commercial stations all over the country and one of the one of the ironies we used to joke about this we've been doing it for nine years is that both left wing radio and right wing radio don't get these these ads because the republicans aren't advertising on limbaugh's show because they know what you know he's already doing their you don't have to and they're not going to advertise on my show because they know that i'm kind of doing their as it were you know i'm in the mode in their their worldview and so it all goes to like music radio and things like that. but if if and therefore you know i've been talking about this for years it's like you know this is like it's like looking at another world and one of the things i noticed in the last two elections is that whenever one of the candidates in primaries or in the actual election or one of the candidates started really pull and i had all kinds of never negative coverage would come out or all kinds of positive coverage but the other candidate until they were neck and neck and then when somebody collapses they you know and it was almost like the national media narrative and it seemed like this was right across all the networks and it was also at the national media narrative was keeping

a horse race continuously it seems like that would optimize the number of advertising dollars coming into their coffers and i just imagine in this is this some kind of wild no i mean you know i think it's a legitimate question because certainly a tight race is going to get people to tune in and we've certainly seen it here in the for example the republican primary which is our leading example here in two thousand and twelve i mean it was one candidate after another being you know pulled up off the scrap heat and being named the front runner to make it a more competitive race maybe we finally have one now but certainly the you know the michele bachmann boom late in the herman cain fiasco and everything that went on certainly you know that's a story to tell and there's no question that these broadcasters especially at the local level are benefiting from you know the uglier the ads get the more ferocious the attacks well that's just even more incentive for the other side to get involved and keep spending spending spending so the focus of your you know the focus of what i'm looking at is is is is there actually a skewing of. the bias circuit coverage toward or against a candidate as

a consequence of a corporate imperative to keep viewer or just you know individual shows say you know what are our numbers that kind of thing but it sounds like what you're looking at more is how corrosive the the ads themselves are that's right and what people are learning about what happens in elections you know the television is the number one source of radio right behind and how people are learning about their elections and what they're all they're getting are these misleading ads so i think if we have something like citizens united which is only going to pour more and more money into our elections we're seeing it already that three billion dollars what are we doing to actually keep our voters informed both about what's happening their communities but what's actually in these ads there's no disclosure on who is behind these groups it doesn't tell you who's really paying for these ads but it could we could put information online showing hey who's actually buying ads in these local television stations we could put disclaimers in these ads themselves saying that hey this group you've never heard of puppies and kittens against barack obama well

it turns out that's a project of karl rove that would you least give voters information allow them to you know cut through some of the spin noise but what are broadcasters are doing so often it's not trying to cut through that spin and noise as you suggest they're trying to just raise the volume and saying more spin more noise more confusion and more ads and thus the disclose as a as a or act rather as a as a first step yeah i think it contains it contains parts of that but there's things that the federal communications commission could do that are already on the books to force this kind of disclosure and actually give voters more information while we sort out the bigger picture while we sort out you know what we're going to do about citizens united there's things we could do in this election cycle in the general election to force disclosure and give people more information now any time a campaign finance law comes everybody says oh i'm all about transparency well here you go here's some transparency we can push it through now craig thanks so much appreciated great great great work you're doing now on to the movement pushing back against the corporate takeover of our democracy occupy wall street. adbusters the

organization to put out the initial call for an occupation of wall street back in september of last year now has its eyes set on chicago the g eight and nato are scheduled to hold a summit in chicago during the first week of may and adbusters is calling on fifty thousand people from around the planet to set up tents and occupy the city in hopes of pulling off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world's ever seen list of demands adbusters is promoting include a robin hood tax essentially a tax on stock trades a ban on high frequency flash trading a binding climate change accord and a three strikes and you're out law for corporate criminals adbusters is calling on demonstrators to bring a tent towards the occupy chicago movement has been thriving for months now without adbusters and plans of already been made for similar demonstrations against the g eight and nato so too many adbusters call for action chicago's ruffling some feathers of others within the occupy movement joining me now from new york from our studios in new york for more on the story is jay meyers journalist and contributor

to truthout dot org and participant in the occupy wall street movement jay welcome back. great to have you with us how do the occupy chicago folks react to this call from adbusters. well the thing is that adbusters put out this call without consulting anyone i mean they have this. you know alert going out to say fifty thousand people should show up and should support this agenda but there's then we're going to occupy chicago but there is already an occupy chicago and in fact i talked to a man named joe i guess baker who's with the coalition against nato g eight who had filed for a permit to have a mass action on the summit the day after it was announced in june so adbusters is is contributing publicity to it which is really really excellent and all of the official statements by all these people you know thank adbusters for the

