there's very strong very strong support for even for more devolution more more scottish home rule but probably for independence per se that only gets about a third of the support of the population which is one of the reasons why. is trying to change the voting rules to have sixteen and seventeen year olds vote but i note that the it is still all about elites in this argument because it's a question of whether you can have central planners in london or an edinburgh running the lives of all the people in scotland i notice that the two other guests didn't want to talk about my suggestion that the scots could have a much more home rule right now by letting them elect the important officials in their local governments that control their health care and the police both of these gentlemen are also for keeping scotland in the european union which is an institution which has a tremendous democratic deficit it has no legitimacy unlike say the united states constitution where states joined together to make a true national union that was done by the people themselves acting in the

conventions were as in scale the european union has been this project ever since john boehner started it back in the olden days of jamming having elites jam it down on the public and they're all the elites have been consistently terrified of allowing referendums how about our scottish national party friend if this scotland achieves independence will you allow the people of scotland to vote on whether to stay in the european union and ask our labor party friend why not let the people of scotland vote on that and why not let the people of the united kingdom as a whole vote on that why should laws be made in brussels that apply to people in the united kingdom or in scotland if it's independent when the people of scotland in the united kingdom have never consented to surrender their sovereignty to a bunch of bureaucrats in brussels ok or i can if you want to go you want to answer one of those questions or vote is a completely sick. i mean some of the things that are being mentioned here are

complete annoyances simulate to please i've been in politics thirty three years six to sixteen and was an elected representative and never had a single person come to me ask me for that to beating forward didn't seem to think i should be a focus of a political party i joined the s.n.p. because i want to go on to an equal nation among all of them to see the united nations on an equal police and european union in terms of related health boards were brought in a couple years ago i don't know where the professor's been i don't know if he's keeping in touch but talk about central planning. a new political party in the u.k. is in favor of central planning as he puts it all the countries all the political parties are active in parliament and westminster and indeed holyrood actually believe in the mixed economy to one degree or another so i think that professor is completely out of touch with viewpoint on these issues in terms of the european union i think it's preposterous to suggest that if you're in europe somehow you know independent friends notably did not send troops to iraq and independent

scotland if we'd been in power would not have done so that's real independence not having nuclear weapons on your soil the decision not to have them is real independence having control over taxation your social security system pain sions you know that is independence having a role in the world i mean does he see the silly seriously think we are going to suggest or. to police commissioners of war gold and give our. people who is this guy go on your reasoning william william i view it in a way to william here what about it what is the reverse direction here is when you know english themselves are not so wound up about this issue i mean obviously the scots are but there's a lot of i would say indifference but it's not an issue that you have fire in your belly about or maybe i'm wrong ok i mean the average englishman is not overly worried about scotland staying in the united kingdom. i think there is a sense in england of more particular english identity when i attended

a really interesting discussion which the institute for public policy research organized into this the same lost last week but i think there is great support for the united kingdom staying together still in terms of the e.u. i mean i must disagree i mean i think there are. three and a half million jobs that depend on us having a positive relationship with the e.u. one of the benefits that we have of being part of britain is that our relationship with the e.u. is stable and secure there is a great legal that it will in one hundred people with. an independent scotland game with an independent it's going to magically state it would have to go to italy but it would an independent counsel appointed how it would have to be a member of the european union i would imagine exception process and why it's already in it there's a huge difference it's already huge doubt about that it's already in the euro it is already look at a work on the hard very hard and book of scottish independence by joseph martin's he expresses doubt if you look at the hughes how it was one of the s.n.p.

