if. well i'm sorry but in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture get out he's thrown in libya may begin to crumble as u.s. troops close in on enemy lines in misrata back here at home the president's decision to enter the war has some surprising support post the g.o.p. may be a hidden agenda for labor professors of three major colleges so you are hundreds of e-mails are being ripped off and the state of alaska is ice cold for union workers

how a new bill could terminate all collective bargaining rights. you need to know this libya's foreign minister moussa. resigned yesterday a sign of good obvious government could be crumbling under the pressure of u.s. led nato airstrikes and there are now reports that the cia is on the ground arming rebels meaning that the scope of u.s. involvement if these reports are accurate they haven't been confirmed has escalated in libya from not just in force a no fly zone or protecting citizens to actually choosing a side to fight in what may be a prolonged civil war but we may be shooting ourselves in the foot here too as a vatican official in tripoli said that forty civilians were killed by allied

airstrikes in the capital city and another twenty civilians have been killed in the city of misrata there's no better way to turn public opinion against you and start killing civilians just ask it often meanwhile in congress tea party darling senator marco rubio penned a letter to senate majority leader harry reid. well in the senate to authorize the use of force to take out libyan leader moammar gadhafi his letter reads this resolution states that removing them from power is in our national interest and therefore authorizes the president to accomplish this goal at the end of the day the fact remains that our nation is not like other countries the united states is an exceptional country with exceptional powers but that power comes with unique moral obligations and responsibilities quote with the tea party taking the warhawk position progressives have been taking a position of peace for the house of representatives today congressman dennis kucinich from ohio responded to president obama's war speech saying this. the sons

and daughters of our constituents willingly put their lives on the line for this country we owe it to them to challenge a misguided and illegal doctrine which could put their lives in great danger this administration's new war doctrine will not lead to pace but to more war and it will stretch even thinner our military. well congressman dennis kucinich joins me now to talk about this war congressman welcome back to our program thank you for the opportunity to be on again. we're honored to have you today on your floor speech you said that we are now in a constitutional crisis what did you mean by that the president has taken it upon himself to trump. article one section eight of the constitution which

gives congress the war powers to claim for himself and executive privilege so war he's gone beyond the war powers act and the requirements of it he's even gone beyond the un mandate so what we have here is an executive who apparently doesn't have to pay attention to what anyone says in a government whose first principle is representative government government of the people wouldn't it be reasonable to suggest that actually that. article one section eight is that it were never it is said that the power with the war power in congress that that was really a version nine hundred seventy three with the war powers act and that obama was going along with it well no he's there is no actual or imminent threat to the united states i mean it's going to stablish that's read more on it for the war powers absolutely and what's happened is that you could even argue about the

constitutionality of war powers act because there's a sense in which congress actually ceded power to the executive in a way that was not consistent with the founders intent but let's for the sake of a moment talk about the war powers act he went beyond the requirements of the war powers act this is this is the ministration which apparently doesn't care what congress thinks and the danger of that is that when the administration takes that approach they then. drive a stake in the heart of representative government this is a this is a constitutional crisis it's been reported that president obama signed a secret order recently authorizing covert support to the rebels good idea bad idea well first of all check this out secretary clinton and other top members of the administration were briefing members of congress in a secret briefing i didn't attend it because i think those briefings aren't secret because you read about in the paper. and it and didn't tell the members and

everything about this order that had been signed and what's even more interesting is that the signing of the code word order tends to coincide with the movement of a new opposition leader a new rebel leader in libya who came from a suburb of virginia. and there's neighbors who's seen him around for twenty years didn't really understand what the man did for a living and it turns out he's now the leader a military leader of the libyan rebels so she's this is there any more than meets the starting to sound like that that the guy from iraq forgetting his name no this curveball well even before the guy who was taken three hundred thousand dollars a month and we installed in for a short while and in any case. for that matter. i'm curious. bosnia is being invoked more and more for example people calling my radio

show you know why are we constantly doing these things you opposed the bosnian invasion or incursion or whatever they were it was called at the time i'm curious what your thoughts are about that fifteen years later we ended up with twenty thousand boots on the ground there after that after president clinton promised it was not going to happen and you know in retrospect what your thoughts what what your thoughts were then what they are now and and how you think if you think there are any parallels to what's going on with libya. well there are some parallels not obvious. rob or yeah a. secretary albright delivered a nonnegotiable demand to slobodan milosevic that he leave his. position in serbia when he refused to do that it was used as an excuse to bomb serbia in serbia at the time there was a very powerful citizens' opposition a force that wanted milosevic gone but they were actually crushed once the united

