tv [untitled] July 18, 2011 9:00pm-9:30pm EDT
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if. well i'm tom harbor in washington d.c. here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture heads continue to roll as the hacking scandal surrounding rupert murdoch's empire picks up steam one of murdoch's international chief executives has been arrested and britain's top cop target is bad yesterday after being linked to the scandal so elusive media scandal trickled over to his us media outlet box so-called news plus we're two weeks away from the country's financial foundation prolapse if the republicans still aren't budging on
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their budget demands so just how hard must times get before they put the country in their best interest instead of the twenty twelve election chances and inmates across the nation are taking of no food to protest huge inhumane prison conditions so what are the thousands of cellmates demanding and will america lives. you need to know this some other bad week for rupert murdoch yesterday rebecca brooks the former chief executive of news international the parent company of murdoch's british media empire was arrested on charges that she illegally intercept phone calls and bribed u.k. police officers but that's not all and also taking in from the scandal yesterday britain's top cops are paul stephenson the head of the metropolitan police service resigned site saying i'm going speculation accusations relating to the police's
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link with news international on the case now is the serious fraud office agency in charge of investigating a large fraud cases they opened up a probe into news international yesterday to look into whether or not murdoch's corporation grossly miss. use shareholders' money and as murdoch's media empire in the u.k. crumbles there are new allegations in america that fox news is also acting in too ill into phones illegally or at least phone records as the daily koz is reporting a former fox news executive dan cooper has come forward saying that fox news chief roger ailes constructed an underground bunker within the fox news building in new york city headquarters to perform out of her intelligence that may include illegally hacking phone calls the bunker was known as the brain room so all of these new developments coming out of the u.k. and this new allegation that fox news is home to a james bond villain style secret base underground mean for rupert murdoch's media
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empire and for that matter his job they've sold anna joins me now to talk about the story he's the communications director of free press that all civil rights attorney and media advisor dave welcome we're going to be related to so. if murdoch goes in for that matter roger ailes let the old know it not to be a case of meet the new boss same as the old boss well we've been looking for a very long time to rupert planning his own departure and he's eighty years old now he's been grooming is son to take over the reins son james the heir apparent if rupert goes there's every indication that james will also go east seems to be very deeply implicated in this if the news reports are to be believed but they're making money selling salacious things they're making money with fox news in the united states running it as g.o.p. t.v. basically if they're making money doing that when the new boss come in and just say keep doing the same things only cut out the illegal part. i would hope so at the
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least cutting out the illegal part it seems to me that that as our friend john nichols wrote in the nation that rupert murdoch's and news corp's primary ideology is profit and what's good for rupert murdoch or so whoever comes along board as the next chief of news corp is likely to be doing the same thing i would imagine any serious change in path. if there's any credibility to this story that this allegation of the end cooper's. they apparently hacked at least his telephone records to find out that he'd been talking with david brock. this is starting to get creepy i mean is this this james bond intelligence room i mean what's the deal here with fox and what will it mean if it's true if it's true that would be a very significant significant factor in whether the you have c c would would renew those licenses you know there's there's a standard in getting an f.c.c.
