ryan spectacle of rich guy but kissing. it's my honor rely on her and privilege to endorse mitt romney and by the way this is a great couple if you look at this crowd there are some things that you just can't imagine happening in your life this is one of them. so i guess great heads of hair are drawn toward each other and so too are people who make a living firing other people in related news punxsutawney phil did indeed see his shadow this morning and we have six more weeks left in an unseasonably mild winter . the good the bad and the very very junket taisha slee ugly good. granda corp the australian based bus company was recently sold by the grand a family for over four hundred million dollars rather than keep all that money for

themselves like most american corporate honchos would family decided to reward their loyal employees with bonus payments ranging from eight thousand to thirty thousand dollars each in total a family gave gave away around sixteen million dollars to the employees of the company in describing the decision to pay the workers c.e.o. jeff granda said we sat down and thought how can we thank the people that have got us to where we're going to end up and it was a fairly easy decision for us. you know in an age where corporations and c.e.o.'s care more about their bonuses than in the else it's really refreshing to see a company the genuinely appreciates the work in the oil to support. the bad. rupert murdoch murdoch's news corp has been hit again with new allegations of phone hacking in england his empire was de dealt a major blow last year and emerged the phone hacking was a common tactic used to gain information at the news of the world once popular

british tabloid that scandal involving hacking of phones of celebrities british royals even the phone of a murdered teenager today a british lawmaker announced that an investigation has been opened into the use of e-mail hacking at the times of london the flagship murdoch's british usage empire this is an important revelation considering previous investigations in the murdoch's papers had not involved email had also given with the times of london as one of murdoch's flagship papers it's possible that other prominent newspapers and media outlets in this empire are using the same tactics in no one say the wall street journal or fox so-called news one of the murdoch lawyer in the freedom of the press doesn't include the use of illegal activities and a very very ugly senator mike lee. the tea party senator from utah has been adamant about exacting revenge for president obama's recent recess appointments and poor consumer and worker protections officials he had previously said that he would

engage in a scorched earth campaign of obstruction against each of the nominees well yesterday he stepped up his vitriolic rhetoric by tweeting gen for two thousand and twelve may well be a day that will live on in unfolding as the day the congress ceded one of its rightful powers to the executive as take see if people the phrase he used. live on is a day of infamy because of course the one used by franklin roosevelt franklin delano roosevelt to describe the horrors of atrocities witnessed the attack on pearl harbor sen league compared the reese the recess appointment of four officials to one of the most horrifying and deadly days in american history. people utah are represented by a man who compares a personal disagreement to a monumental american tragedy and throws around words like sabotage obstruction and sports earth and promoting his agenda that is very very.

you know if you are outdoors at night in the forest naked cold and hungry i think it would be reasonable to say that you're unhappy. well know that and if somebody came out and said hey come on inside you know we're going to bring in make it warm give you some clothing sit in front of a comfortable fire have a meal you'd be full and happier so we know that you know if this much stuff you know there's this actual change in the amount of stuff the it have can actually affect your happiness. and this has led to a sales pitch basically a cultural belief that well if this much stuff will make you that happy then twice

as much stuff make you twice as happy ten times as much stuff must make ten times that one hundred times as tough one hundred times a thousand times as much stuff a thousand dollars and bill gates and mark zuckerberg must live in a state of perpetual the lists total ecstasy facebook announced today that they're going to do an i.p.o. and it's going to make a thousand new millionaires why are americans so into becoming millionaires why is it that the american dream since ronald reagan's time before reagan there the american dream was let's get into the middle class but since reaganomics the american dream has been recalibrated to i want to be a millionaire i don't do this in europe why is it that we have here and they don't know the answer is really pretty straightforward because to have real security you have to have a strong social safety net you have to have health care for everybody you have to have a real retirement available to you you have to know that if you lose your job through

no fault of your own there's real have employment that's actually enough to live on and that if something happens to you god forbid you get disabled or yet give birth to a child who's disabled there's not going to wipe you out that you have disability insurance you know in europe and in some south american countries in australia they haven't we don't so americans obsess on getting so rich that we can provide our own security because the because the state doesn't and in an era when one illness can literally cost you a million bucks wipe you out being a millionaire is basically the only security available to people in the united states this is profoundly dysfunctional. the whole purpose of community is to produce security for the community i mean traditionally you look at traditional societies and what they do is people all day long produce security and then they consume security and they produce security and in the process you know

