you know sometimes you see a story and seeing so you think you understand it and then something else and here's some other part of it and realize that everything. is a big. blow

to the counseling i'm lauren lyster. guys side by side suicide award and tonight it goes to congressman spencer baucus a g.o.p. representative from alabama is the chairman of the house financial services committee and he found himself in the hot seat after sixty minutes aired a story this past sunday about legal insider trading going on i think congress i'll baucus as well as several other members of congress allegedly use information from

private meetings or trades rockets trade stocks and make a killing something that wall totally unethical is unfortunately technically illegal. for example insider trading on the stock market if you are a member of congress those laws are deemed not to apply so congressman get a pass on insider trading they do but fact is if you sit on a health care committee and you know that medicare for example is is considering not reimbursing for certain drug that's market moving information and if you can trade stocks off of that information and do so legally that's a great profit making opportunity and that sort of behavior goes on what is congress now the report called on house speaker john boehner and former house speaker nancy pelosi and spencer got a sixty minutes says that baucus that on the stock market taking a turn for the worse just a day after he met with ben bernanke and hank paulson. these meetings were so sensitive that they would actually caucus kate cell phones and blackberries going

into those meetings what we know is that those meetings were held one day and literally the next day congressman baucus would engage in buying stock options based on apocalyptic briefings that he had have the day before from the fed chairman of the treasury secretary i mean talk about a stock tip well congressman now it's known here the baucus has a denied it these allegations and according to think progress was made about twenty eight thousand dollars off of two hundred stock trades during the worst part of the financial crisis so now that sixty minutes is blown everyone's cover on these pretty disgusting practices arnie frank requested a hearing on the issue of insider trading and yesterday the house financial services committee decided that they would hold a hearing proposing legislation so determined how politicians would have to comply with insider trading but guess who made the announcement none other than a representative bob is himself and it's right one of the members who allegedly engaged in the shady practices is the chairman of the committee that's going to be

holding the hearing so rest assured americans he's going to take care of it all i wonder if you can call it himself during this hearing to talk about how he feels about using nonpublic information for his own personal financial benefit at the exact amount moment when many americans are seeing their savings disappear before their very eyes so i'm going make a rather cynical point here and say that i doubt that much is going to be accomplished if the financial services committee is the one getting to the bottom of the wrongdoing headed by one of the main men accused of the wrong doing so are showing us once again how corrupt and inefficient congress truly are it truly is of the baucus you are tonight's winner. and it's become clear that drones are going to play a central role in america's future not only of the unmanned aerial vehicles become a lot of the go to weapons for our military and cia abroad but it also become a popular option for law enforcement to keep tabs on what's happening in their jurisdiction. we can watch this put it over a fire put it over has. suspect

and literally give the incident commander the ability to look at the entire scene. with a bird's eye view. now while police say that it gives them a leg up on protecting the public perhaps like the a.c.l.u. of the concept of a constant level of surveillance against people but here's an interesting idea what if this surveillance concept was flipped wired editor in chief chris anderson spotted a civilian with a drone equipped with a video camera at an independence day rally in poland i want to drown in the air the camera gave a vivid image of what the riots looked like in warsaw and the number of police who were on the scene so for once the public didn't need to wait for the media or the police to release a bird's eye view of what was happening on the ground a regular citizen used their own drone to gather all of that you know that was needed now granted this happened outside of us what does this mean for the concept of citizen journalism right here at home to think about media outlets have come to rely on the public playing reporter gathering video on their smartphones inside

sharing it online on twitter facebook with the world we have yet to see that expand to aerial video see images like this would remove the need for a new stripers from a good news organizations and more importantly over that mean the technology mean for the occupy movement reports of police brutality have been verified with cell phone video across the country so just think about what could be clearly seen if these do it yourself drones are used during some of the most intense moments of these demonstrations like new york or in oakland i would hold law enforcement responsible for their actions with visual proof and give the public an opportunity to see what the movement looks like without any chance of media or police bias and of course i'm sure that we hear a lot of politicians and police departments critique this if we ever saw the technology being used in the u.s. let's not forget three states out there still make it illegal to even film at the police but we're going to have to accept constant surveillance by the feds and the citizens surveil. spin might be a silver lining keep on forcing it from using excessive force. now the next general

election is less than a year away and the stakes for both parties are very high so running up to next november we've seen a trend beginning to form currently over thirty seven states and either adopted or have laws that are pending which are changing and in many ways upping the requirements to vote the right may claim that voter fraud is an issue that plagues our elections in many ways these laws can also be seen as an effort to disenfranchise minorities and the poor those that often and that voting democrat so this week to talk house judiciary committee democrats ask the chairman to hold hearings on the determine if state lawmakers are indeed only trying to make it harder for people to exercise their right as citizens so let's take a look at some of these laws and determine whether hearings that really are in order and discuss this with me is scott keyes a reporter for think progress to or copping so much for joining us tonight thank you for having me right now so we're going to break down a few of the states and specific types of laws in just a moment but overall when you look at this picture you look at the fact that thirty seven laws have these thirty seven states have these laws that are in the works do

