alosi who has always been a staunch supporter of the community and strong advocate of marriage equality is urging the democratic party to include marriage rights for gays and lesbians in its official twenty twelve party platform that the democrats would then become the first political party to adopt such a policy palosi supported the effort comes after the marriage equality group freedom to marry called on the democratic party to officially adopt such a policy during the two thousand and eight election cycle the party officially opposed the defense of marriage act but did not address the issue of marriage equality democratic party added marriage equality to its official platform if they did it may happen sooner rather than later there are at least ninety one democrats in the house twenty three in the senate and twelve democratic governors who openly support full marriage equality rights kudo's to representative pelosi and the democratic party for standing up for the rights of thousands millions for of americans the bad g.o.p. t.v.'s the five infamous new fox so-called news panel show took the war on birth

control to new extremes yesterday arguing that the fight for contraception coverage is actually a scheme by democrats and the left to eliminate poor people to listen to what greg gutfeld had to say. the left is making this about availability to the poor it's more about getting rid of the pork. maybe mr gutfeld the rest of the gang at the five should take a look at the mirror conservatives are the only people who like to pretend poverty doesn't exist and squash at the idea of sharing the wealth and the very very ugly congressman allen west in a floor speech last night congressman west started to talk about the republican party's excellent record of defending personal freedoms over the past hundred fifty years however somehow he shifted gears and turned the subject to the democratic party's perceived dislike of equality saying the democrats support for a social safety net is the most insidious form of slavery remaining in the world

today first congressman west is completely ignorant to the fact that actual slavery is still a human and tremendous human problem in the world today with an estimated twelve point three million forced labors around the world secondly of democrats dislike equality so much where they are the ones who propose programs like universal health care and tax equality which create greater equality between the poor the wealthy elite regardless west's vitriolic rhetoric and his complete ignorance towards the true global human rights crisis have no place in washington you know very very appealing. this week marks the one year anniversary of the wisconsin uprising when hundreds of thousands of workers took to the streets to fight back against governor scott

walker's war on unions activism turned a local issue into a national issue and awakened the labor movement across america and since then a lot as happened to walker's buddies in the senate were recalled and well over a million signatures were collected last month to recall walker himself from office not to mention the occupy wall street movement started and you can trace its roots back to those cold days in february in madison. so this is a week to look back and be proud of what progressives have accomplished in wisconsin but while we've all been focusing there elsewhere around the nation in a much quieter fashion and without the attention of the of the mainstream media the right wing assault on the middle class and working people continues like in indiana this month indiana became the twenty third state in the nation to pass a right to work for less law which will do more harm to working people and scott walker's anti-union agenda without strong union protections workers in indiana are

likely to see their wages benefits and workplace conditions plummet americans in right to work for less states make on average five thousand dollars less than a non right to work states and also get injured or killed in the workplace fifty one percent more often but there were hundreds of thousands of people in the streets there were a few thousand and not in the same sort of national attention in indianapolis aside from the super bowl of course and then there's what's going on in my home state of michigan that's where radical governor rick snyder we has dismantled local democracy with this financial managers law snyder is taking over cities put in place unelected crony dictators to fire local elected officials break union contracts rewrite local budgets and sell off parts of the commons to transnational corporations we've covered this story a lot on the show including hearing from people who are being most affected by this law. life is horrible this is a state takeover of the city of detroit flint didn't harbor the evil does not

count it's not in void i mean we voted for our mayor we voted for city council we voted for city commissioners and now our vote doesn't count what's it like to live under terror any what's it like to live under a dictatorship no police officers about limited firefighters about taking streetlights out of cities so that people are in the dark from five pm to roughly about eight eight zero how about living with low morale in despair we're standing in line but the mainstream media hasn't picked up the story either and governor snyder is already drawing up plans to put one of his little dictators in charge of michigan's biggest city detroit we look across the ocean to see what's going on in greece where unlike the technocrats are shoving austerity measures down the throats of the people and we think what a mess that is there are newsflash the exact same thing is going on right now in michigan which is not getting the headlines and the ongoing movement the wolverine

state to repeal this law and recall governor snyder is also not getting the sort of national attention that it deserves and that was wisconsin has received and then there's what's going on in minnesota right now. there's there are some of minnesota's wealthiest residents are pulling resources together to create a giant lobbying group known as minnesota forward that is fighting for lower corporate taxes less government spending and funneling huge amounts of money into republican candidates to pass strict new voter id laws the democratic governor of minnesota mark dayton vetoed a voter id law last year but the millionaires and billionaires are trying to get it passed as a ballot measure now in november if successful minnesota will join eight other states that have passed or strengthened voter id laws in just the last year from kansas to mississippi to rhode island to wisconsin to alabama to south carolina to tennessee to texas to the brennan center for justice more than five million

