western powers seek to hit syria with more economic sanctions after russia and china vetoed a u.n. resolution aimed at increasing pressure on president assad this comes as the death toll rises in the city of holmes has fifty more people reportedly killed by government shelling. meanwhile ahead of his visit to damascus russia's foreign minister slams the west's reaction to the double veto as indecent and hysterical he is scheduled to meet syrian authorities on tuesday to try and broker dialogue between the government and opposition. also greater political involvement for the people through the internet prime minister putin lays out his plans to upgrade

russian democracy a day after mass pro and anti-government rallies sweep through the country with a new image initiative plus people to suggest with their own laws online. and greece announces thousands of civil service job cuts amid mounting international pressure to agree on austerity measures that are needed to secure a new bailout if the government fails to strike a deal it could default on its financial obligations by the end of march. up next tom hartman brings us the wider perspective on what's happening in american and world politics in the big picture that's coming up right away so don't go.

hello 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 all our 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. encampment was raided and evicted this weekend occupy d.c. group recover and where does the movement go from here. you need to know this will actually get that tonight'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 always pipes or i sign each one translates into a family get kicked out of their oh home and i've signed a million like you know suckers it's just ten bucks ah well. it's funny the banks that supposedly own to these homes they can't find any of 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 to 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 will just do what i'm told. are 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 citigroup 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 citing 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 the settlement again at least so far as 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 or the. 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 last test you got better 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 hold 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 law resign shouldn't. in a fundamental transformation of the mortgage industry and the way mortgages serviced that it would be zero that would make families whole and you know we were even told the people would 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 our 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 and five billion dollars at the 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 exactly right and 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 the thing that i have heard. that the attorney generals of of california new york eric schneiderman and what's her name. this is harris in california have been holding out for a basically a loophole in this thing that would allow them to continue to prod 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 need check it is fraud is that true is that going to happen so you know we'll see if they sign on or not that is 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. 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 have 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 really 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 task force 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 does it have to do with that's where the good news you know for the past over the past year ten. the thousands of families have. founds have written their attorney general have have called their attorney general office of called the obama administration where by the way this fall squarely at the obama administration's speech they have been pushing for this i got twenty five billion dollars settlement to resolve quickly and they're the ones that set up this new taskforce so we need to see actual results from that not just window dressing jordan thanks a lot for the latest on that thanks very much dr much appreciate it there's a reason why bankers will get off scot free without arrest in all probability for committing agree 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 owed 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 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 has been 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 there is you know there's a good reason it is a road yet 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 bankers 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 loaned two of his business partners one 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.

geologist as the twenty. i just crisis poisons the union. profiteers have more power than peoples. a free trade bloc under threat from the greed it's on least. twenty. technology innovation all the developments from around russia we've dumped the future covered.

in 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. encampment in mcpherson square on saturday just before noon dozens of officers in riot gear on horseback and hazmat suits moved into the camp and disassemble and trash towns that they said were not in compliance with park rules nearly a dozen occupiers were arrested in saturday's tense rate 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 and eviction and did leave some tents it's clear that occupy d.c. is apparently clear errantly a shell of the viber it used to be a similar police raid was conducted on a sister occupation of freedom plaza on sunday but little confrontation and fewer tense or so words the occupation of the nation's capital stand. now after the

crackdown here to give us their insights are tucker journalist fightback dot org and robert stevens the second participant occupy d.c. welcome to you both thank you so much thanks for joining us great to be here pete what happened in for mcpherson square this week and well there was as you saw in the images that you were saying a massive police presence one of the reasons that their allies the republican congress member gave for why the occupations of d.c. should be moved dollars because pretty good macpherson was doing damage to the park costing there was four thousand dollars make an investment made and they're kind of ironic given the allies as the only member of the house of representatives as a criminal record so it 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 the factor in the park police and the cleanup crews who had a helicopter home the 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 brick allegation and give a slightly off date about the nature and the condition of the people that. were in prison so with this brick the allegation of the brick that shortly became a a plastic bottle a pepsi bottle that is what was that's the only thing that was discussed in court today there were no charges of final break there was a recording talked. the media yes

a plastic bottle when they talk to the judge yes. that's very important to distinguish. so i'd like to make that clear. also i'd like to give a brief update about the condition of the people that have been taken into custody there is one individual who was beaten and has a fractured arm and a fractured skull he was taken to the hospital but then removed from the hospital and re incarcerated. this is the picture of the policeman who says he was hit by the brick being carried out by his buddies apparently it was a. plastic ok maybe that's also easily yeah. they were acting pretty tough on that day in question i'm i'm five four and apparently every single person needed to be. in gauged with overwhelming force i was pushed. personally i was shoved in pushed as i was watching the man who is accused of

having thrown the pepsi bottle they rushed him tackled him put their knees on his neck started beating them with. tons. and as they were doing that they even swarmed the rest of the crowd and told us all to move back at which point i said no i'm not going to move back you are abusing and beating him right now and i'm not going to move i'm just let you do that without any witnesses i'm going to bear witness to that because that's the only thing i can do in this situation which was . a very intense and emotional situation for everyone who was there to see people being. beaten and all demographics i'm talking older people younger people men women they were teenagers girls boys all kinds of people were really brutalized but with that being said i'd like to say that yes there was there was police brutality in full view of the general public. during this entire process not just in d.c.

