able to contribute directly to political campaigns here in america according to federal law now and according to a recent ruling by the united states district court here in washington d.c. no you see the case involves two foreign nationals one a canadian citizen working in the united states the other a canadian and israeli citizen studying in the united states both wanted to get involved in the two thousand and twelve election one working on behalf of president obama the other on behalf of conservatives and both argued that the ban on campaign contributions was a restriction of their first amendment rights after all foreign nationals have freedom of speech while residing in the united states and as the supreme court ruled in citizens united money is speech the court ultimately ruled that while they can speak freely they can contribute freely writing quote the united states has a compelling interest for purposes of first amendment analysis in limiting the participation of foreign citizens and activities of american democratic

self-government and in thereby preventing foreign influence over the u.s. political process but yesterday it was up to the supreme court to give the ultimate say in the matter you know that same supreme court that ruled in citizens united that corporations are people and money is speech so corporations can spend as much money as they'd like buying candidates before the election yep that court was tasked with either upholding the current ban on political contributions by foreign nationals or overturning it and handing off our elections to anybody who's got a few bucks anywhere in the world and the and the corps didn't rewrite election law for the second time in two years and said they up held the current law in sided with the lower court keeping foreign nationals out of our elections so american democracy has been saved from the meddling hands of foreign nations right. wrong joining me now to talk about how yesterday's ruling did little to address the real threat to our democracy is marge baker executive vice president for policy and

program people for the american way marge welcome thank you for having me on a great to have you on so as i just said the supreme court ruled that foreign nationals can't directly contribute to the candidates of their choosing. but based on citizens united can't they just launder money through a corporation or a super pac and then have that corporation or super pac give as much money as they want through television advertising or whatever candidate they want sure i mean while we are pleased that the supreme court did what it did yesterday there are so many loopholes i mean they could contribute through a wholly owned affiliate in the united states they can contribute through a trade association or through a super pac so it's it's and and so it's very very hard to contain this this monster that the supreme court created through the citizens united case and looking at the last election in two thousand and ten i mean there's still money we have no idea where it came from isn't it entirely feasible that a lot of that money did come from anywhere saudi princes whoever it wants

a very hard tech and they need. about one hundred twenty six million of undisclosed money was spent in two thousand and ten that was twice the total amount of outside money spent and two thousand and six and you can just imagine what's going to happen in two thousand and twelve especially with the new vehicles called super pacs which are now you know taking over the whole election season. i know you're not a i mean a legal expert here on why the supreme court is doing what it does but it was a it's i mean it's a glaring flaw in our democracy would allow citizens united happened it's almost as though to rule that yes foreign nationals can directly contribute even though they couldn't let that happen they believe well that's a little too much i think i think that's right i think the narrative that would have flowed from the supreme court saying that foreign nash. this could now by our elections wasn't just a little bit too much for even the supreme court and in a way. the optics weren't very good yeah exactly and in

a way if the supreme court did roll that way the foreign nationals would have to abide by campaign you know restrictions on how much money they can contribute and we would know who exactly was contributing to which candidate but the way things are now there are no restrictions on money as long as they go through a corporation or super pac and we don't even have to know who they are right i mean theoretically although i still think we're probably better off your supreme court having said that foreign nationals can't buy our elections you're definitely right . in congress the idea of corporate power and you know how much pull corporations should have in our economy is a left right issue i mean if you look at. votes on wall street reform if you look at votes to cut off oil subsidies if you look at votes on the health reform act or the disclose act they were right down party lines with republicans always favoring giving corporations more power but if you look if you interview people around the country it's not

a left right issue nobody wants to have corporations have undue influence why is that what's the disconnect here it's really interesting i don't know what the disconnect is but i had a feeling that went up cycle and the organizing that's going on against citizens united in for example in favor of a constant amendment is going to is going to be it's going to show this i mean the public overwhelmingly believes that corporations have too much influence on our elections ninety two percent and that are seventy percent that's across party across party lines cross and how you present can grind ninety two percent on anything and so there really is a disconnect here and i think you're starting to see that you're starting to see a country that believes that ninety nine percent should be protected and some of the institutions of government including the supreme court not believing that the ninety nine percent need to be protected i think we're going to start seeing that play out in the. in our political debate to me i mean this seems like the issue of the day i mean above all else i mean there's a lot of important issues but underlying all of that whether it's health reform or

