i am same sex normally a producer on the big picture it's not him filling in as host for tom hartman and washington d.c. here's what's coming up on the show but up ninety nine percent made their voices loud and clear here in our nation's capital yesterday taking their concerns straight to the source of the problem the senate so a lot you can finally be for the people and not the one percent plus we'll get the latest developments from where it all started occupy wall street in new york and the eight ring circus continues by that i mean the republican presidential race

details of who stuck their foot in their mouth who said yet another controversial comments and who came out on top if there is such a thing and last night's debate. you need to know this the occupy wall street movement occupy the senate yesterday members of occupy d.c. which is now in its second week streamed to the hart senate office building yesterday calling for an end to our wars and higher taxes on the rich they unfurled banners in the atrium of the hart building reading and war now and people for people capitol police the middle east who've been arrested six activists the first arrests so far in the occupy d.c. movement. meanwhile over at fox so-called news their famous we report you

decide slogan backfired today after weeks of bashing the occupy wall street movement boxset their viewers to weigh in on it and let's just say roger ailes probably wasn't too pleased by the results a lot being seventy percent of respondents said that yes the occupy wall street movement represents their views about the nation's economic problems and corporate greed i guess the talking heads over there at fox aren't doing a good enough job spinning the message so for the latest on what's going on with the increasingly popular and far reaching occupy wall street movement i'm going to hand it over to our team america senior producer lucy kavanagh on the ground in new york city where it all began. hi sam how are you know well i've been here since last thursday essentially trying to keep tabs on the growing occupy wall street movement and it has been growing indeed even though it's a rainy day a weekday the numbers still seem to be getting bigger we even saw mayor bloomberg.

offer a surprise visit to the encampment just a few hours ago. and surrounded by security guards but they are non the less now the protesters are really reacting to the unfair economic conditions that they perceive in this country today they feel like corporate funding has too much of a role in washington they feel like corporations have more power over politics than they do as voters they feel that essentially the wealthiest one percent has excessive control over this country and that corporate greed has taken over the democratic process what they're a little bit less clear on at the moment is what exactly they should do about that or overturn that a problem that they've identified and that's actually one of the things that we spoke with justin elliott about earlier today he is a reporter with salon dot com and we talked about the fact that the protesters seem to have a great grasp on how we got here but

a little bit more models message when it comes to figuring out what happens next take a look. it seems like when you talk to the protesters here folks let's have an easier time identifying what they're against what they're frustrated with in this country not so much how we go from here from this occupation into actual policy changes and talk a little bit about that i mean i guess it's the issue of the lack of demand but are there perhaps i think there's a lot of disagreement among people here about whether there should be a wreath there should be to what they should be i mean i've heard. one common proposed actually really. you know another is reforming campaign finance system and so on but yeah i mean decisions are made by consensus on what they called the general assembly which is to. just a big meeting that happens once or twice a day in which people get on a list get up and talk and then they think if they want to prove the preparation of money from the group to some project or some sort of public statement has to be

approved unanimously by the group so it's a very difficult way to come to any sort of list of demands see i mean i think that's really the question this point where is this going. leave to any sort of political change. does it need to make demands about say legislation or something as concrete is that i would argue that it's already been successful in sort of trusting the issues of economic injustice and kind of go in for wall street and anger wall street into the media talking about washington for a moment do you get the sense that the demands here i guess the that was the problem that people out here that filter into policy in washington just in terms of that democrats are against starting to pay attention to the issues and if so wish party thing that actually even that were hard get behind some of that process but that's a hot air wall street. while wall street's not stupid they're they're hedging they will give but they've been given minds of both parties both parties are are largely

