brings the alarm bells fearing a tidal wave of immigrants fleeing turmoil in north africa could overwhelm italy thousands of refugees have already reached the tiny italian island of lampedusa with as many as three hundred thousand more feared to be on the way. general strike paralyzes greece with fierce fierce clashes in athens as thousands rally against austerity measures many fear you governments will pick up the tab for sending aid to the troubled middle eastern countries at the expense of their own population of . hiv patients in ukraine blame corruption and mismanagement for delays in getting lifesaving drugs some are supplementing their treatment with alternative medicine in the hope of some relief. next the alona show and more coverage of pro and anti union demonstrations in the u.s. midwest where so far over seventy thousand people have taken to the streets.

well convey a lot of show where we get the real headlines with the mersey where you live in washington d.c. now today we'll continue our coverage of the protests in wisconsin archie correspond on the face you try to get there bring us all the latest updates from the scene and we'll take a closer look at who's waging this war on unions is it the g.o.p. is of the koch brothers could it even be centrist democrats do the unions have any real friends left john tomorrow of course the liars will join me to hash it all out and next we'll tell you about a case in pennsylvania where two judges were locking up juveniles for petty crimes all in exchange for kickbacks from private for profit detention centers so discuss

the case with jacob sullum and find out of cases like this could be avoided if we only spoke up instead of blindly following the notion that tough on crime is the only way now we've told you about the wars abroad but today will focus on a war going on right here at home it's the war being waged by the g.o.p. on women's rights legislators continue to coin bills that would take away abortion rights attach organizations like planned parenthood to joel philip of a feminist will join us to discuss all the ways of the g.o.p. is attacking us and switching gears harry reid thinks that it's time to outlaw prostitution in nevada so what's gotten into the senate he's never made comments like this before and why would he want to get rid of an industry that could be taxed and bring in money to the state we'll ask those questions at the end of the program but now let's move on to our top story. as protesters in wisconsin enter their second week of picketing their anger expands to not only the state government but the federal government as well while these workers continue to fight for their

cause many of them are asking. where obama r.g.s. as they can now finds out. week two mobilized workers taking their state capitol it is a revolution here a revolution of tens of thousands of workers fighting to preserve the rights that their state is trying to rip away the rights of public sector unions to effectively protect their working conditions all the people i grew up with. more than half of them have public sector jobs right like it's. sort of people pretending that that there's somebody going to solve these problems were the state capitol where lawmakers were set to pass the controversial bill has been stormed by protesters spending days and nights here eating sleeping and fighting back protests that started here are some pretty sleazy and i'm not surprised i don't think. many of them are not just sleeping with the you know.

the question on the lips of many where is barack obama i mean i voted for obama but i'm tired of democrats to vote with democrats who never stepped up are the ones who have the state to most here the issue of a nation tired of struggling is far from local and can't be ignored by the president we've only heard him say one statement earlier on this matter america is at stake why is nobody here was the president getting more involved while the crowds know who to blame for the economic turmoil that got them into this in the first place where here because of wall street reckless gambling angry ok that is why we're all here people are suffering they also argue the white house rescued the banks leaving the people to drown his comments about we all have to tighten our belts we're not particularly helpful president obama will not win two thousand and twelve without states like wisconsin and he should be here standing with the workers this lack of solidarity is only strengthening these workers commitment to

their fight status that. as outrage spreads across the country it may be just a matter of time until it reaches washington forcing obama off the fence and or to madison wisconsin. i'm joined live by our two correspondents they see a choice you know who's in wisconsin with us for more details now and i say i'm just curious when you look around at the signs that these protesters are holding when you speak to them is there a kind you know a unified voice as to who they're putting the blame on is it on scott walker is it on wall street is it all republicans or they all over the place well i don't know that's actually very interesting because when the protests first kicked off it was definitely more about the governor because he was the one who introduced this bill that's causing all the outrage but is that these are passing and this is week two of the protests here people are really beginning to look at the bigger picture and they're wondering if you know they should blame not just government but also the

federal government too like you saw in that report you just showed essentially people are beginning to question why and whether or not the president should be acting more whether wall street you know that got them there in the first place should be blamed and this is something that's causing you know a big out of out reach so it's definitely not concentrated anger on dog just walker at this point but definitely picture people beginning to question in general the way things have been operating in the united states how do they feel about the fact that democratic lawmakers fled the state and went to illinois do the protesters there support this move or do they kind of just want them to come back and face governor walker face to face and really hash it all out. you know what the protesters here are really seeing what democrats did as a way of stepping up their game and really are supporting them because as you mentioned fourteen democrats have fled and that does not allow the congress here to pass this bill that's exactly what is preventing the bill from being passed because

