that were turned down by the senate so it isn't clear at least to me whether nixon had a plan when he put powell on the court although i've heard a theory about the first two nominations being set up so he could get powell but i i don't know about that and so i have to say he had to know lewis powell was well known he was head of the american bar association various stablished lawyer as i said on the boards of all of these companies well known in virginia and nationally as a distinguished lawyer frankly just always corporate lawyer who's a very soft spoken southern gentleman he was and did everything everything you hear about him he's described as you know mild mannered and gracious and i'm sure he was he just had a very corporatist sort of state of mind but you know the same day nixon nominated lewis powell he had to open and he nominated william rehnquist a conservative and these two actually turned out to be very different justices the conservative who we think of as the conservative william rehnquist actually wrote

dissent after dissent against lewis powell corporate rights decisions and lewis powell who we think of as this moderate mild mannered judge turned out to be the revolutionary who created a whole new theory of corporate speech which had never existed in america up to that time i think rank was the son in law he was it was brilliant you know where he just he pointed back to santa clara that's right he said you know this court without benefit of discussion or debate you know just created this but. now i'm going to this is your turn. one of your chapters one of the chapters in your book ask the question did corporate power destroy the working american economy what were the what are the things that came out of the paul memo that we can explicitly track back to it and it's been nearly forty years now what impact. on our economy in our culture can we you know connect those dots draw lines from.

my view is almost everything eventually comes back to the powell memo and these corporate rights decisions and it's not a simple thing a simple tracing back to that it's really about whether lewis powell succeeded in doing what his memo said that the chamber of commerce and corporate america should do which is change the legal social and economic structure it wasn't just about winning a few supreme court cases it was about change in american culture and that is i think what they succeeded in doing so i think we now see the results not only in our democracy after citizens united but in the food we eat the water we drink the wars we fight. almost throughout our society i talk about schools essentially being corporate ties now and the economy i think what we see in the economy is once we accepted the lewis powell theory the chamber of commerce theory that corporations

are just like people and have rights rather than being tools that serve us rather than we are tools that serve the corporations once that got flipped around everything was beyond debate so if corporations wanted to start up at all the benefits and privileges of a corporation but put all the jobs in to sweat shops overseas or into dangerous factories in china that would be just fine according to the law so so many things what happened is we changed this thinking that you know good jobs good wages pensions unions things that actually helped america and american middle class get strong that those were expenses that had to be cut that those were burdens on competitiveness we were just led to accept driven to except really because. we tried to enact laws to to change that they were struck down we were turned

into another marketplace in the world rather than something unique the where we could have build in a merican middle class and in fact even worse i think countries like europe are actually doing better at protecting their middle class than we are sure now because of this clearly and and the this concept of corporations as persons and and speech or money as being something other than property as has been speech. how do we. you know you call for an amendment to the supreme court or to the constitution to to basically say ok the supreme court doesn't you know they can they can no longer make these lewis powell like rulings because we're going to amend the constitution how do we get to their. well we get there like americans have always gotten there so this isn't. i do propose as many others do great groups out there free speech

for people move to a man and public citizen many common cause people the american way a lot of americans are coming together to say this is not about tinkering this is not about a little legislative fix we are facing a fundamental structural problem that's been created by the corporate right's doctrine we need to overturn that doctrine with a fundamental structural reform which is a constitutional amendment and so it's no different it's no more difficult than it was in the progressive era when they passed and ratified four constitutional amendments one wasn't so smart as prohibition but the other three were really good and one things we take for granted now women get to vote we elect our senators we have a progressive income tax congress has the power to have a progressive income tax when the court said no congress can't do that we had an amendment to say oh yes we can we the people can do that and that's where we are now we need two thirds of congress to vote on it and everything eventually and be

ratified by three quarters of the states but how we get there is out in the states in the cities in the towns and that is happening right now we have resolutions once going to the floor of the new mexico house on tuesday just passed out of committee today a resolution calling on congress to send the people's rights amendment to the states for ratification we've got montana supreme court pushing back saying well in montana anyway we're going to regulate corporate money in our elections and that will probably make its way to the supreme court so we just have all of these different places where americans are coming together to say we are this is breaking our country it's breaking our democracy we the people means we the people and we need to get back to that article three of the constitution defines the court the judiciary and section two of article. is the the supreme court itself that specific or the high court will operate within. the is that the word regulation

of congress or within basically within rules defined by congress i forget the exact wording wouldn't it be possible and the last president to really seriously take this seriously was franklin roosevelt. would have been possible instead for congress to pass a law saying that the supreme court does not have the power to say that corporations are persons well you know or is that even more politically impractical in my view it is more politically impractical because it's asking congress to do something but i also actually believe that the supreme court it's a dynamic process so yes con the supreme congress has the ability to define the jurisdiction of the supreme court congress has some ability to define the numbers of justices on the court which is why we had franklin roosevelt's so-called court packing plan there is a healthy tension that the elected branches should bring to the supreme court from