goods and services get spun off what we do in our societies we produce goods and services and out of that comes some money and then we use that money to try and buy some security and you know if you don't have millions you can't buy that kind of security in this country which is really tragic when you think about it i mean it's profoundly tragic the whole this whole sense of community you know the community that we have here in this country at the largest sense is the united states we should be organizing our economy to provide a real security for all of us not just for the rich instead what are we getting we're getting republicans running around on oh we need to have right do it right to work for less laws in indiana arizona declaring war on working people wisconsin and michigan on going to war against weren't working people in florida

a war on poor people with drug testing i mean it's time to wake up to the fact that there are very real human values that are part of a successful experience of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness when thomas jefferson wrote those words into the declaration of independence we were the first nation in the history of the world to have the word happiness' in our founding document and consider it for a minute you cannot have a life if you don't have a social safety net if you don't have a national health care program if you don't have if you don't know that no matter what happens with you have a job with you dealt with you're born into a rich family or poor that no matter what you can't have life if you don't have access to those things you can't have liberty if you don't have those things. as franklin roosevelt said so famously one hundred thirty six in june of one hundred thirty six he said obsessive this man is not a free man you are free if you're homeless now free if you're sick and you can't

pay for free if you're jobless and the pursuit of happiness how can we pursue happiness when one we're constantly concerned about survival that is you know is just it's a pure dysfunction if we want to get back to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the united states we need to be seriously looking at the way that they've done in other countries that actually works as the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered visit our website to tom hartman dot com free speech dot org dot com also check out our two you tube channels or links or. entire shows available as a free video podcast on i tunes and we have a free tom hartman i phone and i pad app in the app store and you send us feedback at twitter at tom underscore arbonne on facebook at tom underscore arbonne our blogs message boards and telephone comment line at tom foreman. and don't forget democracy begins with you when you show up and participate get out there and get

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welcome we'll get the real headlines with none of the mersey we're going live to washington d.c. now tonight we're going to speak to josh fox director of the anti fracking documentary gasland yesterday while attempting to film a hearing on the hill foxes arrested by capitol police so he's going to tell us his story that will take a look at what an earlier withdrawal plan in afghanistan really means giving up and packing our bags and should we have done this much sooner robert farley is going to join us plus federal reserve chairman ben bernanke he gave a gloomy warning today in testimony on capitol hill he says the unsustainable

deficits have major costs and stokes fears that the u.s. could be the next greece so is he right or discuss it with william black we're going to all that and more for tonight including a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. it so yesterday secretary of defense leon panetta announced some big news that contrary to what the schedule has been thus far for u.s. troops to hand over control to afghan forces the end of twenty fourteen well all that might be happening more than a year earlier. the end of u.s. combat operations in afghanistan could come sooner than expected defense secretary leon panetta saying the u.s. hopes to make the transition from a combat role to a training and advisory role by the middle of next year the defense department is now targeting next year for an end to u.s. combat operations in afghanistan u.s. troops are going to stop their active combat part of the mission in afghanistan

that is happening next year right now ninety five thousand troops are in afghanistan twenty two thousand are scheduled to come home this fall and all u.s. combat troops are expected to be out of afghanistan by the end of two thousand and fourteen u.s. troops will stop fighting in afghanistan start training and is vising defense secretary leon panetta saying some american forces will stay on to assist in the training of the afghan army but ground operations would cease. and this was much earlier than originally planned. are now this is a big announcement i want to get into what exactly it means and says about the war in afghanistan in our first interview tonight or later second interview tonight but first let's take a few minutes to examine the reactions you know my constant gripe with the mainstream media in the sense of they devote a really pathetic amount of time to covering our wars abroad so an announcement of the combat mission will be ending more than a year earlier than originally planned that's a big deal and i'm really happy that they're covering it today but there is

something that mitt romney said last night after the announcement that is of particular interest take a look. no it's that so the taliban hears that the pakistanis are the afghan leaders here why is the world you go to the people that you're fighting with and tell them the day you're pulling out your troops it makes absolutely no sense just not even saying is putting in jeopardy the mission of the united states of america and our commitments to freedom use wrong. now there are some of you out there that may agree and say you shouldn't tell the people you're fighting against when you're going to pull out troops because well you should do that become on people with almost one hundred thousand troops in the country it's not like you're going to take anybody by surprise but there is a larger point to all of this say as much as mitt romney might be complaining about the fact that there is going to be a very large very big public change in afghanistan we have to realize that things like this will soon become rarities if the mainstream media already provides barely

