The distinction on that issue but yeah there's a real argument over what America's role in the world should be I think on the issue of corporate power I mean who passed all of the bills the kinds of bills that you were for back in the 1960 s. To create the various agencies that protect consumers and that regulate business and most of those people called themselves liberals but they were very much concerned with power in the American economy and they were concerned about putting limits on what corporations could do and saying that there were limits on how much they could pollute and there were limits on how they could treat or mistreat workers there were limits on what they could Sagat away with selling in the marketplace that was defective I think that's something that unites liberals and progressives liberals and social democrats and I think that since the great recession since 20072008 I think there's been a lot more attention among liberals and there should have been earlier to the ways in which our economy was not only chill to more and more toward the very privileged but also had been allowed to one free in a way that proved very destructive to the economy as a whole and particularly to the least well off people in it and in terms of the sort of the new media blackout I think if you are complaining about the coverage of a particular conference I get lots of complaints about coverage of all sorts of things and so I don't really know enough about all of that to comment but I can see that you were very upset about the lack of attention your conference got Yeah especially since you know it was the biggest one ever in American history on more redirections and reforms we try not to be a single issue gathering but also i Phone progressives are more likely. Speak on behalf of unions they're more likely to look at structural changes that will change the level of systemic poverty in the country you know you're right in the sixty's they all call themselves liberals and we got all these bills through but since then and we've seen your emergence of the corporate Democrats we've seen the emergence of corporate liberals and the reason why I'm dwelling on this e.j. And the listeners might be wondering is because I want to segue into a book that you wrote in 1986 which is titled provide Could it really quote They only look dead why progress is will dominate the next political era end quote and in a review of your book by Michael Lind he said that you argue quite plausibly quote that the new conservatism will fail because it seeks to define away the problems we face yet e.j. Dionne vision of a new progressivism ignores some practical steps such as a move away from identity politics and must priest sage such change and quote Well I think you'll agree that you're excessively optimistic here e.j. That if anything the right wing now controls the Congress the White House majority of governors a majority of state legislatures and the question emerges what's left of the left what happened to your progressive prediction that they are going to rise and be the prevailing theme of American politics after 1906 I always like to say the progressive us will have won when people stop chuckling over the title of my book actually think that if you look at the trajectory of politics for 9096 to now we have actually had ups and downs in that period and we're definitely headed down point and just apparent that equally one of the reasons I. I am not sympathetic to driving this hard way edge between liberals and progressives or center left and left is because I think there are threats both to Democracy itself to basic equality in the country to social justice that the left and center left need to unite to take on right now but the theory of the book I still will stand by and I suspect it's a theory that you actually agree with which is I compared our time then to the time that led to the why is the progressive era and what they have in common is a sharp change in the way that nation organized itself back then people were moving from farm to factory we had high levels of immigration the rules of the old economy were changing but government and the rules of government had not responded to those changes and the people who were dislocated by those changes people who felt that they were power had been reduced in the new factory oriented economy organized in a variety of ways and you've got not only the progressive era but also the New Deal which really did trying to reorder American democracy to deal with a very different economic circumstance I think we are in a very similar period now where you have a shift from manufacturing you know especially manufacturing that employs a lot of American workers to something more of a service economy and you have the winds of the same inequalities it's probably a statistic you've quoted often that we have had a degree of inequality now that we haven't seen since right before the Great Depression and so I still think the logic of the situation leads to a new engagement with progressivism in the United States. Now there was there of Ben severe setbacks I think cultural issues have divided us and that's part of a bit and I think and here again I think that we are in a similar if not identical placed I think a lot of working people looked at those moments of progressive government that we've had over the last 20 years and said even though those guys Democrats liberals I would say progressives too were in power these inequalities were not really arrested and one of the