Cenk in the last segment rocky thats why you can visit tyt. Viewpoint is next. John fuglesang Senate Republicans used a filibuster to block a vote on former senator chuck hagel for defense secretary. Congratulations, harry reid, you built this. Barack obama killed Osama Bin Laden so republicans are killing the post office. Thom hartmann joins us on that. Republicans are still fighting each other. It is like a civil war with the south fighting the south. And Eliot Spitzer is with us tonight which is historic because you know conans not going on jay. Today is the birthday of carl bernstein, Florence Henderson is 79. Also the birthday of keller and somewhere, somehow jimmy hoffa is celebrating his 100th birthday. We celebrate valentines day to publicly demonstrate your affection with crap. This is viewpoint. John good evening, im John Fuglesang. Coming up, another state moves a big step closer to approving american equality and another conservative moves a big step closer to having a heart attack over it. Bp pays billions in fines for the Gulf Oil Spill then gets billions more in government contracts. Lindsey graham announce he will continue to block lady gagas tour until she provides more answers about benefit benghazi. Starting with the senate and majority leader harry reid. Republicans have made an unfortunate choice to ratchet up the level of destruction here in washington. Just when you thought things couldnt get worse it gets worse. John because today Senate Republicans blocked former republican senator chuck hagels nomination to become the nations next secretary of defense. This is the first time, friends in our nations history that a filibuster has been used to block a president s nominee for that position. The final tally 58 for 40 against and one senator utahs orrin hatch voted present. Wow, harry you couldnt see this coming, to cow . Senator reid has mildly apoplectic after the votes were cast. Theyre filibustering him. Thats what theyre doing. Im going to say im sorry sorry this has happened. John harry reid showing the lack of outrage and passion hes renowned for. We should apologize for watching filibuster reform at the start of the session. After todays vote, president obama might also agree. Obama the filibuster historically has been used selectively for a handful of issues to extend debate. We dont have a 60 vote rule. Thats become common practice. John it aint over until its over. The senate will likely vote again on the nomination when it returns for a muchneeded 10day recess. If youre wondering why the unprecedented event took place some say theyre blocking haigle to squeeze the white house for more information on the benghazi attack, something hagel has nothing to do with. Others are backing ted cruzs calls for Additional Information on hagels speeches and business deals. But senator john mccain may have gotten it right when he explained the vote to fox news. Theres a lot of ill will toward senator hagel because when he was a republican, he attacked president bush mercilessly at one point said he was the west president since herbert hoover. Said that the surge was the worst blunder since the vietnam war which is nonsense. And was very anti his own party and people. People dont forget that. John because for some in the g. O. P. , theres nothing more wrong than being right. Republicans will continue to punish hagel for the crime of being right. Connoisseurs of paranoia likely wont forget another new outburst from the nras wayne wont pea air. Today, he accused president obama of launching the most Aggressive Campaign in history to destroy Second Amendment rights. Including bans on millions of commonlyowned rifles, shotguns and handguns. Bans on tens of millions of standard magazines. Bans on private transfers. Even between family members. John that came after lapierrre published an opinion piece on the daily caller, the comedy site that doesnt realtize is a comedy site when he said gun owners need their weapons to protect their family from a total collapse of society. A collapse mr. Lapierrre says he saw a response of in hurricane sandy. After hurricane sandy, we saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia. Looters ran wild in south brooklyn. There was no food, water or electricity and if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you had better get back before dark or you might not get home at all. That, my friends was Wayne Lapierrre beyond thunder dome. For more, im delighted to be joined by the former governor of new york and former current tv host everyone knows who you are. Youre Eliot Spitzer. Pleasure to be back here. John it is a pleasure to have you back. Wayne lapierrre is a complete lunatic. John i think thats a bit insulting to partial lunatics. Lets go to the partial filibuster. Who do you think im dying to know this, is more to blame for what happened today. Republicans in the senate or harry reid himself . Blame is a word we use too often but since you raised it, harry reid had the opportunity on the first legislative day of the session to use what they call the Nuclear Option to reform the filibuster rule. He should have done it. Instead, for the second time, they came out with this ridiculous noncompromise compromise and afterwards, they say oh look, theyre still doing it. I dont quite understand why we have to go through this charade. Chuck hagel will get a vote when they come back because we need a secretary of defense and even the republicans acknowledge that. Where this will come back to haunt us, judicial nominations you know, robert cordray, in other