hello i'm tom foreman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture thousands gathered in oakland california today for a day of action that is being hailed as the biggest protest on the west coast since the vietnam war of the latest from downtown and leaders of the world's most powerful nations will be gathered in france tomorrow for the g. twenty summit but first a lot of the face and nurses from all around the world will be in cause press the leaders for attacks on global financial transactions and we now know what's on the negotiating table for the gang of twelve as they quickly approach the deadline

coming up with a plan to reduce our nation's deficit one thing is clear you and i are not the winners in any of these proposals. you need to know this today is general strike day in oakland thousands of people took off work and took to the streets as part of the occupy oakland movement's day of action it's the first general strike in a major u.s. city since nineteen forty six several local banks were shut down as well as movie theaters clothing stores grocery stores schools and a number of other businesses according to the oakland unified school district a fifth of all the city's teachers stayed home today to participate in the strike at this moment a massive march is under way to shut down the port of oakland the nation's fifth busiest port i'm now joined on the phone by joshua holland senior writer and editor

alter net he's currently marching with occupy oakland to the port of oakland and has been keeping us up to date on this for some time joshua welcome back. i kept like for having me i'm actually on the but one of the characters that are headed towards the court of where we are arriving right now it's being there for a bicyclist that are blocking the tracks some of the truck skinner. oh yes the two asian down by four. thirty today were sprawling. which are groups they created their own independent actions throughout the day overall very very peaceful very well managed their work up. there though it was all in all of a very. very short amount of time that organizers it didn't get right with the longshoreman's union can't is not participating explicitly in the strike in

fact i think they may be forbidden from doing so by federal law but this is an action this is a citizens action to try and shut down the ports a lot of people heading out there what he thinks going to happen. well i think that if there's going to be any confrontations with police i would expect it to be down here and this is a great gift previous computer equipment that is paid. there are a number of people to wave that are coming back to try to shut it down and i think that this is going to be you know where where the action is yeah well other occupations around the country be following suit by calling for strikes in their cities any early word i mean these. i think idea that there's solidarity actions to cross the united states occupation property base i think the. firing action is obviously an exploration of the occupy movement. i would expect if the other city

follows up with the open organizers here i suspect that there are going to do you know other larger general strike steps if you want in january which would give them significantly more the time again they. only five days to organize. very very short amount of time and i think it's one of the despite i would guesstimate this is you know just a gastric but about fifty percent of downtown businesses were shuttered today with signs on the doors expressing solidarity with the you know joshua it's been a long time so since one thousand nine hundred six there was really a successful national strike in the u.s. and that was the peak year for unionization of thirty four percent of the of the workforce cap charlie was passed the next year forty seven truman try to veto it the congress overrode it with the work for the right to work for less provisions and that really began the destruction of the union movement which reagan put on steroids of private sector unions now only representing about eight percent of

workers do you think national strikes are viable any more. well the unions are joining for labor law. calling for the strike. the thing is that this is a broad popular movement there's nothing. getting in the way of the occupy movement from coordinating a national strike so maybe there's we're seeing the beginning of the kind of infrastructure that we've lacked since nine hundred forty seven for doing this remember that these things were previously organized labor movement quickly filled out as you mentioned nine hundred forty seven records there i had the head of the oakland police officers association on a radio show that he's pretty upset with america throwing his officers in that mess last tuesday how's america come out on this and other cops taking the brunt of the blame in people's minds and this is one of the activating forces from today's shutdown for today's action strike action and what was your take

a main takeaway message from today we we have just a little less than a minute here joshua. there is a political hot potato going on here and obviously the crackdown last tuesday if not play well in this press of community where i imagine the vast majority were told the occupiers so what we see is the mayor's office police department try. to pass this off trying to deflect blame from themselves if they you know there is gong standing political rivalries here as well you know when a lot of tension between police and community and from the mayor's office that's the backdrop against which all of this ok great joshua thanks so much for being with us today. great for having been great talking with you so with today's day of action in full swing in oakland several organizations are looking ahead to tomorrow's day of action that's when world leaders gather in france for this year's g. twenty summit where they will be joined by nurses for different continents working

together with the ninety nine percent movement to demand a new financial transaction tax on activities that are conducted on wall street and in the analogs of wall street around the world the organization national nurses united spearheading the day of action will be holding a rally in front of the treasury building here in washington d.c. as well to press for this financial transaction tax for what's planned for tomorrow i'm pleased to welcome michael lightly lighting excuse me national policy director for national nurses united in the california nurses association michael welcome thank you tom great to see you again thank you create to have you back with us and so first of all tell me what is happening tomorrow tomorrow we're going to be in front of the treasury department as you said to demand that president obama support a financial transaction tax we're going to have nurses from all over the country we're going to have union members we're going to community folks we're going to have occupiers there and we're going to be a lafayette square that we're going to be in front of the white house and we're