eligible voters will be disenfranchised this november thanks to just these new laws and these are mostly minorities the poor the elderly and college students who will be just for disenfranchised mostly people who vote for democrats and support stronger middle class policies five million people wiped off the voter rolls this is an all out assault on our democracy and it's all happening under the radar of the mainstream media oh and one more thing in five of the states that have passed these voter id laws the co-sponsor of the law was a member of the right wing think tank known as the american legislative exchange council or alec which gets much of its funding from the koch brothers the koch brothers who diverted enormous amounts of their billions of dollars to right wing causes like alec the tea party and oil industry anti climate change pseudo science they themselves have operated under the radar of the mainstream media despite being some of the most influential operatives in the republican party so while we look

back on what grassroots activism is capable of in wisconsin the silent war continues whether it's radical anti immigration laws and arab zona alabama and tennessee or requiring the unemployed to take drug tests in florida or selling off state owned prisons to for profit corporations like c.c.a. in ohio and a half a dozen other states there are still a lot of troubling events unfolding all across america. so let's not think of the uprising in wisconsin as a victory let's think of it as a stepping stone we still have a hell of a lot more work to do from coast to coast to protect the middle class from this relentless and very expensive assault from republican politicians and the one percent. who are funding them so get involved in your state and join forces with independent media on the internet and on television channels like free speech t.v. to get the message out we're on the verge of winning in wisconsin let's make it the first in a long line of victories to come for the middle class. as the big picture for

tonight for more information on the stories we covered visit our website to thom hartmann dot com free speech dot org and. also check out our two youtube channels there are links of tom harkin dot com this entire show is also available as a free video podcast on i tunes and you can visit tamari dot com and download the audio podcasts of our daily through radio show and we have a free tom hartman i phone and i pad app in the app store you can send us feedback at twitter at tom underscore our open on facebook at tom underscore our open our blogs message boards and telephone comment lines at thom hartmann dot com check out call congress dot com for the phone or there's a whole bunch of toll free phone numbers there you can use to call your members of congress to speak up on these issues check out organizations like democracy for america dot com and p.d. america aggressive democrats will not get out of p.t. america dot org and all the great blog sites out there that need your support and websites out there that need your support that are promoting

a pro-democracy agenda participate show up don't forget the mock receive begins with you get out there and get active tag you're it occupy something we'll see tomorrow. with. technology innovation all the developments from around russia we've got this huge you're covered. it is easy to. see these fish. in the.

six. foot. five.

welcome to the lower show we'll get the real headlines with none of them are safe to live in washington d.c. now and i are going to take a look at a new development for the occupy movement one alabama man it decided to file papers for occupy wall street super pac but does that kind of contradict the ideals of why also we hear a lot about cyber warfare these days but is this threat being hyped more than it needs to be our guest tonight compares it to the build up to the war in iraq and

from a bill to outright bans of fortune makes a punishable by life in prison the hearings on the hill about contraception they didn't include any women you got to wonder what's going on in this country is a war on women you might even call it a of a jihad we're going to have all of that and more of that and i think when it does it have refers to take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. it so there are a number of interesting developments we saw today that tell us just where our political system stance they paint a perfect picture i guess you could say for starters presidential candidate rick santorum decided to release not one or two or even three but four years of his tax returns that makes it all kind of hilarious is that despite the policies that they support republicans you know specifically tax policies or the way that they view social programs republicans are still trying to play this game where they use populist rhetoric to convince voters that hey they really care about you and so

rick santorum is doing his best to point out the differences between mitt romney and himself so santorum is the every man with a working class background who's not just some washington insider rick santorum has released four years of his tax returns and she said. and seven it was six hundred sixty eight thousand dollars as high as one point one million in two thousand and nine when you compare it to the gingrich tax returns or the romney tax returns frankly there's no comparison last month mitt romney released their two thousand and ten returns they made a lot more money that year it was a little over twenty one million but their tax rate was much lower just last night to make the contras clear to himself and mitt romney santorum released four years of tax returns from two thousand and seven through two thousand and ten he earned more than three and a half million dollars over that time in two thousand and ten the last year they filed their effective tax rate was over twenty percent that's compared to the thirteen point nine percent tax rate that romney made a lot more money twenty times of what he did pay that same year the difference of

