well i'm john berman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture seventy members of congress have told wall street to back off but they try to bring down the rising presidents also today maybe super tuesday but isn't it time republicans will write off the presidential election and listen quietly you're careful here the support pain circle right out of the limbaugh empire.

now the other big news of the day super tuesday is here and couldn't come any sooner for the republican party establishment a new n.b.c. wall street journal poll is out showing that this primary season is taking its toll not just on the individual candidates themselves but on the republican party and altogether forty forty percent of americans say the primary has given them a less favorable view of the republican party and when asked which party they like to see running congress next year forty six percent of americans so the democrats versus forty one percent who said republicans try to just fifteen months for the republicans to wear out their welcome in congress even barbara bush blasted the republican primary saying this on monday. i think the worst kept everything in my life i just hate it i hate the fact that people think compromise is a dirty word. and then there's joe scarborough this morning rocked with

a spear over the choices confronting his party. basically. three choices. they can vote for a guy basically drafted obamacare something that they have campaigned against for three years. and my guy wants to debate about contraceptives. or newt gingrich is newt gingrich. that's all i got to say. it's almost in tears so given the hating coming from barbara bush and joe scarborough the republican establishment is hoping that tonight when eleven states take to the polls and four hundred twenty four delegates are up for grabs that a clear nominee will emerge to put an end to the republicans mean force to fellow american voters their real agenda is and the guy likely to be that nominee is mitt romney is expected to win at least four primaries tonight plus pull out

a victory in ohio the most important state up for grabs tonight even if romney is the guy he's damaged goods to win approval rating of just twenty eight percent now the lowest for any politician who went out to claim his party's nomination so just how super is today's tuesday anyway and is it about time for republicans to write this year's presidential election off as a loss and move on to protecting their majority in congress by changing his question away from their religion to profit ties in medicare and selling off our roads water and reels here offer their takes jeff poor reporter with the daily caller and karl fresh progressive strategist syndicated columnist and partner at bullfights strategies gentlemen. it looks like it looks like gingrich has taken georgia and so now people can just pull up to the pump and say just give me that gas for two fifty one well you just got to do a little more than just take georgia to see that you get to your gallon gas what's going to take magic magic you know you need to have

a big night tonight i think it is going to southern strategy but then so what happens after that mississippi and alabama so. it looks to me carol like this is this is going to be mitt's night. this is going very favorite reality show of the season g.o.p. survive i think it's going to and it's been so long since one of his been kicked off the island i've kind of been shopping at the bit i'm not sure any of them are going to take off the island right now regardless of how well mitt does or how poorly he does or whoever does well in whatever state there's no incentive for any of these candidates to get out of the race remember in one thousand nine hundred two. jerry brown went on to win states well after the field had you know left the playing field for clinton so these candidates most of them have one of at least one state and there's no there's nothing to keep them from staying in mitt's not going to make them his vice president he's going to put them in the cabinet because they're all tarnished if he should win the only thing they get out of this is to

continue selling books maybe get a fox news contract and bolster their credentials for a second obama administration when they can go around the country massive windfalls of money whether it's doing television radio writing well this is they are the thing that they get out of that mess ascending jerry brown got out of it when he was following bill clinton around that is he was pushing he jerry brown was pushing bill clinton to the left these guys are pushing this from mitt romney the right now getting him to take positions that he's going to have to hold to reason have grover norquist it's not quite the same thing because he's not being pushed to the right he's already been on the right it's just that at one time he was also on the left so that's a little different both of these candidates hold the vast majority she's probably have the same positions and except for ron paul i don't want us really staying in the race to kind of push these candidates a certain direction is why she had that spot at the convention in tampa that's just about just but you know he thinks he's going to be a kingmaker you think he will die he's. telling reporters lined up behind a guy i can't see that happening i mean i can see ron paul supporters falling in

line like that either does that mean that he's going to be but you know is he there in this to support his son is he in this to to have an independent voice or is he just did it to make a state of the make the state and i think the party with him and assad is more of a thing where he's not going to interfere in the process after it's already settled or run as a third party i think he's on the i think this statement is more of a whisper at this point we were told months before the elections going in just after the initial iowa caucus new hampshire primary south carolina that you just way ron paul's going to come from he's the king of the caucuses it's all about organization caucus after caucus africa. it looks like it's probably going to have a good night in virginia because there's nobody else on the ballot of the romney number two so he gets to be number two but i don't know what that's worth i mean this is stupor tuesday we vote we've all been watching this drama unfold and one thing has become clear this negative campaigning these tens of millions of dollars in corporate money and candidate money. paid towards negative advertising is that