points we make in our new book in response to trump is that we are in the soup because there are so many parts of the country both in the inner city and in all the working class towns like the ones you and I grew up in where our people sense this economy isn't working for them they have traded $2030.00 an hour jobs for $10.00 an hour jobs and so there is something for progressives to respond to so there is a critique of you know the side I tend to support which is that we haven't delivered enough for the constituencies that we claim to represent and I think that's the challenge of the next decade well in Michael and through your book he says referring to you e.j. Quote he does warn that if they falter meaning the Democrats if they falter and do not assure in a new progressive period the calls for 3rd and 4th parties will grow as the country seeks alternatives to Republican policies premised on the idea that governments can almost never do good and quote So what do you think happens to these 3rd 4th parties on both sides you know 3rd party conservative libertarian green etc You think the 2 party do are police and the rigged ballot access rules and the winner take all in the gerrymandering. Electoral college what do you think that's done and do you still favor a broader array of voices and choices on the ballot to the voter with 3rd 4th party agendas Well you know our new book The 3rd and 4th parties don't work in a system like ours because of 1st Past the Post so that if people vote for their 1st choice they often take votes away from their 2nd choice and they get their last choice and I think that happens to a lot of people in the last election I am for a system of single transferable vote where you can vote your 1st choice but if your 1st choice doesn't get enough votes to be able to form a majority your ballot transfers to your 2nd choice and I think that is a political reform that answers this problem in the meantime and you and I have been through this a lot you know about your candidacy back in 2000 where you were very kind Actually you gave me an interview for a piece in which I was arguing that you shouldn't be running for president and I thought it was very good of you to give me an interview knowing that I was writing such a piece and I felt that way because given the configuration of the system I thought that you're that we don't have to go through whether your election did or did not help elect George Bush but under those circumstances a lot of your votes came out of Al Gore's hide and it created a problem single transferrable vote or some other system of that sort gets around that problem and so your own supporters go to redistributed their ballots as they saw fit well I don't want to go through that again except you know Al Gore thinks he lost because number one he won the popular vote and lost the electoral college that threw it into Florida were all ition and against took it away from him from Tallahassee all the way to the political decision to Supreme Court and you know the Green Party should not be blamed for all that you. Given delusions of grandeur you . Know I have. To go through that but I think there is a mathematical case to be made that you know just take me Hampshire if New Hampshire gone the other way we wouldn't know Florida so I do think there really is a problem with 3rd party voting as long as it's a 1st past the post election there are multiple systems in point is a system that allows people to express 2nd and 3rd preferences they use it in Australia and it works just fine it's called bring their voting right here yeah ranked order voting aside from the 1st Amendment right of candidates to run it through the consummate use of the 1st Amendment is Titian assembly freedom of speech which is compassed and running for elective office you've come out if I'm not mistaken for universal voting as a legal duty along with yes your co-author Norman Ornstein because you've spent time and you have we have been for universal voting for a long time and again it's you know we borrowed the Australian ballot from Australia and we think we should borrow universal voting people call it compulsory voting although we'd like to point out that if you want to go to the polls and draw Mickey Mouse or someone else on your ballot you can do that too or none of you have to show up or Yeah exactly but you you have to show up there are you know there is the civic said Swear if you can be required to serve on a jury or even more profoundly if you can be asked to serve in the military when we've had a draft it's not too much to ask citizens to cast a ballot but the real underlying benefit of universal voting is that it suddenly reverses the obligations on state and local officials if you have a duty to vote their job is not to block your access to the ballot their job is not to pass these voter id laws and all these other laws that are restricting people's eyes. Access to the ballot their job is to make it is easy as possible for you to perform a duty that we define in law and what this does is it produces a far more egalitarian system fundamentally because the Election Day represents everybody in the country and not just a selected group of people who choose to cast a ballot including all those people who are prevented from casting a ballot by various antiquated election laws we haven't seen enough Australia actually the turnout is like 9697 percent what happens if they don't vote and they don't have an exact you finally find any box it's not a high fine in