there is not a quorum met that would allow the rest of the republicans in the capitol building to try to sit down to vote and really get this has become law but certainly they're actually saying they hope more democrats would step up and not just the locals whether whether or not it's a way that went jug get a walker to negotiate is a big question because many people here have been saying that walker is not really a negotiator at all he hasn't been able to negotiate with anyone be the protests or the democrats he just what this bill slapped down on the table and has really been refusing to negotiate so whether or not the democrat showing up is going to play any role is a big question for people here now as you mentioned these protests are going on to their second week so what's the media presence like there you know is this the center of attention or is is some of the media starting to weigh in. this is also an interesting aspect of what has been going on here because we're seeing a lot of the mainstream media channels really pushing it back and forth and blaming

as always the republicans the democrats this and that and really making this into something that it's really not at this point because this is about the people mobilizing and really trying to fight for their democratic rights and in terms of their presence here on the ground we have seen several satellite trucks but it was interesting to discover that inside the capitol building where all of the action most of the action was going on today we really did not see any reporters on media crews inside the building talking to the protesters and really covering what was going on inside except for maybe one or two media crews actually now not to very quickly obviously these people look like they're motivated they're not planning on going anywhere but can we expect even larger numbers tomorrow that's something we're hearing some of the groups here on the ground are saying that they're trying to organize the biggest protest that they have seen here in wisconsin and already with what's going on having been compared to protest as large as during the times of the vietnam war that's going to be incredible to see if that happens because

this weekend seventy thousand people were protesting here if more people show up that's an incredibly loud voice and i said well thanks so much for filling us and of course we'll continue to cover this as protests are going on not only in wisconsin but in other states around the country as well. now when this whole issue first started democrats called it an assault on unions but the thing is this assault has been happening for decades and in recent months some elected officials around up there war saying that unions themselves are the ones to blame thanks to their growing greed but who's really to blame here tazz union greed hurt itself or they just a player in a much bigger economic game artie's lauren lyster has the story. thousands of public union workers defending their rights on the streets of wisconsin maybe now finding with this local steelworkers union president has been dealing with for months if you stand for water to ride anymore and the labor end and unions are

especially. not well accepted gone are the days decades ago when unions were given the nod by society and one in every three american workers belong to one. nowadays just seven percent of private sector workers are unionized and even those numbers are under attack as evidenced by these workers who've been locked out of the plant where they work for the last eight months because they don't want to lose their benefits the benefits that they seek to take from us are basic benefits that every worker should be entitled to honeywell wants employees to pay more for health care but these workers say it's really about breaking the back of the union and for these united steel workers who say unions nationwide are being squeezed giving up their benefits for corporate profit would mean further defeat nationwide if we was to settle for what is on the table right now the proposal that it would be detrimental to the union movement the working

class middle class but for workers in the u.s. this is nothing new already their rights pale in comparison to other countries when it comes to things like job security bay cation health care and maternity leave and activists say the decline in american unions to. lows has not happened by chance it comes on the heels of basically sixty years of a post world war two just a pretty brutal war that's been weighs on the unions and the working class it may not be of the bloody proportions seen in the early twentieth century during the ludlow massacre when state militia outright shot and torched miners observers say it's been a quiet white collar war of late but it's a roading workers' livelihoods nonetheless it's being fought with political power and fear the corporate mind identified a workers' movement which tried to transform the us into a socialist or communist utopia and they sold dismiss now the fight has been taken

to the public sector where union membership at a have to or thirty six percent is blamed for bringing down broke cities and states now you have certain unions specifically the public employee unions in many cases exploiting and abusing the taxpayers but some see this is the escalation of a war now hitting the working and middle class from all sides economists richard and max fraud wolf say public union salaries and pensions are simply being made a scapegoat for the country's economic woes it really is a crisis whose costs are being shifted on to public employees public workers are an easy target for officials who want to avoid the political landmine of raising taxes that means you have to potentially tax wealthy people who support your campaign which we have a hard time doing in the united states for reasons that you don't need me to explain to you explanations aside this war marches on leaving the jobs and benefits millions of workers have come to count on as a rights to health care the opportunity to retire and possibly even their ability

to fight together in ruins or in the stor r.t. new york. so could this be the perfect opportunity to expose the white collar behind closed door why. in america to open the eyes of americans to the actions of the koch brothers the politicians that they backed like scott walker the organizations that they fund like americans for prosperity how do they do political party and a hating their working class brother and when they should be on the same side and are obama and some democrats part of this game joining me from our studio in los angeles to discuss it is john lotto founder and president of crooks and liars dot com john thanks so much for joining us here in our studio actually but you're still in los angeles now i'm scared to tell me if you're with me here don't you think that this is a time for the working class in america to to band together not to say hey i'm a tea partier and your union thug but to realize that their principles there are

