2012

The Conservative Political Action Conference is a good place, says Sarah Posner, to "put your finger on the pulse of the conservative movement" in the US. From straw polls for president--Congressman Ron Paul won that one--to tiffs over gay conservatives and Islamophobia, this past weekend at CPAC saw a lot of action, and Sarah was there to report, for Religion Dispatches and The Nation. Sarah joins us via Skype to give us a rundown of the good, the bad, and the unintentionally hilarious--from Ann Coulter's declaration of support for GOProud to Dick Cheney's run-in with a heckler or two. Distributed by Tubemogul.

"There was no there there. There wasn't a whole lot you could sink your teeth into, but it was very much Obama in 2008 in terms of 'let's spend responsibly, let's all get along, let's be scientific and smart and go forth and be Americans and we're exceptional,'" said ColorLines editor Kai Wright of Obama's State of the Union speech last night. Obama made the case for "winning the future" with investment in education and green technology, Kai notes, but didn't lay out specifics for how to get there--but with Republicans putting up Paul Ryan and Michele Bachmann putting up her own Tea Party response to the speech, he may still get four more years. Campaign 2012 begins now, and Kai joins Laura to discuss what's coming next. Michele Bachmann isn't the only one who believes in American exceptionalism--there was plenty in Barack Obama's State of the Union speech that reiterated the notion that the US is somehow above the rest of the world. But what does all that mean now? Richard Wolff says "We are exceptional these days not only in the nice and happy things but in things that are not so good." And Maya Wiley points out "It's good if we feel strongly about the importance of our nation. What's complicated is what's behind it." Maya and Richard join Laura in the studio for a discussion of American exceptionalism in 2011--the hard truths we're not acknowledging, what Obama spoke about in his speech, and what changes need to be made to live up to some of the promises being made by politicians on both sides. What happens in Tunisia apparently doesn't stay in Tunisia. Cairo, the capital city of Egypt, has been rocked by protests for the past two days that show no sign of stopping. While the US State department is issuing statements that the government is stable, everyone's paying attention to unconfirmed reports that President Mubarak's wife and family have landed in Heathrow airport in London, landing with 97 pieces of luggage. Al Jazeera English, which can be seen on Free Speech TV alongside GRITtv, had this report from the early morning hours in Cairo. In the State of the Union speech, Barack Obama did get applause for saying that the US stands with the people of Tunisia. Now, he didn't mention the two decades of support the US had given the dictatorship. Laura has some thoughts on the US response to the protests in Cairo as well. Distributed by Tubemogul.

"It's dangerous to discount as mere theater what the Republicans do," notes Rebecca Dana of the Daily Beast. ; She points out that a lot will depend on who controls Congress in 2012--symbolic moves to repeal health care reform will be a lot less symbolic if the Senate is under Republican control as well.Rebecca joins guest host John Fugelsang to discuss the ongoing political debates over health care, over Sarah Palin, and over political language itself.In the first week of 2011, the now defunct Tunisian regime made a series of arrests in an effort to silence online activists critical of former president Ben Ali and his supporters.

"This is about crushing the power of working people, we should be very clear," says Bill Fletcher, Jr. of the attacks on federal workers' pay. Freezing their wages isn't enough; some, like Rand Paul, say they should actually be cut. It's all more proof, Bill notes, that no compromise will be enough for Republicans, whether it's tax cuts or pay freezes or any other supposed economic recovery or deficit reduction tactics.What can progressives do to fight back? Bill joins us from Washington, D.C. via Skype to talk organizing beyond elections, the fiction of bipartisanship, and whether a primary challenge to Obama would do any good."We have to build one movement, so that Obama either acts like the progressive president we thought we elected in 2008, or we get someone else to run against him." Robert Kuttner, co-founder of the American Prospect isn't pulling any punches with his disappointment in Obama and his advisers. "It's his own temperamental desire to build bridges complimented with bad advice."Kuttner joins Laura in studio to discuss the wrong-headedness of the deficit commission, the ongoing jobs crisis, and why Democrats might have to find a progressive primary challenger for Obama in 2012.If the Bush tax cuts were a comic book, what would they look like? Who's the superhero, and who's the zombie? Our friends at Brave New Films put together this video to look at the situation facing Congressional Democrats as the tax cuts for millionaires are set to expire.Finally, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks has been arrested on rape charges. Isn't it nice to know that Interpol cares so much about women? Laura has some thoughts.