going to be in front of treasury putting these guys on the hot seat they've got to decide which side they're on yet last three for main street there you go and these guys being president obama and to me. if you're in or why you know you know some people look at this they go ok the v. major proponents the largest organization and states that the loudest group out there are calling for a financial transaction tax or what used to be called a step tax security transaction tax sometimes called the speculator tax rate. is nurses what's the connection between a financial transaction tax and nurses will nurses really see the human effects of the great recession they are seeing increases and stress related don't. as they are see people who can't afford their medications they're seeing greater numbers of uninsured we have nurses working in the nurses stations at occupy sites who are seen folks who don't have access to health care any regular basis folks coming up

to them asking for insulin diabetics who don't have the basic medication for their chronic condition life threatening chronic condition so it is the direct impact of the recession that nurses feel yours is also our pain their sister's mortgage taking care of their adult children they're becoming they're essentially their wage is a living wage a family wage for many people in their extended family so between their own impacts that they see financially and the impacts on their patients in terms of health it's natural that as advocates they want to change you know the metaphor that immediately comes to mind is that you folks in the medical field understand that if you find a metastasis a cancer that has spread and you take out the part that spread but you don't get to the original cancer you're still screwed and the original cancer here that we're looking at call it a recession we original cancer it's wall street that's right the original cancer is wall street the speculation that ultimately destroyed the financial sector that we

had used taxpayer money to bail out and then that money hasn't gone down to homeowners hasn't helped people get jobs hasn't stimulated the economy and you're right the therapy here is the transfer. of all three does the source has made a new study done by two nonpartisan from on government agencies looked at you know peter shumlin the new governor of vermont rihanna a platform of a single payer health care system for a state and and it has passed the legislature he signed it into law and they're waiting for a waiver from the president of course they had to organize and put together right so they had two different agencies in the government say what's this impact going to be financially in the state of vermont and the reports came in today and what they found was that the state at the very worst between now and twenty. two thousand and twenty would save the very worst a little over five hundred million dollars and at the very best would save one point eight billion dollars money that would be skimmed off the united health care

to pay one hundred million dollars a year you know salary and benefits to people like. you know the stephen j. hands of their c.e.o. . is the national or says united this is a little more direct to the right care industry. another part of our cancer in the body politic is now it's a national or says united working on single payer health care issues as well absolutely it's one of our top priorities we had some of the organizers who are doing the work behind governor shumlin out in california talking about what's happening or not we have asked in a coalition of us in california have asked governor brown to request a waiver from president obama so we can implement single payer in california that which would save food to save a fortune probably for you i mean it's a little time you know you can still console the fiscal crisis of california if you were to put everyone in a medicare for all type nationally we did a study that said you can create two point six million jobs if you put everyone in medicare. and we presented that the congress we couldn't get

a policy debate on the merits of single payer in congress and it's outrageous and it's a reflection of the same dynamic that wall street kills things that hurt it health insurers kill reforms that group well the health insurers of all street are like this that's right they're making money for wall street making money for the stockholders and it's just it's imagine if you have a medical loss ratio if you're an insurance company what you spend on medical care is a loss. what they call a loss providing care to you are not right so they have to trust minimize the that's that's not a business model makes more sense if you're a sick person or an insured person. it's just incredibly destructive and national nurses united i know that you've been working with progressive democrats of america p.t. america or tim carpenter's organization on that you know disclosure i'm on the advisory board of i don't it's the best as for my ok. and that's the the health care not warfare place right also and the workers that's right would know that's that's

that's we are not focusing on that right now because we're trying to go after wall street obviously but health care not warfare is crucial because now we have occupiers like the young kid in oakland who is heard in the police. to two time or two time or act that we have a rock that's in occupy d.c. looking for health care for more nurses station it's a direct impact if we've spent we'll spend what three trillion on the wars in iraq and afghanistan. imagine what that would do for our communities imagine what they would do for main street it's unconscionable michael thanks so much and because of this and for the great work national nurses you know is to thank you truly appreciate your calls for a financial transaction tax are growing louder and louder today senator tom harkin and congressman peter de fazio announced plans to introduce a new financial transaction tax even the archbishop of canterbury the head of the church of england called for such a tax and given that the proposed tax is only three one hundred six of one percent