his favorite economists well i'm surprised you're one of the first ministers bravery caught him as he relies on him to back a bit ahead of us and i don't know innocent and that's always said this alleged time is you mentioned i've never had it i've never seen it ok what is completely. stage of you by and you can become saluted by a copy today of kenneth wood well if this is to blame the it in for some part of the european union all right croatia is showing up to go into the single currency as part as conditions for entry latvia is joining the euro we haven't already seen that is the possibility we're not in the possibility they're going through a recession process you lose the u.k. octo and in principle in the end you have to say not as being part of the year i don't think i've been scotland's ok david what do you think about it is rubbish ok i'll go to you and i get the scottish people vote on this but aren't you already in the county and you're. already in the european union why would they have to re reply they are to every voter that the scottish people devore voted on that

professor baines rense a very good as a law when i was a law professor was a volunteer a scholarship in criticizing the concept cross of the trust of emotion decide which is the city editor that you can see prisoners of war and can rule people without their consent for their supposed that own good why are the scottish people good enough to vote on whether they're going to be ruled from london why don't they have the right to vote on whether they're going to be ruled from brussels nobody has ever asked them to vote on the out what are rightly these are issues just and you did a. whole and the. it was one nine hundred seventy five and you know these issues are decided let's learn. parties who stand their parties who stand who want to take britain out of the european union and they are humiliated every single general election that happens so i think the vast majority of the british people want to stay within the european union we do have to reform the e.u. look you're right it does have become more democratic we have to look at strange

things there was somebody in the room how is this going to relate to any pieces located can it go ahead jump in with scala needs a voice still needs a voice in the european you know it's preposterous but luxembourg which is aligned as it through is able to send someone to the council of ministers to talk about stretching and strong is a huge fishing industry and yet we're not going to be presented and to suggest really that scotland would be an exception to the scene we can easy you can see his attorney says professor milner well can he sell down through that carriage in twenty five years ago. william guy had any you ought to look you ought to look at what the head of the scottish fisherman's federation betty armstrong has been saying in the last twenty four hours he has said that he was warned and felt that scotland going independent would mean that we would have fewer votes in the european council to discuss fisheries than estonia you've got the fishing industry worried about our lack of influence on the european you know voice and the more we all seem to be able to install the united kingdom through the usa i think it will

still be there well when the tories when it is up to you but i julie the. fashion industry but you remember. jimmy let me hear what you. just let me if you're hearing me and is signing up to the common fisheries policy i want to i'm going to be a shooting anymore so i don't want to talk about an issue any more i want to talk about an official of the european union david thank go to you ok we have this issue with scotland we have an issue also in belgium where we have. a fragile state to say the least here what is the future we're going to see more states with with what we see is the european union and we are going to fragment even more and is that a good idea but maybe it is a good idea because it might be more democratic as you point out well but putting aside whether we say split belgium in half and then we can divide antwerpen in half again to sort of recreate the previous division of germany and with the a belgian version i think the e.u.

has some long some short term stability problems because greece among others. it was well known to the euro krauts that the greece find great financial figures when greek came into the e.u. were absolute frauds and that the greek system was not sustainable and then finally the rest of the world has found that out and now you have the question about whether they're going to try to force ultimately the european central bank and the taxpayers of scotland and germany and the rest of the europe to bail out this praful get your responsible great government that has led the country to ruin so i'm surprised that both jane are so determined about how they are going to keep scotland in the european union one way or another when this is an institution which in its free trade side has been very good i would say for all of europe but is based on lies and fraud about the financial conditions of these welfare countries like greece which exist only because the workers in other

countries have to work even harder so they can bail out the government workers in greece but i'm going to we're almost out of time we're almost out of time but if i want to go do you keep you informed people will the referendum in two thousand and fourteen and we'll be in the u.s. i think i'm sorry seven independence has been forty seven independence referendums that only forty five forty two having been won by the party of independence because people want to vote for something positive and something negative of the five that were lost montenegro and malta vote for independence subsequently a few years later i believe twenty years from now we're wondering all the fuss was about the fifty one members the united nations and one thousand nine. hundred ninety three we want to go into one hundred ninety four simply all the will be a chair in the general assembly for you many thanks to my guest today in denver edinburgh and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t.

