well i'm john harshman a washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. from sitting in boardroom meetings to sitting behind bars of the international monetary fund dominic strauss kahn is going to rest it on alleged rape charges and i bail is legal troubles deep in europe's financial crisis. if the calm before the storm as thousands of residents in the mississippi river care for record breaking flood waters so is this a bad manmade disaster or just mother nature. and we are maxed out today

america hit its fourteen and a half trillion dollars debt limit so how much longer do we have until we actually before. you know this the head of the international monetary fund dominic strauss kahn was arrested this week in a new york on charges that he sexually assaulted a maid in this three thousand dollar a night hotel suite a judge today denied strauss kahn bail ordered him to stay in prison until his next court date on friday because arrest is the least of the worries for the i.m.f. which is struggling to contain pending financial disasters across europe economies in crisis as they come under attack from wall street short sellers greece and

ireland likely request more bailout funds the i.m.f. after their banks gambled and lost back during the bush era the bailout deal was in the works for portugal and spain is trying to stay afloat on its own but with a twenty one percent unemployment rate it's looking more and more like we'll only be able to make it through with a. from the i.m.f. spain is also the site of the latest anti austerity protests over the weekend thousands tens of those protesters hit the streets to demonstrate against cuts to social programs the same cuts that are depressing the u.k.'s economy today and the same sort of cuts that republicans are trying to push in congress here to crash our economy while obama is president so the financial fire is still springing up across europe how will the i.m.f. and putting out the blazes now that their chief is behind bars in america it offers some insights into this issue is no me prince journalist and senior fellow at demos author of the book it takes a pillage behind the bonuses bailouts and backroom deals from washington to wall

street before becoming a journalist nomi worked as a waltz on wall street as a managing director of goldman sachs and running the international analytics group of bear stearns and london you know me welcome try thank you great to have you with us just for our listeners who may not be familiar with the institution what is the i.m.f. what do they do. what feels right the i.m.f. is a sort of organization of one hundred eighty seven countries that basically it's a fund it it's an organized fund and there was a mission is to sort of equalize the development of economies throughout the world and how they go about doing that the devil in those details really is what has brought us the types of bailouts that they have. being discussed now they are coming from those funds how they support the general financial system as it stands today as it's run by the major international banks and so forth so that it has one

hundred eighty seven countries that are sort of participants in the fund and have access to various assistance from the fund the reality is it's run by the more powerful countries for the more powerful countries and by the philosophies of those more powerful countries which is liberalize financial systems and high interest loans with a lot of bells and. strings attached four or four countries that they don't play a lot and by liberalized using the word of the european sense meaning. more more corporate control six months ago controlling more financial capital access and less regulations more external investment all of that liberal in a sense of open and loose and regulated and logical right roughly six months ago when the cameron government was elected or the. cameron what's in the in the whatever they're calling it now but when the conservatives came to power in the

u.k. . the austerity measures that they put forward there was a big article there's a big guy in the financial times saying if you do this you're going to be laying off hundreds of thousands of government workers there's going to be a ripple effect throughout the economy those people are going to be buying products it's going to press the economy cameron said oh no no no no the you know we're going to do the same kind of thing that the i.m.f. would do we're going to cut back and sure enough you know two weeks ago there was a headline in the front page of the financial times that bad quarter's results for the u.k. had just come in and there their g.d.p. had shrunk by by half a percent why do these guys keep pushing this i mean we've seen this now for prover thirty years in country after country after country where the i.m.f. goes in and they push these this neo liberalism and it destroys countries. yeah if it's that destructive philosophy that says the anything that it is about investment about capital about financial markets is somehow inherently better for

a country's economy then then then helping it's individuals then then then social measures and such at the at the middle and bottom levels at the general population levels of those countries and that's that's been there and all it's increased in terms of of europe most recently because we had such a destructive period there's it's been a growing destructive period but reaching this sort of like climax in in two thousand and eight where where countries that had had the most speculation the most capital come in the most being screwed by the financial system globally and then having that capital run out and leave all the remains behind in the destruction behind are the ones that are now being forced to look at more austerity measures and so forth the case sort of in the mill that the u.k. is actually responsible for for a lot of the financial capital that rolled through europe i mean aside from the

financial system along the street the next place is. in london and so a lot of what happened throughout europe had to do with structures and security celebrity and everything else that we saw here going through go through europe so it's sadly ironic and in bad for the individuals of the country that they would have rolled through. along with that you know which is the philosophy of the i.m.f. that this is somehow good for the country was was obviously bad and obviously fixing financial markets does not fix the overall economy and we see that here and yet here the same type of philosophy happens you throw money at the banking system and somehow that's going to going to trickle down and it doesn't and it can it won't because the two systems are completely diametrically opposed there's capital money power influence banks and then there is individuals working with social matters. there's who watch security and who deserve that security because now they're following things screw up and these are the two groups that are opposed to each other the i.m.f.

