000,000 t leon panetta said we dont care if ships are not being displayed do where they ought to be around world. We dont care if plains are not being deployed if maintenance is being delayed. Pentagon employees are furloughed. They are promilitary . Steve calling from san antonio texas. Steve, what do you say . Military town. A big military town. Hi, steve. How is it going . I love your show. Thank you. I want to make a couple of comments first off, ford wouldnt be making this my other point is i hear you that doesnt negate the seriousness and serious impact of the sequester. You lose 800,000 jobs in the pentagon and 450 new jobs next year in cleveland once they re tool the plant. A 20 reduction on 800,000 jobs. Okay. They have to they get a 20 pay cut and you are saying thats good . No. Thats not what i am saying. Okay. S. Less airplanes. I totally agree with that. The sequester is a bad idea. But the problem is we cant blame only republicans because if only republicans had voted for it it would never have made it to the president s desk. But only republicans are refusing to compromise and avoid the sequester. Only republicans. Democrats have put out a plan the president has endorsed the plan. Its a combination of cuts and new revenue. They need republican votes. They cant get it with democratic votes. Only republicans. John boehner eric cantor, paul ryan. They are the ones. I hear this all the time. The president signed it. Some democrats voted for it, too. Some on, people. You are smarter than that. Look at who is responsible and blame the people responsible. This is the bill press show. Not come in smellivision. The sweatshirt is nice and all but i could use a golden lasso. vo only on current tv. We have a big big hour and the iq will go way up. vo current tv gets the converstion started weekdays at 9am eastern. Im a slutty bob hope. You are. The troops love me. vo tv and radio talk show host Stephanie Miller rounds out currents morning news block. Youre welcome current tv audience for the visual candy. Just be grateful current tv does not come in smellivision. The sweatshirt is nice and all but i could use a golden lasso. vo only on current tv. [ piano plays ] Troy Polamalus going deeper. And so is head shoulders deep clean. [ male announcer ] with 7 benefits it goes deep to remove grease, gunk and flakes. Deep. Like me. [ male announcer ] head shoulders deep clean for men. The bar harbor bake is really worth trying. [ male announcer ] get more during red lobsters lobsterfest. With the years Largest Selection of mouthwatering lobster entrees. Like our delicious lobster lovers dream, featuring two kinds of succulent lobster tails. Or our savory, new grilled Maine Lobster and lobster tacos. Its back, but not for long. [ woman ] our guests go crazy for lobsterfest. My favorite entree is the lobster lovers dream. Whats yours . Come celebrate lobsterfest and sea food differently. Current tv is the place for true stories. With Award Winning documentaries that take you inside the headlines. Real, gripping, current. Documentaries. On current tv. [ music ] on your radio and on current tv this is the bill press show. Hey, here we go. Twelve minutes now before the top of the hour on this friday morning, february 22nd, at the top of the next hour david martin cbs chief pentagon core correspondent joins us to talk about the impact of the sequester on the pentagon leon panetta issued dire warnings about it. We want to see whether any of those cuts are already kicking in. Another scary story, National Security related with a release of a stud thy week by a bez in nearby alex and degree i cant virginia called mandiant. About the fact that major american businesses Government AgenciesTransportation Systems across the board have been hacked. They were able to trace it back to the Chinese Military. Whats that all about . Jerry smith covered these issues joining us on our news line this morning. Good to talk to you. Should we believe and trust this mandiant report . Do they know what they are talking about . They are a legitimate Cyber Security company thats wellrespected in the business. They are not the First Company to raise concerns about hacking china costs to deny that they have any role whats interesting is how detailed it was. It wasability see where they were working for the china ease military. All right. This building, what is motivation of the Chinese Military or the Chinese Government to be hacking operations in this country . Experts say the main motivation is stealing Company Secrets, stealing intellect july property from american businesses. And to gain an upper hand in the global economy. So its not a military purpose so much as its economic in there are trade advantages . It . Yeah. For the most part, experts are saying that this this is cyber espionage. Experts are saying Chinese Military is sponsoring hackers who are stealing Company Secrets from the u. S. And that its giving them an upper hand in the business sense. There is other kind of hackers action experts will say the hackers from Eastern Europe and russia are more interested into hacking into Bank Accounts and using that for, you know, cyber crime and more of a, you know, stealing money from credit cards and such. The chinese almost say they are more interested in taking documents. Withe about everything is so technology depend ant these days. Air Traffic Controller system. You think about our Transportation Systems, the electric grid. You can go on and on. A hacker could a hacker get into those systems and shut them down . Thats absolutely what the Obama Administration is continuing to warn about. During the state of the Union Address last week, the president mentioned that. Again, the possibility that a hacker with the click of a mouse could should down part of the power grid and turn off the lights. How do we fight against this . Last year, attempted to stop this or at least patch up some of the flaws and security flaws. Xwhapd actually is it became a very con tentious issue where republicans were siding with the chamber of commerce and business lobbyists who felt that creating any kind of rules and regulations for these businesses to follow would be too burden some, it would be too costly. They fought it and the legislation actually didnt pass. The president s executive order was an attempt bypass congress and at least have some voluntary measures for these companies to follow. But the trucky part is that the critical infrastructure, the Water Treatment plants, power grids, air Transportation System are 90 of this is privately owned. You have the federal government saying this it is a risk to everyone. And yet these are private companies that dont like the federal government telling them how to secure their computer systems. Well, it looks like jeremy, appreciate you joining United States. We are out of time here. I have got so many more questions. Jerry smith is the Technology Reporter at Huffington Post. Follow him huffingtonpost. Com. It looks like some Big Corporation will be shut down by these chinese hackers and then they will recognize we as a nation, have to do something to protect Government Agencies and private companies from thats hackers. This is scary stuff. This is the big press show. Its not rocket science. Its just common sense. From td ameritrade. I think the number one thing that viewers like about the young turks is that were honest. They can question whether im right, but i think that the audience gets that this guy, to the best of his ability, is trying to look out for us. [ music ] taking your evidently on any topic at any time this is the bill press show live on your radio and current tv. In the next hour, we will check in at the pentagon with david martin from cbs about what we can expect in terms of cuts at the pentagon if the sequester goes through. Also talk about cruise ships, the danger of cruisers. Karen armstrong from out in sacramento. Hey, karen, how are you . She says thank you for your podcast and for being on the air with current. You put on a great show. We get up at 3 45 a. M. In sacramento time, catch an hour of your show before leaving for work and she listens to the rest of the show on the podcast. All right, karen, good to have you with us. I spent nine good years in sacramento sacramento. Its a great town. This is the bill press show. [ music ] hey, hey. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the fullcourt press hear this friday morning. February 2nd march 2nd. We are coming to you live from our nations capitol on current trademark t. V. Bringing you up to date on all of the big stories of the day whether its happening here in our nations capitol, around country, around the globe, we are on it. We will tell you all about it and better yet give you a chance to tell us what it means to you. You get a chance to sound off by giving us a call at 866 all right. 86655press the there you go. Hey, among the other stories that we are covering this morning, one week from today, the sequester kicks in unless republicans come to their senses and save the country. 