any coverage of our wars abroad except for when big announcements like this are made or when an important anniversary is passed you can bet that they are only going to go even less about what our military and our cia are doing on our behalf abroad in the future you think of the shadow wars that have been expanding other both the bush and especially the obama administration drone strikes in pakistan yemen and somalia think about the new strategic review that was unveiled that wants to put more focus on special operations give a lot more money to those robots that we flying in the sky and we've already seen all this in action and all we get are a little bit of tidbits ok there were two hostages rescued from somalia the other week but did you know that the weekend before that there was also a drone strike or how about the news today at the philippine military said that they killed southeast asia's most wanted terrorist yesterday in a u.s. backed airstrike did you know that we have had six hundred special forces deployed there since two thousand and two so the more spread out everything becomes the more we focus on small targeted missions the more secretive they will become and less

all of us will know the less will know that is unless we put more pressure on the government for. transparency the way the a.c.l.u. is currently suing the government to get details about the targeted killing program of this administration specifically about three drone strikes conducted in yemen last year that killed american citizens including anwar all along the way we've seen reporters like jeremy scahill go to somalia report on see a proxy prisons there to tell all of us the real story now of course the problem here is that the mainstream media they won't do any of that reporting they initially attacked scahill for that piece he was criticized for revealing national security secrets because you know that nobody loves to keep a secret more than the mainstream media so they can keep their ties and all of their stores as high up in the government and at the pentagon and never get in anyone's way to just realize what's coming and remember that thus far in the build up to what will soon become the norm the mainstream media has consistently chosen to miss.

well we've spoken a lot about hydraulic fracturing or fracking here on the show the process of extracting natural gas from shale rock and one which the natural gas industry is increasingly using across the u.s. have. negative consequences on communities and yesterday and a house side subcommittee hearing e.p.a. investigation into groundwater contamination in pavilion wyoming was being discussed and that's where josh fox director of the film gas land found himself arrested by capitol police for attempting to film the hearing fox was charged with unlawful entry and is going to have to appear in d.c. superior court on feb fifteenth but what exactly happened and what does it all say for the freedom of speech and the transparency which has been promised by members of congress joining me from our studio in new york is josh fox director of the academy award nominated documentary gasland josh it's nice to have you back on the show tonight and i guess if you can just start by telling us what exactly happened

yesterday how it is that you found yourself arrested. well we were doing what was kind of a routine thing for us which is to go and tape a public hearing we've taped hundreds of public hearings across the country and we've certainly done this in congress before the procedure the protocol is to allow the committee to know that you would like to to to tape and then usually what has happened in the past under democratic congress is they say ok well you can come right in since the republicans took over congress however we have had obstruction after obstruction and very difficult time being granted official access to hearings on fracking and this started to happen with a case that's very sensitive and personal to us and it's at the core of our film the case of pavillion wyoming in pavillion wyoming which is featured in the first film gas land the e.p.a. has done a meticulous three and a half year investigation into the groundwater contamination there i mean really an

incredible amount of detective work and science has came to bear in pavilion what they showed was there was fifty times the level of benzene in the groundwater including other contaminants that were harmful that were associated with gas drilling and the e.p.a. report specifically says the likely cause is fracking now this is that this is a huge moment because it's the first time e.p.a. has done that with this new fracking campaign of the last ten years the first time so what's happening here is the republicans are called here have called here to basically peat put the e.p.a. on trial they called in the investigator the regional administrator and they stuffed the panel with oil and gas lobbyists to attack e.p.a. report that showed fracking was the likely cause of contamination groundwater and since we've been following these and are activists cowboys and pavillion who've been petitioning for years to get their case reviewed and the results came back with what they knew to be true which is that their water was contaminated after fracking occurred it was so we want to take this and we were getting

a lot of flak so i decided after a second to you know i think you'd give us more detail where was it just knew that wasn't allowed to go and film this hearing where there are other crews there that were not allowed or did they keep the whole thing closed off. well usually the way we thought of hearings is that i go with my editor countermand co-creator met sanchez and will cover it a very comprehensive way we were told that we were not allowed to film because we didn't have press credentials which is something that is particular to the hill there are a bunch of reporters that only work down on the hill we don't live there so we have never applied for those credentials but we never have needed it the first amendment is your credential the first amendment says congress shall make no law that infringes upon the freedom of the press there are other things the first amendment says but that's definitely in there so we don't need permission to so much public carry it's protocol because there are certain the just tickle things but in this case there was no one else there who had showed up to film this hearing we tried to

