the. cheese minefield calls. for a sense feed with the palm of your. comb . going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture just minutes ago president obama delivered his speech on u.s. troop withdrawal in afghanistan will america be satisfied with only a partial withdrawal and still have any get stuck with the expensive tab meanwhile it's the people versus the state of michigan residents fed up with governor rick snyder's decision to have emergency thought of financial managers full of all our overlooked local municipalities are fighting back with a mockery see rule in the world we're in spain and greece is on the brink of

defaulting on their ious if that happens what's to become of the euro and most importantly the entire european economy. you need to know this president obama just finished laying out the start of his afghanistan withdrawal plan to the american people ten thousand troops a one tenth of our military force over there will be sent on by the end of this year and by the end of next year a total of thirty three thousand and twenty thousand or one third of our force on the ground in afghanistan will come home president stressed that this is just an initial drought that drawdown and that after twenty twelve more troops will be leaving the president touted success of the afghanistan troop surge in two thousand and nine as a reason why we can afford to bring troops home starting this year. but is this

chart shows even if thirty three thousand troops leave afghanistan by the end of next year there will still be more boots on the ground over there than before president obama took office so is this really the bold step the american people are looking for that will put an end to a war that is growing more and more unpopular and looking more and more like another vietnam hero offer his take is robert greenwald filmmaker and political activist as well as the founder and president of brave new films robert welcome back thank you tom good to be with you great to have you with is it does the president's plan in your mind go far enough. no it doesn't go far enough either as a tactic or a strategy tom in terms of a tactic there's certainly the possibility of pulling more troops pulling them out quicker and saving a million dollars or troops but you bring on cause we know it costs one million dollars for one troop for one year and in terms of a strategy a fundamental strategy we're in this awful situation where nobody really nobody

seems to believe that we're safer because of this war so every day that the war goes our american security afghanis to kill billions are as such the ends of dollars are spent and we're not safer we're not better off so if the far as logic that it just keeps going on and on and on it seems to me robert that the turning point in this war was one the president killed osama bin ladin and after that i mean even before that probably both of us would agree that there was no justification to bomb afghanistan particularly after mullah omar offered to give to to arrest and send up bin laden for trial way back in the day you know but whatever fig leaf of irrational it was left is largely gone and we're propping up arguably one of the most corrupt regimes in the world what possible well let me

rephrase that it seems that he's balancing of the prisoners this is balancing on the one hand the screaming demands of the hawks the with the military industrial machine and all the republicans who are going to claim that he lost the war if he moves out really fast and that will you know be very i think he thinks politically destructive and on the other in the fact that this war is not helping us it's. driving us into the into the poor house isn't there some i mean how does he get how does he do that dance how does he balance those two. well we know it's it's a tough job and certainly not one that i would want but i think in all seriousness that we need to first of all recognize that you and your listeners and your viewers have really made a profound difference over the two years that you and we have been talking about this from a point where you know whatever it was ninety percent of the country would typically used in this war and supported it we're now you know sixty seventy eighty percent

are against it so that's a positive but we really should take a moment in embrace the positive that we've all help turn public and help educate them and let them know that through rethink afghanistan and your work this should not continue having said that we still have a fundamental problem which should get him you're talking about which is we're spending two billion dollars to every week on the war in afghanistan. even now we people cannot come up with a logical reason why we're there and does anyone get up in the morning and say you know we're spending two billion dollars this week a boy i feel so much more safer and so much more secure or instead i think people are saying we're spending two billion dollars as we can why is my school crumbling down the street who wires wires where why we're going to have potholes in the roads if we do suspect if the president wins reelection in two thousand and twelve.