the fed supports the capital banking system it's extraordinary no we thank you so much for being with us. thank you this stranglehold the banks toure's have on our government is frankly astounding governments all over the world in fact they crash an economy and it's the middle class that has to pick up the pieces while the bankers pay themselves a billion dollar bonuses as for i.m.f. chief dominique strauss kahn we'll have more on him in just a little bit. and. it's time for our daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's the question today our nation hit its debt ceiling will congress step up and reach a deal to pass the debt limit increases your choices are yes we're tapping the pensions of federal workers to prevent illegal out economic calamity or no republicans are demanding that everything should be on the table except for what actually can fix this raising taxes so far over sixty percent of you voted no.

log on to thom hartmann dot com and let us know what you think the poll we open until tomorrow morning. coming up it pays to know people in high places especially if you're a cheating senator governor or a well known politician after the break on men in power flexing their authority to silence their extra curricular activity. for. you know something if you see

a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else or see some other part of it and realized everything you saw. i'm sorry is a big. earlier this month about a senator john ensign resigned from his seat rather than testify under oath before a senate ethics committee about his affair with a staffer and hush money paid to keep that affair a secret even though ensign is out of politics as sordid details of his affair are now in this scenario other lawmakers the senate ethics committee recently released their report on the instance sandal showing that fellow senator tom coburn helped broker a ninety six thousand dollar deal to keep ensign's affair under wraps and former

senator rick santorum also played a role in sweeping the whole matter under the rug as well cases been referred now to the u.s. justice department but there's another twist in this story john ensign is a member of the c. street gang a religious fundamentalist lawmakers who believe they were chosen by god to rule over our nation who run the national prayer breakfast that presidents have done for decades who preach family values and pay really really cheap rent other c. street alumni include south carolina republican governor mark sanford and former republican congressman chip pickering both of whom got busted for cheating on their wives so what's the deal with c. street and republican sex scandals joining me now is jeff sharlet journalist and bestselling author whose new book sweet heaven when i die faith faithlessness and the country in between will be available this august jeff welcome to the program. anytown going to be with you great to have you i should note that your book on c.

street just also came out in paperback as well tell us about century family. c. street is the washington capitol hill residence of the hardest and most influential christian right political organization in washington called the family or the fellowship goes back to nine hundred thirty when they formed as an anti new deal anti-union coalition of men who felt they had chosen them to be well and they've been going on principle for seventy years they're different than other christian right organizations in the sense that they're not really interested in you or me they're not interested in ordinary people they're interested in power for people they think god chooses special people whom god wants to work and they thought senator ensign and senator coburn former senator santorum senator jim de mint another resident the c. street house they think these men are selected by god for office and it's their job to help them consolidate their out what are. but miller is this an exceptional instance oh the family has always specialized in the scandal in fact

and you know in some ways that's not surprising i mean that's part of the sort of history it will be and it lives and you want to reach out and bring some of the problem in a man when he's down in fact you know one of the best records of how it works comes from the former watergate on chuck close and now leader of the christian right you know nixon's former hatchet man you wrote in his book morning again when he was down and now he was about to go to prison the leader of the family then still today came to him and introduced him to what he called and this is these are chuckles words not mine and it veritable underground guardsman washington to help and he said he was stunned by all the new ally who said that they would run interference for and it looks like the same thing's happening now for senator ensign and. we've got a number of congressmen to see if you have an especially senator tom coburn who appear to help him cover up not just as a theory that's his business but help him cover up his violations campaign finance

laws lobbying loans beary serious instruction justice issues but i think on this this time of the arrest of the guy who's the head of the i.m.f. and and some of the details of ensign's you call it a fair it seems to me like and it's it's damn close to rape actually or at the very least abuse of personal power st paul wrote most of the new testament and never met jesus in person has always seemed a bit massaging a stick to me have these guys adapted the anti-woman view that paul arguably expressed for example in his first letter of the current dns when he said that if a woman didn't shut up and keep her head covered in church she should ever head shaved and live in shame and these guys have been looking at the wrong time the inner circle the organization hues to this idea called male more it sounds like a dirty innuendo but that's their idea the idea is it as christ is that his followers so. a man should be the women and survive and the women have

