only about money. to cross talk political action committees i'm joined by seton motley in washington he is the president and editor in chief of the less government also in washington we have greg coleman he is a government affairs lobbyist for public citizen and in los angeles we cross a room he is the founding editor of the independent newspaper are gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i really very much encourage a room in los angeles if i go to you first and in researching this program i came across i thought it was a very interesting and if not funny statement everyone loves to hate super pacs one critic said that they were quote a new political animal that is ugly loud and anti-democratic would you agree or disagree with that statement. well it's certainly is fundamentally anti-democratic sensually have extremely wealthy people who can come in

corporations that can come in with no disclosure they can coordinate with campaigns spend huge amounts of money distorting the political process they can basically broadcast whatever propaganda they like would ever time and we live in an age the second gilded age in america where there's just enormous concentration of wealth and we know that there are billionaires running around whether it's someone like george soros or the koch brothers who have a vested interest and trying to game the political system and we have to see this also in the larger context of how money is used in politics in the united states or something like seventeen thousand registered lobbyists in washington d.c. the vast majority of them controlled by corporations or trade groups and they exist essential. a influence the process to write laws and regulations so that money

flows towards them and this is what citizens united and the super pacs are all about it's arrived at the point that we have the best democracy that money can buy ok craig what do you think about that in washington d.c. that's run as a pretty strong opinion but do you think about it. you know i've got to take that opinion even stronger or super pacs are perhaps the most dangerous trend we've seen in the financing of american elections recently you know this. supreme court five justices on the supreme court opened an absolutely disastrous floodgate of unlimited in largely undisclosed money in american elections when they ruled just two years ago this is the anniversary by the way of the citizens united decision in which five justices ruled that corporations are to be treated as people under the u.s. constitution and therefore can make unlimited expenditures now that's bad enough that we're having this flood of unlimited corporate money flowing into elections

and it which is largely going undisclosed but then to make it even worse we've got this new phenomenon called super pacs that are directly and very closely aligned with each of the presidential candidates he's our candidate specific groups that are receiving unlimited corporate money and limited union money unlimited wealth from individuals specifically to support a candidate either romney gate bridge or bomb is setting up his own as a result we're going back to the pre watergate era in which the very wealthy get to buy these election if i got a seat in here and i have to point out to our viewers here is that i was a small boy during watergate and i can remember afterwards a lot of people say that at least the the positive outcome of this scandal called watergate was election campaigning reform and it is that all gone now with the with the decision in two thousand and ten because it looks like we've just decided for

a few decades go ahead. unfortunately know it's not all gone i'm sorry you guys are so and it fed a cult of free speech. money is speech in our society money money is groceries in society you can argue that it's not but try leaving the grocery store with some groceries without money money is speech in this country and i'm sorry you guys are so. offended by all this free speech going on the reason super pacs exists is because we still have stupid anti first amendment campaign finance laws on the books you want to complain about lobbyist lobbyists is one of the few jobs it's actually mention the comp constitution petition congress. grievances the problem is government is so incredibly huge that it requires so many lobbyists to try to hurt it and beat it back off people's particular industries if you want to work campaign finance reform were do says size scope and sphere of influence of government and they won't be any needed to bribe all these politicians ok what do you think about

that i mean. if it's a free speech issue here i mean when it gets down to you can those that have free speech doesn't have the money if you have money you can have free speech well of course. this is based on the absurd notion that corporations are people and as justice stevens. is sure that this is you know him in a way in a way you know who are already since our asian a lot away allow them to run for office why don't we allow them to vote you know i think i would be more on this why don't we have president exxon mobil i mean i think a good example of this is just to please work at it but it's just really are terms of the corrupting influence of money in our society is that over the last few years julie the energy industry and its allies have been pouring about three to four billion dollars a year i was working with kids to like this story there's

