find out what shadowy organization is really behind the laws coming out of old dominion and later voter fraud is voter fraud except when republicans commit then it's just a mistake the latest on the virginia ballot controversy coming up. you need to know this looking for a job in michigan might want to apply to be one of the radical right wing governors rick snyder's financial managers in like six figures last year governor snyder signed a new law it gives him the power to remove elected officials of any city that he believes has been mismanaged financially and put in their place and an elected financial manager to run the city instead without any input from local residents or

voters and according to a report from the flint journal these financial managers are making a lot of bucks anywhere between one hundred thirty two thousand and two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year and here's the kicker their salaries are being paid by the very same cash strapped cities that they're in charge of are bought a slap in the face broke cities in michigan now have to pay someone a quarter million bucks to rip apart their union so off their public parks and cut their critical programs. so how exactly are michiganders responding to this crooked law that's making rick snyder's buddies rich by destroying local communities well they're mobilizing to have it repealed activists in michigan are close to collecting the one hundred sixty one thousand signatures needed to put this law on the ballot for reveal more in governor snyder's little dictators and their efforts to repeal this law i'm joined from michigan by reverend david bullock president of

rainbow push coalition and highland park and joining me in the studio is judith brown davis' attorney and co-director of the advancement project welcome to you both but if you think you thank you thank you judith first of all what kind of powers do these financial managers have well the governor and the legislature has given them wholesale power to sell off assets to also break up city governments to take away all powers of elected officials so you can imagine that this is really kind of corporate greed at its worst privatizing all of the local government actions and there's no level of accountability whatsoever. that's almost like the old kingdom feudalism system it's right as we say we consider it to be a dictatorship and it's totally undermining democracy and you know the fact that people want to have a voice in their government and that they should be in power but it is disempowering people taking away elected officials ability to govern over the

people that's where i was born and grew up in michigan i'm astounded the michiganders haven't been well i guess they are in open revolt they are. reverend bullock what is life like under the city financial managers life is horrible this is a state takeover of the city of detroit flint been harbor the will does not count it's not in void i mean we voted for our mayor we voted for city council we voted for city commissioners and now our vote doesn't. now we're worried about laws in southern states that would prohibit voting but we've got michigan the new mississippi where liberties being lynched and the vote is null and void what's it like to live under tyranny what's it like to live under dictatorship how about no police officers how about limited firefighters how about taking streetlights out of cities so that people are in the dark from five pm to roughly about eight you know how about living with global round in despair we're standing up and fighting back

because we believe that democracy should not just be defended overseas but it should be defended in michigan and united states of america so that's amazing i. i'm on the air also my radio show and several stations in michigan and detroit grand rapids and in a seems a bit watching the device family rise over the last decade or so in power and the whole this whole establishment of well. this is not my rant it's yours how is the financial managers a comparable to the people that they're replacing who are the elected officials to write well i mean they're getting paid you know very nicely they are definitely cushioning the pay of these folks and the really important thing is that there's no track record of this working and so under the guise of budget constraints and bank potential bankruptcy to pull in people and say we're going to give you two hundred

fifty thousand dollars to mess that up to mess it up some more and by the way that you can you can sell off all the assets you can sell it off sell off services to your buddies so that your own cronies get to have the services of running police departments running fire departments we should have all of this privatized we have to understand that this is you know this is a symptom of what's going on across the country there is an attack on democracy. across the country in michigan it is happening in a different way than it's happening in other places where they've passed these really regressive laws that really do limit the participation of folks but michigan is the first place where this is happening is this piece of alec legislation or did rick snyder just pull this out it was i mean we suspect that this is an alec piece of legislation they haven't owned up to it yet but clearly when you see these kinds of laws popping up always behind the curtain is alec and especially when it comes