a way it's declaratory I mean that people don't suffer a great penalties for not voting and we you know in our book we talk about a very low penalty it's simply that if suddenly everybody is obliged to vote then all of these jurisdictions have to change their practices and make it is easy as possible for people to get to the polling place and there are a lot of other things we could do there's no reason to have elections on Tuesday I've always like the Italian system where you vote on a Sunday and a Monday morning if you've gone away for the weekend we can do more early voting there are a lot of things you can do to make it easier for people to vote and as you know the burdens of Election Day are greater for people who have less control over their schedules which tends to be less well off people and of course the trend is in the other direction voter suppression voter obstruction miscounting votes voting machine software problems the extremely serious What's your position on the electoral college you're familiar with popular vote dot org where Steve Silverstein and his staff of 6 out of San Francisco have gotten many states now to pass laws from Maryland to New York to on. On to California they say they will give the Electoral College votes to any presidential candidate wins the national popular vote and there are already up $265.00 electoral votes they need obviously to go to 70 so you don't need a constitutional amendment what's your view on the election I'm following that I book in Georgia says it and I actually endorsed wrote a column in support of it when Congressman Jamie Raskin then state senator Jamie Raskin was pushing it through and he succeeded in the Maryland legislature I mean the the problem you know ideally you would shift to a popular vote through a constitutional amendment the problem is that this system so benefits rule states and smaller states that they would have an interest in blocking the change and the Constitution makes it very difficult to pass amendments because you need the 3 quarters of the states to ratify So this is really for the now the only path we have so I am very much for the popular vote in fact one of the points we make in the new book is that we went through a long period from 1824 when the popular vote became widespread until 996 there were only 3 elections where the popular vote was out of line with the electoral vote and 2 of those were strange cases you know since 2000 we've had 2 elections where this is happening that's because the Electoral College and by the way the Senate of the United States is increasingly out of line with where people actually live amazing statistic by 204070 percent of us will live in 15 states which means that 70 percent of us are going to have 30 senators out of 100 unfortunately Constitution makes it really hard to change representation in the Senate but it is becoming an increasingly on representative body and that's going to be a problem for the legitimate. See of our government over time e.j. I do want to talk about your column tell us how many newspapers it's an obviously it's in The Washington Post how frequently you write it and the difficulty in expanding syndicated column today with the shrinking state of newspapers can you tell us briefly about you know I am last count in 240 papers around the country I write the column for The Post and all my clients I'm very attentive to my clients I love having my column in smaller newspapers around the country in small towns as well as some other big cities it's more complicated now because there's more competition a local newspaper budgets are under enormous pressure to be honest I'm less worried about my interests as a column this than I am about what's happening to local and particularly coverage at the state level with all of these economic crises and with the newspapers we used to have a very very rich coverage of our state legislatures which is where a lot of decisions are made and there's just been a steady cutback in the number of reporters in those you know in state capitals which tend to be removed from the media centers the University of Maryland study shows that the number reporters covering state government has shrunk almost to nothing yeah I know it's very and as I say this partly as somebody who used to cover state government and back I'm old enough that back in those days there were a lot of papers this was in New York but this is a common story there were really good reporters from all over the state and little papers smaller papers in the state could stand reporters to cover the state capital you also had competition between the Associated Press and United Press International and so you had 2 teams of reporters competing with each other to cover state governments. I don't think we lack for opinion these days in our media system I really won't for more financial support and a lot of this is having to come through philanthropy through foundations and in other ways more support for really good state and local coverage to people who are doing it are good but there just aren't enough of them that's for sure as a reader of your column I often wondered why you don't have a little bit more attention to the corporate crime wave and what's going on on Wall Street and why you don't have more attention on the state of labor laws which from Occupational Safety and Health lack of enforcement by OSHA under both Republican Democratic parties and the notorious Taft Hartley act it's the most anti union organizing law in the western world why