well i'm charming in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture another round of debt limit negotiations at the white house today and still no deal so what exactly is president obama pushing for in a debt limit deal anyway and he gets what he wants to the american people really when plus just when you thought it was kind of governor scott walker's union war couldn't get any uglier it does involve believe the union workers have to go toe to

toe with to get a job now in wisconsin. getting to know this president obama hosting congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle at the white house today for another round of debt limit to go she ations heading into the meeting the speaker of the house john boehner was quoted as saying there's a bit the fifty chance of reaching a deal on the debt limit the next forty eight hours but after the meeting that lofty prognosis was quashed speaking to reporters afterwards president obama said both sides remain far apart and he's called for another meeting this sunday president is trying to pitch a four trillion dollar deficit reduction package over the next ten years that slashes a way of programs mostly affecting the working class and even cuts up the social safety net in america hacking a reported four hundred billion dollars out of medicare and medicaid all of these

tough cuts will be in exchange for closing a few small tax loopholes for corporations millionaires and billionaires ultimately president obama's deal is heavy on spending cuts light on tax hikes so even if republicans set aside their urge to crash the economy for political and personal financial gain and agree to president obama's lopsided debt limit proposal this is really a good deal for the majority of americans are custom medicaid and medicare without tax hikes on millionaires and billionaires in general a good idea. the answer really is simply no. without a good idea at all in fact you know let's just go through it excuse me the for a long long time there was this question of is a better to be uninsured or to have medicare or medicaid wall street journal in fact in march of this year ran a headline to the effect of it's better not to be unsure of the net medicare well nobody ever tested bad because like you know with lab rats you can like give them

you can say is arsenic good or bad for that will give some of them are still conservative but it wouldn't be humane it would be illegal in fact to say ok we're going to do a test on human beings and we're going to have ten thousand of them have insurance and ten thousand of them not have insurance and they were you know will randomize the sample and all that kind of stuff so it can be a real test so it had never been fifty years since you know medicare came into existence we've never done it but then the state of oregon came along and said because of this weird kicker on some of the things they basically they had to expand the medicare program or medicaid programs in the state program but they only had enough money to pay for ten thousand people so what they did was they had a lottery and the lottery was this was two thousand a lottery created the possibility of an actual study with a randomized output so what they do is they have held the lottery ten thousand people won the lottery got medicaid thousands more didn't and so they were the

national academy was able to go and say take a look and say ok let's compare the outcomes of people on medicaid versus people who don't have insurance people without insurance and what they found when they looked at this was that the people on medicaid were thirty five percent more likely to see a doctor which is substantial they were fifteen percent more likely to have access to prescription drugs and keep in mind these were typically very poor people in the bottom of the economic ladder. they were thirty percent more likely to be admitted to a hospital they were sixty percent more likely to seek preventive care like mammograms i mean this is this is big deal stuff this is the stuff that prevents large expensive medical procedures down the road twenty five percent more likely to say that their health was excellent and they're uninsured piers so this program works right so why why blow it up why why would anybody want to blow it up so meanwhile

on the tax cut side of this and that's the spending side and so we it's established now we should have medicaid medicare these programs actually work the benefits have now been demonstrated a study that just came out yesterday on tax cuts we have senator jim de mint this is what he had to say yesterday. for the last five years we've had record levels of revenue and next year we have projected the highest revenue levels in history we don't have a revenue problem revenues have gone up twenty year we don't have a revenue problem which now it's not a problem of not enough tax money coming in it's a problem to our spending that's what senator jim de mint had to say and what that proves is that figures don't lie but liars can figure. here's the actual figures that don't lie this is federal revenue as a percentage of g.d.p. as a percentage of gross domestic product from one nine hundred fifty to two thousand and ten and as you can see right now our income this is tax revenue and coming into

the federal government is right now where it was right after world war two when we were covering it from world war two i mean it's just it's mind boggling and republicans are growing weary wherever revenue problem we certainly do worry for very little money coming in and two in george bush's insane tax cuts and the fact that we're in the middle of something close to a depression. so any under the government revenue if we were to simply close the hedge funds tax loophole it would raise four billion dollars and it would do it just from twenty five people consider there is a loophole that says that if you make a living as a tax funded as a hedge fund manager first of all the top tax bracket that you might find yourself in isn't the thirty five or thirty six percent that that you know it average working person i mean you have to make one hundred some odd thousand dollars but an average working person could be and that's the top bracket. actually the top