to doing something that undermines democracy and privatized as our government. what's the latest on. on the ground grassroots efforts to push back on this. well we are mobilizing in many different ways there's a referendum campaign i'm so excited to announce that we have so much momentum going into this campaign we need to collect one hundred sixty two thousand signatures statewide we've almost reached that goal in fact we want to go past that goal and get about three hundred thousand just to show the governor and the state of michigan that michigan is against public and for once we get those signatures then this will go on the ballot in two thousand and twelve will be a referendum against ph for it and we know that the citizens of michigan are going to do the right thing but secondly there's a lawsuit being filed right now in the state of michigan going before the michigan supreme court certainly we've called on the u.s. attorney general eric holder by way of congressman john conyers and reverend jesse

jackson myself we've been in d.c. as for eric holder to look in and use the powers of the attorney general's office to intervene in this matter and protect the right to vote but fourthly we legislate we agitate and we have a referendum but we also march in occupy us on january sixteenth in the tradition of the original occupy dr martin luther king who occupied in washington d.c. resurrection city fighting for a war not on the poor before war on poverty we in michigan will be occupying on january sixteenth at four o'clock at governess night is home with money to his home feeding in an album it's night of the usa in his backyard and so we have the referendum campaign we have the lawsuit we're calling on the federal government but we're going to put our feet on the street and we're going to march because we're not going to take it anymore dr king fought medgar evers' died and so many of us

gave their lives so that we could have the right to vote this is about dismantling democracy and we're not going to stand by while governess night it makes michigan the new mississippi that's incredible no not even the. mississippi the new fourteenth century europe i suppose you know it's has any state judith ever done anything like this come along and said we're going to rip we're going to give a a an executive in this case the governor the power to remove elected officials and say to the voters you know tough luck i don't care who you voted for so these kinds of receivership just happen all the time this is the most extreme because it has given wholesale authority to the governor to take over to place dictators in the position of elected officials that don't receive or ships require first an act of voluntary act or perhaps involuntary act

a bankruptcy on the part of the city state organization whatever may be in the appointment by a judge i mean at least there's a legal process that still answerable to the people this is just the governor saying well there are some states that actually do have laws that allow for the governor to come in and say declare a city bankrupt but but what is really unique about michigan is the broad sweeping powers that have been given to these dictators and the fact that you now see detroit i mean we predicted that detroit would be on the list because it is really a jewel for michigan and if you can imagine that someone now gets to sell off all of the land in detroit all of the public facilities all of the parks it becomes a developer's dream it becomes a different place and so this is a this is a bigger picture than what is happening in one place or another it is really piecing it together on how to dismantle democracy in michigan and across the

country and make money off we we didn't show up six months ago but the waterfront property and the harbor that is a river david bullock and judith brown davis thank you both so much maybe with us tonight thank you so much and keep up the good work he's right. laws coming out of michigan are a huge step backwards for our nation you know in the united states we overthrew corporate rule in seven hundred seventy six the east india company used to basically the iran north america and now michigan is returning to corporal democracy in a republic is the will of the people being exercised through their representatives for rick snyder to say that he can replace the republican governor of michigan to say that he can replace democracy with a quarter million dollar a year manager it's a crime against democracy i mean there's just no other way to describe it than just simply as a quiet against democracy especially when the people he's put in a place are buddies a his or friends of his friends now this is like the british east india company

again that that's who's tea we threw in the harbor and seven hundred seventy three the beginning of the american revolution it was against a corporation not against a government like when the british east india company used to run north america and spread the profits among its stockholders who by coincidence were members of the parliament or the king was one of the major stock holders and should be illegal this should be unconstitutional in america for any politician to strip a city or county of their elected officials it's insane it should be a crime let's hope the people of michigan wake of fast and throw these corporate bums out and that this initiative effort to repeal this law is successful and if you're in michigan get out there and get involved if you're not call somebody you know who is and get them active in. coming up if you think elected lawmakers are the ones writing legislation in virginia you'd be wrong find out who's really pulling the strings of virginia's state legislature.

what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions it's going 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.