words, those positions where the republicans will simply sit tight and filibuster forever and they will turn the government into a set of ears that dont turn. This is why we changed the filibuster rule. John when the senate takes this tenday recess and clearly they need it they worked what . Two days. Had three dinner parties and now ten days off. John you can imagine how much heat these senators will get from their constituents back at home. Do you think they might come back with okay we made our point. No. You heard it with john mccain. This is about the inside the beltway chamber where words ricochet back and forth. They listen to themselves. Theyre playing a game where harry reid against mitch mcconnell. The chess game continues unabated. Harry reid could have broken the game over. John mccain was candid saying were punishing this guy for going against the bush administration. Thats what they call gaffe in washington where you tell the truth and reveal what people are really thinking because what chuck hagel had done while bush was president was tell the truth. You can debate the surge and military issue aside but calling george bush the worst president since herbert hoover, 80 of the public at some point would have agreed with that. President obamas entitled to his secretary of defense. Game over. John its incredibly historic. Never happened before. What does this say about the likelihood of pushing any kind of legislation through the house or senate . If you go back to the state of the union where you had Climate Change, theres no way Climate Change is going to happen legislative. The president said he will do it individually through executive power. Gun control Wayne Lapierrre out there on the lunatic fringe, maybe well get background checks but thats not so clear. When it comes to minimum wage, many of us feel should have been raised more than 9 because it is still below where it was the republicans are pushing back against that. Even if you take sort of the core ideas that the president laid out, it was a very nice speech and of course, the Emotional Energy being undone, you wonder if any of it can happen. John even if they dont happen, are these wins for the president. If he fails on assault weapons and has a future massacre, you own this. Problems on minimum wage, he looks good going into 2014, people will remember the president who fought for the working class . Winning for him now is different. Hes in a second termen where historical analysis and Historical Perspective is what he cares about. Hes not fighting for reelection. He needs results after eight years so he can say heres what we got done. I still think the fundamental metric will be middle class incomes after eight years of president obama be up or down. If its adown then i think the historical record will be yes he brought us back from the precipice but somehow did not restore the trend line. That was the focus of what he was talking about. Whether the pieces are there whether it happens, we have to wait and see. John i want to move on to mr. Lapierrre. I know youre a fan. My buddy wayne. John during the first few days after sandy, there was not a single homicide in the city of new york contrary to what mr. Lapierrre lied and only seven alleged luting cases in all of brooklyn. Whats he talking about and do his fans care . Hes been watching too many movies, mad max australia back after 2,000 years. The guy simply is detached from reality. I think the john does he need to be . Isnt his job to sell fear . I was completely wrong about three months ago. Less than that. After the newtown massacre, and there have been a sequence of horrific events. I kept waiting for an alternative force to emerge within the nra. Somebody to stand up. Somebody akin to whats going on in the Republican Party now or even a karl rove saying hey guys, we cant win this way. There are gun owners who are sensible. I keep waiting for some of those to band together saying heres what we think we can do. John you see 85 of nra members support background checks. Theres no voice. They need somebody to be their recognizable face who can then take on the leadership. Push lapierrre aside. Hes the tea party. We are the mainstream. Hes on the fringe. Hes the tea party. We are the mainstream. Republican legislators responding to the 85 who agree with what we think is the most common sense view, we have to say look Wayne Lapierrre is holding the political cards. John is he trying to go forward with his campaign of lies until it falls apart or is he just getting paid . It may be both. It may be until he wins. If this guy six months ago has stopped anything other than a weak universal background check if be they havent limited the number of bullets in a magazine, if there isnt an assault weapons ban, he will have won. Thats a sad reality. John speaking of sad reality, lets move to the sequester. Senate democrats have a plan that republicans say they wont support. Republicans say they have a plan that democrats wont support. Are we just looking at a new fiscal cliff disaster every month . Look, the difference about the sequester is that it isnt quite as terrifying as the fault. As a consequence saying how do we negotiate after the fact. Some people are saying sequester is not so bad because we get some cuts in defense spending or on the other side, we get cuts in defense spending. People are looking at this saying you know what . Maybe this is the best way to muddle through. There is not the hysteria out there in the public at large. There is not a drumbeat in the press that were getting