the president to the congress and you know when president obama called out the supreme court two years ago after citizens united and that was considered shocking no that's not shocking that's that's how our system is supposed to work the supreme court has incredible power as a non elected body to decide what the law is in deciding cases and that's an extraordinary power that should be exercised judiciously and they have overstepped they have they have overstepped and become so pro corporate that it's appropriate that congress and the and the president keep some tension there but in the end though i think what's most the biggest check and balance on the court that the framers gave us was article five the amendment process and we've used it seven times to overturn supreme court cases the supreme court decided women did not have a right to vote we overturned that. many other examples so in the end the ultimate interpreters of the constitution are we the people the supreme court has a job to do to decide cases and we should leave them to do their job but when they

blow it and it becomes a chronic sort of catastrophic slow motion catastrophe for the country we have the duty to use our authority and duty really under article five to amend the constitution to say supreme court you've gotten off track we get back on the road to a country of equal people equal free people who can govern ourselves and corporations are not among those people they are they are merely a tool as you say. brilliant thank you so much thank you very glad to be here. to watch this conversation again as well as other conversations with great minds go to our website conversations of great minds dot com. after the break talk of taxes and immigration has dominated the g.o.p. debates of late panel thinks about these issues and more in tonight's big picture.

let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right now. i think. even one well. whenever the government says they're going to keep you safe get ready because you get 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 realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom hardy welcome to the big picture.

are you ready to rumble joining me for the friday night big picture on the big vince collin a senior online editor of the daily caller richard follower democratic strategist and advocacy director for the young democrats of america and dan holler communications director of heritage action for america so let's get started guys number one tax cuts for the rich is on everybody's mind again president obama called for a thirty percent minimum tax on millionaires instead of the ngos here it is. this reform should follow the buffett rule if you made more than a million dollars a year you should not pay less than thirty percent in taxes of course republicans have taken an opposite position on this here's wolf blitzer pointing out lies lies debate. to speaker and under your tax plan we're talking about taxes right now this

is substance under your proposed tax plan he would pay zero taxes explained that would depend on whether and whether the particular kind of payments he made were counted under that plan as capital gains or whether counties were going to go but even as a and then bill gates weighed in on the issue this week it was well the united states has a huge budget deficit so taxes are going to have to go up and i certainly agree they should go up more on the rich than everyone else that's just justice i don't feel like. people like myself are paying as much as we should so and president obama said hey you know it's not and is not class warfare it's math so what should we do about taxes what should we do about the buffett rule shouldn't shouldn't the billionaires pay the same income tax rate as their secretaries. want to understand what's. bill gates just said he said i don't want other people's taxes to go up as

much as mine but gates is arguing is for increasing everybody's taxes so we need to understand this is a broader conversation you know people aren't just talking about increasing taxes on millionaires because that's not going to cover the gap and once they were do that realize it doesn't cover the gap they're going to have to draw down and it was not about the gap this was a discussion about what's fundamentally fair and appropriate is it reasonable and fair and appropriate that the millionaires pay lower taxes than the bus drivers you don't understand it's not an argument about fairness if you listen to what gates is saying he's saying there's a big gap between revenues coming in and outlays and to close that gap we need to raise taxes on everyone that's something that all politicians and country maybe except bernie sanders would run away from you know there's a fundamental positive totally in that frame this. i want to focus on president obama's call for thirty to thirty percent nobody else is going to chance to jump in here and we just have a minute left of all the on the issue of taxes newt gingrich kind of brought it up and ineloquent way i'll try better but the idea is there is

a separation between income tax rates obviously which are progressive and the wealthy do pay higher taxes when it comes to income tax rates and capital gains rates were a cab where they're paying less but the problem is when you're on capital gains on capital gains that's investment there's a tax dollars that you've already paid into you paid in on your income now you've exempted that paris hilton paid in on that money use any of that know she's she's a trust fund baby. so she's. on her butt around the pool wall and gets the dividend checks right but most american businessmen are not paris hilton they're generating wealth from the economy and now if the government going to pull it out i think i think ultimately ultimately if you're looking for fairness what i really should do is lower taxes i want to let you have a fifteen percent of the everybody you know make sure you know you know that you're lowering taxes for everybody it really did under george w. bush and obviously that didn't work i mean the truth of the matter is it's pretty simple one people are bringing making money from capital gains are making money on they're making money on their investments are going to. checks and they're not paying tax and that's unfair it's part of their income it's where the money they