those screwed virginia according to a new report by the advocacy group progress virginia lawmakers in the state of virginia have outsourced their jobs to the shadowy koch brothers funded corporate think tank known as alec the american legislative exchange council. case you don't know what alec is it's an organization the brings together corporate c.e.o.'s and lobbyists with elected lawmakers to come up with custom age levels legislation that benefits big polluters job outsourcers and banks toure's and hurts unions poor people and voters and apparently it's found a friend in the virginia general assembly where since two thousand and seven over fifty different pieces of legislation have been introduced which are exact carbon copies of alec written legislation. so what does that mean corporate think tanks

are in charge of writing was there to shed more light on the stories in the shoulder the executive director of progress v.a. project progress virginia is that i respect you for having me well thank you for joining us and your report claims that alex has a to use your words disturbing level of influence over the virginia legislature what does that mean will we took a look at bills that were authored in the geneological a chair going back to about two thousand and seven and look specifically at legislators that we knew how to relationship with alec and the legislation that they were authorizing and found that at least fifty pieces of legislation were drawn from alec model bills that have been made available by the center for media and democracy online and legislators in virginia have essentially been copying and pasting legislative language that was written by corporations and inserting it into bills there and you do sing in the virginia general assembly with no disclosure that they were not the original authors of that legislative language there's no

requirement for them to schools that there's no requirement but of legislators in virginia do frequently disclose if a bill has been requested by a constituent by a local legislative body like a board of supervisors or something like that none of the legislators seem to be interested in disclosing that legislation was written for them by allies of the best your knowledge is virginia unique in this and. i know there's a lot of legislation floating around the country but it was a situation much worse there than in other states and if so is there something about the virginia legislature that makes it more vulnerable to the sort of thing bridget is certainly not unique in this legislation has been are introduced around the country i think virginia is in a couple of unique situations the first of which is that we have a part time legislature like many states that meets for a very short time over the winter you there are thirty or sixty days depending on if it's a budget year and legislators once a year once a year and legislators really don't have the time. to necessarily do

a lot of research and check the background and it's an easy resource for them to insert a bill that they know has already been signed off on by corporate corporations and potentially campaign donors the other unique thing about virginia is that bill howell who's the speaker of our house of delegates is a former national co-chair of alec and he sits on their national board and several legislators have told the press that speaker how has asked them specifically to enter duce pieces of alec model legislation what kind of legislation. put forward it really runs the gamut of everything that you can think of that would increase the corporation's bottom line there's been a number of bills that would prioritize corporations over consumers in health care including the i was to say is that a bad thing. well it's not necessarily but some of these bills i think do a real disservice to virginia taxpayers there's been a few bills that would allow health care insurers in virginia to offer for example health insurance plans that don't include the state mandated benefits so

virginians think they're getting a really good deal but it turns out that those bills may not cover a comprehensive care or those plans would not cover comprehensive care like they thought it would and alec has also been using legislation to push a really ideological agenda the health care freedom act that was passed in virginia a couple of sessions ago has been the basis for attorney general ken cuccinelli suit against the federal government over health care reform or against obamacare as she gets to the fordable care act i understand that the taxpayers of virginia are paying for legislators in that the vast majority of them are republicans to go to these meetings where it's basically one legislator one law abused one quarter of a percentage of or one hundred under a hundred whatever it. is that is actually the case that the state is paying for these guys to go schmooze with the people who own them i guess it is the same has been picking up the tab to the tune of a. two hundred thirty thousand dollars to send legislators off to fancy resorts in

las vegas and think francisco and colorado to meet behind closed doors with corporate lobbyists to find out what is keeping corporations from making even more money and a lot of place and that they can enter dues back in their home state to rectify that situation would it be inappropriate to suggest that this is not only anti-democratic but that this is really corporatocracy a different form of government than was invision to by the original founders of virginia in the united states i don't think that's incorrect at all you know virginia we're very proud of our history there's a long reputation we have the largest continuously serving legislative body in the country we've produced a number of presidents and i don't think there's any shortage of good legislative ideas in our commonwealth and i would hope that our legislators would ask their constituents what problems they're having that they could rectify in legislation instead of traveling across the country to ask corporations and people should should know why it's called a common wealth. go and thanks so much for being with the same here very nice to