15 republicans say ask the president to withdraw the nomination of chuck hagel. Col on. Gel get serious. If been biden says if you want a gun, buy a shotgun like me a doublebarrel shotgun. Our latest from Lisa Ferguson, current news update out in los angeles. Hi, lisa. Good morning to you. Hey, bill. Good morning, everyone. The sequester is said to step in a week from today but dont expect Congress Members to change their salaries. The pentagon is expecting to furlough 800,000 workers. Members of congress will be keeping their 174,000 dollar salaries. Congress can only change its pay if it passes a specific law to do so, and it hasnt. Cnn says it took an informal survey before lawmakers left on recess and most said they are willing to take a pay cut if a sequester goes into effect on march 1st. But willing or not, that is just not happening. The 27th amendment prohibits lawmakers from changing their salaries until after the next election. Nancy pelosi is one of the wealthiest members of congress and one of the biggest opponents of a pay cut. Congressional staffers say they can be furloughed or laid off like any other government worker aa will a new bloomberg pole shows most personsl shows most persons wants guess to delay the cuts for another day. 40 say they should take place as scheduled more bill press coming up after the break and we are live in our chat room. Join us there at currents. Com bill press. You know the kind of guys who do like verse mortgage commercials . Those types are coming on to me all the time now. She gets the comedians laughing. Thats hilarious . And the thinkers thinking. Okay, so theres wiggleroom in the Ten Commandments is what youre telling me. You would rather deal with ahmadinejad then me. Absolutely and so would mitt romeny. Shes joy behar. And the best part is that current will let me say anything. What the hell were they thinking . Only on current tv. [ male announcer ] start with a groundbreaking car. Good. Then invent an entirely new way to buy one. No. No. No. Yes a website that works like a wedding registry. But for a car. First, you customize it. Then let people sponsor the cars parts as gifts. Dad sponsors the engine for your birthday. Grandma sponsors the rims for graduation. The car gets funded. Then you pick up your new dodge dart at the dealership. And all thats left to do is say thanks. Easy. Broadcasting across the nation, on your radio, and on current tv this is the bill press show. One week from sequester, one week from recession. This will be a manmade recession, made by john boehner. Hello, everybody. What do you say . Its friday february 22nd. Great to see you today. This is the full court press. We are coming to you live on current tv and on your local progressive talk radio station, radio and television coming together here every morning and bringing you the knees of the day. Not only that. But taking your calls and your comments about the news of the day and giving you a chance to sound off and express your opinion. Give us a call anytime you want about any issue we are talking about at 86655press. 8665577377. Then you can follow us and we encourage you to follow us on twitter. I also tweet from the white house briefings but we want to hear from you bp show and on facebook, facebook. Com bill press show this friday morning heading into the weekend, teen press in place against this morning. Happy friday. Good morning. When he is not doing the harlem shake. The harlem shuffle . I will fall on my sword. I suggested team press do harlem shake video. I asked our facebook fans the overwhelming majority say, hell no. Hell no. That was a mistake. My kids have better taste than that dance. My kids are doing harlem shake videos now. I know this how to work this. My standard is my kids have terrible taste in just about everything. So if they like it i dont like it. Okay. Indeed. Well, the first lady, former First Lady Laura Bush is not happy because she does support samesex marriage, but she doesnt want anybody to know it. She said it on larry king live. If you want to keep a secret thats not exactly the plates to keep a secret. There is an ad out now with famous people, leaders of this nation, who have expressed their support for samesex marriage. Its put out by the respect for Marriage Coalition. Here it is. None of us would want to be told we cant marry the person we love. Thats why a growing majority of americans believe its time to allow marriage for gay and bez less bean couples. Couples ought to have the same sort of rights every way has. Allowing them to live together seems to me is the way we should be moving. Freedom me freedom for everyone. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law. Time for marriage. Laura bush sizits time to take my name off of that. She doesnt bant to be in the company of barack obama, dick cheney or colin poorly. They did use it without asking her permission but at the same time, she said it on cnn on larry king. Right . Right. I dont understand that decision. I think its a mistake on her part. Stand tall for what you believe in. I admire the fact she does support samesex marriage. Stand by it. Exactly. We have a lot coming up this morning. Brad woodhouse, Communications Director of the dnc will be in studio with us. Martha hon tell us about the growing problems with cruise ships. We go to the movies a little bit later with ann hornaday. We wanted to start out this morning on talking about the sequester and the cuts at the pentagon with david martin National Security correspondent for cbs news at the pentagon. David, good morning . Good morning. Good to have you with us. I have to tell you, i am not trying to butter you up or anything, but i have come to make it my habit to watch the cbs news every night with scott pelly and i admire your fine work. Thank you. Thats good to hear. And scotts fine work too. Yeah. Tell tus, this sequester a week from today f it doesnt kick in, we know half of the cuts will be at the pentagon side. Whats that going to mean . In numbers, it means they have to cut 46,000,000,000 in spending over seven months. Thats this year . Right. The rest of this fiscal year which ends on september 30th. If you are five months into the fiscal year. You have obligated a lot of the money all right, sir in contracts you have signed and you cant just cancel a contract because if you do, you pay cancellation fees and you end up spending more in the shortterm. So, they sort of have limited ways in which they can make these cuts. And the way they have to make a large share of them is on the fast spending money, which is operations and maintenance. So thats why they have already cab cancelled or delayed the deployment of one aircraftcarrier to the pezian gulf. If pulook at just the navys list of bad things that they say will happen, one of them is that they would shut down four of the nine carrier air wings. That means no flying to the pilots. Thats okay for a while. But at some point, they lose their proficiency. You wantuhhuh. Because, you know, its like playing a professional sport. You have to do it every day in order to maintain proficiency sees. What about if you are lows, the pentagon Warning Congress there are 800,000 civilian employees furloughed. What does that mean . It would begin in late frill because they have to go through a number of notification procedures first to congress and to the employees and the unions have a chance to object. You can see a bycratic process that would string that out. This is not the laying off all 800,000 civilians en masse. This is laying about 700,000 of them off one day a week. And that one day a week. Without pay. Thats the deal. Laying off 800,000 civilians one day a week for seven months is not going to criminal the defense of the United States. But thats a 20 pay cut. You are talking about, you know, people who depending upon where they rank on the gs scale might make 30,000. I was going to say, these people are not may making a hell of a lot of money to begin with. Right . The really galling part of it is that political employees, the senior officials in the pentagon are exempted. Just like members of congress. In terms of military, leon panetta has warned about military readiness. Will this impact readiness . I dont think there is any question that it will impact military readiness. Chief of staff of the army ray odiarono odiarono said he cant believe we are doing this to ourselves. The question is does it did did does it make us a weak nation, or does it simply increase the level of risk . These are never yes, we are safe, no we are not situations. Its always if you have troops who are not as prepared then there is a higher degree of risk that if something happens you wont be ready to go. The shortterm issue is the troops in afghanistan. We are fighting a war. Thats another reason these cuts are hard to make support the troops in the field are going to remain fully if you wanted. You have to do that . You have to do