should corporations be held liable for human rights abuses in other countries you think on facebook twitter and you tube and who knows your responses just might make it on air. time for a quick break and we come back what's the one thing that mitt romney could do to appeal to social conservatives when asked. and then should corporations be held responsible for human rights violations in other countries supreme court is discussing that very question today all that after the break. people calling what you said for free and fair elections. and we're still reporting from the. past you can hear behind me loud explosions.

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

all right so like we told you earlier in the show the media is focusing or rather obsessing over the primaries today in arizona and michigan and mostly michigan it's all about romney versus santorum romney does a better job of connecting with the one percenters say the nascar owners but he does it the average american meanwhile his main competitor rick santorum has made himself a darling of the social conservatives and we just couldn't help but show you why many christian faith said well that's ok you know it's funny so it's not ok it's

a license to. do things in the search social realm that is that is counter to what our friends are supposed to president obama wants said he wants everybody in america to go to college. what a snow. day after to read the speech. because the first line first substantive line in the speech says i believe in america where the truth of the separation of church and state is absolute i don't believe in an america where the separation of church and state is absolute marriage is what marriage is marriage existed before there was a government it's like you know hanging up this and saying this glass of water is a glass of beer well you can call it a glass of beer but it's not a glass of beer it's a glass of water and water is what water is marriage is what marriage is he said perry gay sex is polygamy how do you know. and they want to know and i'm

sure she was against rick santorum says. are now the scariest part of course of all of this is that those clips of actually in theory of him angelical as he's neck and neck with romney now so does this mean that romney screwed is he really going to lose the primary so the whack job from pennsylvania over social issues well there might be still one final hope for mitt romney is according to our occasionally offensive yet often hilarious political correspondent breaks down. you know what i find so surprising about rick santorum is polling numbers is that before this primary like much of america i only knew rick santorum as that senator who called gay people no better than pedophiles or beastie ality ists and now he is the darling of the social conservatives which tells me that if if mitt romney wants any chance of winning these people over he would have to come out as the most anti-gay rights politician ever and i think the only way he can do that at this point is by

having sex with a man. what did you actually just suggest that mitt romney should have sex with a man. hear me out. we all know that the basis of denying gay people certain rights is the belief that sexuality is a choice because if they're choosing to be gay you're not really discriminating against anyone so if mitt romney who we all know is as straight as his hair teeth and spine if he can force himself to make passionate love to another man it will destroy the whole we were born this way argument and i mean a dude you know no twigs or transgenders he's got to know that is a manly man he's under you know real marcus bachmann in fact i'm going to say that any politician who is serious about wanting to stop gay people from being able to marry adopt be teachers put your money among other things where your mouth

is seduce your buddy have sex with him on camera and then show the video to a gay man and i guarantee he will probably reconsider being gay. thank you break for it continue to offer up ideas that we can definitely thayer outside the box now romney will probably cough and the idea of going gay to prove a point you never know if he loses michigan it's probably going to be open to a lot more creative options to connect with the g.o.p. voters. now today the u.s. supreme court heard arguments in a case that will force them to decide whether corporations can be held liable for human rights abuses or if they get to maintain their corporate immunity it's especially testing considering that the supreme court two years ago ruled that corporations are legal persons and titles of free speech in elections and a particular case today is that of vs petroleum also you may notice shell so the case is brought by twelve nigerian plaintiffs that accuse shell of assisting or

collaborating with the nigerian government in torture summary execution and other crimes against humanity that were carried out against hugo and people in the niger delta so it's all based on this law dating back to seven hundred eighty nine the alien tort statute which is seen a reawakening you could say in the last twenty years now with a court rule until june how much we read into the statements in the questions made by the justices today and what kind of ramifications of their decision have for international law american law and the idea of corporate responsibility or discuss this with me is mike sacks supreme court correspondent for the huffington post mike thanks so much for joining us tonight if you're here i mean when you say about the timing i would say that it's kind of perfect right because suddenly in the national popular discourse we hear so much about corporate personhood about corporate responsibility this case gives the court an opportunity to show whether it has a real tin ear or not to the public opinion. when it's faced the question of whether corporations to be held responsible for international human rights abuses the question of corporate personhood comes in our corporations natural persons or

