i am. bucking the lot of show we'll get the real headlines with none of the mersey are going to live out of washington d.c. now is the u.s. positioning itself to attack libya we'll tell you about the moves that america is making and how the rest of the world is working to stop gadhafi and what about the battle for your home governor scott walker amps up a budget conflict in wisconsin so find out what else is on the chopping block i what we think should be cut to save the budget then we'll introduce you to the latest political movement us on cuts there the liberal version of the tea party

movement and one of the founders is going to join me to explain what they're all about but a group of house democrats are calling on republicans to investigate a law firm and tech contractors are working on a disk information campaign against enemies of the chamber of commerce but is there any chance but you'll actually see it happen and is a financial terrorism partly to blame for the economic crash of two thousand and eight a report commissioned by the pentagon says so and we're going to look into it and see if it has any teeth. today secretary of state hillary clinton spoke before the house foreign affairs committee on capitol hill and in light of all the unrest in the middle east and north africa many members of the obama administration are trying to figure out how to approach these delicate situations with a constantly changing position on good versus evil we can't help but wonder how our policies will change day in and day out artie's christine for south finds out.

afghanistan. iraq egypt. libya. when it comes to u.s. foreign policy this country's hands are not just full they're often tied secretary of state hillary clinton charged with the task of laying out the plan for the future generations of americans including my own have grown up successful and safe because we chose to lead the world and tackling the greatest challenges but now clear signs that the challenges and the times are changing but a lot of people in this country have come to the conclusion that our policy overhaul has been inconsistent that sometimes we support the bad guys and that they had guys become our enemy. twenty eleven has been a major year with major shifts in prominence and power in northern africa and the middle. and signs the u.s. will influence maybe we need just days before the regime of egyptian president

hosni mubarak fell both secretary clinton and cia director leon panetta called it stable until it was. prepared there are also inconsistency is on the war in afghanistan in afghanistan integrated military and civilian surges have helped set the stage for our diplomatic surge to support afghan led reconciliation that could end the conflict and put al qaeda on the run but robert want cans of senior. un official just said quote it is fair to say that security in the country is that its lowest point since the departure of the taliban even secretary of defense robert gates said this just last week to a group of cadets at west point in my opinion any futures defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big american land army into asia or into the middle east or africa. should have

his head examined as general macarthur so delicately put it there is also the matter of money our own economy weak and losing leverage to other powers like china and brazil another frustration voiced our lawmakers doesn't make any some sort of all for us to be borrowing money from china then give it to other countries especially giving it back to china. now when it comes to iran there is a clear position given by the state department the denial of human dignity in iran is an outrage that deserves the condemnation of all who speak out for freedom and justice but in many other regions like the rain albania and most prominently iraq where many many more people are killed at the hands of u.s. allied governments the silence is deafening. and as the landscape changes daily in libya cracks in the foundation here grow deeper we must maintain

firm ties with our allies and enemies must be clearly identified it is a constantly changing position on good versus evil and increasingly diminishing power to influence what's next in washington christine prison now r.t. . a looks like the international community is gearing up for something big in libya after passing sanctions freezing at thirty billion dollars worth of libyan assets rumors of plans for a no fly zone or elsewhere like the last has deployed naval and air force units around libya some officials have even said that no options have been ruled out at this point so are we about to see a war or some kind of military intervention or is it all just tough talk and a lot of pressure here to discuss with me is lawrence wilkerson retired u.s. army colonel and former chief of staff to colin powell lawrence thanks so much for being here so it's right now what do you think is going on right now we've sent air force. naval units you know it's

a common circle libya and clinton is saying that it's just for humanitarian purposes but at the same time we're hearing that all options could be on the table might we see some kind of military intervention we could i think it's costing right now i don't mean that the pejorative sense it's posturing to try and convince the market often to get out to step down i don't object to this i think it's probably the right thing to be doing i do however have real problems with putting u.s. marines or u.s. soldiers on the ground would be. but if this were to happen let's say that i you say you don't object to it but the problem is that it would have to be some international consensus right nato would have to get this what you want security council addressed would have to get involved but china and russia have already said that they wouldn't support such an action i think given what's happening to your un security council already i think those are probably feeble protests i think the groundswell would be for action particularly if there was

