detention and search in violation of our rights to be presumed innocence and our rights of privacy finally our last comment of the day is from our viewer rant line and let's just say kids should cover their ears come on you're only fooling the ignorant because you're such a. you know you're not a democracy you. can get a constitutional republic and also. decide what the guns are for. now compare nick if i want to but they have a kid on. top in washington if people decide you. were a republican not a democracy you know the republicans which sounds a lot like republican right roll that old one out with joe mccarthy and limbaugh has been hammering it for years the fact is that james madison the father of our constitution called our nation both a democracy and a republic of various times the words were in till seven hundred eighty seven

interchangeable if you wanna get super technical what we really are is a constitutionally limited because our constitution limits the power of government representative because we vote for representatives not for laws democratic because majority rules republic a nation of laws of the constitution constitutionally limited democratic republic oh and bleep you two. that's it for my take your take tonight if you'd like your comments and questions heard on this segment of the big picture listen up we want to know your to send us your comments by visiting the thom hartmann facebook page via twitter at underscore apartment or in the chat room on the message boards or through the blog and you can also leave a message on a rant line by three six fifty three zero six agree disagree sound it's all welcome to remember that your comments may be used on the air.

the man who is delivering the republican response to the president's state of the union address is this guy republican governor from indiana mitch daniels and the thing all americans should know is they listen to his speech is that he's a great multi-tasker because not only can he give a partisan response to the state of the union but he can also wage a war on working people at the same time on monday the indiana state senate has legislation to turn their state into a so-called right to work state that legislation is expected to pass the state house and may be signed into law soon by governor governor mitch daniels and on from that point on working people in indiana are screwed so what exactly to do right to work laws mean let's take a look inside

a factory we call it thomas tractor company has ten employees who work there let's say a majority of them six decide that they're going to form a union under the wagner act also known as the national labor relations act passed back in one hundred thirty five you have to our administration they have the right to do just that a majority they have a union just like when i incorporated the tractor factory and got certain government protections against liability in tax benefits the workers who unionize will get certain rights as well like the right to collectively bargain with me assuming that it's my tractor factory i don't actually have one anyway and wants a majority votes to unionize then in most states all ten workers. at tom's tractor factory are now part of the union all ten workers get the benefits of the union including better pay better benefits better working conditions and all ten workers also have an obligation to pay dues to keep that union functioning dues

by the way that these guys these ten workers set by a vote they also vote for their leaders that they vote in office it's a democracy and if a worker doesn't want to be a part of the union if he doesn't want the better pay and benefits then he has the absolute right to work anywhere else in the world except in times for tractor company but right to work laws change all that under right to work laws which came into existence in one nine hundred forty seven under the taft hartley act it was passed by republican house and senate over the veto of president harry truman when a majority of workers vote to join a union and the shops gets he gets unionized those who don't want to pay union dues don't have to even though they get the benefits of all the bargaining and all the other work that the union does for them so those four employees of tom's tractor company who don't want to pay for the union will still get the better pay and wages

but they don't have to contribute a dime to it what happens when that happens while the union loses it loses money it loses people the workers turn on each other until eventually the union collapses and then of course wages go down benefits are watched and working conditions think again this is exactly what's played out in states that have so-called right to work laws or as they should be called right to work for less laws right now there are twenty two states that have right to work for less laws indiana would become the twenty third state. and here are the facts about these states these right to work for less states on average workers in the right to work for less states make five point five thousand three hundred thirty three dollars a year less than their counterparts in freberg and states twenty one percent of those workers twenty percent excuse me twenty one percent more people in the right

to work for latin for less states lack employee coverage health insurance in the right for work for less kid states compared to freberg and states poverty is two point three percent higher in right to work for less states and looking at numbers from the bureau of labor statistics incidents of workplace deaths and injury are fifty one percent higher in the right to work for less states than in states that don't have the right to work for less laws so basically you have a right to work for less or right to work without health care a right to work in poverty and a right to work in a dangerous environment thanks to laws like mitch daniel will probably be siding later this week that they call the right to work and here's what's really troubling once indiana passes this law it'll be the first state in this region a manufacturing bill to pass a right to work for less law and this is where unions were born actually up and up

into wisconsin as well it's becoming the place where unions are dine. and as a result the middle class is done. as this chart shows as union membership has declined in america so too has the middle classes share of annual income we need to put an end to this war and unions. just recently in wisconsin we saw the power actually let me do this is this is unionization and wages notice a correlation just recently in wisconsin we saw the power of the labor movement when it fought back against governor scott walker and collected over a million signatures to recall him from office we now need that same energy in indiana where governor mitch daniels is a rising star in the republican party and we need to turn him into the next scott walker unions are literally democracies in the workplace and we have to

