hello i'm charlie to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture it's deja vu on capitol hill as republicans skipped town for democrats to make a tough choice is to shut down the government to screw over people who need disaster relief aid or submit to the republicans job killing the spending cuts so what happened and why and how and where do we go from here meanwhile hundreds of protesters involved the occupy wall street demonstrations occupied jail cells over the weekend first hand witness joins the show to explain how things turned from a peaceful sit in to

a bile and emotion. you need to know this what to do if you're a republican in the house of representatives the nation is facing a government shutdown at the end of the week and millions of americans are in desperate need of federal disaster relief money well you go on vacation that's exactly what republicans disney did this week in the house of representatives they went on vacation and unless the spending bill is passed by congress by friday the government will shut down and fame will likely run out of money soon after so to prevent that because that's the that was the earlier scenario today were bent that the senate democrats didn't go on vacation instead they went to work today on the spending bill that would keep the government funded through mid november and promise femurs nearly dry coffers with three and a half billion dollars but working in lockstep with their colleagues in the house so. republicans filler to filibuster that bill too so in the end the senate could

only muster up enough votes to pass a spending bill that didn't include any disaster relief fund the only problem is house republicans are nowhere to be found to also approve the spending bill and avert a government shutdown as senate majority leader harry reid said today the house as we speak on the eve of the government shutting down and feeney on the verge of having no money they left they're gone they're not washington it's really hard to negotiate with people who are not here. yes it's hard to negotiate with them when they're not when they are here too robert borsak joins me now he is the founder and president of the institute for america's future as well as the co-director of the campaign for america's future robert welcome pleasure critz you back with us. first of all before we get into all the stuff that's going on you guys are actually doing something about this with the take back the american dream conference tell us about that next week in washington monday through wednesday over one thousand activists

will come from across the country and they're really we're partnering with a range of organizations and we're laying out plans for the next eighteen months to build a movement for the american dream a movement that will protect the promise of america a decent job in health care and retirement security and affordable home and a better education for your kids all of which are at risk now and we're going to lay out plans for demonstrations across the country for an electoral strategy and i think you're going to see the beginnings of a coalescence on the progressive side of the spectrum trying to win this debate back and and and put before americans the real challenges we face that's as have so great and by the way for viewers i will be broadcasting live from the conference report by the free speech t.v. eastern which carries this program as well and my review radio show that simulcast us television of free speech t.v. so we will be there and i'm really really looking forward to it. it's.

just been very very quickly i guess what the senate what looks like was going to be a terrible showdown and collusion and train wreck in the senate the day it kind of slid by because the office of management and budget in the in the director of fema came out and said you know we can last another week and so now it's the big budget you want to share some thoughts and some reason well this is not a way to run a railroad much less a country and you know. the question is why are republicans for seeing these fake showdowns which you'd think the government's about the shutdown they'd go out in or out of town trying to force a vote they already had an agreement around the horrible debt ceiling negotiations where we almost defaulted on our debt which set up the budget for the rest of the year. and what they're doing is they're refusing to follow that limit so they only funded two now to october now they're only funding until november eighteenth. and

they're trying to cut more from below the limit they agreed on in those excruciating negotiations that went on for the country almost defaulted on its debt and why are they doing this well there's only two reasons they're either fools or knaves right they are either fools either they're knaves they they are want the economy to be unstable and in bad shape so that barack obama will get blamed for it and they can as mitch mcconnell said as one objective was to make sure barack obama was a one term president they can defeat him in the in the fall elections next year or therefore they believe that they ought to keep putting money from the budget and that's more important than anything even though they are destabilizing financial markets at a time they're already unstable they are. you know wrenching around our politics and making us look like we're just not a reliable force i don't think they're for us at all any of here's this is five days before the election of two thousand and eight this is president obama in missouri you know. i'm going which means to me the united states

was. you can turn the piece of policy lead in your response to the. street looking forward and see if you can find some people some st louis dewey hudson was how do i. fundamental change change this country change the world if if i ever heard a call a revolution not just. election that was it well we had that massive you know economic crisis and you had a public that gave him a mandate for fundamental change and he campaigned and asked for that mandate and we had fifty nine democrats in the senate we had a democratic majority in the house with the most progressive speaker in our history nancy pelosi and in fact the president put

