i. james o'keefe is at it again in case you don't know who he is here's his mug shot that's when o'keefe was arrested for trying to wiretap u.s. senator mary landrieu phone becomes to be a journalist and was promoted by fox news o'keefe is down to is that a number of fake journalism stunts is just to advance far right wing ideology basically took on n.p.r. with a very deceptively edited video to make it look like an n.p.r. executive was making critical remarks against the republican party in his official capacity but the damage was done in that executive plus n.p.r. c.e.o. vivian schiller resigned they also messed up acorn too with some videos and that's basically how o'keefe rolls he throws blatant propaganda out there and lets the

right wing media pick it up whether it's true or not he is not a journalist he is a hack and now he's at it again releasing a new video to advance the myth of voter fraud this time then what you're about to see here goes to a voter registration center in minnesota has to several of them to obtain voter registration forms for fictitious people people like timothy t.-bo and thomas brady to prove that someone can register fake people or celebrities or jesus loving football stars to vote without and i did take a look at the video and that is so does voter registration form you can check mark a box that says you don't need an id a social security number or a driver's license. if a person walked up to election officials in minnesota and inquired about registering tim thibeault and tom brady to vote is it possible for a third party to register a group of voters for example to tivo so you have one person it's almost

pretty obvious brady can't come and gone through depression can't commit murders or votes. so later in the video keep trying to prove that one someone like timothy t.-bo is a registered the met voter can send an absentee ballot again without an id in place of fraudulent vote what o'keefe is trying to advance with this video is the need for voter id laws those same voter id laws that are being passed in places like wisconsin that will disenfranchise millions of eligible voters who don't have i.d.'s in the next election mostly democratic voters but is bred for even points out over the broad blog dot com this is just another case of journalistic hackery by a key first off as friedman points out what to keep doesn't illustrate in the video is that there's already a law on the books the help america vote act two thousand and five it's called there requires anyone who doesn't register to vote in person someone like timothy

t.-bo to show their id when they show up at a polling place to vote for the first time so that's covered as for that second issue of mailing in absentee ballots without an id that's a crime all right but it's a crime that these voter id laws can't stop either and it's a crime that pretty much never gets committed only point zero zero zero six percent of votes cast according to a study by the brennan center for justice are fraudulent lightning striking people happens more frequently. but while voter fraud almost never happens despite what discredited hack journalists like o'keefe want you to think election fraud on the other hand happens all the time and there's one political party that seems to always be behind it and you can guess which one it is it's the subject of tonight's deleted. all the kids aren't just targeting democratic fundraisers like unions in their quest for one party rule in america they're also targeting democratic voters

as think progress pointed out over the weekend there are twenty two states considering bills or have already passed bills to restrict voting rights by requiring people to present a photo i.d. or proof of citizenship at the polls in other words disenfranchising tons of voters publicans contend that the legislation will curb mass voter fraud a claim has been widely proven to be for lack of a better term or a loss of scene one garbage as the brennan center for justice at new york university pointed out in a study in titled the truth about voter fraud allegations of widespread voter fraud however often prove greatly exaggerated claims of voter fraud are frequently used to justify policies that do not solve the alleged wrongs but that well could disenfranchise legitimate voters and that's exactly what republicans are doing as in see acorn in reality voter fraud is virtually nonexistent

back in two thousand and four george bush's justice department launched an investigation into voter fraud they were very worried about and convicted a mere eighty six people of some sort of fraud out of one hundred twenty two million voters in other words republicans are chasing a problem that at most exists in just point zero zero zero zero seven percent of the voting population. on the other hand unlike voter fraud alexion fraud is rampant like when about eighty thousand people in florida were barred from voting in the two thousand election bush v gore because republican stooge katherine harris the secretary of state contracted with a company in texas to scrub her state's voting rolls of models entirely african-americans and those democratic voters whose names just happen to be similar only similar to convicted felons who lived in the state of texas or when the

wisconsin republican party and the koch funded group americans for prosperity engaged in voter caging last year to keep college students and minorities from voting and thus pave the way for scott walker's gubernatorial victory or one republican secretaries of state were elected officials around the country ordered particularly in two thousand and four small numbers of voting machines in mostly minority and democratic districts leading to waits in lines in the rain or snow in many cases of up to as much as twelve hours while at the same time in the white mostly suburban wealthy republican areas there was a surplus of machines an average waits were ten to fifteen minutes election fraud a happens nearly every election year and is by far away mostly perpetrated by republicans several years ago one of those republicans conservative activist paul weyrich laid it out for all of us rather bluntly how many of our quest to have what i call them grow. government they want everybody to vote