meet you too thanks for showing up one of alex biggest causes is denying people the right to vote many of these right wing voter was that are requiring people to have voter i.d.'s were conceived at these same alec conferences that anna was just jealous of by republican lawmakers working on behalf of corporate c.e.o.'s who don't like poor people voting in their best interests of the brennan center for justice five million eligible voters in america will be disenfranchised to be turned away from the polls next election a few months you know november thanks to these laws so sadly the effort appears to be working for republicans. republicans except for those like newt gingrich who didn't make the virginia primary ballot you may remember the last week gingrich rick perry rick santorum and jon huntsman failed to get their names on the ballot in virginia because of strict new voting laws that require addresses. people's names on the list of petitions to exactly match their addresses listed in the

state's voter registration database needed ten thousand signatures got more and eleven thousand and fifteen hundred of them were fraudulent under the new criteria case was similar for rick perry this is what's called voter registration fraud and it's the same thing republicans accuse acorn of back in two thousand and nine and literally used to take down the organization the gingrich claims it was just a mistake. you know we're going to write it down and we hired somebody to turn you know there are. going to return eleven thousand one hundred. fifteen or. twenty who are doesn't it's fraud but when you does it it's a mistake and now there's a lawsuit pending in virginia to get newt's name as well as perry santorum and huntsman's names on the ballot so why the double standard here and why should we trust newt and the others to be president and they can't even organize a campaign to get their names on the ballot in virginia which is new home state by

the way right now anyway here to offer his take on this is bill pascoe executive vice president of citizens for the republic bill welcome good to see you so you know that question seems like republicans are are hysterical and gung ho about voter id and voter fraud we've got to stop this and no advance voting and all this kind of stuff registration but when the republicans had their their primary in iowa they didn't ask for id you could register the same day you voted there were no i tried voting machines and now in virginia they're saying hey you know we we had the rules but the rules weren't followed so let's change the rules it just seems very epic critical to the well let me let me correct some i just came back from iowa i was actually at a precinct caucus in ames at stony brook precinct and i can tell you they were checking i.d.'s of voters who came in in fact they were dividing voters if you were a previously registered republican they had your name on a list already so you go into this line if you were an independent or a democrat who wanted to register that night as a republican so that you could vote in the republican caucus you went into this

line over here and you produced i.d. and you were allowed to vote in the caucus so some people had to produce id the the definitely not organs didn't have everybody had to produce id and have that they were placed but that wasn't the policy of the republican party statewide and i don't know whether it was the policy i can tell you are you tell you i definitely was ok well at the place i was it was the policy here's the larger problem in virginia. let me give you some news barack obama did not. qualified for the ballot under the laws of the of the state of virginia but this we're not talking with laws of the state of virginia we're talking about the republican party running its primary the democratic party running its primary and they get to do it however they choose the republican party came up with a set of rules that said you got to have ten thousand registered voters this is a no they didn't promote religion at all that's the state law that's the state that's in the virginia code twenty four point two section five hundred five says that you have to have ten thousand registered voters sign a petition to get on the ballot and why didn't they enforce that well here's here's the problem because the state law farms out the job of verifying the signatures to

the individual state party chairman so barack obama's petitions came in thursday afternoon five o'clock the board of elections calls over to the democratic party headquarters says hey we've got barack obama's petitions you want to come over here and pick them up they picked him up at eleven thirty the next morning they certified that he had qualified for the ballot but they didn't check every signature they checked out of the republican party the republican party was even worse the republican party had two standards they said that if you handed in fifteen thousand signatures we're not going to bother to check the names if you hand in less than fifteen thousand then we're going to take your names so naturally you know the voter this time around they checked and when they checked them nobody got nailed got new got mail because he didn't he didn't meet ten thousand names the problem he actually had eleven thousand people had eleven thousand right but he didn't have ten thousand who who seem to be registered but as he pointed out of more big write offs rick perry rick perry had about six thousand it turned out but here's a larger problem because mitt romney handed in more than fifteen thousand nobody