a lot of bloodshed on the t.v. if we really have something this no fly zone idea for example great idea but i don't see anything flying very much i don't see anything in foot high performance or helicopter inflicting casualties if that starts then yes it might be good to implement a no fly zone if you have intelligence saying that it's about to start to be good implement the no fly zone before it starts so you can stop it but i got to see a little more in terms of what is going to actually happen in libya before i would say yes it's a good idea to put force on the ground this has got to be the libyan people just as in cairo and elsewhere in the middle east in the mockery of in northern africa in the western asia if we're going to have democracy we're going to have representative government it's got to be the people that want it and the people that bring it about we can help to prevent bloodshed we can help as best we can to stop violence but we don't need to interfere in this process because we will corrupt and pollute this process if we do now p.j.

crowley and it was actually asked whether the u.s. had rolled out the idea of arming rebels libyan forces and he said no that's not off the table because at this point by frankly nothing is off the table all options are still up in the air but my question is who exactly would we arm right i mean it's not like there is a unified opposition group here and no options are off the table or all options are on the table is like saying we don't know that's what they're really so we don't know what we're doing here maybe it be a little bit better in. more convincing and transparent they said that might not go over be big with the international community or the american people so they don't say that but frankly as i said before this is got to be handled very carefully because we're seeing u.s. policy collapse u.s. policy has been shaking hands with tyrants in order to protect oil that policy's falling apart on the other hand the us had for at least the last twenty years i

could argue for the last sixty five years a nother paul so you know it was to grieve freedom and democracy to bring about this sort of movement we've now succeeded in that in the sense that we had something to do it so we've got a band in the one policy even as we're helping the other policy to be other than stillborn and we've got to make sure we don't get too close to the other policy because it would be corrupted and polluted and we've got to the band of the other policy was some discretion because all the dictators i would follow you know i want to segue here very quickly to a speech that defense secretary robert gates gave last week at west point academy where basically he said you know gone are the days of these massive land wars and prepare for a future where we see more air and sea conflicts is this really a huge departure the statement that he's saying here i read the speech i hope he's not saying and i don't think he's saying if you read between the lines that coin

counterinsurgency failed states and american intervention is the future i do think he's saying in a budgetary sense and that's usually what secretaries of defense speak in is i think we're going to have to rely on the navy first perhaps air power second and the land forces third and therefore the fifteen thousand marines we're going to in the twenty five or thirty thousand army we're going to and subsequent cuts are going to be explicable in the light of this strategy really saving any money because you know the difference for you to our brigade and he's talking about cuts but at the same time being the overall pentagon by. it is still expanding and while he may be cutting some military and some marines now there's more money going towards a more submarine stories more navy vessel has talked about one hundred billion dollars over the next five years though and people are the most expensive element unquestionably so with the u. d. budget right now roughly sixty percent of it is people equipment is a lot cheaper than people people have to be paid over the long haul they have to be

paid a pension and so forth people are very expensive and most importantly they have to have health care and that is skyrocketing in terms of cost revealed the so this is a cost this isn't necessarily saying that i mean it we were we were wrong all along with these massive war conflicts that we've gotten are so well there's some of that too but it is always bottom line about money and i guess it's about time we start talking about money that only one point two trillion dollars a year now if you add it all up it's all about thanks so much for joining us on sort of. now coming up next month last week so now if you wisconsin lawmakers want to make prank calls and more of that and then have you heard of us and i'm thinking through this organized dozens of protests a bank of america locations over the last weekend so what's the message and are they the last answer to the party i'll speak with armand you're going up against and i'm hoping you're still.

