for. a few. welcome back to the big picture coming up in this half hour in less than an hour in fewer than twenty two hours the state of georgia will execute a man who might be innocent several civil rights leaders have been fighting for clemency for troy davis the state pardons and paroles board shot down a request so well just as calm for troy davis before it's too late and the primary

elections haven't even begun republicans are already getting an early start on rigging votes details on why the department of justice is cracking down on texas and what other states are doing to hijack our democracy. you need to know this the clock is ticking down on troy davis this morning a last ditch effort to save him from a lethal injection schedule for fewer than twenty two hours and now davis was denied clemency by a georgia paroles board davis was convicted of murdering a police officer in one thousand nine hundred nine but today nearly all the witnesses who implicated him every canted their testimony and are now claiming someone else committed the murder not only that there has never been any any hard evidence the. a murder weapon or d.n.a.

no evidence to tie davis to the murder if there was such a thing as reasonable doubt and this is it yet as of right now he is still slated to die tomorrow over a million people have signed petitions to save davis' life and former president jimmy carter as well as the pope have come forward to call for a stop to the execution so far nothing has worked a this is lawyers about the decision today i am utterly shocked and disappointed at the failure of our justice system at all levels to correct a miscarriage of justice so with that our nation could be just hours away now from putting an innocent man to death the question tonight is how can this happen and what can we all do is save the life of troy davis before it's too late for thoughts on this issue and the troubling larger issues this all raises about criminal justice in america i turn to the reverend jesse jackson the founder of the rainbow push coalition an outspoken advocate for stopping the troy davis execution reverend

jackson welcome to the program and to you sir thank thank you for joining us you met with troy davis and you've examined this case carefully and you share with us your observations about the man and the legal case. well i found in him a man very of focus so he did not do it he walked through it in great detail then lot of background this is not just reasonable doubt this is substantial doubt there is no hard physical evidence no blood no fingerprints no no go. at this it was at night as it were a. eyewitness which is the weakest form of evidence of even those burthens say if they had known then within their own land they would build it that way so what we're looking at this caused a revenge a revenge killing by the state which weakens the state's moral up are the takes away the life of troy davis you know what options are still left for troy davis as

the governor nathan deal the u.s. supreme court president obama or are we pretty much at the end is it possible the roles were as and not know what what is thrown or legal measures there are to not know but they merge the state supreme court could take place something happened similar in texas just last week a man was dying and made a last minute ruling what's interesting here is that people who are strong advocates the death penalty said no not in this case and so is there's almost unanimous position now there's a certain sensitivity in the system to the policeman with losses life life was taken from him but then you should not use troy davis as a as a trophy as a substitute thaw a life that was taken away and there's more evidence that someone is alive would be that then troy davis and so this is

a kind of moral outrage is not medicine given national disgrace the whole world is watching and weakens america's moral authority around the world apropos of that and perhaps you've seen this. last weekend i flew out to madison to speak at the vets in fact you and i were both speaking there last year the last time i saw you and the and as i as i was coming down the escalator at reagan international airport i saw this giant poster sponsored by the end of a c.p. that said in giant letters it had a picture of the statue of liberty and said welcome to the usa home of five percent of the world's population and twenty five percent of the world's prisoners now. that's the reality that poster presented to every person who was reported. it like you have true the problem story it was just an ad that african-americans make up a disproportionate amount of that twenty five percent and as we know today they are

also far more likely to be executed than are whites what do we do about the bigger problem here the problem with the racism that seems to be built into our criminal justice system particularly in the south. well for us going for ten weeks isn't does not exist it is still affects. the income gap and the education gap and the wealth gap and the life and death gap. proud of having an african-american president blacks in the one an infant mortality in number one in short life expectancy the more than force morris home foreclosures because of banks toggles the reason is a very much a part of the of the of the d.n.a. of our country and we still seek the redoubts they have love it but is this real i mean we have to cop and as our own the. corrections corporation of america the only stock exchange i mean prison industrial complex for profits and more and more young

black men in jail than they are in college and there's evidence that blacks who do more time less crime so the system is full of racism and the fact the reason why the young man was able to get off of being killed in texas last week someone had admitting that race was a factor and so here in the case of troy davis apart from the race factor which is hard to measure we do know that substantial evidence that he didn't do it he says he didn't do it those who can make them say that they made a mistake they recanted testimony and what you need then the person to say who who condemned him to say that they stand in their own. during the republican debate two weeks ago we saw the crowd cheer going to rick perry when he touted his executions one of which was almost certainly an innocent man he you know as you know stopped the investigation of that. is this culture of death in america responsible for what