artificial persons you know the artificial person is this by would mitt romney tells us that they're rich person. they are rich persons but the question in this in this case is whether there's a difference between natural and legal persons when it comes to this statute you say before in whether or not corporations can be defended give us a little background i tell us more about this. alien tort statute so the only answer is that she was passed by the founding framing government the first congress in seventy nine and one of these is passed one. to say protect ambassadors from being assaulted to make sure that pirates didn't go running rampant on the high seas now in bout two thousand and four the supreme court ruled that certain torts certain wrongs that are done like genocide torture crimes against humanity can be heard by by this by federal courts united states better brought by foreign foreign nationals so. the question today became who can be sued we know the kind of cases

that can come under we know that we know that the torture claims that curable and the other nigerian's brought against shell can be heard by federal courts the question though is which leaves completely unanswered is whether corporations can be sued or whether it's only individuals with individuals that what i find interesting here too is the way that you see the teams lining up is that of course supporting shell on their side you have other corporations you have the chamber of commerce you also have the british and the german government and then you know on the side you can say other plaintiffs you obviously have human rights groups and then you have the u.s. government so how do you see that the difference in differentiation between where the u.s. lies and where the u.k. lies its kind of partisan line up for courts to consider this case in the last year held three to one that corporations can be held liable under this statute but in each of those cases the republican appointees in the democratic appointees split on

partisan lines save one judge on each side and the democratic appointees ruled court for corporate unity or corporate liability rather the republican appointees rule for corporate immunity now the supreme court today in oral arguments it became quite apparent right from the start same thing the same thing and there wasn't going to be one exception on each side as there was in the lower courts in this case from justice kennedy all the way across assuming clarence thomas has maintained a six year silence on the bench and oral arguments rules with with his conservative brother to brother and as he has most likely in his entire career in the court it's looking like it's going to be a five to four case for corporate unity so you think you're already making the prediction now right that it's going to go the way towards show you know one of the things that i think this is pretty interesting and i think just as brian brought this up today too is that do we want to have this supreme court for the world should we even have such a statue where if something happens in another country it gets to come to our courts and we have a say on it but you know i would do you think about something that should be. debated deliberated at some point just here they're being obvious hypocrites

because they're ok with it applying to individuals just not sure if it goes for companies well it should be debated really and there is there is an open question of whether or not there should be universal jurisdiction in united states federal courts and that's what the governments of united kingdom and other liens and germany also briefs on the side of the corporation saying as much if they think that the multinational corps the i.c.c. and the courts that are set up under international law are competent to handle these kinds of questions and it's not the united states' business to be messing its nose in foreign relations in this way so in that sense that's a legitimate question and that does give the conservatives on the court some cover if they want to just make it in their policymaking on why they're choosing what they're choosing because really the legal arguments for each side they don't they don't cross paths they don't come from the same fountain the legal argument for each side were made up in the lower courts to justify the ends that the partisan interests were pushing do you think that it's interesting i mean i guess to me you can say that it's a little obvious to you that let's say the u.s. government the obama administration is on the side of the plaintiffs in this case

but when it came to certain people trying to sue boeing right other private corporations that happened to ferry them over to other countries you know cases of rendition where they were then tortured the supreme court decided to stay out of it because they said well state secrets we can't rule. that yes on the surface that is a bit of ocracy but again when you get down to the law there is there is a distinction between this case the statute case and the citizens united in one corporate personhood for first amendment rights so if you're parsing the law then these things all have all have their reasons but when you zoom out and you look at it as an observer as you do and as i still try to do it despite being a reporter on the court for the court you do start seeing a gentleman of hypocrisy when you when you when you look at the court how it handles business interests so what do you think of the ratification is will be we see a lot of public anger here within the u.s. right now that's critical of the citizens united ruling and the. what is this going to mean on a global scale right now that we have

a globalized economy and what does that mean is that do businesses just get free rein to do whatever they want work with every governments they want well hopefully not and what this case does leave open is the possibility for plaintiffs to sue corporate officers to get to individuals because individual liability is not in question under the alien tort statute but there's a couple cases coming down the pike where the supreme court may actually even more narrow your jurisdiction to the point where there are just be no possibility for plaintiffs to come in and sue even corporate officers for their foreign and international human rights violations make sure you take a look at those mike thanks so much for joining us tonight everybody here. are it's time for our last break the night we come back one columnist out there thinks i'm a spy so he wins tonight's all time award and on happy hour turns out the one percenters don't get foreclosed on as fast as the people the king then do muslims want to do with a letter opener that's the one. all that we can that. people

calling like you said for free and fair elections. and we're still reporting from the clinton as you can hear behind me loud explosions.

