it's time for our daily toil your chance to tell us what you think here's the day's question it's alleged that news corp packed the phone of a nine eleven policeman here in the united states if so should the murdoch empire get the death sentence your choices are yes crew is reporting that this is not a few rogue reporters and maybe orchestrated at the highest levels or no police officers phones going not all of the victims information is just a fine way to get breaking news again it's on harvin dot com let us know what you think will be up until tomorrow. after the break wisconsin voters are hoping to strip governor scott walker of his power of the state's recall elections but walker has got he's aren't leaving without a dirty fight. that drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through get through the pretty maid who can you trust no one who is you know 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. welcome back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour today

kate threw off a series of recall votes to replace six of wisconsin's republican senators the democrats running for office are facing opposition from. pratt's actually sort of the. governor scott walker and his cohorts are playing seriously dirty politics meanwhile paychecks for state workers in minnesota are on hold due to a government shutdown and lawmakers find a northstar that will break the republican mantra no and republican presidential candidate newt gingrich has a new supporter me probably won't get my vote in two thousand and twelve he clearly shares one of my viewpoints on the u.s. constitution i'll explain in tonight's daily to. wisconsin voters one of the polls today for the first of a series of special elections prompted by governor scott walker's war on labor unions through was causing state politics

a new national spotlight earlier this year the days elections are democratic primaries in six republican held state senate districts where those republican incumbents are being recalled by their constituents but these election. what a strange twist the democrats running in the primaries are opposed by republicans who are running as democrats why is this ruse forces the democrats the whole primary elections and gives the incumbent republicans more time to campaign and raise money for the latest from wisconsin is my friend john nichols russian correspondent for the nation magazine john welcome back it's good to be with you tom great to have you here alan grayson pointed out today on my radio show that if democrats are showing up in equal numbers with republicans in the two thousand and ten election he would not have lost his seat in florida are you worried about the same sort of thing happening in wisconsin today. absolutely i think it's a very serious issue the republican party recruited six fake democrats these are

republicans active republicans running in democratic primaries that's legal it was constant and what's significant about it is as you suggested they did it but they surely on record to delay the election process they actually were gaining a process but something different happened over the last thirty six hours and that is that the republicans ginned up a last minute stele campaign to get people who cross over that republicans get conservatives to cross over and vote in the democratic primaries with the purpose of beating the real democrats is spend substantial money on this they're doing robo calls they're using all sorts of digital tools and so yeah i think this is a serious night now they're going to watch these results closely this has been done before john i grew up in michigan and when i was a kid in michigan michigan was the only state and i think it was the sixty eight primary that where the democrats went for george mcgovern urged wallace rather and

the reason why is because we had open primaries in michigan and the republicans said to their own people go vote in the demagogues that the republican primary was solid they said go vote the democratic primary for george wallace to embarrass the democrats and waltz actually won the state so are you concerned that the republicans might actually get enough of their own people out to vote for these republicans who are masquerading you know in drag as democrats that they might actually be the ones who are running against the republicans who are being recalled . repel it is not beyond the realm of possibility i don't think it will happen because democrats and and a lot of independents are very very passionate about what is happening some of these districts turnout is actually pretty good at a substantially higher level than you would expect for a july election summertime is when we usually vote was nonsense but i do have that fear i have that concern and remember if a fake democrat is nominated to run against one of these republican state senators

they want to run against him i mean that would be the end of the campaign that republican state senator will effectively have been reelected and so this is a very serious issue because what the republican party it was constant is trying to do here he was to take away people's right to have a choice in an election year going into the democratic primary with the purpose of denying people an electoral choice and that's really it's just a it's a strong argument how closed primaries to there were but that's a whole nother issue and there were massive election or irregularities and many would say outright fraud in the wisconsin election a few months ago for the supreme court are you concerned that the election system in your state can be gained can still be gamed in today's election. well i think any reasonable person has to be concerned about the gaps in the integrity of the election system not just in wisconsin which is storage that is had pretty clean elections but in every state in this country there are huge problems and when you