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license that you have to be of good character the license holder has to be of good character now you know there has been a lot of push from some organizations who are ideologically opposed to fox news on principle to say let's get those license let's take those licenses you know there are twenty eight stations and twenty eight locations and each one of them is subject to a challenge at some point. and they're saying let's get this investigation let's get convictions well actually you don't need convictions it's just a matter of good character and if the organization is in fact investigating people outside the law using extra legal means to look at their records look at their phones look at their e-mails that sort of thing if that's true i think that would be a very very tough thing for the f.c.c. to rubberstamp it's very interesting although fox news being on cable systems doesn't require us to see if that's that's correct so this is just me first television station rush is. probably a much larger profit center than fox news. i watch television i mean that's that's
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a big deal i wouldn't know the answer to that but i wouldn't be surprised if they own some some television stations in all the major markets here in d.c. l.a. new york the only couple be one of the original whistleblowers about news of the world back from several years ago sean hoare today was found dead apparently of suicide he apparently he's the guy who made the allegations about david cameron's press secretary being when he worked at news of the world one of the guys who was hacking phones and so now he's been vindicated he would have a book deal he would have a speaking tour ahead of him why would he commit suicide. you know i honestly wouldn't know and i wouldn't want to speculate on that i mean clearly you know suicide is a very tragic event and the man is reportedly had a drinking and drug drug problems. so it could just be a coincidence could be a coincidence and
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a terrible shame frankly because these you know he if he if he he did in fact as he said come forward because he wanted to clean up journalism well you know as a former journalist myself i can say we could use more brutal blowers like. there's there's i know sort of democratic underground one of the top threads that is speculating that tony blair suddenly kind of turned right politically about the time that murdoch was starting to act on phone calls and that a number of us politicians are just you know live in total fear of fox news and you know speculating that may be people are even being blackmailed is there any. you know and i allegations like this even being made i realize we're out on very thin ice here yeah you know what i don't think it needs to get into that sort of nefarious feeling because what they do what they do on the surface is is clearly enough you know. our position at free press is that is that this is a symptom the disease is media consolidation and that the power that has been
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consolidated in the hands of just a few companies news corp being one of them a t.n.t. being another comcast being yet another is where the danger is fortunately in the u.k. to have a very vibrant very competitive media system where a competing newspaper like the guardian can can bird dog this story for years when it was initially dismissed as just a rogue reporter and a rogue private investigator the guardian followed this story for many years until it now it's become this thing that could feasibly topple the news corp empire what we're lacking in the united states is that very competitive very tooth and nail kind of real in. for instance there is eighty seven reagan in eighty two reagan stops force in the sherman act and then in ninety six clinton signed it because you're i mean we're look i've got to read about certain thanks so much for being with us i did hear i do appreciate if what this former fox executive is saying about the brain room is true and if the obama administration will actually
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investigate and prosecute murdoch again maybe up at fox or called news and our nation could be a lot better in its absence but in the u.k. it's really interesting the path to prime minister to being prime minister is through rupert murdoch here's some examples that margaret thatcher he actually actually added she allowed him to add the times of the times of london the sunday times to his portfolio of properties and she was richly rewarded for that in his bakers john major her successor in fact the day of the election he ran a headline that said was the effect of if if you can i think it was the his opponent if he wins will the last person leaving england turn the lights up and it was a real a real effort tony blair flew to australia to get on bended need to ask him to murdoch for his endorsement and murdoch flipped over to labor through the equivalent of the democratic party in this case it is about profit empowered not about politics for murdoch gordon brown the next prime minister attended rebecca
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brooks as wedding protege david cameron the current prime minister supported was supported murdoch and vice a versa and even hired andy colson one of the editors the guy who was running news of the world when they were hacking phones as press secretary brits are waking up to the fact that murdoch has been manipulating their politics but americans the path through the republican nomination is the reality is through fox news if you don't get on fox news if you're north by fox news you're republican you're never going to you know there's nowhere to go the get a softball treatment on their shows it's the only network in fact most republican candidates will even go on if murdoch doesn't support you here's your doomed. but back in one nine hundred seventy roger ailes proposed g.o.p. t.v. nixon here's the roger ailes secret nixon era blueprint for fox news last month cook john cook found this in the nixon library the papers that laid this out ailes handwritten notes on the memo titled a plan for putting the g.o.p. on t.v.
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news and now fox news controls the g.o.p. britons are waking up to how the fox empire has been controlling their politics when are americans going to wake up. and. it's time for our daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's today's question is the game up at fox so called news your choices are yes former fox news executive dan cooper is saying roger ailes had an underground bunker and may have illegally had phone calls or no who cares if i actually use illegally hacked phone calls doggone it down our dot com let us know what you think will be open until tomorrow. coming up a government voucher giveaway in texas goes horribly wrong they've been several people injured could this be just
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a glimpse of the chaos to congress republican seen succeed in cutting federal assistance to millions of americans. with twenty four seven live streaming news tells what to do about the ongoing financial hardship unlimited free high quality videos for download. and stories you never find on mainstream news. from the get go so the political. posts in more aren't watched.