we're going to see a rapid much more rapid drawdown when the political pressures of. you know i don't know tom because you could make a good case that the political republicans are turning against this war right now it's a war that has nobody liking it except lieberman and mccain and they're practically a joke you know they've never seen a war a military that they didn't want war of so there's really i would argue there's really a great opportunity for him now in terms of political capital to be braver to be courageous to you know to take a stronger position if he's reelected i don't know what goes through his mind but certainly he's a. person who's got incredible intellect there and you would hope and believe that the filter around him is not preventing him from hearing how badly the war is going from understanding is fundamentally a civil war that we need to be possible chance that that government in

afghanistan can do anything other than be hold us up for more money for a while so and rethink afghanistan is i think in your work is a very important part of why we're to at least the point where the president is drawing down troops so it's better than cranking a mop is you know during the bush administration and the early obama administration robert greenwald brilliant work you've been doing thanks so much for being with us tonight my pleasure president obama needs to take the same advice the senator george ate in lyndon johnson back in nineteen sixty six in regard to the vietnam war declared victory and then get the hell out of there. it's time for our daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's today's question top scientists are warning that af fifty percent of ocean life could die so are we on the verge of seen

a mass extinction in earth's oceans your choices are yes because of pollution and climate change the oceans are losing oxygen and becoming more acidic or know of the ocean dies so what. dot com let us know what you think the poll will be open until tomorrow morning. crazy alert there is a reason why the amish stay away from technology or should stay away from technology and knowledge man was arrested last week after sending hundreds of explicit sex to an under age girl at an willard yoder of indiana since six hundred sexual texts and anthony weiner like photos of himself to the girl and promise through that they would have a tryst inside his horse and buggy well inside the buggy anyway the girl's parents got wind of what was going on arranged a meeting with yoder at a nearby restaurant in order for the police to arrest him and sure enough we were showed up driving his horse and buggy to the rendezvous only to find the police

waiting for him when asked why he was sexting a twelve year old yoder answered that he thought she was thirteen unfortunately it's pretty clear that sexting is more than just a passing fad it's with picked up by the community. well you know the residents of michigan be able to maintain a democracy for will they felt totally under the dictatorship of governor rick snyder and his right. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime.

i think. even money well. whenever the government says to keep you safe get ready because their freedom. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. 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 this is the picture.

of. this guy three weeks of rioting in the streets greek prime minister george papandreou is keeping his job and he narrowly survived a no confidence vote in the greek parliament yesterday the world watched the vote closely as greece is on the edge of defaulting on its debts and must pass austerity measures like spending cuts and state privatization to receive a bailout from the european union and the international monetary fund if greece defaults it could trigger

a financial crisis across all of europe and the greek people have expressed outrage at the sturdy agenda of the targets mostly working class families but less the banks who caused the financial mess with altogether in austerity measure or agenda i might add that is similar to conservative policies that were put in place in the u.k. earlier this year and are already shrinking and damaging the british economy people of greece are not having they've shut down their country was strikes and violent unrest in the streets so what's next for greece and for the rest of europe for the . and are austerity measures really the best way to deal with fiscal crises your offer of some answers a subpoena to director of globalization and international employment of the center for american progress sabina welcome thank you to have you with us how did this greek problem start but give us greece one a one here situation i think the important thing to remember here is that this is a crisis of revenue collection the problem was that the government was not

collecting and tax revenue and the problem was not on the spending side although now we do see the government taking austerity measures it's important to remember that it's a revenue collection problem now i've i've read various accounts in various places you know usually the financial times that that there was an enormous problem with the tax collection mechanism that it was corrupt or that it was incompetent or all of the above also meditate i believe it was wrote at some length about how greece was one of many countries that got basically ripped off badly by our banks toure's by goldman sachs and other companies that you know blew up their economy by selling them exploding investments are those are is that is that the core of the problem here either of these or both yes but i think the but you really nailed the core of the problem that is exactly the problem and now we're seeing is unsustainable levels of debt and the very very high deficit greece really needs to figure out how

it's going to start to balance its budget and its economy its seem you know given that it seems that there are a couple of possibilities beyond just cutting everything a pretty neat going to kill your enemy one would be dropping the your own going back to the drachma it was the druck what was in greece. because then we would have a currency that they could inflator deflate they could change the value of relative to other currencies and basically get their own economic. house in order. to talk about this for a long time is that and then the other thing of course is cleaning up the tax collection mechanism. are either of these things mean seriously considered or is greece looking at alternatives well i think the issue is that greece is in a very very dire economic situation right now and they certainly need to consider you know tax reform and better tax collection mechanisms but the austerity measures

