and welcome back to the big picture i'm sam sax cillian for tom hartman coming up in this half hour america is one of only twenty nations that still use the death penalty and are right up the list with axis of evil power outages iran and iraq isn't it time we did away with this cruel and unusual punishment also occupiers and tea partiers have somehow found common ground on a radical new law in georgia so what else could these most unlikely of allies agree

on and in tonight's daily take by republicans in congress really pushing for war in iran. ok i'm going to name five countries you tell me which one seems out of place ready china iran saudi arabia iraq and the united states so which one is not like all the others. actually they all belong together they are the top five nations in the world at executing their own citizens and this international is out this week with a new report on the death penalty showing that only twenty out of the one hundred ninety eight nations worldwide carried out executions last year and as i just mentioned the united states is one of those nations are also the only western

democracy to still use the death penalty where number one right but there's a there's actually some good news in this report and that's the nations that execute people are on the decline as interest international points out in this video. so what can we take away from this new study joining me now is jamal wakim campaigns director with amnesty international can all work on the show thank you

sam great great to have you on so i mentioned a few of the findings already what are some other stuff in this report well what the report shows as you said is that countries that have utilized the death penalty are capital punishment has been on the kleine since one thousand seventy seven when amnesty international first started working on polishing the death penalty and what we're finding is that regimes and the united states are still in prominent use of death penalty and that the capital punishment system as a means of punishment do you think that the uptick in the middle east it was most i mean that's where the take was most profound i guess do you think that had something to do with. the arab spring going on in the taters trying to keep i mean control their power and can we expect as nations become more democratic they become more humane not including the united states like us well it's interesting because what the data showed in the middle east was that before usual suspects iraq iran saudi arabia and yemen which is responsible for ninety nine percent of all

executions in the middle east were the countries where you saw the uptick so to speak and because of that data it also revealed that it wasn't really connected to the uprising so in places like tunisia and in other plate countries in the middle east the uptick wasn't apparent on the desk and since inside so well there was a lot of gun rest in those nations they just didn't succeed i mean i don't want to maybe i doubt it was because the death knell of it but it didn't exist because clearly a lot of these regimes haven't had any problem with you know using violent force to clamp down on these uprisings but when it comes to the united states we're the only western democracy in the world that still use the use of the death penalty what is it about our character that makes that possible i mean why do you think that is i think it's ironic being the only country in the g. eight actually that uses death sentences one. really reveals is that in this country we are at a hopefully a moral tipping point and that is our humanity starts to reveal itself or realizing

that the debates within states is really where the abolition movement is really taking hold and so with illinois becoming the sixteen states across the death penalty a lot of the arguments were not just about morality but also about cost and the fact that you know spending one hundred million dollars over ten years was a reducing crime it wasn't making us safer and so i think we're also hopefully getting more pragmatic in this country and also looking at our moral compass right i mean. there's there's been no evidence of deterrence using the death penalty so practically it's not a good idea and it costs more money to execute someone than you keep them in prison so economically it's not a very good idea either but do you see any mention illinois the sixteenth state do you see this as a trend going on in the hopefully in the not too distant future yet that actually all the states will abolish it will right now play in terms of legislation you have maryland and connecticut which are currently debating abolition legislation and as you know in california the referendum on the ballot initiative for the fall is in

place to actually involves the death penalty and so you know three states right now hopefully will be the next three in order to show that this archaic and ineffective and immoral system has to be taken down in the states are really where the battleground is taking place right in one of the battlegrounds was last year in georgia where troy davis was executed and it really brought the debate of are we possibly executing innocent people based on the research you've done do you think that's happened do you think innocent people have been executed i mean given the stakes around d.n.a. and exonerations we believe that there have been individuals that have probably been executed in this country of course internationally who have been innocent and what we found with the work around troy davis is that this country actually have the lowest approval rating for the death penalty since one thousand nine hundred ninety two and so in many ways i think our humanity is speaking to the fact that we're not. and our system isn't perfect and when you have an imperfect system do we really want to put life and death in the hands of something that's imperfect right