that at some point, that means you are cutting back on the training for the troops backhome. But those troops back home are in line to go. So you end up with lots of unappealing alternatives. One is sending not fully trained troops to afghanistan. The other is keeping the ones in afghanistan totally up to speed there longer. I have to say again talking with cbs news penitentiarygon, National Security correspondent david martin. Follow him cbs news with scott pelly. Some claim to be promilitary propentagon. Right . Seem to be willing or at least now it looks like they are okay with this happening. And what i hear and i heard again yesterday from a couple of them is, well, its not these cuts are not as severe as the pentagon is making them out to be. And we have got to cut pentagon spending. And we have talked about it. Lets just let it happen. They have a long history of crying wolfe every time budget cuts come up on the horizon. There is always reason to be skeptical. If you look at it in just dollar figures, take away that 46,000,000,000 for the remainder of this fiscal year the pentagon budget will be about where it was in 2006, 2007, when we were fighting two wars and managing to get by pretty well. Is the difference is, if you just do the dollar figures, it doesnt tell the story because there is so little flexibility in how they can make these cuts the these are acrosstheaboved cuts. Thats the key. Isnt it . Its 9 from everything except those exempted programs that support the war directly. And if you just told the pentagon, okay. You have to get 46,000,000,000 out of your budget by september 30th, you figure it out. They would whine all the way to september 30th. You come up with a workable solution. But thats not the game they are playing. They are playing these across the board cuts. On a related question talking about budget and someone who has spoken out about the need to do some debt trimming of the budget lets say in the pentagon. Chuck hagel, they are going to vote again next week. What is the feeling at the pentagon do they expect him to be the next defense secretary . Oh, yeah. I think everybody anticipates him being the next secretary of defense. The issue there is is he a damaged secretary of defense . You have a guy who has got congressional experience, and my experience covering the pentagon all of these years is that political skills are the most important thing that a secretary of defense needs. Really . Yeah, because in the end, thats who gives you the money. Thats whatley on panetta was so good at although he obviously didnt succeed in talking them out of sequester at least not so far. So will chuck hagel lets say sec questquestration goes into effect. So he is up there detailing the hor endous effects this is having. How much credibility will he have with congress after hes been through this very messy confirmation process . Yeah. He will definitely very long some fences to mend with them. And some of them will have some fence to mend with him, i think. Yeah. When john mccain calls you the least qualified nol knee he has ever seen. . Yeah. You have got some getting over to do with that. You do. Next time john mccain needs more money for a base in arizona, david it was good for you to take time. Love your work again. Thank you so. Thank you. David march typical cbsnews. Com. Radio meets television, the bill press show. Now, on current tv. [ music ] this is the full court press the bill press show, live on your radio and on current tv. Her were 24 minutes after the hour now fullcourt press on this friday february 22nd coming to you live from our nationss capitol our studio here on capitol hill brought to you today by the American Federation of teachers, the great men and women of the aft under president randy winei weingarten making a difference every day in the classrooms of america. You know they are in our high schools and aur grade schools, in preschool and in higher education. Proud to have their support and guess what. Did i mention its a friday . All right. All right. We love on a friday to take a quick look back at some of the sound bytes we have brought to you during the preceding week and pick out our top five. We go from the bottom all the way up to the top. This is about as slow, actually, as you can get on the totem pole but number 1 on billboards, the number 1 most played song in america today, including on youtube, everybody, get ready, stand up and do the harlem shake. Number 5. The harlem shake. Bill this sounds like you turn your car radio on and you are in between stations, you know, and you are just getting static. Yeah. Turning the dial trying to get a signal. Tiger woods had the big shot to play with president obama last week down at the floridian yacht club. He said obama is a damn good golfer. Playing with mr. President was pretty cool. He is a wonderful person to be around, and we won. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Setting mcfarland is a host at the auscarizona on sunday night. He says he is going to mix it up a little bit and bring Something Different to this Years Academy awards ceremony. Number 3. Going to be off of the rails, you know. I might wear one black sock and one other sock thats also black but just is a different fabric thats the kind of thing that i think will make it uncompetitioned and they will go wow. That will be excited if he has a rayon black sock. Good advertisement for the auscarizona . Doesnt want to make me watch. Good movies do mark sanford running for congress now down in South Carolina. He says the people of South Carolina and god will forgive him. Number 2. More realtime, i have experienced how none of us go through life without mistakes but we can learn about grace, a god of Second Chances and be the better for it. No life, i humbly step forward and ask for your help in changing washington. In the name of jesus, amen. And joe biden says if you want a gun, dont buy an ar15. If there is ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here walk out, put that doublebarrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house. I promise you whoever is coming in, you dont need an ar15. Dont buy an ar15. Buy a shotgun, joe biden who has two shot guns, jay carney told us at a briefing yesterday or day before. He has a. 12gauge double barely and. 20 engage and keeps them in his safe. Cruise ships. How bad are they . Martha honey will tell us next. This is the bill press show. I think the number one thing that viewers like about the young turks is that were honest. They know that im not bsing them with some hidden agenda, actually supporting one party or the other. When the democrats are wrong, they know that im going to be the first one to call them out. They can question whether im right, but i think that the audience gets that this guy, to the best of his ability, is trying to look out for us. Chatting with you live at current. Com bill presscurrent. Com billpress, this is the bill press show, live on your radio and Current Tv Bill here we are 33 minutes after the hour. It is the full court press live from our nations capitol and our studio on capitol hill coming to you on your local progressive talk radio station. How lucky you are if you have got one. Coming to you on current tv. Interesting right in the wake pardon the pun of the Carnival Cruise ship being towed back to mobile alabama comes the story in the New York Times yesterday morning about the city of charleston South Carolina famous as the most i think its known for other thing, thank god for its good restaurants. City of charleston is polit right in half because cruise ships have started coming into charleston some want to build a new terminal and open them with open arms. Some people say, not so fast this is not necessarily good for our community. Martha honey is the director of the Washington Office for the center for responsible travel and has been dealing with issue of cruise ships and responsible travel on environmentally sound travel for 10 years now . Our organization has been going for 10 years. I have been on the case for about 20. 