publicity but i'm afraid that people aren't a big fan of adbusters. positioning itself as the sort of per group that's calling for this when it's actually been in the works for some time and especially not advancing as you say its own agenda it of course has no right to determine the agenda of the occupy movement they they said that this was their proposed agenda and you know in the in the general assemblies and things other things would be those things could be considered other things could be considered. what yalit what would the alternative be for all adbusters to have done i mean do you think that they how else could they have approached this. well here's one one tweeter i'm sorry i have notes so i don't get anybody's words around one tweeter said dialogue would have been nice even acknowledgement another one these are all occupy chicago people another one said that there were lots of heated opinions going around one person called them horrible allies the fact is that occupy as with it's brother and

sister movements all over the world in the middle east and in europe and in latin america and in asia and all over thrive on the horizontal ism on the situation which everyone is a leader and no one has any sort of. officially designated leadership role you know apart from that everyone has. and so i think that when. any individual or a publication like adbusters attempts to position itself you know in the helm of the thing which they've been credited by you know the new york times and the new yorker and rolling stone as having been for occupy wall street that's bound to ruffle some feathers of people who are committed to leaderless news or universe a leader so so what do you think is going to come out of this what's going to happen here well i think it's going to be incredible i mean as i say the organizers have been hard at work doing this and they are actually genuinely probably grateful for the publicized that this will bring to the thing the occupy chicago has been organizing a thing called the chicago spring you can visit a website about that as i say can eight as it's called the coalition against nato

and g eight coalition has been putting together actions i think that this will probably bring a lot of people out which is very exciting but look for it to be multifaceted as the movement is one facet that you're going to see is a sort of family friendly union endorsed action that's going to be probably well mobilized well organized and have a lot of people and look for some folks who are ready to occupy some stuff and shut some things down bringing a sort of radical flank to the action well apropos of that rahm emanuel has already set things up to be very very difficult for any sort of occupation and frankly the secret service can arbitrarily make it even worse by declaring any time they want any place a security zone so isn't this a setup for a riot. well it's difficult to say i mean that the the image that adbusters put out was this image of police brutality in one thousand nine hundred

sixty at the chicago d.n.c. which is of course what everybody's thinking about when they think about this there doesn't have to be a riot i mean people have been fighting these ordinances that rahm emanuel is putting through including. chicago and actually they got some of the more odious provisions struck of course that secret service provision remains in place it doesn't have to be it's up to the authorities if they want to turn it violent as we've seen all over the place as occupy movements have taken off around the country the only violence that's actually being done is official violence against nonviolent protesters who occasionally get a little rowdy in vandalize some stuff but have remained nonviolent the whole time another it's haven't harmed any people or any living things jay meyerson thanks so much for the report thank you occupy wall street is now over four months old it's getting stronger and resisting forces that want to co-opt it for personal gain here's to a year fighting for economic equality on the streets. after the break

bishop desmond tutu told those of the world economic forum that it's time for a revolution of women in the world economy the world's wealthiest react to his call and what else are the corporate elite up to in davos. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right now. i think is feeding on it well. whenever the government says they're going to keep you safe get ready because you

know their freedom. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.

welcome back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour the world's economic elite are the party up in davos switzerland for the world economic forum where they actually doing anything to help the rest of the world and who's making all the noise floor a listers there and she'll tell also that i did speak the science segment we all know magic mushrooms made the sixty's a colorful war but what is new research showing us about the possible beneficial effects and they have been raging grandmothers and babies alike in the church off

x. ray porno scanners in our airports actually make us safer or are they just part of an elaborate show. political and economic leaders from around the world are gathered in davos switzerland for the second day of the world economic forum never has the forum been held them in such global instability and financial uncertainty and it's attracted its fair share of protests the occupy movement building igloos outside the swiss alps resort those world leaders gather leaders gathered inside the davos resort know that the pressures on the global capitalist economy can no longer be ignored and there are growing calls for fundamental reform even the founder of the world

economic forum an organizer of the event klaus schwab was quoted as saying capitalism in its current form has no place in the world around us and on wednesday south africa's desmond tutu offered his explanation as to why the world economy is in such a mess calling for a revolution for women. this is serious i have i have i have try to see you know what we need is it evolution led by we made i see. women ought to be see to me that. you have made enemies. and let us eat. it can't be ignored that the majority of financial elites on this planet are men so maybe ten to two has a point but there are also a lot of other big issues at play here or there in davos with the world economy hanging on the brink joining us now for an update from davos and what's going on