a set of reforms before the congress on issues we have to deal of energy health care the recovery act financial reform and most of his measures were cautious in their conception to be inclined many of them were very crude but even then he had his head handed to him you know the entrenched. financial interests were able to you know dilute the recovery act and weaken it. the lay health care and take out the public option and strip it down. financial reform and just stop the the energy go completely. and so it's a lesson to us i think to progressives you know we have got to build an independent citizens movement that if barack obama manages to be reelected and we hope he does compared to what the choice is going to be that is driving this debate and exposing

the people that are standing in the way of the changes we need and providing the wind behind his back that breaks the limits of what is a very timid debate and then a debate that's going foul even despite how timid it is so if he's reelected there's a chance that he may be become a transformational president like ronald reagan was like f.d.r. but i think only if we make him only if there is a movement that strong enough that he has to go back and find his way in relationship to it and you know is a movement that was created before barack obama that took back the congress that challenge bush will most. beat him when he when you know it's when he's running as it were time president. that inspired a young barack obama i think there's something moving out here that i can get in front of and be part of. and that set the stage for that scene you just showed where he was calling people for the change that the country was desperate for and now we've got to recreate that movement i agree and you're doing

a fine job of it with the take back the american dream conference it's going to be here in d.c. once again where. this this month coming monday through wednesday in d.c. at the hilton hotel come to our website our future daughter work you can register still it's going to be an incredible gathering of activists and leaders from around the country. with people really laying out plans challenging where we go as a country and where we go as a movement to build an independent politics right robert thank you so much for being with us senator good luck and i'll see you at the conference board it's once again taking a vacation for the republicans is more important than making sure americans devastated by natural disasters get the help they need and a bonus for republicans looking to twenty twelve as the democrats in the senate cave republican spending bill is passed and tens of thousands more workers get laid off making president obama's job of getting reelected even harder.

time for a daily poll your chance to tell us what you think yesterday france's leftist political parties including the socialist party the communist party in the green party captured control of the french senate for the first time in more than half a century there lots of victory is seen by some analysts as another setback for a battle conservative president nicolas sarkozy the head of france's upcoming national election so here's the day's question is a surge from the left coming to the us your choices are yes we are just as angry as the french about conservative government policies that have led to corruption and high unemployment or no american voters are not informed because the mainstream media prefers to cover small tea party rallies rather than large progressive rallies that are going to tell us what you think the polls will be open until tomorrow morning.

crazy alert weener versus woody nuisance san francisco under attack by a city councilman with an ironic name public nudity is common and legal in the castro district of san francisco where as the weather warms up the naked guys as they are called stripped down but city councilman scott wiener is now proposing legislation to restrict the exposure of people's but you know. wiener is pushing for a bill to require the city's naked guys to cover public public benches and seats before sitting on to put some pants on before stepping inside restaurants he says it's a public health issue one tory is nudist in the area also with an ironic name woody miller thinks wieners proposals are necessary woody said put something down before you sit down i think that's coming out of here you don't need to legislate that it's right there and then to say i'm good we don't go anywhere without to tell but

there's a news handbook i'm assuming it's all rules rule number two in the handbook right behind the jumping jacks. coming up an attempt to short change hundreds of nurses in california results in the death of asia so will serve as a lesson on just how important skilled workers are to our nation. that drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it through to be made who can you trust no one who is human view with the global machinery to see where we had a state controlled capitalism school satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

over the weekend in california the nation learned a valuable lesson about just how important nurses are twenty three thousand nurses walked off the job was thursday to one day strike to protest changes in patient services and cuts to nurses pay and nurses claim the changes the california hospitals own by sutter health and kaiser permanente will force nurses to work and when they are sick and exposed and when which extended to work when they're sick and expose seriously ill patients to greater risks of infection when the nurses

attempted to return back to work on friday they were locked out and replaced by temporary nurses started by the hospital unfortunately over the. weekend a patient at one of the hospitals died according to the a.p. when one of the temporary nurses made a medical error and administer the wrong drug arguing that the hospital unqualified staff california nurses association has now filed a complaint with the state department of health so doesn't this case just go to show how valuable america's skilled workers like nurses are in the well being of our nation and if so why are republicans in their corporate donors launching an all out assault on these very same workers and others for the united workers all across the country here to weigh in on this issue is lose sure secretary and treasurer of the a.f.l.-cio liz welcome thanks for having me on the show great to have you with us. first of all to this california strike i take this this was supposed to be a one day strike correct and it's not i mean it's. a lockout absolutely and