bracket for hedge fund manager is fifteen percent so anyhow it's the we need to do that if we don't do something about any quality the inequality has been brought to us by these tax breaks for reagan's tax cuts and bush is going to have a problem here's what bruce bigger brzezinski had to say about that is. what i don't want to i don't want to be a prophet of doom you know that i don't believe that we're approaching. but i think we're going to slide into the intensified social conflicts social host of the. some forms of radicalism and it's just going to be a sense that this is not just society i think the problem is that we have slid into a pattern of the really drastic social inequality i wonder whether you all know that this country the united states a country of a particular entity it's now the greatest social disparate pieces and your country in the world worse than china worse than brazil we are the worst in terms of social inequality and that is

a problem that can be only when you're in that country's economic success for right now we're not so inequality social unrest carvers former national security advisor warning us about medicaid is on the table and tax hikes for the rich are off the table and we're seen an increase in social inequality and frankly i'd say that the tea party the whole presence of the tea party movement fundamentally populist movement and sudden aside the koch brothers and and what we saw in wisconsin and what we're seeing in states all across the midwest is that people are fed up people are people are freaked out it's time for politicians to wake up and realize the very real problems that that this kind of inequality will. our right now and can in the future produce and solve those problems by closing that inequality gap and i frankly raising taxes on the rich folks back to where they were in the nine hundred fifty s. sixty's seventy's early. yes.

it's time for our daily pull your chance to tell us what you think here's today's question is wealth inequality in america hurdling our nation toward civil unrest as big new burzynski warning and choices are yes turbulent times could be had for america or you know the growing wealth imbalance just doesn't matter that we're going to time have an icon and let us know you think the pole be open until tomorrow morning. crazy alert only try this at home a virginia man was arrested on tuesday for breaking into an adult sex shop in prince william county here's the man had his eyes set on one particular item in the shop a blow up doll and he was in no hurry to flee the scene of the crime either when police showed up at the ems c v late night adult store early tuesday morning it found a man in a closet

a tempting sexual relations of the boy he were attempting the man was charged with burglary glanton grand larceny and destruction of property as for the blow up doll it had suffered enough and has been deflated. coming up media giant rupert murdoch decides to stop the presses on his u.k. based tabloid news of the world to talk about the scandal overseas that could bring down rocks media empire all around the planet. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right.

i think on the eve of one well. we have the government says for the keeping safe get ready because you get your 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 sure see some other part of it and realized everything you saw you don't i'm sorry.

for. the. good news breaking out of the u.k. rupert murdoch's media empire is crumbling face who growing public outrage towards the british tabloid newspaper news of the world rupert murdoch officially announced today he's shutting the paper down next week journalists and editors of the paper are involved in a highly public scandal and are accused of acting in a phones belonging to a teenage murder victim as well as victims of the london terror attacks and even

british soldiers who were killed in combat british lawyers now have honed their attention in rupert murdoch's far reaching empire in the u.k. and are even talking about seriously talking about breaking it up meanwhile here in the us are we have to deal with murdoch's fox so-called news a court decision today against the f.c.c. could have far reaching effects on the state of media ownership in america and could block murdoch from expanding his media empire here in the states with the u.s. third circuit court of appeals ruled today that a company can no longer apply or news. papers and broadcast stations in the same market reversing an order of c c rule and at least one reporter is suggesting murdoch's u.k. scandal may even extend to his crown jewel of credibility in the u.s. the wall street journal so what does all this mean for the state of media ownership in america and now that and now that a tabloid has imploded across the atlantic effect could that have. infotainment

here in the united states for more on this issue i'm joined by jeff cohen journalist and founding director of the park center for independent media as well as the founder of the media watchdog group fair corey right policy council of free press and adele stan washington bureau chief of alter net work jeff corey adult thank you all for joining us tonight right q let me start with if i may with you jeff you're right here next to me. your take on what happened to murdoch over the last what has been happening is kind of a slow motion train wreck that reached a crescendo right the most powerful media executive in the world the with the first real global mogul in media i guess i think he's been hurt by having to close down news of the world but that's a gamble he's doing that to say look i'm reading myself of that now let me take over full control of the sky be that the powerful satellite network murdoch sometimes stumbles but he's never fallen and i guess i'm not optimistic that the

politicians in democracies will be able to stand up to a person that powerful he's been able to use politicians from england to the u.s. to china so he had his way started with oh yeah originator i guess i'm not optimistic while these advance the the court case here the news of the world the scandal there is hurting him i still don't think this is a mogul who's coming down so well corey you were turning in in a lawsuit that may have some impact on. mr murdoch's media tolls it tolls what happened to the decision that came down today from the court of appeals was a resoundingly victory for the public interests back in two thousand and seven the f.c.c. tried to cut ownership restrictions that would allow greater consolidation at the local level between newspapers and broadcast stations your entire local media could be dominated by a single voice specter in the michael poll the actually the subsequent chairman kevin martin but this is not unrelated to that the court today said the f.c.c.