i don't want everybody to vote elections are not won by a majority of people they never have been from the beginning of our country every are not. going to leverage in the elections quite candid like go drop only populist go down. it's simple when more people vote when our country acts more democratically the democrats tend to do better at the polls that's mainly because democrats look out for working people or the ninety five percent of us who aren't millionaires and billionaires republicans on the other hand are perfectly content sticking up for the richest of the rich screw everybody else back in two thousand and eight indiana and acted restrictive voting laws and what we saw was elderly voters college students and low income people almost the democratic voters turned away at the polls by republican lawyers because they didn't drive cars in the us didn't have a driver's license i'm guessing republicans would argue these people should have brought their birth certificates with them just like president obama should always

carry his birth certificate as pocket you know just to make sure in the most blatant attack on progressive voters new hampshire state representative gregory song introduced a bill that would prevent college students and members from the military from registering as voters in his state of new hampshire if they are only in the state to attend school or serve in the military the new hampshire speaker of the house william o'brien defended the bill by saying kids are voting liberal voting their feelings with no life experience at least he put it bluntly for all of us to understand this is a war against liberals and of course in wisconsin coke brother lapdogs scott walker was able to slip a restrictive voter law through his state legislature while most of the attention was focused on his other assaults against public unions after all he has to figure out some way to win reelection in two thousand and fourteen. all together the

twenty two states considering these photo voter photo id laws account for two hundred sixteen electoral college votes that's eighty percent of the votes necessary to win the presidency of the united states when the norm is corporate spending thanks to citizens united and union membership steadily declining that other twenty percent shouldn't be too difficult for the republicans to pick up. you know our elections should not be a partisan issue and the fact that they are shows just how deep the subversion of our of them are of our democracy goes we need public funding of elections and we need it now and then that's the big picture for more information on the stories we covered visit our website to tom hartman dot com free speech dot org and. also check or to you tube channels there are links at amanpour dot com also tom foreman dot com check out all the different ways you can send us your feedback and don't forget as tom always says democracy begins with you get out there get active tag you're it.

you know our 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 that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harvey welcome to the big picture.

welcome to the show we'll get the real headlines with none of the mersey come alive out of washington d.c. now and i'm going to take a look at a new poll that shows that americans overwhelmingly approve of the obama administration's use of drones in targeted killings even in cases where it's an american citizen so what does that say about our society then the state department is reportedly going to have to slash its personnel in iraq to do what some described as a rocky obstructionism but whoever thought it was a good idea to keep sixteen thousand employees there anyway and we knew it was

coming a bill that would require the f.a.a. to open up airspace for the domestic use of surveillance drones is now headed to the president's desk to sign so what are the pros and cons including the effects on your civil liberties and your privacy we'll have all that morphy tonight including a dose of happy hour but first take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. the years since nine eleven we've seen drastic changes in this country many of them justified by lawmakers pundits defense and intelligence officials and analysts all peddling constant fear and one specific area that we've been warned about incessantly over the last few years is a threat of homegrown terrorism and it's not just a line that was repeated by officials or put into reports you know we saw the government act on it we've now seen extensive documentation of local police departments specifically the n.y.p.d. spying on muslim communities we've seen one sting operation after another and how

could we forget there are those hearings on muslim radicalization held right here on capitol hill and you know the mainstream media well they've played along with this hysteria all along compared to other heinous crimes every time that there's been an arrest and what could have been a terrorist plot especially with a muslim perpetrator staged by the f.b.i. or not that mug shot was splashed across the screen for hours days even weeks on end. don't know if this teenager authorities say wanted to cause so much mayhem in portland the new chairman of the house homeland security committee is going to hold congressional hearings on the radicalization of muslim americans later this week new york congressman peter king says the hearings are to help him learn how certain u.s. citizens are recruited or drawn into terrorism according to court records mohammed said he had been interested in since he was an early teen even writing for just how this website under an assumed name all of them were actually the intended targets of

a would be terrorist here to wage war right in his own backyard. according to the undercover f.b.i. agents who spent time with him nineteen year old will home at us model home it was a team anxious to go quote operational and to learn about explosives are you targeting muslims. absolutely not what i'm talking of that is violent terrorism extremism. so considering our media's obsession with the threat of homegrown radicalization or five you can call it concern if you want although i don't buy it you would think that a certain report released today what caught their eye the triangle center on terrorism and homeland security has just released a report that shows that the feared wave of homegrown terrorists terrorism by radicalized muslim americans well they show that it has not materialized the report's author actually called it a minuscule threat to public safety and the report also includes these details plots an arrest have dropped sharply over the last two years since the peak in two thousand and nine of about fourteen thousand murders in the united states in the