one thing for these candidates it is ruin them in the eyes of independent voters that are going to be necessary to win the general election which raise it romney thought it was hard to beat these guys wait until he faces obama well this raises a really important question and that is if all this you know. gingrich was riding high romney comes into town spends a couple million bucks and all of a sudden gingrich gets trashed santorum is riding high romney comes in addition outspend them six to one suddenly santorum gets crashes because that means that when obama is riding high and romney comes in and he's got thirty forty billionaires behind him on wall street and he's already he's already raised you know had fifty eight thousand bucks in the super pac romney had over thirty million i mean you know will they will will that work is he going to be able to track obama's kind of more and more tools of those to watch to deal with. your pain into a box not the super pac tool or even not to but i think i think we'll see what we're watching right now i think you'll see these these candidates sort of unify

let's just processes well here's the thing that mazes if you look back at the primary the hillary clinton barack obama primary everybody was saying this made both these candidates stronger candidates and the reason why was because they were talking about the issues and saying well i want national healthcare no i want national health care medicare party oh no i want to single payer you know if they were trying to one up each other and they didn't get negative about each other person well but i'm going beyond that they were they were laying out the issues classic traditional democrat. issues and saying i'm better at this no i'll do more of that i'll do that more that the republicans are doing the exact same thing with republican issues oh i privatized medicare well now i'm going to privatise so security i'm going to revolt out of privatized the schools i want to privatized the road so i think we should prime dies or water systems and you know they're telling truth i mean these are the republican issues and the american people are horrified

doesn't this tell us something about about you know the state of republican politics that when people hear the actual republicans saying they're actual truths which is what happens in primaries and that other than the base everybody goes right to vote i think it might be a little bit of an exaggeration what happens in these campaigns i mean these primary fights as a they gravitate toward whatever ideological it is the spectrum there are a lot and in a more or less once a settled moderate to the middle and that's real that that's that's where the voters will start tuning in and all of this will be like i can't imagine what it would be like for somebody like santorum to moderate in a general election i mean he'd probably just decide to talk less about gay people than i do and i'm a gay man and i would be an improvement for him but he has done that actually in the past you know when he was running for the senate he was he was when he was really running he was trying to be the model he was trying to do but he pulled it off but the economics that he proposes are not in sight it's moderate and i think you're right that this thing gets dragged to the right so much that it exposes

especially the longer it goes it exposes this to the vast number of voters who may not even be participating in the primaries these people who are not republicans that could vote republican for a general but are going to vote republican primary scene this fundamentally though one of the reasons that mitt romney has been able to survive as all these other candidates have got up and down is because of the professionalism of his staff a lot of professional republicans who go in and run top notch campaigns have sat out the cycle or worked for romney so you've got a cast of bumbling fools who have second tier campaign organizations who can't quite get it together so they don't know how to harness away. we've when they get new support they don't know how to fight back when they're under attack romney's campaign has been able to do that and that's why he's been able to stop the hemorrhaging but never rise he's always going to twenty five thirty percent popularity within the party and that's why he'll never go above it with the base they'll vote for him out of an obligation to the party just like they do when they pick their nominees this is nine hundred sixty four there are only good two

republican nominees that did not run at least once for president george w. bush and very well water that's very interesting and jeff. today senator lisa murkowski. said. that she regretted having voted for the what's the one that got a lot of them. and she's in she's like come talk about rush limbaugh and all this but in the context of the republican war on women you know that she she feels really badly that she she did this she said the wind it shifted republicans didn't have enough sense to get off of it you think that this that that limbaugh is damaging the republican opponent and i just i just think this is a distraction i think by the time we get to the general campaign season we won't we will remember now in my view was never target jeremiah wright after the first i became around me nobody wanted to for the obama campaign to keep us alive you know

these social issues alive but i i don't think the rush limbaugh thing to take you where they have every right should keep it alive and it should be kept alive this is the kingmaker of the republican party this is a man who took credit for electing george w. bush george h.w. bush in one thousand eighty eight and in one thousand nine hundred four republicans took congress he was made an honorary member of congress by the republican freshman class he has every right to be kept alive on this and the examples that people have given for his attacks on sandra fluke are the type of the iceberg i went back in the archives and i found hundreds of examples of him saying sexist things about not only hillary clinton but michelle obama even lisa murkowski said he must she must go to the same boat talks doctor of it nancy. if he goes through or at least they're sharing needles this is a man who was unrepentant and the only reason he's apologized this week is because he saw his advertisers leaving him in two stations dropped him the only way that republicans will get around this issue is if they confront this head on he's a leader in their movement and the best that these republican presidential candidates could not stare was i wouldn't use those words i mean what was romney going to say instead are look we have to see we have just thirty seconds of

