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 R