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

our guys have time for tonight's tool time award and tonight once again they go to new york post contributor michael walsh now in case you missed it last week we gave walsh our esteemed tool time award and it appears the spreaders got a little ruffled by being called out because he decided to take some time out of his day to write a few hundred word acceptance speech over unfortunately for waller's that acceptance speech was a way that have back into our tool time segment he was decided to rant about my propagandist operative ways in a post on the national review's website and the way that reads you think that we are right in the middle of the cold war still he starts his piece with this says seems like old times here i am getting to now it's by a young chick named alert and kosky of russia today yes please do start your critique of me with accusing me of being a communist operative that's what it means for those of you don't know yawn already boring but let's continue wash then goes on to say miss mccoskey is perhaps not

aware or as a state sponsored state supported media lackey perhaps she is but i spent a good deal of my career behind the iron curtain especially during the years one nine hundred eighty five one thousand nine hundred one so i've seen her propaganda tactic tactics up close and personal well mr walsh first off i could care less that you spent time behind the iron curtain because unlike you i don't view everything through an outdated cold war lance c. in my mind your time the soviet union has absolutely nothing to do with you calling a peace peace on the n.y.p.d. surveillance program journalistic your hot and second i've seen her propaganda tactics up close and personal don't really my tactics up close and personal with that back in one thousand nine hundred six so we're both in the soviet union because my parents must have forgotten to tell me all about my days of propaganda when i was still in the womb all right so i'm assuming that was actually dense enough to think that i was pushing propaganda as an infant so take that to mean that he somehow connecting me to every piece of propaganda that was out there put

during the soviet union which makes perfect sense right but it's not. spend too much time on that when there is better material to dig into he continues on saying there is no contradiction at all between not wanting every american citizen treated like a potential terrorist and the same time not worrying much over whether the new york city police department is keeping prophylactic tabs on historically and culturally antagonistic newcomers whose coreligionists are responsible for nine eleven yes because muslims are responsible for nine eleven than every muslim should be kept tabs on just because they are muslim and why p.d. was totally justified in having an undercover cop going to rafting trip with college students who have done absolutely nothing wrong the n.y.p.d. is also totally good for running surveillance on grade school children because they're muslim and as a group historically and culturally antagonistic you know i think this is my biggest problem with washes response the fact that he has no qualms with lumping entire groups of people together and then making judgments based on race religion

affiliation rather than their actions his entire piece prove that point without even saying the word muslim once he gave me the exact same treatment that he believes should be given to the muslims their muslim therefore they deserve to be treated like a terrorist i was born in russia therefore i deserve to be treated like a mindless communist propagandist no wonder he supports profiling he's the master of it now he also seems to think that i'm trying to bring the country down from the inside out which brings us to the end of this piece here that's part of my opinion or walsh quotes an article that he wrote back in two thousand and nine that literally first i thought was a joke he ledgers that twenty years after the fall of the soviet union the evil that it did lives on in the form of its fellow travelers now apparently well represented in the obama administration and its penetration agents and most sinisterly in the hidden moles of continuing illegals program now when you click on the link within that quote which he told us to do it takes you to an article about

george cobol now for those of you who don't know that he was in ireland born new york educated war vet who was later exposed to spies for the. soviet union in the one nine hundred forty s. it jumped to today and last apparently thinks that russian government operatives or the russian government excuse me has operatives in the obama administration and that somehow i have links to them by virtue of being boarded russia that's all news to me but walsh says in this piece no boris videos need apply now even i know that i wear a doctor to go to the radar was born in moscow after all so not really sure what his point is and i'm trying really hard not to laugh at it basically wash believes i'm a communist propaganda spy government operative because i question the n.y.p.d. actions well then i guess that that makes us senator robert menendez newark mayor cory booker the muslim public affairs council the a.c.l.u. and over thirty other organizations doing the exact same thing calling for investigations in this case i make small propagandise two or maybe just spies to be

honest or slightly confused considering his logic makes no sense at the end there so for being culturally offensive scapegoating entire populations just plain failing to make a point michael walsh is tonight's tool time winner. guys it's time for happy hour this evening and joining me is lauren lyster host of the capital account here on r t and warren rojas roll calls are heard on the hill reporter hey guys ellen i was there thank you. don thank you doing as two of you want to keep writing like you've told timing in as great material now. let's let's first start with energy drinks so apparently energy drinks are already banned in certain middle schools in certain high schools but i guess that's a problem in elementary schools too which i had no idea but here's an old news

