lines with none of them or see we live in washington d.c. now tonight we continue our coverage of occupy wall street a number of unions joined the protesters in new york today to march with them some see that as a good sign of the growth and acceptance of the movement others say that means it's being co-opted we're going to speak to somebody who's been there from the beginning to get their take then we've been exposing you to the ridicule and the mockery that many media outlets have shown for this movement and say we're going to show you a special kind of disdain coming from the wall street darlings of journalism get ready for some very serious leaders and also as there is a rumor d.d. o. s. attacks coming towards the new york stock exchange we're going to ask if didio s. is really a crime or just a form of protected speech where you have all that and more tonight including a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. the numbers are starting to come out about how much g.o.p. presidential candidates have raised in the last campaign period and the mainstream

media is of course all over it those money determines the front runners in a political contest no down about who is out front the perry fund raising numbers are very good it's very good news for the texas governor seventeen million dollars twenty two thousand individual donors from all fifty states and rick perry's cash on hand when all is said and done about fifteen million dollars romney is expected to have raised about fifteen million dollars in the third quarter. now there are a number of things at play here the on one hand does it matter who raises more money well of course it does our political system is set up in situ a that let's face it whoever has more money is usually the person that wins but who's giving them the money that's the most important part here you want to find out who's interest a politician is really going to serve then you follow the money trail more likely than not the way you get the big bucks is because you have big corporate donors big banks that get behind you and that's exactly what's wrong with our political system

this is where so much of the frustration is coming from this is one of the reasons that now we have an occupy wall street movement that's taking off because washington doesn't serve the interests of the people anymore it serves wall street it serves defense contractors big oil big gas the biggest companies that take all the jobs overseas not you or i and that's why wall street is getting away with the crime of the century without any kind of prosecution that's why we're fighting continuous wars and have a military industrial complex that's why corporate welfare the tax holes that are the tax breaks the loopholes that they enjoy go completely untouched by congress meanwhile would you like to know how average americans are living take a look at the results of a national survey of poll one third of americans have said that they're living paycheck to paycheck that if they were to lose their job tomorrow they wouldn't be able to pay the rent pay the mortgage mortgage keep their family afloat and it's not just the poor that we're talking about here there's a survey also shows that ten percent of respondents who make one hundred thousand dollars or more a year so that they would immediately miss

a payment if their checks didn't come in sixty one percent of all those surveyed so that if they were handed a pink slip they wouldn't be able to make their mortgage or rent payments for more than five months so considering what's going on in the global economy right now the crisis in europe there is a very good chance of trickling down of the u.s. plunging us into a double dip recession a holiday season where big companies like best buy have already said that they won't be hiring that extra help they usually do that's not a good sign to the majority of americans are in no way prepared for another shock right now. so something just gives me a very sneaking suspicion that these are not the people donating seventeen million dollars to rick perry but the mainstream media do they even bother asking that question of course not they have their head so far up their own corporate asses that they don't care and this is why our political system is defunct and this is what the mainstream media chooses to miss.

well the numbers for occupy wall street have been growing both in new york and the occupy protests have sprung up in cities across the u.s. but today the numbers are especially large as labor unions would march in new york with the occupiers those include the american federation for state county and municipal workers the eleven ninety nine chapter of sci you the transport workers union local one hundred the united federation of teachers the new york transit workers union and the new york state united teachers which with six hundred thousand members is the largest union in new york a.f.l.-cio president richard trumka was individually said he supports the movement also reportedly met with his board today to weigh union wide endorsement now some welcome the unions saying that they can bring funds resources organization but others have cast away feeling that big organizations who bring out big numbers for democrats in elections are trying to co-opt the movement and drive it into a certain political direction so let's get some perspective from somebody who's actually been part of occupy wall street since the very beginning and see how they

feel joining me from our studio in new york is attorney and activist martin who's a member of the occupy wall street library committee janice i want to thank you so much for joining us and if you can first start by just telling us how long you've been with occupy wall street what day you got there how much you've been participating. well first of all thank you very much for having me it's great to be here i wouldn't say i was there from the beginning i had my first day i believe was day three and i've been coming whenever i can i work full time so i generally come on the weekends and after work so i don't get to go to a lot of the marches that take place during the day and i haven't been to the big one that's going on right now by i hope to catch up with it as soon as i'm done talking here when i came down there the first time in the early stages or so a lot of disorganization i think people be very surprised at how efficiently things are run now for for being such a leaderless movement it is and one of the things that we noticed by we i mean me and a couple of the random people is that there are just piles of books being donated

