well back to the big picture on tom hartman coming up in this half hour just one day after the shutdown of rupert murdoch's news of the world newspaper allegations have surfaced of more information at king's the victim this time former prime and british british prime minister gordon brown details of what he says was leaked to the public coming up plus america's not quite making the grade when it comes to education i'll talk to the filmmaker behind that finland phenomenon which highlights the world's best education system.

more bad news for infotainment media empire report out of the u.k. says the murdoch's now shattered tabloid news of the world attempted to pay off a new york police officer for access to the phone records of a nine eleven victim the offer was rejected by the police officer and were dogs problems grew by leaps and bounds today when the guardian reported that former british prime minister gordon brown was also a victim of hacking by other british newspapers owned by murdoch's news corp private best gaiters working for murdoch's papers including the formerly reputable sunday times allegedly monitored brown's bain phone and family medical records for more than ten years while he served as prime minister in chancellor of the checks of the exchequer all of these developments seem to have railed the media mogul's bid to buy british broadcaster b. sky b. as british politicians moved to. lockie acquisition b. sky b.

is a very profitable pay t.v. satellite u.k. gem that murdoch has had his eyes on for quite some time meanwhile here in the u.s. murdoch's news corp could face a one hundred million dollar bill from the u.s. department of justice may soon be launching an investigation into news corp for violating the foreign corrupt practices act after it was learned that news of the world teenie paid off corrupted police officers so could this be the beginning of the end for murdoch's reign as the world's richest media mogul and should american regulators be taking a closer look at news corp operations here in the united states joining us now to offer his take is stephen webster senior editor at ross story stephen welcome thanks for having me tom this is no small issue i mean there's evidence that the sunday times on by murdoch hacked bank brown's bank records is in france son's medical records and published a story on the child serious illness where do you think this is going to end up in the u.k. . in the you hearing i believe this will likely there are attempts to start

broadcasting a member of our program distance or not running up against it and it's going to refer me to a search you know so you can pass on. what would you own community how would you. the. i think even the larger question here is given that rupert murdoch owns a substantial media empire here in the united states particularly the wall street journal which is kind of his crown jewel here like the sunday times is in the a and the wall street journal i believe correct me if i'm wrong is the dow jones company that owns and that owns now is run by a guy who used to work for murdoch in the u.k. apparently this has been going on for some time. is the c.e.o. first of all from from for the wall street journal from his u.k. empire and secondly is there any possibility that the wall street journal or for

that matter fox news could be involved in any of this stuff and might end up somehow damaged by. well i can't i don't know enough oh i haven't seen any evidence that os clears wall street journal or our newspapers and his own papers we're desperate baldness right now it's limits to news international news corp's british years which is run by seems more are sort of you know i could see this basically in the history where. it's too early to write or both back here in the u.s. operations certainly it will if the u.s. department of justice and serious exchange machine ends up watching an investigation which would be her own company right now if that were to happen yeah this really could say we're less media empires from this very core do you think it's possible that it could take the entire empire down or would it just you know

cost him some profits. it probably cost him some profits it would probably cost him a lot of bloom's i mean you've got to think from the perspective of a republican president running for the presidency next year if fox news or any murdoch's u.s. properties were all over this thing how closely do you want to your credibility on an organization like that where they're doing yes. yes you know on the sunday shows here in the united states i forget which one it was but one of the comments that was made about this was how tony blair had flown to australia to to you know bend his knee in front of murdoch to get his endorsement when he was going to run for prime minister of gordon brown did how david cameron the current prime minister did all three of these guys you know went to a guy who owned the newspapers in the u.k. and said please make us president and the person on one of the sunday shows here in

the u.s. that i watched on the big network shows said you know fortunately we have nothing like that here in the united states and i'm thinking wait a minute how do you get to the republican presidential nomination without going through fox news don't we have basically the exact same thing going on here in the united states at least with regard to the republican party where if you want to be a nominee if you want to be taken seriously you have to have the blessing of roger ailes and rupert murdoch that's absolutely correct that's absolutely correct he built that system out in the u.k. the blogs are go and he's nonstop for many years and had a similar insolence on american. our influence rich is what i'm. is it seems like that is fundamentally an ethical to to democracy i mean this is this this goes even beyond the old yellow journalism of william randolph hearst and his is same to back in what was in one thousand nine