policies that are hurting all of them that they can get behind it to gether absolutely on it's amazing to me that there is this rift between working class americans and then this new lead concocted party called the tea party which is supposed to be some right wing populists form of of they are you know a crusade when we're on the same side because what we're talking about is the influence of the koch brothers billions of dollars along with tons of of their high priced g.o.p. donors that have been spreading propaganda through fox news too am radio that have actually turning themselves against their own best interests it's quite it's quite amazing and i wrote a book along with my managing editor david mayo where can we explain this hijacking of just basic americans to this for some reason a lot and i don't understand this they've developed this hatred for anything that's

progressive or anybody that calls himself a liberal and it's a reflexive mode now it's quite stunning especially during a recession during high unemployment we should be banding together but instead as you've seen with the pot with the. system right now the two sides are polar opposites and there's like no movement but how do you think the koch brothers really managed to do this i mean you mentioned the role that the media plays here which i absolutely believe but really how did they do put the entire tea party which i think started with good intentions right it started with anger wall street for causing an economic crisis the fact that our taxpayer dollars bailed them out and then somehow it's been completely co-opted what's this magic that they have. well you know what we trace back is what happened obviously in every election there's winners and losers and a lot of the conservative movement was very angry that they lost the election and you know and all these tea partiers you know you didn't hear anything during the

bush administration right there was a dispute uprising against bush is increased spending who increased the size of government who actually got us into two wars in the middle east and even inch introduced torture to the lexicon of american thought but when you have really strict propaganda outlets masquerading as media then funneled and paid for with coke rather money you know it's very easy to sort of paint progressive's and paint obama as this evil person who's who's just you know collapse the whole economy and you know it's very interesting is that if you talk to a lot of tea party people they will tell you that president bush wasn't the one who acted the tarp funding it was they don't even believe that the whole financial meltdown hit you know have been trying to do two thousand and eight election and it has

a lot to do with again this does hatred to to liberals and to progressive thinking and and it's easily traced but what the koch brothers did then invent eventually is they poured a lot of money into phony grassroots groups like americans for prosperity and they're able to sort of astroturf the whole movement and say we're supporting the working men and we must stop government spending they sort of turn the whole problem around from the big fat cats at wall street to the size of government and government spending and unfortunately this misinformation campaign that they're waging is working it's convincing people but if we really look at the big picture we look at the policies that our government isn't acting the tax breaks that are being extended for the rich the budget cuts that are being placed upon the not rich do you think that there is a class war going on in america or coming upon america. well it's absolutely happening and we see it just playing out in wisconsin where governor

walker who is heavily funded by the koch brothers is not tried to negotiate with union workers he's trying to destroy collective bargaining and in the process destroy a union unionization as we know it today and obviously it would spread to other states me just look at chris christie who is openly now attacking the teachers' union and spreading disinformation about them and so you know and also as far as for president obama you know a lot of progressives haven't been happy with some of the policies in acted like this big tax break and extending the bush cat tax cuts because what it did is it increased the debt by tremendous amounts and there was no shared sacrifice and there hasn't been one person prosecuted over the whole wall street nightmare and it's unbelievable to me that you know but we clearly we keep hearing the shared sacrifice aligned i'm just going to have to for one second because we're running

out of time what do you think that obama should do here though i mean granted this is a state issue in wisconsin but does he think that you know these union workers are just his base so he doesn't really have to worry about coming out and supporting them vocally because they're going to vote for him regardless or should he take you know a stronger stance. well i think he has come out and has huge support but you know he could speak up a little more strongly for unions but you know this is actually what we're witnessing is a real organic eggs rising ok you know the words you didn't have them as n.b.c. you didn't have c.n.n. and you didn't have all these media outlets you know advertising that there was going to be protests right it wasn't like this big build up in please call and protest the government this was an actual populist groundswell that happened in wisconsin and in a way i think it's better for the president to almost stay out of the way and let it swell for itself because the people are speaking truth to power and they're doing an excellent job and now it's also as you know it's spreading to other states

where we just had the florida governor rick scott who has as you know very very right wing come out and say that he was not going to try to infringe upon collective bargaining and then mitch daniels another big tea party favorite is also backing down off their proposed plans to possibly try to destroy unions so i think it's got legs on its own i think it is real grassroots policy and it's taking off and you know it's energized the base of the democratic party it's definitely spreading and you know we're going to continue watching as it goes from one state to the next john thanks so much for joining us my pleasure thanks a lot have a great day thanks in tampa. now coming up next there is one man who is responsible for putting juveniles behind bars for money and perks but on august serving time behind bars as well but the real question is how does one get away with doing this for so long where are the people questioning their decisions and questioning the