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on friday president obama gave the a good eight thirty six hour deadline for republicans to agree to a new debt limit deal now that deadline along with all the other previous deadlines is in the trash can but two weeks to go until our economy implodes there's still no debt limit deal and americans are getting worried a new pew washington post survey shows a seventy five percent of americans are concerned that not raising the debt limit could hurt the nation's economy and you quit it when a quinnipiac. poll shows two thirds of americans agree that a responsible debt limit plan includes both spending cuts and tax hikes on millionaires and billionaires similar to what the president is. proposing still or republicans won't budge but they might if we see more signs of social unrest like we saw last week in dallas texas it was there the moment he was there the more than
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five thousand people stampeded a building that was offering one hundred government housing assistance about years developers will help pay for portions of rent based on an individual's income at least eight people were injured in a desperate dash for federal assistance and many of those who say they were trampled say they feel that they're lucky just to be alive crowd is mostly made up of single mothers and their children senior citizens who rely social soley on social security and minimum wage earners who just can't get by on their mvp a chance and it's exactly the type of federal assistance that republicans are demanding baek so as our nation falls deeper and deeper into desperation with an economic catastrophe right around the corner what will it take for republicans to agree with debt limit deal or offer take on the issue is kerry lucas energy director at the independent women's forum kerry welcome back thanks so much for having me on tom thanks for being here why are republicans manufacturing this debt limit crisis this isn't a manufactured crisis and while it's interesting to see the polls of people who are
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concerned about it's the debt limit situation and people are just as concerned about runaway government spending and the debt itself when a family is buried under credit cards i think the answer isn't always just to keep raising the maximum and trying to increase the amount you can borrow sometimes you got to take a hard look at the budget and start making some cuts and i think this is a moment when the american people can look back and say hey it's time for us to get serious about budget and care if this was a real crisis if there was a debt load if there was a debt crisis we would be paying more interest for people buy our bonds right now all over the world who want to buy our bonds and we're paying two percent interest well there is no crisis time to what will there is if there is a crisis it is only very serious the republicans pressures on the government that's the crisis time we are in the process of the on standard poor's and every other major debt rating agency is. in the united states that may be it through the show no we don't sorry about is no that this was long ago this was months ago when they started looking warning about the jet to g.d.p.
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ratio approaching ninety percent and that's considered a magic number. and has a has a debt to g.d.p. ratio of two hundred twenty nine percent the aaa rated bonds well tom this is i mean this is across the news every day we are well so how much how high do you want to tell that to go tom should we just keep going i just don't think that so you should right now what i want to jobs. why is the taking away benefits from drilling oil as a tax increase and taking away benefits for drilling children scabies a spending you know rise of the benefits for aging airplanes as a tax taking away benefits for aging grandparents and spending but is that the taking away benefits for months of the tax increase and taking away benefits for social security medicare is a spending bill why is it that liberals never want to talk about things like trimming benefits for rich people on social security and they consider that it was someone's has to turn it into a welfare program that is just going to talk about that it's an insurance program i see part of the name. we should be giving bill gates medicare and all these social security and they say this but this is in fact i want to pay more into the time
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this is you know we can't be there is no bill gates will go bankrupt you know your google might come along and my personal all time i think this is the this is the perspective of government can never be too big and we can always take more from the private sector if you think about it you just said you're worried more about jobs when you talk about things like a stampede going on in texas overpressure housing vouchers that's not that's not a sign that oh it's great we should have more of these out there is not a it's a sign you absolutely and you think that raising taxes is going to is going to be a job during the eisenhower administration the top tax rate was ninety one percent we had a lot of jobs during the kennedy administration was ninety one percent in a lot of jobs during the johnson administration it was seventy four percent president nixon said it was you know by me a lot of jobs and all of a sudden reagan came along. the jobs going to all going offshore well it was not it was five years ago we had our my. employment under five percent and so we've also those jobs would you want fries with that i mean our good manufacturing jobs are gone and they're gone because of thirty years of insane president