trade troy davis is facing as the twenty four hours well i think about the case on the one hand mr perry speaking at the big crystal rally if we kicked off his campaign. and comes right back and touts twitter to executions does he expect jesus would have done that is that his version of of christianity we've become so indifferent it seems to this well we can go into iraq and and kill all those people and be killed realize it was a mistake and for that there's no accountability i mean we're now in the iraq with their own target thousands of lives lost free a lawless but look at that trigger in the in those who today then we go from attack in iraq expand the war in afghanistan and when people are killed innocent people as call call that all of them as we went into libya are on the basis of a humanitarian mission and yet is now

a full scale war i mean that is it seems to be a kind of a thirst. for death the indifference to killing that's beneath the dignity of the american promise. assuming well let's not assume that troy davis is put to death tomorrow the probabilities of this are great that he is but whether he is or he isn't will the high visibility. actually probably a better question how can we use the hide visibility of this case to highlight the as you point out the cruelty of the death penalty in the united states and the and the uneven application of it particularly racially in this country. do be sure says i was in africa last week as this case is this is a global test of america's character and who we are so it has really global ramifications and without killing a man potentially endless and robs us of something due to us. and we can be the

the just referee in these conflicts what it is in the case of domestic violence at home or was a case of the middle east whether the how moral authority of the riaa from and we run the risk of saying that you are innocent till proven guilty and yet they he is a reason to doubt and we will kill him and the more they will be broadcast this puts us all in the real age and i am very pained by the thought of it been praying in. plaster all of the day said i hope that this does not happen and if it does happen then we have to live with the atom of the so much anger and pain that comes out of this we have seen country after country around the world abolish the death penalty it's now in terms of frequency of use it's like us in saudi arabia and you know a few other nations that are generally not highly regarded when it comes to human

rights. how much longer. yvetot how do we change our body politic to it to the point where a candidate for president ited states is introduced as the guy who's killed more people than anybody else and he gets cheered on how do we how do we reach into the hearts and minds of average american voters and awaken them to this reverend jackson is hard to explain and one on the one hand we have the. whole of the free land of the give me your tired your whole mass and you're going to breed for even there's this truong anti immigrant side of us on the one hand we feel so good in the prison barack obama is elected as a kind of the. moment in american history given what we started from and then in a few weeks he's large and then he's probably been the he's not a christian he was not born he has got one of us i mean so we are still

a struggle thought a soul and for identity and there is this tug of war for america's soul and those who choose life over death and then hold over her and healing must not turn the ruble loose and must keep as a rule the hope alive very well reverend jackson thanks so much great to see you again thank you sir there's a troy davis has said that he is a peace that he is prayerful but that he will continue to keep fighting until the very last breath also fighting with millions of people around the world who are holding protests vigils tomorrow in a last ditch effort to save troy davis' life go to the web sites of amnesty international us that's amnesty usa dot org and the national coalition to abolish the death penalty that's n c a.t.p. dot org to find out how you can get involved time is running out. coming out governor good hair is in deep trouble with the department of justice why the d.o.j.

claims kerry is manipulating the democratic vote in the lone star state. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions completely through it through to put it made who can you trust no one who is you in view with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more. if. it's.

in our power republicans or rigging the two thousand and twelve election news the department of justice smack down types this yesterday claiming that governor rick perry is in violation of the voting rights act with his approval of the lone star state's redistricting plan every ten years state legislature the state legislature is carb a congressional districts in their states based on the latest census data information and in taxes this year republican lawmakers to liberally carved up the state to marginalize and weaken latino voters by sea. leading up minority communities and making sure that they were included in districts with overwhelming majorities of

republican voters the department of justice argues that rick perry's new redistricting plan by a late section five of the voting rights act which forces lawmakers to maintain or increase the ability of minority voters to elect their candidate of choice in each district and quote under normal procedures state legislatures have to receive prior approval by the d.o.j. for new redistricting but texas skip that step now hearing is scheduled for wednesday were three judge panel will issue a final ruling republicans in texas aren't alone their efforts all over the nation places like pennsylvania and nebraska to rig next year's election even before any candidates have been selected for more on this effort to subvert democracy i'm joined by. attorney policy analyst and blogger at the center for american progress great to have you with us if you back thanks tom thanks for joining us first of all just to you know we kind of recap what's going on with rick perry there have been this kind of jury mannering goes back basically to the founding of the republic.

