except for those very same laws but one of their own i'll have the real story behind you or just failure to get in the region you ballot and what other damage right wing voter laws are having on the electorate and later can american citizens be indefinitely detained without trial or not as the national defense authorization act sits waiting for the president's signature we'll speak with attorney scott horton to break down exactly what's in that controversial new law and what it means for you and. you need to know this with less than a week to go until the iowa caucuses it's anyone's guess which republican candidate will come out on top in the hawkeye state according to the latest poll out of iowa conducted by the american research group it's essentially a three way tie for first with ron paul at twenty one percent mitt romney at twenty

percent and you gingrich at nineteen so it looks like at least one of these guys will win right. well not so fast the occupy iowa caucus movement is now urging registered voters to attend next week's caucus but not to vote for any of the candidates instead people are being urged to vote for the guy named uncommitted that's right uncommitted is an option on the ballot as a message from the occupy iowa caucus website says every iowan who identifies of the ninety nine percent should caucus on the evening of january third but after years of foreclosures bailouts corruption war of warfare corporate welfare and the erosion of our freedoms we cannot support any of the presidential candidates we cannot consent to this broken system any longer we will join with our neighbors and caucus for uncommitted uncommitted means we support no candidates and sends a strong message to the leaders of both parties. so what would that mean if no one

comes out of iowa a winner for more on this i'm joined by john nichols washing correspond of the nation magazine john welcome back it's good to be with you tom so how serious a threat is the uncommitted vote in iowa. but actually could be a very serious threat as recently as nine hundred ninety two in the democratic caucuses uncommitted came in second and back in the one nine hundred seventy s. uncommitted beat the leading candidate all the other candidates for the democratic victory in both nine hundred seventy two and nine hundred seventy six also in the one nine hundred eighty s. uncommitted beat bob dole in one nine hundred eighty and beat alexander haig in one thousand nine hundred eight so uncommitted has then a factor in iowa politics for a long time and if even say twenty thousand iowans were to show up at the caucuses and vote uncommitted they could well displace one of the leading contenders

uncommitted is essentially the same thing as none of the above right well in a sense what it what it means is that you know i has a multi-step process and so you go to the caucuses you choose county delegates who choose district delegates and ultimately choose the states delegation to the national convention theoretically you could send a substantial number of delegates the republican national convention or the democratic national convention who are committed to no candidate but who are committed to a set of positions to an ideology and equity a very powerful signal imagine if at the republican national convention you had not just delegates from iowa but perhaps from a number of other states standing up and saying look we don't accept mitt romney's view that corporations are people that could be a very powerful and very very newsy development that's amazing that would essentially be how the electoral college was and vision by the framers when they

put together the constitution was that local communities would define or a point or lacked the wise as the wise elder of the community and then some that person off with some ideas or some thoughts but basically to let them make their own mind up i mean it didn't work out the. play by eight hundred but but interesting how they have value based politics right yeah ana and imagine if at both the democratic and the republican national conventions you had ten fifteen percent of the delegates who were there uncommitted except to a ninety nine percent view that big bank shouldn't run things that corporations should run things so we should clean up our politics and not be driven by citizens united money this could be one of the most exciting developments in our politics this year perhaps more important than any of the candidates now that's a you know a real positive look at this thing as biting the republicans on the border at least as a threat to with this being the republican primary but wouldn't the saying uncommitted

or if it were to be interpreted as a none of the above sentiment possibly hurt democrats in november isn't that ultimately a problem for the entire electoral process regardless of party and i don't think so and i actually like the idea of inserting ideas into our politics and values then it becomes a competition between the two parties to rise to that higher standard to appeal to these this mass of people that are saying we want to different and better those values john aren't on the ballot so so you don't know of the uncommitted candidate is there because he got the k.k.k. vote or if he's there because he got the ninety nine percent vote the walk by wall street vote for example it's an organizing it's always an organizing project and you're absolutely right there's this is volatile stuff in the political parties always seek to shut this down they always seek in the stepped process of choosing delegates to get rid of the uncommitted so i'm just saying that if you had a committed group of people who saw the process through got to the convention and

said for instance no we are not going to vote for a platform that supports you know tax breaks for big corporations we're not going to vote for a platform that supports more wars in afghanistan and places like that i mean it is simply a way. to insert a politics of protest into the party nominating process right now when you get for the november election look both of these parties are going to have candidates and there will also be a third party candidate so the green candidate perhaps jill stein a maybe rocky anderson running as an independent candidate and and so there once you had an interruption of the nominating process by an alternative politics you might see a number of these candidates trying to compete for that portion of the electorate that seems to be sending a signal and that's all i'm saying it's just it's getting opening up our politics in a way that it has not been open for quite a long time so it's certainly worth it let me put it this way in my view it's