story where they were talking about kids in middle school and why and why they drink energy drinks. move over coffee young teens are ditching cups of joe and reaching for a caffeine charge to energy drinks there's a lot of stresses and you get tired from like all these extracurricular things so i guess people wanted to get through them without falling asleep. i understand i remember being in high school and falling asleep in all my classes that his high school can be miserable like you have zero period of a.p. classes and when you're in elementary school why on earth would you need an energy drink. and things keep getting more and more competitive a lot i actually understand that i get a little dizzy when i when you're a little kid i know that's true and i think that's where the calls for band stem from is the teachers come on and they have to actually deal with these kids that are souped up on crazy energy drinks as marketing and coffee they're the ones that are probably organizing this p.r. campaign the only rationale i can imagine for allowing energy drinks in an

elementary school would be i guess if the kids are just not coming out of nap time quickly. they might need a little you know i guess you twelve shots an adrenaline or just and they just give you a little shot running out of time many want to do they will never want to go yeah i get all i need energy during i don't think i think nap time was preschool and kindergarten. and not done with the last century but do they have i mean do most elementary schools still have soda or caffeinated to you or no i never aliment at an elementary school we had milk yeah i heard that was going to be like . did they just blow up because they were trying to get chocolate milk out of schools like that to go round i have a paying attention enough apparently to the battles on school grounds of what your kids can and can't drink but so that's why my. let's switch to our next story which is having you know fox news greg gutfeld the specially things there are just

deplorable and i think that he's a horrible person so this is his wrist. when they were talking about president obama apologizing to many cars i for the qur'an they were inadvertently burned in afghanistan. obama will apologize to them but he won't apologize to catholics right as catholics write letters and muslims stab you with a letter opener so that i would love i would love to bomb them back to the stone age but they're already there. i mean don't even get me started on that seven you go to the top yeah well first i thought it was so interesting that after you make that last comment you can hear everyone's mind oh yeah good point yeah we should we should bomb them back to the stone age but they're already there think ok first consider the crowd but on top of that i mean catholics apologizing are we occupying a catholic country in and killing them in a war with them and killing civilians are responsible for that how is that even a logical parallel at all i don't know why you're looking for logic i know you're

against his point being that the muslims and the arab world is uncivilized savage and they're still in this war mentality whereas catholics are involved now and write letters but to quote many pipes but i guess no one ever expects the spanish inquisition so they did a lot of awful things to people to produce your picking i would winners in the religious ceremony with the times too considering this massive debate that we just had about contraception oh in the country maybe he should go hang out with your friend that you did it with michael to go all they have that they have and we should stop treating people are calling them barbarians for the fact that they might get angry that we've had a war in their country for ten years and people are dying anyway. let's move on to rich people apparently every now and then rich people do stuff like they lie they cheat when even steal i think you are this famous episode. writer seen here on surveillance tape charged to two thousand and two with felony for stealing some six

thousand dollars a bunch of guys from saks fifth avenue we did you. know the writers. of the downfall when it was so sad but the reason we even brought this is because there's a new study done by a psychologist university of berkeley and university of toronto and they analyze people's behaviors through a series of experiments and they found that the wealthy upper classes are more likely than poor folks to break laws while driving take candy. children and a lie for financial gain yeah i know shocker there what i think is interesting is what kind of agenda was behind these researchers though did they cater this study so they could say in the headline they took candy from babies more often because they they and one of the parents they did know it was it does i mean it's pretty smart was have them you know given a char of candy and they could take whatever amount they wanted knowing that it was going to go to kids afterwords and the rich people took more but i just think

that's a little bit of brilliance on the part of the number of p.r. that is going to get that has. immunity you know if your. richer i guess you could say higher up an elite and we see. i don't know what the rich don't get rich by spending money it's all about hoarding and keeping but i also thought the study was a little bit flawed of the methodology because i think on the driving component just like well people mercedes-benz and like b.m.w. with a lot more than people like a camry that's like a really rich person would buy the cheap car because who cares and then you know it's athletes pro athletes and people who have no concept of how to hold on to their money they're the ones who get the bling bling of a giant been on. you know i don't i got a lot of time but i just think the faster the car the faster you want to go at it are you guys thanks so much for joining us tonight that's it for tonight's show thanks for tuning in and make sure you come back tomorrow cato institute in a snit will be joining us to talk about the civilian casualties in our drone war in

pakistan and the meantime don't forget to become a fan of the launch on facebook follow us on twitter if there's anything you missed you can catch it on the you tube dot com slash deal or so and coming up next on news. 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 hartman welcome to the big picture. wealthy british style the sun. is not on the title of.

markets why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with my stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on our. morning news today violence is once again flared up the film these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are ruled the day.