oh i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture first of all herman cain is still a press conference to say that all you had to say to one woman is you're the. it is why or youth now let's continue with some real news for a controversy all ban on collective bargaining rights for unions in ohio to the state of mississippi moving one step closer criminalizing abortion the super tuesday was not short on big ticket ballots the polls around the country get ready to close we'll have the latest on election day tony

a lot of australia's biggest polluters will now have to foot the bill for all of the damage that they're causing to the environment so why can't we hold our corporate polluters just as accountable here in the united states and surprise surprise the corporate media is again one step behind the biggest story to unfold in the united states in years i guess we'll tell you why. you need to know this it's election day also known as the day when voters across the nation can have their say about the radical anti-american agenda being pushed by republicans at the top of the list issues soon to be decided is the fate of s.p. five who was asked by senate republicans to strip public sector workers of their legal rights to collectively bargain early polling showed the harsh anti-union lot headed for repeal today as a majority it will. iowans told pollsters that they're against the right wing war

on labor and they think governor case they overstepped his mandate meanwhile up in maine voters go to the polls to repeal several new laws passed by republicans that make it harder for people to vote these new laws now require voter id been a bit more difficult for people to register and they shorten early voting but in the reporting from the center for american progress a secret conservative donor is dump a quarter million dollars into the election in that state to make sure that these laws stay on the books but early polling in maine also showed a majority of voters in support of repealing these anti-democratic rights so as the votes are being counted right now there's a chance that come tomorrow workers in ohio will be allowed to collectively bargain again and voters in maine will be able to vote unfortunately down in mississippi it looks like voters will give personhood rights to the fetus is laying the groundwork for not only prohibiting legal abortion even in the cases of rape incest or the survival of the mother it could also prohibit birth control and in vitro

fertilization and make it illegal for a woman as little as one week pregnant who has just been diagnosed with cancer make it illegal for her to receive chemotherapy because that would endanger the microscopic cluster of cells in her womb with the other states in a moment and more from ohio first jim dean of democracy for america is on the ground in ohio and on the phone with us for a quick check in a jam welcome hey tom how are you just fine great to great to hear from you what democracy for america doing. where we're going to go but your campus is mostly in the cleveland area and i came out here i just expect the job of those folks and we've got a bunch of never said i don't didn't phone banks and campuses that are being done by labor various different label organizations out here so we certainly have wanted to do what we can to support this great effort and very optimistic right now and we're just waiting for him to come in and what one of the koch brothers and their

many employees and. whatever doing. well that's that's the real rub their job they put on this t.v. campaign and radio campaign and robo call campaign. to debate this issue particularly the voters on this issue you want to repeal s.b. five and restore collective bargaining rights you vote no on issue two they've been trying to basically switch the wording around and actually mislead the boaters into voting yes on issue two for the benefit of collective bargaining rights i mean really it's just unbelievable the way they've been doing i said you know it is not there without success and they won our campuses optically up in cleveland we ran into some people primarily older voters who were confused by this issue but it's a sacred thing better than a campus or a comeback it's a strain to people out and again we're very optimistic about what's going to happen

today ok that's great jim dean democracy for america to keep up the very work thanks for checking in with us this lead me on now i want to turn over to my panel for around to put today's big election is the high cliff schecter national progress and p.r. strategist and liberty bell c. and syndicated columnist and al-jazeera english and author of the book the real mccain and here in the studio amanda beadle a reporter in russia and water at think progress great to have a break with this thank you thank you thank you live for. yeah cliff just just are not with you you live in ohio you're a resident of ohio what's your sense of what's going on. but i mean i do think you know without counting my you know getting too excited every time i think is going to go go down i mean look the last when it be at all at twenty five points you know fifty seven thirty two said that this thing was going to be defeated i've never seen so much grassroots activism as i've seen around us right now you know nobody

