hello i'm john harbin to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture there is one bill the lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were able to reach a compromise on last night on capitol hill but surprise surprise it's not exactly in the home address and it hasn't been a good week for planet earth and so my republican lawmakers are making sure that the hits keep on coming and newt gingrich seems to have become the g.o.p. flavor of the month rather than just the flavor of the week are republicans really ready to make the strangest candidate in the race their nominee for the white house

. you need to know this in one of the few issues republicans and democrats seem to compromise on now days house and senate negotiators agreed on terms for a six hundred sixty two billion dollars defense spending bill late last night not only does the spending bill keep our giant war machine going but it also gives a broad new powers to the president to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects under the new provisions any individual suspected of plotting attacks such as al qaeda member or of the terrorist organization will immediately be taken into custody by the military. from there they can be taped detained indefinitely and even held without a trial for as long as the military says is necessary as in as i said indefinitely

the silver lining if there is one is that american citizens were exempted from the indefinite detention provision during negotiations even though warhawk lindsey graham argued for in definite detention of american saying if you're an american citizen you'll be paid betray your country you're not going to be given a lawyer i believe our military should be deeply involved in fighting these guys at home or abroad so much so show lindsey graham article three section three of the constitution which reads no person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or on confession in open court but even though americans were excluded thankfully passing this defense bill would still be a dark day for america and it's a sign that we've lost our values values that were instilled in us by our very first president george washington the question and it really is

a question is is our nation in more danger right now than it was during the revolutionary war i really don't think so historian david hackett hackett fischer wrote a book called washington's crossing and in that book he said in seven hundred seventy six american leaders believed it was not enough to just win the war they also had to win in a way that was consistent with the values of their society and the principles of their cause one of the greatest achievements was to manage the war in a way in a manner that was true to the expanding humanitarian ideals of the american revolution. you see the american revolution was based on the values of the enlightenment as articulated by john walk in john jack rousseau and even arguably thomas hobbes and certainly by franklin roosevelt. benjamin franklin and thomas jefferson and james madison we seem to have forgotten how to win wars consistent

with those kinds of values with those and lightman values but george washington understood this at the battle of trenton for example he'd captured a thousand has sions these were german mercenaries base and he ordered his troops to treat them in accordance with the values that this new nation it was not yet even a nation actually was fighting for then the battle of princeton washington sent this order to his troops in regard to how to treat british prisoners of war he said treat them with humanity and let them have no reason to complain of our copy in the brutal example of the british army and their treatment of our unfortunate brother and who have fallen into their hands is the fact the matter is the british army when they took american soldiers as prisoners they would torture them many of them died being tortured they would indefinitely detain them they could they kept them

in in stinking cells and fed them virtually nothing or just water and bread indefinite detention and torture and that kind of cruel treatment george washington knew was the way of our enemies not of us torture as the kind of torture the george w. bush bragged about his autobiography that's the way of our enemies not of the united states of america we need to remember the less the george washington thomas but there's another disturbing trend coming to light with this new war spending bill. and that's this as the center for american progress has pointed out boehner mcconnell cancer kyle graham have voted yes on more than a trillion dollars in war spending since two thousand and two trillion bucks these guys have signed off no problem no question asked that included one hundred twenty

billion dollars rebuilding infrastructure in iraq and afghanistan hundred twenty billion dollars again give the military a blank check is the military as sure you know the problem but one of these guys done when it comes to legislation that would create millions of american jobs here and instead of rebuilding iraq and afghanistan rebuild the united states that thirty years or reaganomics is supervised the essential destruction of all the filibuster or voted down bill after bill for example on october eleventh one hundred percent of senate republicans one hundred percent of the senate republicans voted against millions of american jobs on october twentieth one hundred percent of senate republicans voted against nearly four hundred thousand jobs are teachers firefighters and cops. on november third one hundred percent of the republicans in the united states senate said no no way they voted against four

hundred fifty thousand jobs for americans rebuilding our infrastructure and then with the payroll tax cut ninety eight percent of senate republicans voted to raise taxes on one hundred sixty million working americans again on december eighth ninety eight percent of senate republicans voted to raise taxes on over one hundred sixty million americans they did all of this for just one reason to protect the millionaires and billionaires just the top half percent from a miniscule tax increase we go to war the rich doesn't sacrifice their kids don't even show up or as joe kennedy you know this is the older brother of jack kennedy actually died in world war two and we have drafts we need to rebuild our roads our bridges our railways and when we do right now the rich are not sacrificing our participation we need to cut in to give one hundred sixty million americans a tax cut and unfortunately up to this point the rich are saying no we don't want to go along with that i want to return to something here that we spent one hundred

