president

"The message of public vs. private, fight against each other, isn't working," says Jean Ross of the Minnesota Nurses Association, who joined the protests in Madison, Wisconsin at the Capitol building against Scott Walker's union-busting bill. Jean and the National Nurses United have been traveling and talking to their workers, hearing firsthand about the impact of the economy on nurses and their patients. "The notion of shared sacrifice--there needs to actually be some sharing, but there's been none. All the burden has been on the working people in this country," Jean notes. She joins Laura via Skype from Minnesota to discuss the nurses' plan to take the fight to Wall Street. "I imagine a world in which my seven-year-old daughter doesn't say to me 'I can't be the president because I'm a girl.'" Anika Rahman was horrified and yet not surprised when her daughter expressed that sentiment. As the new CEO and president of the Ms. Foundation for Women, Anika works to empower women to fight for their right to control their bodies and their lives. She joins Laura in studio to talk about the latest research on how the recession is hitting women, about why she works for women's rights, and why the attacks on collective bargaining are attacks on women. Teachers right here in New York are facing more than just cinematic attacks—Mayor Bloomberg is laying off 4100 teachers and eliminating another 2000 teaching jobs through attrition. The Mayor blames Governor Cuomo, but the story is the same as the one we've heard in Wisconsin and around the country: there's just no money for those greedy union teachers. Our friend Brian Jones and the Grassroots Education Movement have crafted a response to that message in a film, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman, and they're premiering it on May 19 in New York City. On May 12, the teachers and a broad coalition of unions and activist groups are descending on Wall Street to make the point that there's actually plenty of money for schools and other social programs, if only Wall Street kicked in its fair share—or if they hadn't tanked the economy in the first place. Check out the links here for more on the May 12 action and the film premiere. Distributed by Tubemogul.

“This freeze would cut the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade, bringing this kind of spending -- domestic discretionary spending -- to its lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was President. Let me repeat that...." That was our president announcing his 2012 budget. And indeed let's repeat that — and note a few things he didn't say. Distributed by Tubemogul.

"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.

Continuing with our Oscar theme, we bring you the second part of our conversation with whistleblower, anti-war activist, and documentary film subject Daniel Ellsberg. Since the 1960s, Ellsberg has been fighting to stop war and bring government secrets into the open, and he knows firsthand how much power citizens can wield against the government. Ellsberg is headed to the Oscars himself with the crew of the film, and he sat down with Laura to talk about his experience releasing the Pentagon Papers to the press, what's changed from the 60s and Vietnam -- and what hasn't.