high up in the mountains of the swiss alps i'm joined by lauren lyster host of capital account more and welcome. tom wallet thank you for having me on the show thanks for joining us to the bishops come to provoke and follow up there. you know to i don't want to be a naysayer but i do have to say that although this is great and you know it it's certainly are they are strong statements and they did come in the opening remarks after angela merkel made her big opening remarks bishop desmond tutu then followed a you know in kind of the keynote speeches of the first night of davos this is one of davos is initiatives more gender equality that sort of thing but is that really a major point of this forum or a major topic of discussion i don't really think so i mean really the things overshadowing this forum are they grow zone crisis are economic issues that's not

to mention that a lot of what happens at this forum is all the unofficial business that goes on that's not on the stages so is this good in theory yes it doesn't make a big splash i'm not sure at least a half a dozen of the billionaires there have spoken out publicly against the levels of wealth inequality in the united states and many other parts of the world do you think that they're concerned about these levels of inequality because they're the same levels that almost identical now here in the united states to just before the stock market crash in one thousand twenty nine or is it is this discussion of inequality the result of the ninety nine percent movement occupying davos in their igloos. well considering that the occupy davos guys and their igloos haven't been made into the forum i don't know how concerned people in the form genuinely are about what their thoughts are i think that inequality really ranks and is becoming part of the agenda in so far as they've seen the political discontent that has forced changes to political leadership as

a result of that and some of the arab spring nations and i think that that is what's brought inequality to the center of the debate and then that we've seen that in western democracies or the occupy movement is i think what makes the global one percent need to be more aware of it i think in so far as it threatens their position is why inequality has become really part of the agenda it's very interesting what's up with the occupy movement there what are they doing we see the clips of the igloos but what else yeah i got to tell you tom if you're going to have a protest build an igloo because it gets you a press coverage everybody is you know talking about the igloos you know they are here to their credit they are sleeping in these igloos they have collapsed on them they are standing strong it's not a large group it is a small group but as i said they're sticking it out in the elements and davos is a far removed you know ski resort town hours from zurich by train very very tight security you know there's a no fly zone overhead and very tight security perimeter so the fact that they're

here i think does speak to the fact that this is you know a really important issue they have seen and i globalist movements and protests of the forum in davos this year it's of course the occupy movement has asked the forum we see some of these issues take in terms of protest movements what was the reaction to david cameron basically justifying britain's maintenance of the pound by saying that many of the u.s problems are trade imbalances probably code for saying that germany is gaming the whole export system. yeah you know that's funny he talked a lot about the trade deficit it's not just budget deficits that are the problem talking about how surplus nations have to carry the weight of everybody else we have a single currency very clearly talking about germany so i think with the business community they probably love it because david cameron is saying we need more bailout money for europe and they need to do all of these things so that they're basically a better investment while he sits there touting the pro-business agenda and the deregulation of britain so i think for a crowd like this it goes over very well for bureaucrats in brussels and for angela

merkel really not fans because angela merkel is here. i'm sorry you keep going. no no no it's fine i was just saying angela merkel is not a fan she's here trying to convince everybody that they don't need more bailout money and that integration is enough but everybody's kind of saying you know germany is not doing enough you know george soros is pointing out the nations that control their own currency like the u.s. or the u.k. will never have a bond default because at the very worst they can simply inflate their currency and pay off their bonds and so he's suggesting if i if i understand this correctly greece for example should be able to issue bonds that aren't absolutely tied to the euro how's it going over there and i interpreted that right. i think you have a very you might be and there's a lot of aspects to his plan that have gotten a lot of different attention one of the things has to do with the treasury bills at a one percent rate that would allow spain and italy to refinance their debt which

is really a big deal because obviously italy and spain are are the larger economies that are struggling in the euro zone that could really really be a problem if they were in serious trouble or would be in a situation where they couldn't pay their bills or turn over their debt but he's also talking about euro bonds as a necessary thing that he sees in his view in order to keep the euro zone together which is something that he has pushed for now he is very much pushing his plan he had an f.t. . op ed today he had a press lunch talking about all of these things on the sidelines of davos with press and this is these are the same things and same ideas that he is pushing to participants and speeches and the things that he's done here tell us that this is very much what he is pushing as far as reception you know people listen to george soros so it makes news and makes a splash but. you know politicians have rejected the plan up to now so we'll have to see what happens through foreign minister thanks so much for being with us tonight. after.