don't you cover more knows e.j. I think on labor I've written probably more about labor than your average columnist over the time I've been doing the column I care a lot about labor a lot about unions I've written some about Wall Street but you're right I have not written as much about that as I could you know I've got to say that in the last year almost a year well yes over a year now the threat that I see you know President from posing in so many areas has occupied an awful lot of my attention and what I will say kind of joining your critique of me and everybody else is I think one of the under covered areas of what Trump has done has been all of these executive orders gutting regulation across a very very broad spear I have written some over the years about the need to regulate Wall Street and I think that I will take this as a friendly nudge to pay more attention to some of that aspect of the Trump legacy because that's where he's actually succeeding not for the country but for. For a very conservative and essentially corporate agenda that plus this awful tax cut which I it's not even a tax cut because a lot of Americans get an increase out of it this tax bill which I have written a lot about I've been probably Sest by this bill on this do you favor either asking Trump to resign or to support the growing number of Democrats I think there are 6 or 7 who are filing impeachment resolutions in the House and the problem that impeachment right now is that it's mostly a gesture because it's not going to go through and I want to see where Muller's investigation goes you know if you put me on the floor of Congress and I had to vote on this I suspect I would vote to get rid of him you know to move him out of office I think there's a lot of evidence for that now we also have to ponder what it would mean to have President pence in office but I think we are getting to the point where evidence is mounting and I think something like impeachment needs to have a broader degree of public support that we have right now is a survey that came out yesterday that was very anti Crump in terms of popular opinion the country isn't quite ready for impeachment yet so I think that we should oppose everything just about everything he's trying to do and in the meantime gather the evidence to make the case let's take another approach Nancy Pelosi is coming down hard on any Democrats who have been accused credibly of sexual harassment and assault she demanded the resignation of Congressman John Conyers who's the dean of the Congressional Black Caucus in terms of the years he spent in Congress and he's now resigned but he has not asked for the resignation of Donald Trump who was the harasser in chief boasts about it and brags about it has been accused by over. 20 women religious sexual assault and harassment pressuring and she doesn't ask for his resignation do you see a double standard there it's funny you mention that you must read my tweet yesterday where when carnivorous resigned I raised very much the double standard issue of Conyers goes but Lorrimore is indorse a blow by Trump and Trump himself is still there I think what you've got going on now is people trying to decide how can they be consistent on this issue and what do you have control over but I do think that the more and more story and then all of these stories about sexual harassment are leading the media to revisit the Trump story there was a wonderful interview on n.p.r. Yesterday with one of the 1st women who came out and publicly accused Trump before the election I think it is time to revisit all of those charges and say wait a minute if all of these folks have to resign from various positions in the private sector in the media now John Conyers what about Trump I think that's a perfectly fair question to ask on the Democratic Party e.j. You know I think you'll agree that it was a big mistake for the Democratic Party to abandon half the country in presidential races and activity the so-called red states because as Ben Barnes the politician of many years in Texas told me once he says when the Democrats abandoned competing in Texas at the presidential level it shredded the whole Democratic Party right down to local offices and this is what is now the price they may pay in Alabama where you have virtually no Democratic Party activity a former head of the Alabama Democratic Party just said recently that if Doug Jones the Democratic candidate for the u.s. Senate defeats Roy No more he'll have to do it by himself loser exact word. In other words no help from the National Democratic Party in the virtually nonexistent local Democratic Party and this is had devastating consequences this abandonment of half the party for who's in the Congress who runs the governors and state legislatures so what is your advice in these remaining days before the December 12th election and Alabama if you were advising the Democratic National Committee and other Democratic leaders what would you advise them to do in order to defeat Roy Moore which I assume you want done yes I do 2 things on that one is well the national Democratic but the National Democratic Party has stayed out of this in significant part because they didn't want to saddle Doug Jones with the charge that he is being supported by the National Democratic Party the fact is that Doug Jones has raised I think it may get up to like $15000000.00 He's vastly outspending more at this point and so while the informal party has not done much for him you know all kinds of Democrats around the country