used to live by the same amount of money same part of money as the secretary who doesn't have the ability to have a dividend income tax she is the paper of them her taxes when mitt romney only pays thirteen point i was at his best was unfair it's unjust i'll just i'll just wrap this conversation with with ronald reagan here is. we're going to close the hundred of new tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. in the series of those who move the understanding but in practice they sometimes made it impossible for millionaires to make nothing but a bus driver was making percentage sound and that's crazy do you think the millionaire made more in taxes than the bus driver or less. and then there is this shout from the audience more and and reagan was the only president in the in the last fifty years who actually set the capital gains of capital and regular income at the exact same level and he let's talk about immigration as a point contention last night's debate between gingrich gingrich and romney here's

a clip from that from the debate is he still the most anti immigrant candidate i think of the four of us yes go ahead governor that's simply inexcusable that's inexcusable and actually senator marco rubio came to my defense and said that ad was inexcusable and inflammatory and inappropriate mr speaker i'm not anti immigrant my father was born in mexico my wife's father was born in wales they came to this country the idea that i'm anti immigrant is repulsive i don't use it actually i don't think his father was born in mexico i think he went down there but in any case jeb bush said this is a little concern of his. this series here these base see the ramifications you know it's like you know they get to it's not a good thing so have the republicans lost the hispanic vote or will they get it all back with two magic words on the v.p. side marco rubio. rich you know i think i think the republicans have lost the

spending vote and here's why this is how they lost it continued with their anti immigrant rhetoric that has caused because hispanics to be turned off in general if you are a citizen in the state of virginia you were born you were born in this country but you look at spanish they can check your driver's license to make sure your citizenship papers only is that unfair but it's on american and i think that's the biggest problem that republicans have going into this election he's referred to as an anti immigrant language but i think anybody who honestly stares at this debate and like analyzes it at all realizes that truly comes down to a question of legal and illegal immigration i mean clearly illegal immigration is where these republican candidates are coming down again and you have it in the democrats and disputing that and you have got well no they are but democrats characterize this is always anti immigrant anti immigrant which is not true it's a unfair characterization of it because look i mean even mitt romney made the case that he has an immigrant background although if you want all legal immigrants even if you came or no fault of your own as a child to go back to your home country even though you're american by culture you went to the same classrooms that we were the same cause it was our children who

were going to go back to their country and wait in line to come back here how is it not anti immigrant you're sweepingly saying that something's immigrant and now i think well let's get dan in on this one and why is it that it's always the immigrants from the south who are a little darker of skin than the immigrants from from ireland who are overstaying their visas the people are hysterical i think if you talk to anybody who has gone through the immigration process legally what people like mitt romney are saying is that i want legal immigration i want people with skills to come here i want to welcome them here as long as they go through the process legally you know people who didn't go through that process legally you know they have to get back in line if somebody goes through the process legally that argument resonates with reagan's process of just giving three three million people a mystery was that was the way to go i think we see from history that it didn't work because it didn't stem the tide of illegal immigration into the country i think ultimately what you have to do is look at a multifaceted approach i mean one is obviously closing the border and making sure that not closing but maintaining the border. keeping it secure not allowing illegals to come across and then obviously think about something like what newt

gingrich actually is proposing which is a way to humanely deal with the people that are already in this country illegally whether by whatever fault they coincide whether whatever i want there's some shell that come in and figure out a way to to integrate people that are here illegally possibly benefit of their own someone you brought up but how is that i have no hold on a second i think we don't think democrats are against this only goes so there's a real excuse but we've seen president obama do since taking office he's doubled the amount of border patrols on the on the on the border crossing so we decrease the number of border crossings that are happening since president obama's taken taken control of the white house and immigration services i think on top of that with the president asking congress to do is they would have you come here at no fault of your own if your child in this system or you served our country in the military put your life on the line for this country you deserve the right for a path to citizenship and republicans have been adamantly against that both people in the people running for president and john boehner and eric cantor they've been against a term that the dream of the dream exactly the dream of now if they want to hang on politicizing the dream act they could pass through the house through the senate and

get signed by president obama the part for the military right now but they won't do it because they want to attach it on to the student part yeah i don't know whether you want to talk about what is wrong with having students who are when they get there when after they graduate and they're educated citizens of this country are educated people and they're paying into our tax system why is it unfair for them to have a path to citizenship doesn't guarantee citizenship your it's just the past you will have got their favorite gratian to one people legislation well i don't want to leave it at that because i want to move along more bad news for you know for ohio republican governor john casey he's got his own secretary of state now has come out against his his his bill is the thing that would make it harder to vote course this is on hold anyway because so many people signed petitions to put on the ballot and this jon husted i guess is how it's pronounced the ohio secretary of state he said we really need to repeal this thing and start all over again. and combine that with the wisconsin recall scott walker are we seeing and now there's