are there any serious efforts that are being made beyond things like enforcement actions by the department just has to stop. this this every ten year dance that goes on we'll see a change at the ten year dance has to go on to some extent because the reason why the redrawn every ten years is because of the census so you have to redraw all the districts that the districts are reasonably against luzhkov has to be the problem is that you have this you have this game where whichever party is in power tries to draw the districts to maximize their own power for the next ten years and take it away from the other party and that's what's going on here is that the republicans control texas they are of course drawing their lines to try to get as much republican powers they can and in the process they apparently have violated the voting rights act which says that you can't draw your lines in a way that strips that strips away the number of the. districts where racial minorities are able to be represented by a candidate of their choice so that's the allegation here that in the process of

trying to to politically gerrymander they've engaged in unconstitutional racial gerrymandering now to pennsylvania they figured out a whole new trick so tell us about what pennsylvania is up to that this is this is the most dastardly trick i have seen in a long time so just like they're engaging i should've said on cards you legal gerrymandering syntax this is in pennsylvania they're engaged in their own gerrymandering and they're going to try to of the twenty can grab or the eighteen congressional districts there get about twelve of them to be republican districts and then once they have two thirds of the district set up that republicans are pretty likely to win there then they're going to say that rather than when we have the presidential election rather than having all of the electoral votes in that state go to whoever wins the state as a whole which for the last twenty years has been the democrat each individual district is going to get to pick who gets one electoral vote the result after gerrymandering is going to be twelve three electoral votes for whoever the

republican candidate is even if barack obama wins the state one of getting less electoral votes than the party than the person who loses it. and this is and this is being. you know it's interesting i do a radio show and i've had a number of i'm convinced these guys are paid to call talk shows and things people calling up going you know what's wrong with one man one vote and you know this whole wardrobe college thing this is you know and and we're trying to you know pennsylvania's trying to move in the direction of being more fair i mean why should the whole state have to go i mean they franklin says focus groups the right wing this this is this is serious misurata. i could see a legitimate debate about ending nationwide electoral college you know amending the constitution or or having every state all at once agree right that they're going to just go to. each district right but you know every vote but this kind of a halfway measure right of saying the districts are going to pick this came up with

this how is this do you know if this came out of alec or is this republican strategist or is unique to pennsylvania or of the states claims so a bit of background here i agree with you that the electoral college is a disaster you know the idea that we can have a system where the person who gets the most votes doesn't win the presidential race is an embarrassment frankly and there is a process to fix that's called the national popular vote you get a group of states that equals two hundred seventy electoral votes that's a majority so all the sign on to a compact saying that they will give all of their electoral votes to whoever wins the nation as a whole so you can get rid of this or that republicans want to do it in little pieces that take apart the democratic side exactly and that's the key is that if you were to say that texas also has to go district by district the big red states also have to go district by district and maybe that's a conversation we could have because then you're going to be taking some democratic

votes and republican states and giving them to the democrats but when you hand pick one of the largest blue states and say here's a state that we're pretty sure the democrats are going to win and let's carve off some votes from that and just give them away the republican candidate that's not reform that's election breaking who picked pennsylvania the governor of pennsylvania did so he. do you really think that he's smart enough for america really enough to just come up with this on his own and was or is there is there any track back to earth has this been tried before i mean there are two states that do this already maine does this already and interestingly nebraska has done this for a long brassicas talking about undue and that's right and that there's the catchy. barack obama actually won one of the districts in nebraska so this is so the republicans and democrats are saying we don't want back to happen again so they want to move in the other direction and make nebraska a winner take all state right now the way that i see it is we should have a uniform rule throughout the country i want to get rid of i want national popular vote i want the person who would gets the most votes to be the next president of

the united states but if we're going to have this system this electoral college system i'm fine with nebraska having the same system as everyone else pennsylvania has to have it here thanks so much for joining us thank you for having as i mentioned a final ruling on texas's redistricting plan and schedule tomorrow we'll keep a close eye on that it's unclear if rick perry will threaten says session if you lose. it was just a matter of time until the tea party began consuming its own here was david lewis a self-proclaimed tea partier was challenging speaker of the house john boehner for ohio's eighth congressional district on fox news yesterday. neal i am the tea party candidate john boehner is a socialist i'm not calling you names one social john boehner who embraced the tea