the sixties generation brave go or is in college kids alike are going to love this geeky science today a new report in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences suggests that the key ingredient in magic mushrooms maybe the perfect aid for certain mental disorders early research has shown the soul is helpful for terminally ill cancer patients dealing with anxiety and possibly people with severe forms of depression essentially so aside and targets both the medial prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex regions of the brain the former determines how a person thinks feels and behaves so seidman alters this activity in the brain thereby opening up a person's personality in thoughts and in the interiors in the anterior cingulate cortex region cilla siva decreases the amount of activity that's occurring therefore decreasing activities associated with depression not only that this

research shows the positive effects from shrooms last for as long as twenty five years the possibility that magic mushrooms can help with neurological problems is really nothing new however timothy leary a famous american psychologist was a strong advocate for the use of psycho psychedelic drugs for the treatment of mental disorders from the one nine hundred sixty s. until his death in one thousand nine hundred six leary who first took solace in one thousand sixty argued that substances like l.s.d. and still aside even when used in a controlled setting at proper dosages and under the guidance of an experience they're opposed was beneficial in treating mental disorders from depression to addiction in ways the traditional therapy had failed despite larry's research in these new findings showing magic mushrooms are promising in treating depression anxiety don't hold your breath waiting for them to become available from your local pharmacy because there's way too much money to be made promoting. other drugs that alter our consciousness like alpha alcohol caffeine and tobacco and they all have

lobbyist's so let's see positive effects last twenty five years the last time i took magic mushrooms was more than thirty years ago. i'm overdue. crazy alerts that's a lot of birds the title of grange kentucky has a bird epidemic gun in sand each night thousands of black birds filled the sky in virtual clouds of birds residents of the town are complaining that they're constantly cleaning up from the avian aerial assaults problems so bad that le grange is being compared alfred hitchcock's classic the birds is what a couple residents had to say about the birds. move. makes you gay i was scared the far out i mean i was scared i didn't know what was happening but if that

sounds like rain coming down i mean literally from inside of our apartment you think that it's raining outside. when residents who outside at night they're literally forced to take on broil is with them to protect themselves according to some reports the bird brigade is even causing respiratory problems among the residents of la grange environmentalists and scientists who've studied the birds aren't quite sure why they've chosen lagrange as their birdbath or why the group is so large despite attempts to scare off the birds they just keep coming back one of two explanations either rick perry is nearby or this is the first assault on the planet by the robotic pigeons and is from xenu now under disguise not sure which is scarier. coming up on tonight's daily take they've scanned grandma's babies and senators alike are these scanners keeping us safe or are they just another example of security theater.

let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right. i think is feeding on the well. whenever the government says they're going to keep you safe get ready because you get your freedom.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you saw you don't know i'm tom foreman welcomes a big picture. here

take my take is your chance to send in your questions comments rants and observations about anything we talk about here in the big picture or during my radio show that i first comment came to us from lysander on our thom hartmann dot com message board page will sander said it is the parent's duty to educate their children not corporations or the government if the government is to be involved it should be at the local level i also think that you're confusing education was schooling everybody educates themselves every day and most of it is outside of schools people read books magazines listen to talk radio etc should the government take over all these areas as well or publishing houses educating me or my buying

their products to educate myself. well actually our founding fathers especially thomas jefferson would disagree with a lot of your worldview there in fact is eighteen zero six state of the union address jefferson called for a constitutional amendment calling on the federal government to support education saying an amendment to our constitution must here in here come in aid of the public education the influence over government must be shared among all people by that he meant that all the people must have influence over the government we must control our government and that's only possible with a well educated and informed citizenry and as tombstone jefferson wanted it known that he was the founder of the university of virginia free college more than he wanted people to know that he was the third president the united states that's how much he cared about education education is

a part of our comments therefore it's our responsibility through a government made up of us to educate our kids and our last comment today is from our viewer rant line come at almost every advancement human history has been through our military that's how we develop new technology the fact that the military is going green is extraordinary and i'm so glad the president talked about the united seeing the joint chiefs of staff chairman talking about it on the stand and i thought the moment has come at last we are going into their seats are going to buy i completely agree and i think it was one of the most overlooked parts of the president's speech our military is the single biggest consumer of oil on the planet and if it goes green it could drastically reduce the amount of foreign oil we buy from nations who many of them don't really like us all that much and since the military is such a huge.