states started bombing. any opposition that comes forward to khadafi if it's if it's a legitimate and there's many different hues to these points and. will not be strengthened by the attack unless of course they're cia inspired. rebels who somehow may find the nato providing them with the air cover they need to advance against the gadhafi regime and we're we're very much out of time here but just very quickly isn't this what's happening right now i mean bashir and syria was yelling i al qaeda al qaeda al qaeda until three days ago or a week ago and now he's going to cia cia it's happening well there's no question about the cia connection to events in libya over thirty year period i mean it's been well publicized so you know here again we have covert ops all these things

happening beyond just the american people are being asked to foot the bill for regime change we're told is not going to be regime change so it's going to be limited mission expanded mission it is now the administration is in leveling with the american people and frankly i think that sooner or later the american people are going to understand that and there will be in its inevitably inevitable it will be political consequences for that the problem is we're being dragged into it into a third war in the region congressman because it is thank you for joining us tonight thank you it's great to know we have strong progressive voices in our government speak truth to power and advocate for peace. is time for our daily poll your chance to tell laws what you think here's today's question do you c.n.n. poll claims the tea party's favor ability rating has sunk to just thirty two percent question is the tea party over your choices are yes people are finally

starting to see the tea party for what it really is a group of politically naive white voters or no radical millionaires and billionaires like the called brothers and dick armey will prevail so far about seventy percent of you voted yes log on it's our dot com let us know what you think all you open until tomorrow morning. crazy alert a twelve year old teddy by the name of smokey will soon hold the guinness world book of records for the loudest per cat was recorded per an at a record setting seventy three deaths of belts but sixteen times louder than the average cat to put that into perspective seventy three d.b. is about the sound of a hairdryer or a back in clear air smoky in action. so

much for the advantage of buying a cat because it doesn't bark meanwhile other cats are no smokey are coming forward saying i'll have what she's having to cut it out it seems the commander in chief has taken sides with the working class to look at how he plans to protect the rights of airline and railroad workers. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right now and. i think the problem may be the one.

we never got that says he can feel safe getting ready because of the freedom. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you saw you don't i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.

a conservative think tank with ties to the heritage foundation and the koch brothers is targeting professors at three state universities in michigan who the university of michigan michigan state university and wayne state university a think tank known as the mackinaw center for public policy as submitted a frew of information act request to get a personal e-mails of professors in labor studies programs to find out what these professors were saying about the ongoing labor battle in wisconsin presumably the

goal of the koch funded think tank is to catch state professors pushing for the recall of certain politicians something that is illegal within a classroom but since they're only going after labor professors and no one else it's not reasonable to assume that this is just another tactic in the republican war and working people joining me to talk about this issue is evan mcmorris i sense horo reporter at t.p.m. and joining me from michigan one of the professors targeted by this right wing for requests. professor roland zullo from the institute for research labor and the economy and at the university of michigan welcome to you both thanks for having me thanks for having us evan first off. tell us about this think tank what's their agenda well the mackinaw center is a it's a public policy think tank that's how they build themselves they say they're a nonpartisan think tank but as you mentioned in your intro they they think a lot of money from conservative causes championed a lot of the policy agenda that big concern of governor rick snyder the publican governor of michigan has put forward including one of his proposals to create

a system in which the state government can come in and take over a look allergies that are failing financially and break their union contracts so i think you know the overall push of this group is definitely from the right suspect if not just right authoritarian right i would say would you know this is not the libertarian right this is the authoritarian i mean to take money from the koch brothers in people roland i'm curious is this unprecedented have you ever got a fire request or is there ever been one directed against professors at the university mission to the best to your knowledge we have gotten in the past where and and you know what's your sense of the purpose of this what. well we don't know what we're concerned about of course is that the e-mails that we. we have that we send to them is the messages in there which are cherry picked and