are also a requirement in order for them to get the bailout that they need from the other european countries and from the international monetary fund and so at this point at this urgent juncture right now greece really has to consider both the revenue and the spending cuts in order to get its economy back on track why does the i.m.f. always go with this chicago school economic model you know the chicago school of economics from the one nine hundred forty s. thirty's forty's the milton friedman model when when no friedman and solve try to chew it produced a disaster and virtually every other country around the world with the chicago boys as they call themselves when they show up countries implode why why the montreux why is that monstrous still being believed and used well imposed on others i think the important thing to start with here is that the u.k. and the u.s.

are not greece and greece is not the u.k. or the u.s. the united kingdom and the united states are both big dynamic economies austerity measures are not the answer for these economies greece however is in a very different situation they have really been looming levels of debt the interest payments on those that are killing them right now and it's really important that they you know do everything in their power both on the spending and on the revenue tax collection side in order to get their economy back on track and the international monetary. fund and the european countries you know france germany they need to get behind supporting greece because if greece goes down and defaults on its loans we're going to see a domino effect that is going to affect the rest of europe ireland portugal could be next and that's a very frightening prospect of a time when the global economy is really. in a very fragile state of recovery it is this could be a tipping point for a global depression i i'm afraid so i think this is

a very dire situation well. i'm wondering how much of this you know greece ever since participation in the e.u. and the world trade organization since basically the mid ninety's greece manufacturing their manufacturing sector has dropped significantly just as ourselves and they are importing things largely from china but from all over the world and i'm wondering if maybe they will be looking at protectionist measures for example to restore manufacturing to try to rebuild their economy i mean there doesn't seem to be anything left. right i think that really has to be very careful when we think about when we talk about protectionist measures. i think that trade can actually be a very positive mechanism the problem in greece right now is as you mentioned earlier is that they can't be value their currency because they're part of the euro and i think right now prime minister pump and drew is really struggling to just get the economy back on track before they can think about long term strategies and

protectionism is not is a long term strategy or it is it's not a exactly it's not a good long sabina thank you for being with us thank you very much if you're not willing to crash your own economy and the i.m.f. the toughest of the banks economic hit man will step up and do it for you after all goldman sachs' always happy to ruin your billions don't you for the ridicule. michigan governor rick snyder's financial managers will face their first legal test as the sugar law center for economic and social justice filed suit today arguing his financial managers wall violates that state's constitution earlier this year republican governor snyder passed a bill that allows him to take over any city in michigan struggling financially fire all the local life local elected officials and put in place

a crony of his own personal choosing what's called a financial manager handle the city's finances that financial manager has the power to do pretty much anything from void in union contracts to cutting local government services and even selling off huge chunks of the city public parks and power plants to his buddies in private corporations at a fire sale price it is the sugar law center says about it in a press release about the law it is a power grab by lancing politicians ideologically committed to work in the private sector at the expense of economy good it is an attack on the very core of democracy and now the sugar law center is fighting back for more on their efforts to fire governor snyder's financial manager and injures i'm joined by john phyla legal director of the sugar law center for economic and social justice and the lead attorney suit filed against michigan john welcome thank you thank you for having great great to have you with us first tell us a little bit about your organization and why you're filing the suit. well the

sooner law center is you were nonprofit lost or not that's organized around the idea is that people's economic and social rights are based in human rights their civil rights and we don't respect in such in this country under the law we were going to use our relationship to make that recognized within the law but also to bring broader social change. with respect to the lawsuit we're doing is he's putting it right in front of the court they're going to have to make a decision of whether or not people have the right to a democratic form of government in the state or is there a new form of government that's allowed in this country we are by a single politician in our state capitals can establish a murder where they work on their calling emergency manager who has absolute authority and control over the local government over the city and go ledge without any accountability for local you know voters oh i'm in any way this seems like