twenty billion dollars rebuilding iraq and afghanistan that could have been one hundred twenty billion dollars for here in the united states instead with that hundred twenty billion we could have bought six and a half thousand schools in the united states we could have built more than nine thousand hospitals we could've given sixty two million poor kids health insurance we could have given fifteen million kids a one year scholarship to college we could have converted fifty two million homes to solar power and get rid of the need for oil we the american people need to remind these guys exactly who they were work for and what the values of this nation are give them a call and tell them if they can afford to rebuild iraq we can afford to rebuild america not just our roads and our infrastructure but our values to. the environment is crude now only the real solutions fail to come out of the un climate talks in durban last week but canada announced today that it's dropping out

of the kyoto treaty course the united states was never in it but more disturbing news came out about the environment from the insurance company swiss re the world's second largest reinsurer poured into a new report two thousand and eleven was the second costly this year for natural disasters in the history of the world from freak mile wide tornadoes in the us flooding of biblical proportions australia and thailand to the japanese earthquake and tsunami insurers are dealing with over one hundred billion dollars most of it in a wild weather claims and today republicans are making sure the global warming and induced freak weather continues in the house of representatives today republicans as their version of the payroll tax cut extension complete with two poison pills for our environment one the fast track approval of the keystone x.l. pipeline pipeline which will ship highly toxic tar sand sludge oil from canada down to oil barons and texas has been referred to as a ticking time bomb for the environment and to repeal of new regulations on how

much pollution coal plants can spew into the air so why are republicans making a deal with the middle class on the terms that one hundred sixty million americans can have their tax cuts but only if we push the environment to the brink of irreversible climate change anthony swift joins me now he's the national resources defense council international program attorney and pipeline analyst anthony welcome pleasure to be here tom thanks great to have you with us and just you know straightforward the previous legislation that was put on hold by the white house was quite different from what the republicans proposed tonight tell me if you could just identify those differences first of all what's we're. about what was proposed tonight well what was proposed tonight was a series of payroll cuts that included two completely unrelated provisions one which would expedite keystone x.l. a pipeline that doesn't even have a route determined yet it has been incredibly contentious in the us the american

people have spoken very loudly that they'd like to see more of you and more scientific and now assists of this pipeline to determine whether it's in our national interest and the republicans are presenting it as a jobs package which it isn't and also this boilers provision that would roll back boiler rate regulations and in the process put at risk thousands of americans to premature deaths deaths due to lung disease so they're making the coal powered power plants dirtier or letting them stay dirty and. this is the bull's eye is it true that there's a piece of this provision that would actually allow a foreign company trans canada of the people who are promoting this oil pipeline across the united states or principle sponsors of it to ignore existing environmental rules regulations and safety rules and regulations in the united states if they build this according to the republican plan well there are a couple there were

a couple provisions that republicans looked at or ways that republicans looked at to fast track keystone x.l. now let me tell you a bit about this pipeline it's eight hundred thirty thousand barrels a day pipeline that would move some of the dirtiest oil in the planet to refineries in the in texas and at present it would cross our largest source of fresh groundwater us. a walkover exactly and the most you know water intensive portion of it in nebraska and i should mention that before president obama stepped in and delayed the process trance candidate was threatening to sue the state of nebraska if it used its legal authority to revalue we're talking about not wanting the. thing to go through their state that's right it's not just a veyron meddling it's also a terrorist targets this is a giant pipeline that just takes well this next dynamite there i mean there are huge vulnerabilities with this pipeline and it there are safety issues with moving what is called tar sands crude that haven't been evaluated in fact more closer to

the to the pipe and so that's right in the house and senate they've passed legislation that would require pipeline safety regulators to study the effects of this crude on pipeline systems the problem is if we fast track keystone x.l. it will be built before any of those safety improvements can be put on line now john boehner today or maybe was just afternoon but recently. this is he says we want to shovel roger ready projects to put people to work immediately this is shovel ready i find it odd that well first of all trans canada says this entire pipelines are going to produce a couple hundred permanent jobs on the one hand but on the other hand there will be a lot of temporary jobs building it it seems hard for me to imagine that the republicans would be actually allow something to happen that would put people to work before the november two thousand and twelve election is that it really is shovel ready or is it that it's going to take a year before the thing gets started before the election well it is not shovel

ready as i said the there hasn't been a route agreement in nebraska nebraska did pass a law that allows them to move the pipeline and they're still in negotiations so. so even if the democrats agreed with the republicans that i said that's cool find go out expedite it isn't going to produce any jobs before the elections in november that's true and even the larger point is this project is not a major national job creator i mean you're looking at cars thousand temporary construction jobs and. you know as you said a couple hundred permanent jobs according to trance canada state department said that it would be as low as twenty permanent jobs so this isn't the job the national jobs. is that the american people have asked congress to produce and that the you know the house leadership is presenting it as has there been any consideration whatsoever of the climate impact on draining the world's second largest pool of liquid carbon and there's been very little consideration i should say of replacing

