today on the big picture. after flimsy low and he has told rachel that he is a man and nothing people are suggesting she's told her no she says she's a star. a . lead.

it's time for the big picture rumble joining me tonight our panel of political commentators jimmy was salvia executive director of go proud bill press host of the bill press show and author of numerous books his most recent toxic talk how the radical right is poison america's airwaves and jenny weinstein get the deputy editor at the daily caller welcome guys let's get started thank you governor walker use the nuclear option this week passing his union destroying legislation with zero

senate democrats present and against popular will of wisconsin knights and people all over the country but what is the republican union busting agenda really about is it about a one party rule be the death of democracy see president obama not being reelected in two thousand and twelve or d. all of the above well actually i think it's a different one than you mentioned it's to help the union these legislators the democratic state legislators who escaped illinois go back to their families scott walker just wanted to pass this bill so he could reunite the democratic legislators with their families he's an altruistic he knew it was it was but you know second second secondarily of course he was trying to save wisconsin's economy and state budget from collapse from catastrophe so the republican party once again the party of family values. look scott fitzgerald the top republican in the senate said exactly what it's all about one fox news would make it in cali and said here's what we're doing. if we bust the unions we will take away the support for the democratic

party and barack obama will not win wisconsin in two thousand and twelve quote on quote you can say it any clearer who had nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with saving wisconsin i think the policy was correct but it certainly has devolved into a political situation now where we've galvanized both sides and you've got a union base that really was responding to the message of the tea party and now they're galvanized again as democratic consultants and we in other words this this is like populism of one kind turned into populism of. i want to start a year from now the republican party is going to say how do we get stuck with scott walker get him out of here he's destroying the party destroying image it's a war on the middle class this is not good for the party in the long run i think it's going to backfire i'm not i'm not that interested in image i'm interested in getting actually things done and i don't know what political machinations that some people may have or may not have but it's clear that you know there's

a political catastrophe coming in the states there's doom and gloom these things are under that's what scott is doing as he's leaving he's leaving president obama to take nobody took all of that stuff out of the bill and just did the units like us and it's not just investing and it was a great there was a great post john mccormick of the weekly standard sure that there were there were many other aspects of that that they're going to help save the budget in wisconsin and by the way he would have loved to pass the whole bill but the democrats left the state so we couldn't do it you know it's not this universe and let's not forget the koch brothers sweetheart deal in the middle of it that says they can buy any government owned or utility or whatever did without bid for. any sort of policy is right what is the policy that you think is right well i think what we've had in. wisconsin a number of other states is is unions demanding payoffs for generations that are bankrupting the states. and when so by so by a living wage is

a pay off oh of course not but the the the these pension commitments for generations you know there's absolutely no give those people i have marketing and he said these are living wage being paid substantially higher than the private sector i know that you're economists and i know the i know the labor union because green bay did was it was actually it is it is true and for instance teachers it certainly wasn't true thirty years ago i mean this is racism are you guys advocating a race to the bottom book little of some sort not whatever they've got ok you want them to pay more into health care it's fair you want to pay more and into their retirement that's fair you want to make less alright maybe that's fair you do it at the collective bargaining table vests record i saw this week ronald reagan in one nine hundred eighty praising the workers in poland said when collective bargaining goes freedom goes are you very sorry for characters in poland it's going to i'm sorry bill that makes sense if you're dealing with a private company that has to pay somebody that they are you deal with politicians who can kick the bucket down the road and they're going to give whatever you want

so they can they can win the next election when you're going to collapse and you throw those politicians out and you go and you know that's where the time you get to a point where where where is. the state budget is it in catastrophe that's not good scott walker is leading i think on with my my take on this none of the above it's really about stripping a little while the middle class has loved to get involved people like our brothers . i think there were reports of democrats coming home and possible future legal challenges to walker's legislation who is really going to win this battle is going to. you're saying bill that it waters are you lost it's no joe no no no he certainly johnny has no he won this battle there's no doubt about it i think he loses a war i think they're going to recall probably four or five of the senators there the so the character of the senate is going to change they're going to be versus legislation walker will be recalled in in january or february and then it's over america america is going to win this battle as long as we have leaders like scott