we it's a very disturbing development because this is a chance for workers to really express their. opinions and make their voice heard and really their concerns are about patient care and staffing levels and training and this is what happens is it's definitely in an age of a sturdy and attacks against working people do we how do we shift the debate away from deficit so i was kind of thing to just how valuable workers are and and what happens when we cut back on pay and benefits it's like there's an indian race to the bottom rick scott yesterday saying we weighed all fifteen thousand government workers and everybody goes yeah it's like why is that about a badge of honor because they're unionized yeah rain well it's a question that needs answering we need to talk about it more because there is this deficit hysteria and i think we all agree that perhaps we should pay attention to the deficit but we have an immediate jobs crisis and we should be talking about how

to put people back to work in this country not how to cut cut cut and lay more people off so what's the best way to put people back to work. or actually probably that's more of a political question more of a labor question is what's the best way to talk about putting people back to work to get that conversation well of course we think that the federal government needs to invest directly in jobs and the president has put out a plan that we think gets the conversation started and we're very pleased to see his attention being focused back on job creation because there has been a distraction regarding this deficit hysteria it's taken people's attention off the most important crisis we have facing us now which is jobs when reagan came into office about a third of our workforce as you know just you know private workforce is down to seventy percent something like that or percent. i don't think most young people have any sense at all of what it was like in the fifty's sixty's seventy's even

eighty's before reagan's policies really took effect when a single wage earner you know with a high school diploma who just kept their nose to the grindstone or or you know a couple years of training or whatever could actually raise a family and we could have a middle class in america i think that's been lost how do we reach out to those you know you're right to point out that the decline in the middle class has actually trended the same as the last in union density that we've been out there fighting and giving voice to making jobs quality jobs with health care protections and pension security and we've gotten away from that and certainly young people have experienced something dramatically different this economy. the recession has actually hit them harder than any segment of the workforce the unemployment rate is double that of the average unemployed worker so they really have a dismal situation in front of them and so we've been trying in the labor movement to really reach out to young workers union or nonunion really again talk about what

kind of jobs do we want to see in this country and you got a good coming up as we. we do we're very excited we have the next step young worker summit starting this thursday in minneapolis minnesota you can find out about it on our website. word and we are bringing together eight hundred young people who will be taking over the streets of minneapolis to talk about a just economy it's extraordinary the conservatives have been really good at this ever since the days of the sixty's americans are freedom campus republicans and i was coast over there it's still quite aggressive but it's it's great to see labor c.b.l. c.e.o. and other labor organizations to reach out to young people are there other movements of this sort or is this what we're very proud that this summit is actually bringing together young people not only from the union movement but young progressive organizations and student organising organizations because we saw in

wisconsin what an incredible role they played in getting lighting a fire under the activists not only in madison but in egypt and other places all across the globe young people are really leading the charge which is great because they have the most to be concerned about and could be very depressed and disenfranchised but they're actually finding ways to organize and mobilize and take charge one of the really great things that i think you're doing is you have a program for people who would like to have the experience of participating with a labor union. worker workplace isn't and it's not about you know going in and getting their boss the riot act it's it's it's working america corrects working in america is the affiliated organization that's provides associate membership for workers who don't have a union on the job and they care about the same issues as union members so we're all concerned about it just economy we're all concerned about preserving good jobs and health care benefits and making sure that our tax system is fair and so it's an

opportunity for people to come together around issues of common concern so we've been organizing on doorsteps. we have canvassers that are in the fields talking to keep ball in their homes and it's really been a great way to mobilize like minded working people and have secret and great great work that you're doing and with regard to the california nurses strike just to wrap this up with any sense of where this is going well i just have to applaud them first of all for having the courage to speak out because you know in this environment it's not easy people fear for their jobs but when you have a union you do have the protection to speak out so i think it's a good translator to really continue to bring the issues to the fore and talk about jobs and really you know what kind of country do we want living holtzman without question was a drop of a shade it it was in other news the occupy wall street demonstration took a turn toward violence over the weekend over one hundred people were arrested saturday is going through it is marched from zuccotti squat park to union square

and more floor manhattan and many of those arrested were subject to what appeared to be police brutality as well. who was. the protest against wall street and growing wealth inequality in america began more than a week ago on september seventeenth and though it fizzled out in the days after it kicked back up over the weekend joining me now is jay meyerson contributor alter net dot org he was in the protests over the weekend and can tell us what he saw first hand jay welcome thanks for having me on her kind of you well thank you for joining us from our new york studio before we get into the alleged police violence i thought one of the most interesting things about this protested that you wrote