a charmer over here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture. new web site twenty four seventh's live streaming news times what to do about. ongoing financial hardship unlimited reason i call it the videos for download. and story never saw a mainstream news. so the media the political. parties are just.

let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right here in the lead. i think. either one well. we never got the says they're keeping safe get ready because of the freedom. hey guys welcome michel ancel on the on a shelf with part of our gas up the sound the topic now i want to hear audio is going to have video responses are the twitter profile of the questions that we've posted on you tube every monday and on thursday the show long response is really.

well everyone's talking about wisconsin surveillance hacking workers union there's a new piece of legislation that quite frankly is just too ridiculous to overlook it turns out the two wisconsin republican state representative have written a bill that would prohibit tricking a call recipients into believing the caller someone they are not for malicious purposes in other words they want to ban frank call and can anybody guess why you don't think so it couldn't have been to do with governor scott walker getting prank call by somebody pretending to be david koch i'm not sure if you guys caught it when it first happened but just a week ago the b.c.n. murphy called bloggers office posing as one of the koch brothers his locker was refusing to give an interview and murphy learn the all it takes is the right name to get walker on the phone because that once he thought he was talking to the real david koch he gave his two cents on everything about the union battle in wisconsin

take a listen to some of the snippets from this twenty minute long car. in the first domino yes this is their normal. what i know what else can we do for you dan. let's stop worrying about you know them because the other day there are seventy thousand probably two thirds were against the bill were there were seventy thousand people are always there's been you know fifty to thirty thousand a day but i remind all our lawmakers with a side and a half million people stay here just because a bunch of guys you can job of the workers of the union goes to be the rest the people in your district with so one thing for your question is the more groups that are. encouraging people not to show up at the call. and. i'll tell you what scott once you cross these bastards out fly you out to cali and really show you the time that would be. here are not my gear now is

thoughts on tape and if you're interested you can find the entire prank on line but let's get back to the issue at hand here i guess the walker didn't like being punk so he probably had some of his cronies right up some silly little legislation about banning prank calls but does anyone else out there think that people are overreacting i mean hell everyone is a victim of a prank call if some point or another he never once shared pain like a call by canadian radio host acting as french leader nicolas sarkozy i must say governor palin i love the documenting your life you know. oh god thank you that's was really edgy. and you. you see sarah took it in stride and the prank call was talking about her being in a porno but let's be honest who out there hasn't some point in their lives prank

called someone. is all over their. clothes off. ok we have to have a little fun but let's get back to that prank call banning legislation the state lawmakers swear that they did not write this bill because of what happened to governor walker and i think we all know that's not true but the craziest thing here is that if this were to actually get passed could you imagine how many elementary and middle school students out there are going to get locked up i mean really break calling is probably one of the best forms of entertainment when you're a kid so this legislation is a fun killer not to mention a violation of your first amendment rights if you ask me but because governor walker and his staff were dumb enough to fall for someone else's prank and the constitution just goes straight out the window you gotta love republicans they never manage to miss an opportunity to show themselves as hypocrites and haters of

fun. ok now let's get serious about wisconsin governor scott walker is not relenting and his plans to take away collective bargaining rights from public sector unions as a way to what he says balance wisconsin's budget and in fact today he revealed even more plans for how to conquer the state's financial woes with deep cuts to schools and local governments but let's get real what if we stopped making the middle class take all of the hits focused on special interest tax dodging or ended some of those tax breaks the governor walker passed that resulted in the state's financial mess guess what doing that would balance the states like you're here to discuss it with me is a reporter and blogger for think progress dot org and the proper support at the center for american progress action fund so thanks so much for being here thanks for having me you know in everything that we've been hearing from governor walker all of his media appearances the speeches that he's given have you once heard him