a. change. they're basically interested in. subtly trying to distort what is. proven science that the climate is shifting now and honestly believe. that or because you know their habitat unless you do you remember the climate unless you believe. that the planet itself is this fraud where spring is coming earlier where ecosystems are are shifting you want your story joining me like you want to see if you know about. this craig is going to. create it's. money let's talk about the money issue right let's talk about the money issue as opposed to the policy you know you talk about i mean is money is here with me or is the first ever ever ever says watergate ever since watergate we recognize that when you have any individual or corporation or any entity that can

throw in too much money to a candidate you can potentially corrupt that candidate so now that we have and so with the watergate era we set up it was with one of the romneys one how much money can go into politics we've lost those reasonable limits and now ok and that all groups corporations anyone can throw in five million ten million to support a presidential candidate specifically that candidate and that candidate is going to know who who feathered his or her bed to get elected president that is a very very very serious he's a little upset that the free market people can now spend as much as the unions always could these were ok seating can i ask you a question here i mean it's well known it's common knowledge that most of these super pacs that are supporting candidates which is pointed out they're former staffers from the candidate there's no sure i nice chinese wall there now but i mean that's what they're supposed to be so i don't care if. it's on constitution.

you know wall it's an unconstitutional law you're telling people how they can spend their money this is why i mean isn't this a proof that somehow corporations are people ok ok obvious here's me who forms corporations people do they don't lose their rights because they form a business or form of people who drive cars so what i mean is are just going to use your name or your for graduations or and i really want to and i is why down gentlemen craig if i can go to you again i'd like to go go go back to these things i mean super pacs ok they have a lot of money we've all agreed to that ok but it's also a way to deny it's an adult deniability you know we have the candidate saying well this this ad ran and well i have nothing to do with it i didn't have any involvement in it but of course it's that candidates former staffers that are going to knowing there's a horse to my law to say i'm asking craig that that that's exactly that's exactly right what we're seeing going on in the republican primaries where the republican

candidates are criticizing their own super pacs for doing these negative and false ads and it really is just a whole bunch of bluster these super pacs are doing exactly what the candidates want to do they pretend that they don't even see the ads that the super pacs are running yet every time one of these presidential candidates gives a speech they're echoing exactly what the super pacs are saying the super pacs are are the dirty mechanisms they're the ones that can do all the dirty work for the presidential candidates coming up with the lies slanders or just negative campaign ads well the candidates themselves try to distance themselves in arm's length and say i criticize what that super pac did but you know this is the message so it's really all bluster i mean all these presidential candidates therefore realize it are exceedingly beneficial ok speech and why they forced. into a lot of those stupid law says that they can't coordinate. with the super pac and

now you're criticizing them for a hearing to the stupid law that you're insisting upon but they are coordinating that's all really ours coordination rules are coordinated. and deal with going to your stories i. believe for one second to not coordinating former staffers for a candidate are not a problem with them coordinating but then you must have a problem coordinating i don't have a problem with them coordinating this is free speech i don't see a lady here is going to go out every morning the important point is that this keeps getting back to the issue of free speech and as many constitutional scholars this time zone as it is actually the five four majority decision swept aside more than a century of precedent that this was a radical illegal. area that was overturning all sorts of president in terms of well. as the supreme court said there's such

a great constitutional scholar maybe you can and i want to buy your position there some corporation well how. are you or tears will leave and we're going to show you here is a bad precedent. all right gentlemen to jump in here we're going to be sure to show you a short break in a row we'll keep the discussion going to that short break we'll continue our discussion on super pacs state party. can. discover its beauty.

communicate with the wind. and become free. nature can give you. more news today. again flared up. these are the images the world seeing from the streets of canada. today.