here i guess maybe they don't want the firemen and police to skip their hours but nobody knows the courage to have a yes once you sign or you're out of the recent election when that happens you know so you combine all that with what went on to wisconsin and john he says of glorying anything towards you know thirty percent or below the one point three million people that signed you know the petitions to get this thing on the ballot i would say that you know it looks like a john case it's going to be very bad night and and what jim just mentioned that there's a lot of misinformation designed to confuse voters into voting. thinking that they're voting yes to strike down the law when in fact they would be voting yes to affirm it or you know running across i'm sure it's everywhere i mean jim had it exactly right on the ground there just information on t.v. here that you can took it to be at were you know a grandmother talked about how she was against issue two to help firefighters who took her words and twisted and turned it into their own ad trying to claim his

grandmother it was for issue two so there's really nothing they won't do i mean if you know it's the koch brothers right we don't like we haven't run into this bill or someone president but it's just you know another example of what levels these folks will sink to try to trick people and believe that working or pleaded it seems to be a big pushing and the excitement around here is very palpable that's great and you know we'll we'll all be finding out tomorrow how or how goes on amanda elsewhere in maine voters or in the polls what's going on there and they end name they're working on. trying to figure out of that idea was that they're going to decide based on whether or not they're going to put more strictures on his going to be allowed to vote on i think especially the bigger. has to do with same day registration. they have some policies that historically they've historically had and some of the politicians who are now campaigning against this have used the same day registration so it's if you also talk about hypocrisy that's one example well that's you know that's the whole way rick famously back in the eighty's or ninety's

were going to reagan's campaign so you know our leverage in the elections goes up as the number of voters goes down and that's been the republican mantra for thirty years that is going to decrease the number of voters so when you've already seen them go out we've already been going after students and now this is just further tightening of their election laws and preventing and in mississippi that is personhood vote i mentioned some of the possible bizarre side effects what are first of all it was i exaggerating or is that i that i would say that's not exaggeration that it's going to it's has such huge repercussions and if you think about it that base it would give full rights to it says cells as you mentioned is there as it says i go before a woman even though she's pregnant her fetus could have rights and if i remember it the word person appears nine thousand times in the mississippi constitution so you're talking about something that has enormous cost enormous consequences that

and two thousand and eight sixty one thousand women and this is the. wrong contraceptive birth control and it's one of the it that many women would not be able to accept that you know i've heard that if this law passes in mississippi and it looks like it might literally the moment a woman knows that she's pregnant the moment that there's a positive. test. a lawyer could be assigned to her that she could be basically anklet to you know give us some kind of a cough that would determine whether there was any alcohol or any other any other substance in her bloodstream continuously monitoring her bloodstream because she is now basically the custodian of a human being that is the. has actually more rights than she does if her life is a risk she has to die to say about life yes because if you think about the topic pregnancies there are other medical situations where safe a woman has a. partial miscarriage and a miscarriage begins but isn't completely they were they would not be able to go in

and save her life because of it for basically. the child would out of it would not be viable or perhaps point and it's. it's it's one of those things that such extreme want to take stands out right now and they say take us back to pre roe v wade but this is this is nothing new in the markets not with roads is so razor thin that i've seen groups all day nationwide saying you know anyone mississippi encourage them to go vote remind them to vote no trying to get as many as they can and cliff you i realize you you deal with issues nationwide as well as just in ohio what's in the minute we have left what's your carry home from the elections nationwide today as well as well i mean obviously going down issues here is huge here you know i think in virginia it's really important because if you lose the state senate democrats you and you have right wing control and bob mcdonnell up the top and that's a toss up you know from what i've read and what i know so that is just i think