a role it is described within the family business with those of no has no plans they say separate but equal women have a similar but equal role you've got a real portrait of it and the other kids that you mentioned governor mark sanford is right jenny sanford wrote in her book about the spiritual counseling she got and the street when her husband started to stray she was told that it was a woman as well as his wife she was never to raise her voice in anger that this was not her concern that this will be dealt with men and this gets boger this really shows the depth of massage me she had a role though because her governor mark sanford had been chosen for our god her role was the keaton's actually satisfied and it's actually which you know in her book it is that that profound degradation of of women of people is what martin luther king called the thing i think you should a human it's definitely is in traditional neo calvinism i suppose. it is or it was believed certainly and it was the rationale for kings and queens

for a long time that god had that the physical evidence of god's blessing was that somebody was rich or somebody was born into a royal family or whatever. is that how it works it seems strange that they believe that that but these guys who come in because they succeeded in getting elected and they're rich they must have god's blessing or does doug go out and pick out the guys that he's the sides or are blessed by god and turn them into little demagogues we have about a minute left that don't prove the leader of the group says we work with power we can build new power we can they had power in john ends and what really comes down the senate ethics committee report. is that they took every step to preserve that pattern even as they saw as you say because he was committing acts that come off with claims he was a senate ethics committee and sends a stroke and you know this is breaking laws breaking very serious lobbying rules they were protecting their power and they were doing it because the. remarkable

jeff thank you. thanks good to see you here in the case of senator ensign we learn how far a man of power is willing to go to make sure he gets the woman he wants using his power and lots of money he made a mistake his mistress to keep her quiet saying that her job hung in the balance if she didn't see him and was the affair was out he again used his money and power to keep her from going public before eventually firing both his mistress and her husband which she was no longer sleeping with similarly there are more allegations coming out against the i.m.f. chief dominique strauss kahn french journalist has now come forward saying that strauss kahn tried to rape her two and a female member of the french parliament said he groped her and she would never again be in a room alone with him the journalist claimed she was alerted strauss kahn's home by the promise of an interview but once he arrived he tried to take her clothes off she said i kicked him i called him a rapist he didn't seem to care he was like a writing chimpanzee she was twenty one years old at the time so is thirteen

actually between these two stories something having to do with men of power preying on women or just keeping them down here for example is rush limbaugh talking about the feminist movement on his radio program. and a viable truth of life number twenty four written back in nineteen eighty seven feminism was established so as to allow other tract of women the easier access to the mainstream of society and even to this day people to pull this and say incidences of how could you possibly say something like that well because i mean it because i believe there's something to it. and here's an advertisement limbaugh ran on the show when hillary clinton began her run for president. please are you. calling the shots or you know whether the war affected the only. one was to confine the brevity of our if you think you'll recall. your iraq. want to see if you were going to revert to just wrap it around go there or you do

the potential been single for your control and if limbaugh doesn't represent the republican point of view in america why is that every single republican politician who has ever criticized him is eventually come crawling to him with an apology it's so obvious that there's a website devoted to it idled i'm sorry rush dot com here to offer her take on this issue is adele stan adele is the washington bureau chief at all the net adele welcome back to the program thanks for having me back to. gingrich's serial adulterer limbaugh and unabashed massaging as to what's going on here well you know this is the kind of the classic dynamics of power politics and you know i think in power politics often the powerful need to find a reason to have contempt for the people they'd like to oppress so you know they find reasons i mean i guess i'm one of those that they found in this that limbo it's our king about you know i mean active g.

fashion but you know if any of those people like me are really scary and have to do with wanting to accrue power to one's own class and to keep it there then i mean it's more complex than that but i think that's really a lot of what the dynamic is and there's a sense of entitlement among certain men who have a certain sense of power that should have food to them because a certain action but there it's being male being white. is a variation on what shows up with white races. or i see this really is massaging it completely separate from that you know i think they're analogous because i think it's about power and it's the same thing when you when you look at. the way racism has manifest itself in united states i mean it's a racist needs to demonize the person the other right whom he wishes he or she wishes to all perhaps and that gives a rationale for the oppression we're seeing that now i think with islam and muslims

in america where the new acceptable kick around. i was in high school in the one nine hundred sixty s. and there was a girl in my class and i saw a girl because we were you know at fifteen. who just one day didn't show up and we learned about two weeks later that this was in sixty five sixty six something like that and abortion was illegal but she had an illegal abortion and got in fact that it once out there and she died of blood poisoning and she just went banished from school and that was apparently not uncommon i've talked to a number of people of my age who you know say oh you know i knew a girl who died also. are you concerned that the generation of women coming up now who are in the media were making decisions who are running for office who are in their twenty's their thirty's their early forty's have no recollection of what it was like before roe v wade were before the before gloria steinem really kicked things off and women started participating in or i remember another thing back in

