welcome to the lower show we'll get the real headlines with none of the mercy of the live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to take a look at elections in numerous states that happened yesterday republican proposals for the most part were rejected by voters so are we seeing a reaction to last year's elections and what does all mean for occupy wall street and it is fair and is going to join us for that one then is it only the next greece unfortunately it could be even worse in the head of the i.m.f. is warning that the global economy could be headed in a downward spiral and markets also honored today it's going to look at more economic bad news with edward harrison and then did you know that almost one in

four people to port of last year with a father or mother of a u.s. citizen that's right is deportations go up under the obama administration more children are being left behind and put into foster care because the government actually choosing families apart rather than bringing back together report give us some answers we'll have all of that i'm worth it and i couldn't get us of happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. all right so in between it's still obsessing over the herman cain saga the mainstream media has managed to make a little time for an economic story today i don't forget tonight there's going to be another republican presidential debate hosted by c.n.n. b.c. and the economy should be topic number one of course i'm sure that if you know herman cain's a dirty pervert and a liar dig will be slipped in somewhere but anyway what was the brilliant economic news that they reported on today all apparently was another executive order signed

by the president and with the flourish of used famous left handed signature the president signs and executive order today the president is signing an executive order that could squeeze a few more bucks out of the budget by cutting office supplies and under seventy travel do you expect to see billions of dollars a year just moments ago president. and executive order to go ways to promote efficient spending in washington d.c. the white house pointing. that already they've been able to save more than eight billion dollars of that one targeted at reducing government. the agencies across the government will be cut back on things such as t. shirts and mugs and other gadgets. and now i get it the president is frustrated congress is sitting on its hands doing literally nothing to spur job creation the congressional super committee they're not getting anywhere when it comes to agreeing just where to cut from and how to impose austerity on its citizens so the

president is going with the executive order thing trimming creating where he can let's all be very honest about this for a minute trimming so ag office supplies travel expenditures itself are not going to solve our financial woes it's not going to fix the fact that forty nine point one million americans are now living in poverty that's according to the revised census figures that we received this week something that the mainstream media completely ignored it's also not going to fix the fact that our lawmakers quite nail to protect defense spending which makes up more than fifty percent of our discretionary budget while putting social programs up for grabs easily another thing the mainstream media ignores it's also not going to fix the fact that at least ten million people's homes are underwater or what a new report showed us today the foreclosure sales are going moving so slowly and half of the states at the current pace it'll take more than eight years to clear those homes the not one reported on the cable networks today either but let's talk about possibly some of the most egregious news it should be getting much more attention than you may the mortgage giant which you and i now own because it had to

be bailed out by the government aka our taxpayer money and whose executives just made more than ten million dollars in bonuses recently well guess what fannie mae wants another bailout they want more money than is now asking for seven point eight billion dollars in aid to cover its losses in the july to september quarter you know how ridiculous this is fannie has already received one hundred twelve point six billion dollars from the treasury department that was the most expensive bailout of any single company out there. together the fannie and freddie bailout was about two hundred sixty nine billion estimates say that the figure could reach up to two hundred and twenty billion to support the companies through twenty fourteen and here we see those numbers starting to add up as fannie asks for seven point eight billion more so basically there goes all the money of the president's going to save by not allowing federal offices to have swag anymore that's that's why i are going to fix our system ending too big to fail just might and yet the mainstream media would rather focus on the small fries and the peas in the carrots

and take a good look at the bigger picture. yesterday was an election day in a number of states across the u.s. and yesterday saw some big results and ohio the anti-union legislation that would have limited collective bargaining rights failed with almost sixty one percent of voters rejecting the law in maine by a margin of sixty to forty percent voters rejected a new republican law that would have ended the same day voted with voting registration and in mississippi the personhood amendment that would have divined life as beginning at conception which not only was an attack on women's reproductive rights but also a confusing horrible piece of legislation a lot also lost so how do we look at it all is a fresh ray of hope and no matter how extreme our politicians get the people don't necessarily follow is a good sign for obama and all the democrats in two thousand and twelve and it where does occupy wall street fit into it all joining me from our studio in los angeles