get into high stakes elections where you really are talking not just about governor scott walker control of the state senate in wisconsin but the and broader agenda of all sorts of national conservative groups working in areas of privatization of education and of taking down labor unions yeah i'm concerned because this is high stakes stuff and if there is the ability to game an election allowed some of the most powerful people in the country to maintain their power in one state in some balik they do so nationally yes i would worry and i think a lot of wisconsinites that were there were election protection efforts today and troublingly some of the people who are trying to do election integrity election protection were forced to leave the areas around polling places because it was claimed they were electioneering that was not the case they were really just trying to tell him practically that that's my question i mean the gold standard for for that would that we impose on every other country for example where we said the you

know several former soviet states elections were not good because the election results didn't line up with the exit polls has always been exit polls that's been the gold standard and yet today in wisconsin the government accounting board shut down these nonpartisan exit polls is this a board that's run by scott walker what's the story here. this that the board isn't necessarily run by scott walker but it's certainly a board that has done in my opinion a very very disappointing job of running our elections and sometimes that's the most troubling thing you don't have to be under the thumb of a particular politician you don't have to be jumping at their will to be cautious to be unwilling to offend that politician who happens to control your budget and i'm i am on subtle by the fact that people who trade very carefully to go out and do exit polling to do election protection election integrity were clearly hassled

at polling places in and especially one key district and that's in eastern was going to the milwaukee area and it's the district chair or more than co-chairwoman of the joint finance committee a woman named alberta darling and she is really the most important person running for the republicans she's the she's scott walker's point person on budget issues and so the fact that there was a. hassle for people trying to do election integrity in that district is to me particularly unsettling john in the last minute here what else do we need to know about what's going on in the selection in today's primary. i think the most important thing is going to come away with two questions that need to be answered first was turnout significant and if it is that will tell you that wisconsin continues to be very very engaged with these issues and i think we will have a good turnout secondly did the democrats real democrats win their primaries and did they do so by substantial margins and if they did then i think you're going to get a strong signal that it was counting continues to be even uprising against governor

scott walker's policies on the other hand if one or two or three of these state democrats win that's going to send a very bad signal about holding this governor to account so these are results we want to watch closely and obviously what we come away from this primary with will be a good signal as to where the general elections are going in august ok john thank you so much thank you a final recall elections will be in august as john just mentioned that gives wisconsin or publicans another month to make a mockery of our democracy democrats in wisconsin are working as hard as they can to stop walker's tyrannical policies once and for all if they're up against the power of organized billionaires keep an eye on this race. it's the good the bad of the very very horrendously ugly pretty good republican

senator olympia snowe has so many republicans acting completely irresponsible in the debt limit debate it's nice to hear that at least one republican has or had the right place snow told reporters yesterday that she would not support any deal on the debt with the cuts medicare and social security instead so-called for revenue raisers saying there are a lot of tax credits that are not needed and should be repealed start the time i give republicans eighteen hours for the kicker out of approach the bat arizona state lawmaker lori klein here an interview with a journalist outside the state senate chambers on gun rights quine whipped out her raspberry pink and got a three eighty ruger and pointed it right at the reporters chest the gun was fully loaded with the safety off line later downplayed the incident by saying her finger was on the trigger defense or a gun rights cry and said i don't like chocolate ice cream and i going to force you not to have any. to bed with

a group of radical and skewed ration lawmakers are doing to the months great state of illinois and the very very ugly john bit talking to reporters today the speaker of the house tried to downplay his role in the debt limit negotiations by claiming that the debt limit isn't his problem. the president wants but once you get a life his cards on the table this. debt limit increase is his problem and i think it's time for him to leave by putting his plan on the table something that the congress can pair. no john your the speaker of the house passing legislation according to the constitution at all has to regain the house pass the legislation to raise the debt limit. is solely your problem that is unless you want to give president obama the power to unilaterally pass laws and say good bye to your tax cuts for the rich republicans forgetting about how government works that's very very. coming up minnesota's shamefully holds and his store record is the first

state to have a government shutdown so how did lawmakers allow this to happen and what can be done to get the state back up and running. like drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it through the people who made who can you trust no one who is in view with a global mission to read see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more.