funded by wall street. with that in mind if this if occupy wall street does change the conversation or change you know policy priorities in washington and i think it's going to be democrats we've only who will seize on that are able open up space for democrats and republicans you know i think erick was that eric cantor came out and describe to people here is a mob that congressman steve king from iowa also was sort of deriding the group i think he might have said it was dangerous so i don't think you're going to get it the republicans are not moving on this if this if this does have an effect in washington it's going to be to somehow open of states for democrats we see and should have a concerted effort to really get the office that this is a leaderless. we are they like to say. ok sure but that it danger that their essence you know that clear set of little a clear set of talking heads that if you carry around i've heard the term leaderless thrown around throwing around

a lot and i think i've used it myself but i think actually after reflection i think a more accurate term assert decentralize because there are. there are clearly people who've been here since the beginning people who are taking on a greater organizational role. i mean it's still decisions are still made by consensus but basically as i think john harbin center board of mother jones said yesterday it's basically anyone who has a good idea and can convince people that's a good idea and to help out with whatever it is becomes a leader. so i mean i think i think there is some advantage of that model and if you had a couple leaders they would probably be attacked by the right they might be pigeonholed by the media there are downsides to having one or two people represent a movement and so far at least this model that they're that they're using seems to be working and that. the movement is growing spreading around the country seems to be going strong this is the fourth week of the occupation right there's been

growing numbers as a rolling developing story but if passed over three weeks from now when the weather gets a little bit colder other news developments will enter into the mainstream discussion how do you how do you foresee the sas they relevance are not. capitalizing on the attention of the heart i think that's a real danger because of how you know the media works these days people have very short attention span and i think they're going to have to you know they're going to get creative i mean basically that the reason why i think it's been so successful so far i think is because it is so creative i mean last year the labor unions sort of established progressive groups in washington i think it was in november i had a huge march on washington i think there was you know tens and tens of thousands of people here occupy wall street. started much smaller but the symbolism of coming to the heart of the financial district in new york city and sleeping here and refusing to leave. is really what sparked initial interest in this search brilliant

move in terms of public relations new couple and more about the differences the similarities between this within the tea party and that sort of archetypal tea party event is to show up in this interview speakers and you know get their pictures taken with tea bags hang up their ad and go home. i think it's a tax bill difference. i think to some extent he's urban police departments are a little bit quicker to crackdown and there's not a really big tea party movement york city for example can wipe eighty's biggest star in the country and they are basically you know they have helicopters they have bands they have you know mobile surveillance tower mobile communications units and so on they have experience of these sorts of mass protests like in public a national convention she doesn't for the use made the same tactics so i think all sort of you go look at the police element here you get the sense that there's a split about whether folks should be working within the political system or outside of the political system sort of moving away from the structures that exist

and trying to sell something new and many people here feel disillusioned entire political system feel disenfranchised and that's really why they're here i mean this is not this is not you know we're not seeing electioneering here and already affecting the political conversation politicians are being asked about it president obama was already asked about it at press conference. so it's already having that effect whether the people here are going to be out there knocking on doors for some candidates or or acting as some sort of pressure group over specific issues you know driving sort of forcing issues of say wall street reform or accountability or doing something about income inequality into the campaign discussion that might have been i think a. because we're predicted this one. great interview. i want by the occupy d.c. movement the patient their own on wednesday was expecting a few dozen people and you know there's like two hundred people there's a little the general assembly that he was talking about there you've been in new

york for since last thursday so about a week now what have you noticed change over the last week and is it growing is it is there more organized it's absolutely growing you know the very first night i got here on thursday there was a really small sleeping area probably about four hundred people camped out in the park and i can safely say that it's been about a thousand people every night since then and i really the number sort of peek over the weekend and surprisingly during the week day you would think that the the support would sort of go down a little bit but it hasn't and we've even had a pretty rainy not very pleasant day today and still the numbers seem to be growing now in terms of the organization what really shocked me is how organized the movement is with then i mean they have you know they have the general assembly they you've mentioned they have volunteer security guards they have volunteer medical officers they even have a library where you can check out books and a daycare area where families who are occupying wall street and there are a quite