course much of the romney money on investments much of the santorum money on income . all right so you get a sense the irony here rick santorum wants to convince voters that he's the every man by comparing himself to mitt romney which i guess in comparison to god is worth hundreds of millions of dollars worth a guy versus a guy that who's just makes a little bit over a million each year i think that you might have a little bit of a point but at a time when real unemployment is about fifteen percent at a time when millions of americans are underwater and can't afford to pay for their homes the idea of a candidate who is still a millionaire telling people that he's just like them so ironic but doesn't really make a whole lot of sense now does it and the sad thing is that the media doesn't really even seem to catch on i mean sure maybe chuck todd made some allusion to it quickly but then he decided to move on and that's because they've come to expect politicians these days to be rich don't forget the last year the center for responsive politics put out a report that showed that nearly half of congress is worth more than one million

dollars now some of them are super rich too right like carol i so who's at the very top of this list his estimated worth is up to seven hundred million dollars but forget about there i said the fact is that the mainstream media like all of this is totally normal for our political class to be made up of only a certain economic class now they say that this is just the way the washington works and then they move on and we can see some of this in the way they reported developments on the payroll tax day too. marshall negotiators have agreed on one hundred fifty billion dollars plan that extends a payroll tax holiday unemployment benefits a bill to keep your money in your paycheck it is a done deal lawmakers have resolved all the differences on extending the payroll tax cut lawmakers are ready to walk that extension of the payroll tax cut for one hundred sixty million americans through two thousand and twelve and goes a little after midnight that lawmakers came out of that tough day of negotiations to announce the payroll tax cut in venice extended lawmakers reaching a deal to extend the payroll tax cut that means that you'll keep more money out of

your paycheck a big victory you could say for president obama and also a big victory for congress they work together they got something done just two weeks in a row now they did the stock act last week it's an amazing thing republicans and democrats coming to a conclusion that they both find agreeable a trend of bipartisanship all in common in washington d.c. and the rest of the year so it sounded like you can all imagine. i just love the luke russert fides it's so funny that this is the only thing that congress is going to get done for the rest of the year until the elections because it's funny isn't it right that these people have been elected to represent us at their salaries are paid by us the taxpayers and yet they choose to sit around take moral status because they can afford to and waste everyone's time and not get anything done and then you wonder why discontent with washington and disapproval of congress are at all time highs these guys don't care right they're getting rich even if they don't pass any legislation and rick santorum is perfect prove that see you cash in after

you serve after you've made connections and then you can be hired as a lobbyist or a consultant as newt gingrich likes to call it and the mainstream media well they just keep reporting on all of it like it's business as usual and see if that attitude doesn't change the not much else well but for now they're still saying it every day every day they are choosing to miss. are now if you listen to the media or lawmakers as well as a range of so-called cyber security experts out there cyber threats are one of the most pressing issues of the time and they must be tackled. that's the next pearl harbor that we confront could very well be a cyber attack that cripples our power systems certainly our grid the british government has learned that saddam hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from africa. not only from a few extremists in suicide vests but from

a few keystrokes on the computer. now what we also hear about of the possibilities of mass casualties chaos of the computer systems of power plants or other essential parts of our infrastructure and life sustaining services are protected from hackers then of course about the possibility of economic damage national security being put at risk if the networks of defense and intelligence agencies are compromised the really scary world of scary possibilities out there and congress is ready to counter it with over fifty cybersecurity bills introduced just in this congress session but is this threat being overblown are we conflating different threats all into one gigantic apocalyptic scenario just to line the pockets of defense contractors and create a massive cyber security complex talk about how to bring logic back into the sky before it goes a little too far here to discuss that with us as jerry britto senior research fellow at the market a center at george mason university thanks so much for joining us tonight gerri all right so you wrote an interesting piece about this too because you compared it to

the buildup to the war in iraq and you asked if cyber warfare is the new yellowcake so explain that a little further for us well in the run up to the iraq war the ministration made certain claims that we later found out were not substantiated and at the time that they were making them at least some of the claims they themselves had reason to know that they weren't so essentially that the media actually repeated these claims without really providing any sort of check on it and what ended up happening in many cases is that the administration would leak. to the media the media would report this and the government would cite the media as evidence to go to war and we've seen something very similar happen when it comes to to cyber. all right so we've seen. i think it's really interesting you bring the media into this too right because i blame the media every day for doing something wrong and lately especially blaming them for ginning up you know this war this drum beating of war to iran

perhaps they don't always give two sides of every story and have we seen the exact same thing here with cyber security in terms of lawmakers that actually quoting the media when they're trying to push some kind of legislation in a hearing this is vicious cycle absolutely i mean it's hard to blame them completely for this because in many cases what they claim is that a lot of the evidence that they have for these dire warnings is classified and they can't talk about it but of course and they link it to the media and the sights of the media but. i would like to see the media least try to push back a little bit and say hey. we're not just here to report what we're told we should try to find some verification some secondary sources to verify that's all right so let's talk about this idea he also write about you is that maybe we're just conflating two many things into one gigantic bubble of cyber warfare or cyber security you know if you had your way or i guess if we looked at this properly how should these things be broken down how many different categories are there so i

