for. a few. well go back to the big picture coming up in this half hour in less than ordered 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 the requests so will justice calling 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 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 an. 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 davis' lawyer said 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 tonight to you sir thank you 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. but i found in him a man of focus on he did not do it he won't do 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. at best it was at night as it were a. eyewitness which is the weakest form of evidence of even those persons so if they had known then what in the land they went that way so we'll look at this possibility of a revenge revenge killing by the state if we can see the state's moral authority that takes away the life of troy davis and what options are still left for troy

davis is their governor nathan deal the u.s. supreme court president obama or are we pretty much at the end is it possible or as bored as or not know what would have thrown their legal measures there i don't not know what emerges a state by the supreme court could take place something happened similar in texas just last week a man was scheduled die and supreme court made a last minute ruling what's interesting here is that people who is from an ad because the death penalty sand 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 will also his life of life was taken from him but then you should not use tried it was as a as a trophy as a substitute a life that was taken away and there's no evidence that someone is alive would do that then troy davis so this is

a kind of moral outrage is not medicine in the 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 s. and greg you and i were both speaking there last year as a 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 the c.p. this in giant letters that 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 there poured. it like you have through a mum story which is going to add 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 and 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. the first look in racism does not exist it is still effects. the income gap and the education gap and the wealth gap and the life and death gap while we proud of having an african-american president in the one infant mortality in the one in short life expectancy the more than force most home till college 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 see it the redoubts have left it but is this real i mean we have to comp and as our own the. corrections corporation of america the only saki shaves mean prison industrial complex for profits 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 at mit is 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 convict them say that they made a mistake they recanted testimony and what more do you need than the person who said who who condemned him to say that they stand in error during the republican debate two weeks ago we saw the crowd sheer governor 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 that in is this culture of death in america responsible for what trade troy davis' face in the last twenty four hours well i

think about the case on the one hand mr perry speaking that the big crystal rally if we kicked off this campaign. and comes right back and touts two hundred two executions does he expect jesus would have done that is that his version of christianity we've become so indifferent it seems to this well we can go into iraq and kill all those people and be killed realize it was a mistake and for that there's no accountability i mean we now know iraq was the wrong target of thousands of lives lost free in the us but look at that trigger in the all those who today they would go from a pack in iraq and expand the war in afghanistan that when people are killed innocent people it's called collateral damage when in to libya on the basis of a humanitarian mission and yet is now

a full scale war i mean that is there seems to be a kind of a thirst and then put there the indifference to killing that's beneath the dignity of the american promise assuming let's not assume that troy davis is put to death tomorrow although the probabilities of that 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 high 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 this country. to be sure since 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 innocent robs us of something due to us a lot or

a kid we can be the the just referee in these conflicts what it is in the case of domestic violence it almost was a case of the middle east where there's a moral authority of the rider from. and we run the risk of saying this are innocent till proven guilty and yet they hear is reasonable it must affect the doubt and we will kill him in the broadcast this puts us on the real age and i am very pained by the thought of it been praying in. class at all of the day said i hope that this does not happen and if it does happen that we have to live with people at the met 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 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. how do we change our body politic to the point where a candidate for president ited states is introduced as the guy who has 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 projects it's hard to explain you know one on the one hand we have the. whole of the free land of the give me your tired your whole mass of your neighborhood for even the just trolling anti immigrant side of us on the one hand we feel so good tonight president barack obama is elected as a kind of big moment in american history given what we saw that from in then a few weeks he's a lawyer and then he's. been there he's not a christian he was not born he is not one of us i mean so we are still

a struggle thought. then at the end there is this tug of war for america's soul in those who choose life over death and then hopeful for her and healing must not turn the rope a loose a must keep as a rule the hope alive very well said reverend jackson thanks so much great to see you again thank you sir this is a troy davis has said that he is at peace that he is prayerful but that he will continue to keep fighting and that was very last breath also fighting with the millions of people around the world who are holding protests vigils tomorrow in alaska the 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 and see a.d.p dot org to find out how you can get involved time is running now. coming out governor good hair is indeed trouble with

the department of justice why the d.o.j. claims kerry is manipulating the democratic vote in the lone star state. drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through get through if you've made who can you trust no one who is your view with the global machinery see where are we heading state controlled capitalism is called satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more.