democrats want to run against rush limbaugh more power to them i don't see how that's a winning strategy to win the white house back i think if you run against rush limbaugh you run into all kinds of problems but you still got romney over here who could probably pull himself away from us why is it shown that he's been able to they want to make this all about it and that's you like a loser. and i think jeff your point that november is an eternity away from the right source structure is so spot on there's a lot of love to go. karl thank you both thanks for being with us tonight i'll have my take on super tuesday later tonight certainly take. after the break the real story about rising gas prices congresswoman jan schakowsky joins me in just a moment. we just put a picture of the need when i was like nine years old so she told the truth.

i think i am going to get a highly fragmented and. he was kind of yesterday. i'm very little that i can see its place. you know how 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 is ok. i'm trying hard welcome to the big picture.

in a press conference today at the white house president obama was asked about rising gas prices here's what he had to say what i have also said about gas prices is that

there is no silver bullet and the only way we're going to solve this problem. over the medium and long term is within all of the above strategy so we're going to look at a whole range of measures including by the way making sure that my attorney general is is paying attention to potential speculation in the oil markets we have asked him to reconstitute a task force that's examining room when it comes to oil speculations roll and rising gas prices however seventy members of congress are not waiting for the attorney general act this week a letter was written to commissioner scott o'malley i'll be commodity futures trading commission calling on him to immediately put into place regulations to curb excessive oil speculation on wall street a lot of red we have a responsibility to ensure that the price of oil is no longer allowed to be driven up by the same wall street speculators who caused the devastating recession that working families are now experiencing and a letter was signed by seventy members and of congress including one joining me now

from capitol hill congresswoman jan schakowsky representing illinois's ninth district congress one woman welcome thanks tom glad to be here thanks for joining us what's the real story behind the rising oil prices and gas prices and let me tell you what it is it's not it is not about supply and demand the supply today is greater than it was three years ago when oil price gas prices were a dollar ninety cents a gallon and the president has actually quadrupled the number of wells that are operating right now and production is at an eight year high and demand is actually down it's at about a seventeen year low. right now and so it is speculation has a lot to do with it and those conclusions come from the likes of goldman sachs exxon mobil a analyst from oppenheimer and company anywhere between they estimate between

twenty two and thirty percent of the cost of gasoline is due to speculation people who are. not going to use the oil but are just all street gamblers like we saw in the housing market and and so that means that as someone who owns a small compact car could spend as much as seven dollars and thirty cents more at the gas because of the speculation when they fill up their tank when most americans hear about speculation you know their eyes roll whereas the slogan drill baby drill is really easily understood i mean is it's a basic bumper sticker slogan hadia when this debate when you're. or democrats in general when this debate when you're using you know logic and truth but you're using words that aren't so familiar and the other side is using slogans that people think they understand well because when you talk now about wall street speculators i think people get enough of the sense that that's what's going on that somebody

out there is out there just betting on things that are making them pay that the higher price so so i do think that that people understand that it's not just drill baby drill that when you talk about wall street speculators their eyes don't glaze over they know that they have been abused by all street before congresswoman i my understand of the dodd frank bill is that it. you know there were some specific laws or or pieces to it and there were a lot of pieces that were sort of yet to be written and some might be written by congress some might be written by. the c.e.o. to see and others are you asking the commodity futures trading commission to enact a law that was already passed by congress as part of god frank war are you asking them to use an authority that they have under dodd frank to to begin a process and if so what is that or which which of those two is the well the dodd

frank bill the bill that regulated wall street may have dated that the as a c f t c actually sat a limit on how much speculators can invest in. oil in oil trading and it said that one trader can't invest more than twenty five percent of the available market which seems very high and bernie sanders things that's a bit too high he's the one who initiated this letter so they already have that authority and in october of two thousand and eleven they sat a limit but they have not. moved further to and then this proposal that they made that many months ago and were saying so after adding your fee let's get a good regulation let's limit the positions that these speculators can take and not a let's let them get in in a place where they can manipulate the market actually raise the price hold back