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a president obama himself said that it would be crazy to raise taxes during a recession he said that on just a few months and i disagree with him well if you know i think this is at some point we've got to start talking about how it is we're going to create private sector jobs and the answer isn't to start squeezing companies and small businesses more and unfortunately you know the top the everything top rated you suggest in the taxes should be raised on small businesses so they argue raise that if you raise the individual income tax that's not all you're talking about this is your he said people who are taxes by saying this is personal income not corporate i mean do you know your way well you know what they will do carey is the same thing that i did in one thousand nine hundred four i owned a corporation in one nine hundred eighty four and we flipped it for a minute for minute script to a sequel but ok put on your secrets and there are guys like you who can take advantage of us and i was right here in the time i was an actor producer who had started a business here a lot of people who are struggling small businesses who are struggling struggling who have ten employees and this is how they make ends meet but the fact of the
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matter is that when when reagan changed to change the tax law we spent three hundred seventy five dollars to change the type of corporation we had that's all it takes. time this is if you want to try to pick up this many instances you can still tax rich people it's not going to hurt small businesses. it will just clip from a low season escorts to see where not everyone is paying for a great lawyers and knows how to get out and they are i did it myself oh you're a smart guy tom i think that a lot of people out there legals you like being here for nothing and people don't feel like they have done what i'm getting around our around tax laws we all know the tax laws and the treasury secretary can't comply with with taxes in a managed to manages to get himself in trouble there are a lot of small business owners out there who do feel pinched and worry about taxes going higher than people worried about taxes going or the quote. it's the billionaires in america it's the billionaires and that's ridiculous that's absolutely it's absurd to think that the billionaires i will all. ways find a way to get to get out of paying the way they found out i was very easy this is yacht somewhere else they can and he's have their house is what i have is by having
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their capital gains tax the maximum of fifteen percent that's just wrong in my view any out were for my gary thanks for dropping he always good to change from just a few days after threaten to downgrade our aaa debt rating over the ongoing debt limit debate fiasco moody's credit rating agency offered up some advice to the united states to avoid this sort of problem in the future get rid of the debt ceiling altogether arguing that the united states is one of only a few nations in the world that actually has a limit on debt which can cause periodic on certainly moody's words when congress drags its feet on raising that limit moody's encourage lawmakers to put an end to the uncertainty and look for other ways to reduce debt aside from a debt ceiling throughout history the debt limit has been raised more than one hundred times meaning it's completely ineffective it actually reducing debt and now the republicans have found a way to exploit it to carry on their radical anti bill clause agenda it's time to scrap it altogether not only that this whole debt limit mess is distracting americans from the real problem not our debt but instead our shot heard the job
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market it's the jobs stupid i mean that's that's the real issue we have nine point two percent unemployment right now which is substantial and we need to be doing something about the real unemployment rate is actually around sixteen point two percent last month the economy only added eighteen thousand jobs and fourteen million people are unemployed and here's the interesting thing the states that cut spending we have twenty five states that increase spending twenty four states that cut spending since president obama came into office so here we have our own laboratory in the united states and what we found is that those states that increased spending one point two percent increase in private employment a half a percent increase in economic growth those states that cut spending have a two point one percent decrease in private employment. and a two point nine percent economic contraction really simple cut government spending the economy gets worse increase government spending because the economy gets better
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f.d.r. said it well he said the best welfare program is a good job and that the government should be the employer of last resort if there are jobs out there then we'll hire you to do something and there's certainly a lot of things that need to be done bridges and roads and i mean all the infrastructure teachers build our schools all these other kind of things similar the best deficit reduction plan is the one that creates jobs so which by the way raises tax revenues it increases because you have more people working you know and . go up money from the real job creators in america the real job creator in america the people with money in their pocket to go to the store and buy things and when they buy things that purchase then echoes out into the rest of the rest of the economy and and grows it it's really really very very straightforward during a time of recession we need to increase government spending to get more money into people's pockets so the so that the economy will get jobs start and you do it.