hundred eighty seven i think it was to two was the mckinley president mckinley you know given. said you want a war you want the spanish-american war will get pictures and he said it was part frederick remington was nobody asked he said give me the pictures and we'll have the wars of words that i mean this i thought that i think most americans think that it had been it's been a hundred years since newspapers had their county influence you know no well now it's tellers television networks still to this point even though the internet has taken race so much of our world media it's the conquest is not complete all new you still have the spreading the war on the streets gusher and that's one of the reasons why arts can seem to be so rude to the mainstream especially the clay on this reality show it's like you're on what basis do moments big be close republican primaries in total for a production of fox news they want to make

a great american idol or this is a merger that we seem to raise so in the murder are easy empire in the republican army or the us now if the same level corruption exists here as it does in britain and the department of justice opens a recitation they've got serious problems yeah but even i mean even if it's not corruption just the influence peddling which mean it may not be illegal just seems to be mind boggling can we finally now petition fox news to remove the tag fair and balanced. probably not know if they have to call them so literally months ok stephen thanks a lot for being with us tonight it's my pleasure thank you. so much for fair and balanced maybe should be fair and slightly on balance on news corp's own shareholders are now turning on their corporation with stocks slipping in the wake of the phone i act in scandal a group of news corp shareholders filed suit in a delaware court accusing murdoch of gross mismanagement and arguing that murdoch

habitually uses news corp to enrich himself and his family members at the company's and its shareholders expense and what they forgot to include at the expense of the credibility of our nation's news. just. it's the good the bad of the very very randomly ugly the good pac-man no not be hungry little yellowed munchers that feast on balance while trying to avoid goes your kid world but the people against the corporate manipulation of elections and news ackman a new political action committee formed to combat the corporate takeover of our government is the packman website states when elections are decided by billionaires and corporations it is an injustice to the will of the people sometimes you have to beat the bad guys with their own game so don't need the pac man and let's give karl

rove super pacs a run for their money issues and watch. the bad him fall empty hearing on meet the press yesterday to let me use his experience as governor of minnesota to explain why he'd make a good president. i've got the record of toughness better than anybody else in this race my goodness i was the first governor in minnesota's history to shut down the government i set a record for vetoes i took more. since when is shutting down the government and furloughing tens of thousands of government workers and suspending crucial government services a good thing especially when you're running to be head of the us government is like buying to be c.e.o. at a company and how do your previous record of running companies into the ground. and the very very ugly ron paul libertarian congressman from texas is pushing a bill to privatizing airport security and is making the absurd claim that nine eleven happened because our government bans and guns on airplanes in an interview

on where else but news paul blamed the nine eleven tragedy of federally policy before the attacks but the governor who was in charge of security before nine eleven they did a lousy job they prohibited guns from being on the airplane and they said nobody should resist so we set the stage for nine eleven yet another republican argument that more guns prevents violence will someone please explain then why the u.s. a nation with the most guns also has the most gun violence maybe if we had bazookas on planes then for sure we could have stopped nine eleven and that's very very. coming up is a lack of confidence really causing our economy to nosedive the g.o.p. is working to sell that exact law in tonight's believes. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who made the decision to put it through

a bit through to be made who can you trust no one who is you in view with the global machinery see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

it is the only by the american journal of public health takes a look at how certain social factors contribute to early deaths looking at just the year two thousand the study found that two hundred forty five thousand americans died from causes directly related to poor education in comparison according to f.b.i. crime data just over fifteen thousand americans were murdered in the year two thousand and he's nearly fifteen times as many americans died because they failed to achieve adequate levels of education they were killed in acts of homicide and out of thirty four o.e.c.d. nations the most developed nations in the world american high school students currently ranked fourteenth for reading skills seventeenth for science and twenty fifth out of thirty four for math skills it republicans don't hesitate to gut public education with spending cuts and waging war on teachers' unions nationwide. finland's education system has consistently range and number one in the world take a look.