see you next time and remember. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly 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 tom harpur welcome to the big picture. mission. couldn't take three years for charges three. richmond

three. three stooges free. old free broadcast cloning video for your media projects a free video dog our teeth on tom. oh this is tom arbonne in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture a massive national mortgage foreclosure settlement is in the works but is this a good deal for the people or the banks being let off easy despite committing widespread felony fraud also legislation being held hostage by republicans has become a hall art of recent congressional sessions but now democrats are caving in to their demands how will the democrats willingness to bend affect american workers and the flag ship occupy d.c. and can't let was raided and evicted this week at the occupy d.c. group recover and where does the movement go from here.

you need to know this will actually get through the night's top stories a bit later i first have to sign these papers here. the bankers pay me ten bucks a pop to sign these so although we've paid for i sign each one translates into a family get kicked out of their oh home and i've signed a million like you know these suckers you know it's just ten bucks a pop up it's funny the banks that supposedly own to these homes they can't find in the paperwork to prove it that's because they never took the time in the first place to gather the paperwork since they knew they were just going to turn around and sell the mortgage anyway or cut it up or bundle it with thousands of other mortgages and get some in their pocket ratings agency to give it a aaa rating and sell it off to some schmuck investor then when the economy went

into a tailspin and a bunch of poor suckers couldn't afford their homes anymore the banks had to scramble to prove they had the paperwork all along so they hired me and now i get the sign all these regal documents make it look like the bank had the mortgages all along even though they didn't but we'll keep that a secret between you and me so we sign a few more here. they call me a robo signing and some people say what i'm doing is illegal but hey it's ten bucks a pop though it is strange that i have to sign a different name lisa smith on each one of these documents and we'll just do what i'm told. all right enough of that you might remember that about a year and a half ago it was discovered that the nation's biggest banks like wells fargo bank of america j.p. morgan chase ally financial and city group were exposed for using robo signers like i was pretending to be and as i just showed robo signers were just people they picked off the street to come into an office somewhere and sign thousands of

fraudulent legal documents making it look like the banks own properties if the banks didn't really own all that just so they could for close on whoever was in that particular home this is complete and total criminal fraud it's a criminal conspiracy to force millions of people out of their homes i might as well be signing fake checks walking to the bank to catch them that's how fraudulent the robo signing process was and this fraud was ordered from the very top senior executives on wall street and it got the attention of all fifty states attorneys general washington investigation into the banks after more than a year of that a settlement was worked out in just the last few weeks basically the big banks have to cough up twenty five billion dollars in penalties and use that money to help keep people who are on the verge of foreclosure in their homes where modify their mortgages they also have to change how they deal with customers and change their current foreclosure practices in return the banks get immunity all street c.e.o.'s and other banks to criminals get to walk free and keep their bonuses after

committing one of the biggest acts of criminal fraud in the history of the united states and they can't be held liable for any other lawsuits brought by any attorneys general who sign out of this settlement again at least so far that's our understanding the deadline for the attorneys general to accept the settlement or not was today and as of right now not all attorney generals have signed on to california new york being the primary holdouts but it looks increasingly likely that they will so is this a good deal for the people are the banks getting off easy despite committing widespread fraud here to answer that question is jordan stoffel campaign director of national people's action. jordan welcome thank you very much for having me tom thank you for being here and joining us why the hell would the government be negotiating with admitted criminals well because they admitted criminals have great great legal representation and you know but what's what's good about this like the good news and bad in all this is that this this settlement represents an acknowledgment by the obama administration and by the attorney general that part of

the solution the biggest part of the solution for the crimes for the consequences of the crimes of the banks of committed is principal reduction for homeowners getting homeowners out from under the overhang of debt that you know that they're at that they pay right now because more than twenty five percent of homeowners are currently underwater on their mortgages but i understand that this is going to work out to like two thousand dollars per home i mean that's that's that's a lot test you got that's go bad and you are one hundred thousand dollars under underwater exactly right that's the bad news is that this twenty five billion dollars even if all of it were to go toward principal reduction which we don't think it will and even if it were going to go toward just homeowners which we don't think it will even if that were the case you know americans collectively just just just homeowners people that live in their houses and their mortgages their is their is their main form of debt. are are collectively more than three hundred billion dollars underwater on their mortgages and so you know twenty five twenty five billion dollars doesn't need to get it's a very small book in a very small drop in