20s years . Yeah. 20 years. We have known each other about that long . Maybe longer. Great to see you . Great to see you. My pleasure. What about lets just start. Are these, you know, like they seem to be floating environmental disasters and they are bigger and bigger and bigger. Forget the question of whether you would want to spend six days with this. There are impacts but we can start with the environmental. And the others, too. Great. Its been the environmental thats raised public concern over the decades starting with passengers back in the late 1980s who caught a cruise ship dumping their garbage over the side. Filmed the same thing. There began to be lawsuits and the crews industry has responded in several ways. One, they paid tens of millions of dollars in law suits over the years, but they also have made some modifications to their practices and to their onboard systems. Now, you cant dump most things within within three miles of the coast. You cant dump plastics and oil anywhere. You are supposed to bring those back and, you know, do something with them on shore. What about waste . Yeah, waste is really a problem because lots of that can be dumped and their continues to be violations but continues to be vieolations even when the law is being followed. They accumulate so much stuff. A ship of 3,000 passengers accumulates 50 tons of liquid waste a day. So really . I know. Not pleasant. No. So there are environmental concerns. My actually, my point of view is that these are huge concerns but in a way, they are fixable. There are technical and Political Solutions to it. Uhhuh. For me, the bigger question is what we are seeing in charleston and other places. What happens when a cruise ship of three to 5 ,000 passengers and crew pulls up and unloads its passengers into fragile either historic or cultural or enenviron mental settings . And what that does, the impact, environmental, social and economic sgakt on the ports of call is one of the things i have been looking at. Not always good news. Right . For the cruise industry to decide, your town is our next destination. Right . One would think at one level, all of the money, shops, restaurants. Right . Yeah. Its also weird to me because i werent on a cruise because i had never really gone on one as an adult. I remember the feeling i had when we pulled into jamaica. I was thinking this would be great. You are basically in suburbia. There is a margaritaville and its not anything authentic or frankly interesting when you get off. In charleston what are they afraid about . Charleston, first of all, has been voted numerous times as the prime destination, the most popular not most popular but the best destination in the United States. It has what we call i love it by the way. Its wapitiastic. Its what we call sort of highvalue tourism. They are urning 3,000,000,000 a year from tourism, eat in great restaurants, see Historic Sites buy highquality crafts and so on. And what is happening is that now Carnival Cruise is bringing in fantasy ship two or three times a week and is parked right on the edge of the town towering over the landscape. I dont know if cyprian can pick up this brochure from the sim pose annual a couple of weeks ago, and this stack over historic charleston. It used to be known for tall it seems. Now, for tall cruise ship stacks which is oftentimes billowing out black smoke. It was when i was there for the conference. It is billowing out a lot of pollution landing on peoples houses and cars and causing Health Problems. There was a doctor who testified, having spoke at the conference about the Health Problems they have detected. Clogging the streets and frank dumming down the kind of high quality tour that. Charleston is well known for. A great way to put it when i was growing up there, the cruise industry wasnt involved at all. Then when i we want back. This whole time, there are laws and limits on the what you can and capital build in charleston you cant build buildings over a certain height. But as you showed in that picture, there is this giant cruise ship towering above these historic literally at the end of the market, the old slave market. And then there is the customs house. They want to build al 35 million cruise terminal right there. What the local people are saying. The various committees that have formed in associations and so on. What they are saying is look, if you are going to have cruise tournism charleston, at least move the pier the doc out of town. There are several other places that the Port Authority already has that could be used. The support of its scattered around. There are a number of different places. Now what happens is people drive in, park their cars and get on the ship. And one of the problems is that they walk through town but studies need to be done. But the indications are that they are not spending very much. This is classic. This is what we found. Cruise cruise cruise passengers dont spend a lot in ports of call. From a purely economic point of view, its not a good kind of tourism. He specially when its mezzewed against the stay occur tourism. How do you explain this though . I havent seen the numbers. I am sure you have. Business of cruise ships is growing. More and more people are going on these cruises every year. I mean a trimmed of mine in the White House Press corps i was talking to yesterday told me has been on 26 cruises. I mean, you know, these people get hooked and more and more people do. So you may complain but people love them . People do love them and i think one of the selling points for ports of call is we will bring in people from the cruise lines, we will bring in people on a cruise and they will return. What we found is people get hooked on cruises and they do not actually return for stayover tourism. In costa rico where we did a stud. Where you used to live. Where i used to study we did studneys central america, very instructive because this was something that it was the first time, i think, that these studies had been done. What we found was, one, that very, very few. Less than 1 , less than half a percent of people who come on cruise did actually return for stayovers. Its not a good way to attract them. Secondly, the stay over passengers passengers, if you take costa rico, hon honduras and balize are putting 10 to 18 times more into the local economy per stay over passenger compared with the cruise passenger stay overturism so even from a Public Policy point of view looking at the set aside the social and environmental, its a environmental, its a lousy way to earn foreign exchange. Higher value stayover tourism go for a Higher Quality rather than higher numbers. Go for highvalue rather than high volume tourism. This 35 million landing facility, whatever, pier. Right. Their thinking about building in charleston, how much is the cruise industry contributing to that construction . I am not sure. I know it was asked at the conference. Is it local dollars . Local tax dollars being raised . Its the Port Authority, state Port Authority that would be doing it. Typically, what happens is the local d the receiving port pays for it somehow. Taxpayers pay for it. Thats what i am getion to. Right. Yeah. What if the cruise industry, they decide, you know what . Charleston, you know, not so hot. People are not crazy about charleston. They show on our survey. We are going to go to savannah. This has happened in mobile. They brought in this wounded ship. Mobile built at the taxpayers expense a new portfals facility. Then they decided this doesnt worth it and they pulled out. Leaving them with a white elephant. This has happened in san diego. Whoa. And bellies invested belize invested, and it was the Fastest Growing part of the economy and then they began cutting back. The real estate is moveable. Its unlike lappedbased where its there is so they are going to keep investing. They move at whims. We can pull up the gang plank and go. She is director the Washington Center for responsible travel. Follow her on responsibletravel. Org. Questions about the cruise industry, the cruise ships, all of the different impacts of them. Give us a call at 86655press. On this friday addition of the fullcourt press. This is the fullthe bill press show show. [ music ] radio meets television, the bill press show, now, on current tv. 12 minutes before the top of the hour at the top of the next hour, we are going to be visiting with Brad Woodhouse as Communications Director for the Democratic National committee. Brad and i will talk to ann hornaday, a film critic about sundays ofteningar award ceremonies. Will it be argo . Will it be linkon . Silver lining . A good movie. Or dat zero dark thirty or jzango unchanged. We are talking cruise ships with martha honey, director the Washington Office for the center for responsible travel. Again, follow their work and we skimmed the surface this morning. How are communeityies dealing with this . They can pick up and move any time they want. If you dont want us, we are not coming here. And we want to dump our waste here we will dump our waste here tell me about alaska . Alaska is interesting because they have had cruise ships. They have about a million, civil million visitors a year and a fragile environment as we know. Yeah. Theyve got tourism is extremely important. They were not gaining very much from the cruise industry so in 2006 they had a citizens ref made,um on the ballot about cruise ships. It passed. The cruise industry was sideswiped. They werent paying much attention but it produced the strictest regulations anywhere. 