certainly worth trying to what extent do you think the entire republican primary process getting back to you know this being the republican primary has largely been an extended obama obama bashing experiment with no cost basically the republicans because they're getting free t.v. time and free exposure and how much of the republican primary was really just a money making hustle for people like cain who are just basically doing book tours and michele bachmann whose house race last night last year was the most expensive one the nation across thirteen million bucks and so she's out there raising money which will roll into our house cam campaign. so look there's no doubt that there are many people running for the republican nomination for president who never thought for a second that they were going to be the nominee they got into this race for a variety of different reasons maybe to get a show on fox like mike huckabee did out of the two thousand and eight campaign maybe just to lay groundwork for a two thousand and sixteen campaign or as you suggest to strengthen their

fundraising for a congressional race there's all these things are in play the most unsettling thing is what the republican contest has said about our media by and large the debates have allowed the republican candidates to say absurd things to make wild and bizarre claims and for the most part to go unchallenged by journalists and so we have a situation where most of our mainstream media for the last six to eight months has really collaborated with the republican infomercial that certainly has as many of the occupy folks suggest ought to be interrupted him well said john nichols thanks so much for being with us tonight it's an honor to be with you. and to have you thank you regardless of how the republican caucuses turn out in iowa the two big lessons most americans have telegraphed to both parties is that we want candidates who actually believe what they say and have the courage to fight for their convictions the republicans are showing us by going big for

a crackpot but consistent candidate like ron paul the importance of consistency and who came here just plug nations he fights in fights back it's why the republicans don't like mitt romney he seems like a wimp it seems that you know he comes across like he has no core beliefs other than perhaps his religion on the democratic side president obama's approval ratings have actually gone up five points in just three days according to gallup why has he fought with the republicans on extending unemployment benefits is a lesson learned here a lesson that harry truman taught democrats back in one nine hundred forty eight. i'd like to say a word or two now. but i think the republican philosophy is. the republican party as i said a while ago favors the privileged few and not the common everyday man.

ever since its inception that party has been under they're going to throw out a special privilege and they concretely approved it congress people know the democratic party is up people's party and the republican party is the party of special interests and it always has been and always will be with god they call it give them hell harry and kick the republicans but with those speeches in that election so seriously so substantially so badly so you know flat out across the room across the country that the republicans didn't take back the house of representatives for another forty six years one of the things that we can see both in the republican primaries and in these in this bounce and number is now that president obama has stood up to the republicans and basically kicked their butts you know with the headlines like you know obama trances republicans and things like that is that americans like a fighter especially

a fighter who believes in what he has to say or she has to say in this case he's well michele bachmann she is well and president obama in particular has expressed many good beliefs from the beginning of his campaign three years ago to now so hopefully now he's starting to fight for them and we will stop hearing this word compromise over and over and over again and it'll start being more like harry truman my way or the highway we're going to do this right it's the right because it's the right thing to do. after the break why will the republican presidential front runner virginia not appear other virginia ballot answer coming up next. what 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 human 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 morning. new gig or just got screwed over by is own party's strict new voting laws even though newt has a sizable lead in virginia according to the latest polls is name or appear on the

virginia ballot and it's not because newt didn't get the ten thousand signatures necessary to get his name on the ballot he did unfortunately those signatures weren't valid according to a change in the way republicans run their primary in virginia this year that party is applying the same rigorous identity standards to primary voters that apply to everybody in the general election. part of that voter id law that caught gingrich was that each signature on the petition watch out must have its address verified to make sure it's the same address as that listed on their voter registration cards if it's not and it doesn't count republicans did this to throw voters off the rolls and keep them from voting in the next election if there's a minor address discrepancy or kids have gone off to college or people are low income and often move in search of work but in this case the new law hurt his chances to win the republican nomination go figure meanwhile another voter

suppression news elsewhere around the nation a ninety three year old woman in tennessee just found out she's no longer eligible to vote phil mitchell was born in one thousand eight teen but never received a birth certificate she was born by a midwife and now her old state's id no longer meets the new voter i.d. requirement passed by republicans in the state legislature so for the first time in decades she suddenly can't vote but a backlash could now be under way last week the department of justice blocked a new voter id law in south carolina after studies showed the law would disproportionately affected non white residents people who aren't like newt gingrich for more on this story and a rundown of the republican efforts to disenfranchise millions of americans ahead of the two thousand and twelve elections i'm joined by brad friedman founder and editor brad blog from our los angeles studios brad walk of the hey tom happy holidays to you my friend and the same to you sir so what are the republicans up to this year and where. well actually what they're doing is being hoisted on their own