a recall effort michigan recall rick snyder is there a full blown backlash in america now against extreme conservatives. i think there are political parties in america and i think that there's going to be your dedicated opposition that's going to come out against somebody like a scott walker and you know we've talked about this before s.c.i you has decided to jump in head first into wisconsin to fight scott walker because you took on yeah he took on and what you have is that you can definitely see the power of the unions in this effort to combat a person like scott walker and to be able to listen was it wasn't the unions who were most of those people who are showing up in madison why do they want to be will no longer has been going but they're going to say so dancing with the it's a union issue that's right and they would have also got walker because he wants to take teachers out the classroom you want to take the ones that nurses at the hospital he want to take away their rights to benefits i don't i mean i don't mind when people talk about i don't understand what we're trying to recall scott walker's because the workers come in and said you know the union has one of the best educations is one of the best education in this country because he was doing

what they need to do is that we need to stop collective bargain for teachers he doesn't want to get absolutely no idea is he wants to bring to you what you have that he wants to decrease the amount of money that they may they need to be willing to cut their pay that what is that what it is they need to contribute more to their pensions not even as much as private sector workers yeah well it's sort of their let's not litigate the details of this i'm just curious if there's a backlash dan real quickly and i want to i think you're seeing a nationalization of all these issues and it's filled with rhetoric look at what they said you know we don't want to turn election day and election month let's have only two weeks of early voting instead of three plus let's not send out unsolicited absentee ballots to people who didn't ask for him and let's make sure all the counties abide by the same rules and somehow when you do that you're charged with trying to keep people from the voting booth i mean it's the writers that will write it well and they want to have our early voting is not enough i mean you. not only what's happening in ohio but all of these voter suppression laws are put in place to stop people from going to the polls i mean i don't understand in the country we're actually in a country where people parade around the constitution and talk about how important

the right to vote is that we would limit people's ability to vote like why not give them a month to vote one or do i want to put voting on a saturday so everybody has the opportunity and then offer them the cause or die. let them get off but republicans seem to be adamantly against letting people vote it blows my mind right now they're republicans tend to i mean there's some of the issues that are coming up for you we talk a lot about voter id on this program that doesn't seem outrageous to me the idea that we need to verify that my vote counts and that i can vote of my own accord in my own name and not have to worry about somebody else doing that and finally and i will not revise or bother you nine hundred eighty said we you know we our leverage frank our leverage frankly goes up as the voting populace goes down i mean just came right out and said well i don't know anything about that particular statement but. but i will say that when it comes to something like getting an absentee ballot when you never solicited one i days that is beyond the pale of how many there have been i want somebody to tell me how many instances of voter fraud that we're talking about here for the reason that we have to make sure that we're sure sure

that everybody's going to but why would you want to go to all of the people or struggle by lightning you know you're going to you have democrat representative or we had a response we'll be right back coming up for the republicans coming up the republicans keystone pipeline job estimates over blown more rubble after the break. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right now and. i think. even one well.

whenever the government says they're going to keep you safe get ready because you get 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 don't know i'm sorry is a big issue. while

the back of the rubble are panels and i've been calling a senior online editor for the daily caller richard follower democratic strategist and advocacy director for the young democrats of america and dan holler communications director of heritage action for america well the super committee blew it right and so the automatic pentagon cuts kick in half a trillion dollars over the next ten years and they're instead of going after defense contractors and the city is ringed with mansions with multimillionaire defense contractors they're talking about going after the retired military saying that they're going to pay more into their into their health care and cutting wages

the military this to me makes no sense of seems like we should be going after the people who are hustling the weapons rather than the soldiers this is what f.d.r. in in one nine hundred forty or forty one this is what f.d.r. said about the world war two take it. here. present emergency and a common sense of decency make it imperative that no new. million. should come into being in this nation as a result of the struggle of. the american people not really the idea of any american citizen growing rich in fact in the millions. and stronger and human suffering and yet now it's it's just standard operating procedure all these offices all around the pentagon so what we do how do we cut a half

a trillion dollars out of the left of loves to rail against the business of war but they seem perfectly content to go into the business of solar energy in a business a car batteries i think what we have to because they don't kill people they save people i think what we need to understand is that defense accounts for twenty percent of federal spending it's accounting for fifty percent of the deficit reduction so if everybody is so focused on a balanced approach to all this let's take a balanced approach on it not go over and do the fifty percent thing on my question is you know why are we going after the soldiers the i mean look the president even understands the power of war technology i mean the president obama has used drone technology that president bush put in place it takes a long time for these weapon acquisitions the finally come to fruition the drone program is now fully built out the president use it a lot against people and where a lot and i both know there are already i mean obviously there are defense projects that he claims that but he complains these foreign policy successes and yes you're right there are defense part of the report but i understand that defense technology really does matter and it did these types of the.