you think that this is a sign of a you know of a massive movement and an attempt to intimidate voters sure we've seen right through the twenty ten election when republican lawmakers not only took over in congress but in a lot of state houses one of the thirst things that they came in to do was introduce a lot of these voter restriction laws which really peel back voters ability to go to the polls now we're talking about new restrict new requirements for what they are have to bring in order to vote new restrictions on who can get registered new restrictions on who can register other people. making the actual time that you can vote in the early voting periods a lot shorter and more stringent this is absolutely concerted effort we're seeing a pop up in a number of different states all right so if we look at the id requirements that are happening in a lot of states out there some people are comparing this to the poll tax because let's face it it costs money to go out and get a government. i didn't think that's a fair comparison i met with a voter down in texas just last week and she had just moved she lost her i.d.'s in

the movie and then she was actually rob and so her other papers got. lost in that process in order for her to go get one of these ideas which are ostensibly free she needed to be able to go all the way back to missouri to get her birth certificate where she hadn't been since she was three days old ok forty fifty sixty dollars to get it there then come back to texas in order to go to the d.p.s. and get a quote unquote three photo id i mean you and i know that this is not a free process she would have had to give up a day of work to go get this there are a number of barriers both monetary and time was that put up that make this really essentially a modern day poll tax much less than than you know a tiny hurdle for voters to jump over and some recent statistics now just to put it into perspective let's say that two million people out there lack of nations photo i.d.'s and a quarter of those are a quarter of african americans also lack the proper documentation and so you can

start seeing those things come into play now usually they wrote about texas taking it one step further this isn't even saying that you can't vote you can't register the same day this is trying to put restrictions on the people that want to help register other voters right i wish they weren't the case but the new law in texas which is currently being reviewed by the department of justice one of the mandates is that for groups like the league of women voters groups like the next american legal defense fund who would help facilitate. individuals and groups who are trying to register others to vote in voter registration drives now there are these major new restrictions on who can do that when you have to turn these in it and making it much more difficult for them to conduct their own you say who can do that you mean that you have to you have to be a citizen right you have to be somebody who also is able to vote and even other people register that not even a citizen you have to be an elegy. will texas implode or no i spoke with a disability rights texas that and so for individuals who are considered full

guardians and they are not considered mentally capable of voting but a lot of them have really enjoyed being able to take part in the process by registering others to one individual would go around in his wheelchair and bring voter registration papers and you know anybody would meet hi you know you're registered to vote this is him engaging in the community because he's not an eligible texas voter he's going to not be able to do that if this law goes into effect i understand actually you know because i only got my citizenship a couple of years ago and so since i was four years old i live in this country but for a very long time i was not a legal resident and if i wasn't able to gauge in the process that i knew one day hopefully i would be able to participate in my trying to get other people that i would be upset now but there are individuals who are who this is their job who are going to get fired or laid off if this law ends up going to affect their job is to register others to vote but if this new law goes into effect that they have to be eligible voter citizens they're out of luck what can congress actually do about it let's say that they do hold these hearings they start investigating it's going on

in thirty seven different states you know can they change anything well you know we're hopeful obviously elections are state matters but there are a few tools that the federal government has in their in their quiver we've got the twenty fourth amendment which says that you cannot levy a poll tax against individuals which you know as we discuss this is a indirect poll tax but a poll tax nonetheless we've also got the voting rights act of one hundred sixty five where it's on this state the burden is on the state to show that this is not discriminatory towards racial minorities. that's clearly not the case with these photo i.d.'s we shown in from state to state to state in south carolina texas tennessee elsewhere that this is going to be the most hardest hit among poor individuals and among minorities and they're going to be the ones disenfranchised is what it's really you know it's depressing but unfortunately you think that this is just a cycle that we're going to keep seeing peanuts. throughout history the more we think we go forward the more they try to push it back you know it's

a lot of days it feels like a one step forward two steps back type of situation i see glimmers of hope up in maine the republican legislature up there passed a bill to repeal that state's the election day registration laws where citizens could register to vote at the polls that have been in place for forty years in maine the citizens revolted they signed up you know mass output of signatures they had a citizen referendum on the ballot a few weeks ago and they overwhelmingly vetoed the new bill from the legislature i think it was sixty one percent voted to to veto that bill and now they still have election day registration in maine so i'm hopeful that other states will be able to repeat this process that means leading the way on and you know that's good to see today because one of the many critiques you can say about the voting process here is that not that many people actually less than fifty percent of the population and so you see at least with these referendums that when something is bad enough people will and i want to thank you so much for joining us and i thank you. i saw the time

tonight. and happy hour teen birth rates are surprisingly on the decline and herman cain decides that he needs more protection but i tell you. the least. nobody seems to know. that never happens great to face the argument that they're being overly dramatic. you know sometimes you see a story so you think you understand it and then something else here sees some other

part of it and realize that everything is ok. i'm charging welcome to the big picture.