50 head tax for people getting on board the passenger. Environmental regulations any time a ship is in alaska warts, the activity on the ship have to be to the state. Things that were begin to go bring revenue to the state. The cruise industry is walking up and waking up and trying to to cut back on the amount per passenger. Environmental regulations and its an ongoing struggle. Ists at the meeting in carlston the chief lawyer was there. Its an ongoing fight. The cruise industry basically began to put the jeez on by moving ships out of classic. When they come into port they are not there. They dont pay taxess . . No. Cruise ships are registered in liberia and panama and fly flags of convenience from some, you know, developing country. Can viral cruise that just has had several mishaps and operating in charleston paid no taxes at all. No u. S. Taxes. The earns which are 15 billion a year, they paid in u. S. Taxes. Their ceo last year got a 90 million bonus for his operations. 90 million bonus . What . Efforts to tax them have not been very successful. The way the cruise line works is they lobby extensively. Heavy lobby and play ports off one against another. I want to say hello to donna from cab bin john maryland outside of d. C. Hi. How are you . Whats your question . I know martha. I am with green earth travel. How are you . Fine, thanks. Anyway i wanted to ask your opinion on the small cruise ships, those 100 passenger cruise ships. Thats a great question. I was hoping bill would ask it. I am glad you did. Thank you, donna. Callers are often smarter than bill. Yes. We call those pocket cruisers, anything under about 200 passengers and they can be far lessen vicive. They tend to spend more time on land have naturalist guides or cultural guides. They stepped to be more of an educational experience. They are not just shopping trips. They can really be, you know advantageous to the countries. Lit litter on the sea as well. If you want to experience a healthy kind of a wellrounded experience on a cruise go on a pocket ship . Pocket cruisers. A small one, you know, understand about 200. The gallapagos is an excellent example all of the ships are about 100 passengers or less. Well regulated morning about 100 ships there. Strict regulations and that economy is dependent on this kind of cruise tourism. Center for responsible travel again, responsible travel. Org. Thank you for all of your good work and thank you for coming until. Pocket cruisers . Great. I will be back to tell you what the president is up to today. This is the bill press show. Come celebrate lobsterfest and sea food differently. Current tv is the place for true stories. With Award Winning documentaries that take you inside the headlines. Real, gripping, current. Documentaries. On current tv. [ music ] this is the bill press show. All right. Getting an email from a friend in los angeles saying, i have never been on a cruise and will never go on one. They are expensive and dangerous. Dick rosengarten from los angeles. 10 15 this morning, go over across the street to the Old Executive Office building to attend the meeting of the democratic governs association. At 12 15 they will be holding a by late bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of japan on an official visit having luncheon with him on the cabinet room at 1 15 p. M. Jay carney will squeeze in a briefing at 11 30 this morning. Brad woodhouse here as a friend of bill, Communications Director for the dnc at the top of the next hour. This is the bill press show. Only the resolve easy clean system has foam power to stop dirt in its tracks. It penetrates deep within your carpet removing 3 times more dirt than vacuuming alone. Leaving the busiest areas of your carpets, truly fresh and clean. The resolve easy clean system. Dont just vacuum clean. Resolve clean. [ music ] hello friends and natureseighbors. It is friday morning, february 22nd. Welcome to the fullcourt press here on current tv, coming to you all across this great land of ours from our nations capitol, washington, d. C. , sunday the house and the senate will come back in town and some day, maybe they will think about dealing with the sequester. Who knows . One of the big stories we are following this morning. One week from sequester land one week from a total Economic Disaster one week from slipping back into a recession. Fat chance not going to happen. Vice President Joe Biden says if you want to protect your family, dont buy an assault rifle. Buy a shotgun. By two of them like he did. All right. Lots to talk about here in this last hour together before we head into the weekend but first we will take a little time out to get the latest todays currents news update from our good friend, Lisa Ferguson our studios, at our studios in los angeles. Hi, lisa. Good morning. Hey, bill. Good morning everyone. Business and labor leaders dont seem to be seeing eye to eye on immigration. They asked for a set of principles on what to do with i am grant workers. Now, the two groups have just released their relations including a proposal for a new type of visa. This would give immigrants more flexibility with a chance of permanent residency and the option to switch jobs. It would still give the first choice to american workers. The plan also outlines the creation of a new federal bureau that would inform congress and the public about the work force needs in the United States. A new poll shows most americans do think the government can make a difference when it comes to global warming. This comes just a week after marco rubio marked at a time president s Climate Change saying the government cant change the weather. According to a new Huffington Post sixty people say u. S. Policies can make a major difference. The use of drones is sharply up in afghanistan. , more than 500 drone strikes last year, an increase of 72 compared with 2011. The trend will likely could not as the u. S. Pulls more troops out of afghanistan. Its safer for u. S. Military but oven results in casualties in afghanistan. More bill up next. Going to do the young turks. I think the number one thing that viewers like about the young turks is that were honest. They know that im not bsing them with some hidden agenda, actually supporting one party or the other. When the democrats are wrong, they know that im going to be the first one to call them out. They can question whether im right, but i think that the audience gets that this guy, to the best of his ability, is trying to look out for us. Interesting across the nation, on your radio and on current tv this is the billthe bill press show. One week from sequester, one week from austerity, one week from recession. Good morning, everybody. Great to see you this morning. It is friday february 22nd. We are the full court press. Welcome to the program coming to you life all the way across this great land of ours. The u. S. Of a, coming to you from our studio in capitol hill in washington, d. C. Bringing you up to date on the big stories of the day and giving you a chance to sound off and let us know what you think about everything going on its kind of the old fashion way now or follow us on twitter and talk to us on twitter bp show a it twitter handle and facebook. Com billpress show. You get to sound off today not only with me. Taken the last couple of months to celebrate, you know, but now you are back. We are back at it. We got a big week ahead of us. I know. Got to forestall that hopefully. President doing a good job. They are, bill. If you saw these poles that came out yesterday, they were fairly extraordinary and some of the highest Approval Ratings the president has had in his entire term. Some of the lowest that Granite State has had. Lower still for republicans the most interesting result i saw within the pew pew or u. S. A. Today is using pew. 20 of the americans identify with the Republican Party, still half of those in that poll, over half of those in that poll are republicans agree to the president s approach to dealing with the deficit. They said we should have a mix of more revenue through tax increases and tax reform and spending cuts not just spend cuts alone. 