more guarded optimism than they had last time. so, doug, what do you see as the president s biggest obstacles he faces looking ahead to this term that he didn t necessarily have in the first? are there different ones? the most glaring is is the republican-controlled house of representatives, which he didn t have when he first stepped into washington. thus health care passed. yeah. and they re not inclined to cooperate with him and put ideology and politics aside in my opinion. another thing going on is deficit politics. i m not saying just the deficit itself, which with a balanced approach we can take care of like we did in the 90s after bush one. i think deficit politics, there s a fear of it, it s ginned up, becomes a big obstacle to doing things he wants to do and that the country needs like investing in our economic infrastructure, improving public education, jump-starting new industries to keep us competitive, that sort of thing. i think that s going to be a big obstacle
ridicule. and steven, i was telling you during the break you re very polite and you re canadian, that explains it. i didn t give you a chance to weigh in. it s interesting how the debate has changed. it used to be people debated whether evolution should be allowed to be taught. now it s whether the case for so-called scientific creationist should be added to the mix. even there, what s supposed to be taught is not bulb lickal doctrine, but the ginned-up so-called scientific evidence for creation. likewise the debate used to be on whether homosexuality should be criminalized. that debate isn t held any more, now it s gay marriage. now it s just on whether catholic organizations have to include birth control in their health insurance. for no co-pay. for issue after issue the entire debate has shifted to a more progressive, humanistic direction. we tend to lose sight of that,
don t believe me. let your eyes and your ears do the judging. and we must warn you, some of the images you re about to see are quite graphic. for example, remember this? an unarmed man surrounded by troops and executed. [ gunshot ] [ speaking foreign language ]. [ gunshots ] listen to syria s ambassador to the united states explain what s happening. what i am saying is very clear. the government of syria does not approve of this, and we everyone who has who has wrongfully committed a crime will be held accountable. but the video evidence coming out of syria almost daily for six months now suggests otherwise. more troubling images. these of a 13-year-old boy named hamza. his beaten and burned body dumped back at his parents home. this is back in may. in what human rights activists called an act of regime intimidation. now these images from august in houma. shirtless men kneeling and military men kicking and demeaning them. [ speaking foreign language ]. to lis
was a true affront to democracy and our rights. what is the fallout there? you read new york times in the that the unions are going to going to get ginned up and work hard to beat republicans but the public sector already gave $200 million to democrats last year. how much more ginned up can you be? that s pretty ginned up, right? first of all, we were outspent 20-1 so don t get too excited about that. second of all, what s happening there here s the fallout, joe. it is not just union members. it is none union members, small businessmen, independents, conservative republicans that are all saying this guy went too far so they re recoiling against him. he dropped like a rock in the polls. there s recalls going on for a number of those senators and in the first weekend they got 25% of the signatures necessary for
straw purchasers at this one store. many of them were later traced to shootouts with the sinaloa cartel in mexico. and as the u.s. attorney when he announced this the other day, said, you know, this is an example of how drug lords in mexico are going shopping for war weapons in the u.s. in the state of arizona. well, why has the proposed rule change on this, the sort of fix of this loophole, why has that been postponed after the administration sad last year they were going to do it, at least for these border states? well, this is the politics of anything to do with guns. what happened after that proe proposed rule was announced by kenneth nelson, the acting director of the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms is the nra and the national shooting federation, which represents the gun industry, mounted a lobbying campaign, ginned up, sent out e-mail alerts asking for its members to bombard the office of management and budget with its with