the minnesota state government shutdown entered its eleventh day on monday with no new talks planned between the political leaders this is now the longest government shutdown in recent history state's new fiscal year began on july first without a budget in place to close a five billion dollar two year deficit or a temporary spending plan so state workers are out of a job public services and construction projects are on hold and millions of dollars in revenue are going down the drain every day and the end is nowhere in sight since republican lawmakers continue to reject any and all proposals put on the table by democratic governor mark. sam lane is a reporter with the minnesota independent and joins us with the latest from date

and today's date they twelve is new to the states government shutdown sam welcome thank you very much tom today is twelve days to you know how come the legislators that are shutting down the government are still drawing paychecks. president question now we reported on monday actually that one hundred thirty eight of bill that were just loose are still there still taking their paychecks for july so that's pretty good something that's pretty concerning the taxpayers honestly i don't know because the answers to why they're still doing that there were about how i think twelve i think twelve total were just leaders then and it ended up not taking their paychecks for progress for this time when when the shutdown is going on so at least there's some some hold on some bills legislators but yeah a lot of them are still collecting up the best majority but to what extent is this a. real debate about policy. and the details of a budget versus a a you know just

a partisan fistfight. i would say it's almost completely hopeless and disappointed i mean that the front page of today's out say paul pioneer press is who's going to blink first and it's got a picture of dayton and president obama and speaker boehner and senate majority leader here amy cut amy cook so you know it's it's just a big part of the fiscal year right now and it's getting really frustrating to see these partisan politics continue and out why we don't have people in the state of minnesota in state now and it's it's really it's really becoming disturbing that there is no budge really from either side and it is getting really hard to take these. partisan politics really really ruining lives and a lot of other things missiles who well as as the state is suffering as a consequence of this are the people in general and i'm not necessarily just. the people that you hang out with but i you know but right across the board to the extent that you can measure this regardless of demographics or geographics or

whatever are the people blaming the governor are they blaming the legislature are they blaming the process i mean this is producing cynicism or is this like in wisconsin producing passion what's that what's the outcome of this what's the consequence of this at least over the short term. i think it's a little bit of gold i think that we're seeing some blame being put on governor dean and also a lot of blame you put on the republicans too i think you know dean is most recently come out in it he had one of his most recent proposals he completely dropped his plan to tax the rich that was his it was his biggest you know his signature move that was the thing that everybody was was talking about with governor dean in favor of syntax which would increase taxes on our cigarettes and alcohol so which simple and he did when he was governor didn't exactly exactly you didn't didn't when he was discussing those taxes basically said you know i'm following your party's footsteps in in proposing this so that that's something that

was seen as a pretty pretty big compromise but you know the republicans are still sticking to their no new taxes you know no tax agenda there and so. i think it's really hard to say which side is being blamed more i think that there are. you know i think that there's certainly in some of the circles that. you know a part of it it me it seems a little bit more put on republican legislative leaders point but i don't think that's necessarily case across the state i think it's split fairly evenly obviously public workers are. you know is there is there any talk and this is a dress rehearsal for what's going on in washington d.c. the purse is a testing ground with republicans are you using. you know and i don't know that specifically i think that maybe there are some rumblings that you know this is fairly representative of what's going on in federal law but when you don't get these republican legislative leaders and the executive branch here and obama when

obviously it's a federal level it's just this big like you said earlier big this fight but you know do you. it's the republicans are sort of moving in here in a sort of enemy in me. and as we're senior national levels where is it what's the what's your sense of how this is going to. go for this. i have absolutely no idea one of the one of the people here say something yesterday's or you could go on to january nobody has any idea and meanwhile like i said earlier the livelihoods of people going to sort of it's taken i really think that there is i mean there are no talks scheduled right now no there are no no sessions scheduled between the governor and as much as time goes on is the state spending less money as a result of the shut shutdown and in is that helping in there that two billion dollars divide or is there is the state losing money because they don't they're not running say parks and things that are collecting fees and what is what's the net net here that's my the latter is what i'm understanding is that they're spending

huge huge sums of money to you know get their huge sums of money are being wasted because these government services are being you know are being put out and are continuing through this difficult time i guess the specific number but there are several million dollars are being wasted you know weekly as a result of this because the public employees aren't working because some of these services aren't continuing and well you know like you mentioned we were losing were losing people build public parks in wisconsin we were seeing our lottery ticket buyers to wisconsin and the state of iowa people traveling across the border going to going to buy their lottery tickets so i. there is definitely a lot of money being lots of this it's remarkable sam thanks a lot for being with us tonight thanks tom and said the states are the laboratories of democracy for the entire nation and in the case of minnesota we could be seen where our national governments the refusal of republican lawmakers in minnesota to