a really important you know in ohio we've seen what can happen in florida in other states when the right wing gets control of everything so the state senate is like that one holdout so i think actually a really important election i just you should actually do in there's a number of obviously what happens again i want to time i want to ask you if asked as long as the city with what you said in our corporations will you know if a zygote is a person was i don't know if you look aeration to. some our live coverage you know will is i don't have the right to throw an election. i don't know what's you know about work in a pregnant woman claim it's actually duction you know from the moment pregnancy i view it as to where i'm going with this yeah i mean the well this is this is you know welcome to pandora's box amanda thank you both for and. it was the thanks a lot with the fate of ohio senate bill five breathing its last breaths a new study by the bureau of labor statistics proves that the right wing assault on public sector workers is completely baseless according to the study federal employees make on average twenty six percent less than private sector employees

that's right those dreaded government workers who republicans claim are living i'll fog are actually getting screwed so now we know that when republicans rave about public sector employees getting paid too much and i'll pay cuts are needed plain and simple about destroying the last large unions that exist government worker unions and in the process killing off a major supporter of the democratic party. it's time for a duly poll your chance to tell us what you think here's the day's question australia's parliament yesterday passed a historic law to tax carbon emissions will a carbon tax be coming to america soon your choices are yes it's long overdue for the us or no republicans will never allow a carbon tax to come up for a vote log out of town are going to come and tell us what you think it will be open until tomorrow. coming up the party is over for big polluters in australia but

their american counterparts are still in a pretty solid tory to move. my drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it through if you've made who can you trust no one who is your view with the global machinery to see where we had a state controlled capitalism in school sessions when nobody dares to ask me do you r t question more.

there was a huge victory for the planet yesterday as australia passed eight you x. a lot australian prime minister julia gillard gerar. played a key role in assure the walk through the lower chambers of government and in fierce opposition big pollution interests she said that her nation made history when the law was finally passed beginning next july australia's five hundred biggest polluters will begin paying for the damage that they're causing with a tax on every tonne of carbon emissions similar legislation was passed by democrats here in the united states in the house of representatives back in two thousand and nine but it died in the senate thanks to republican filibuster former vice president al gore applauded the new australian law writing this is

a historic moment and this vote the world has turned a pivotal corner in the collective effort to solve the climate crisis today we celebrate tomorrow we do everything we can to ensure that this legislation is obsessed for so what does this new law mean and what are the chances of similar carbon taxes coming to the united states for some insight i'm joined by tyson slocum energy director of public citizen and kyle ash senior legislative representative of greenpeace usa welcome to both of you great to be here great to have you with us tyson why why did australia do this well it's well i think that they're responding to what's going on internationally with continuing climate talks but i think that there is a political movement within australia that recognizes that they're going to have to take a leadership role there are a huge fossil fuel economy very the largest exporter of coal really fueling china's coal boom and so there was a coalition of parties there led by the green party that really push this through

and what's going to be impressive to see is whether it withstands the continued political challenges as the fossil fuel industry fights. to try and repeal this law i think there's a lot of lessons to be learned with the united states it's a similar type of political situation where you have very influential fossil fuel lobbies with very sympathetic lawmakers to their cause it wasn't this the completion of a of a campaign promise basically i mean in order to get the green party along with that with the labor coalition prime minister had you know had committed in advance that this was going. to get election the prime minister actually had said that she wasn't going to embrace a carbon tax this was really an effort right this is really an effort by the green party which was an essential part of. the coalition coming to power that pushed for within the coalition and so i think it shows the power of the green party in australia and the fact that that even though the polls aren't totally favorable for

this it shows that there is some groundswell. for leadership on this issue your thoughts on greenpeace you're with greenpeace usa green but you know this is happening all around the world there's many other countries that have done this kind of thing or variations on you know cap and trade variations. what do you think their prospects are here in the united states well that's a good question i mean i think it's important to talk about the australian legislation because it's a good signal. strains are doing it as i said mentioned because they want to be good citizens there to me highest per capita emissions of any developed country. then i think that us is going to see that and they're going to see that the e.u. is moving forward with their emissions trading system they're closing their loopholes they're integrating emissions from e.p.a. ssion for instance there will be growing pressure on the us and one of the places where this will happen is in the upcoming climate talks in durban and south africa