this is disaster capitalism on steroids. you know use an opportunity to to privatized things to sell things off to do away with democracy is there what is the legal basis of your lawsuit is there other than the you know it seems that what you just described is a is a general perspective is there a specific law that they are by lady or are you calling on the court to say that this is a violation of the spirit of the constitution or the spirit of a small democracy. right that's a good question and because it's so untested in our country right we all assume we have a right to a local democratic form of government so where is it actually written. we have a brilliant. former michigan supreme court justice and sort of the oliver wendell holmes from the state been teaching hundreds who's written on it beautifully it's on thomas school who said there's an absolute right to instigate here a right of the people to have a democratic form of local government into

a lack of local fishes he struggled for we are is that found in the kids cast edition but he found it since that time we've had prosperity three revisions to our state constitution which have only strengthened citizens' rights with respect to roe government and granted further home rule and put the power in really in the people of the state to have their own forms of local government so the periods are that of the state legislature and so we think there is there is a sound basis based on his reasoning and where he's found it but also on additional provisions that are coming to the space constitution sense beyond that we also have a state constitutional provision that says you can't enact on funded me and over local municipality it's best explicit in the constitution and in this situation will we have our our course in your piece. who are being

required to pay for her to be managers all the staff all the accountants all the financial review teams all the costs of their operations right now benton harbor is there already of the money managers eleven thousand dollars per month as before we even get to the consultants before we even get to the costs and there is no dish we'll have a new screens being provided to these localities and he you know this is a really it's an assault on our constitutional rights and it's the and it's an idea that really should be. everybody is they have to stand democracy you're going to be allowed in our state is condition on your financial fortunes and on we think it through and i think it's within the constitution that we're going to make that case also a political version of debtor's prison had going to snowballs commission one of the benton harbor city commissioners on the program a number of times and he makes a compelling case for you know hey i was elected democratically and and they threw me out how though do you respond to the governor snyder and those around

him who say well you know the city wasn't wasn't being managed well it was falling apart and so we had to do something this is what we're doing. so there's two points i'd like to make in africa heard first the economic crisis in michigan is throughout the state and it's really this is a national economic crisis that was caused by the failure to regulate the financial industry it was caused by national policies at the industrial midwest doubly hard nobody is really this isn't a case of want to look at only having bad finances this is a case of work a contract recourses do who's tax base it was when they lose jobs. but this last few is not what we're what we are most at issue and he's not the idea that the state doesn't have not to do something to stabilize local communities finances but rather this lawsuit goes well beyond the speech powers to the emergency

managers can decide where a strip club would be how close we have to be to church to decide who on the building commission will be removed or replaced and indeed determine which buildings of historical significance will be secure demolished those are political decisions and those are policy decisions they are not financial decisions in any sense and the man says it's just going. on if a kid is taking together and actually crafted legislation to dress the financial emergency it would be a very different scenario ok john thank you so much for what you're doing and for being our program tonight thank you big you very much for having us and keeping this issue out there because i think it is an important one for the whole country i agree republicans like rick snyder scott walker and john cases didn't campaign on a pledge to destroy democracy that's exactly what they're doing in the nation is suffering or is a very case of voters are morse let's hope efforts like those undertaken by sugar law center put

a check on this radical right wing agenda just long enough for us to vote the bums out of office next year. after the break by conservative guest analysts say daniel helper and heather searle will take me up. in our little over liberal weekly debate . let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime. i think. one well. whenever the government says they're for keep you safe get ready because you have

freedom. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you saw you don't i'm sorry there's a big. fight . for.

about the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour a man desperate to receive medical treatment robs a bank for just a measly buck so he can see a doctor in jail so we finally discover the republican health care plan and the nation's corporations are taking on a new form they're actually merging into a legion of decepticons aimed at destroying the little four.

was there in time for the lone liberal when i debate two expert conservative commentators on some of the big issues of the week on our panel tonight daniel helper you have any online editor the weekly standard and heather serve all conservative strategist managing owner of the for forty public group public relations other. and it was this week the nation heard the story of genes of her own man so desperate for medical care and he walked into a bank stole one dollar and set down the couch and waited for the cops to arrest him and throw him in jail just so he could finally receive some health care here's over on justified is to say. that with my logic. if you really should then added preferably because i need medical care then i guess i have made a plea to get. republicans nationwide ran in two thousand and ten.