walker and chris christie and bob casey and governors across america who are leading and doing the tough things that are unpopular but necessary traditionally were popular i think that's changing but traditionally been unpopular but are necessary to fix the fiscal situation in the states and put america on the right track but it seems to me as something that is about it isn't popular about what democracy is all about i mean when you vote for people who do what you want and absolutely we've seen in the last election especially the message of the american people is get the fiscal house in order and jane is right there walker's leading and we'll see what the political ramifications are but the people want politicians to make tough decisions which is why right except when it comes to people making over two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year they don't have to sacrifice they don't have to they just get all the tax code so this is a yes they were saying it's going to get all they want to say could i get all the tax code i'd say what each of the justices agreed i realized it's the same as everyone else it's hypocritical but i think it's a good are treating everybody the same but at some point but well you know what is

russia going to treat people that make two hundred thousand dollars more and give them. take away their tax cut and people everyone else is taxed at this which you are is we have a principle in a bad economic team if everybody has to sacrifice and everybody has to sacrifice you don't treat the wealthy differently than you do the middle class and that's exactly right you're actually going to treat it differently why you could but if you're going to have a tax it but it is but the but the wealthy are getting the tax cuts i mean i remember you know he had a good theory that if we make the rich. richard that somehow that's going to help the middle class you know i personally paper a fair tax where everybody pays on consumption but we need on consumption absolutely so so if i make a million dollars a year which is more than i can possibly spread i'm only paying taxes a little bit of what i buy you know. buy really expensive clothing or something like that but i pay you know more than what i pay at target to buy my clothes but it's a small amount still most of my income is going to go into the swiss bank and taxes

that we're suggesting you know i'm not saying that i'm saying that we need a simpler fairer tax code and i think the fair tax is the way to do it with with the consumption and frankly you're going to spend more on everything in your life and you're going to hire people to help you and you're going to buy things that are expensive you're going to buy expensive cars and everything metal why isn't it we're and then why do. i have to support a fair tax in the sense that i think just everybody ought to pay their fair share including corporations including banks and including companies pay which maybe one percent two percent there is zero taxes ok but my take on this we don't know the republicans are getting their legislation through we don't know who's really won but the republicans are betting that by this time the next by the time the next election people will have forgotten and that they can throw enough democratic leaning voters off the rolls that they'll be able to win karl rove is making that bet i hope he's wrong i have

a hard time betting against karl rove though he's usually you disagree with these thing or learned here we better damn well get out and vote in the next election twenty percent fewer voters in wisconsin in two thousand and ten than in two thousand but you've got all the cross the country you've got in states where people do you know try to make it harder and harder for people on top of that just about everybody ought to get out that's the best but i think really any over the last few weeks thousands of people around the country have protested corporations dodging taxes as part of the make wall street a and us uncut movements or so we've been watching mainstream you. as you wouldn't know that because the networks aren't covering instead of covering the n.p.r. controversy as in the show a complete bias in the media that they choose to focus on right wing talking points about one crazy and now fired it in p.r. rather than real problems like corporations avoiding paying billions and axes while we're in the middle of the fiscal cliff this is usa on top they're out in front of bank of america shutting it down because they paid no taxes it was our own to us every day by the left no it's not new. i think i'd let some progress on the corner

mean that you know let's not where does one begin with that statement first of all it wasn't just one n.p.r. executive there was also there were more they were trying to arrange it except five million dollars and give them honestly the government on it here are muslim brothers it all sort of organization actually did. the talking point memos make clear that the only objection they had that it might not work and this one of it one of the ways they set up a company they had no moral objection to accepting this money. news i have to tell you the white house every day every day in front of the white house there are protests hundreds of protesters i don't know who the hell they are going to be on the news i mean that's the breaks you know to me they shut down a few more banks but he didn't make the news and on the n.p.r. thing i read to you or somebody called me or you and said i'm from the muslim brotherhood i've got some money i think if you i mean come on i'm going to i wouldn't take until i want to cough they don't want to know so i you know i don't feel sorry for these guys hear it well and in fact let's just take that