in random cardboard boxes and we thought be great if there is a library in a woman named betsy took the initiative to actually set up a spot in the in the area which would be a dedicated library and a group of us strangers who never made other before it just started up sorting them and cataloging them and creating procedures and and now people can go down there and get all kinds of great books that they can take home with them to read they can read it while they're there for the day and we saw that was a neat idea because everybody needs to get more educated in all of these issues and including all of us protesting well i'm curious about that to this to why you in particular are protesting you know one of the things that we've heard so much from a lot of other media outlets is these are just a bunch of hippies a bunch of young college kids with nothing better to do you hear you are dressed in a nice suit you're in tourney why are you part of occupy wall street. i'd say i'm part of the ninety nine percent so i think that's their message that that's the message that a lot of people down there are trying to articulate first of all you know more than

a bit about the laziness of the media the early narrative was that yeah these are just a bunch of unemployed hippie bums they would be just hanging out on the street all day anyway and that it's a very really easy narrative for the media to use because they don't really have to do any hard thinking about why people are there they can go find the least articulate person to talk to and say that person speaks for everybody there and i'd say fortunately that perception has been shifting for at least the past week there's a lot of people down there who have suffered real pain whether it's losing their homes or losing their jobs or having their student debt spiral out of control yeah i'm very fortunate to have a job but that doesn't mean i don't support a lot of the things that the people at occupy wall street are talking about. and i should say take this opportunity to say that you know we all of all the people down to occupy wall street if there's anything that we are supposed to agree on it's that no one person speaks for the whole groups as i speak to you here today i'm talking about my experiences down there i certainly am not

a spokesman for occupy wall street by any means but for me personally the issues that are being talked about down there the role of money in politics the overwhelming power of wall street institutions in our political process the home foreclosure crisis these are all things that i care deeply about for years and now we finally have a microphone and people are paying attention so now that you have the microphone now people are paying attention and now that you have a number of unions that have decided to join and at least show their support come out and march with the protesters i'm curious as to how you see it because as i mentioned earlier some are welcoming the unions saying you know it's good we need more numbers we need people that are professional organizers they know how to do this but there are a lot of people out there that feel like well let's say unions are usually democratic right this is who they donate to and so they feeling like they're being co-opted now instead of having it be an independent movement. that's interesting i

think the good things that the union unions bring are a ton of energy a ton of boots on the ground racial diversity diversity i think that's what i welcome back ian says that you know new york city unions like the ones that you're naming as you introduce this segment are look like new york and that's why that's why i think it's essential to have them be part of this organizing effort i don't really think that i look to them to bring organization in you know sophisticated get out the vote sense i don't think that's what anybody's really looking for out of them. because you have this isn't a traditional you know when this house race political campaign this is about a movement this is about keeping ideas in the public consciousness and changing the way reminding people about what's been going on and on wall street for the last few years and keep it in the public focus so i for one welcome the presence i'll think there's really any risk of co-opting of

a unions have there are nice and tactics that they've done for decades they've know how to put on a march in the street they know how to do their lobbying and they can do that side by side with occupy wall street they can intermingle with occupy wall street i think to any extent that there's differences in tactics it's ok they don't have to hold the two groups don't have to hold hands every second of the day it seems like unions occupy wall street generally on the same page and i think that's a that's a positive thing so how do you see occupy wall street and are going forward how long do you think that it might last. well i was in perforation for this i was trying to figure out how many occupy wall street movements are taking off across the country because as you know it's growing every day so it's hard to track that there are probably about sixty cities that have some form of general assemblies taking place either today or in the next couple days or that means actually occupying the street like in boston or seattle or just taking