so what are the finns doing right and what can we learn from joining me now to answer these questions is documentary filmmaker bob compton whose new film the finland phenomenon offers a fascinating look at the world's best education system bob welcome thank you good to be here great to have you with us first of all a filling in america have some similarities in as much as fifteen percent of their kids are our speakers second language you know the same thing in the united states roughly it's the best thing from actually to look is not so much to compare finland to all of america because we don't have a federal education system we have fifty state systems and so the best we look at is to compare finland to the states and finland is the same size or larger than thirty three years. it states and when you start to break down those states minnesota for example they are almost identical in a graphically economically and yet finland ranks here and going to sort of ranks

here in the international exams so we have put all this emphasis and by the way i want to first just shout out to my old friend david sirota who told me wrote a column about what you were doing and sent a copy of it to me and i was like whoa this is incredible we've got to get this guy on. the we have just gone a whole hog on testing this whole no child left behind thing that caused he was my senator at the time jim jeffords to leave the republican party. he was so horrified by it. and we've had that name for quite some time the finns don't do that they don't actually do almost no testing. their school days are shorter their school years about the same length so they have long summer breaks the. classes though are longer students spend more time on task and they learn at their own pace. and what's interesting in finland so the only high stakes exam is the matriculation exam for the end of high school but if you look at china korea india other places

wherever searching made films about the education the rest of the world within them leading the way but the rest of world is moving away from high stakes testing so there are points that way at the time we're going this way doing more and more and more testing and getting worse and worse results and getting worse and worse and yet we continue doing more and more of it and you the teachers in finland are treated very differently than teachers here in the united states i mean scott walker in wisconsin for example made it a major battle to be able to strip teachers of union rights right what's the deal and then well in finland first of all the culture itself is quite different than the american culture they they value and recognize and revere educational attainment and they hold teachers in very high regard so it's a highly respected profession over there and it's highly respected because the educational requirements of teachers and been is quite different than the states here in the u.s. to teach in in middle school or high school you need a bachelor's and

a master's degree in the subject you teach plus a one year pedagogical training which looks more like a medical residency where you follow a master teacher in their classroom for six to nine months learning from someone who is a great teacher and then they make the surprising next step with putting the teacher into a good school in america we have students coming right out of colleges of education and we put them in the worst schools and really set them up for failure which is why we have fifty percent of our teachers new teachers quit after. five years so we have a tremendous answer and i saw sims statistics for example forty eight percent of american math teachers have no background in math right i'm going to be a third of the teachers the teachers in america have attained the level of education required by the states so the bar was set here and the teachers are what america needs to do if we're to match for anyone in china and korea in india and singapore is we need to raise the requirements so if you get a higher you have the pay higher as well and you know they are going to you

definitely have to use it if. it won't attract the highly talented highly motivated students that you want is a. interesting that thirty forty years ago most americans there was a study done by the national slapstick magazine every year that ask kids who want to be when you grow up and it always for a long long time was the president they wanted to be like eisenhower the lot of you like kennedy now they want to be a billionaire now they want to be like bill gates or a celebrity or a celebrity and how does that speak to our schools well i think the the issue in america is we are a culture of entertainment sports and leisure and that's just a fact that's it where we spend it probably the most egregious example of this tom is in allen texas for a high school of thirty two hundred students they're building a sixty million dollars football stadium that sends a very clear message to kids interest groups that you know what what is the

community priority it's in sports the sixty million dollars sounds like right you wouldn't see that in finland i mean finland they put their money and you know in lab equipment great vocational training at the same is true in china and korea so we buy our culture doesn't allocate its its attention and resources the same way to talk our founding countries do. thanks for the great research you're doing on this and the great documentary to thank you very much appreciate you coming by but it's not too late for american students to get back in the game and be able to compete in the international arena with their peers in finland india and china but that will mean a conservative lawmakers who are trying to slash funding education programs and cutting teacher salaries in half will have to put the best interest of american students and doesn't affect the future of the united states as a world leader ahead of the interests of the billionaires who are currently calling the shots here in washington.