go back to some of the policies some of the legislation that was enacted it while he was governor those tax breaks that i think for the most part everyone agrees helped wisconsin's budget problems well here's the thing right when governors not only water but case numerous others throughout the country they're telling us that there's these are facing budget deficit so the way that they're going to solve these deficits is where slavery the middle class by slamming main street america will take you where you need rights. but they're not telling us about the corporate tax rates they passed about the special interest card their own tax loopholes in the tax code and other big corporations and big really wealthy people who are not paying their fair share a world being asked to pay yeah it's so easy just to forget about all of that and target state employees isn't it well you guys over at think progress you came up with a list of just a few suggestions when it comes to some of these tax breaks or some of these loopholes you know which could fix wisconsin's budget deficit so tell me of some of

them are so for example. right now we have a lot of tax dodging that's the i mean there was one for wisconsin's future which is the think tank of the state actually i mean there's about a billion dollars of tax going on in the state right now there's one hundred thirteen million dollars every year the state loses just from tax dodging. businesses basically because business is there i do reporting and i was calling the money that was auditing them so that's one place that we can go there's other places that have special loopholes for example community hospitals or call community hospitals where they produce eighty nine percent of the revenue of the hospitals and they say these are really really big chains you know they're ripping the state off more than a hundred million dollars a year from their own tax dollars that we have some loopholes are just ridiculous because they're written for one place there's a large dorm in the university of wisconsin madison campus that gets a quarter million dollar tax rate every year i mean this is a tax rate of supposedly written for universities across the state but it's literally written just for one dorm and this is this is a really egregious example attack that's happening all over the state we're not addressing any of this instead we're going after main street americans and that's

wrong and you know one of the things that you have to also note here is you pointed out a few examples when it comes to the state of wisconsin if you think about it this is happening on a national level if you think you know that bank of america exxon and some of the largest multi-billion dollar corporations pay a single penny and federal income taxes last year that just seems preposterous to me to seem fair at all you know it's not fair and is what i want you to do i want you to open your wallet and look at what's in there if you have anything at all in there you're paying more taxes america page two thousand and nine more taxes than exxon mobil paid in two thousand and nine these corporations that bought our politicians and manipulate the tax code a way to rip the rest of us also they don't pay their fair share and we're continually asked to pay and all i'm saying is that everyone needs to be paying their fair share of everyone should be asked to sacrifice not just middle class americans have already sacrificed too much but you think that part of the problem i have we don't hear about this more often is that because they well it's not just republicans that are down to give you know corporations tax breaks but democrats

are and aren't absolute is a bipartisan problem and. today they had a vote in the house of representatives for appealing there's oil subsidies that we give to big oil that doesn't pay his taxes and twelve democrats actually sided with the republicans to bring those to bring down the wrong direction so this is definitely a bipartisan problem the response of the bipartisan as well well unfortunately for . both parties i think i said thanks so much for joining us thank you. now this past saturday of movement a movement called u.s. uncut organize protests at more than forty different branches of bank of america across the country all to shine a light on the tax evasion of multibillion dollar corporations so local activists protested inside and outside of bank of america branches conducting teachings about corporate tax avoidance and theatrical bail they stopped the answers by to ask do you pay your taxes bank of america doesn't and in washington d.c. and san francisco protests force the early closure of major bank branches in san

francisco protesters also presented bank tellers with fake checks made out from bank of america to the united states of america courtesy of tax paying citizens it's the liberal version of the tea party but i'm just wondering what took so long for it to form here in this casket with me as armand we were not to d.c. uncut co-founder ron thanks so much for joining us now tell me about us and what what's the overall goal here the u.s. and cut is a new grassroots movement that organizes through online social media twitter facebook us on or and what we're really protesting is demanding corporations pay their fair share just like the rest of us you know i pay your taxes i pay my taxes why don't they pay their taxes and we're hoping that the corporations will own up and and their practices of corporate tax avoidance so that all of us don't have to face the severe budget cuts that we've been all been facing at the state and federal level for so long that's all slated to be slated to be on the docket very