close to a default. There is no sort of emerging consensus that we have to do something. So i think were going to have a sequester. John is some of that related to a National Financial crisis fatigue . People dont want to hear about it right now . I think people are more distant from whats going on in washington. Theyre erecting a wall saying guys, weve had enough scream and shouting. We had an election. We watched the state of the union. Leave us alone. March madness is going to start soon. Nascar season starts this weekend. Give us something to cheer about. Go away and play a different game. John thats not going to happen. On another front nascar is going to happen. John the president announced a new task force. Hes gotten very good at that. This one would investigate and prosecute financial fraud behind the housing crisis. As you well know, governor, there has not been a single prosecution yet. Are we ever going to see bankers or any other financial pros indicted . No, i think unfortunately the moment has passed. Even though we have a new s. E. C. Chair, mary jo white, i dont think she will be able to make the cases five years later. Evidence is getting stale. Waivers have been signed that create a difficult legal landscape in which to bring cases. You know, the task force you talked about did virtually nothing. Eric schneiderman, full disclosure. Friend of mine, the current a. G. In new york. There is some element of frustration that washington has not but the re put the resources or energy that needed to be there. The public at large should be outraged disgusted. Justice department failed. They simply whether it is walmart, news corp. Bankers they focused instead on Baseball Players taking steroids. This made no sense. And they simply failed to make the case. John i would like to ask why you think the white house didnt get behind prosecution but thats a whole other interview. I hope youll come back. S p, do you have any opinion on the lawsuit the government has filed . It was a good case. It was a good case five years later than it should have been. It was the sort of case that could have been brought should have been brought against other organizations where you dig into the emails. This is what we were doing 12 years ago. Read what people thought. What they thought was not what they said in public. They were selling stuff they knew was not good. Just charge them with it. Civil, criminal, doesnt matter. The s p case was good. But its only one. John is it funding back . Up and comer Eliot Spitzer former governor of new york and current tv host, a pleasure to have you here. My pleasure. John so is email killing the post office . Well only if it is an email from david. Thats coming up next. Which would be fine if bob were a vampire. But hes not. Hes an architect with two kids and a mortgage. Luckily, he found someone who gave him a fresh perspective on his portfolio. And with some planning and effort hopefully bob can retire at a more appropriate age. Its not rocket science. Its just common sense. From td ameritrade. John tonights thing of the day is the valentine of the day. This valentine comes from the Illinois State senate which just passed a Marriage Equality bill. The land of lincoln could become the tenth state in the union to recognize samesex marriage. It is now up to the illinois house. They need 60 votes to pass it and governor pat quinn already said he will sign it into law. It is a biggest thing since mike ditkas mustache. It was announced that the post office would be eliminating saturday delivery, a simple straightforward narrative emerged in the cooperate media. Because of technology, there is less of a need for standard email. Therefore the Postal Services finances are a mess therefore it was necessary to cut to address the issue. The only problem with the story about this poor post office besieged by email, it is completely wrong. The u. S. Postal service is not the victim of email and text messages. It is the victim of alec and the Koch Brothers. Why, you ask . Quite simple, really. The usps is the number one employer of unionized labor in the United States and provides an affordable universal service that a private company could and would charge us all much, much more for. Two huge nonos for the right wing. The reason the right wing crafted the legislation to destroy the Postal Service. Were joined now by nationally and internationally syndicated radio host the brilliant Thom Hartmann who wrote an incredible piece about this very subject for truth out. Org called the usps media hashtag fail. Great to be with you. John please complain what the postal accountability enhancement act is and what its effects have been. Well, you know, there were some reasonable and some good changes in that act which is as far as i can tell, how it got out of the House Government Oversight Committee henry waxman and other democrats basically signing of on it. It was passed by a voice vote. We dont know exactly who ultimately voted for it. This the core of it, that is biting the post office in the butt right now was this effort to take down the second largest employer in the United States. In 2006, the post office was doing just fine, thank you very much. In fact, the post office was profitable. In fact, the post office in 2005 had been talking about since they had the largest private vehicle fleet in the United States and most of those trucks traveled less than 100 miles in a day which is easy range of an electric vehicle, they were talking about electrifying, replacing gas engines with electric engines as much