reach any kind of compromise with democratic governor mark dayton people all across the state are suffering the effects of being without government services and benefits can foreshadow the fate that awaits the entire nation if republicans in congress continue to reject a president obama as it sounds at a compromise on dealing with the country's deficit more and more it's becoming crystal clear the republican party of today is willing to do whatever it takes to enact their radical anti-medical as agenda including tearing apart our economy state by state. well i guess pigs can fly i agree with newt gingrich not about politics of course but newt is right about the supreme court and progressive should pay attention

here's what he said yesterday and i will. if you read the constitution the reason for this is the sure difference. trying to use the congress to pass a law and coaches teach through constitution. speakers and prompts these members of. their lives issue branches the be as ignorant as you since. the american hostage is the court watchers we should. lose since he moved lives. we have this is her nationally. who once believed in any foreign leaders. our constitution. the founding wouldn't marry people on this gingrich agrees with former

president thomas jefferson and frankly most of the other founders of this country let's break it down first newt's assertion that the congress can pass laws that limit the powers and the behavior of the supreme court constitution in section two of article three which establishes that the judiciary does give the congress the power to define and limit what the supreme court and you cannot do here's the exact language and supreme court shall have apologized diction both as to law and fact with such exceptions and under such regulations as the congress shall make yes that's what the constitution says in plain black and white if congress disagrees with for example the citizens united decision or the bush v gore decision they can simply pass a law that says that the supreme court has overstepped its authority and that's the end of a why do you ask to the founders write it this way. the answer is really very simple they wanted the greatest power to be closest to the people. and

congress is up for reelection every two years it's the body of our in our representative democratic republic that is closest to the people that's where the founders wanted most of the power which is why it's defined in article one of the constitution the first among equals the judicial the dishes article three as thomas jefferson wrote in an eight hundred twenty letter to mr jarvis who thought supreme court justices should have the power to strike down laws jefferson wrote you seem to consider the judges the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions of very dangerous doctrine indeed and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy the constitution has erected no such single tribunals i know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves

please read the constitution nowhere in it there's a say that the supreme court can strike down laws passed by congress and signed by the president nowhere and for the first fourteen years of our republic the court never even considered the idea as new pointed out hamilton wrote in federalist seventy eight this is when hamilton and madison were writing the federalist papers to sell the constitution he said he wrote the judiciary from the nature of its functions will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the constitution because it will be least in the capacity to annoy or injure them. the executive of the presidency not only dispenses the honors but holds the sword of the community the legislative that's congress not only commands the purse but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated the judiciary on the contrary has no influence over either the sword or the purse no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of society and can

take no active resolution whatsoever it proves incontestably at the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power and it can never attack with success either of the two. you get that can never attack either of the two but eighteen zero three a hard right wing chief justice named john marshall ruled in haste name marbury vs madison if the supreme court could strike down laws as unconstitutional president jefferson was apoplectic you wrote the if that decision wasn't challenged by congress then indeed is arkham constitution a complete fellow to say a suicide attack the constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they may please but marshall in the court backed down somewhat for the next twenty years justice marshall never again rule were unconstitutional he

never again said that a few unelected judges were the kings of america with nobody who had the power to undo their decisions but that's what scalia and thomas roberts and alito want you to believe that they can make george w. bush president without any appeal that they can make money and a speech that they can turn corporations into people and the rest of us have no say in and they're wrong it's not what the constitution says we don't have kings in america and it's time to seriously debate and challenge the doctrine of judicial review the claim by the court itself that it has that power as thomas jefferson wrote if you give shiri of the united states is the subtle core of sappers and miners constantly working underground to undermine our constitution i will say that against this every man should raise his voice and more should uplift his arm why because jefferson for judges to usurp the powers of the legislature is unconstitutional judicial tyranny one single object will entitle you to the endless

gratitude in society that of restrain judges from usurping legislation the power of we the people should be with the people and their elected officials not with five lawyers who claim the right to rule over every other branch of government somebody tell congress to wake up. that's the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we cover visit our websites of. free speech that organ are. also check out our two you tube channels there are links in tom hartman dot com the entire show is also available as a free video podcast on i tunes and we have a free tom hartman i phone and i pad app and the app store it's on the speed back to twitter at tom underscore hartman on facebook at tom underscore evan our blogs message boards and telephone comment line at harvard dot com and don't forget democracy begins with you get out there and get active tag you're it.

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