or life and death of the hands of individual people but i mean i would argue that a nation that embraces the death penalty like we do that sort of violent mentality trickles down and it leads to people pursuing vigilante justice which might have been something that later that was behind the trayvon martin case down in florida i mean do you see a connection there between violence at a government level in violence on a commute with just thirty seconds when you think about violence in general i think the reality is is right it's a part of a culture and when a society perpetuates violence through its systems then it does have an effect on the society and on the individuals that inhabit that society and so i think in this country we have to really turn the moral compas towards ourselves and eliminate the death penalty but also look at other institutions that are corruptible and really don't promote human rights all said all right thanks a lot of people great work thanks more and more states in recent years have taken over polishing the death penalty on their own as criminologists that since two thousand and nine illinois new mexico polished it and it's currently on hold in

california unfortunately sixteen states have passed quote unquote stand your ground laws like the one that killed seventeen year old trayvon martin in florida living up to average citizens to play the role of judge jury and executioner on the streets as long as we're a nation has no problem executing human life and that mentality trickles down and it drives the less stable among us to find justification to arm themselves and kill on their own the so-called stand your ground standard ground laws better known as shoot first laws or the center of debate right now in america just last week tom gave his take on them and why they've come to exist anyways. this has moved national paranoia and promoted by the american legislative exchange council you know the koch brothers alec since the summer two thousand and five sixteen states have now adopted shoot first laws like the one the florida adopted in two thousand and five this used to be in america that if you killed somebody you had to

demonstrate the you had a reasonable fear that they were going to harm you. now you don't have to prove it you can merely assert it little wonder that the st petersburg times found that five years after the law was signed by then governor jeb bush who called it a good common sense if i crime bill claims of justifiable homicides in florida have more than tripled from just over thirty per year average to more than one hundred twenty. in that time the so-called stand your ground defense was used in ninety three cases involving sixty five deaths and the majority of those cases it actually worked killers got off police and prosecutors across the country have condemned these laws but being nord by people frightened by watching too many crime t.v. shows and listening to politicians who basically just enter to figure the reality is and we did a show about this week or two ago the just pull it all the numbers the reality is we are right now america's murder rate is lower than it's been any time in the last

has have century it's almost half of the peak that we reached right around the end of the reagan administration the murder rate it going up consistently through the reagan administration clinton came into office started falling in his been falling ever since we are safer than we've ever been but fear still solace and fear combined the shoot first laws allows people like george zimmerman who had a history of calling nine eleven over forty times at various figures and a semiautomatic pistol allows them to kill both here's what it sounded like. i'm screaming at pride and i need don't know why i don't know or. i don't know their own. son from a place that if he were hurt. i can't think i don't want to go out there on a car. you can out here but if.

there's gunshots. it's a gunshot i guess i'm the state has now empowered a grand jury to look into the case but only because the national public how many more kids particularly minority kids are going to have been murdered by frightened men like summer before these laws that give killers in the energy or the spam. mitt romney is just like you and me really is he's just like you and me i mean don't we all have friends who own nascar teams know. well we all like three hundred thousand dollars in speaking fears each year. still no one. but certainly we all have top of the line car elevators in our mansions right. now i guess not well mitt romney the richest man to run for president on a major party ticket is now installing a car elevator and his new san diego mansion that is currently under construction

the house you're seeing is the house that will be knocked down to build his car elevator equipped mansion you'd think the guy would wait till after the election to build a lavish new mansion with a car elevator in it but how do you expect someone to get by with only two mansions for a whole year neither of which has a car elevator so now when romney and his cadillac are tired of taking the stairs they can just take the elevator they can both ride up to the kitchen where romney's cattle i can watch him good practice and then they can both ride up to the better and together where romney's cadillac can watch him sleep. rumor has it romney is also building a separate elevator for his dog one that bypasses every floor in the house and goes straight up to the roof. coming up in tonight's daily take with record numbers of americans opposing the war in afghanistan are conservatives pushing for a new war in iraq.

and. he just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old and sincerely true. i think that's and i meant to get it and that that may have cost is that and. he was kind of it yesterday. i'm very proud of the role that i'll just as you play.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so bleak you think you understand it and then a glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything is ok if you don't i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.