to discuss it is an actress fairy and co-host of the young turks and a thanks so much for being on tonight and looking at everything that happened yesterday in these elections would you say that there are symbolic of something that's happening in this country. they are symbolic i think that some democrats are going too far when they're considering this a huge win for them i mean for instance in arizona you have. russell pearce being elected out of office in the recall election and now you have jerry lewis and place but when you really look at jerry lewis his track record and his stances on political issues he's also extremely conservative and he also has similar stances when it comes to immigration policy when you look at mississippi yeah mississippi. decided to reject the personhood amendments but at the same time they have so many issues when it comes to prosecuting women who give birth to stillborn babies or when it comes to tightening their voting laws for instance they need to have state

approved identification for people who want to participate in elections who want to actually go out there and vote and some people say like oh that's that's a reasonable thing to ask for except when it comes to the poor and certain minority groups it's very difficult for them to have access to identification or proper identification to vote so there is an issue there so it's symbolic in certain ways because it shows that maybe the country isn't as radical as some people thought it was but at the same time you know we still have a long way to go because we're so far to the right at this point so i guess are we just wasting it time trying to get back to normal it's not like republican policies here are being rejected outright it's just slowly trying to creep back to to where we started from. no i think that we should definitely continue fighting and you know you mentioned occupy wall street and whether or not you know this has anything

or whether or not the protests have anything to do with the results we're seeing in these elections and i absolutely do think that it does i think that americans are finally waking up and they're looking at what our domestic policy was back in the eighty's compared to what it is now and we have shifted so far to the right and people are realizing like hey you know immigration is a huge issue here in the united states but we need reasonable immigration reform we can do things that profile and discriminate against people of color and i love that i think that it's really great and even in mississippi a state that's so highly conservative and only has one abortion clinic for them to reject the personhood amendment i think is extremely symbolic and it means that you know we are fighting the good fight and people in america are not as exterior some people think yeah i have to admit i disagree with lot of the policies that are out there but the mississippi personhood amendment is something that was probably some of the craziest legislation i've ever seen and actually gave me a little ray of hope today

a little faith in humanity that something like that did not pass the god we haven't completely lost our minds here in the u.s. at least that's the way that i see it but now going back to occupy wall street and you brought it in where it fits in here this means that people we don't have exact numbers here this means that people actually did end up going to the polls today they did and going through the typical political system that's not necessarily well occupy wall street wants because a lot of people there say that we need to reform the whole thing so the fact that people are voting is a good or is it actually kind of bad for occupy wall street. well i think that people going to the polls is still very important because you know you have things like the amendment in mississippi not passing and it's not only symbolic it's also essential for the freedoms that we enjoy here in the united states so i think that discouraging people and telling them to not go to the polls is not the right move but what i think occupy wall street has been very successful with is basically

bringing attention to issues that people never really paid attention to before so for instance that story that i brought up with mississippi prosecuting women who give birth to stillborn babies that is an issue that wasn't covered by anyone else i think think progress did a story on it you did a story on it the young turks did a story about it but no one really focused or paid attention to it but now you have occupy wall street and what's great about them is you know some people criticize them for not having like a direct message and focusing on one specific thing but occupy wall street cover such a broad range of issues that we have in our political system and people are now starting to pay attention to those issues so i love that people went to the polls i think it's important to still do that but i do agree with occupy wall street when it comes to reforming our political system and getting rid of things like corporate personhood which is a huge problem in our democracy now one of the things that occupy wall street or a lot of people are taking part in occupy wall street support is taking your money out of the big banks transferring it to local credit unions and of course this last

weekend was november fifth call the bank transfer day and it turns out they just are not one day just on saturday with forty thousand people that are closing their accounts and previous to that they had found just in a month from september to october about six hundred fifty thousand people had to close their accounts so do you think that means the success there or is forty thousand a little bit disappointing. no i think that there is absolutely success as you mentioned since september i actually read a different report that said that up to eight hundred thousand people since september have transferred their money to credit unions and i think that that is great proof that occupy wall street is really spreading the message and they're doing so effectively because you got to keep in mind most people didn't really think about transferring their money out of big banks and going to credit unions and now people are frustrated occupy wall street gave them a very easy way to act on their frustrations a little way to act on their frustrations and people are actually doing something