a few of those that sort of. lend their kids for a few hours to get some much needed break time and so it really has been a wide wide movement and i think it's been really motivated by the fact that it's but spread across the country i mean they they said something like one thousand three hundred movements have cropped up across the u.s. and i think people are really inspired by that you know that's fascinating thanks for the update lucy and i will we'll have to bring you back tomorrow to talk a little bit more about it. thank you sam things just like the all powerful banking system that they're protesting against the occupy wall street movement is growing global this weekend demonstrators are expected to converge on the london stock exchange to be in a peaceful occupation so for so far three thousand five hundred people have confirmed they plan to attend the demonstration so what started as a small group camping out in new york city is now turning into a worldwide phenomenon and it's only going to get bigger and bigger and bigger

states. coming up the crazy eights went out it again last night in the g.o.p. presidential debate details on who won and who lost the latest race to the bottom. drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through get through to people may who can you trust no one who is you with the global machinery city where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more.

there was another republican debate last night this time bloomberg t.v. in the washington post hosted the was looking a lot less like a debate and a lot more like a. circus ironically just ahead of the debate bloomberg released a new poll showing that two thirds of americans and even fifty three percent of republicans support raising taxes on the rich so now that we know what the american people want let's cue the republican candidates believe it or not none of the candidates on stage last night agreed with the majority of the american people instead all hold pretty been lowered taxes on the wealthy and some even for higher

taxes on the poor i.e. are maintained and then there was what newt gingrich said last night about throwing members of congress in jail. if you want to put people in jail i want to second one shows that you ought to start with barney frank and chris dodd and let's look at the politicians who created the environment the politicians who profited from the environment and the politicians who put this country in trouble really not getting through them along through them in jail alongside tom delay right and then rick santorum said he wants to go to war with china. senator santorum we talked about jobs in pennsylvania a competitive agenda of yours would be what i already put forward a plan you know mitt i don't want to go to a trade war i want to beat china i want to go to war with china and just as long as gays don't fight not war i guess but perhaps the most telling thing about last night's debate was how virtually all the candidates ignored rick perry a bad side for the a bad sign for the former front runner who stuck his boot so far

in his mouth in the first few debates that it looks like his campaign is officially flat lining so what does the republican field look like coming out of this debate in new hampshire a rancher that is. reporter and blogger has been progress welcome back to me so i guess the big story having the debate last night was how is herman cain going to do now that he's the established front runner and the candidates immediately started jumping on his you know infamous nine nine nine plan huntsman said he thought it was a pizza deal. bachmann said the strange thing about if you turned it upside down the devil's in the details like a six six six and even the bloomberg moderators kind of jumped on it like you know the mass is a little off i want to play what cain responded to some of these criticisms right here i thought it was it was hilarious. it didn't come off the pizza box so it will be well studied and will be because you have replaced the corporate income tax i personally come to the capital gains tax. and most importantly. so are some of

these economists rich lowry the cleveland texas what would you come instead of. some guy in cleveland we should listen to i guess random banker from a wells fargo branch in ohio. i know the center for american progress has done a lot of work researching this nine nine nine plan what's the deal i mean is it going to cause huge deficits is it a huge tax hike on the or even the candidates it's both of the pending on how he taxes business income you're going to see deficits explode but the more important part is that because he's implementing a nine percent sales tax in addition to a nine percent personal income tax this is going to be a huge tax hike on the poor we're talking people who now maybe two to three percent in total taxes are going to see their rate go to about eighteen percent so this seems like simple math so how can keep going up there and saying oh no you guys are just i mean is there is going to be more scrutiny on this plan i mean he's already further understand it seems like a charity come i mean is that i certainly hope so and you're even saying that from