mr. to tonight's fireside. this week we saw for the speech and civil liberties organizations legal scholars members of congress and all of the leading tech companies come together in opposition of legislation that's working its way through congress it was a massive internet campaign and of wednesday as american censorship to bring light to the senate's bill to protect ip act and perhaps even more importantly the house version of the bill called sopa two pieces of legislation being sold as a way to stop the piracy of copyrighted material online but all the cause is one

that most everyone can get behind the tactics laid out in these bills are not before critics near and far say that this will in effect break or end the internet as we know it need a refresher these bills will allow for websites deemed as dedicated to infringing activities blacklisted without any due process so who also allows private rights holders to cut off advertising and banking transactions to rogue websites again without any court intervention now to say that a finding a website is rogue is vague and i'll be a massive understatement to allow rights holders to pressure credit card companies and ad networks let's just asking for abuse and you need a reminder as to whether or not credit card companies would comply and fold but just think back to the financial blockade imposed on wiki leaks by these a paper mastercard and western union pressure there came from the government the pressure here that's going to come from exactly who would expect hollywood in the entertainment industry as a whole and so this is where looking at who's on either side of this debate it's

very apparent that legislation in this country can be bought and paid for this is where you have to take a good hard look at the lawmakers who are still supporting this bill after all as we reported to you yesterday on the show even the bill's main backer conceded that there are serious problems with the bill that need to be addressed and of rights groups tech giants and legal scholars alike who let's face it probably. understand this legislation better than a lot of lawmakers if they all say that it's dangerous then why wouldn't you listen well the only reasonable conclusion is because you're being paid not to because you're being paid to do the bidding of the n.p.a. on our. innovation the freedom of the internet all on the line throwing out due process creating a censorship policy that resembles those of countries that are officials so often denounce that's not for the public good that's either completely naive and worse guided misguided or it's very simply corrupt but i think there is a light at the end of this tunnel the fact that this made big news this week the lawmakers are starting to change their tune all that can be attributed to the

massive effort online and in print media to bring attention to it so maybe there is still some hope that voicing concerns a loud and clear can stop congress in its path of destruction unfortunately it's probably not because they realize the dangers of the legislation they're proposing but because they don't want bad p.r. because they don't want the largest tech companies who let's face it also donate a lot of money to turn their backs on their campaigns so in that sense google facebook linked in a.o.l. e-bay all of them putting their might and money into opposing these bills still shows us that money is the only key that getting anything done in our political system and that's a much larger systemic problem that han't but it's perhaps the most blatant the lawmakers are so clearly going against the tide when it comes to progress and all reason let's hope the protect ip and sopa both fail but if they don't just remember that this is a perfect example of legislation that was bought. our

guys it's time for happy hour and joining me this evening is r.t. producer jenny churchill and james fallows host of bottom line and reform school on p.j. t. the. thanks for joining me ok so we we just had way too much fun with herman cain lately with all of his little snafu. when it comes to libya. and then he said the. president don't even need to know foreign policy and so obviously the media has been all over her mccain because he's like his golden little ticket he always says something stupid and you love it but it turns out that according starting yesterday he now gets his own private service security you see i can't speak secret service detail take a look. the campaign is here for a new law so yes they did ask for the protection this protection is paid for by

taxpayer money does not come from the campaign there has been some pushing and shoving in recent weeks between security for security for the cain campaign and some journalists we don't know if that was the cause for this. apparently because the washington post was reporting that you know this is because of scuffles with journalists but i guess that they asked for the secret service like three weeks ago or four weeks ago or something but really i mean i find it ironic that you have republican candidates and he's the only one so far that's had this have the taxpayers pay for their security detail now i mean i don't know if i wrote their tax dollars going to this is rich a thing or eventually. right it was it was you rather it were rick santorum but i was like i'm sorry journalists are not that scary celebration. of this unit we've got this we've got this cast of characters here and it's inevitable that people will start taking interest in them right right and the hurricanes go up in numbers he's a public figure and i don't see this is all really it's totally unnecessary he