but across the nation however i'd like to point out that police brutality has been a consistent element of our current economic order for years and vulnerable communities have experienced this. country's recent years so you're asserting and assuming pete that you're a green other than the guy who threw the bottle there really was no violence involved in this other than by the police so an accurate statement it's hard to know exactly every incident it was a chaotic event and so i couldn't say you know i'm curious you know and in oakland it seemed like this was kind of a turning point at least for the oakland folks where. these guys dressed in black went out and started smashing windows happen a couple of times and there have been there's there's a lot of debate about you know a multitude of tactics versus going to diversity of tactics which is code for let some people break windows and and you know it seems like that's not happening here

and it is happening there what's the what's the discussion going on in the occupy movement going on here in d.c. about this well what you're specifically talking about is black blocking which is one particular tactic in the diversity of tactics regime. black joakim in my opinion would not be easily summarized as simply breaking windows it's. you i believe earlier in the program he spoke of revolutionary versus reformist kinds of tactics reactionary yes well black blocking him is a revolutionary tactic in which people view the power structure is being illegitimate and therefore openly resist whether it's not just breaking windows it's directing people like the guy who was what i saw being swarmed and beaten in taste if there were a black bloc there would be an effort to leave no one behind it's way more complex than simply saying that it's about breaking windows it's about protecting. people.

will get violent in protection of property but not be dedicated to protecting people but the system has always gotten violent protection so the black bloc tactic seems. to rupture and demonstrate. that is going to end any time in history one that's worked yeah. so you're talking about violent tactics like. seriously tried that was robert e. lee. i mean america was founded in a revolutionary war that was a violent and it was a we were being occupied it was it was a terrorist endeavor like the british would have called george washington a terror is it so you know revolutionary but this is that was a revolution against a foreign government i'm talking about since this has been our government you're calling to bring down this government i'm not i'm not saying i'm not first of all we're talking about able to see that i just. want to be clear.

secondly it's not hypotheticals when those kids and spouses. but i will say i will say this as a modern example if you want to go to something recent in one thousand nine hundred seattle did work. has not attempted to have the same kind of presence and had to monica influence in the global well they've just been just you know gone behind the barricades but. we have just thirty seconds with the rest of your thoughts. well i would just say that the occupy movement which began september seventeenth on wall street touched a nerve because the pain that people are feeling in this country is not being addressed and that was it whether was the great depression and franklin roosevelt's new deal policies if something like that is not done then whether police moved people out of a particular can't and can't or not there's going to be the groundswell of support for something that challenges the policies which are leaving so many people hurting and he says there was a loser. bonus armies. there was occupied. thank you guys thank you so much for the

opportunity to talk to robert stevens if the reports of violence are true then frankly in my opinion they should be divided denounced violence has no place in a peaceful movement that's already accomplished so much around the world then my radio show had a discussion of the caller who disagreed with them. from an occupy remark here and it's my philosophy that it's not violent unless someone gets hurt right and the government so you think or do you think that damaging property is not violence i depend on the property if the property is in the process of damaging the public then breaking a few windows is just making a statement yeah i would submit to you john that if you're breaking a few windows the statement that you're making is that you're destroying the movement around you. i'm sorry i'm you are you are you are absolutely plain into the hands of the police and you are absolutely playing into the hands of the system you are their best front man if you're smashing windows at the bank of america or

whatever no matter how much you may take the gag order i feel the government speaks in two languages right now violence and money and unless you can speak in one of their languages they're not going to listen there's a third language and it's called nonviolence and if you use nonviolence it is more potent than money and it's more potent than violence and we've seen that we saw that in the abolition movement we saw that in the suffrage movement we saw that the civil rights movement if you can be nonviolent in the face of violence and if you can be poor in the pace at face of riches and maintain your integrity and not play their game because you will always lose when you play their game their game is violence you play that game you're going to lose they got tanks they've got helicopters they've got guns they've got jails you play that game you lose and not only will you lose but you'll tarnish everybody else who's trying to play the game of nonviolence nonviolence is the most powerful force on earth love is one hundred times more powerful than eight and you know respectfully you need to find that place inside yourself where you can as as robbed us once twenty years ago he said

even the most you know vile racist billy club wielding you know african-american smashing white southern races sheriff deep down inside just wants to be loved even you've got to find that place in yourself where you can see the fundamental humanity in even the people who are committing evil acts you oppose their evil but you don't do it with evil. this is the number one issue occupy wall street's going to have to deal with going forward and i'll have more on the battle for the soul of the movement in tonight's daily take. crazy alert hey washing your clothes well a company in rela canada has released a new line of jeans that can be worn for months without needing a washing as a possible scratch and sniff jeans of course have every scratch the fabric releases the smell of first rest varies as a result owners just keep scratching away avoid the smell of musty dirty clothes

the makers of the jeans naked in famous denim claim the fresh raspberry smell can last for up to five wash cycles a spokesman for the company said hardcore denim lovers won't wash them for months to get an individual look new versions of the fruity fresh jeans include grapefruit apple and banana and are already in the works all the target audience for the jeans is probably the messy and lazy college student price tag pretty steep but two hundred bucks then again only in college can you get away with the line no really scratched my crotch. after the break police systematically raided evict the occupy d.c. supply ship but over the weekend where does the occupy d.c. group go now from here and how can the movement as a whole continue to serve. the

close up team has been to the hub bar of screeching where the country's mineral wealth starts its way across the ocean. now archie goes to the area. once named dr len in good looking to a different character to represent itself for local businesses are striving to build the aviation capital of russia. and for the four by fours are made and can be tested to the limit. welcome to the screech of. russia close up on our cheek. more news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china operations are today.