the other republican presidential candidates when rick santorum thinks your plan is too crazy you know you're doing something wrong he's just ignoring reality traipsing out these random guys who he pulls in from banks in ohio or from small financial advisor at firms who are kind of confirming his already preconceived notions about his plan but this would be the most radical reworking of the tax code basically ever would be a huge tax increase on the poor and a huge tax cut for the very wealthy so how many more debates until we're not really talking about armageddon anymore i hope just one. let's hope you know the other big story is what's going on around the country occupy wall street there was kind of one side question burn out there in the beginning to michele bachmann about whether or not she thinks there should be thrown in jail she said no congresspeople should be thrown in jail as are just a rich so the same thing but it also made this really convenient distinction about the occupy wall street movement i want to roll it out real quick here. let me draw

a distinction i think your own virtually every american has a reason to be angry on the roads here every american has a reason to be worried i think the people who are protesting all should break into two groups one is left wing agitators who would be happy to show up next week and any other topic and the other is sincere middle class people who frankly are burning close to the tea party people can actually carry on which group is which the people who are decent responsible citizens pick up after themselves. the people who are just out there is activist trash the place and walk off and are proud of having trashed it so let's draw that distinction so just when we thought republicans were maybe. changing their tune on occupy wall street. and romney said they were dangerous and he said well now i sympathize with them looks like they're there to take another hardline stance or at least getting rich is trying to make a convenient middle ground on it. you know people in the streets protesting corporations are paying their fair share and then rick santorum says he wants to bring corporate taxes down to zero percent so did republicans confirm what we've

all been suspecting that they're really only looking out for the one percent in the country and i think that is the most striking thing about that debate was how divorced from reality the whole field was to hear them tell it all our economic problems stem from taxes being too high and regulations being too onerous and wall street had absolutely nothing to do with the financial crisis that we all just lived through when when you talk to you or anybody on the street to actual economists the stories the complete opposite of course the revenues are the lowest they've been in sixty years no one really is complaining about regulations if you look at small business services they all say the fact that they don't have any customers is their main problem and wall street undeniably caused the financial crisis so they're just on another planet they're talking about something that's completely divorced from what everyone is experiencing on the ground there just like the poll shows you know majority of americans two thirds of americans want to see taxes raised the majority of republicans want to see it and they want even consider it let's let's move on to mitt romney here i mean he played out of another

debate on skates you got chris christie's endorsement yesterday which seems to be the new out indorsement surpassing sarah palin's i guess. is this you have this locked up i mean is this is this road user is to lose i mean you never want to say that somebody has anything locked up because anything can happen in a primary where the. policy differences aren't all that great it really just comes to where was the flavor of the moment but he's looking good i mean i think the biggest person or the most disappointing debate for them personally was rick perry he really needed to step up and kind of and his downward slide and his gaffe machine and it was like he wasn't there i mean the fact that romney when given an opportunity to ask a question so it's asked another candidate question directed his question to michele bachmann chose to ignore perry entirely i think is really telling where the romney camp sees perry at this moment i noticed romney said something interesting i want to play it real quick i think he's gearing up for the general election election year let's let's roll this. i be prepared to be a leader you can't get the country to go in the right direction and get washed into

work if you don't have a president that's a leader and three years ago we selected a person who never had any leadership experience never worked in the private sector never had the opportunity to actually bring people together and he hasn't been able to do so. so. he's also seems to be not as afraid to move to the center now that there's no real candidates that are challenging him on the right this whole leader thing is that going to be a problem for president obama i mean i think there's even people on the left there's a progressive so you think that he hasn't been enough of a leader here and i think romney is recognizing that do you do you see this is a problem coming up it's possible in the sense that if progressives are disillusioned with president obama and don't feel like he's striking are going to tone for them they're just not going to turn out not obviously plays into romney's hands i think obama's trying to turn that around a little bit you see them in the last few weeks really hit the campaign trail hard for his american jobs act showing up their bridges in ohio and talking about how we