some of the oil and we for a time when the prices go up you know it was a time when only about thirty percent of the actual investors were speculators the rest were end users like airlines and truckers that actually use the gasoline but now seventy percent of the investors are speculators wall street speculators and they're making up they're making a bunch of money while the rest of us are paying the price at the given the wall street speculators i mean that that free. and that reality are probably if you were to do a poll they'd probably rank right up there with pornographers in terms of popularity why is this not a bipartisan issue why are the republicans not going after the wall street speculators like you are. and you know it seems are you getting near to their

benefit to be seen as standing up for the little guy well you would think but let's let's remember that these are the very said people that would like to repeal all of the dodd frank bill the try to prevent this the housing collapse that we all face that brought down almost brought down the entire economy and that part of their crusade is to absolutely repeal about legislation it's quite remarkable we have seen that the. the republicans have been the side of the oil companies and now the speculators wall street all the time all the way. and so it's really not that surprising that we can't get the republicans to join us in saying let's get the wall street speculators they'd rather plain barack obama they'd rather say it's about drill baby drill even though we're drilling more we're importing less we you know have greater supply than than we actually need right now

and so i'm not surprised one bit you know so they're just playing politics congresswoman in the half a minute we have left do you think that the sea of t.c. is going to respond favorably to your to your letter. i think so i think that the pressure that we're putting on them will will have an effect and you know we all agree there are there are lots of things that we could do we could and we could restore the. investment tax credits for wind how there's a lot of things we could do to fulfill the president's pledge of an all of the above plan for. energy in our country but speculation is a big part of it we're not giving up on this fight it's great congresswoman jan schakowsky thanks so much for being with us and for the great work you're doing thank you you know we need to end predatory capitalism like this and make wall street once again a boreen and reliable industry. crazy

alert maybe they were trying to find me mo researchers from new york university of discovered that robotic fish are just as capable of leading schools of fish as the real living things in nature nature fish at the front of a school beat their tails at a greater rate than the rest of the pack and voting with their tail movements more vigorously for a particular direction of movement so the other three should go to have such a strong opinion about the robotic fish used in the experiment took on a leadership role with a school of fish by their tails at a greater frequency like real fish based on the spine and scientists when they hope to use robotic fish that help lead real fish away from environmental disasters like well spills and rumor has it the robotic fish are actually from the planet when new the sister planet of xenu looks like the fish are teaming up with the pigeons to take over the earth.

your take my take is your chance to send in your questions comments ranson observations about anything we talk about here on the big picture or during my radio show our first comments and i comes from an anonymous caller on our viewer rant line he had some less than friendly comments regarding the rush limbaugh situation it was. davey who you should really. please you can brush away twenty five years is he right is this a just really right issue you have no talent to pay. you don't get rushed he cancelled eight years would have days he's got ten more responses why you left wayne. like bilbo if you showed your baby much

anybody says they think you don't want to go for the throat you go for it it's part of. our deal that we can't rush here is where you get your own education or how much you turn it out. you seem to have an opinion frankly i'm not interested in getting raj i think rush is doing a fine job of getting him to sell and i'm one of the people who has not called for people to stop advertising on the show you know this is this is the free market this is the this is reality this is the business that we're in. and we'll see how this plays out but i think that what you're seeing is the american people seen the face of what at one point was called compassionate conservatism that it's not so compassionate. i know your phone calls mr final count of the night also comes from our viewer ram line steve brought up a different way to think about the birth control debate here's what he had to say

why is nobody bringing up the overpopulation problem and encouraging birth control is good for all our planet has reached a tipping point because of overpopulation and we need to encourage reasonable proof control it sure beats the right wing nutjob way of killing by denying health care and financial aid to children and people in need. ok here's the point the availability of birth control is a smaller dimension of the larger issue which is women having our women having power over their own bodies women having power in society well what you find when you look across the world is that those cultures where women have relatively equal power with men population stabilizes in those cultures where we're at women even with a bailable birth control where women have very little power relative to men population explodes this is really a power issue overpopulation by the way it ended and and not just a power issue but it's

a demonstrates the need for us to empower women around the world and educate girls around the world or population is the topic i talk about my book with tom hartman we're going to send you an autographed copy so you can learn more about it that's it for your take my tape and i would like your comments and questions for in the segment a big picture and would like to get a chance or might be one of my books listen. we want to know your take send us your comments by visiting the tom hartman facebook page by a twitter at tom underscore her or in the chat room on the message boards or to the blog at tom hartman dot com you can also leave a message on our rant line at two to three six fifty three zero six agree disagree sound off it's all welcome but remember that your comments may be used on the ear.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then glimpse something else you hear see some other part of it and realize that everything is all. part of the big picture.