that i think proves that they have a voice that they have the ability to make changes and you know to be honest with you i'm one of the people who transferred my money out of one of the big banks because of bank transfer day and it was such a liberating thing to do it felt really great and i think that occupy wall street's message has that effect on a lot of people here in the u.s. so it has been successful i think the mainstream media is continuing to kind of discredit them and say that they haven't had an influence but keep in mind i think that this movement is still in its infancy so considering all the changes that have happened so far i think that it's been highly successful. now laffey when i spoke about of course in this incident personhood amendment there are a number of states now that are looking at collective bargaining rights when it comes to unions as well as the trying to make it harder for people to vote voter registration voter i.d. laws and you know this one in maine yesterday didn't pass the how damaging do you think that all of that is going to be when it comes to the twenty two elections. i

think it will be extremely damaging you know there was recently a poll done it was by quinnipiac and they said that the g.o.p. right now only has a twenty eight percent approval rating which is extremely low and only a fifty seven percent approval rating i mean just this approval rating i should say so people are very upset with the g.o.p. and you know i think it's because they've kind of shown that they're extrude monna lot of issues and the majority of people in the united states are not radical they're not extreme they want reasonable policies and they realize that you know some of the policies that the g.o.p. has either proposed or passed has have not been successful so i think that this election has or should send a message that you're ok right now whether or not they're going to get it through their thick skulls i don't know i guess we'll have to wait and see all right and thanks so much for joining us tonight thank you. well coming up with all the talk

about spending cuts in washington without a prime example of government waste and i don't look at the tens of billions of dollars u.s. is spending on your weapons and it's only about to drive down the eurozone even further and i'm trying to make heads or tails out of the deepening financial crisis in europe now from the u.s. back. to you when you read. what the test nobody seems to know. every pepper sprayed the face of the argument that they're being overly dramatic.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. you think you understand it and then something else in here sees some other part of it and realize that everything is. hard welcome to the big picture.

we've discussed the start treaty in depth on this show a green between presidents obama and advantage to reduce the number of nuclear warheads to fifteen hundred in both countries arsenals now is a pretty logical step considering the fact that the us hasn't actually fired a nuke in decades and has no reason to and in fact the pentagon conducted a nuclear posture review last year which concluded that the massive nuclear arsenal we inherited from the cold war era of bipolar military confrontation is poorly

suited to address the challenges posed by suicidal terrorists and unfriendly regimes seeking nuclear weapons so even the pentagon here seems to agree that our massive nuclear stockpile isn't suited to the actual military threats that we face but looks like that isn't stopping us from shelling out the big bucks on it and weinstein and mother jones did some digging it turns out of the u.s. military industrial complex includes quite a massive nuclear weapons complex get this during the cold or cold war era when the us was relying on nukes our country spend about thirty five billion dollars a year on the program and despite the fact that many within the d.o.d.'s say the nukes aren't relevant anymore the us currently spends about fifty five billion dollars a year on these weapons and i think about because the nuclear weapons budget is spread between three departments defense energy and homeland security and none of these revisions give figures on how much it spends on maintaining or building nukes in fact it's so tough to get a gist of exactly how much is spent a lot of time anyone trying to get figures was in two thousand and eight carnegie

endowment for peace determined that the u.s. spent at least fifty two billion dollars on nuclear weapons just that year sounds like a lot well that's because it is a nuclear budget for zero eight was five times the size of the state department's seven times the size of the e.p.a.'s budget so why is there even more money being spent on this program now and there was during the height of the cold war i was weinstein points out the start treaty limits both russia and the u.s. to fifteen hundred deployed warheads of peace but the u.s. has five thousand total warheads meaning of those extras need to be destroyed and their facilities in the us it. mantle the war has however that's quite a tricky process that carries a lot of risks and the process is so slow that there are thirty five hundred nukes that are just sitting around waiting to be scrapped you can imagine the news warheads are starting pilot now it also doesn't help the nuclear warheads are very low priority for the government since a nuclear weapon complex is essentially been running on autopilot for decades the government hasn't spent too much time determining how to get rid of those good old