then use for. reasons for what it all purposes his credit does the work that we do and perhaps to embarrass us evan that cherry picking role in described is exactly what happened at the university in the u.k. where they got a hold of some of the e-mails some. academicians and scientists who were working on global warming and they came up with this they created this whole climate gate kerfuffle that lasted for about a year turns out every investigation found there was nothing there but these professors have been substantially harmed you know career wise reputation wise and they were put through hell for a year by the right wing machine. do you expect this someone says something like this is going to happen here and do you think this is going to stay limited just a mission well at you know as roland said we don't know what they want to do with these e-mails yet i think there's a lot of evidence sort of stacking up that they do kind of want to discredit these

professors they've had a lot of problems with labor peace professors at mackinaw center for quite a long kind of going after them for some of things they've said you know they say that they're for the pro-labor and they sort of you know back up through democratic policy ideas so i you know i imagine that this is sort of something that's become part of the landscape now we saw it in wisconsin too with not a professor of it's been for you for his e-mails by the public and party there but i think i think that this is a way to try to find out what people are saying you know e-mail is a lot of them kind of e-mails and i spoke with roland about it and he mentioned there's a lot of guys e-mails he gets not necessarily all of them are. things he agrees with or things he has in the do with but you know you get these e-mails and then you you know you go from there i can tell you but i have to go to any public figure can write. and just wave cers not poly side not philosophy. if you think it's possible and i understand your position if you'd rather not respond to this i you know i won't be offended at all if you think it is possible

that rather than a fishing expedition where they're looking for something like at the university and in the u.k. but instead this is just plain good old fashioned bullying. again . just so i make this clear i am. communicating with you through a computer that is privately owned. so i actually have a great deal of freedom to say what i want to say. it's. part. of the law i think if you ask the person who studies liberal ations or certainly who's in way. we firmly believe in the right employee to claim that we. believe in that association right and.

the folks at the mackinaw center simply. i think what makes this particular case so interesting is that it did happen so quickly after. the. request in wisconsin. by the republican party so what we saw at the national center doing essentially was mimicking this tactic can they do the non partisan and this just appear to be very very hard to. put on their. the legislative. legislative council is the acronym alex alex alex the american legislative exchange council or whatever. they basically pass out these ready made laws these right wing groups and they're being picked up by states all over the country there's a commonality of funding and

a commonality of action with a wide variety of people on the ground might this be the same kind of thing or is this just a coincidence there's been some discussion of that i've seen people talk about where this comes from our. reporting it i've seen that has suggested that's come from them specifically it is something that we're seeing happening you know in more and more places as you mention and met it you know sort of the same kind of thing i mean i do think there's a connection with sort of the idea of these for your quest i mean the magazine or something if you will of time before you people all the time before your professors before before you had public school teachers before but this is such a politically broad request in terms of asking for everything about one of the biggest labor disputes in a long time from labor professors i mean that's you know that's a huge broad think very good question work more by the time here but is there any connection to john's pitofsky michigan bass guy who kind of stirs up all the answer you know good stuff around the country i don't i don't think it might be too early

to tell some might but i don't know much about charging him with america just curious roland evan thank you both very much for joining us i truly appreciate it thank you and good and good luck i wish you the very. people they can sure you will just like maine's new governor will pasion the page whatever it rip down the historic labor mirror always state's department of labor building republicans are now trying to erase our nation's labor history from being taught in schools. it appears the white house has finally taken a firm pro-labor stance finally today the obama administration and said that it would use of veto if upcoming f.a.a. funding bill includes a provision that restricts the rights of airline and railroad workers from unionizing republican chairman of the house transportation committee john mica

included language in the bill that would make it harder for transportation workers to organize not to strike to organize. democratically controlled senate on the other hand left that provision out but surprise surprise republicans won't budge after all they've been shown up by state governors within their own party over the last few months and then just a change to take the war against the unions into the u.s. congress the white house statement today said it ministration is committed to helping working americans exercise their right to organize under a fair and free process considering that president obama remained a moment through the labor battle in wisconsin with state workers are we to believe he will take a tap a tougher stance when it comes to federal workers rights and the bigger question is first few years in office as the president often enough to stand with workers across the nation joining me now from new york jonathan just seen president of the economic future group and author of the book it's not raining we're getting peed on

the scam of the deficit crisis jonathan welcome. hey tom good to be back great great to have you with us thank you for joining us again this is president obama's first official stand well arguably his speech in milwaukee but this is you know i'm going to veto this for labor in the midst of this nationwide labor battle in your opinion is this too little too late or is he playing his cards just right. well i think we have to define what's the labor issue perhaps this conversation but let's start specifically with the bill sure it's a good thing and i think it does say to people and i always have this argument of my progressive friends it does matter who's in the white house whatever criticism we have of the president of the democratic party being too close to wall street which is certainly criticism that i've leveled it is true that there's a difference between having a president a democratic president who will stop these kinds of crazy bills particularly what you mention around the f.a.a. but you know it is a small segment it is public workers it's the f.a.a.