last year not a single one resulted from islamic extremism so there you go folks this incredible threat hasn't materialized and yet one of the sacrifices that we've all been forced to make in order to be ready to counter it one of the grave offenses that have been committed against our civil liberties the power grabs that lawmakers have been able to make while selling us fear of a homegrown threat as usual glenn greenwald. did another great great job today of recounting it for us at his blog on salon dot com that includes miranda rights being curtailed for domestic terror suspects we now have an indefinite military detention provision codified into law through the n.d.a. that was signed by the president on december thirty first of last year there's a bill that's been pushed by members of congress to strip americans of their citizenship if they're accused of being associated with terrorism and as i already mentioned we've seen our local law enforcement spy on muslim communities spy on and infiltrate communities based on their religion even work with the cia in order to

do it i guess though that's technically against the law right and you know all along where has our mainstream media been when it comes to reporting on these changes the truth is that for the most part they have been part of the crowd that's actually been peddling the fear they've allowed the fear mongers to grace the television screens often unchecked by any facts or statistics they spent countless hours holding up the threat and the fear by flashing mug shots of scary looking muslim men and yet one report comes out showing that this threat has been inflated the facts do not back up the claims now they just completely ignore it and it's not a good thing was hard to find either people was written about in the new york times but it's something that the fear pushing accomplices in the mainstream cable network media have completely chosen to miss. well here's a poll that should make us all ask questions of ourselves and of what kind of a country become to the other day joint washington post a.b.c.

survey was released showing improving numbers for president obama on everything from the economy or against other candidates the g.o.p. candidates specifically and on matters of national security and if you look even closer at these results though you'll find the following the pertains to specific issues that this president campaigned on things like closing guantanamo bay and respecting the rule of law the results from those surveys show that seventy. of respondents approve of obama's decision to keep him open that includes fifty three percent of self identified liberal democrats and sixty seven percent of moderate conservatives and when it comes to the administration's use of unmanned drone aircraft against terrorist suspects overseas eighty three percent of americans said that they approve and here's where it gets scary of those who approve of drone use seventy nine percent think of the use of targeted killing against american citizens abroad who are suspected of terrorism is justified so is this tragic or should we

have seen it coming join me to discuss this have gusto list civil liberties blogger for firedoglake kevin thanks so much for joining us tonight and i guess my first question to you is what your immediate reaction was when you saw these specific poll results because i was i was pretty shocked but you know maybe i'm just being naive i think the revolting whole numbers but i don't think that they're entirely surprising given the fact that back in july of two thousand and ten we had the a.c.l.u. warning that the obama administration was in danger of establishing a new normal and i would say that the way that americans view national security policies or counterterrorism policies certainly indicates that. this is so we have established in your normal country i want to get into some of the specifics to for example this question about keeping guantanamo bay open and asks if you approve of the president's decision to keep guantanamo bay open which is kind of interesting right because he'll claim that this is something he's been trying to do the

opposite of clothes they all along and yet his hands of been tied by congress. it's interesting because it's almost as if this could become a political question in the twenty twelve election which anyone who has been following the election closely knows that neither mitt romney nor barack obama nor rick santorum or anybody else save for maybe ron paul is going to make an issue out of guantanamo bay prison and so that's one aspect that i thought of when i saw this result but also you know it's awful fifty three percent of liberals would be ok with letting the prison remain open and you really have to put it like that because and well i think they might be thinking that because they believe that obama's hands are tied it's really all because i would expect liberals who are passionate about supporting obama to lead the way and have the courage of their conviction to say if they think it's wrong then they would be urging obama to close. on that sense to have to talk about

a good point that brought up on his blog today when he talked about the hypocrisy of so many liberals or progressives or whatever you want to call them that were incredibly critical of the bush administration because of guantanamo bay because of the erosion of our civil liberties and yet i mean you and i spoken about this many times before if you look at the obama administration's policies not only is he kept open by you know he is far and away really exceeded what bush has done in other respects so why do you think that for this progressive crowd you know by the way let me just mention one more statistic here on killing the u.s. citizens with drone strikes democrats approved by fifty eight to thirty three and liberals approved by fifty five to thirty five so when we talk about this specific group why is it ok now. i think it has to do with priorities largely things that most liberals are thinking about economic issues when they go into the voting booths and i i think that it's really a question here of what kind of country are liberals willing to live in. where are