doesn't need it because he's crazy and people who try to assassinate people are crazy he's crazy therefore crazy loves him. we're going to get. into the crazy thing quite a bit in just about for the meantime he is just i think it will challenge when it comes to having the smarts that you need to have and want to be the president and so last night jay leno actually had a little fun suggesting that maybe we could have the presidential candidates be on jeopardy take like. category is famous monuments this structure in washington d.c. is named after our first president rick. berman. well it's still true that. the show that's really. just posted to. rick groups. is pretty

good i wish i came up with it myself but we decided that we'd bring it out could you imagine if irving came to michele bachmann and rick perry were all in jeopardy together it was. a one day jeopardy champion i can tell you but the problem was you were one big you know there's probably just not a clicker problem you know if you're worried about your experience here well you really have to master the clicker and you can be the smartest guy in the room and even if you can't sort of the right time you will lose jeopardy and you will lose but you mastered the clicker for one day only last what do you think you do a little sort of practice beginning and if you kind of have to find your group and this is the thing about you know guys like cain and like perry they haven't really found their groove and if you don't have the right kind of campaign staff to prepare you for a national campaign then you'll run into some of this trouble and it's sad to see it happen because you know they should have just been better prepared really not have enough people preparing them or is it that he just can't keep anything in his

ok i don't think there's harry literally a number of people that could prepare these people to be president i don't think a million people can do it and i actually think i came up with a few possible categories for the oh you're going to go yeah well i was thinking you could use like women who have accused you of sexual harassment which cain has issues with naming or recognizing any list of three topics any list of three things and then also for michele bachmann other countries that should pay us back for things that we've done i think that's my favorite one is that we should be reimbursed by the people of iraq and. i mean come on. i know it's like your team we're talking about the people who are crazy we don't want any of them actually when your lip into single digits you say things that will get you on the t.v. whether you're republican or democrat i think that they are there already on the t.v. right there are other candidates out there that aren't even being invited to the base these people are just they're just they're on the t.v.

the media loves them and they're actually crazy to believe this stuff i think michele bachmann probably believes that we need to be reimbursed by iraq. i mean she said it multiple times. rick perry forgets for us one agency and you know obviously embarrassing he should have like just admit it in the first ten seconds and so the first fifty three seconds but he didn't remember. cain you know different story when cain blanks out on an entire sort of foreign policy question rather than oh i forgot the third agency one of course you know what it is it's i know it's a much bigger deal but i figured it was so you know i think i think your career is getting a tough time and i think he's actually responded to the gaffe pretty well as far as it goes whereas community is i think sucking wind and it's going you know if you really care ok with romney is on our turn actually i'm here you know look around me just you know it's smoother if you like a car salesman. so ok this is a video that came out today about the white house shooter. well take a look. it's not just

a coincidence that i look like jesus. the modern day jesus christ that you all have been waiting for. the thing about this guy is he also you know those that know him say that he became obsessed with eleven eleven eleven and thinking that the world was going to end on that day i mean it sounds to me like the guy probably needs help you know maybe he might need to be in a mental institution or something like that but i just think it's a little much that they want to charge him with attempted assassination. you know if it's a stretch based on what the provable facts of the case they've got a guy they've got a gun they've got a hole in the white house you know window or whatever it is but when you're trying to meet that bar you have to meet an unevidenced your hurdle and my understanding is that it's not quite there so we'll see how far this case actually goes in court obviously they want to throw the book out and you know i understand that but certain things pass in a court of law and certain things don't and i think in this case it's a bit of an obvious defense just the obvious defense is going to be insanity he's

going to plead insanity and i don't think any of this is even going to matter i just can't imagine and you know taking someone who believes that he is jesus and that obama is the anti-christ he said he was a modern day small. but then he made that that assumption comes from the fact that he looks like him that's how he gets to that's the rats that's not really thinking of a rational that he looks like i mean there's you know you know you appreciate that he's sort of like us scrambling our sort of preconceptions about race and ethnicity and politics like that's sort of a nice reminder of how crazy all americans really can be but the man does not like jesus. ok there is going to wrap it up you guys thanks for joining me tonight it's a pretty night show thanks for tuning in make sure to come back on monday to raise magazines including us for half the hour in the meantime don't forget to become a fan of your show on facebook and follow us on twitter you missed any of the nights or any other night you can always catch. watch the show you'll find the

interview as well as the show in its entirety and coming up next is the needs. twenty years ago the largest country in the world disintegrated. one hundred each. to each began a journey. where did it take to. get our sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then he lives something else and you hear see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry harvey welcome to the big picture.

download the official autopsy obligation job on the phone or i pod touch from the i choose ops to. launch all sheesh life on the go. video on demand oxys mind bold colors and r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the phone.