there publicans are selling lives it should be surprising that the crisis cry on them they usually do what should be even more surprising is that the president of the united states is repeating the first is that the c.e.o.'s of the biggest and most profitable country companies in this country who are sitting on over two trillion dollars in cash are refusing to spend it to hire workers are doing so because they're lacking in confidence. they keep on going out there and saying you know this is present what are you doing about jobs and when you ask them well what would you do we've got to get. government spending under control and we've got to get our deficits under control. so i say ok let's go where are they i mean this is the this is this is what they claim would be the single

biggest boost to business certainty and confidence. so what's the hold up. you know this whole idea that business leaders are not investing in higher end jobs because they're lacking confidence is idiotic any business that has customers will hire people to make the products the customers want to buy for the seven thousand years of western civilization this isn't true if there are buyers somebody will step up to sell you all of the proof is in the illegal markets of drugs and prostitution but it's same in legal markets so long as there are buyers companies will hire workers to get the product to market so if that confidence is lacking in this economy it's a steamer's people are buying because they've been robbed blind by the banks toure's and they're underwater on their mortgages their strung out on credit card debt and most importantly between twenty and thirty million of us don't have a job or have a job that pays so poorly that they're broke. back in one thousand thirty two two

years into the great depression republican president herbert hoover tried to sell americans the same bill of goods as today's republicans when he was running for reelection again step here's how he described the importance of confidence i am confident that if the congress could find the suggestions which come from members of both parties a round for adjustment of the legislation will be done with one particular you could bring it into immediate action it would you not only relieve your saw the distress people would agree establish that competence which we saw in the. it when f.d.r. was inaugurated he addressed herbert hoover's confidence fairy as paul krugman calls and saying flat out that the problem wasn't rich people's confidence but working people need a good job and some help with their mortgage. this is not. our

. greatest primary. business understandable problem if we pay fifty million courageously they can be accomplished in. recruiting by the government itself treating the family goes away with great pm good concealable. but at the same time ruby is one complicated great greatly needed project to stimulate and reorganize they use a lot of great men through we can't. be helped by preventing really take away rick perry did a. great book. that

was by the way his first day in office this morning at his press conference president obama also referenced the second big republican they were broke but there's not enough money in america to put people back to work. i've been hearing from my republican friends for quite some time that it is a moral imperative for us to tackle our debt and our deficits in a serious right i've been hearing from them that this is one thing that's creating uncertainty of holding back investment on the part of the business community. it's frankly so sad to see a democratic president repeating republican frames that are just lives during the great depression who are and the other republicans tried to say the same thing a government couldn't help us out of the depression because the country didn't have to catch when f.d.r. was inaugurated he called them out on it. but a general use of it language is in the very sight of the big. record

big the really the big. man kind. of educated. referee in a money thing going to. get it in the background of some opinion. out of mine. have to then went on to point out who was to blame really to blame for the great depression. the money went from man hundred feet in the. day. we read about something. meanwhile today the having a post is reporting that the obama administration is about to cut a deal with wall street banks toure's where they pay thirty billion in fines nobody

goes to jail nobody mentioned that today's press conference but here's f.d.r.'s final recommendation from the day he took office as president in one nine hundred thirty three. and finally in our progress a resumption of what. we require place. they were even below. them on. banking and credit and then spent money. you asian. money so mr president president obama please look at american history a good cop bad cop routine of boehner and cantor a plane on you is as old as time and you should stop buying it there is no republican santa clause just like there's no confidence fairy and the american

people will only rally behind you if you ask them to it work for f.d.r. and it can work for you too if you'll try it. as the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered visit our web sites thom hartmann dot com free speech dot org and r.t. dot com also check out our two youtube channel for a link to tom harkin dot com the stars show is also available as a free video pyatt podcast on i tunes and we have a free thom hartmann i phone and i think that out at the app store you can send a speed back on to twitter at tom underscore our phone on facebook autonomy's far been on our blogs message boards and telephone comment line at tons of undock and don't forget democracy begins with you when you show up and participate tag your it see them are.

wealthy british sign a sign it's time to. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to the reports on our team.