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the nationwide hunger strike is continuing in thirteen prisons across america has more than seven hundred prisoners are nearing starvation to protest inhumane conditions the hunger strike that started a pelican bay state prison and then spread to other prisons across the nation is now its third week and family members are reporting that many prisoners are nearing death and refusing medical attention as one prisoner argued no one wants to die you know under the current system of what amounts to intense torture or choice do we have so what is of the prisoners are demanding and how can we avoid seen thousands of people die as a result of starvation here to shed some more light on this issue is laura magnini . of the american friends service committee she's a mediator with the pelican bay prison hunger strike and co-author of the book beyond prisons a new interface paradigm for field prison system laura welcome and my apologies if i mispronounced your last name. so much how do you say it. i'm yawning thank you
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very much but kind of abuses of the prisoners striking against. oh this is a really serious problem that they're facing very long term isolation i think most people don't know that we even do that since country but there are thousands of christians who are hardly in their time inside prisons in permanent lockdown situation so much here in confinement situation sensory deprivation situation and they are here for years that it's time some people have been there as long as forty years mostly they're there because somebody seduced them to be gang related again really it's not necessarily confined to any activity it's in trying to association some kind of contact. so it's a very nice it spread problem and in business don't have very many options to try and. one of the prisoners demands. they have five basic demands the first has to do with empty punishment. and i think we all
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understand the arms. well and so forth ourselves that that going to shape everybody for something under two people it is unfair and so they're asking that that. hold out based on individual accountability in something violating human rights the price for that instead of saying taking a person takes a lot of calendar and uses the spiral binding as a wrap and then all of a sudden there are no wallflowers left they're all present and that's the kind of thing that they are talking about when you're trying to get rid of history and so they're asking for you know that to be corrected i don't think it does us any good to have we punish and so when in fact we're trying to teach people well and so that's the first one the second has to do with with changing this is respect invalidation and. we're qualified somebody to be inactive for active in the process now called the rethink where the only way you can get out of the spirit answers is by basically snitching on somebody else supposedly giving information we
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all know a bit information that's that's hard from torture it's not reliable information but it's the only way that people it happens you know so they want a change in the process so that people have a way to step down from incidents without having to supposedly you know give information about somebody else and the whole game validation process we won't get much more serious. the third one has to do with the u.s. commission's two thousand and six recommendations about solitary i'm now a finance easily are in compliance with its recommendations and they and they have various recommendations in there but the first and most important is really that solitary confinement should be a last resort not a first resort when somebody might be in so compliance with that commission it's it's huge the last two are much more civil in my state ordinary in my name but nina lots of people whose lives are so narrow as they are in these surveys but they're
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for. one has to do with food that it might be contaminated that it might supply all but there being nothing and then again attritional in the fifth line is kind of a series of different small things like the one related to the wall calendars or access to a sewer mishap in cold weather the fact that you shouldn't have to go to the nurse's office in your boxer shorts and chimeras the mercenaries should be. jersey shore it's issue the fact that you should have access to the library books there is a library there are in it but all of the sudden that that was considered a privilege and it was taken away so there's a list of risks hundred five of things that they're asking for that are quite minor that are very concerned graham and not a simple. reason as apartment still not chosen to keep you very much laura in in just a half a minute or so what can people who are watching right now do to help to show solidarity. oh i'm around with you writing letters to
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you. since you are not reasonable to me and and really we don't live in a society tortures. people in these times so with these indefinitely it's not necessary and we can do better. laura thanks so much for being with us tonight. this hunger strike is one result of the for profit prison industry that has lobbied for years for stricter laws and longer sentences because every new american is locked up means more profits for these private prison corporations trying to put an end to the private prison industry and nixon's war on drugs and redirect those billions into education and anti-poverty programs. coming up herman cain once again puts his judge metal foot in his mouth details of the gun traversal ban he's proposing. drives the
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