as half of all of their vehicles. They were really looking at some progressive stuff. The Koch Brothers were going nuts. Plus, as the second largest employer in the United States behind walmart which is not unionized. Ever since 1981 when Ronald Reagan declared war on union workers, the republican war against unions has been relentless. This was a twofer. What this bill says was weve got to make sure that postal employees, Health Benefits, when theyre retired are covered. That sounds reasonable. In fact, thats how it was sold to everybody. Lets make sure the pension fund, the Health Benefits are covered. But were going to cover the Health Retirement benefits of people 75 years from now. People who had not yet been born. Well cover the Retirement Benefits right now in a 10year period which means 5 billion a year starting in 2006 and ending in 2016, 5 billion a year has to be sucked out of the post office and put into this trust fund which already has mindboggling amount of money in it. And none of this is this kneecapped the post office. John i find thats the detail that has been missed by most people i know that for 75 years into the future, the benefits had to be paid for now. It is easy to see why the right wing would want to destroy the u. S. Post office. As you mentioned the unionized labor and of course, the fact that they wanted to have an electrical fleet of vehicles. Mistake. That made a lot of progressives and sane people happy. We can see why the oil barons wouldnt want it. Who stands to profit by starving the post office the most . Well, it is hard to say. Certainly the Republican Party profits whenever unions are destroyed. And so theyre big on this. The oil barons profit when the largest fleet of vehicles from the United States is about to get electrified and instead it stays using fossil fuels. Fedex and u. P. S. Obviously profit. And the word is that they were lobbying for these. There are some tracks back to that. Although both of those services ironically use the Postal Service for whats called lastmile service, if you send a package by fedex or u. P. S. To some remote location in a town in the middle of nowhere particularly in far away nowhere like alaska, they will actually hand it off to the post office for final delivery. So fedex and u. P. S. Is subsidized by the post office. John were paying for it. Why do you think so Many Democrats went along with this act . Out how it sail through congress so easily . Teddy kennedy voted for this. I genuinely dont know. What was in ted kennedys mind, the idea of prefunding postal retirement, you know, if people didnt realize that there was a 75year punch line in there, it probably made a lot of sense. Lets make sure the postal and like i said, there were some good reforms in the law. In the house, it was passed on a voice vote. We dont even know who voted for it. John oh, wow. Odds are it got out of the governments Oversight Committee as a deal. Lets make this happen. Its like this little time bomb. This little poison pill had been slipped into it. That 75 year thing. John why do you think the media got this story so wrong . Why are we still hearing email is killing the post office . Are they being lacey in their reporting . I think thats probably the fact largest factor. But i think it is also important to note that in 1980, paul wyrick made a famous speech. Probably have shown the video of it here, down in dallas, texas where paul wyrick, one of the cofounders of alec, he made this speech. He was helping run the Reagan Campaign at the time. He said i dont want people to vote. In fact, our leverage quite candidly goes down up as the voting populous goes down. That whole group was you know, behind taking the post office down. John proving my theory it is aristocracy versus democracy. Yeah and there hasnt been much coverage for alec, alec slipped under the radar for 20 years. John i thank you thom, for the piece. Host of the Thom Hartmann program. Thanks for coming back on viewpoint. Thank you john. John how crazy is Wayne Lapierrre . Hes so crazy he took a test and said the inkblots could have been prevented with more guns. [ male announcer ] tell him hes about to find out. Youre about to find out. [ male announcer ] test it. Highlight the european chassis 6 speed manual, dual exhaust wide stance, clean lines have him floor it, spin it punch it, drift it put it through its paces is he happy . Oh ya, hes happy [ male announcer ] and thats how you test your car for fun. Easy. John Wayne Lapierrre americas comedy treasure just wrote a piece for the daily caller that was so offthecharts cuckoo for cocoa puffs that the only way we can respond is with a jokeoff. Joining me now is tvs frank frank conniff. Hi frank, in your opinion frank, just how crazy is Wayne Lapierrre . Hes so crazy his meds are off him. John Wayne Lapierrre is so crazy, he had an interventions from glenn beck and andy dick. Hes so crazy the World Health Organization advises anyone coming in contact with him to get a rabies shot. John Wayne Lapierrre is so crazy now Jenny Mccarthy wants to inoculate her kids. His pants are treated for posttraumatic stress disorder. Joan Wayne Lapierrre is so crazy, doctors are borders built a moat to keep him away. If you look his name up in the dictionary, hell shoot you. Pizza hut just renamed crazy Wayne Lapierrre bread. He actually likes the tv show smash. John Wayne Lapierrre has the full support of a majority of republican lawmakers who believe freedom allows deranged people designed to kill lots of people in a short amount of time with no background checks. Thank you for giving us some dignified commentary. John if you thought maybe operations at bp wouldnt have faired so well after the 2010 blowout on its well in the gulf gulf of mexico that killed 11 people and caused the largest environmental disaster in u. S. History, consider this my friends, bps contracts with the u. S. Pentagon doubled since the year it spilled an estimated 4. 