19 of the American People a little more than believe that the moon landing was fake 19 of the American People are with the republicans on a spendingcuts program. They are retreating in the smallest part of the electorate. Holding out for that 19 . It is insane politics. It is. Look where they are. If not suicidal. Right. Look where they are. The malth in the house. They lost seats but they want it back. They play a major role. But they are a party that setaid they want to grow not shrink. It looks like they are shrinking. Boy, you get more into that in just a little bit here our team press, of course, in place, peter ogburn and dan henning, fill backert on the phone and cyprian on the video cam. It was a big day. I dont know whether you caught up with us. The first lady welcomed a special guest to the white house kitchen with a special message. This is like the third anniversary of lets move. Right. She wants people to get exercise and eat healthy, particularly kids to eat Healthy Snacks. Here she is in the kitchen with her special guest. Hi. We are here in the white house kitchen looking for a Healthy Snack to eat. I bet you could get everything you want. Big bird. I try to reach for healthy colorful snacks like juicy fruits and crunchy vegetables. Those look good. Some come in their own carrying cases like this orange. See, it has a hard peel. Yeah. I hadnt thought. So does this banana. Eating healthy is easy and its fun and delicious, too. Great message, Good Campaign and couldnt have a better salesperson . You could not have a better person to bring in to talk about nutrition. Have you seen big bird . Has he aged since you were a child . He is in good health. He is in good, good health. Even cookie monster had to put the cookies down. Thats what happened. I did not see the cookie monster in that video. Great. Now she is going on the roted now for the next few days i think. Thats familiar lus. Well, of course, its an important initiative. But there is a little poetic justice in having big bird in the white house. Oh, yes. Uhhuh. Take that mitt romney. Thats right. All right. So Brad Woodhouse here with us as a friend of bill. We will talk with ann hornaday from the Washington Post. She is a film critic from the Washington Post about what she sees ahead in the big awards ceremony, the auscarizona on sunday night. But first t. This is the full court press. The stuff you need to know now that plans for the white house correspond ents Association Dinner have been set in motion, news organizes will start to announce who their guests to the dinner will be hoping to make headlines. Buzz feed was first out of the gate, inviting jose canseco. He said via twitter he would love to go. Buzz feed ought to be careful. They dont have tickets to the did i knower and they are brandnew members of the corps respondents association. Who knows where they rank on that totem poll. As a fairly new member of the white house correspondents association, dont expect a lot of tickets . Thats right. Thats right. Start handing them out to people on twitter, they will run out fast. Speaking of twitter we have been talking about twitter accounts getting hacked, another one yesterday. We might take pleasure in this one. Donald trumps twitter handle. The businessman was et betweening at republicans warning them to not give our country away yesterday and one tweet popped up and it ran as follows, these hos think they classmy. Well, thats the class im skipin from lil wayne. I am not at all convinced that he was hacked. I can hear him saying that. He got his twitter account bank. Donald trump and he said he was seriously hacked and looking for the perpetrator. He will get them. 5 million in rewards if you can find at a time perpetrator. I will never look at lil wayne the same way. This might be my favorite story of the day. There is a bill in front of the Montana State legislator to give drivers the ultimate drivethru eating experience. They are debating whether to allow to make eating road kill legal meaning if you hit a deer elk you could be welcome to pop it in your trunk. I thought you could. Here is the deal. In montana, understood banks actually already do collect road kill for the poor, but technically, its illegal. Please look the other way. Police are fine with making it legal. I think finders keepers, losers weepers. If i find a quarter on the street, i pick it up. Its mine. They have the thing like a yacht. Crashes on the shore and hits the rock. Open season. You should be able to eat it. If a big ol dear comes out and you damage your car, the least you should be able to do is take that home. They dont want it to turn into people going hunting with their cars and trying to go after like big horn sheep to harvest the horns and stuff. How sdpoizable are your cars . I want to get Chuck Grassleys opinion on this. On twitter. On twitter . Assume dear dead. His twitter comment. Assume dear dead. Brad, we havent seen you much. Maybe once since the last election. Do republicans know there was an election last november and that they lost . If you look at the way they are acting in congress they sure dont. You know, they are just continuing to do the same thing. Which direction they wanted to go . What is so incredible is this was what campaign was about. There were some schedules of other issues, some foreign issues, some republicans tried to bring in late and smear the president. This is what the election is about. It was not about the sec er but it was about the direction of how we deal with improving the economy and getting our budget our fiscal house in order. They lost overwhelmingly. All of the data is in now there is no way to look at the election but there was a thorough buttkicking to the republicans. They are saying the sale thing. Spending cuts only, you know no new revenue. The one thing i think has taken a turn and i think this is a result of the number of Tea Party Members that have been elected over the past couple of cycles is that now they dont care about government anyway. They are here to burn it down. They are all getting a government check while they are doing it but they are here to burn government down. There is a thought among a number of these members in the house that let it happen. You know what . Its not the best its not the best way to cut government. But this is what they say at least we will change the baseline. I mean really. We are going to lose food inspectors, you know, going to have lose two tsa agent, fbi agent did. I mean, you know, we are trying to make the country more secure. Tsa people and everything. Lines at airports arent love enough. Airlines need more of an excuse to raise ticket prices. The snowball effect, you know of this. Not to mention 800,000 civilian employees at the pentagon told you are going to get a 20 pay cut. Republicans are saying receipts let it happen because we say we need to cut government. This may not be the best approach. But then they say, thats okay because nobody is going to blame us. They are going to blame obama. They cant read if thats what they believe. Look at this poll yesterday. Usa todaypew half of the American People said they would blame the republicans. Less than a third said they would blame the president. They are not even holding their base in the blame game. They dont even have all of their base in terms of blaying the president should the sequester halle happen. Its a fairly fairly extraordinary development. Boehner got criticism. This is how bizarre they have gotten in terms of messaging. Boehner had an oped saying the sequester was the president s idea. This is all on him. Most of his party now is comfortable letting the sequester happen and then he was basically saying it was going to happen but arguing about how dire it is. If its dire, then work with the president to get past it. Lets at least do something in the interest and continue to try to reach a big deal, which john boehner has walked away from three or four times. You might check my column thats up at billpressshow. Com. We have treated it out. We have. In my column, i quote by ron york conservative commentator who really blasts boehner because he said you are sending a mixed mental. You are saying the sequester would be dangerous and jeopardize our National Security. Right. On the other hand, you are refusing to do anything to forestall it. How can you you know john boehner get your get straight here. Heif its so bad, he ought to stop it. This is the vice they are in. Lets remember this. It just amazes me how republicans try to lie their way out of history. There is only one reason we have a sequester. Its that republicans who are hellbent, as we know and we have gone through this history many times they met on inauguration night of 2009 and said that they were going to that they were going to not cooperate with this president at all and make his presidency a failure so they could win reelections. It different work by the way. It different work in 2012. The only reason we are here is that part of that strategy was to play chicken with the debt ceiling in 2011. This was a package that was thrown together to avoid default. Uhhuh. Republicans would have had our current try default on its obligation. Obligation. Thats the only reason we have sequester is because they took us to the brink of complete Economic Disaster. As jay carney has reminded us every day, when that sec quest ircame up as part of the package. 174 republicans voted for it including john boehner, paul ryan and maining muir fee from calf and john boehner says i got 98 of what i wanted. 