put tarred here apparently the story that you mention in virginia you know for years republicans have been making up out of whole cloth this notion that democrats are committing voter fraud that there are you know even lately we saw up in wisconsin in the recall walker effort there claiming the democrats are fraudulent only putting in signature petitions for adolph hitler and mickey mouse all of which of course is nonsense but in this case in virginia they actually had they're facing a lawsuit right now in virginia because the way they've got it set up is that you need ten thousand petitions to be a legitimate candidate on the ballot in the primary however the republicans were left to their own devices to determine if the signatures were eligible or not and the same was true for democrats at the same time independent candidates had to face more rigorous approval of those signatures by the state election board so

a candidate recently filed a suit saying you know look for me as an independent i've got to go through these rigorous standards to get onto the ballot but republicans are pretty much just rubber stamping any number of signatures that come through without checking to see that they're valid so this year the republicans bothered to check to see if those signatures were valid and indeed newt gingrich who lives by the way in the state of virginia did not have enough signatures to qualify for the primary ballot so you know as they say in the state who knows newt best he has been rejected by the voters and by the republican party amazing when i lived in atlanta he was my congressman for. too many years i can understand well they may reject him in australia ninety eight percent of say the same is true by the way with rick perry who which is also not allowed. to be on that ballot so pretty much you're only left

with mitt romney and ron paul on the big republican primary that will take place on super tuesday right and a lot of this this legislation that limits the number of people who can vote or reduces the vote overall came out of the american legislative exchange council alec which is heavily funded by the koch brothers in australia by contrast ninety eight percent of the people vote here it's about half why do the koch brothers and other right wing fund efforts to make it harder to vote. well you know in australia of course there's mandatory voting match why the i think it was ninety eight percent turnout there but yeah but no back here look they know the republicans know that it's easy to disenfranchise democratic voters across the board minority voters student voters elderly voters by putting in place these photo id restrictions at the polling place happily now we're beginning to see some pushback finally from the

from the department of justice from eric holder who rejected as you said that south carolina photo i.d. restriction and it's not you know we shouldn't call them voter i.d. laws because most states already have voter id laws nothing wrong with a voter i.d. law as long as there are you know a lot of different ways that you can prove that you are who you say you are you know bank statements you paychecks pay stubs and so forth it is the draco nian photo id restrictions that are being put in place in places like south carolina which are going to disenfranchise tens if not hundreds of thousands of legal voters fact have satisfied and we've got the good news from the department of justice you know saying no to the south carolina law after they found that minority voters are twenty percent more likely to not have the type of photo i.d. required to vote. in south carolina then than

a non minority and we've seen one study that shows that as many as five million people may be disenfranchised in two thousand and twelve election just because of these alec rules brad with a laugh with a minute a half or so we have left here i want to get back to one of the topics that you were one of the very best reporters in the country and people can learn more about over a black bread blog dot com and that's the hackable voting machines what's the latest scoop on these and is there any chance that they may be at risk from groups like anonymous so we'll end up seeing blue shift instead a red shift. listen there is a chance that they can be at risk from anybody whether it's anonymous whether it's al qaeda whether it's the republican party the democratic party themselves these machines are completely open to manipulation and even last week incredibly enough the u.s. elections assistance commission which is supposed to be the federal body that oversees all the voting machines in the country they finally after all of these

years did an investigation into one of their own systems that they had previously certified and found out this is a paper ballot optical scan system that is used in ohio it's made by e.s.p.n.'s it's used in ohio florida new york a whole bunch of other states they found that in fact this optical scan system was not counting ballots it was actually dropping votes and there would be no way to know this unless you actually bothered to count those paper ballots by hand something that i've been calling for i believe you have now four years to count those ballots by hand at the precinct in front of the public video cameras all the parties and everywhere everybody else before moving those paper ballots anywhere that we need to have absolutely once again we found that these machines simply do not work which is why when they tried them in holland they said get these things out here so they can get it all over europe that everybody's saying we don't want him it's not that we've got a brad friedman brad great work you're doing brad thanks so much for being with us

tonight. thanks and i have a scoop tomorrow of brad blog dot com showing that even republicans don't believe the photo id will keep so-called voter fraud from happening at the polling place at check that out tomorrow it's great i'll check it out thanks brett. now turning our attention away from destructive voting laws to destructive homeland security laws the highly controversial national defense authorization act is still awaiting the president's signature and act contains an indefinite detention provision giving the president united states the power to use the military to indefinitely detain you without trial if he says you are a suspected terrorist they would protest across the country in response to the act including a dozen patriots with occupy d.c. being arrested in front of the white house last week but the department of justice announced on wednesday that the president will indeed sign the national defense authorization act into law although he will also be issuing a signing statement regarding the indefinite detention provision specifically so