it will have virtually no impact on most traders except for those high frequency robots on wall street that are churning stocks over thousands of times a second billions of times a second sort of publicans who oppose this new financial transaction tax are just only looking out for the human one percent they're also only looking out for the banks to robots as well. is so for a daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's the day's question who is responsible for the violence at the occupy oakland protests the police or the mayor your choices are aig the police if i was just following orders excuse doesn't work for this type of violence or be the mare the mare should not try to stop occupy oakland from having their right to free speech or see both log on and let us know what you think paul will be open until tomorrow morning. coming up the clock is

ticking for the gang of twelve but does that justify their plans a sacrifice political programs that millions of americans depend on every day you might be surprised to find out who stands to lose the most lawmakers move forward with their plans to make deep cuts to medicare. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through get through if you and me who can you trust no one who is you know you with the global machinery see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do you are a key question more. who

is screwing americans of the gang of twelve have their way we now know about both sides and the gang of twelve have on the table to begin negotiations to reduce our nation's deficit and looking at the republican and democratic proposals were screwed last week in a move that shocked many progressives frankly shocked many americans and six democrats on the gang of twelve offered up four hundred seventy five billion dollars in cuts to medicaid and medicare cuts that a large majority of americans disapprove of cuts to very popular programs that were

created by democrats again this was their opening proposal mean those cuts will only get steeper once negotiations start and right on cue republicans really is their first proposal one upping democrats on cuts to medicare and medicaid calling for nearly seven hundred billion dollars to be chopped out of these critical safety net programs so now the gang of twelve does come up with a compromise it's almost certainly going to include deep cuts to critical untitled programs campaign for america's future weighed in on what came out of the gang of twelve so far it is ation wrote a press release blasting the committee members millionaires and billionaires have had their incomes rise and their tax rates decline it's not shared sacrifice to balance taxes on the wealthy with cuts to medicare or social security or other programs that protect people who need help for more on where this government. i gang is headed and what progress is need to do to fight back i'm joined by roger hickey co-founder of the campaign for america's future roger welcome back to the

profile thanks for having great to have you with us cuts to medicare what are these democrats like on crack i don't get it that's the most shocking thing about this that you expect the republicans to be going after these programs they have they have a track record since the program started but these democrats are somehow thinking that they can trap the republicans into being in favor of raising taxes and we should be doing that either in a big recession right now but in return they are offering up cuts to medicare and social security it is crazy and it's not just going to hurt people down the road in future years and hurt people right now by changing the cost of living index for social security things like that so what's what kind of political calculus would cause you know i realize there are some some rogue democrats some conservatives like us or you know whatever. but i don't think that this committee was entirely made up of the you know these are people appointed by the leadership of the democratic party to represent the party on this gang of twelve so what's the

political calculus that leads them to do something that stupid it's either that they are so desperate to get tax increases that they are willing to make but obama called a grand bargain which was a bad idea to or they are cynically predicting that the republicans are going to choke on tax increases and therefore it's all going to go away this is is that what the claim ministrations to triangulation it certainly is betty. that your your offer publicized to the american people is going to be rejected and that the american people are going to forget that you said what you said about so security medicare it is very cynical at worst what should be their story their strategy ought to be first of all the talk about jobs i mean here you have the president states in in france. to save the imploding world economy we hope he is and and everywhere in the world there are people losing their jobs this commission this

super committee. is unconstitutional start with it should not be focusing on cutting deficits and i'll be focusing on creating jobs a venture early when we get people working and paying into the system the deficit is going to come down by itself right right now you've got people who don't have jobs and so they're pulling money out of the government from everything from food stamps to employment if they had jobs they would be putting money into it that is the best way to get the deficit down none of these gang of twelve are talking about that really and they're certainly not doing anything to get the economy moving they're going to they're going to hurt the economy and the democrats should be standing up for medicare and social security that's the way democrats win the next election is by being strong defenders of so security medicare and advocates of jobs for everybody right this is the old harry truman if if americans are presented with a republican who behaves like a democrat versus

a real republican let's use the republican of course the same is true on the democratic side. what is the best case scenario here for the games well i mean if they if they don't cotton to some sort of a deal then please quote cuts and croquet can but isn't there also the very real probability frankly. because these cuts are loaded down the road but the next next congress will simply come along and say oh it was a very nice political theater now we're going to do something supposedly one point two trillion dollars in cuts kick in but no congress can bind future congresses like that. i think this is going to be the subject of the next election where are we going as a nation we want full employment as a way to get the deficit reduction and and i would hope that even if it passes there can be found ways to. stop the immediate cuts and we take it to the election and unfortunately the democrats are are damaging their ability to go to the country