9 Million Barrels of oil into the gulf of mexico. According to reporting by bloomberg, the companys awards surged to 2. 51 billion in the year ended september 30th from 1. 04 billion in fiscal 2010. Bps share of the militarys Petroleum Market jumped to 12 from 8. 5 during the period. But to be fair, the e. P. A. Did finally announce it would temporarily ban the company from winning new government work just this past november, more than two years after the spill. Joining me now to assess what this means for bp and for logic itself is 30year oil industry veteran bob cavnar author of disaster on the horizon. Mr. Cavnar, so pleased to you have with us tonight. Great to be with you. John thank you. What are these contracts actually for sir . Cant the Defense Department just shop somewhere else for fuel . Well, john, the way that the military the entire u. S. Government acquires supplies like fuel is through bidding and contracts, large contracts depending geographically where they need the fuel. Theyll contract typically with approved companies. That are authorized to do business with the government in different geographicses so thats the way they buy all of their fuel for their ships their planes, trucks, tanks that sort of thing. Bp, before the blowout, was one of those large suppliers along with exxon mobil and shell and chevron and the other large producers. The thing thats interesting in this particular case is that bps share has increased since the blowout. And i believe that the government has done that before the e. P. A. Shuts it down or temporarily shut them down, to keep bp viable in the u. S. So they could continue to pay the fines that are certainly going to come from the spill itself. John that is a fashion nateing hypothesis. I want to ask you about it. What kind of message does it send to bp when the pentagon awards the company 2. 5 billion the same year it spills a record amount of oil in the gulf. Were they that hard up for cash to begin with . Part of the challenge here, during the blowout at least for the government was to keep bp viable so they could pay the costs. At least bp viable in the United States. If you recall, there was a lot of talk during the early days of the blowout about how serious it was and whether bp could either stay afloat in america or stay active in the u. S. Or even internationally. Globally. And so i believe that the 20 billion agreement between the Obama Administration and bp was to kind of put a fence around the amount of liability that bp would be liable for but also the government knew for them to pay that 20 billion they needed to remain viable. So at that particular time, when they came to the 20 billion agreement, youll remember the Obama Administration then suddenly stopped criticizing bp publicly. John sure do. Thats when all of the contracts began to happen, increasing the amount of oil revenue that bp had. John pardon me if im taking time to absorb this. The government is giving more money to bp not for jobs and not to appear like theyre pro oil drilling but just so bp can pay the money back to the government for their fines . Thats what i personally believe. There is obviously no public evidence of that. But just the behavior of the administration before the fine before the 20 billion settlement was made and then after. And knowing that bp needed to stay viable to not only pay the 20 billion for the claims but also to pay the environmental fines that has still yet to be assessed by the government. The thing the real issue here though to me is the message to bp is the criminal charges were corporate. Theyve got a few level a few managers who have also been charged. But that liability didnt go all the way to the top. At least personally. So no executive at bp has ever been charged with any wrongdoing at all so the message is very mixed to the public and i think to the oil industry, also. John has bp ever had a moment of stress for what its done to this country and the gulf . I think they had more stress over their stock price frankly than they thought about the gulf itself. As you recall, tony hayward said during the height of the blowout, it is a big ocean. Whats this one little well going to do to this big ocean ignoring the fact that hundreds of miles of coastline and thousands of square miles of deep water column had been polluted by the oil. John bob cavnar, ceo of luca technologies, im terrified to think that american taxpayer dollars might be paying for the commercials we see all night about how bp made the gulf such a swell place. Thank you very much for your time and expertise this evening. Good to be with you. John many thanks. Most people want to raise the minimum wage making republicans the Minority Party again. My panel talks about that coming up next. That take you inside the headlines. Documentaries. On current tv. Dont let it get to you. Try mach3 sensitive, with three highdefinition blades. A closer shave in a single stroke for less irritation, even on sensitive skin. Get closer to the one you love. Gillette mach3 sensitive. Gillette. The best a man can get. John just saw my eighth graders valentines essay. A hallmark holiday for a company to make money makes one feel bad because they have no one to love. Susan, your son is right. Not only is valentines day a racket for the greeting card, floorel and lingerie cartels it is the perfect time to make the kid in school who is an outcast feel worse about it. Your boy is only 13 but you appears to have raised the next kafka. Tweet us at viewpoint or John Fuglesang or use the hashtag viewpoint or say hello on our facebook page. One of the few concrete specific proposals president obama raised in tuesdays state of the union was a call to raise the minimum wage to 9 an hour from the current rate of 7. 