about was the micro socialist community that emerged there can you tell us about them. yeah well i think this is really the story about this protest is not that it's protesting any specific thing but that it has created a sort of ultra radical democratic society where. social services are provided for free from food to child care to arts and culture and everything is operated by consensus and it really shows what a democratic society can become when it's liberated from the monetization process for example i mean well. you if you it's the best way to describe it is that once you walk down the steps into liberty plaza park you notice a change in the atmosphere seven feet that way on the sidewalk of broadway were cops are lining every inch of it if you are sick and dying on the street you would be let to do that but once you get into the square you find yourself among the

community that is specifically designed to keep the well being of its members and so really it provides a model of radical democracy that it hopes to export to the rest of the country that's great why the violent turn over the weekend. well i'd like to clarify that your description of it in the lead in it's not that the occupation of wall street turned violent it's that the occupation of wall street which remains nonviolent and has undergone extensive nonviolence training was subject to enormous violence by the police ripping women's hair out in spring women in the face with pepper spray unprovoked and jumping over barricades to wrestle men to the ground and twist their arms and confiscate their baggage i'm not sure exactly why i mean i do know that it was the weekend so they were amplified numbers as you alluded to in the lead in the numbers were about two hundred at any given moment during the course of the week but then in the weekend the numbers ballooned and i think that we just occasionally

see a violent crackdown by police on peaceful protesters protesting and demonstrating for more democracy in a weird kind of way that that violent response may be the thing because our media is so much you know if it bleeds it leads might be the thing that catapulted into more national attention or you notice in something like. well i certainly think more media attention has been garnered by this thing i mean the part from the times snarky blog post that was a complete work of hack journalism it's been covered all over the place and well you're covering it and it's n.b.c. has been covering it dylan ratigan and chris hayes and i think that it's it's if anything good is going to come out of this it's going to be increased awareness of this really beautiful operation that they've got going on down on wall street. you know it's i was just talking to a friend of mine who was in jail for

a couple of days who was saying that they were subjected to terrible conditions they were rats feces on the wall and roaches and all sorts of horrible things the light was always on so you can never get any sleep but in the jail cell what they did was had teach ins about student debt forgiveness and the i.m.f. and reclaiming public space so the impulse toward democracy and social solidarity is pretty much indomitable and i think that probably fury infuriates the powers that be are there any organizations that are driving. opportunistically trying to seize this or that are collaborating in a positive way with this group i mean where did this come from was a go. this. a number of organizations get brought up when talking about the thing adbusters and anonymous but really this is a completely leaderless operation everything is decided by consensus in the general assembly and it was really just organized by grassroots activists who got together

essentially on the internet and in nonviolence and civil disobedience trainings in tompkins square park and elsewhere that decided that it was time for the united states to join the rest of the world in formulating a response to the sort of the faeries miss that routinely comes out of wall street and has bankrupted the american economy and extorted the american polity for a vast sums of money that was not just bailouts and corporatism. so anyone who's in new york can go down and see that this isn't driven by organizations and much has been made of the fact that this group hasn't come up with any specific demands or doctrines or or manifesto and the reason is because it's not it's not driven organization it's driven strictly by people power and in that way it's very perpetuation is doctrinaire it it gives a model of a democratic society that we can't see in the real world because the real world do most people right don't have the power wealth has the power very much so you said

to its continuation to what extent did the police crackdown. break the will or invigorate the will of the people there or do you see that police crackdown over the weekend and the police violence over the weekend as being something that's going to put an end to this or that's going to extend it and what do you see into the future and i'm sorry we only have about a half a minute here for your answer. it invigorated it considerably the people are planning on being there diet donations for food in and provisions spiked media attention spiked i think that the police did themselves a real disservice in perpetuating this there are donations coming in a very very warm sleeping bags for people to continue into the wintertime this is a very very exciting moment. at the police are smacking themselves in the forehead for the life they've given this thing into the wintertime so we're talking long term here that's that if they can sustain it they'll sustain it ok jay thanks so

much for being with us tonight thank you let's hope the demonstrators message cuts through both the police officers tried to silence them and the media that up to this point has been ignoring them and that this message presidents around the nation this type of activism is exactly what america needs right now. change continues to spread across the middle east after the break i'll tell you which country known for severe old pressuring of women just granted them voting rights for the first time in that country's history. drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through. who can you trust no one who is human view with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism it's called sasha's when nobody dares to

ask we do our t. question more. well go back to the big picture i've been coming up in this half hour saudi arabia granted women whole voting rights effective body it seems so it was never really a ball.