a step further. it seems to me that n.p.r. let's talk about it here for a minute she is neither fish nor fowl the are not government funded because they're getting i mean they're get they're getting some government funds and they get a bunch of corporate funds and back when they were entirely government funded they were doing like really great investigative journalism they bust the. artist in the middle and a.d.m. had to pay a three hundred million dollar fine for price fixing that was n.p.r.'s research i don't see that happening now that they're corporate funded i'm my position is they should either go entirely so. by their listeners or entirely government funded like b.b.c. and canadian broadcasting i'm just curious what you guys think about i think we're seeing in p.r. being cut one position at a time you know with with. all the resignations i think it's got the ultimate are going to end up being a privately funded entity it's got to be bill your take on the she wrote a book about the talking about cuts and tried to get a public radio i mean somebody who competes with n.p.r.

i wouldn't want to hear just disappeared but i know i think there's a valid purpose but i would agree with you i mean i think they've got to decide who they are and they all might even be bit i would support their funding i think they might be better off without me i personally think they should have to compete with everyone else i don't think it should be government funding but i disagree with your point that you think that if they were government funded they would be this fantastic organization that is journalistically looking into everything i've lived in london for a year as a grad student i watched the b.b.c. this is no unbiased pinnacle of journalism. you seem to think that government funding will be a news organization since most of us in the different lives in your four year olds . will seem different newscasts that any might take you'll never ever hear the corporate media talk about the problems of corporate control in america. and discussion that's why and that's why you know us uncut is not being covered frankly republican chairman of the homeland security committee peter king kicked off his hearings into american muslim communities this week also this week

a neo nazi christian white supremacist not a muslim was arrested for attempting to blow up a martin luther king day parade last month so in the spirit peter king any guys here on the panel a muslim and if so what do you plotting and why is peter king one of the few people who actually think that joe mccarthy had a good idea back and this is this is ridiculous i watched the whole hearing i actually think that the wave republicans can assure that they would more seats in two thousand and twelve is to watch had every american watched that hearing because of what you describe is not what happened when you had his. one party the republicans that were serious and looking into a threat that everyone knows exists not all muslims are terrorists it's ridiculous but radicalization of of segments of the american population we know at least one major radical from america anwar ooc we head of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula so this is a serious problem that exists and muslims are on the panel are the ones that were that were that we were discussing it and the other party were demagogues they didn't they didn't add anything to it show the american people this tape and

republicans will win every seat in congress is going to god was cheering this hearing absolutely un-american i think profoundly un-american if you want to talk about terrorist threats in the united states fine but it's not just in the muslim community as you point out. there's a higher they say i'm lucky ok because i'm a catholic and for me he can say ok if i'm a terrorist because he likes me he's lycee are a lot of you are he would work to ireland he raise money for them in support of them he says now he said they were killing people yes and he said if women and children it is women which were killed because of an eye or attack i'm not going to condemn the ira and i'm not going to call them immoral for doing what i want so that's i really i'm not as i'm here to debate personalities i disagree with that statement i know that people probably pass i was in a round to remember the irate debates back when when he was doing that i condemn and he said it but you have to be out of your mind not to think that right muslim radicalization in al-qaeda is a threat to america you're two to one so to stick i don't know i don't know where

you get it but the matter of fact is it doesn't meet up to the threat of al qaeda which has the means and capabilities work of states to get weapons of mass destruction over to work you're right it was a radical you know main point which is you don't single out any one person you don't scapegoat one religion if you're looking at a problem then you look across the board this is the militia look at the skin it and didn't talk about it later here he is here if you want let's do they are going to make him exactly because this is a seriously what do you do or do is get red herrings or if you are doing you know what right. when terry is here and you wouldn't say we're going to investigate christianity you know this is here's the thing there are millions of muslims in this country who are patriotic who want to know about the handful of popes who are organizing to do harm to they're the ones who aren't and then there's the first of all the washington bomber there's absolutely no evidence that there was organizing involved other than this you know so we do need to look at people who organize in