and say we are strongly in support of these programs so security medicare what we've already seen in the states i might have these numbers mixed up but i believe it's in the states that are going to five hundred thousand job cuts mostly in red states mostly government employees or contractors from government and about three hundred seventy or four hundred thousand federal jobs you know might have these backwards. and the net effect of these has been that had these government jobs not been cut last two years our unemployment rate would be where we present right now it's like you know this is the shoot yourself in the foot strategy except in the states it's all being done by republican governors so maybe it's you know shoot the future prospect of the president with what. if isn't isn't there some is anybody out there rationally talking about jobs and and how do we influence the gang of twelve to talk about jobs well i think the gang of twelve it's hopeless

they're going to make some rhetorical reference to job creation programs and and they're going to say these cuts are not going to start right away but in fact. president obama is now got religion on jobs and he's out there with an inadequate but still clear jobs plan that includes some aid to the states to prevent layoffs what we need is an independent citizens movement a movement for the american dream you might call it that actually focuses on jobs and makes job creation and economic recovery an issue in the next election how can you do that successfully when you've got governors like rick scott out of florida who when he was offered i think it was a thirty eight million bucks for light rail or something like a billion dollars so i don't know what it was some enormous amount of money it would have created thousands of jobs he said no i don't want to he had ten point two or ten point six percent unemployment in florida one of the worst in the country he won't take federal money apparently because he wants the pain to be so

bad going to twenty twelve that people will blame obama and this seems to be the republican governor strategy and their popularity is plummeting all these new republican governors case akin in ohio who's going to get his and his head handed to him with the with the election. to the referendum to repeal is anti-labor proposals all of these guys including wisconsin started in wisconsin. are seeing their popularity plummet and good progressive's like sherrod brown are going to get reelected because of this wave of of revulsion against the republicans and it it makes it possible that the democrats could not only reelect obama in those states but also take over the congress if they campaigned as democrats defending social security if any medicare and calling for real job creation from the lips to god's ears. those of the good work can do it no

one is likely to be happy with what comes out of the gang of twelve but what else should be expected from a government by game so i mean gang government doesn't work gang government just has never worked the founders of the framers didn't have gang government in mind it's not the constitution and it's frankly unconstitutional as roger just pointed out it's really just a way to pass the buck for example the the base closure commission congress knew this was this is back you know just a decade ago it seems that congress knew that there would always military bases around the country and because there were so many of them in so many congressional districts they couldn't get enough congress members to say ok let's close even the totally useless ones the ones that are just a total waste of time so they outsourced it to again the reason they had to do this was because defense contractors got really really slick they put a small facility in every congressional district in the country and by the way it's still that way so if anybody talks about cutting any of their budgets they can

threaten any member of congress with ads saying hey back to. the way people off of his own district now they're trying to do the same thing with the budget they're saying oh oh we've got to cut the target well we can't get the budget will out source of this gang right not real bright here's the problem. if we simply and this is really a simple solution you know before reagan all the way from george washington to ronald reagan if you add up all of the debt that was that was accumulated by all of those presidents from george washington to jimmy carter ronald reagan ran up more debt than all of them combined by his massive tax cuts where he took the top rate on millionaires and billionaires and dropped it from seventy four percent down to twenty percent if we simply roll back the reagan tax cut it would solve everything but even the gangs don't have the courage for that as long as the supreme court says money is speech one literally one cranky billionaire just drop

a few for three million bucks out can take down dozen members of congress i mean a couple hundred thousand dollars is big money in a congressional race so what we're seeing with his gang government the reason why congress is having to defer to gangs or that was that old commissioner whether it's the gang at all right now is a symptom of a broken system it's a fundamentally broken system and this is why congress is popularity ratings are in the tank no it's not it's broken is the only way to get out of this thing is to get money out of government we've got to get money out of government and one of the best ways to do that is to amend the constitution to say sorry corporations are people money is not speech for more information go to move to amend dot org. crazy alert pretty cool i miss it ohio woman claims her house is haunted by ghosts

ghosts that seem to only be concerned with having sex with each other that's right she says she's seen on numerous occasions to goes to get it on her living room. in my. live. they are safe where you can see the lady. paranormal researcher alexander holds her weighed in on the horny hard house explaining the phenomenon by saying these could be two spirits a knew each other in life and have a connection to that was also gave some advice to the homeowner who has a four year old granddaughter who allegedly snapped a photo of the ghosts of ron saying you have to speak to the ghosts conversationally say something like i could appreciate it you have a connection with each other but we have children here the story could be good news for all fans of the x. files t.v. show that's now bit off the air for nearly a decade it's only

a matter of time now before the new spin off show starts the triple x. what else are you ready to rumble only come back i'll take on conservative commentators either servo and brian darling in this week's lone liberal rumble. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through get through it if we may who can you trust no one who is in view with the global machinery to see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.