in our power republicans are rigging the two thousand and twelve election news department of justice smack down texas 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 state legislatures carve up congressional districts in their states based on the latest census data information and in texas this year republican lawmakers the liberally carved up the state to marginalize and weaken latino voters by so. latino minority communities and making sure that they were included in districts with overwhelming majorities of

republican voters the department of justice argues that were perry's new redistricting plan by late section five of the voting rights act which forces lawmakers to quote maintain or increase the ability of minority voters to elect their candidate of choice in each district and quote under normal procedure state legislatures have to see prior approval by the d.o.j. for a new redistricting with texas skip that step now hearing is scheduled for wednesday were three judge panel were issue a final ruling republicans in texas are the lone reference 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 in 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 read you know 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 justice to stop. this this every ten year dance that goes on we'll see what changes 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 reasons lisa we should run faster into 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 rate that strips away the number of. 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 to pennsylvania they figured out a whole new trick and so tell us about what pennsylvania is up to that this is this is the most dastardly trick i've seen in a long time so just like they're engaging i shouldn't said on how to do legal gerrymandering syntax this is in pennsylvania they're engaging in their own gerrymandering and they're going to try to of the twenty congrats are the eighteenth congressional districts there get about twelve of them to be republican districts and they want to they have two thirds of the districts set up that republicans are pretty likely to win there and then they're going to say that rather than we have a presidential option 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. and this isn't 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 coral talk shows and things people calling up on you know what's wrong with one man one vote you know this whole trial collars 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 group is saying this this is this is seriousness around. i could see a legitimate debate about ending nationwide electoral college you know amending the constitution or or having every state runts agree that they're going to just not each district but you know every vote but this kind of a halfway measure saying the districts are going to pick those who came up with

this how is that this do you know if this came out of alec or is this a republican strategist who says you need to pennsylvania of the states when it was 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 that sign onto 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 that republicans want to do it in little pieces that make a part of the democratic state 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 and you taking some votes in republican states and giving them to the democrats but

when you hand if 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 rigging 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 that was or is there is there any track back to or has this been tried before i mean there are two states that do this already named as this already and interestingly nebraska has done this for a long grass because 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 into brass they say we don't want that happen to happen again so they want to move in the other direction and make the practical winner take all state right now the way that i see it is we should have a uniform rule throughout the conference i want to get rid of i want national popular vote i want the person who will gets the most votes to be the next

president of united states but if we're going to have this system this electoral college system i'm fine with nebraska having the same system is everyone else pennsylvania has to have a tail. thanks so much for joining us thank you for it's a heavy as i mentioned a final ruling on texas redistricting plan is scheduled 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 so-called news yesterday. neal i am the tea party candidate john boehner is a socialist i'm not calling him names what i'm so sure yeah john boehner who

embrace 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 to the debt limit deal last month wasn't quite good enough but the interesting thing about this is the david lewis is only twenty six years old and he along with others in his generation who brought into the tea party and flocked to ron paul had a lot in common with robert ludlum this fictional character jason bourne has 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 right behind the are tea partiers aren't trained in lethal and and and 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 work to phase out social security totally one hundred percent. that includes medicare medicaid food stamps these are socialist policies that feed forty surprisingly he didn't tack on that to that list laws against child labor the vote for women in the minimum wage and if you had more time and david lewis is canada's see and ideology reflects something very wrong with our nation today bro phrase from daniel quinn david lewis is the poster child for a great forgetting in america at such a young age he feels invincible as most young people do many things he'll never need those government programs that he deems socialist would stance 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 were poor but today's brainwash young

people want to scrap the entire system are 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 but all of her recipients are usually drug addicts and the truck in the tax cuts for the rich create economic growth just on and on it goes they are the product of iran's arguably sociopathic philosophy of the social selfishness is the highest idea 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're going to rise to power and create a united states for the super rich or as iran called them the producers are 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 a whole nother discussion and in their world to hell with the rest of us just like jason bourne doesn't remember his earlier life david lewis doesn't remember american america's earlier life at all apparently 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 lewis 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 just fine without a government as if you could have a football game without rules of the goalposts without referees a fantasy that if we all act selfishly grab all you can get everything you can then we'll all prosper actually and in biology and one part of the body or one part of an organism decides it is going to be super selfish and hate everything the body doesn't prosper it's called ansar 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 of somalia. in the movies jason bourne slowly recover his lost memory and it helped him discover where he came from and where he needs to go and we can't just wait and hope that people like david lewis suddenly recover from the great forgetting. especially well the

koch's of the 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 the chance to lead we could be in serious trouble that's why we need to start teaching real history to our young people or young americans we 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 a democracy healthy even when it's under assault from giant transnational corporations and cranky billionaires you have been through this before we made it through the gilded age and the crash of eight hundred ninety three

a caused we made it through the roaring twenty's when the crash of republican great depression was caused by the were in twenties if we can just learn from history teacher to our young people and we'll 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 to tom hartman dot com free speech to oregon are to dot com also check out our two you tube channels there a little thom hartmann dot com and her show is also available as a free video podcast on i tunes and we have a free child care about i phone app and i pad out at the app store to send us feedback on twitter of tom underscore our facebook toddlers who are our blogs message boards and telephone lines of tar. and don't forget them are perceived

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