did a bad job it rejects those rules threw them out and really i think made a sweeping decision on behalf of the public interest which is that media ownership limits are critically important to ensuring that we have competition and diversity in the media so that media companies can't get so powerful that they can corrupt and influence government you know the third circuit is you know considered a wildly liberal or wildly conservative court the supreme court right now as these five record. oh my word not yours as attorney. how long before this hits the supreme court will its feet be it's certainly possible that the media industry who basically lost and lost bad today could try to appeal to the supreme court but they also tried to do that again back in two thousand and four when a similar rules were struck down and the supreme courts that you know were not really interested they wouldn't grant them sir now who knows this time around but

they've at least failed once on that count it remains to be seen what will happen going forward it's fascinating and adult the. this crumbling empire or this actually i mean it may turn a group jeff and may not will not equal you know what i'm. going to. the in the u.k. i mean there's always criminal investigations one of the editors ended up as the press guy the number one press guy for david cameron in a big scandal around that i mean it's actually shaking the government and you know he's going to be arrested tomorrow the guardian is which is probably were provoked shutting down the newspaper but. there's an extension from this scandal in the u.k. these hacking these phones to the wall street journal with the article that you wrote i read today is accurate you tell us about that well you know rupert murdoch and you know every every corporate mogul wants to will for his empire and the wall

street journal is that rupert murdoch he's got all of the screaming tabloids and he's got this the ideological television station and it's all pretty lowbrow stuff but then over time as a woman's. vote in the u.s. you know he and i mean really globally the boss street journal is the paper of record for review the global financial sector and so he hired this in two thousand and seven and right before he did it a guy named les hinton who was the chief of his u.k. papers. i swore before parliament i don't know if you swore an oath buddy buddy but he told the british parliament that only one reporter was responsible for all of this wrongdoing in these phone hacking at the news of the world and he had done this exhaustive. investigation internally. that you know we could that's where he got the idea that this guy is only down to one person now it turns

out that there's a whole lot of other people involved including his direct report the guy who ran that newspaper and get less hinton after he gave that initial testimony lo and behold he became the c.e.o. of the dow jones company in the wall street journal as soon as murdoch acquired it came he went from the us to the you tube you can hear your voice is now he's the head of the wall street journal the chief executive officer and really you can really trace. dilution i at the call standard at the wall street journal from the time that he arrived and i've been reporting on that so jeff i understand that the wall street journal is not reporting on this aspect of the story. that would not surprise me. that they have you know how to run a political very pieces covering this scandal but they have not reported their own c.e.o.'s are growing in this scandal this is

a tough one so if so where does murdoch cope with this now the wall street journal . i'd say let's wait till the smoke clears murdoch is a guy who is so powerful he works all the political parties you know with new york state he endorsed hillary clinton for senate when she ran he was with the tories under thatcher in england the conservatives then he went to a player in the new labor then you know he's back with the tories. he's able to work politicians across the globe and again there is no ideology there's been well he uses his news. papers to help get people elected the people they can't elected help him build up his empire he's been doing it for decades he's been doing in our continent after continent and while i think the closing down the news of the world is a big step backward because it was once a huge profit center but i still murdoch's never seems to be cory is he going to

is it is it is there divestiture happening going to have to happen as a result of your there's probably not going to be divestiture happening but it will be difficult for him to get gardner in the first year will future assuming that the f.c.c. doesn't drop the ball next time around it has to review its ownership rules every four years but sort of to your point that the wall street journal was not covering the story and that sort of core issue for media ownership if all of the major media outlets local or otherwise are controlled by one party then the concept of the of the media as the immune system for a democracy it's worth a state exactly like the further down the tubes if murdoch won't break a story about the analyses of his own company somebody else has got to do it but if they're all owned by the same company or the same handfuls of company companies then you know there's very not very much to hope for this is the conflation of jefferson's notion of independent press and the. engine show an interesting person here it is right here thank you all for being here thank you and