25. And republicans did what they do best, hated the idea. Leading the way for the hateful haters, House Speaker john boehner who told reporters yesterday when you raise the price of employment, guess what happens . You get less of it. What happens when you take away the first couple of rungs on the economic ladder, you make it harder for people to get on the ladder. This is an argument economists technically called bull pucky. According to the center for economic and policy research, raising the minimum wage has little or no impact at all on the rate of unemployment. But that doesnt stop robert luddy, ceo of a company youve never heard of from furthering this argument on fox news yesterday. At the bottom are teenagers. What its going to do is just take out all of those jobs. I worked for 85 cents an hour when i was in high school. I was happy to have that job. John lets unpack that, shall we . First of all, when mr. Luddy was in high school back in the early 1960s, the minimum wage was between 1 and 1. 25 which with in todays money would be 6 or 7 an hour. Sounds pretty sweet. Second of all bob guys at the bottom arent teenagers. In fact, do remember this for arguments with your right wing friends, according to the bureau of labor statistics, as of 2011, only about 24 of americans earning minimum wage were teenagers. But perhaps Steven Colbert best gets to the heart of mr. Luddys real reason for posing the minimum wage. It is those cold nights fighting off rats with a spatula that motivates people to lift themselves up. Like mr. Luddy who lobbies to eliminate the minimum wage because [ bleep ] had to fight off rats with a spatula. Joining me now to discuss this and many other issues are three of the hosts of this weekends blackness radio. Im so glad you all are back this week. L. Joy williams, elon james white, the managing director of this week of blackness and aaron rand freeman. Really a pleasure to have you back. Thank you. John lets get started on this. With John Boehners rungs on a ladder argument. You dont need to see statistics to see this is completely senseless and classist. No one is talking about removing rungs from anyones ladder. Were simply talking about making the bottom rung get paid more. Now, isnt this pro capitalism . Is this pro growth . Isnt this pro america . Isnt john boehner about protecting corporations at the expense of working americans . I feel like you dont know what america is if you say that because america is built on people not having and then we feel better because we do. Thats how im sorry have you not looked at history . Not only that. We built the country on free labor and now we gotta pay people. So i dont want to pay as many people. We can go back to paying people less as much as possible. John we would have outsourced slavery to other parts of the country. But youre exactly other parts of the world i should say. To me, the number one bogus frank luntz term, pro growth. Doesnt it seem if people are making more money at the bottom of the pay scale theyll be spending more . Theyll be paying more in sales taxes, buying more and your business will have more customers. Not only that. The proposal will help reduce poverty by 3 . Thats not a huge amount but it helps. For people that are there. And this argument that theyre trying they keep opposing the rate and minimum wage all the time. George bush raised the minimum wage too in his second term. John how dare you bring that up, l. Joy. I think what theyre more upset about is tying the minimum wage to inflation. You know. So that it will continue what we dont have to have this fight continually every couple of years to raise the minimum wage so it fits the cost of Everything Else is going up. And wages stay down. So many facts john one more, please, may i . According to the bureau of labor statistics 49 of minimum wage earners are women over the age of 20. Almost half. Were talking about waitresses and people in the service industry. Is this just another area the g. O. P. Has found to marginalize women . I believe they look for different ways to marginalize women. Right. I dont think this particular thing here is like hey, lets keep the women down. It is about the fact that they just dont care about the people on the bottom and as a recently poor person, i take offense to this because [ laughter ] because the fact is like the idea 9 minimum wage, i worked for way less than minimum wage before. So i dont dont understand why they would fight so hard. As the president said in the state of the union people working full time and yet still in poverty. John aaron the idea of linking the minimum wage increases to inflation which elon mentioned is the same thing we heard from romney. Are republicans going to be against anything this president does even if it hurts the economy. Where in fact if they helped him make the economy better, they could brag about it. Im not clear how we can get this type of logical arguments across to people who can argue that you can live and save money and get a house and establish generational wealth with 14,000 a year. All you have to do is be responsible. You have to be responsible with your money. Your 14,000 your 7. 