. and that's this letters that starts in at the end of november guess for two weeks so so this. this is a big push for that yet at the same time here in the united states tyson you mention very very strong fossil fuel lobby i mean this is the power what gets back a lobby to thirty years ago it's just it's it's how can any politician stand up against that lobby well i think you're going to see a couple of key variables come into play one is going to be beyond going talks the united states about our deficit and the debt and as we try to desperately come up with new revenue sources when a bomb are put together the deficit commission up until the last minute there was a carbon tax and a lot of the drafts there are some principled conservatives in the united states that have signaled support for a carbon tax so i think you know i think well you've got the american enterprise institute and others that have papers that are those who have. you had several

members of congress that supported. a type of carbon pricing. cap and trade was actually originally a republican idea that's right and then and then you've got susan collins a republican senator from maine that was a co-sponsor of the only bipartisan climate bill in the senate last year which was a cap and dividend which essentially functions like a carbon tax so i'm not saying that the united states is anywhere close i think that that we have a significant domestic debate going on in the united states talking about the science of climate change whereas the rest of the world already recognizes that the science is compelling and clear that we need to take action in health care in the united states what we're seeing is that states are taking the lead arguably massachusetts now we go for months and they want single payer things like that is this the kind of thing that could be done on a state by state basis in the united states or is it does it really have to be national or not at all that's a good question especially since you have states like california that sort of are

a signal to the common that while anybody sort of done it with regard to carbon then move over the rules for the cap and trade regime. and there's actually some talk about how to integrate the california regime outside of use of the os that's which is a problem but how to integrate that system in with the global system so as a state and the global system not as a state within the united as not as part of you know say exactly so it's it's possible in practical terms but if you're talking about actually trying to have a collective global effort to reduce emissions globally on the scale that we need doing it as a state by state is not going to work so eventually we do need national as legislation in the us right and and from the point of view of greenpeace worldwide increasingly we're hearing that the problem you know has historically been the developed world but now it's the developing world as well and thirty seconds we have left here what do you what's your take on with the developing school i

mentioned that the australian legislation is a good step forward it's not perfect and needs to be strengthened australia needs to do something similar with regard to its fossil fuel subsidies we give the coal industry twenty four billion dollars last year in terms of subsidies through tax credits the us has the same problem so i think what we need to do through national efforts and also in terms of our debate in the climate talk is give the industry a good signal for what's a good investment for energy coles a bad investment for energy go and looks like solar is getting better and better. tyson thank you very much for playing in a closer issue australia joins the growing list of nations around the world that have recognised that one man made global warming is occurring and two something needs to be done about it conspicuously absent from that list the united states as long as we let oil barons and pseudo scientists funded by the koch brothers dictate our energy strategy and tragically will still be blind to what the rest of the world sees.

yaki by movement received a boost yesterday from senior citizens to send a message to congress about plans to cut medicare and social security cuts that will likely come out of the gang of twelve hundreds of senior citizen atreus occupied a downtown intersection in chicago they were joined by nearby members of occupy chicago and other grassroots organizations as well as a few members of congress including representatives jan schakowsky and danny davis ultimately police moved in to break up the demonstration all in away forty seven people most of senior citizens in handcuffs and don't add their names to the growing list of three thousand three hundred sixty two patriots who've been arrested since the occupy movement started more than a month and a half ago but these mass arrests of patriots instead of banks toure's don't jive with the attitudes of most of the american people a new n.b.c.