have support him secondly there are the remaining structures of the Democratic Party there are still some very strong African-American groups you know the very distinguished old Alabama Democratic Conference for example and if Doug Jones wins it'll be in part because of those groups still have a lot of energy on the ground but on your broader point there's no question that abandoning whole states is a terrible mistake Howard Dean had his 50 state strategy and you saw something very interesting happening during the fight to save Obamacare which is that people in there every Republican districts went to these meetings to tell their Republican Congress people not to repeal this law and they looked around the room and discovered there are hundreds of people in this district that is very very Republican who actually. Agree with me and I think the other place that the party cannot abandon it has to you know has to come back is at the very local level they've got a sort of start organizing to win at the local level again since Trump you're seeing this happening there are a lot of people now young people women all kinds of progressive elements if we can share that word for a moment who are running for office for very local offices you saw it in the legislature in Virginia so yeah I am very much against abandoning whole parts of the country it's not right and b. It comes back to haunt you in the lesson from what you just said obviously is when you get down as a political party to where the American people live work and raise their families a lot of the so-called red blue partisan polarization disappears because a you know conservative liberal whatever they call themselves back home they want their kids to go to good schools they want to breed clean air and drink clean water have safe medicines have good job opportunities and be treated fairly and I always thought that when you go down the abstraction ladder to where people work live raise their families you'll get a left right conservative liberal coalition of immense political importance and and repercussions if I may mention I wrote a book on this e.j. a Few years ago called unstoppable the emerging left right alliance to dismantle the corporate state and I gave $24.00 areas where the public opinion polls and sometimes action Cluny minimum wage increase and cracking down on corporate crime and corporate tax reform and living wage are supported by 7080 percent of the American people which is you know liberal and conservative voters and it's pretty unstoppable force but the Democratic Party's got to get down to where people live. Work and raise their family and stop constantly saying well we're not connecting and we need a message and our new slogan is going to be quote a better deal and quote suggested by expensive political consultants Oh there's a lot of opportunity here and nothing's going to happen unless we the people make it happen as you said at the very beginning politics has to be a good word again for people but we've got a long way to go before we get there I just want to end you know Mike purchased he was the key yes strategist in the Congress in the sixty's for all the consumer environmental so many bills that we got through he was the chief of staff for Senator Warren Magnuson the parcel chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee when he came to town a few weeks ago because he's written a book entitled when the Senate worked for us and I thought it was a very important historical contribution for the young generation today who doesn't think the Congress can work at all and he spent a week trying to get attention and he got no attention whatsoever he did have a luncheon with Congressman David Price but this separation of the president from history is partly due e.j. Because column this are forced by editors to write columns that room off today's headlines flash news otherwise they're not quote viewed as contemporary end quote as one editor told me I hope you'll pay some attention to that book because it gives us a real optimistic lift that we don't have to always have a Congress like this and we did have a Congress without being too idealistic about it in the sixty's and early seventy's that worked a lot more for the American people and a lot less for the corporate lobbyist while I'm a fan and in my era might purchase it so I will definitely pay attention to that. I just want to say that I think that it would be irresponsible for those of us who write columns to say to blame it on editors we make a lot of these choices ourselves and so I'll take the rap for what I why there is a lot of pressure to be on the news right now because particularly the way the web works but we have freedom to go elsewhere and so we should use in ourselves and take it wherever we can on that promise you know thank you very much e.j. Dionne and hope that you'll find the kind of emphasis that we talked about helpful in your future columns Well great to talk to you and thank you take care bye bye now we've been speaking to e.j. Dionne columnist for The Washington Post and we will link to his work at Ralph Nader Radio Hour dot com. Do we have the right to remain anonymous on the Internet our next guest has an answer that may surprise you after helping Ralph Nader investigate the Federal Trade Commission as one of those original Nader's Raiders Robert Selma became an attorney for the Center for the Study of response of law Ralph's office in d.c. In 1980 as University of San Diego law school faculty member he founded