any urge your form underlying that is too much corporate power that's exactly right we can't fix what's wrong in this country if we don't fix the undue influence of corporations on our policies well let's move on to fixing what's tell us about united for the people right now for the people as a constellation of now more than fifty organizations representing millions of activists across the country that have come together about around the simple principle that we have to deal with citizens united through a constitutional amendment that the only way to overturn citizens united is fame and in the constitution we're organizing two weeks of events around the country at federal courthouses around the country of corporate locations around the country in state capitals around the country to protest the decision and call for an amendment to overturn citizens united that's fantastic and i think it's already kind of working i mean occupy wall street put this you know tom who is normally city of this chair wrote the book of the issue you know decade or so ago and back then

nobody was really talking about corporate personhood and now a lot of people are talking about this issue of people talking of corporate personhood talking about money's not speech and talking about getting the undue corporate influence on our whole on our whole life and it's it's it is starting to take shape but. it's a it's a genie that you couldn't possibly put back in the bottle even if you wanted to there we have city councils all around the country houses all around the country and it's just yesterday chapel hill north carolina passing them at los angeles new york city. montana it's all over the country it is really taking hold and it's very very important that people power it's of people speaking there and this is a really challenging time right now but it's also really exciting time because there really finally is a movement pushing up against corporate power but marjorie at a time you write thanks a lot for a cover of the show and keep up the great work with you for the american way of the campaign you guys are doing thanks a lot. having the two thousand and twelve election which will shatter any previous elections when it comes to corporate election spending we need to take

a good long look in the mirror and ask ourselves just what kind of nation we want to be one where we have where we all have a voice or one where only the rich have a voice tom asked that same question recently take a look. there's a bigger picture here too and that is who is america in the world who are we. i've had a number of friends overseas and people actually i have friends who live overseas but also several friends who've gone overseas over the last month or two and they're telling me you know call up or whatever and say you know you wouldn't believe what the t.v. coverage is like it's like you know in in europe and south america the coverage is like america is american cops beating up all these occupy protesters i mean is this really the image that we want to show the world pepper spraying violent arrests and then on top of that the other coverage is you know what's going on with our election you know the president is in campaign mode he's all raising money and the republicans are all raising money and they're going to spend three billion dollars on the election this year in the united states and people in the u.k.

where you can spend more than one hundred thousand british pounds on an election period it's a limit or look at us for example in other countries around the world go on that's not even a democracy anymore it's an oligarchy three billion dollar election and that's just at you know at the federal level at the present and this is all brought to us courtesy of the supreme court they have basically created a system a billionaire oligarchy an international corporations being able to buy our politicians we've stalled the durban climate talks why because of the oil barons karl rove lying about elizabeth warren she's calling him out on it but here is he's running ads in massachusetts he's not even from massachusetts a line about elizabeth warren to paraphrase leonard cohen everybody knows the system is rot frankly it's time for us to clean this system up. senator bernie sanders has proposed a constitutional amendment which will do just that which says that corporations are

people and money is not speech you can sign the petition over at sanders dot senate dot gov and participate in that make it up you know make it the top of your to do list sanders does dot gov check it out. after the break more bad news for europe but time gives us some insight into how one nation across the pond is succeeding despite the economic headwinds. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right here and. i think. the tipping point well.

we never got that that says they're going to keep you safe get ready because you get your freedoms. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else or see some other part of it and realize everything. i'm tom or welcome is a big issue. so

how do you know when corporate lobbyists have crossed the line advocating certain piece of corporate legislation well it's when this guy comes out against it paul ryan one of the best congressmen money can buy is the latest republican to come out to say that the stop online piracy act goes too far in case you don't know what the stop online piracy act is also noticed sopa they sure know what it is it's a bill being heavily lobbied for by major entertainment media corporations to give

the department of justice and corporations broad new powers to shut down websites that might be engaging in copyright infringement which just so happens to be a large portion of the internet not only that anyone in violation of sopa could face five years in prison as in if you stream some clips of your favorite t.v. show on your blog spot blog not only will your blog be blacked out from the internet but you'll go to jail. fearing the consequences of sopa and the internet fueled backlash against the bill paul ryan's office came out with a statement saying quote the internet is one of the most magnificent expressions of freedom and free enterprise in history it should stay that way. right now with congress out of session debate is on hold the republicans plan to move forward forward on it as soon as they return so how can it be stopped at this point jury now for more on this is jeremy holden to be research director of media matters

jeremy welcome. thanks for thanks for coming on here so describe briefly what is there anything left i looked out at just how radical is this legislation radical i think and i if you look at a statement that was posted by some of the executives at the websites that we all use every day facebook and twitter yahoo and google they say it's a threat a fundamental threat to the very innovation that they've brought for they're concerned about it enough that they've posted a letter you know really trying to raise attention to just how serious that threat is and the destructive nature of this legislation so this might be even be a threat to one of the some of the biggest websites out there i mean how would the internet change and what would the internet look like if this legislation is passed i mean they certainly they look i think we learned some of that today late this afternoon with the website read it announce it next week when congressmen ice this committee has hearings on that read it is going to shut down they're taking that choice to shut down their website and simply post