wall street journal poll shows occupy wall street popularity has surged to sixty percent of americans supporting the basic sentiments of the occupiers as twice as much support as the tea party received in similar polls and asked so well more and more americans seem to be getting it when it comes to the ninety nine percent movement there's still one group that's will fully ignorant the corporate corporate media for more on this i'm joined by russell baker investigative journalist and editor of the website who what why dot com as well as author of the book family of secrets the bush dynasty russ welcome back to the program thanks tom great to be here great to have you with us gandhi was rumored to have said first they ignore you then they then go then they ridicule you then they fight you then you win. do you does that court summarize the the arc that occupy wall street is going through with the growth of the corporate media. it certainly does as you may know

we have a piece up on our website who what why dot com about a remarkable piece in the new york times where the new york times public editor wrote a column where he was very figure out what in the world is occupy wall street about how should the media cover it and then he reached out to a few colleagues two former top editors who now run journalistic training centers and he asked them how should we cover. occupy wall street and i was just absolutely astounded at what they said may i read a couple of those to you here if they're short and. yes sure ok so here's what this guy runs a place called the pointer institute former managing editor of the st petersburg times he says to my mind the compelling question is how come these people are so angry and then the other one he quotes runs another journalism school used to run the stand as a mercury news he says i can't paint a picture of typical leaders and followers have i simply not followed it closely

enough and then he says are the protesters x. lehman millionaires who lost it all in the melt down or are they regular people who just can't get jobs i mean this is just astonishing that these guys who are supposed to be the professional question asker is and the narrator for the american people are so add of touch with the concerns and the traumas that ordinary americans are facing and have been facing for years the seventy students walked out of the harvard economics class being taught by former bush economic advisor greg menke you and they said we're walking out today to join a boston wide margin protesting the corporatization of higher education is part of the global occupy wall street movement since the bias nature of economics ten contributes to and symbolizes the increasing economic inequality in america were walking out of your class today both to protest your inadequate discussion of p.c.

economic theory and to lend our support to a movement that is changing america's discourse and economic justice sounds like this thing really has legs even though the press that you were just citing is clueless. well they really are clues one of them says what are they protesting now the recession has been going on for four years and as i point out an article this is not a protest about the recession it's a protest about a system that is increasingly corrupt at its core on so many different levels economically as you just pointed out tom the the educational system increasingly clear that it's not designed to encourage people to think for themselves but to create compliant employees in the corporate world these kinds of things and and that and that places like the new york times don't understand that this is an organic movement that represents all of our concerns on so many different levels

that is really really telling and speaking of organic and you know the idea of crossing the. line shall we say there's been a lot of press attention to protesters versus police and yet down in atlanta something really remarkable has happened you want us about that. sure well the as i understand it the people in occupy atlanta had some problems as as other similar protests in other cities do stay where they were and at that time they received an e-mail from the wife of a police officer in suburban gwinnett county i hope i'm pronouncing that correctly . sorry gwinnett county i used to live in atlanta but you know it had county right and and and he basically said that we are about to be evicted from our home has been a police officer and so occupy atlanta decided well we're going to go occupy their front laud and they've gone there in solidarity with this police officer and his

family and they are helping them out and so far they have prevented a very thick skin i think this is very significant because this idea of police officers. and demonstrators being at each other's throats that's so an artificial construct since police officers are working class and they own homes and they suffer just as much as everybody else it's very important to see this not as as i think that the one percent of the one percent would like it which is a bunch of disheveled people against law abiding people but the fact that the people who are the initial group that have gone out there represent a much broader and more diverse group that is central to the entire american experience and that's what i love about this situation there in atlanta where they are finally at least at least symbolically coming together so well said ross baker thanks so much for being with us tonight thank you very much and keep up the great

work it's just attack reporting been years and years luckily occupy wall street has been able to grow and flourish despite the lack of reliable coverage from the corporate media let's hope it continues. crazy alert find a new eternal resting place a spanish cemetery is threatening to evict thousands of people from their supposedly final resting places claiming that their leases are up and their caretakers and relatives need to pay up for some reason many spanish cemeteries no longer allow people to buy gravesites instead they offer leases up to forty nine years which falls well short of the end of the day you know eternity already the remains of four hundred twenty people have been dug up for failure to pay rent of the backlash is now underway occupants of the graveyard to form their own afterlife political party.