hire accredited people who were not busy that day and that when we when we were when they were told when we when they were asked who they were working for and they said us they were told they could not be admitted so this was very specific about us getting on well how did you know that there was a chance when you went and that you might get they might have to risk arrest dr louis i mean this was a moment when we had felt. shut out for long enough. and. i had appealed specifically to the chairman staff representative republican representative andy harris and they had not gotten back to us even though they said they would so we showed up knowing full well that there might be a confrontation oh this is a risk as a reporter to to walk into a situation where there might be a conversation with congress because you don't know what the repercussions are but at as it was we had nothing to lose we were getting late in the congress anyway we had already been shut out so matt sanchez who had his camera out in the hallway was told he couldn't come in the room he was blocked i had my camera in the case and

a tripod so i just walked in even though they had said let me search your bag and i said no and then i walked into the room and i set up my tripod immediately when i set up my tripod i saw staffers come up to me say you cannot tape you can't record of course we were recording this the whole time and then. after about ten or fifteen minutes which i explained would appeal to the chair get the get the chair to weigh in on this then police start to arrive and the members start to run for the beginning of the hearing the members of congress all of a sudden i look over my shoulder and i realize this whole conversation is being filmed by members of congress and the only person there cameras are on their recording the only person being threatened us with the rest is is me and they had valerie me they were playing back for. john and i know there are others i know they are also i think i'm going to delay here on gas land there's going to follow up here documentary is all that's going to be in it. well here's the here's the main thing. to one of the main focuses is a new form of contamination which is the contamination of money in washington

fracking money in washington every dollar that these fracking companies contribute to campaigns specifically in this case with the republicans is a contaminant in our democracy and that's what we're investigating and when you have a house panel that's clearly attacking science the investigators looking at the science and then you have investigators like myself reporting on this and they're locked up and thrown in jail by order of the chairman of the committee that's not government anymore that's just agree that's behaving in a way that's totally unacceptable it's a violation of civil rights it's a violation of the first amendment it's a violation of the constitution. and i would add that it's as shortsighted as fracking itself fracking is the short term a lot of money in a big windfall profit for corporations the new left the devil take the future you've left this contamination in the ground forever this decision might have been initially satisfying to lock me up and throw me in jail but clearly there's been

a backlash and i think that this shows the kind of snap judgment and instant gratification that motivates this particular. form of governing that is the hallmark of this republican congress well you know i think as i said the. promise of transparency was taken out with me in those president obama actually addressed fracking when he was giving a state of the union address the other week and i'm curious as to what you thought of his message because on one hand he said the working to have regulations that if any of these companies want to do fracking then they're going to have to disclose the kind of chemicals that the bay use but at the same time he also you know a plot of the government said that fracking is a great thing and this is how we came up with these technologies so you know is he walking a thin line there. no it was more than that it was definitely an endorsement of natural gas drilling and it was the kind of very painful moment i think for many of

us who've been trying to make. it known the truth about fracking he also at length quoted statistics which are not true about fracking one hundred years of natural gas in the ground. at the same time so this is quite difficult you know at the same time his e.p.a. has been incredibly aggressive and specifically obama's e.p.a. obama raised the budget by the e.p.a. by i think was thirty four percent in its first year the biggest jump in e.p.a. funding increase in twenty years and the first time ever their budget was over ten billion dollars so they've been doing an incredible job the obama administration's also been shown to be sensitive to the will of the people into the protests to keystone x.l. so when you taking a look at this in a bigger sense it's a mixed bag certainly we agree that the companies that have to be disclosing the chemicals and corporations should not be allowed to bury literally bury their

figures in the ground at the expense of america's public health on the other hand i think the president is wrong about endorsing that for gas because it is the form of energy which stands in the way of renewable energy and sustainable economics and sustainable sustainable real energy that we need to make the transition to the debate over this certainly isn't going well and josh thanks so much for joining us tonight telling us your story and we'll catch back up with you when you have that hearing here in d.c. at the district court thanks. thanks love. i there's still much more to come tonight and everything all the details on. hearing panels like a more in-depth look at the drawdown in afghanistan with robert farley full of. people calling what you said for free and fair elections.

and we're still reporting from the. past you can hear behind me loud explosions. in the. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.

well after living under house arrest for four hundred and twenty days with a co-founder joining us on is finally having his day in england's supreme court if you remember song was originally accused of sexual misconduct by two females while .