a public service announcement just explaining why they think so but will shut them down that they will no longer exist as a web site that's how extreme it is so instead they're going to stream the hearings and try to organize their followers inform them and teach them how to try and work together to stop this because we all know that we've seen that news consumers are getting information about. i mean this is your fourth here and that's what i want to get into here you know i said in the intro the congress is out of session so there's no debate on sopa i mean that literally there's no debate going on about sopa because the t.v. news media is not covering it all they're not they're not bringing on. opinions on it and you want to talk about it. why is that why is there a video blackout yeah and you talk about congress being out of session now we went back and looked since october and looked at the nightly newscast of the cable news channels a.b.c. n.b.c. c.b.s. one instance talking about about. one instance and you know again we talk about

some of the web sites that we use every day have come out strongly opposed to this said that it's going to fundamentally change the internet as we've come to know it and the news can't be bothered to talk about it none of us really use the internet . but then the flip side of that is you think will you ask the question why is the media not talking about this why you look a little bit deeper and you see that a.b.c. c.b.s. n.b.c. . comcast news corps time warner all the kind of corporate heads that owned these news channels are strongly in support of sopa so it's hard not to try and draw connections between the corporate position on one hand supporting this legislation and the wall of silence on the other hand that this is just been kept out of the discussion this isn't a new problem here i mean there's been lots of issues especially when it comes to telecommunications especially when it comes to television the t.v. news outlets that are really important news stories that t.v.

news outlets choose not to cover this isn't the new right it's not and you know you look back to two thousand and three when the f.c.c. was contemplating a new rules that were going to vastly restructure the media landscape and allow for even greater consolidation similar whitewash the media is not talking about it obviously corporations that only media channel strongly in support of greater consolidation you look at pew reports at that time pew survey of the american people and found that almost three in four americans had no idea that this is going a radical restructuring of the media entities that give them the news and give them information and inform their debate is just not talking about it they're not talking about this restructuring and lo and behold the american people don't know that this is happening so as i mentioned the intro what do you make of. very conservative congressman who you know bends at the will of corporations like paul ryan what do you make of him coming out against this legislation what does that say i think it says to your point that this is

a extremely radical piece of legislation it also says that there's room there's bipartisan consensus around the fact that this is radical this is extreme and that this should be stopped and i think it further marginalizes kind of the corporate owners of the mass media who are trying to keep this debate alph the airways or seem to be trying to keep you know that that debate is not on the airwaves and they certainly benefit from no discussion of this when we know that there's a bipartisan consensus about trying to stop this. people like paul ryan they want they're also pushing these other forms of soap. i mean is there is there room for another film or is this we're just less than a minute left or should this idea just be dropped in the internet is working just fine as paul ryan himself just said should we just drop this debate and just move on with the internet the way it is i mean i think that's a great question i think most people recognize that you know online piracy is a bad thing and we need to try and fight copyright infringement the american people

deserve is a debate that discusses how we do that without shutting down that internet freedom that has led to those engines of innovation and economic growth that paul ryan is talking about great point jeremy thanks for coming on and you know i know media matters is doing a great job keeping tabs of all these media people who are ignoring it all so thanks thank you. move over greece italy is the new biggest thorn in the eurozone according to credit rating agency fitch italy now poses the greatest threat to the financial stability of europe noting that italy's economy which is the third largest in europe is too big to bail out the head of fitch is sovereign ratings guy named david reilly said quote the future of the euro will be decided at the gates of rome italy is among

several nations including spain belgium ireland in slovenia among others that have put on been put on a negative watch by fish and could see a credit rating downgrade at the end of the month so needless to say the financial crisis in europe is far from over but amidst all this turmoil overseas there's one nation that seems to be doing just fine thank you very much and that's germany which just last week recorded the fewest amount of unemployed people in their nation in over two decades nearby greece has an unemployment rate of eighteen percent spain has an unemployment rate of twenty three percent but germany has its lowest level of unemployment in two decades and we are in the united states where a fifth of the nation is affectively without a job have to ask ourselves what the heck is germany doing and how can we replicate it tom just did just that recently and it's the subject of tonight's daily take.