eight hundred thirty thousand barrels a day of conventional crude with this tar sands crude is the equivalent of putting more than six million cars on the road tomorrow that huge impacts and essentially the state department in its review hasn't looked at it and the and the refinery impact that area along the coast texas louisiana alabama mississippi so nice is referred to as cancer alley because downwind from all of these refineries. i'm assuming refining this particular type of oil is going to be even throwing more cancerous cancer causing things into the air and in in areas that are largely poor and and and victims of this that's exactly right tar sands crude is some of the dirtiest oil to refine as well it has huge amounts of sulfur heavy metals poly sickly aromatic hydrocarbons all that nasty stuff that you want to avoid and there's not been enough focus on what replacing conventional crude in the gulf

refineries will do to those communities amazing anthony thanks thanks so much for your pleasures great having you know sadly as long as our lawmakers keep denying the reality of climate change each year's natural disasters will get worse and worse six hundred forty six people died this year in america from natural disasters we can't afford to sit on our hands any longer time to get the oil and coal barons out of our politics and for our lawmakers to open their eyes and see what's happening all over this country. coming up what will he say next the current g.o.p. front runner may be setting a new record for did he really say that moments but conservative voters seem to be immune to just. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through that sort of being made who can you trust no one who is in view with a global missionary zeal where we had

a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more. republican presidential front runner newt gingrich just doesn't want to throw you in jail for smoking pot he wants to kill you as speaker of the house back in one nine hundred ninety six gingrich announced the drug importer death penalty act of

one thousand nine hundred six a bill calling for the execution of anyone convicted of carrying two ounces of marijuana across the border more than once defending the bill. are where the decision that our laws our children enough that we will kill you if you're doing this currently more than half of all americans support legalization of marijuana or give bridge on to execute those who deal in your course is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to nuke being out of touch with the american people remember this is the same guy who recently came out against child labor laws and thinks poor nine year olds should be scrubbing toilets at schools particularly if they come from poor and presumably minority neighborhoods he's out dog whistle even ronald reagan this is the guy who pocketed millions of fannie mae and freddie mac. dollars this is the guy who flip flopped harder than mitt romney on the health care individual mandate because he proposed it before romney even did it this is the guy whose whole campaign staff quit calling him a huckster who is just doing

a book tour this is the guy who just threw his support behind a pledge to never commit infidelity even though he's cheated on his two wives in his defense he does point out. but he's sixty eight years old now suggesting maybe she's getting tool too tired to fool around and this is the guy who wants to invest money in space mirrors and space lasers and defenses against e.m.p. electromagnetic pulse attacks from outer space yeah this is newt who now has a double digit lead in the polls on mitt romney. so is this who republicans will settle on the downright weirdest guy in the race and if so what if think he has to attempt to answer that is richer esko senior scholar at the campaign for america's future richard welcome back good to have you here in the studio. first of all news signed this pledge long and ron paul and mitt romney refused to sign it

this pledge that he'll be faithful. is this the same one that used to include language the said that african-americans were better off under slavery yes it is actually and you know it's interesting because. a wedding fall is also a prop play which right you pledge to be faithful you pledge should be true if you're going to break one play when it has to do with infidelity why should we believe you wouldn't break another pledge i mean how much meaning because now for the third time changed religion so you went from right lutheran i think to bab so the baptists to when he was representing southern georgia to actually was my congressman and now he's catholic and to be fair the wedding pledges to god in this would be to who grover norquist so he's appealing to a higher authority so maybe he'd keep this pledge i don't know he cheated on his first wife who was his high school geometry teacher he married her when he was nineteen and she was twenty six and then she got cancer as she had cancer he started cheating on his the woman who became his second wife and he dumped his

first wife famously hospital bed all that stuff then his second wife got m.s. and so he started cheating on the woman who is now his third wife are on her with the least. doesn't that mean that police there really has to do two things number one don't let this guy out of her sight and over to make sure she never gets sick. you know. the other thing is i was fascinated that his defense that he'll be faithful this time he was suggesting because he had some performance issues so do you. this is not exactly an inspirational story we think of the president of the united states as being a role model for young people i think we'd be breaking that tradition pretty radically with nuclear gingrich don't you specially when he's got rush limbaugh back at him and you know russia's when i was little blue pills and i was thinking about that by the way if they jail drug dealers rush won't be able to hire a maid oh geez so you would be able hire rush i mean all right that that's what's