that school Center for Public Interest Law is also the founder of the Children's Advocacy Institute one of the nation's premier academic research and advocacy organizations working to improve the lives of all children and youth Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour Robert Thomas thank you welcome indeed and your thesis that anonymity is extremely detrimental in many ways on the Internet is going to be what we're going to speak about now and we hope to crowd the audience to come in with their reactions and then and a future program will have you discuss their reactions to what you are about to say there is an article in The Atlantic by Walter Isaacson nobody year ago and it was titled How to fix the Internet enemy has poisoned on line life and he goes on to say that quote This has poisoned civil discord enabled hacking permitted cyber bullying and made email a risk it's inherent lack of security has allowed Russian actors to screw with our democratic process and quote and it's a pretty devastating attack on anonymity and the New Yorker in 2013 warned about this in no uncertain terms an article by my country coca So there has been discussion about it but it just seems to be getting worse and overwhelming and slanderous and intimidating and teenagers a slashing their. Chris it's a scorch in my opinion what is your thesis on this and once you declare it professor from of what's the argument against your thesis Well I think this is that the 1st Amendment includes inherently the right of the audience to choose what to listen to and to weigh the credibility of the speaker This is especially an important aspect of the 1st Amendment given the internet and given the ability of people to transmit messages to millions of people right in their home and write for their faces this is not the village green where you you tack up the poster and maybe some people see it maybe some people don't this is right in front of the faces of children and adults and seniors and all of us and we are increasingly not given the choice to decide who we can listen to and who we can't they're imposing themselves on us and to me people talk about the right to speak and free speech as on the other inside but that's only one part of it the other part of it is the right of the audience to weigh the credibility of the speaker who is that what are their biases what's their expertise in the 1st minute is not just simply defending the right of people to bleat to make noise it has a purpose in terms of as telling the truth and developing a points of view and educating people and so forth and the identity of the speaker is critical to that function and we've lost it to some extent because well should a large extent I really really I'm looking around for an app that allows us to screen out communications from bots and people who refuse to identify who they are that's a technical fix why isn't there one I don't know there should be one busy because the companies want a lot of reaction and that's the way they get their business by having a lot of reaction and if it's allowed to be anonymous you get a bigger volume where the Internet. Hundreds if you will certainly want maximum flow back and forth I mean that's their bias and they definitely favor I think implicitly in terms of the economics of it no discretion in terms of filtering out people who are speaking but now that we've got a situation where I mean I'm getting 500 e-mails a day now I mean this is ridiculous and you can unsubscribe but sometimes that's difficult we've got to have the right to choose who we want to listen to and to know something about the speaker in the terms of your question about the counter-argue of the counterargument is often involves an extension of the whistleblower concept that is the idea that people have to be anonymous because otherwise they won't speak the truth and my answer to that is I think it was a war issue is a real one and we should be concerned about it but we have dress that by and acting is anti slapp and statues which are in $28.00 states now which basically if someone speaks identifies themselves and speaks in offend somebody and they sue them for libel the attorneys' fees will be paid for the defendant if in fact the lawsuit fails as a device to discourage discrimination and punishment of people who speak even if they make a mistake I think that's a good statute that's a fine idea and I have no problem with the whistleblower statutes in the federal whistleblowers statute those are good laws I even think the key Tam taxpayer waste idea is a great ones for people who tattle on things and it has merit that's all very very good but the underlying idea that you can speak and nobody knows who you are encourages lying and encourages deceit even in the Angie's List kind of thing you can sit there and downgrade your competitors and with that you're going to rig things all over the place and it's not consistent with the purposes of the 1st Amendment there's another argument goes back to the civil rights struggles in the 1950 s. And sixty's were African-Americans didn't want to have to attach their name to their opposition to the repression that the rigs. Areas because of retaliation is the famous and w c p case went to the Supreme Court on keeping their Don't Nauru's Anonymous Can you address that problem and bring it up today well it's a lot of it depends on whether a television consists of it's a libel suit the n i slept at you does that quite well if it's I mad at you because you said something I