and if you. come across talk about your little jumanji we're discussing whether super pacs are good for democracy. and it's. ok to ask you do these super pacs and these really dreadful ads are they put on television do they actually informing people is there any information valuable information there to make decisions. sure sure and i'm like everybody else on this panel i actually trust the american people to discern and delineate what's useful

and what's not and make a rational and intelligent decision these people seem to think that the american people are sheep and eighty it's and can't figure out what's true and what's not in these ads well i mean if you're crowding out the public sphere and you're only getting certain messages it's hard to make a decision greg you want to jump in there go ahead excuse me the internet is a cornucopia you can get whatever you want or need to tell you internet these ads are not swaying people well i mean see if you would probably agree with me that then if it isn't the case then why are they spending so much money on it go ahead craig jump in because it's part of the process or a very negative ads these are very negative ads these are this is not useful information these are very you know you'd better go mitt romney mitt romney who had previously supported abortion rights rag and gingrich for supporting abortion rights which gingrich doesn't i mean it's misinformation that it's coming out here and negative advertising this is not constructive that it's not only turns off floaters towards the election but it also increases the cost for buying campaign

ads from the candidates on the parties who have serious messages to offer no this is drowning out yet again a real battle of the serious message the d.n.c. is full of. excuse me i had a question when it went a.b.c. long and they're rewarding when n.b.c. lies in their reporting they're not they're not held to this accountability standard that you're applying to private citizens why is that. well i mean yes they are their own laws it's practice journalism no no no no no look here's the thing about. the whole citizens united and super pacs we have to see this in the historical context of the destruction of the fairness doctrine in one nine hundred eighty seven by the reagan administration there was there another. public airwaves they are public in the interest to regulate the public airwaves

to have a healthy democracy and by these corporations and wealthy individuals being able to funnel in tens of millions of dollars they are controlling the public airwaves and now what it has to do is part of opinion it's not about that you can spend hours or days maybe finding a dissenting opinion it's what people are bombarded with every day that's why they start to believe that global warming is a fraud even though the evidence is so horrible that's why it's wrong and you know . this time again is what matters here it's the buying of the political process ok i want to stay with craig i want to go back to you do you think that media is complicit in this is well is because they make an actually a lot of money off of this i mean these ads are expensive they make money off of it and they would like to see the process go on as long as possible because it's very

profitable for television stations it has nothing to do with journalistic values or democratic hopes or anything else it's about making a lot of money and they're pretty pleased with it they love the primaries. you know you know by the way it's not only the media who's getting rich off these elections off of these super pacs it is also many of the people who are running these super pacs if you take a look at the super pacs since they're unaccountable to any real candidate or political party they tend to hire their own people to do the media work their own colleagues their own partners there is a flood of money go into super pacs and we find it all being circulated within a very small elite circle of people who are running the super pacs because they lack accountability so it's not only a dangerous trend for elections this is this is ripe for corruption here ok really it's it seems you know why free speech or free markets ok but i mean is this just buying elections now i mean you crowd out the space with negative. i mean go ahead

of barack and people all around shares of american people are shape you know we we've we've we've heard your talking points enough times already yes of course it is about buying elections look i just spent the last three love zero like i'm a stoner not to be swayed by i had to know you know as of our poll i talked to hundreds of people all across the country in various cities who were all saying the same things our voice doesn't matter they said things like you're not a corporation unless you have a senator or two in your pocket you know we can buy the political process like corporations can people across the country basically here is going to say you know . do you have americans on the underpayment that is own bought and sold by the corporations and you can go out and find this and i didn't write i was going to get elected. but it was free market brother who received huge amounts of

money from wall street barack obama is part of the problem ok i'm not a partisan like you there. money has fundamentally on the art of the political process that's how wall street that's how long will be. centrally crashing the global economy ok they have bought the political process was already. a result they they were able to buy a huge huge bailout and then they were able to essentially sabotage any sort of finance reform there's been no sort of process prosecution the democrats and republicans are peas in a pod on this issue and on many other issues you know barack obama has also the. climate change talks. great go ahead john and there are no limos fright. the most frightening aspect about this is super pacs are not just buying elections this time around they're actually trying to buy the white house and. that's

a very frightening prospect here where we're seeing not only so much money going in there we're seeing super pacs that are really essentially coordinated with the presidential candidates pumping five million ten million one hundred million to support a presidential candidate whoever is going to be elected president is going to know who he or she owes their election to this is this is a frightening prospect for america you know i'd like to also you know what you do a lot of this. military x.l. pipeline which i think you can tell by the lack of civility this is going on right now and how dangerous this is ok gentlemen. which i think is a great example there was a recent vote in the house on the x.l. pipeline in terms of the representatives who voted against approving the x.l. pipeline they had received perhaps about one million dollars from the oil and gas