save them if we want to restore a strong middle class to america. as the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered visit our website to thom hartmann dot com free speech dot org and. also check out our two you tube channels or a link to tom hartman dot com this entire show is available as a free video podcast at i tunes and we have a free thom hartmann i phone and a brand new i pad app at the app store. you can set a speed back at twitter at tom underscore hartman on facebook at tom underscore her on our blogs message boards and telephone comment line at thom hartmann dot com. and don't forget democracy begins when you show up it begins when you stand up and say right to work right to work i think no that's right to work for less let's change our language when you say yeah it's a democracy and a republic when you participate when you show up in movement politics when you go

out and occupy something when you show up at the one of the political parties and say yeah i'm here i want to be a delegate i want to be a precinct committee person when you volunteer when you're there get out there and get active tag your it will see it. there are those who desperately need it to survive. these local is the to give money to look. good when the fees show on the suppresses the prize the rights of the fruits of. those who don't get their share of the traits. good by god. but he's

a mean old boy last but not the one not us if people need to be out by you know about it i mean that we look at. from the company from. those who suck it out to prosper. side the seeds and say. probably not. see. life so life is awesome. no one can live without it's in one of the largest blood banks in the world. blood of nigeria. on our team. for. the. past.

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to the lower show we'll get the real headlines with none of them or see can you live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to take a look at the continuous warmongering and cold war rhetoric of the g.o.p. candidates when it comes to cuba and iran will also discuss an upcoming speech to be given by attorney general eric holder or some secrets about the legal memo which allows for targeted killing of u.s. citizens just might come out colonel lawrence wilkerson will join us for that one

but a former cia officer is being charged with leaking secrets to the press this is now the sixth time the obama administration is attempting to use the espionage act to marcy wheeler will help us uncover the inconsistency s. and the dangers for whistle blowers and then last night the candidates spoke on immigration mitt romney suggested that self deportation should be the easiest fix so what exactly is self deportation. going to give us the details we're going to all that morphy tonight including a dose of happy hour but first take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. hartill last night we were forced to sit through yet another republican debate this one was hosted by n.b.c. and moderated by brian williams who did an embarrassingly poor job of it and it one point i'm pretty sure that william just stepped out to have a smoke or something because he let mitt romney newt gingrich just ask each other questions and go back and forth for about ten minutes now there was one of the

value to this exchange however romney really went after gingrich and expose what is a systemic problem the revolving door of politicians then becoming lobbyists or is gingrich claims being hired as a historian to be a consultant now the mainstream media of course didn't really bother getting into those details they just love a good fight. stunning role reversal of the debate last night mitt romney taking off the gloves blasting newt gingrich on a number of issues including his time as speaker of the house and his consulting work with mortgage giant freddie mac. newt gingrich took a swipe at mitt romney over his tax returns romney fired back mitt romney went after newt gingrich last night in the debate but did he land any punches in the latest match up in tampa last night mitt romney hammer hammer away at newt gingrich and is a record of leadership gingrich shot back accusing romney of lying. yeah yeah yeah they went at it they really took each other on now that took up hours of time

this morning on the cable networks but let me highlight something for you that didn't make the cut as usual we didn't see much coverage or wrap up of the foreign policy visions of the candidates from last night visions wish which with the exception of ron paul included wanting to go with to war with iran like it's no big deal keeping our troops in afghanistan and continuing a cold war era relationship with cuba and just sanctioning them forever but perhaps one of the most telling moments from last night's debate circled around iran threats of closing the strait of hormuz and the candidates trying to outdo each other with who would respond with more force and who thinks obama has done a weaker job the problem is that inside of all this talk one thing became very apparent that these guys don't have their facts straight here's mitt romney we have to have an aircraft carrier in the gulf an aircraft carrier and of course the chess force with it in the mediterranean we want to show we run any action of that nature will be considered an act of war an act of terror and america is going to keep

those she leans up. so mitt romney thinks that we ought to have an aircraft carrier in the gulf well guess what mitt we do you see last thursday the u.s.s. abraham lincoln arrived in the arabian sea this past sunday it sailed through the strait of hormuz we also have two more aircraft carriers nearby the carl vinson in the. the arabian sea and the u.s.s. john c. stennis which was in the persian gulf for months but it's currently sailing to the pacific but could very very very easily come back and the u.s. isn't even alone there the u.s.s. abraham lincoln went through the strait of hormuz flanked by british and french ships and guess what nothing happened iran didn't react violently war has not broken out because it's not in anyone's interest and where is danger room also pointed out a few more details about just how active a presence we have in the waters in this region they call it routine naval posture one point five to one point seven meaning that there is an average of at least one point five carriers in this region every twelve months which means that at any