coordinated efforts to do harm to this country whoever they are and there are a lot of people who are not ok in my opinion what king is doing is providing a much needed distraction for the republican party from the left of america to republicans but banks. and not if not a small number of democrats participating in this right under our noses bread and circus this is the circus moammar gadhafi is launching relentless airstrikes against rebels in libya while he draws criticism from countries all over the world for his brutal tactics the head of national intelligence for the united states james clapper said yesterday that it could off he is too is likely to prevail in libya but clapper his boss president obama said all options are still on the table regarding confronting it off so is the u.s. doing enough or is new cambridge right we should have a no fly zone sort of over the country immediately well here's what bothers me about this is yesterday in his news conference obama used harsher language against house republicans and he did about khadafi why is this guy still alive you know we

need to do everything we can to support the insurgents in that country and it's going to come down to the guy with the bigger gun wins and you know like nicks are cozy calling for airstrikes i mean we really need to why is caught up in not dead is what i want to. i have to tell you first of all if i were president james clapper would be able to. this is not the first time that he has said things in public which first i don't think are true and he should have said as director of intelligence number one number two. i think. that there were whole civilized world is united against gadhafi what i'm afraid is that before we get our you know what to go over the top is going to wipe out the opposition we've moved fast but i don't think we move fast enough i don't want to see is what. sort of third war and i'm sure we can afford it in many ways but. in concert with our allies i think we are that we should have been there already with the no fly zone

well two things i think it's a difficult situation i think it very least we should be providing intelligence on the ground it cannot be forces where they are in providing weapons to the no fly zone brings in difficult situations but the one thing i can't stand is the idea with the international committee we have you know what it is it's america that's going to provide all the any power that it matters for saying that internationally matters here but they don't here's my take on this is that we should be careful what we wish for number one hundred seventy eight iran and everybody was like oh yeah there overthrowing the shah well gee i was an ally great you know there are so many factions and tribes in libya it is so fractionalized that country it is not there's not that now that monolithic group like the military and the and the union movement in egypt that can step in and say yeah we're here i think that there's a lot of danger here in our personally any of final question quickfire in an interview this week and you gay marriage explain away his past infidelities by saying. there's no question that the times of my life partially driven.

how passionately i felt about this country. that i worked for too hard and the things happen in my life that were not appropriate. in other words he cheated on several wives because he was too patriotic i bet that excuse didn't work with his previous wife or most. voters actually he was my rock my congressman for thirteen years what are some of the excuses that may have worked quick answers a i'm sorry baby after i shut the government down and all i had way too much time on my hands be sweetie listen after hearing all the details about the clinton lewinsky lewinsky affair i just got to bothered or see honey i have no intention of cheating i just have a wide stance. i have a better and saviors there are lots of gay couples out there who are married and they are just as patriotic if not more patriotic because of their one marriage. well we'll just. i'll say amen to that and i just wonder with these things god

bless america before they hop in the bed he wanted to emulate. addressed by. his answer would be sorry darling i was just trying to fit in with the rest of the republicans like ensign veterans stand for their sanford jamila salvia bill press jamie weinstein thank you guys very much. after the break the heavy blow delivered to public employees in wisconsin a corporate takeover isn't anything new. next might really say. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions break through. who can you trust no one who is you. know with a global mission where we had a state controlled capitalism it's called sash when nobody dares to ask we do our t.