industry for those who wanted the x.l. pipeline and the vote was pretty close they had received over eight million dollars from the. well and gas is our story so it's going to have his interest in the buying of the political process. that is going on go ahead jump in excuse me you know just naysaying is a waste of million dollars second of all money chases ideas it's not the other way around i wasn't a liberal until somebody wrote me a check and then all of a sudden i was a conservative that's absurd the money chases the ideas not the other way around ok craig you know if i could go out again this is only true if i go back to campaign financing you know up until the supreme court decision you know computing campaigns you know there was accountability do you think there's any reason for middle class people to write a check for any candidate these days if so much big money is out there that crowds

out the process being part of the political process and supporting candidates is it's what's the point in doing it i mean if ten dollars is nothing compared to the numbers you just mentioned being part of the political that's a story which i think there is a very good little act of money to. take take a look at the occupy wall street movement the occupy d.c. moment the occupy k. street with the tea party i mean this is where groups citizens are average americans are finding their frustration and many many of these people especially in the occupy wall street movement are actually advocating don't bother voting it doesn't matter anymore we're not going to see it is very easy to do it here in iowa legend has it with thousand when i was last year and they don't have a ton of money wait a minute wait a minute the tea party elected sixty plus republicans in the house live here and they don't have this kind of money so what are you talking about what are you talking that's going to do you have to. go to.

the others who are out there they get caught up in money raised well there is a two hundred million dollars per cent increase to i do. forty seven percent. of it is when i want to say that i mean i'm spending they had a ton of money i had a ton of money come on like i was and they didn't i know the top three tea party groups believe me they'd love to have a ton of money they don't ok that's absurd and i mean this is this is go ahead go ahead. this is essentially distortion rose on it's basically. you know we hear these blatant blame lies at least least on this show that we you know we're able we're able to counter some of these lies but the but the thing about citizens united and what you already have your so they are able to essentially spew propaganda with no opposition whatsoever and this and i think it's true that when it was where it was and i was going on that i was

you know i think we should we should do what he says he should l.o.l. especially in two thousand and fitted like nascar drivers where it shows their sponsors on their suits you know they they should have to wear logos for michael that exxon mobil and the koch brothers ok craig go ahead jump in yeah we're going to see eight eight eight billion dollars spent in the two thousand and twelve elections and we're going to see a decrease in voter turnout because most of that money is going to be very negative it's going to you know leave most americans feeling disgusted with our campaign finance system and it is not going to help mobilize or increase the confidence or increase the integrity of the democratic system in the u.s. ok we're in a very dangerous period i want to call that ok see them with the last word twenty seconds. well first of all government was strong we wouldn't have to do all the second of all the reason told i was going to be down is because obama's. magical

run is over and a lot of the new first time voters who never voted but voted for him will be gone next time ok gentlemen very spirited discussion thank you very much many thanks to my guest today in los angeles and in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember. wealthy british science it's time to rise. markets. scandal. find out what's really happening to the global economy in these kinds of reports on our.

and you to do list for the syrian leadership the arab league demands the creation of a national unity government and step some calls for president also to step down something the regime has allegedly rejected. grey shops to join the european union after a national referendum marred by clashes polymerized opinion and a disappointing turnout. russia's policy on internal migration falls into the focus of pm and a presidential run of bodies were put in as he present and another set of plans as far as election program.

it is eight am in the russian capital you're watching r t with miriam and joshua come to the program the syrian leadership has rejected the arab league's transition plan aimed at curbing violence in the country and that's according to syrian state t.v. the authorities say it doesn't reflect the will of the people and violates the country's sovereignty argy sara for of reports and what exactly the regime objected to. but it's not for civilization that's for heavy guns gravy says by both sides that was the conclusion of the report by the arab league monitors arab league they've also called on president bashar al assad to delegate power to his vice president and form a national unity government with the opposition they've also called for international support by preparing their case for the u.n. security council.