given time iran faces more u.s. sea power the most of the world he's can offer i might be saying that all that's really technical the g.o.p. candidates they can expect you know it all but if you're going to attack the current president's policies and his actions and call for more the better already know what is currently being carried out so in this case mitt romney is trying to attack obama for being soft on iran when fact he's calling for the exact same thing that the obama administration is already doing but more importantly the media needs to follow up and correct these kinds of mistakes counter aggressive foreign policy statements with facts i mean in an ideal world they should counter every untrue statement it's made on a debate stage with facts but well we all know they don't do that and we all know that there are especially lots of the details when it comes to foreign policy and military exercises but hello people we can't afford not to correct those kinds of mistakes did you learn nothing from iraq from the war that was based on lies that the media overwhelmingly supported and was shocked when it turned out that there

were no w m d's to begin with if anything iraq should have been a turning point for the mainstream media in this country should have been a moment where collectively the press said never again but unfortunately it wasn't now maybe they've all forgotten maybe they're just too lazy maybe they're too scared to question tough foreign policy talk because the establishment will like them for it when somebody who's vying to be the commander in chief makes mistakes like that the mainstream media should pick up on it and correct it but they actually do is they choose to miss. now aside from mitt romney's factual error on what our neighbor naval buildup should be in the persian gulf there was lot of other big talk about iran and the dangers of them acquiring a nuclear weapon and what we must do to counter it is also a lot of talk about cuba the need for sanctions and

a travel of are going to stick around and much of the rhetoric coming from the g.o.p. candidates who makes you wonder if they're living in the past and they refuse to acknowledge that the world has changed so here discuss this with me as lawrence wilkerson retired u.s. army colonel and former chief of staff to colin powell points thanks so much for joining us tonight so i'm losing my voice a little bit first let's go back and i want to show you a side from mitt romney's gaffe or mistake that he made there last night a few other clips of what exactly was being said about iran and i want to hear commentaries let's take a look. at it from people who have no interest in going to war anywhere we have no interest in going to war with the japanese really bombed pearl harbor we had no interest in going to afghanistan when the hottest destroyed the world trade center well the contrast with that is what happens if iran gets a nuclear weapon and the entire world changes bottom line is the theocracy that runs iran is the equivalent of having al qaeda in charge of a country with huge oil reserves gas reserves and

a nuclear weapon that is something that no president could possibly allow to have happen under any circumstances. i where do we start there when we go with rick santorum will the world change overnight if iran acquires a nuclear weapon let me just point out two things one that al qaeda and the leadership in tehran have getting their next have almost nothing in common and second and probably more important to the point is that north korea is in my view much more dangerous country with respect to our allies in the region and iran is north korea has tested not one but two nuclear devices at least and maybe weaponized where is all the brouhaha from rick santorum and the rest of the republican candidates about north korea at the end of the day not either is the next an existential threat to the united states nor any of our real solid allies in the world so this posturing is simply political if they actually believe this in

their heart of hearts they're idiots but then what what's the point why iran specifically why has this become the popular you know rallying cry for the g.o.p. this is the new iraq for the neoconservatives and the new conserves is neo conservatives have infiltrated largely except for ron paul of course the campaigns of romney gingrich and others that might have had a chance back in the past primarily romney and gingrich right now and this is their mantra this is it this is war they love war they want to go to war now with iran they want to go to war with iran ever since iraq tumbled in two thousand and three two thousand and four we do have to make that point of course is that ron paul as always completely stood out on that stage last night when ron paul and that was what i see when it came to talking about iran when it came to talking about cuba as well but what do you really see as happening right now clearly the fact that we do have aircraft carriers right now going through the strait of hormuz and nothing

happened we've also had secretary defense robert gates saying that it would be a red line if the iranians scared try to shut it down. it's scary you know what all these actions mean but iran isn't reacting and it didn't believe her and the proximity of forces that was i've said to you before is frightening and i hope we have a really good sure we do rules of engagement to preclude any thing turning into a tonkin gulf incident of the whatever the other aspect of this is that the republicans can't find as you sort of intimated in your introduction any space on national security with respect to the current president the united states they want to blame him for being the president who made america unsecure he hasn't anything he's made us more secure and so they're trying desperately to find space and at the end of the day my party the republican party is close to committing suicide. but at the same time you and i have discussed this before too and so looking at the way in which they republican candidates try to attack president obama but the way that

he's also acting what we have going on right now in the movements that are making in the persian gulf no matter who wins this election in november of two thousand and twelve would the reaction to iran be exactly the same let's say if they did try to go after our navy there i don't i don't think so because i don't think they're going to try to go try to go after our navy and if they do i think the rules of engagement are going to tamp it down quickly and we won't have the tonkin gulf incident that said i do think we're probably although i'm alarmed at both president both the president and the presidential candidates and the rhetoric that they're throwing out there in the corner that therefore they're painting themselves into a do think that president obama's policies will be better than a republican and i'm planning on given the current cast of characters casting my own vote for the incumbent right now just because of that i would add also that i believe the situation in the goal is such that we've got carrier carrier task