here's a question for you why is it that the european continent in a recession and on the verge of catastrophic collapse and with unemployment steadily above eight percent the united states in economic activity g guys creeping along with all that go out on that germany is doing just fine. why is it that amidst a tumultuous global economy where greece has an unemployment rate of eight eighteen percent spain is a twenty three percent unemployment rate the german economy just markets lowest level of unemployment in two decades twenty years how are they doing it well first the german government has recession proof programs like the short week or in german kurtz arbeit and the way it works is that businesses are encouraged to cut back on the hours that workers work rather than laying them off during economic downturns the government then steps in to reimburse the lost wages of the workers

who now have fewer hours so that but people will still have the money in their pockets to spend and so the economy keeps churning along despite the fact that there's a recession going on in two thousand and nine as the bush great recession took hold the kurds are by program saved a half million jobs just that year just in germany and the second reason for the german success is that they're doing what we used to do plus more they're protecting domestic industries and they're empowering their workers while germany doesn't have a substantial trade tariffs programs they do protect domestic manufacturing with their vat tax domestic content rules in a variety of around the edges ways of helping domestic manufacturers and punishing foreign ones and while we subsidize transnational corporations that ship jobs overseas germany's subsidizes domestic industries that keep jobs at home. they also have in place high barriers to imports so the foreign industries with cheap labor don't undercut prices in what they consider important parts of their domestic

marketplace that's no different than the united states where corporations like wal-mart undercut everyone for their supply of cheap foreign made goods germany also employs a whole array of quotas regulatory standards and custom standards all for the sole purpose of protecting german factories that employ german workers and thus stimulate the german economy germany also brings democracy to the workplace while labor unions in the united states are increasingly an endangered species nearly the entire german auto industry is unionized as a result germany pays their auto workers about sixty seven dollars an hour including wages and benefits united states we pay an average to our auto workers of thirty three dollars an hour also including wages and benefits and new hires are coming in to us auto companies at fourteen dollars an hour and according to conservatives since we pay our workers less we should be able to produce more cars

right and corporations should be more profitable and wrong in two thousand and ten germany manufactured five point five million cars united states manufactured fewer than half that two point seven million cars on top of that german car manufacturers were highly profitable despite the large paychecks to their workers b.m.w. for example earned a before tax profit of three point eight billion euros and mercedes benz hauled in profits of four point six billion euros with such a high union membership rate auto workers hold a lot of sway in germany but they hardly ever go on strike that's because unlike here is actually collaboration and cooperation between the c.e.o.'s of the workers in germany. why because there's actually a constitutional amendment in germany that forces corporate executives to listen to labor unions it's called the works constitution act and it forces every factory to

set up a works council so the quote works councils to gives representatives of the workers a seat at the table in every decision making process at the factory that's democracy in the workplace expanding the decision making process to not just the corporate elite but to everybody in the company from the bottom up and it's working as horseman and the head of the international department of the german auto workers says we have strong unions we have strong social security systems we have high wages so if i believe what the neo liberals or what are called conservatives here in the us are arguing we would have to be bankrupt but apparently this is not the case the journey the economy is working well in germany it turns out that in germany workers know what's best for the economy and the government knows knows that as well in the aftermath of world war two as germany was in ruins president harry truman knew that europe and in particular devastated germany need to be rebuilt and working with the united states germany did rebuild their economy and

put into place these protections for workers that today are responsible for germany's seemingly recession proof economy unfortunately during that time of rebuilding in germany harry truman couldn't help workers in the united states he was up against a republican controlled congress the eightieth congress was elected in one thousand nine hundred six truman called it the do nothing congress even though it did do a lot namely kill progress. it sabotage truman's hopes for a single payer you know universal health care system for example and they passed half heartedly overriding term truman's veto which created the were right to work states were corporations could move in to do business with out unions i call them right to work for less states and because of that congress the idea of congress united states fell behind when it comes to creating an economy that benefits the ninety nine percent and not just the one percent while germany surged ahead and that's where we are today it took

a crisis to put germany back on track and at this rate it may take a crisis to get america back on track. and that's the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories recovered visit our website thom hartmann dot com free speech shot org and r.t.e. dot com also check out our two you tube channels there are a link said tom harmon dot com and the entire show is also available as a free video podcast on i tunes and live free thom hartmann the i phone ad and an i phone app at the app store you can send us feedback at twitter at tom underscore hardman on facebook at underscore hartman on our blogs message boards or telephone comment line at thom hartmann dot com and don't forget it as tom always says democracy begins with you get out there get active occupy something tag your heads .

is easy. easy easy

easy easy easy. easy. welcome to the lot of show or get the real headlines with none of the mercy and i live in washington d.c. now time we're going to take a look at what some are calling a gear up towards a new cold war between china and the u.s. treasury secretary tim geitner makes his way to china a week after the president announced a brand new military strategy to counter it so i ask why i things have to be this way if they even have to be this way thomas barnett is going to join us then we hear a lot about the undo power and influence of wall street but.