welcome back lately we've been covering a new law a big push in georgia that would need union picketing outside private residences illegal radical all that as investigative reporters edge awadi pointed out what if they're on our founding fathers in prison it was enacted in the colonies. this issue came to the forefront in georgia the occupy atlanta group has been leading protests against the bill calling it corporate of solar free speech now the occupy movement has an unlikely ally because georgia's tea party organization two of the tea party and occupy movement can see eye to eye here but what else might they be

able to come to. the journal on the joys of georgia to get his investigative reporter at republican support with united republic said welcome to the show thanks for having me so let's recap for people who don't know what is this law that's being pushed in georgia that's drawn the ire of both occupy movement and the tea party shares basically what it does is it just allows people from having any sort of protests residence in the bills that are written within the bill that actually says anything that sort of disturbs the peace and quiet of any one of these residences it's pretty broad i mean what do you define as the peace and quiet yeah i mean you know that's broad but it's mainly targeting unions because unions like to think outside for example the homes of major executives it's a tactic used all over the country to sort of pressure and put pressure on the company but you know it isn't saying that you can't step on private residences or step in private down that's already already illegal what it's saying is you can't

you know can't use the road outside of a sidewalk or anything that really should be a constitutionally protected right so who's behind this has so there's actually a state senator dianne balfour who authored sponsored introduced it actually did pass the senate not the house yet he's actually a waffle house executive he's an executive at the popular southern chain for twenty five years he's also on the board of the georgia chamber of commerce which of course is in support of the. build simply because it would allow its corporate members to shut down protests at their offices and their homes i'm sure he's doing it on behalf of his buddies considering i'm not sure how many people would protest outside of this it will be a lot of people protesting outside the house. well those are something in your article you discuss how you know occupy atlanta was on this from the beginning and since the tea party local tea party organizations have. involved and you said that this is a promising sign for fighting back against corporate corruption of our government or the library yeah i mean there's

a common myth that you know there's two sides in america once i believe the government doing business with people on the other side believes in you know government not doing it with people but that's not actually how it really works how it works is this there's various interest groups to try to capture government big in this is one of the big business tries to use government on its behalf you know you know occupiers are obviously against it but they can't go to wall street for months and you know month after month but the tea party is also against you know government being corrupted and used very corrupt and so when big business tries to corrupt it i think they're against that see i mean debbie julies a major tea party activist in atlanta she testified against the bill and she also sent out actually to her fifty thousand members in georgia telling them they stop this bill and basically what she said is if they can get it the unions they can do it to us too and then we need to stand up for the first amendment for everyone and i think this is a really really promising sign they were saying the tea party who stands for liberty and the occupier to stand against the corruptions of big business unite and say that big business and big government should work together here to undermine our first amendment rights undermine our right to protest simply on behalf of you know

i basically a corporate executives their role well said and hopefully they can start working together and take on the bigger issues like croker first and hood. i guess that's the biggest issue right now is corporate personhood and corporate influence our elections absolutely. the corporate takeover of our democracy as i just said is the primary challenge facing all americans and there's no reason why the tea party and occupy wall street and all frustrated americans they work together to do something about it. it's the good the bad in the very very soul was sick with a sleazy ugly the good and then the kid state legislature a bill is being considered that would require shareholders of corporations to start

giving majority approval of any political spending it would also require disclosure of any big corporate contributors if the bill becomes law the connecticut would become the first state to take a stand against unlimited secret corporate cash in our elections as the saying goes transparency is the best disinfectant. the bad republican congressman louie gohmert favorite of the show interview with think progress goldberg who has previously warned the nation of the dangers of terror babies took on health reform saying americans will quote die early if the law remains in place that is upheld by the supreme court or went on to say quote this law would make us like england and canada curiously two nations that currently have better health care was olds than the united states unclear how many more americans with health insurance will make us unclear how it is that a lot americans with health insurance will make us all die early and go for ties

but the good government also believes that same sex marriage will lead to peace theology maybe just not even worth trying to reason with and finally the very very ugly senator rand paul ryan wants us all to be slaves to big oil and a senate floor speech earlier today he told the american people that quote instead of punishing big oil we should want to encourage them we should ask big oil quote what obstacles are there to you making more my. this ran realize we did forty billion dollars in every decade to big oil is that not enough encouragement rand wrapped up his speech by saying quote we is a society need to glorify those who make a profit. it's well done nothing is more courageous than standing up for those who are rich and powerful while blocking federal assistance for the poor now that's very very ugly.