warheads instead their focus has shifted to a nuclear warhead development two point zero with new facilities linked to the department of energy popping up all over the country and some of these plans come with a price tag of four point five billion dollars meanwhile only one percent of all the money within the nuclear complex currently goes to dismantling and destroying all those warheads although the nuclear complex continues to grow the national nuclear security administration has just been awarded an additional eighty five billion dollars over the next ten years and the government accountability office has issued for reports highlighting wasteful spending by the n.s.a. but since it's an untouchable branch of the government officials conveniently turn a blind eye to such alerts so what you can only hope of the start treaty is going to help bring to a close some of those wasteful spending on nuclear warhead complex as the u.s. is forced to focus more on destroying rather than creating new nuclear weapons the money should shift towards dismantling projects bringing down america's arsenal and hopefully the incredibly bloated budget. now keeping with the nuclear theme for

a moment tonight the u.s. department of energy is investigating a plutonium accident in idaho and online reports a decades old plutonium powder and stage from a damaged shell the idaho national laboratory and sixteen workers might have been exposed to harmful radiation to those workers of radioactive material and their lungs department of energy officials and private contractors are monitoring the two workers at the lab in eastern idaho now so far none of those potentially exposed are exhibiting any outward symptoms of radiological exposure and the lab director says that stainless steel cladding that surrounds plutonium fuel was damaged which began a slow but steady process of releasing the plutonium that led to the exposure of plutonium fuel dates back to the one nine hundred seventy s. so something says that maybe this lab is an update for you let you know if there are any further developments. now despite silvio berlusconi announcing yesterday that he would step down as prime minister once an austerity package is agreed upon doesn't really look like it's calmed anyone's nerves italy's public debt has

reached an estimated two point six trillion dollars fears that italy could default on its debt grow but yields on the country's ten year bonds above seven percent so park it sank today as the dow closed down three hundred eighty nine points so at the same point wish other nations if we go back to that the seven percent of the bonds when other nations like ireland greece and portugal all had to ask for a bailout funds and to be much more devastating than all three of those countries combined it's the eighth largest economy in the world and the third largest bond market meanwhile stopping in china i am after actor christine legarde warren the international actors don't get their act together the world risks plunging into a downward spiral of financial instability so what are we supposed to make of this up but here discuss with me is edward harrison founder of credit. and thanks so much for being here tonight. i mean just just doing gloom all the way around basically every little thing that i read there so what do you think is going to happen if as i mentioned here if you look at the fact these ten year bonds are

above seven percent you look at what happened with ireland with portugal and greece is italy have to ask for a bailout at this point or have to you know risk default can't you build the. largest economy third largest bond market in the world and so the other countries are large enough to be able to build them so they have to make degree the only were they can make agree basically by having someone there to sustain them and. they can figure out a permanent solution and the only entity that can do that is the e.c.b. because the quick mali right now the e.c.b. supposedly is now this is according to the european treaty basically the e.c.b. can support national governments that's the big but what we have seen is they've gone into the secondary market and they've got up in this. very market and they can do that and continue to do that will that be enough. i think it will be but you know how much will they be able to buy what i say that i say you think there just

might be and i think there are a lot of people out there that are not for service and feeling a little more pessimistic let's say that it's not enough and what happens at that point does is the entire currency of the euro is. basically getting up to leave and says this is the armageddon scenario we're talking serious financial armageddon we're talking great depression type of stuff right here right now i mean basically if the e.c.b. says you know what we were bluff we were bluffing we can go to the market we're going to put a bid out two hundred basis points over german bones which are the german chain your bonds and will will by no matter what happens the whole therefore is that the market will move to that price and therefore the e.c.b. won't even have to bodyguards necessarily. but for whatever reason that doesn't happen and you know the spiral keeps on going it was going to happen before you have to your bond holders you have to take a haircut those bondholders will be insolvent then you have bank runs you know