what chance and what first of all what chance might that have to affect the law and secondly what change will this make in the united states once the law becomes law and even though president obama may try to limit his own new powers regarding indefinite detention will the signing statement what about the next president for more on this i'm joined by scott horton an attorney lecturer at the columbia law school and contributing editor with harper's magazine scott welcome great to be with you thank you for joining us well george w. bush seems to set an all time record for signing statements they really go back to the early days of our republic could you give us a quick recap an overview of what they are and what authority they carry or don't. well signing statements are basically a memorandum that the president issues when these signs a piece of legislation and the law and they're intended to to clarify or to provide guidance to officers of the executive branch as to how the law is to be implemented

so they as you note they go back to the beginning of the republic but it's really in the course of the last decade that we've seen a sudden and rather dramatic spike in their use and then the bush years we saw signing statements used basically as a sort of secret veto of legislation so by a signing statement the president would say well these certain parts of this legislation i'm not going to implement because i believe they impinge on my constitutional rights and you know that runs into a rather serious constitutional issue because if the president were to veto a piece of legislation that would go back to congress and what the proper supermajorities congress could still go that into law but the president has signed it and issued a signing statement that restricts its application he's a veto that without giving congress an opportunity to pass it into law over his

veto has the supreme court weighed in on this not yet. interesting can obama then basically change the law in a way that binds future presidents when the sun is day and for that matter is president obama right now bound by the signing statements of george bush. well he would not be bound by statements of prior presidents he's entitled to his own interpretation of statutes but nevertheless executive branch practice develops a following signing statements which does have force in effect and obama when he was a senator was very critical of the bush administration's signing statement practices he said that this president he would steer clear of this and yet we're seeing in the second half of his presidency we're seeing a much more aggressive posture being taken and we're seeing the justice department department suggesting that there will be. assertive position on the executive

powers and a signing statement on the in the day which looks very very much like the bush years very interesting president obama had threatened to veto this particular law the nationals defense appropriation act if it carried this indefinite detention provision but at the last minute as i recall it was dianne feinstein got an amendment in that the said that the bill didn't create new law with regard to indefinite detention but what is the existing law of new all wasn't created and given that this president has already asserted his authority to kill an american citizen without a trial because he considered a terrorist and actually carried out carried out that exact act isn't worried about detention like a step short i mean haven't we already gone way past that bridge. well i think you know that's that raises another set of serious issues senator feinstein actually put forward two amendments the first one would have

a very made very clear that american citizens could not be subjected to this sort of indefinite detention that amendment failed the one that succeeded the one that you mention is one that says well the law is locked in there's no change to the law by virtue of this legislation the problem is that the law was not entirely clear i think the law was clear that that an american who was involved in some sort of military operation for the enemy has in fact happened and during world war two could be picked up could be held under the laws of war and not not much of an issue about that the bigger question is what goes on on american soil and on that point we had five justices of the supreme court staking out i think a pretty clear position several years ago that that would violate the constitution center finds and was exactly the difference i was trying to hold to that law and i think i think that probably that her amendment would be read would be

interpreted that way the problem is of course that the composition of the supreme court has changed since then it's likely to change again and before that issue gets gets to the court who knows what it's going to look like i'd say but i'd say the odds are good that this sort of right the detention of a citizen on u.s. soil would would not be recognized by the supreme court what about the right to kill a u.s. citizen scott in the minute we have left i mean this is this is something that the president used just a few months ago albeit not on american soil but this is a fellow of no trial no defense nothing. yeah i well i think there is serving a lot of war right in the course if an american let's say there were two was wearing a german uniform farthing you would have a right to shoot and kill him just as much you with a german citizen the problem is with american citizens who are away from in the battlefield like a larky was and there i think obama's gone to

a fairly extreme position evidently with the backing of the department of justice which is to the memorandum supporting that you know we all really love to see that memorandum and how it's reaching the conclusions it reaches scott horton thanks so much for being with us tonight scott. merry christmas and happy new year thanks and the same to us are. crazy alert be aware of the exploding sure it all goes a spanish newspaper has been ordered to pay more than one hundred thousand bucks to thirteen readers after they suffered severe burns trying to cook recipe published in that newspaper the recipe to follow exactly inevitably leads to the cho exploding in. chile's supreme court the nation of chile ruled the newspaper failed to fully test out the recipe before publishing it and is thus responsible for any subsequent injuries in the newspaper has agreed to abide by the court's

ruling although he admits he did deliver on his promise to radio readers. with an explosion of flavor. next if you thought your interaction with the t.s.a. was over once you left the airport this weekend think again the t.s.a. is expanding its operations so what does that mean for our privacy. and what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions it's going to break through it's already been made who can you trust no one who is you know in view with a global mission a region where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.