a step in that direction like dozens of other cities there's about forty eight states that are having solidarity marches or rallies with occupy wall street today and of course marches on the same thing as occupy and but it's definitely a step in the right direction it's the whole country waking up to wyoming and south dakota are the only locations aren't having some kind of event today and how long will it go on a when there's been some warm december's here in new york so i don't see any reason why. this couldn't go on in the form it's currently taking taking until until it's just literally too cold for people to sleep outside and when that happens then people have to sleep indoors and come back in the morning i think there's a really positive energy that shows no signs of slowing down if anything every day there's new additions to the site that make it a more inhabitable place to visit and more to have a place to stay overnight and i think it's going great definitely seems like it's something it's spreading and not quite sure what it is but something is going on

here in america got to thank so much for joining us tonight sure thing thanks for having me. coming up tonight our coverage of occupy wall street continues to take a look at how the wall street media is covering the movement and some of those ridiculous comments made by u.s. politicians about the protesters that are fighting for change back and not. even the books of this convention to learn the secrets of. magic is the essence of life. whether it is a produced press. or a shamanistic which. on the crossroads of two religion. faith is strong and spirit is hard.

now as occupy wall street protests continue we have heard one major complaint from the protesters time and time again the no major figure involved in the two thousand and eight financial collapse has faced any serious criminal charges but not enough has changed in the way the banks operate and consumer groups say that a lot of people in the financial sector didn't report the shady business practices taking place because they feared for their jobs but last year president obama signed into law the dodd frank wall street reform and consumer protection act one of the provisions signed into that law was a major revamp of whistleblower rights now as ironic as i know it might be that the obama administration would be agreed to protect whistleblower rights let's just keep going for the sake of the story whistleblowers are now guaranteed legal

protection and paid cash rewards for tips made directly to the f.c.c. regarding illegal activity so you can imagine the big banks they're not really fans but it turns out that they found a few allies in their fight against these reforms g.o.p. lawmakers and fox news take for example new york republican congressman michael grimm he introduced a bill that would repeal the whistleblower protection part of doc frank and his plan would reduce rewards rewarding on fraud but also force employees to report any possible crimes to their supervisors first before notifying the f.c.c. think we all know what happens when your ports of they've your supervisors they ignore it they tell you to ignore it or the worst case scenario they punish you for reporting it so consumer groups say this is just an attempt to silence whistle blowers and congressman grimm is three other g.o.p. lawmakers helping push the repeal of this bill not a nice little tidbit as think progress noted today grim is a favorite of big banks when it comes to campaign cash according to sunlight foundation graham raised two hundred twenty two thousand and three hundred fifty

dollars in the financial sector which amounts to twenty four percent of the total money that he raised for his campaign and the bank friendly g.o.p. lawmakers have turned to yet another trusted friend to help them attack whistleblowers now the fox news. but you would expect there would be a rise in whistleblowing involving insider trading and that is the case you know in the past it started trading whistleblower cases were very few and far between think about it you're a traitor out of this going to read out all you know your friends and it's a difficult difficult lot to to basically may also want to. yes anybody who dares to report on a coworker committing fraud on wall street is a rat that's a schoolyard frat house mentality hard at work people was a lawyer is they're heroes they're not rats and that characterization is frankly offense it further along during that interview fox's charlie gasparino also made this claim as to why the new whistleblower protection is that. if you create all these incentives to sue well you know i mean it seems like we're you know we're

increasing litigation against businesses that you know let's face it they get hammered all these banks. that's right the banks are just getting hammered by all these new regulations and it's the whistleblowers that are to blame because giving employees the protections to report the illegal activities of their employers is apparently bad for business now unfortunately for the american people who were screwed by the banks and their lack of transparency the banks are doing just fine now all the american public is not last month we reported on a think progress report the looked at bank profits for the second quarter j.p. morgan chase citi group wells fargo goldman sachs and morgan stanley all saw huge profit increases so that argument that the banks are getting hammered is false the banks are not getting hammered they're making record breaking profits and even more disturbing of the amount of profits being raked in by wall street as they continue to fight tooth and nail against even the most basic of reforms just imagine just imagine if the whistleblower protections been in place leading up to the two