a depression will ensue so are you agreeing that when it comes to our christine legarde he's currently jetting around the world saying that there is a very big downward spiral that's headed for the global economy that's a risk area where you see you know she's she's been speaking to russia she's been speaking to china saying that this has to be a global effort so what does that addition expect it's interesting that she said basically it sounds to me like she's saying you know the europeans they can't get it sorted out because of their institutional fragilities therefore you other guys china russia us etc you've got to get in there and some would help out the europeans because italy is just too large to feel and we think this is always the. go through these austerity measures excel or whatever it may be they can get over the i don't even think that they would be able to get over the the reality is that austerity makes things worse if they continue in the same path that they're on the

economy's really good the europe is already in a double dip recession right now you know so then suddenly you see the deaf it says the deficit is even larger after austerity you know it's just it's a negative scenario there are only good because it's a good thing that this scenario and you know we've already seen a lot of riots all across europe especially specifically in greece you know austerity measures we've seen the same thing happen in london as well and so you just wonder. you know the more something like this might spread he also said that this is the big should bang this is really the great depression scenario how would that transfer over here to the u.s. let's say that italy does go under when you see this horrible scenario play out what would happen is. that you know then they would default their creditors would would be insolvent the all the italian banks have been sold with a lot of the european banks insolvent then there would be a general bank where. the american banks which have also had all these credit

default swaps sovereign debt in europe they would be insolvent as well do we know how much do we know exactly how much it is our banks have a stake in what we do know is that they actually increase the amount of credit thought swaps that the participated in in the first half of two thousand and love so. their exposure is larger than it was before so they're definitely exposed if someone like italy goes goes bust you have to think here's a country that wasn't even on the radar screen basically a year and a half ago there's huge exposure to that so that default would be a really negative scenario. well that's really scary think that this is a country that as you said i wasn't even on the radar just two years ago and yet now this is happening and you know it's great it's how quickly we've seen all the focus shifts from ireland to spain and portugal to you know from greece and now very quickly to italy so who's next that's exactly how i was going to get into it the problem is the institutional structure of the euro zone that has no lender of

last resort all these countries are pretty much in the same boat fred has ninety percent that's g.d.p. germany has ninety percent that's g.d.p. if you had it was session you know all of these countries would start missing the deficit target which in europe is three percent germany would miss the three percent hurdle their deficit would start to shoot up they have to step in for their banks it's an institutional problem the whole thing with. all these countries it would just go straight down the line belgium would be next our stream team after that france would come out so you know it's really it's it's deadly but at this point do you think there's any chance that the euro zone can actually stay together i think that the road could stay together what i think it will eventually i mean this is what i think will happen they will see what exactly i'm talking about this is an armageddon scenario is not a good thing they're going to get the e.c.b. and to say that we're going to backstop at a certain level or certain spread to german yields things will start to calm down

to a certain degree but then it up point those that we need to change the treaties in order to make make it so that we have more control over these types of fiscal activities but simultaneously will give people a chance to exit the euro zone so over the course of time some people that greece is definitely the exit probably will exit spain would exit i think then you have a rump of germany probably france the netherlands austria and then beyond that it's hard to say now passing gas there's not a republican presidential debate tonight host of ac and d.c. are supposed to be focusing on the. conwy how much time do you think they're going to spend on the heroes out in talking about what's going on there it's a good question because you know it's definitely everyone's radar screens in america now that the stock market has gone down so they might actually spend a little bit more but probably will do is they'll use it as a boy to say you know this is exactly the problem in the united states we have

a. deficit of eight percent we'll be in the exact same boat in six months if we don't do the same thing but we need to do is cut cut that's probably wouldn't. we'll have to wait and see. if you. can we have our wednesday edition if you think i read it the government is reporting hundreds of thousands of american interesting here what happens to the children in particular getting here just. to go work to bring justice or. i have every right to know what my government should do if you want to know why i pay taxes. i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of american exceptionalism.