a very big bucket doesn't even doesn't even start to address the problem so why are we even having a conversation about this i mean you and me but you know the government the banks and why you know why are they saying the banks are is ok we'll let you not go to jail and by the way we're still going to screw the homeowners yeah so you know back back when this investigation started we were promised you know we were promised a fundamental we being the people the american people by the attorney general were promised that this would this lawsuit would result in a fundamental transformation of the mortgage industry and the way mortgages serviced that it would you know they would make families whole and you know we. told the people to go to jail so none of that happened somewhere along the line you know lawyer against lawyer we ended up with twenty five billion dollars so in bear in mind put this in context these are the banks that crashed are an entire economy our entire global economy that are now paying out near record bonuses and compensation hundred fifteen billion dollars last just this year that's right exactly and in bonuses exam they're going to throw twenty five or thirty five

billion at the homeowners like in here guys compared twenty five billion to the hundred five billion dollars at the about going to st paid out and then in one thousand nine hundred ninety eight i was back when money was actually that's when it was worth a lot more you got it right so this is so we're saying that you know the price of peace here the banks really need to pay three hundred to three hundred billion dollars for principal reduction that goes toward making families whole it should be the banks that take the hit for all this overhang of debt and not not regular families and and how about some banks are going to jail so that people in the future don't consider this you know it would it would go a long way toward discouraging that i have and i have heard. that the attorney generals of of california new york eric schneiderman and what's her name. miss harris in california have been holding out for a basically a loophole in this thing that would allow them to continue to prague to pursue

criminal prosecutions so california has the largest number of retail fraud and new york has the highest number of at the level of the banks an executive is fraud is that true is that going to happen so you know we'll see if they sign on or not the landscape in this seems to change every day but you know what we do know is that that twenty five billion dollars if we're going to sue the banks for robo signing alone just that act of terrible fraud that has resulted in pain and lost wealth for you know. lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of people you know if you're just going to sue in that twenty five billion ok but don't let them off the hook. for one more thing other than the robo signing itself because there's lots more that the that we should be going after them for from you know origination of fraud to securities fraud like the whole the whole package so you know this settlement if it's twenty five billion dollars it must not result in any other release or claim any other immunity for the banks to be sued by individuals by states or by the

federal government for any of the other crimes that they've committed so i agree but it does is that the nature and it is the what's the process here is there any transparency of the process of this negotiation or is this all happening you know in smoke filled rooms and and you know with banks or lobbyists and politicians involved and stuff like that or it is a purely legal you know what's what what's the deal too much of it has been just just backroom legal negotiations between bank lawyers and and attorneys general and their and their staff the home you know actual homeowners the people who have been affected by this have not really been at the table so it is our intention you're probably aware of this new investigation that that president obama announced in the state of the union address where where eric schneiderman the new york attorney general is heading up this this new taskforce to investigate securities fraud so we intend to make sure that this twenty five billion dollars is just a down payment and that this new investigation needs to go the distance it needs to

have homeowners at the table and it needs to result in three hundred billion dollars in principal reduction for american families because that's the scope of the damage that has been done welcome people watching this program right now do they help make that happen they can go to new bottom line is a spell out new bottom line dot com or showdown in america or. because you guys are pushouts that's what is it up there with that's where the good news you know for the past over the past year tens of thousands of families have. families have written their attorney general have have called their attorney general office of called the obama administration were by. the way this fall squarely at the obama administration's speech they have been pushing for this got twenty five billion dollars settlement to resolve quickly and they're the ones that set up this new task force so we need to see actual results from that not just window dressing jordan thanks a lot for being with us tonight thanks very much have much appreciated there's a reason why bankers will get off scot free without arrest in all probability for