system as quickly talk of selling out why lawn order own seem to come out on top. my. when the judicial system was first established in this country it was designed to keep people in line to follow the rules of law and ultimately to protect the people

but these days there are quite a few in consistencies take this case in oklahoma for example a twenty five year old mother of four was arrested and sentenced to ten years in jail for selling marijuana now patricia spotted crow sold a dime bag of weed to a police informant while her children were in her home after being arrested and offered a plea deal spotted crow passed on it because she had no prior convictions but the judge ultimately sentence started ten years behind bars and i know people are saying out there was she was selling drugs but let's get a few things straight she was selling a dime bag not pounds and pounds of we'd like big drug dealers out there she had zero prior problems with the law he was mother was probably staying out of trouble but it does say ells also find it crazy that a mother is not going to be separated from her kids for ten years over this wall white collar criminals get off scot free for the crimes that affect the entire financial system i'll explain

a bigger picture here for the case of oscar grant california the cop who killed the unarmed twenty two year old has only been sentenced to two years in jail think about that ten years for selling a dime bag versus two years for shooting an unarmed man in the head at point blank range and this is just scratching the surface there. or surely more instances where the punishment for drugs outweighs the punishment for murder manslaughter even rape but it goes to show you the way that our judicial system approaches drug crimes that it's overboard to say the least so i say it's time to overhaul the system. and two years ago the cash for kids scandal broke in pennsylvania where two judges were accused of collecting two point six million dollars in kickbacks from private for profit juvenile detention facilities to keep those centers bunks full of those juvenile offenders mark ciavarella one of the judges was known as mr zero tolerance who had a reputation for running his courtroom like an assembly line sending juveniles off to harsh detention centers for minor offenses and last week he was convicted of

racketeering money laundering and conspiracy amongst other charges so he could face a maximum of one hundred and fifty seven years in prison sentencing although it's predicted so probably only get twelve to fifteen and a pennsylvania supreme court has now dismissed four thousand juvenile convictions issued by this judge saying that he sentenced young offenders without any regard for their constitutional rights it's a horrible example of judicial corruption in america but we have to wonder if it could have been stopped earlier maybe even avoided if we weren't too scared to question the principle of being tough on crime joining me to discuss it is jacob sullum senior editor at reason magazine and reason dot com jacob thanks so much for joining us now this story i mean this story makes me sick i think this guy deserved to spend one hundred fifty seven years rotting in jail or at least of the rest of his days to figure on exactly how many kids that he's sentenced how many years they lost of their lives that they can't get back. well there were thousands of cases

that the pennsylvania supreme court overturned that he dealt with well they would human a court judge in missouri county none of these kids are not necessarily going away for years but for somebody who is anywhere from you know ten to eighteen years old this is the skins were even being sent through a month or two to a jail for juveniles or to a boot camp is a very scary experience that disrupts their lives and it can you know scar them for a long time and in many cases we're talking you know quite trivial offenses were he in his attitude was we're going to nip this in the bud by steering its good straight so there are cases involving there is a kid who for example made fun of her assistant principal on a on her my space page and got and got a month in detention center for that there was a kid who accidentally is ten years old accidentally set her bedroom on fire when she was playing with matches she got him in detention that you know there are cases involving things like possession of grow paraphernalia or drinking or you know by

leaving school rules where he had zero zero towers and that he thought like anybody who violated school rules should be sent away with with no excuses lives write a name was mr zero tolerance was never you know when you were writing about this earlier today said that perhaps there were a few warning signs and things that people could have looked at and done suspicious of that you know may have stopped him earlier what were they. well he was he was you know well known for having this out to zero tolerance attitude you know picking up from the school's policy in the schools rely on him a great deal of to deal with their discipline problems and it was known that he he was much more inclined to send juveniles away to detention then any other judge in the state it was or county had a much higher what they call a placement rate basically in a detention rate for doing all vendors than any other county and i think even before this whole deal developed really was getting kickbacks from the detention centers that was added to it so you can ask you know his objection is whether the

money made me this was always my attitude to be very well be true and it's a good thing you know i wonder about is this story of the day i was never came out would you still be a judge you would still be behaving this way routinely denying these if you will is under the cost of your rights to counsel pressuring them to waive the right to counsel and not explaining to them what that meant not pressuring them to plead guilty without explicit planning what that meant and in most of these cases the parents have this attitude that you have a kid deserve some kind of penalty but surely this is not such a big deal they're not going to send it away over this but they did not they were slapped in shackles and sent away to the amazement of their kids' parents but when i think this sorry well what do you think that that that that says you say that these parents were amazing obviously it affected them but as you know a society people were also looking up to this judge right they thought that he was successful do we just have this notion in our brain that you know higher conviction rates means that you're more success.