party and wrote its coattails to power in last year's election is now being targeted by the tea party i guess getting ninety eight percent of what he wanted in the debt limit deal last month wasn't quite good enough and the interesting thing about this is that david lewis is only twenty six years old and he along with others in his generation who bought into the tea party and flock to ron paul have a lot in common with robert ludlum is fictional character jason bourne is a whole segment of young people just now coming of age to vote who have no idea where they came from where they are and seem to just barely remember their own names just like jason bourne the only difference is these tea partiers aren't trained in lethal and in combat aren't on some noble revenge mission even though some might think they are here's a louis defended his john boehner is a socialist remark later in the same interview here's somebody that refuses to

phase out social security what i would do as a u.s. house member is worked it pays out social security totally one hundred percent. that includes medicare medicaid food stamps these are socialist policies that. surprisingly he didn't tack on that onto that list laws against child labor the vote for women in the minimum wage maybe if he'd had more time and david lewis is canada see an ideology reflects something very wrong with our nation today to borrow a phrase from daniel david lewis is the poster child for great forgetting in america at such a young age he feels invincible as most young people do anything still never need those government programs that he deems socialist food stamps and medicaid in the past at least young voters still believed in the positive role of government to help their grandparents and help those who are poor but the days brainwash young

people want to scrap the entire system of the products of thirty years of reeducation in our schools that have forced f.d.r.'s new deal in the history of labor off the pages of our history books are the products of a broken down news media that no longer gives people the facts needed to make a well informed vote they are the product of hundreds of right wing think tanks that spew lies as if they were facts same social security's a ponzi scheme welfare recipients are usually drug addicts and the truck in the tax cuts for the rich create economic growth and just on and on it goes they are the product of iran's arguably sociopathic philosophy of the socialist selfishness is the highest ideal and this philosophy by the way is now enjoying a well funded resurgence in america thanks to millionaires and billionaires who dusted off her old message from the fifties knowing that if they can get enough

people to buy into it. and they can rise to power and create a united states for the super rich or as iran call them the producers or as frank luntz calls them the job creators ironically in iran in iran's book atlas shrugged they were the people who inherited their money but that's old discussion and in their world to hell with the rest of us just like jason bourne doesn't remember his earlier life david lewis those and remember american america's earlier life at all currently under the new deal years of the one nine hundred forty s. the fifty's the sixty's the seventy's even the early eighty's when the middle class thrived and our social safety nets allowed more and more americans to pursue the american dream without that memory loose believes in a fantasy a fantasy about the power of this magical thing called the free market it's

a fantasy the societies can function which is following a lot of government as if you could have a football game without rules or the goalposts without referees a fantasy that if we all x.l. fishley grab all you can get everything you can and will all prosper actually and in biology when one part of the body or one part of an organism decides that it's going to be super selfish and take everything a body doesn't prosper it's called cancer the whole idea that it's possible to run an economy or a nation this way is a fantasy because it's never ever worked in the history of the world anywhere it's ever been tried so look at the at the libertarian paradise and somalia in the movies jason bourne slowly recovered his lost memory and it helped him discover where he came from and where he needs to go we can't just wait and hope the people of david lewis suddenly recover from the great forgetting. especially while the

coax and other billionaires are funding right wing think tanks like the cato institute and the reason foundation this isn't a movie the fate of the united states is at stake if people like david lewis are given a chance to lead we could be in serious trouble that's why we need to start teaching real history to our young people are young americans need to show up at town hall meetings speak to your neighbors and friends write op eds in your local newspaper run for the local school board and share some real histories of this nation because as a country we must remember once we won what we once knew and that's how to create and sustain a middle class and keep our democracy healthy even when it's under assault from giant transnational corporations and cranky billionaires who were going through this before we made it through the gilded age and the crash of eight hundred ninety

three a cause we made it through the roaring twenty's and the crash of republican great depression that was caused by the were in twenties if we can just learn from history and teach it to our young people that will make it through the damage done to this country by thirty years of reaganomics bubbles and so-called free trade is crosby stills nash and young saying teach your children well. as the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we've covered visit our website so tom hartman dot com free speech or the archie dot com also check out our two you tube channels there are a listen to our dot com sarah shows also available as a free video podcast on i tunes and we have a free tom hartman i phone app and i pad out at the app store it's honest feedback a twitter a tom others who are on facebook its owners for our blogs message boards and cell phone on outlines of tar. and don't forget that mark received begins with you get

out there get active tag your it see you know. that. he.