could really have someone fix them if john boehner just was willing to play ball but i think mitt romney is at least identified the line of attack he's going to take that's where he's going to end his message but there is something kind of funny about a guy who's been running for office since one thousand nine hundred four trying to be the outsider and the non-politician the only reason mitt romney has been a politician for so long is because he keeps losing but he's trying to play that as a strength yeah well we'll see if there is at least last night we didn't have the audience cheered cheers all of this is mood that ensure homophobia they didn't hear unemployment so i guess that's. great insight. the republicans were competing to see who it's president obama more in new hampshire last night senate minority leader mitch mcconnell led his caucus in the unanimous filibuster of president obama's american jobs act in the senate jobs could create three million new jobs for our economy. and besides repealing the regulations that keep our air water and food safe and could even more taxes for the so-called job creators now one

republican in the senate or in the house or in last night's debate has offered up a better alternative to put americans back to work actually struck down there's one republican down in florida who did and tom broke down this new jobs plan in the sunshine state bus week and it's nearly paid. so what exactly did guides the republican jobs plan look like and what would it do to our economy that's a question president obama asked yesterday here's a good question meeker's a little homework assignment for folks. go a.s. the republicans what their jobs plan is if they're opposed to the american jobs act and have it scored have it assessed by the same and it kind of comments that it's a assess start or have those economists evaluate what over the next two years the republican just plan would do. well we got an answer that question this week from

florida where republican state representative rich workman introduced house bill forty sixty three legislation to repeal the law that bans dwarf tossing in florida workman thinks it will help lower the sunshine state's crippling ten point seven percent unemployment rate as he said to me it's our kid kind of big brother wall that says we don't like that activity well there's nothing immoral or illegal about that activity all we really did by passing that law was take away some employment from some little people i knew this is the same republican florida florida republican party they refused to take federal high speed rail money that obama offered them which would have created tens of thousands of lives you jobs and florida instead they want to create a few dozen new jobs. tossers and. watch for eric cantor and the tea party to seize on this idea and push for a tax credit for sword swallowers and federally subsidized job training for snake handlers under the republican job creation plan instead of

a nation of manufacturers we can be a nation of carney yes but stepping away from the absurd for a moment there is texas governor rick perry's miracle of creation in texas and by miracle i mean minimum wage jobs as his own wife brag. other people in texas every. month i'm not going to tell you here hey that's your job. there nice job. right americans are hungry for minimum wage jobs they're hungry to be janitors and dishwashers is like dwarfs their hunger to get tossed around and the simple fact fact is the republicans aren't really all that interested in creating good paying jobs for the majority of americans that's why they're against the president's american jobs act because it would put millions of people to work rebuilding the nation's crumbling infrastructure that's why they're against clean technology it would put millions of scientists and engineers to work building the energy grid of

the future that's why they're against unions and tariffs that would put millions of manufacturers spectrum work and that's why they're against government spending it employs teachers firefighters cops and mailmen you know those professions that our kids grow up wanting to be they want to work in when they grow up instead republican policies mean our kids can aspire to work for barnum and bailey walking the elephants with the shuffle. the america that we once had a nation of manufacturers scientists teachers is quickly becoming a thing in the past replaced by the republican vision of a nation of burger flippers janitors and wharf tossers not exactly the line up you want when you're trying to compete in a global economy but the line up will help unless we kick these republican bottoms out of office and i don't mean just the way to do that but every as the old saying goes if you can't beat em in my eyes well join. coming up it's been

a long and deadly decade since u.s. troops went boots on the ground in afghanistan so are we making any progress in that war how do we end it. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it through people who made who can you trust no one who is in view with a global mission that would see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

welcome back to the big picture i'm sam sacks in for tom hartman coming up in this half hour the ghosts of afghanistan are haunting our own forces i do we bring our troops back home i'll speak with a journalist now if you can give us some much needed insight on america's longest war and later and tonight still take you might think our economy has progressed since the dark ages but tell me tell you why economic progress has been replaced by feudal serfdom.