50, you can be everything everyone else. You can do it. I dont know how. John it seems like they want no one to vote for them anymore. While the g. O. P. Is having trouble changing their image fox news seems to be doing a better job. The same time they got rid of the more extreme commentators like sarah palin and they brought in scott brown and Dennis Kucinich and resigned karl rove who is now the enemy of the extreme right so it is good for comedy. Could they take a page out of fox news book . In terms of rebanding themselves for the masses . No. Im calling shenanigans on this whole rebranding. Once you resign karl rove, you failed at the rebranding. John we had a tea partier who said theyre trying to blacklist people from going on the air. Also, they dont want to look as insane as they have been looking for the past couple of years. When they had the tea party and the tea party looked like that was the hotness yeah, lets go for it. It look like it is falling out of fashion. John why isnt the party taking a page out of fox newss book . They had the crazy guy right after him. Whats up . What is up with the two rebuttals . I think elon has announced on our show that he is going to be doing next year. Apparently anybody can do it. Anybody can. Apparently we have at least as good if not better production quality. John let me have siri remind me. Scott brown said he thinks he can make more of a difference being on fox. Krugman said last month he said he could write a column for the times than as a cabinet member. Are we in quite a sad state of affairs when the media can do more than elected officials . I think so. Because in particular, if youre looking at the particular demographics that fox news and the numbers that they have in terms of what people watch where they get their news from and things of that nature, people feel they can talk directly to an american or talk directly to thousands millions of people by being on air versus being in congress to help influence the conversation. We all know fox helps influence the conversation at least in some peoples minds. Look at the daily show. Look at the fact is media has a dangerous effect on the politics which is why it is so bad when they decide to report crazy, insane things is because it is going to affect things in a big way. John they cant gerrymander districts. There are things the media cant do to get votes. The thing is you yeah. I definitely think that there is a way you know, this they can influence the debate for gerrymandering districts. If you are outside and you have that space within the media that you have the audience, you can totally say listen, thats why we need this to happen. Thats a completely different argument than if youre trying to get votes for a bill or Something Like that. Look at the examples during the obama care or the america vote act both of those. The media was able to help influence the directive of average americans and they showed up at rallies and town hall meetings. John thats why im here and not running for congress. My panel stays with me after the break. We help harry reid take on his biggest enemy, harry reid. Ok, so theres wiggle room in the ten commandments, thats what youre saying. vo shes joy behar. Current will let me say anything. John welcome back to viewpoint. One last quick question for the panel. With all of the dishonesty and unethical behavior in congress, can you name one person in d. C. You actually trust . Michelle obama and her side. John elon . No. Listen, i know people i know politicians are politicians so i treat them as such. John aaron . Conservative moderate republicans for staying so quiet and maintaining keeping their jobs during the tough tough times. John aaron wins the night. Today, my friends the Senate Republicans made history when they used the filibuster to block a vote on president obamas nominee for secretary of defense, another republican. And the whole thing stinks like a Carnival Cruise ship. House majority leader harry reid was so angry he almost tore the tassels off his loafers. Reid called it the saddest spectacle. I think i can recall a sadder one that happened last month because if harry reid is mad at the g. O. P. For filibustering this nomination, he needs to go straight to the senate floor in full view of the cameras and spend an interday punching himself in the face. Now, it is not easy to fight yourself in the face. Just ask Edward Norton in fight club. You see senator reid, the first rule you harry are president of fight yourself in the face club because you had the chance to make sure this wouldnt happen. In fact, you promised us, you made sure this wouldnt happen. And now throbbing. Poor leon panetta has to stay in the pentagon even longer like George Bailey never getting out of bed. Now because of you mr. Reid, the Chicken Hawks have come home to roost. Harry reid spent much of last year getting pressure to reform the rule but he blew the chance. Then he apologized for blowing the chance. He said you on udall and mercury were right and he was wrong. He promised us come the beginning of the almighty 2013 session, he would make filibuster reform happen. On the first day harry had a chance to change the filibuster rules with a simple majority and harry reid stepped to the plate and filibustered on filibuster. He choked like george w. Bush on pretzel nights on filibusters. He folded. S the