see support for the afghanistan war has now reached an all time low a quarter into a new c.b.s. new york times poll sixty nine percent of americans say that the united states shouldn't be involved enough game the same anymore that's up sixteen points from just four months ago of course in those four months we have seen the stress of war take an unbelievable toll on our soldiers from the security bodies to burning korans to most recently massacring afghan civilians afghanistan is now the longest war in our nation's history not to mention it's the same battlefield that something soviet union's empire too but just as discontent with the war in afghanistan is surging conservatives want to start a new war in iraq despite the fact that new nuclear talks are set to begin with

iran next not recently tom gave his take on why conservatives today are so obsessed with war with iraq and let's just say they have a political objective. so guess was the latest right wing ploy to crash the economy just before the election where whether iran on tuesday international monetary fund chief christine legarde warned that a military strike on iran could disrupt oil supplies all around the world because in the price of oil the spike thirty percent the guard said clearly it would be a shock to economies if there was a major shortage of exports of oil out of iran a sudden brutal rise in the price of oil would have serious consequences on the global economy right now is the lifeblood of our economy all economic production from our food is grown our products are manufactured and our from a suit of clothes are made our buildings and infrastructure are constructed our

workers get to and from their jobs how we power our homes it nearly all depends on oil currently brant crude prices are about one hundred twenty three dollars a barrel a thirty percent increase would push the price to well over one hundred sixty dollars a barrel that's where that's higher than where the price of oil peaked in two thousand and eight at one hundred forty seven dollars a barrel just months before the entire global economy when a full meltdown as economists jura in germany rifkin pointed out the price of oil is directly related to the stability of the global economy eight hundred forty seven a barrel people stop by because all the supply chain is too expensive and the entire economic engine of the industrial revolution shut down in july of two thousand and eight that was the great economic earthquake of the second best revolution the collapse of the financial markets sixty days later it was the aftershock we now

know the outer limits of how far we can globalize this world based on the leap fossil fuels it's a proper hundred fifty barrel and it'll shutout. so war with iran would push the price of oil above that critical hundred fifty dollars mark forcing the global economy to shutdown and plunging the united states into a great depression and if it happens before the election and you can kiss president obama's second term goodbye which might explain why political operatives in the republican party and fox so-called news are pushing so hard to force the president to launch military strikes on iran or push israel to do it for us all the serious observers looking at the iranian situation including two former heads of israeli intelligence and all eighteen u.s. intelligence agencies say rand is definitely not building a nuke and now the head of the i.m.f. says military strikes against iran are not only unnecessary but would have disastrous economic consequences people living in iran and israel are now talking

on facebook to network with each other and building a campaign for peace in the hopes that their leaders won't take them to work the fact is there's not a single real shred of evidence that iran is building a nuclear weapon or that iran even if it built would suddenly turn suicidal and use that weapon in fact all one hundred percent of the american intelligence agencies say just the opposite that this is not a crisis so what is the the problem republicans are in such a hurry to fix by bombing iran. oh yeah. problem is president obama having high favorable numbers going into an election in november the last five times that oil prices have spiked just before an election nine hundred seventy six one thousand nine hundred ninety two two thousand two thousand and eight each time the party that held the white house and was running for reelection lost that year's election jerry ford jimmy carter george herbert bush al gore and john mccain each one's

party had the white house when oil prices spiked as we went into the november election and each one watched in large part because of it a war when a war in iran now would make it a sixth time. normally a u.s. president gets political benefit from going to war especially before an election that george w. bush told his biographer mickey herskowitz back in one thousand nine hundred nine that if he was elected in two thousand he was going to start a war with iraq to get an up is freeze political capital to privatized social security and off the wall street and have a successful presidency but in this case a war with iran would be a catastrophe and a president obama gives in to the right wingers who are using our national security as an excuse to get into a war that will bring about another great depression in this country and he will have made one of the all time dumbest and most destructive blunders in american history we can't afford or ran and political propagandist like mitt romney and rick

santorum say we can it demonstrates that their allegiance is not to the security united states of america but instead of their own political ambitions and the billionaire campaign donors who've been trying to get president obama out of office for more than three years would republicans are really trying to start a war with iran just to crash the u.s. economy so that obama would lose this election year you betcha and that's it for the big picture and we'll see tomorrow.

that's.