committing a great just fraud and why on the other hand thousands of peaceful americans have been arrested for exercising their first amendment rights. you know in his dissent in the supreme court citizens united decision justice stevens in the dissent wrote in the functioning in a functioning democracy the public must have faith that its representatives over their positions to the people and not to the corporations with the deepest pockets well speaking the corporations of the deepest pockets here that hears these banks tears he says are criminals they committed forgery on a massive scale if you or i had done anything close to this we'd be in prison ten seconds with a typical sentence for first time fraud of six months to four years depending on the state depending on the nature of the fraud of the forgery for a single count of forgery these bankers ordered to and that's and that's for a single count of forgery these bankers ordered tens of thousands of forgeries this deal that is being put together just like you know justice stevens was warning about with regard to citizens united the same thing it's going to reinforce the

perception among americans that we have to criminal justice systems here in the united states one for the rich and powerful and politically connected people and one for everybody else and that erodes our faith in our nation and which is tragic but you know there's a good reason it is a road in it because cutting a deal like this for the banks toure's both tells them and average americans that they're above everybody else and apparently are. they shouldn't be and this deal stinks and if the banks wouldn't fix your mortgage without this kind of immunity their bank should have been shut down and they should have been sent to jail ironically we should have done this the way that ronald reagan did in one thousand nine hundred six or sort of i did improve a little bit on that he sent over a thousand banks toure's to jail you know people like charles keating and a whole bunch of other criminals when they brought down the s. and l. on the other hand neil bush was one of the guys who got busted and that he was the son of the vice president he loaned to he was on the board of directors of silverado savings and loan he loan two of his business partners

a hundred million bucks from his bank the money was never repaid so he paid a fifty thousand dollar fine is that are going to jail neil bush should have gone to prison in one thousand nine hundred six in the bankers on wall street today should go to prison today. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old so if you told the truth. i confess and i am a total get of friends that i was driving. and for. that he was kind of yesterday. i'm very ill with his place.

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 tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

and the best of the rest of the news the nation's oldest occupations suffered a blow this weekend as d.c. park police raided and evicted most of occupy d.c. and can't let it mcpherson square on saturday just before noon dozens of officers in riot gear on horseback and hazmat suits moved into the camp and disassembled and trash towns that they said were not in compliance with park rules nearly a dozen occupiers were arrested in saturday's tense raid most of across from police barriers although there was a report that one man was arrested for throwing

a brick at a police officer while the police claim that the weekend's events were not an addiction and diddly sometimes it's. clear that occupy d.c. is apparently. clear paranoia shell of the vibrant community used to be a similar police raid was conducted on a sister occupation of freedom plaza on sunday with little confrontation and fewer tense or more so where is the occupation of the nation's capital stand now after the crackdown here to give us their insights are tucker a journalist with the fight back dot org and robert stevens the second participant with occupy d.c. and welcome to both thank you so much thanks for joining us great to be here pete what happened in for mcpherson square as we can well there was as you saw in the images that you were saying a massive police presence one of the reasons that paralyze the republican congress member gave for why the occupations of d.c. should be moved on was because pretty good macpherson was doing damage to the park costing there was four thousand dollars in investment made and they're kind of

ironic given the allies as the only member of the house of representatives as a criminal record itself is a very interesting path. and it also is ironic that to save money when you look at the operation that was launched on saturday we're talking over one hundred people you factor in the park police and the cleanup crews you had a helicopter humvee horses this was a somewhat like a military style operation and no expense was spared amazing robert what's the state of the occupy effort today and is there any kind of. you know i in those in the set up i said it's a shell of itself but i'm guessing that's actually not the case how are you guys reorganizing with regard to not being able to sleep there and yet still having community right before i get to that response i'd like to first talk about the.