what's with newt's obsession with space weapons newt i've been tracking this for a long time because when newt left congress and started the center for health care transformation i had some mutual contacts with that organization and i thought hey maybe this is a guy who wants to play with ideas experiment brainstorm and then he started getting into transhumanism a little bit with ray kurzweil and those people what is the trans humanism is the belief that we human beings should radically alter the physical body and the nature of what it means to be human merge with computers nanotechnology it's all defined and there are some interesting ideas in there a big notion of how to live forever yes all of i got in exactly this so so new got involved with that and some of the architects of that he started playing around with the space stuff and pretty quickly i realized that no this isn't a game it's all intellectual cotton candy with him it's right colored and it looks

like it would taste good but it's not filling there's not really so far and weird he's really smart but he's not a genius and he thinks he's a genius so he's like that kid who's always inventing time travel in his basement there's really nothing to it so it's interesting so what i actually knew somebody like what's going to you know motion machine. what should republicans worry about if new kicks romney's but i mean you know there were a lot of us in one thousand nine hundred eighty or in seventy six for that matter when the first time that ronald reagan ran for president who. not a chance right. you know it's the ronnie reagan he's been divorced you know the base will go for him he talks crazy he is big his career high was hanging out with a chimp. i mean right well look we underestimate new at our peril with i couldn't agree more i remember in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight as reagan was retiring they did a twenty year retrospective on laugh and they were showing this whole comedy show

from one nine hundred sixty eight the year that reagan started to emerge in politics and there was a line news twenty years from today which was a regular feature laugh and had today today president ronald reagan announced the laugh track it was a joke in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight to think that ronald reagan could ever be president so i such a bad governor because he was a bad governor and he seems crazy and eccentric and had this lightweight background so i think democrats who left new to offer who pray for his victory i do think romney would be stronger against obama but i think newt could have a plausible story to tell i wouldn't dismiss from what you're going to haul billikens have to worry about from a new candidate will he's an extremely unappealing human being i mean i think at the end of the day he does not come across as likable i mean it's not just the things you mentioned about his biography but he got to be speaker of the house i mean right you don't achieve the level of being the third most powerful person in the united states arguing the world by being totally incompetent i'm not suggesting

he's incompetent but what i think the republicans ought to fear is that you know the presidential race is a personality race at least as much as anything else it's almost like a reality show nowadays so there are going to be scrutiny the voters are going to be scrutinizing the republican candidate and as a personality very high likeability he's likable he's telling janet he has a lovely family what's going to happen when they put him up against this man with this background and just he comes across as not a likable human being on a personal level i think that could really hurt them yeah. what does this say about the republican party that their line up has come down to basically you know crazy smart guy and and mitt who can't get off the ground well i mean their race their candidates look like the cast of a new sitcom but why i mean why are the serious candidates staying out is it because they think the economy's going to go in the tank they don't want to be

herbert hoover i think that's part of it and i also think that they really felt that knew that mitt had it locked up i think the consensus was it's minutes this is mitt's year this is mitt's time mitt can get it done i don't think anybody inside the republican party realized what a deep undercurrent of hatred there is within the republican party for mitt romney now how much of that is flip flopping and how much of that is his being a mormon i think it's both i think it's his being a mormon i think it's the flip flopping i think it all comes together they don't trust him they don't like him they don't think he's real they don't think he's a real christian they don't think he's a real conservative they just don't like the man they they consider him the manchurian candidate within their own party right and newt of course isn't i mean he everything about newt is pretty much obvious which is like a ton of money but they like him richard thank you for being so good to be shit remember the old gag david letterman letterman used to do or he'd have people guess whether the top half of a photo was the hair of donald trump or

a monkey i think this republican primary has become a weird variation on that crazy board just in a silent inmate. crazy alert fat cats literally a cat or ohm is now a millionaire occupying the ranks of the feline top one percent and four year old tomaso's owner croaked ninety four year old childless widow she left so thirteen point three million bucks in a parent's according to italian law pets are unable to collect direct inheritance this so the money is being watched over by tomatoes new caregiver a nurse james stuff. who made a promise to look after the cat after the owner died the inheritance makes tommaso the third richest pet in the world behind a german shepherd named because we're one hundred thirty eight million bucks and a chimpanzee named lou worth sixty one million bucks as for what gunther and kahlua

plan to do with all their millions now the answer is simple what every millionaire does create jobs of course. coming up on the big picture a huge crowds turned out for yesterday's massive day of action on the west coast that shut down several major ports but could a new technology being deployed across the pond soon be a game changer for police and patriots here at home. and drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through get through to be made who can you trust no one who is you know in view with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

welcome back to the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour a high tech weapons meant to combat iraq ships on the open seas may be coming to a street corner protest near you and put all that for you know what's really on your dinner plate is becoming increasingly difficult to find out there may be very little our lawmakers can do about it.