98 of what i wanted. Unbelievable. Trying to blame it on pompom. We will take your calls at 86655press on todays edition of the fullcourt press, friday february 22nd. Radio meets television, the bill press show, now on current tv. Only on current tv. And the thinkers thinking. Okay, so theres wiggleroom in the Ten Commandments is what youre telling me. Shes joy behar. And current will let me say anything. Only on current tv. They think this world isnt big enough for the both of them. But we assure you it is. Bites. Little greatness. [ male announcer ] start with a groundbreaking car. Good. Then invent an entirely new way to buy one. No. No. No. Yes a website that works like a wedding registry. But for a car. First, you customize it. Then let people sponsor the cars parts as gifts. Dad sponsors the engine for your birthday. Grandma sponsors the rims for graduation. The car gets funded. Then you pick up your new dodge dart at the dealership. And all thats left to do is say thanks. Easy. We have a big big hour and the iq will go way up. vo current tv gets the converstion started weekdays at 9am eastern. Im a slutty bob hope. You are. The troops love me. vo tv and radio talk show host Stephanie Miller rounds out currents morning news block. Youre welcome current tv audience for the visual candy. Just be grateful current tv does not come in smellivision. The sweatshirt is nice and all but i could use a golden lasso. vo only on current tv. [ music ] on your radio and on current tv this is the bill press show. Bill 25 minutes now after the hour. We are going to talk auscarizona in the next segment for a little bit. Brad woodhouse is here communications directsor for the dnc. We are talking all things political. Peter ogburn whats happening in the social media world. We are on twitter bpshow. Phil says the tea party is playing with a life grenade. If they drop it they will suffer the worst of it politically. Don griffith says because of g. O. P. Causing our Credit Rating to drop, we are paying an extra 80 million a year in interest. Whoa. Hadnt heard that number before. I will tell you something. I dont think republicans ever paid enough of a price for that. You are right. Yeah. We never would have written it. The president would have signed a debt ceiling increase any time during that. Like they gave george bush 13 times. Repeatedly they took us to the brink. We are downgraded. It hurt our economy the economy really stagnated after that. We had been on an upswing and stagnated. I dont think republicans paid a big enough price for that. You mentioned the tea party and some people not realizing there was an election, how badly they lost of all people karl rove seems to recognize they are losing because their condition dates are too whacky, too extreme if not too insane and he wants to do something about it and he is really getting hammered by some of the Republican Leadership and a lot of activists saying he is trying to be, you know, chicago mafia politics. Right . Well, or worse. Thats right. The Republican Party and i think its because of all of this other crisis to crisis we have been dealing with, the fiscal cliff and the sequester, whats happening in the Republican Party is not getting a lot of attention but its absolutely fascinating. Its not just the Republican Party per se or its leaders or at this time at this time titular leaders. There was the big breakup at freedomworks with dick army walking out with what was it . 8 million or Something Like that . The Koch Brothers have, you know, completely done a topdown assessment of all of the money they pissed away in the elek. Of course, karl rove is taking on the tea party now. And there are a number of people out there who who wanted to take karl roves perch at the top of the party, and they are out for blood. There is nothing more satisfying for a republican than watching republicans eat each other alive . The truth is its not i dont think they are going to get very far with it. All right. Move movies are next. Stay with us. Compelling true stories. Jack, how old are you . Nine. This is what 27 tons of marijuana looks like. vo with Award Winning documentaries that take you inside the headlines, way inside. vo from the underworld, to the world of privilege. Everyone in Michael Jacksons life was out to use him. vo no one brings you more documentaries that are real, gripping, current. Chatting with you live at current. Com billpress. This is thefullcourt press. 33 minutes after the hour. How about it on a friday friday february 22nd. This is the full court press. We are coming to you live from our nations capitol, brought to you today by the united Steel Workers and their great, cloufshl out spoken International President , leo gerard, north americas largest Industrial Union rep precepting over 1. 2 million active and retired members. Find out more about their good work at usw, usw. Org. Hear friend of bills with us Brad Woodhouse, his day job at the dnc. Bless you. Pardon me. Only time i ever sneezed on the air in my entire broadcasting career, but i could feel it coming here. Nothing you can do. Nothing you can do about it that. All right. The Super Bowl Academy awards. There are some great films, ann hornaday is the film critic joining us on our news line this morning. Thanks for being with us. Hi, bill. Thank you for having me bill as a general comment before we get down to handicapping the winners or losers, that there is an incredibly fine selection of films to choose from this year. The public seems to like them. The film critics seem to like them. The academy seems to like them. Right . Its so true. This has been a really standout year in terms of quality. It was a High Water Mark just for pure craftsman she. I mean these are all if you look at the best picture nominees, its an incredibly what it tells me is that the 0 system is healthy. I mean we have the little scrappy independently indy like beasts of the southern wild a strong foreign lang film and then we have this amazingly Diverse Group of dramas and a comedy like Silver Linings playbook geared toward grownups, well executed but dont take the audience for grabbed grabbed. I think it augurs really well for how hollywood is treating audiences these days. It hatches every year but i dont remember seeing so much campaigning. Uhhuh. Brad reminds me of a political campaign. I know some people involved in these campaigns. They shall go unnamed. They spend a lot of money trying to get somebody of the outsiders in. Sounds like there could be a real upset this year. Yeah. Buzz going particularly with harvey weinstein, what he has done with Silver Lining playbook. Do these have impact on the Academy Voters . Funny you should ask. This var thing. This year whats remarkable is how much of that Campaign Came through washington you know. We had a moment. Lincoln was being shown to a Bipartisan Senate group while ben affleck was talking about con go and they are firing off a letter by zero dark 30. Harvey sees the actions here and quickly rounds up brad cooper and russell to testify about mental health. Wait a minute. We have washington and little wallace from beasts of the southern wild saying hi to Michelle Obama in the white house. This has been remarkable how much campaign has been dove tailed. Joe corn knee weighing in on lincoln and accuracy issues. The overlaps and then die grab between Hollywood Oscar campaigning and political campaigning in this year has just been remarkable overlap. Your very question whether its mattered. He specially, zero dark thirty was heavily dinged. The attack from those senators wasnt fatal but it was really serious. It was really, i think, in my mind, it was completely unfounded and unfair. Maybe thats a different discussion. Didnt dont forget bill clinton. Right . Thats right. Bill clinton at the globes introducing lincoln. Exactly. Everybody said before it came out that zero dark 30 was run away but the om one that could beat lincoln i feel the wind has gone out of the sails of zero dark thirty and lincoln. Yeah. When i was at tore onto the Toronto Film Festival happens right after teluride. And they form the beginning of the cam paper system and at that point, argo was one being touted because that had premiered at and nobody had seen zero dark 30 or lincoln. Then lincoln pops you want up. Classic best picture, all of the bones of a best picture in terms of subject matter executive, and zero i would maintain the same in terms of just the quality. Then you see the campaperingly kick in and here, argo is the front runner. Somebody yesterday compared it to romney during primary where romney was the presumed frontrunner but then you had your santorums and bachmanns, you know, your little bursts. Yeah. Of other guys. At the end of the day, it could be the first guy, you know, that we were talking about. So if you had to bet today, do you think it would be argueargo . I guess i would just based on you know lets be honest. I am out here. My ear is not to the literal ground out there. I dont have daily coffee with academy members. So please take it with a grain you know, of somebody who is writing from a distance. I wouldnt be surprised if lincoln took it. I still think lincoln has the classic contours of a best picture. To be honest, to your opening point, they are all terrific. Even though i think of the list, my personal favorite is zero dark thirty and i would love, love, love for that to win. I think it deserves to win. I loved linkon. I liked argo a lot. So good news is that these are all worthy competitors. Probably hard to i think campaigning got a little too rough. But the movies themselves are terrific. Hard to say no to Stephen Spielberg . He has a history of being in very, very well with