mean the trouble is drawing a line there is very difficult you said something I disagree with you I'm mad at you that's part of the 1st Amendment to me that's what it involves we're talking police power retaliation the local sheriffs that kind of thing that's why he was a lawyer statutes for that and to prevent that even the and I slap statutes might very well address it but if it's a police officer in the local community arresting him because they don't like what you said well that violates the 1st Amendment the point is that we want to have people then to find themselves and then defend their right to speak and do so vigorously Well you know a lot of times Bob It's hard to get a lawyer to take a spreadsheet in these local areas where there's streamer oppression and censorship and economic retaliation let me put the question this way where would you protect anonymity apart from having a legal right to sue for defamation for what I protected you know I would protect it if someone is making an accusation of a violation of law that is part of it and the because part of an investigation by law enforcement the identity of the source should be sealed until the investigation is completed there's an example of where anonymity is perfectly Ok but otherwise I wouldn't allow it in any situation I would presume that people who have the courage to say it is I I am speaking and let it come what may and if people are going to be evil and retaliate or sanction or hurt people gratuitously go after that it's interesting that newspapers don't allow anonymity when they print letters to the editor may. Augustine's the same but I've noticed recently they're letting letter to the editor space be occupied by people who email them anonymously so it's even beginning to intrude on the one area where you know the identity of the letter to the editor writer and a whole lot on an unlimited opens the door for all sorts of abuse and rigging whether it be Russia or whether it be the Koch brothers doing it or whatever and I know that we have this feeling that what people should be able to look like participate and not suffer repercussions my answer to that is if you believe they participate stand up for who you are say I am I This is my position and that should be part of our system it should not be because what you disregard that bright line and open the door to secrecy and concealment of the speaker is a slippery slope and it it results then in all sorts of chicanery and corruption and deception and stifling free speech a lot of people don't want to go into the civic arena Don't going to town meetings because they're afraid of being slandered anonymously so they withdraw and shut up so anonymous slander represses the free speech of other people and their civic engagement I think if we had time to show just how vicious and slandering and prevaricate Tory a lot of these anonymous comments are people would resonate more with your position we've been talking with Professor Robert fellow with the University San Diego Law School arguably the leading child advocate in the United States and the other side I think some listeners are saying no I want to be able to criticize the powerful and the wealthy without having my identity up there on the wall to be retaliated against So let's get your reactions listener and we'll have professor from us back to discuss the particular viewpoints that you have and see if we can draw a line here the could favor identity freeze. Speech but in rare instances protect people who require protection if they're going to help for example in foreseen corporate crime by a late Wall Street thank you again. We've been speaking with Robert Feldman if we will link to his work at the Ralph Nader radio our website Grove and we'll be back with us next week join us on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour Thank you Ralph thank you David and Jimmy and let's have your reactions to this issue of anonymity especially on the Internet and we'll have Bob Zelnick back to discuss that and we're going to devote some more time to your other questions as well that have been coming in. This is k.p. Of k. Los Angeles and that was the round Nader Radio Hour. For all information you can go to his Web site which is Ralph Nader Radio Hour dot com. Ralph Nader Radio Hour dot com True programs I was so proud to put together and so. Now you're everybody's a little bit older and a little wiser. And of course we're in a fun drive for. 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Accolades trophies and all that. Do you like to. See what we can do to get your participation. But please if if you can see your way clear we need to hear from you 818955735 would love to get a couple of calls real quick and we're going to be going to Tom Hartman our I suspect. And any hints as to what he is going to have on his show today yes if we don't get any calls. Somebody out there would with enjoy that. We. And stab. Me. So. Yes you. Know new. Status. This is the. Program pre-teens my friends Patriots lovers of democracy truth and justice believers and peace freedom and the American Way Thom Hartmann here with you it is Wednesday time for mid days with Mark Congressman Mark poky and co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Brilliantly representing the the state of Wisconsin next to the 2nd district of Wisconsin How can that house dot gov is this website you can tweet and that weapon Mark Polk and Congressman welcome back thank Tom Glad to be here so great great having you with us so