forces there we've got marine amphibious groups there we've got other forces there as you pointed out who are operating on rules of engagement that will probably preclude there being a conflict that spirals out of control at least i hope that's the case at the same time i think you know the obama administration right now in concert with its tightening of sanctions and the use coming along and helping i think the obama administration is serious about reopening some sort of negotiations with tehran and i just hope that iran realizes that and is conducive to and ultimately sepsis of the regime of those negotiations let's look at the way that the sanctions even on iran's oil are necessarily working out are we succeeding we haven't really succeeded in convincing all that much of the world to go along here with this and you know even iran is coming out saying exactly the same thing that we. i have no problem selling oil to anybody will just find new customers you know that china and other actors out there are still going to be interested and at the end of the day

does it come down to that but your story does have too much oil and it's not worth it for your opening to individual ye the abomination sanctions i don't think they war i think they're terrible they hurt the people and not the rulers but in this case i do think that the combination of things that the european union the united states and others have orchestrated to at this point and i'm getting this from iranians is hurting them badly that plus the fact that they need an opening they need to calm and they need to do something goes you hating is going to cause obama to have president obama have a much better opportunity to do it this time my fear is that we're really not serious about this and even if the iranians do put forward a position that we can take to a table somewhere however secret it might be that we will look we'll be so full of our own rhetoric that we won't take it and we won't sit down and at least try but i do see that effort being made by this administration whereas the administration i served for example didn't make any effort at all that it's well let's have

sanctions and how you're no fan let's take a look at what the candidates said about cuba last night. this president has taken a very dangerous course with regards to cuba saying we're going to relax relations we're going to open up travel to cuba this is the wrong time for that with this kind of her up iraq's going out of the policy united states should be aggressively to overthrow the regime and to do everything we can to support those cubans who want freedom you know obama is very infatuated with an arab spring he doesn't seem to get a look ninety miles south of the united states to have a cuban spring should make it very clear that if you want the mountains of aid if you want normal relationships if you want to improve your economy if you want to have that opportunity for freedom that the united states stands ready now to embrace you now that you've got rid of these tyrants who have who controlled you for these fifty plus years that's why the sanctions have to stay in place because we need to have a a a very solid offer to come forward and help the cuban people. it's the new congress

wants to aggressively overthrow the regime he wants us to fabricate a cuban spring santorum on thanks and stay in place forever artist has a living in the cold they're living in the dark ages they're living in the dark ages of those came from havana and spent seven days there on their i was there in two thousand and seven i was there in two thousand and nine two thousand and twelve the changes are miraculous what's happening is the economy is slowly incrementally opening up it's it's opening up the market pressures and market dynamics people were beginning to talk i get in a taxi in a taxi driver would answer my questions and say i'm not being taped emma and then answer my questions i ate in restaurants that could be in buenos aires or in rio de janeiro cuban and they are idiots they haven't been to cuba they don't know what's happening they can't see what's in front of their face the forty year old technocrats in cuba are shaping the ground and raul the current leader is helping them to administer cuba in the future and to give cubans the kind of economy that

raises their standard of living but not lose their incredible health care universal health care or some the best help. in the world better than ours and their ninety nine percent literacy and the other gains that despite what we might say for dylan raul castro in the revolution brought to cuba they're doing all that and ignoring us well that's another area where i guess you could say that president obama is ahead of the of the g.o.p. candidates at least in some way i want to really quickly switch gears running out of time but attorney general eric holder is going to be giving a speech soon about national security touting the administration's national security and they're there supposedly he's going to you know lay out the legal language that they use to kill on our locky without actually mentioning our locky or his case specifically just finally revealing that i guess they have the secret legal battle and maybe some of the logic behind it how do you see that we know who they think they're satisfying if they're not actually going to give us the evidence this is the attorney general of the united states attempting to justify legally and

otherwise in the eyes of the american people the news for america does not give me freedom or give me death give me liberty or give me death as in the past it's give me security at any cost and that's why we have legal positions like we came up we came up with in the first bush administration to excuse torture that's why we have legal positions to excuse avoiding due process and killing americans on simply the command of the president because we are so frightened and so scared and so lacking in resilience in this country today that a raghead terrorist ten thousand miles away scares us to the bottom of our feet and we have to do these sorts of things and it's ten years later now and we're still doing it and you're still going to cast your vote for obama despite the fact that that was it isn't it straightens what's the choice and i refuse to do like some of my friends are doing in this is going to hurt the president and say i'm not going to the polls right lawrence want to thank you so much for joining us.