they willing to put civil liberties on their list of priorities that need to be defended in this country i have to stop and think sometimes is it possible that some of these people would be willing to live in a country where we have all of these violations of civil liberties where it's possible or someone to be tortured where it's possible for somebody to be indefinitely detained where there's rampant surveillance where there's all these things that you and i might consider to be undermining civil liberties but at the same time if they can have a country where they have free health care where they had full workers rights where everybody was allowed to unionize where people had no rights to abortion where people had equality and anybody who ever they were there was cultural equality if they had all this would they be ok because i think that it does seem like they did this doesn't factor at all into their decisions when they're supporting politicians do you think that civil liberties is that not being on the bottom of the list in

terms of a lot of other democratic policies. i think so and that may be largely a result of the political class itself in this country i mean quite frankly we you and i understand that barack obama and mitt romney they aren't going to go out to any podium and start talking about torture and they're not going to go out there and start talking about surveillance in this country because those are mechanisms that are needed to prosecute the war on terrorism and so it would be undermining the the whole american project to use that term if they were to preach to us about how civil liberties were being undermined but at the same time i mean civil liberties right these freedoms that we also often take for granted that's what america is supposed to be about you think of these are the things that we hold most dear and so you know i'm just wondering for example with this issue when it comes to approving the administration using targeted drone strikes to take out american

citizens suspected of terrorism abroad if it hit closer to home do you think there would be any difference and we did see a little bit of an outcry and we saw the crowd booing at some of the g.o.p. debates when the n.d.a. was signed by the president when this whole concept of indefinite military detention of american citizens came into play. i think it does depend on who the target is unfortunately most liberals and or you know we're talking about americans in general probably would be willing to violate a lot of these civil liberties and how they've been trained to think since nine eleven and so they're willing to undermine civil liberties so that they can be safe so that they can supposedly the government can prevent terror attacks from happening but you know i just think that people here in this country. they they're very trusting of the government to they were willing to go along and

and say to themselves that it could never really be as bad as as you were at you or i might think that it is that even though people are being targeted without due process overseas and they are being killed without having any chance to defend themselves and and and argue whether they are in fact terrorists or are not well this really isn't something that is being abused and so they are just there's a whole lot of wishful thinking and i just don't think that it matters a whole lot to them because at the end of the day the big critical issues today have to do you know with the liberals that i follow it seems to be about economic issues so you know and and i think maybe in some ways that we have to talk about these different rights like you quality and workers' rights as well these

mechanisms that are undermining civil liberties could be used to affect you as a worker and maybe you as the person who wants to have equality as a as a woman as a gay and lesbian bisexual transgender person or something like that what do you think have been that that the media bears any responsibility in this regard to them and i harp on them all the time for not really covering the drone program for when a report came out by the bureau that's the gate of journalism that says that we target funerals right and we target civilians that run to help it they don't see it anywhere on your t.v. screen. yeah i mean this isn't something that's going to be making any news casts and most moms for the most part. they'd be hesitant to question because quite frankly they're going to go and they're going to ask somebody who's with the pentagon or they're going to ask somebody who's with the f.b.i. if this is in fact happening if they read about some kind of an atrocity and then they are going to deny that that atrocity has happened and then they're going to

say oh well so and so said this isn't exactly what's going on and they're going to go about their business and maybe they'll facilitate some kind of a discussion on their newscast but for the most part that is going to establish for them a boundary for how they cover the issue now and you get a whistleblower if you get somebody who becomes someone out there in the spotlight who there are allowing to go on t.v. to talk about this say well example somebody like donald vance today is getting a rehearing and he was tortured in a prison in iraq and rumsfeld was possibly responsible and yeah when i get anything that that's one of those those rare occurrences kevin i got to wrap it up and forth about thanks for joining us tonight i mean i think that it's pretty disturbing bring up some good points and made people just care more about the economy right now but it does seem like land everybody's given and when both sides just accept this that you know we're going down a dangerous path thanks so much. our guys are taking

a quick break away from back report from the times says the u.s. embassy in baghdad is facing a crisis no splenda and a less than full salad bar what seemed like a small thing is this could have a larger implications for our future office will delve into the topic with michael o'brien stores with. my meal to the ambulance. people calling like you said for free and fair elections. and we're still reporting from the about clinton as you can hear behind me loud explosions. we've seen from new york city i mean.

i get it gave me a. guitar 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 trying hard welcomes a big picture.