we had a hell of a race in Alba Alabama last night forgive my French and the Republican tax plan is rolling along and tomorrow is the vote on net neutrality It's not like this is a low you know a lot of news about week here yeah then threw in you could have a government shutdown by next Friday you got a lot of work a lot of things going on so you want to you want to take those things one is I'd love to get your thoughts out and I'm sure we'll have calls on them by the way I should add it's our days of mark our congressman Mark Penn can taking your calls throughout the hour our number 202-808-9925 if you'd like to ask Congressman Poe can a question so your thoughts on these issues yeah. I mean it I'm very happy to see we saw some of this in Virginia we're seeing that here you know the Trump magic not so magical and it seems to have some detrimental effects I mean granted Roy Moore was a flawed candidate at many levels and Doug Jones was a good candidate at many levels but I think what we saw in turnout in Alabama in Republican areas you know 15. The point off in some areas because they're just not happy with either Roy Moore or where the Republicans are on the issues they're doing right now and we saw a tremendous turnout on behalf of the Democrats so people are energized to change what's happening right now in America and especially after American vote. Turnout was for Brock Obama so a lot of really good things that came out of there you know and I'm very happy that the Senate now one less vote after the 1st of the year I don't have that you know now just you need to you know one or 2 people that the Republicans in the Senate to not be for their terrible agenda and we can stop things happening so that's very positive I think looking at net neutrality tomorrow we're very concerned what they're going to do I can tell you I've had over 4000 contacts in my office again what they're about to do which is open it up to big business interests that they can throttle speeds and charge more for big business to use it versus small business and individuals and I've had 0 for their plans so this is something that if they do it strictly a giveaway to the big telecom industry and not down for any other reason so we're there's a lot of legislative solutions that are going to be introduced if they do make the wrong decision which I think we're still simming they could do tomorrow and then we're going to keep people activated and I don't know I can tell you people are really active on that issue in my district so. Let me just get this straight if I may interrupt you your god 4000 citizens taxpayers constituents who contacted your office about net neutrality and 100 percent of them said keep net neutrality don't give this thing away to the giant. Giant special interest issue right I mean you know if you ask people if they like puppies there's going to be some small percent of people who don't like puppies they're sitting is. I want to say it's like 4600 or something like that I guess it was 0 the last time I asked 10 percent of Americans think the earth is flat 100 percent want net neutrality and so many. Think it to be perfectly honest that means big telecommunication companies are calling my office trying to say oh don't worry we're never going to throttle the speed we're not going to do that well I don't know why they're saying that and of course I watch their ads and they say that but the only thing they say at the end is we promise to be transparent in what we do so how do you when they're going to make you pay more. Traveling your speed they're doing it on the on the cell phone plans you know where you know you see your number of gigabytes and all of a sudden you're you're running that as you know dial up speeds Ok I don't know if we can remember I live in a rural area and you know we have huge issues with broadband and really areas in America and there are new play and it has unlimited amounts of data but after you use $22.00 gigs which is not that much they put you down to less than one m.b.p.s. Which is like going back decades in service so yeah this is you know a huge huge huge What floppy kid give away to Telecom if they do this tomorrow and hopefully because people are so good at this maybe we can find a legislative fix on it so I mean I'm an optimist and this is one where just based on the last people reaching out to us what's going to say whether whether it's done now or whether it's done if and when Democrats recapture the House Senate and White House so I'm sorry I interrupted you you were moving on you know I just go into the 4th take do we talk about the other one was I checked so you know I still think effect more than ever I think they're going to get a tax bill done because now that they've lost Alabama seat they don't want to wait till January could I give them less room for slippage by Susan Collins or others who might not so but back what's the deal on Mitch McConnell refusing to swear in Doug. Until after the vote I thought I hear they're going to slow walk in Alabama I think anyway ticket you know to figure out the election so ultimately he won't have to personally do something to delay it I think I would tell him but I'm out of the secretary of state and others will delay it even if they decide to pay for a recount or something so they're going to get that part done but they know in January they've got one less vote so I think they're going to push this the thing is it's still just the same rotten bill in effect yesterday there was I think the most read.