the sixty's in the seventy's or early seventies ran an ad agency and to place an ad in the newspaper you called so in place and they said you want the men's only the men want of the women wanted section of the classifiers member applying for job title gal friday i mean there you go right so it it but it you know i mean you generation yeah i think you know i'm hesitant to go down that route every generation on the generational divide that some would say is part of feminism there's always going to be a difference in perspective as we go along on. and you could see the civil rights community to people grousing about young people not you know they remember a friend or gays and so they don't quite know. what but what has been gained but what so much could be lost so quickly so quickly and i think that yes i mean if you you know those of us who were around at that time certainly have a very visceral and you know a sense of what it was like and you know the younger generation does not happen but

i think i'm seeing some very lively young family ists who are all over this situation that we have with the i.m.f. chief dominique strauss kahn who has i think some very salient points to make about it because you know it hasn't gone away it's not as if young women today aren't subjected to sexual assault or sexual howrah cement and you know one in six women are have some experience of sexual thought usually when they're still girls when they're fifteen sixteen. and that that leads me to just more or less my last question and that is you know fifty years ago a massage in our culture was just right out there for everybody see your good looking back at you know t.v. shows like t.v. shows like madmen. has it been reduced or has it simply changed its nature. i mean i think of limbaugh's or as

a dinosaur you know he's not he's not the current general well our thing that you know it's sort of like racism here where. when you have the legal framework now to challenge certain things such as sexual harassment you know its manifestation becomes more insidious right because people are going to be careful about how they behave in certain situations but not in all situations so it's still prevalent it still exists and if you look at the culture in congress and all of the anti roman law that's coming down the pike i mean it's it's taking it's taking a new face that's for sure it's not gone it's still better than it was when i was a youngster so we're moving slowly but the it's as it becomes more subtle of might become more of a window and some things are cyclical they move forward and they move back and they move forward in the end we make a little bit again each time we go back i think that's the way life works or it was

you know thanks for being with us great to see you today. well women in america often face an uphill battle and feminists are under attack from right wing groups like the independent women's forum funded by male oil oligarchy other countries are taking the lead in making the world less hostile for women for example there are countries that dictate a certain percentage of women on corporate boards so we see in austria for example thirty five percent of all the people who serve on the boards of major corporations the the austrian equivalent of the fortune five hundred companies are women in norway it's forty percent countries that are actually considering legislation or actively have legislation to do the same thing to follow the examples of austria norway right now or spain italy u.k. belgium and germany in the u.s. we have no such rules about fifteen percent of the people serving on our corporate boards are women when you. look at government it gets even more interesting again these are the result of quotas in sweden you have forty percent women finland in

denmark thirty four in norway thirty eight iceland twenty five south africa thirty the country with the largest number of women in government is rwanda forty nine percent now arguably you could say that's because they saw what happens when you know mass hysterical testosterone breaks the the killings there were one in genocide actually fueled by talk radio's talk radio hosts were yelling get out there and kill them get out there and they were and movement happen and so now the women are stepping in the same ok let's just call this could be i mean this is this is one of several theories of this but most of europe has quotas at least that a party of rival united states does not so we have seventeen percent of our representatives at the federal level are women which means that eighty nine nations have higher female representation in government in the usa it's really interesting the earthquake confederacy after which in part of our constitution was modeled and

thirty four members of the are quite confederacy came to the first two weeks the constitutional convention and franklin introduced them talked before about it the speech that he gave they had these this was a confederation of thought originally five and later six nations and they had this rule this law that every decision made had to be made in the context of its impact on the seventh generation from right now and they knew that there was one group among them that was more concerned about the seventh generation than another and that was the women so in five out of the six nations only the women were allowed to vote. and as ben franklin said you had nations of peace for hundreds of years maybe we should. think about moving at least in that direction.

crazy alert crocodile tears republican joe walsh took to the house floor on friday to criticize the president for not being serious enough when it comes to immigration reform to show just how serious he was walsh was toting eight poit alligators. you know what mr president might not be a bad idea and i wonder how many of these alligators it would take to secure the border well later that day walsh released a video montage again mocking obama's stance on immigration reform. maybe they'll need both. or they want to know what they are in the like.

has nothing screams i'm serious about immigration reform then toy time allows your representatives and arts and crafts projects on you tube now i see why republicans couldn't vote on raising the debt ceiling last week it clashed with their mandatory nap time. after the break an effort to save the residents of louisiana ends up screwing up all the residents along the mississippi river. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime groet.