. let's hope the events of today mark the end of your docs reign in infotainment and real news returns to america so. workers in wisconsin are screwed what else is new wisconsin governor scott walker is transforming the workforce in is state not only to walk or bust up public unions for they also took away their job exceeding their power to declare certain jobs around the states as union only work meaning the states. now bringing in private employees willing to work for less money and fewer benefits creating a race to the bottom in the labor force in wisconsin and walker has already hit rock bottom in that race says walker's new law going into effect racine county in wisconsin has called on prison inmates who work for no money and no benefits to do work that unions used to do and it's landscaping and maintenance around the ecology

essentially kicking working class americans out of the labor force and replacing them with free prison labor because this is walker's idea of a worker's paradise so this latest insult to working people how much more abuse can the working class really take and what can we do to fight back at this point for some answers on this i'm joined by joe burns former local union president and labor negotiator and attorney he's also the author of a new book reviving the strike working people regain power and transform america joe welcome thanks for having me on great to have you with us revive the strike. if you do one of the strike. well i mean trade unionists really started abandoning the strike in the early ninety's and the final strike complaint at that time really wasn't a fact so in the last decade there's ban on average about twenty major strikes per year stripes of over a thousand per year compared with. three hundred fifty during the one nine hundred fifty s.

on average so the draft to recline and strike activity ok you talk about how in your book the publisher the strike and the one day strike and these kind of things and you define some of these terms forbes yeah over the last decade we've tried a lot of last effective farms of strikes so we tried monday strike to attempt the advantage that the employer can't permanently replace you because the strike is so short and we've tried corporate campaigns and all these other strategies we try to organize in the un are going to but none of it's really work so what i'm arguing is we need to go back to the traditional source of union power for the first hundred fifty years of trade unionism in the united states which was the strike well and you could argue it goes bad for five hundred spirits in european history as well. the hard strike requires. the ability of the strike couriers to prevent anybody from going to work for the employer to break the strike scabs how

in a so-called right to worker i call them right to work for less state. how can you know how hard strike if the employer basically has the ability to just go around you don't hire people to replace you and how in a very very weak labor market can you pull if you look back the trade union movement in the one nine hundred thirty s. through the one nine hundred seventy s. were able to transform the wage structures in entire industries or the only time we had fairly tight labor markets because the took we have to work too well you look at. world war i mean back to the great depression you had double digit inflation and we were able to win time and the reason we were is because the strike was very different they were able to use there were two key elements that differed from the strike today back then workers were able to strike can tell your industries that months made them harder to replace in a cave in the sheer numbers to be able to engage in the type of actions they need to to when so for example four hundred thousand steel workers striking in one

thousand fifty nine for one hundred sixteen days able to win major gains. so it's basically workers were able to use tactics that didn't allow them to be permanently replaced what year was that that was nine hundred fifty nine so that was posed. separately thank you ninety four which was one hundred forty seven. how did how were they able to pull it off and why can't people do that now but i mean in the street what you've seen as over the last eighty years is an attack on the right to strike both through congress they passed half partly in forty seven but also through the supreme court and they've continually undermined the rules on collective bargaining and in the one nine hundred sixty s. you get a series of decisions that basically say that employer bargaining which was the way to pull together you know hundreds of employers that you could strike at one time they made that a completely voluntary affair well really yeah so it's part of this little course

to the class action lawsuits yeah it's a somewhat of thing you have you have a whole series of decisions basically freeing up corporations in a whole variety of areas so basically you get to the one nine hundred ninety s. and one nine hundred eighty s. and one thousand nine hundred eighty and the unions are fighting with their hands with their hands tied behind our back you know we can't win because the rules of the game are fixed and yet you're condemning maybe is too strong a word as you know you for example for these one day strikes these we're going to announce advance we're going to announce that we're going to disrupt things for a day what's the alternative i mean i don't condemn anyone who tries to. develop tactics so you know it has its use but on the other hand. we need to revive the labor movement based on traditional tactics and. right now the law isn't the law doesn't do it the saudis the range the laws we either need to change the laws or we need a massive campaign of civil disobedience that's going to want to again make. us if

that's what it takes and that's that's a very interesting take on it shouldn't labor be using their influence to for example change trade policy to do things like bringing our jobs back on that would tighten the labor market that might give them more influence is there a realist base for the economy i mean we've tried that for the last twenty years we've done a lot of work. fair trade and you know we've done a lot of those initiatives. but we really need to start going back to some traditional trade unionism in him to start developing some ideas within the labor movement that really the rules of the game are fair and we can't when and we're really seeing the consequences for american society joe thank you so much for being with us thanks for having me on and for people thank you let's hope congressional republicans don't get any ideas from their hero in wisconsin a mandate and force one of jaywalking laws to get more prisoners to work for free and further wipe out the union workers. coming out of the internet highway hit an

unconstitutional roadblock how they protect i p act they give corporate entertainers the power to slash up the internet. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime. i think to be the one. we have the government says they were safe ready because.