the auscarizona. Yes. Remember, he also got upset. We thought saving private ryan was going to win but here comes harvey with shakespeare in love. He has had the fool snitched away from him before. None of us think les mes will be up there. Its too long. The weakest of the bunch i must resist admit i resisted going to see for a long time and i did last weekend because carol, my wife went to the antikeystone pipeline rally. She was out there as an environmental activist. I was the irresponsible one and i went to see jzango unchanged. I never saw so many people get killed, blown away in my life, and i never laughed so hard in my life. I loved the movie. Yeah, well, you know i went in. I was not a hugeinglorious bastaddress film. So i went in skeptical. It was like tarentino with our primal wound. But we have never resolved. So its sort of like be aware of taking up resolved history and making it a genre picture, you know. But i will be darned if he didnt do it. I had a problem with that last half hour or 45 minutes where it goes off of the rails. I thought the lack of discipline undermined is it but i do think in a really counter intuitive way that visual language of spaghetti western worked in terms of bringing the violence and terrorism of slavery to the screen in terms of cinematic vernacular. I thought it was a sooths. I am not saying it was going to win. I was surprised how much i liked it, too, bill. I was confounded by it. But, you know, its a problematic text. I have gotten lots of emails about it from all sides in terms of people thinking it did or didnt work. We havent talked about best director. Does that mean affleck cant get best director since he wasnt nominatedd so spielberg a runaway favorite for that . No. The favorite is the ang lee. We havent talked about that. Really . For lifelife of pi . I must admit this one i havent seen. Its wonderful. Its a beautiful movie. Thats what i keep hearing. Good to look at. It is. It is stunning and again, thats another one where i went in with very managed expectations. Ists not a big fan of the book. I really was nor was i skeptical it could be brought to the scene. It was gorgeous and i thought it brought out elements of the book i miss the first time. Thats the, i think thats the one people are whispering about, but again. I wouldnt put it. I think its really wide open. I think its a good point between angly and Stephen Spielberg in a twoman race. If you look at the life of pi and the way ang lee took the story that happened essentially on a dingy and opened it up to such a broad range on the screen. Thats his vision that he had. It is sunday night. Good point. Ann hornaday. Great. Thank you for having me. Bill follow ann at the Washington Post, of course at washingtonpost. Com. From the sublime to the ridiculous life of politics where Brad Woodhouse and i spend most of our time. Thats right. This is the bill press show. Agenda, actually supporting one party or the other. When the democrats are wrong, they know that im going to be the first one to call them out. They can question whether im right, but i think that the audience gets that this guy, to the best of his ability, is trying to look out for us. The bar harbor bake is really worth trying. [ male announcer ] get more during red lobsters lobsterfest. With the years Largest Selection of mouthwatering lobster entrees. Like our delicious lobster lovers dream, featuring two kinds of succulent lobster tails. Or our savory, new grilled Maine Lobster and lobster tacos. Its back, but not for long. [ woman ] our guests go crazy for lobsterfest. My favorite entree is the lobster lovers dream. Whats yours . Come celebrate lobsterfest and sea food differently. She gets the comedians laughing. Thats hilarious . And the thinkers thinking. Okay, so theres wiggleroom in the Ten Commandments is what youre telling me. Shes joy behar. And current will let me say anything. Only on current tv. [ music ] this is the full court press. The bill press show, live on your radio and on current tv. All right. Dont start your weekly yet. On the fullcourt press this friday morning special friday edition of the fullcourt press, with our good friend Brad Woodhouse from the dnc. Communications director. Brad, so much to talk about. 15 republicans yesterday calling on pompom to just drop this chuck haguenle thing. Just because they say so. Right. Its interesting. Marko rubio signed that letter. Uhhuh. So did lindsey graham. John boehner afraid of primary challenge did . He takes direction from ted cruz. Yeah. There is no way the president is going to withdraw or should he . Of course, he is not. It would be jrn russ to call that a publicblicity stunt. Senators supposed to be deliberative, i think it makes them look silly but they are appealing to prime audiences, to the tea party, they are appealing to whoever. I mean there is, you know, people out there that if the president nominated on their side on the cran side and the republicans nominated jesus christ to be something in his cabinet, they would oppose him. It wasnt surprising at all. The fact they didnt get kelly ayotte on it and john mccain and shelby on it who has said he will vote for him really weakened their cause. They were better off not sending the letter. The forecast is they are going to lose next week. Thats right. We were amused this week to win the conservative Political Action committee, which has its big confab here every march and they bring out the people they hope would be the liters of the Republican Party, and this is how, you know, we are going to get control back, get the white house back and everything. So they announce our headliners this week. Sarah palin followed by mitt romney. There you go. Maybe they will have a reality t. V. Show coming out of that. Looking in the rearview mirror. Which is the. Which is the best you can say about it. That is the best that you can say about it. I suppose in one sense they wanted to create some buzz. People were talking about it. I think they are talking about it for, honestly, the wrong reasons. These are not the future leaders. Party. I frankly dont understand. What do they have to say . Thats right. I mean, you know, i ran as Vice President and lost. I ran as president and lost. I was governor and i quit. Governor and i quit i was governor and i forgot. Thats right. Boggles the mind. I guess to some extent i feel a little sad. For them, you know sarah palin has lost her gig on foch. She has faded to near i think, irrelevance in the political scene. Mitt romney, you know, i dont understand i dont understand why he doesnt just i dont know how mitt romneys going to come give a speech for that crowd without attacking the president. Thats a little unseemly given that the election is over with. Its also not his crowd. I have to ask you this final question. About a minute left. So you, thanks to you and thanks to the obama campaign, you amassed a human army of volunteers. Surprise everybody. Everybody said it wasnt like 2008. Damn it, it was. Exceeded it. Yeah. What happens to all of that people power now . Does it just disappear . No. Gosh no. At least we hope not. Look. We did we did learn something in 2009 and 2010 when lfa campaign calm over to the dnc organizing for america. It is certainly not as easy to get people motivated to go out and do issue work as it is fob they will to them to work for the candidate. In some ways way they think we got you elected. You take care of it. We are so excited about this next phase. As you know, the president s campaign has morphed into organizing for action which is a c 4. There are apt of benefits to that. They will do issue work. They are doing a lot of work on guns this week. They have worked on the sequester they are just beginning. Campaign has shut down. Organizing for action is just opening its doors. So, theyve got a lot of work to do to get cranking, but they are working on guns. They have access to that, you know, to all of that data, that big email list and more important than anything, the volunteers we want to keep engaged. Absolutely. Of course, the dnc, you are keeping people engaged, too . Absolutely still sign up. Stay active. Immigration reform guns, gun safety. Democrats. Org is the site Communications Director for the gnc dnc. I will be back with a quick parting shot . Thank you so. This is this is the bill press show. [ music ] vo current tv gets the converstion started next. Im a slutty bob hope. You are. The troops love me. The sweatshirt is nice and all but i could use a golden lasso. vo only on current tv. [ music ] the parting shot with bill press. This is the bill press show. Bill sometimes you cant win for losing. Here we go again. Just as more and more of us are trying to eat healthy so we order fish instead of that big red steak. Here comes this scary headline a New York Times sur afinds fish are often not what the label says. Oceana tested fish sold in markets, restaurants and sushi bars and discovered very often, we are not eating what we think we are eating