question more. than here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture. lindsey lowe in. the preaching that is but then nothing people are suggesting she's told her no she says she's a stock. you

may think what's happening across this country like scott walker its efforts in wisconsin to strip rights from working people and get multi-billion dollar tax breaks to corporations is something new it's not it actually was started more than one hundred years ago by the stroke of one man's pen his name was john chandler

bancroft davis i tell his story in the first chapter of my book on equal protection it eight hundred eighty six bancroft was the court reporter for the united states supreme court and he was on it it was on the job while that court was hearing arguments in a case called santa clara county versus the southern pacific railroad although at the time the chief justice moore ceramic weight thought it was just about a simple boring x. issue that case would ultimately redefine america forever if it wasn't for that case scott walker wouldn't even be governor because corporate money couldn't have helped him get elected. ok senator on whether or not to the corporation the southern pacific railroad owed santa clara money six years worth of unpaid property taxes again it just all really monday and stuff ultimately the court let stand a lower california court decision because they said it was the state of california is issue not a federal issue case closed not

a constitutional debate you can read on line in the web's the supreme court itself nothing there about corporations being able to elect governors but here's where everything went a little crazy as one of its six defenses in the case the southern pacific railroad made an unusual argument they tried to argue that personhood rights under the fourteenth amendment passed just twenty years earlier after the civil war to grant slaves full citizenship and equal protection under the law but those rights should also apply to corporations why because corporations had always been called artificial persons under the law all humans had always been called natural persons and the fourteenth amendment only says to any person so the railroad said had to tax them differently in one county than in another was the same as saying that a black person could be free in the north but a slave in this up. in this case chief justice waite explicitly told the lawyers

for the southern pacific railroad that his court would not rule on the issue of corporate personhood and they ought to move on with their arguments but a year later the chief justice was mortally ill with congestive heart failure after the case was decided and the case as i said was not it did not decide that corporations have rights as persons and the court reporter j.c. bancroft davis was a very wealthy and powerful man some of the former governor of massachusetts former president of the new newburgh and new york railroad and apparently good buddies with all the other railroad billionaires keep in mind at that time these guys were the bill gates's of their day they were literally the richest men in the world. now one of the things that supreme court reporters do in addition to chronicling the case is to write a cliff notes version of the case this short summary has no legal standing whatsoever it's just there to make it easier for lawyers to find in the future when

they're looking for a case it's called a no but bizarrely in this case mr davis the court clerk decided to take a bit of poetic license and his at nose well the case did not decide the corporations or persons in fact of anything or rejected the notion for the fifth time in as many years bancroft in his cliff notes version in his the his head no he wrote quote the defendant corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section one of the fourteenth the man in the constitution the united states which forbids a state to died any person with it has jurisdiction equal protection of the law end quote and with that simple headnotes something that isn't legally even binding bancroft and current court not a judge and i don't like that official slipped into the supreme court's record full constitutional rights personhood for corporations this despite the fact that the chief justice specifically said is court would not address the matter and despite the fact that every previous supreme court decision had explicitly denied those

same rights to corporations and by the time bank john challenger acrobat was published that ed note a year later for the world to see chief justice wait was dead but bankruptcy so you could object but bankruptcy single sentence in that had no that has no legal authority has enabled corporations to use personhood claims the constitutional rights to wage war against unions against the middle class and even against our politicians that they didn't they don't like for over one hundred twenty years culminating in the citizens united decision before the supreme court two thousand. and with the help of republicans like scott walker all around the country these corporations are now claiming the absolute right to buy and sell politicians and or write laws the benefit them and screw you and me scott walker may be the face of this effort today but the first culprit was that rather obscure court reporter j.c.

bancroft davis who with a stroke of his quill undid the intentions of our founders and set the nation down the road of corporatocracy please help us spread the truth about what really happened in that fateful court case in one thousand nine hundred six and to put an end to corporate personhood and bus stop this ruthless takeover of our democracy that's the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered as our web sites of thom hartmann dot com and archie dot com entire show is available for free cast on i tunes also check out our youtube page youtube dot com slash the big picture artsy and don't forget democracy begins with you get out there get active show up bag your it sumanda.