bothered to check the names on mitt romney's list nobody bothered to check the signatures that means that you or i or anybody else with access to a virginia voter file and they're available on the open market could have bought a voter file sat around our dining room table for two months and just handed suggested that the romney was a fraudulent climate in virginia not at all but what i'm suggesting is the reason that we ask for a signature is so that we can verify that it's actually that vote. who added his name to the petition if you don't check the signatures you're not following the law the law wasn't followed romney is not qualified for the ballot so you want romney off the ballot i want either everybody off the ballot i want them to follow the law and make sense so either nobody qualified for the ballot the way i see the situation so they were all i have heard about there should be a republican primary or democratic primary under a strict reading of the law now that's just that doesn't make sense right so let's do you know a lot of us doesn't make sense yet so let's do it with the in the eighty six year old woman who for thirty years have been claiming that got the governor's mansion i

believe was in south carolina who can't vote because she was born with a midwife and doesn't have a birth certificate i mean a lot of the stuff you do some common sense exactly let's go back to where we were twenty thirty years ago my mother used to work in lansing michigan she you know as a voter volunteer volunteer and she would check people's name off the list or it came out i used to i was seven years old and stand there and watch her and they've been there and then they go and vote and you know she wasn't looking at drivers' licenses she was looking to the neighbors of course and i'm sure they are you know hi sally nice to see a guy who wrote you know i'll check you off right here but state after state at the at the push of republicans and alec based legislation for this base legislation are saying no no no we can't do that you've got to have ideas got to be a particular type of id and older people are going to qualify and students are going to qualify and poor people are going to qualify and people like me who don't own a car and don't need a driver's license are not going to qualify if you don't fly anywhere do you i do i have a passport you have a passport so you've got an idea that i actually actually still have

a driver's license but the point is that there are a lot of people living in this city who don't fly in and who don't have a car ok you know i have the means to fly a lot of people don't in fact i'd say probably the majority of americans don't look let's talk about the south carolina situation since you brought it up and that's the one that i hear most often used as the example because it's so stringent i mean i'm talking about general here but in south carolina under the new law if you don't have a state approved photo i.d. you can. test on the day of the election that you are who you say you are and the others have given their well the allow you to vote get a provision to allow you to vote and the provisional ballots. in the two thousand and four election the over hundred thousand any as usual have not been open put any and in front of that you will have it is a ballot and it allows you to vote but if the let's go back to virginia it was actually we're out of time. if you want a quick point ok here's the other thing that's weird about the primary law in virginia now that they've they've limited my choices as a virginia voter to only two they tell me that i'm not allowed to write in the name

of a candidate how screwy is that it's very screwed that's very early let's say you agreed on the past but thank you. crazy alert this is how a g. rated movie turns into an r. rated movie an audience hoping to watch the new alvin and the chipmunks movie shipwrecked a little surprise halfway through the film one of thirty four year old and toothless edward brown decided take his clothes off the ground seated in the front row row disrobed waltz around the theater completely naked before finally returning back to his seat where he sat still naked brown told police he decided to bare at all because a woman had promised him sex and crack if he took his clothes off certainly that's an offer that can't be refused right police arrived on the scene evacuated the theater and promptly arrested brown i guess in the end alvin the chipmunks found their nuts after all. it was awful after the. anti-corporate

personhood activists are playing to celebrate the two year anniversary of the supreme court's so this incident this is. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it sort of being made who can you trust no one who is you know. view it with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more.

go back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour in just a few weeks the nation will mark two years since the supreme court gave corporations the right to buy our elections so why would a conservative walk professor think this is a good thing and five years after the housing bubble burst the housing crisis is still lingering but it could be way worse than any of us imagine i'll speak with someone who's trying to blow the whistle on that and in tonight's daily take fido who just wrote the president of the united states.