think the first to say is that there is a cyber threat right which includes about a lot of folks out there who want to do us harm and they use the internet and computer networks to do that but what happens is that when members of congress for example talk about cyber security they will say you know hackers have the ability to plunge us into darkness have planes crash into each other to rail trains etc and when they talk about what the evidence is for that they'll point to to distribute the service attacks on websites such as taking down a website or they will point to rescue not really very big problems cyber espionage against some of our fortune five hundred companies stealing intellectual property very very serious but these are all sucked. things we should disentangle them and treat them each supper as one of those things where you know we did a lot of coverage on this program as well about the debate over sopa and pipa and one of the things you just keep wondering is are these people necessarily qualified to be legislating on complicated technological issues whereas some of them don't

really understand how the internet works all that well so would you say that cyber threats are similar category in that sense i mean i can't blame members of congress because after all they're generalists who are elected by people to legislate on a huge number of issues and so this is why they have to depend on experts and but what you do have to think about though is where they are want to be sort of willingly ignorant sometimes and you get there a lot of folks who stand to benefit from comprehensive cybersecurity legislation especially if that legislation comes to tax with big spending and so i'm more concerned about that than about their ignorance i'm sure they could be educated if they wanted to be but i guess you could also say they can be easily swayed if there's a lot of money involved right so if we have this massive cybersecurity complex that's starting to this huge industry is starting to grow up and just how money isn't it right now how much money is that you know how big would you say is this industry is now i don't have a clear proof or you know i don't want to billions of dollars there still are we

still in the millions range probably reaching the bill if the pence how do you how big you want to look at records there is of course protecting federal systems right the military. there is the defense spending on cyber security but then there's also a larger cyber security. complex around security at all that works in the country all right so how would you suggest then that we properly approach this rather than just hearing that cyber warfare is the next frontier well i think the first thing you have to identify is where there's a market for it here and what that means is very simply this most of the networks that government is seeking to protect are privately don't and so you think to yourself well these networks are owned by somebody that somebody doesn't want to lose their investment. so why aren't they protecting their own networks we have to make sure that these there's some sort of market failure here that's happening once you have retained then you can absolutely show that's the case what tools are available to us is that the government telling us exactly how to protect these networks that have certain drawbacks because that will stifle innovation we're told

one way to do it and check off that box to hackers find out that way that's not a situation to be in i would maybe seek some other way to do it so for example transparency right have companies that are breached have to disclose that they've been breached what does this do with informs the market so that markets can your consumers can decide who they want to do business with if you are somebody who has breached often on your be punished in the market and if you don't have customers access your utility customers really have a choice of boarding or free to go to the insurance market might go take care of it partially transparency is always one of those things that we're fighting for and rarely seem to get and so this is the first thing we're talking about you that's looks like a specific cybersecurity bill that's actually moving its way through congress right now right you have a lot of companies fighting back because they're forcing them mandating them picking and choosing which companies out there need to have a stronger i guess you could say you know network protection out there so we've

come a long way in i've been looking at this issue for over a year and in the in that time span we've gone from cyber security bills that were very prescriptive and told companies exactly what they needed to do and they even would require licensing of cyber security professionals to really bad idea would move to a place now we're both the house and senate are looking at comprehensive bills that are much more limited and they're limiting themselves to only dealing with critical infrastructure that's the stuff in the right direction i think all right thanks so much for joining us tonight i'm sure this is something that we're going to be hearing a lot about but i think it's always good to approach things with you know a little bit less alarm and sit back relax and think about it for him and i think that's peter thank you. that was very time for a quick break before we were turned one of the occupy movement has sent in the papers to form a super pac so as a sign of whether it's headed or a sign that individuals will do with occupy what they like and it's the black budget the billions of dollars the pentagon put aside for programs that you'll

never know about in a dive if this shadowy world since. people calling like you said for free and fair elections. and we're still reporting from the. as you can hear behind me loud explosions.

you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so 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 harvey welcome to the big picture.

well let's talk about facebook because they're all about protecting your privacy right well at least that's what they keep trying to tell us. i mean privacy is a really important issue for us and for the internet so we spend a lot of time thinking about these things in terms of the settings that we have i think there are some misperceptions. unfortunately for us that's just not true when you actually dive into facebook sprecher on privacy you realize that they really could care less about it and mistake after mistake of theirs really shows that in two thousand and nine the f.t.c. started investigating facebook after several of their most egregious lies to their users were exposed now it was a freaking free for all over there facebook promised users they would keep their private info.