thousand and eight collapse how many billions of tax dollars might have been saved how many shady mortgage loans might have been prevented unfortunately we're never going to know but this attempt to roll back the whistleblowing provision of banking reform is just proof yet again of how truly scared the banks and the g.o.p. are of transparency. now in the occupy wall street protests originally began we saw them completely ignored by the mainstream media recently they've realized that they can't be completely ignored anymore and while some outlets mostly those with lefty talking heads of decided to take the movement seriously there is still plenty of disdain mockery and condescension going around but not just from fox news which you would expect seeing is that they have to bad mouth anything that they see is coming from the left no here's journalism of a different type the wall street darlings we can call that example what andrew ross sorkin the new york times financial columnist who specializes in wall street coverage and graces the television screens on c n b c every morning finally decided

that it was worth it for him to walk down as a comedy park and check out the protest but guess why and so his call and he wrote i've gone down that is hard to see the activist movement. first hand after getting a call from the chief executive of a major bank last week so we're just doing the bidding of bank executives now are we andrew but even worse maybe example number two that would be erin burnett the former star who just launched her brand new show on c.n.n. she had this to say about the protesters during her segment called seriously. despite what you heard here's what i saw it's not just a bunch of dancing hippies protesting there are all kinds of people there babies teachers cheerleaders uncle sam and. people that seriously it's a mixed bag but they were happy to take some time from their books banjos bongos sports drinks. catered lunch yet it was catered lunch designer yoga clothing that's

a little lemon logo computers lots of mac books and phones to help us get to the bottom of it. goes in lululemon pants so is that a crime now well joining me to discuss this from our studio in los angeles is an experience co-host of the young turks and i want to thank you for joining us tonight and we have a couple of clips we're going to play but i want to start with reflecting on this erin burnett clip that we just saw you know at first we heard so much critique that these damn hippies why are they wearing suits they'll be taken more seriously now they're not being taken seriously because they're wearing designer yoga pants i mean how do you win with that. you don't win with that and honestly if i were erin burnett i would be so humiliated by that report because she completely misses the point and she totally focuses on something that's so irrelevant you know later on in that seriously segment she went on to ask one of the protesters whether or not he knew that the majority of the money that we lent in the bailout was actually

paid back in the government made money off of that well the protesters said that he didn't know that but he would like to do more research into it and that was like her a ha moment like oh these protesters don't even know what they're doing let's be a little that let's mock them let's make fun of them why don't you do some real journalism and talk to as many people as you possibly can and ask them why they're there i will guarantee you that the majority of people that are there protesting know what they're protesting for they're protesting corporate greed they're protesting the fact that corporations can donate unlimited amounts of money to politicians and they can buy the corporate media and that's really what's happening here you see c.n.n. doing this ridiculous coverage because as you said and i think you put it perfectly they are the corporate darlings well you know but it's specifically certain personalities to i think the erin burnett is a great example here of somebody who used to work for c.m.c. who just announced her engagement of course to a banking executive and then you have this example that bothers me even more of

andrew ross sorkin where he basically said that the only reason he went down there is because one of the c.e.o.'s from a top bank on wall street asked him to go down there and check it out because he was worried about it then he doesn't disclose who the source is which you would think that would be kind of a big deal if wall street bankers are actually showing concern about it you know i just this is a lead as i'm at it's worst if you ask me. absolutely i agree with you and sorkin a someone who writes a column for the new york times should have not only the obligation but the responsibility to care about these protests and do real coverage of these protests for the fact that he claims that some you know c.e.o. or executive with the bank contacted him and said that he was worried for his life is ridiculous and i think that was another way of kind of hinting to the point that these protesters are like these violent individuals who don't know what they're protesting about like it's i think it's ridiculous and for anyone who works in the media to be little these protesters like that without doing any real journalistic

coverage of the protests i think is shameful and i think that's because a lot of our media is part of the problem it's part of what occupy wall street is protesting is of course you know this collusion this bubble between washington between wall street and i think of the media elite in washington and in new york are very much a part of it but let's also move on to a few things that the politicians have had to say about this because now they're finally the protests are gaining steam you do see you know being brought up so first of all mitt romney this is a g.o.p. presidential hopeful mitt romney he was asked about it he said that he thinks this is class warfare and he thinks i think it's dangerous this is class warfare and then herman cain he took it even farther and think it's all about some odd conspiracy by the obama campaign take a listen. i don't have facts to back this up but i happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed

policies of the obama administration don't blame wall street don't blame the big banks if you don't have a job and you are not rich blame you'll say. that's interesting in a number of ways because i think that it's exactly the policies of the obama administration that people are so frustrated with or on wall street but then again you have this mentality that you know if you aren't rich blame yourself you know there are a lot of americans out there right now they don't have jobs not because they're lazy because there simply aren't enough jobs to go around. right what i love about herman cain is just how confused he is about his own political stance herman cain is one individual who will criticize the obama administration time and time again for not creating jobs and then he'll turn around and look at the american people who are unemployed and say what's the matter why can't you find a job well what is it are there are jobs out there you complain that there are jobs out there you you know make fun of the obama administration and you'd be

a little the obama administration for not creating jobs and then you go and tell the american people that it's their fault that they don't have jobs so herman cain i think is a clown and you know i think it goes a little far to call someone a clown but he just said right there that he doesn't have any facts to back up what he has to say and he's completely right about that he doesn't know the facts at all now go ahead and call mcleod i don't care all right now the last clip that we're going to play tonight and this is from fed chairman ben bernanke who is testifying before congress and there were a number of lawmakers actually while he was talking about the gloomy state of our current economy the ask him about the protests and take a listen what he said. generally i think people are quite unhappy with the state of the economy and what's happening. they blame with some. justification the problems in the financial sector for getting us into this mess and they're dissatisfied with the policy response here in washington and. at some

level i can't blame them certainly nine percent unemployment than very slow growth is not a very good situation that's what they're protesting. now i still think it's a little bit off there but you know what does it tell you when it's the federal reserve chairman that seems to get it even more than any of the politicians in the media the white house itself in the responses that they've had. you know it's fascinating that he made that statement because on one hand it's a little encouraging to hear that he seems to kind of get it but on the other hand as chairman of the federal reserve he's part of the problem i mean you look back at you know his track record you look at the fact that he bailed out and even though his own staff told him don't do it we don't need to bail them out he's part of the problem so i guess i'm curious to see whether or not these protesters are having an effect on him and his own policy maybe i'm too pessimistic but i doubt it but you know it is good to hear him at least acknowledge the protesters and acknowledge what they are protesting about rather than just be a little of that and you know brush them off his shoulders you have of course

that's one of the main critiques the bernanke he gets often is that he likes to play the blame game and blame it on congress you know blame it on the president on everybody except for himself now i just want to ask you one last thing too because we've been having a lot of discussions about unions joining in about van jones and his conference trying to work on the momentum of occupy wall street you know and there are a lot of fears that this might be co-opted in some sense but what do you think the best case scenario here is that this maintains you know its independence as a movement and we don't know where it might go or do we need a tea party like element to the democratic party the way the tea party drove the republicans so far to the right maybe we need someone to drive the democrats more of the left. you know i am concerned about this turning into something that's considered a left movement i know that the people who are occupying wall street now right now and all the other occupiers don't want to be affiliated with a political party however i am not concerned about the unions getting involved i

think that only good can come from it i think that these protests need to gain as much traction as possible so people will be forced to cover the story so people will be forced to listen to what their message is and i just hope that you know people don't get too distracted by all of the relevant elements of this protest all of the people who are focusing on cops arresting people what kind of attire these people are wearing you know whether or not they're affiliated with any political party i hope that we stop focusing on that and focus on the real message but the unions getting involved you know jank you go on our show says that you know we have the cavalry now you know that we're getting involved and this is gaining some real traction i think that we can only be excited about it and i think that only good could come from it are and i thank so much for joining us tonight i think we'll see as the unions are course a big political machine when it comes to lobbying for the democratic party specifically thanks so much for joining us tonight. thank you.

and here's an interesting question if the d.d.l. . protests much like a civil rights. leader .

as they try to stop. progress. from the stock exchange demonstrations. demonstrations are multiplying across the u.s. against the banks that are blamed for leading into the financial crisis. involving. out of control on a national strike that paralyzed the country one day walkout by public sector.