workers we're not talking about the broad broad population of workers throughout the private sector as you well know tom you talk about this your expertise this under eight percent of workers in the private sector unionized now and we do not have we have not had to how the president's going to out on the stock and said time after time by the way he's not then that after the election two thousand and eight you may remember there's a famous clip that has been rebroadcast where he said that when he was elected president this is when he was campaigning he would put the shoes on and he would go stand on picket lines to stand with workers he has not done that ever since the election well here's my concern about that jonathan and you know i'd love to hear your take on it i know there's a variety of them among us progressives and that is that and i get the e-mails every day from the right i mean i'm on everybody's e-mail list i got you know your fiber there ones that they did you know that obama has a secret he's next week he's going to sign an executive order and take away

everyone's guns and he don't send money right away those are anyway. my concern seeing what middle america is certainly right wing middle america is getting constantly in e-mail and and hearing on many of the right wing radio shows is that if obama had inserted himself into for example a situation wisconsin it would become all about him and it ultimately would have hurt that move. i think i'm right on that or if i missed something here. well i don't think he is necessarily the only thing that's about the movement the movement grew on its own organically because people were very very angry and we had some very good people on the ground there the labor movement did respond a little bit late but that didn't mean that obama could not have gone there at the right moment and stood outside there with the workers and said this is outrageous this is about an assault on workers an assault on the middle class an assault on every single person who works for a living gets a paycheck for

a living but let's be very clear we know why he didn't do that his pollsters are sitting there and thinking well wisconsin ohio illinois indiana those states that will be key in two thousand and twelve they will not move a single step until they can figure out what the polls say and that i think is a lack of courage and a lack of leadership if you won't basically out a moral issue like the right to collectively bargain the right to have a decent wage the right to have a union if you will and step out there and lead the people in that you can't be poll driven you have to show some leadership on that i can't disagree with that i'm curious if you think that you know big labor is a major funder of democratic candidates for presidency do you think that his behavior at this point might be actually harming president obama's future twenty twelve with the unions well let's with respect let's not call the labor movement big labor. i think but that. it because that's often used by the other

side to say oh the big labor movement these terrible units the fact is as i said before under eight percent in the private sector following everywhere under attack in the public sector and highly what are the reasons that party and highly fractured part miter up again and highly fractured and one of the reasons that you see a lot of uncertainty about the lay of movies most people particularly young people don't even know what a union is they've never been a union member their parents often are not union members but. on to the point about labor look when it comes down to the election two thousand and twelve and obama's standing for reelection and he is facing put your list down mitt romney michele bachmann oh i hope she gets the nomination that is going away it's going to be going to never stop giving sarah pailin to any of that list haley barbour all of those people are viciously anti union there's going to be no question the labor movement is going to work to try to get barack obama reelected but here is the key question what is the rank and file going to do and you may remember i would be

quick about this remember with bill clinton. actually in the congressional elections one of the reasons i would argue that bill clinton lost the congress in one thousand nine hundred four was that he was out front supporting nafta and that was considered for the labor movement a do or die issue and so a lot of people out there the rank and file have been told for months and months and months nafta was a terrible thing which i agree about and so in many many states rank and file workers union members simply did not come out to vote because they were so angry at the understood because the labor market educated them that that would be a defeat for the labor which any jump now to two thousand and twelve a lot of people are going to have heard that barack obama has not stood up in my opinion to the millionaires and billionaires on taxes that he down the down the line has too often sided with wall street and with the big corporations that is going to affect people's ability i think the labor movement ability to turn people out in a very excited way so it could be very very dicey in terms of the turnout jonathan

i think you're spot on thank you very much for being with us tonight. ok it's my pleasure without a strong working class living as a strong middle class in america our democracy will be progressive a weakened unionized or not and i am as a member of after we're all in this later struggle to get are. coming out the fight for your rights movement is now in a lot. asco proposed bill could strip union workers from hearing it from getting their voices heard. let's not forget that we had enough.