soon let's get real here though corporations are never going to own up to it on their own right that's why the public has to come out that's why you have to put pressure on them so you know what do you think could happen with us and do you see this having a possibility of expanding our becoming a larger movement you know like the tea party but i guess the progressive version really getting that big you know what i mean keep in mind that we only started about two weeks ago in the response. that we got was amazing i mean there's a lot of anger out there is that think all viewers know and all of you are share majority americans share that view and i think you know we had over fifty actions in cities across the country last saturday and we're not going to stop and there's certainly. people want to stand against budget cuts because that's what politicians have only been putting on the docket for for riveting budget the majority americans do not call it what took so long to happen like you said it only started two weeks ago the tea party started the while back you could say right after the crash in two

thousand and eight after all the big banks were bailed out so why did it take her dresses so long to come around to this i think one thing is that budget cuts they take a while to actually be enacted so the recession when the recession hit. or i'm sorry state revenues still continue to not be that bad but now we're really in the trenches we're at the bottom of the recession as some economists and state budget cuts are really coming to a head now and we're also now being asked to do more budget cuts at the federal and state level as you can see wisconsin also is an indication of the real anger that's out there and i think that among progressives we're this is the voice i think this sort of direct action is is kind of our bread and butter this is what not only progresses but everyone the majority of americans can can see directly connect through direct actions that these corporations. because they're not paying their fair share of taxes we all feel the brunt of them and i think this is

a rallying call now is the moment to do it and i think americans are going to join in on this but i'm with you there that it shouldn't just be a progressive cause this should be something that all americans or at least all working class americans really do you know get behind me do you think that there is a type of a class war that's really happening in our country right now. it's more corporations war and americans middle class all americans i mean our futures are at stake in. politicians and obviously the lobbying of corporations to avoid having to pay taxes in the encouragement or not cracking down on loopholes by government i think all americans really do feel the pain that corporations are causing all of us so we see that in the form of budget cuts for example college aid is slated to be cut how heating for the poor we see that through teachers firefighters policemen you know or safety responders libraries schools they're all slated to be cut even further

four hundred fifty billion dollars has already been cut from state budgets since the recession began one hundred twenty five one hundred fifty billion dollars this is are slated to be cut as we move forward and president obama's budget doesn't look much better one point one trillion dollars in cuts primarily to social services over the next ten years if we if we eliminated corporate tax dodging we could recording to government budgets it's we could gain one hundred billion dollars a year that's one trillion dollars over ten years that will you know that will cut that would save a lot of because obama is slated to propose and i save a lot of jobs probably to save a lot of teachers that i save a lot of money the kind of education now i just want to so i'm assuming also that this was inspired somehow by the british version you expand but they then again you know saw security measures coming their way much sooner so now we're really seeing it come to the forefront in the u.s. the quickly what are the next plans you have this big demonstration this last

saturday i hear that perhaps tax day april fifteenth might be next well we're going to have a number of actions as we move forward taxis definite going to be a big all out i don't want to go big all out assault if you will as far as protesting against corporations since they pay zero taxes i mean in two thousand and ten bank of america they just released on friday today as you see that they're not paying the taxes in two thousand and ten so as we move forward we're going to have actions visit. us uncut orgy find out if there is going to be an action in your city or town if not start one we're all in it together get the facts facts there join us on facebook and twitter and we're moving forward so bank of america other corporations who don't pay their taxes you're forewarned american majority americans are ready to stand against budget cuts and are demanding that you pay your fair share especially right around tax day is that the rest of us ought to fill out our forms and pay the money i think we all want to make sure the corporations pay to our mom thanks so much already how much for having me. now sort

of come tonight are tools time winner involves a rich drug addicted spoiled actor and the media stick around for that and it's been reported that the u.s. chamber of commerce wanted to discredit those who attacked them during the midterm elections for spending a large amounts of money for g.o.p. candidates but will the g.o.p. actually and that's to get those claims i'll speak with jane hamsher founder of firedoglake dot com which is. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions through good sort of people who can you trust no one who is you know view with the global machinery to see where we had a state controls capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.