these are the images from seeing from the streets of canada asked. for asians rule today. back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour meet the coax the billionaire brothers tainting our democracy with dirty money in corporate greed no question here is a heck of these guys getting away with it also the war on free speech in america has claimed its latest victim i was one a radio reporter fired for just doing his job and is a nice daily take the supreme court does have the power to overturn absent congress so why do so many people think otherwise.

in scrutineers twice a year billionaire oil barons charles and david koch gather some of the richest people in america together to talk politics mainly how much money are they going to invest in politicians in the upcoming election cycle to preserve their enormous fortunes after all a couple million dollars in political contributions he's billions of taxpayer subsidies tax breaks and preferential government contracts damn good investment and last years at last year's koch brothers conclave for the one percent actually for the top one hundredth of one percent five hundred million dollars was pledged to defeat president obama by millionaires and billionaires i thought it was almost singlehandedly funny rick santorum campaign and casino mogul shelley eagleson who was newt gingrich's daddy warbucks. coax themselves along the edge thirty million dollars for the cause but these sort of public announcements regarding how much the

coast planned to spend on elections to influence our elections just scratch the surface and truth is the koch's have built an entire network around the nation to launder their fortunes through a variety of nonprofit organizations and spend millions of dollars writing conservative lawmakers with out having a coke name ever pop up in the federal elections commission database joining me now to talk about how to coax pull this off is lead pop investigative reporter with united republics republic report a great new endeavor and i encourage everybody to get over and subscribe for your daily briefing it's brilliant thank you and welcome back lee good to be here tell us how to cope brothers managed to get all this money into elections to get republicans elected and are wrongfully we're talking about all these republicans these tea partiers who have election two thousand and ten how do you manage to do this without showing up in federal election commission forms over two years out from the two thousand and ten midterm elections the first major election after systems united and we're just figuring out how the koch brothers manipulate the

election and elected the tea party congress one of the strategies they used was to use a network of nonprofit organizations that don't disclose their donors or their spending we just received a financial audit of one of the organizations they use elect republicans and what's interesting here we're seeing all this electioneering activity activity that explicitly organized to help you know republicans beat democrats but none of it was disclosed with the financial or with it excuse me the f.e.c. the federal elections commission it illegal for five one c three is to engage in electioneering well before existence united there are many restrictions because i want to see thirty's and see for as you know they receive corporate money and where they can receive corporate money after citizens united though that's where it's our fortunes are people know yeah well it's all. because you can see three's have to be issue based but they can you know put a candidate's name and say they're bad on an issue run an ad or add

a bus tour and it's perfectly fine so a lot of this is bus tours well it was multi-faceted let me just throw out a quick example in one race in colorado and it isn't in dozens of races but betsy markey versus cory gardner betsy markey the democrat sitting congresswoman if you looked at it but if you see you saw maybe five or ten thousand given to the republican opponent really they were i don't know by the coast but there were millions spent they had it i think tank in colorado called the independent institute which said organizers to hold tea party rallies to put out talking points against betsy markey they had ads that didn't show up because their issue ads against betsy markey for you know killing jobs and passing obamacare they had three different bus tours that would tour of the state colorado is what he proposes will they have different names there's one called remember november. too much spending time in big names and they would put thought they would focus on betsy markey

touring through the district holding rallies denouncing betsy markey promoting cory gardner so you know if you're a journalist two years ago you're saying ok well there's only five thousand dollars because they're looking at one check given to cory gardner but if you look at the big picture there is millions and millions and millions and this was duplicated in races all over the country from florida virginia new hampshire really everywhere. is there any way to stop. you know we're on the other hand is there anybody is the left doing this there are some similar efforts on the left but it's miniscule and i'm not advocating for this but some unions sponsor bus tours but at least the department of labor forces them to disclose their spending so anyone can go online and figure out side and also has the name of the union presumably yes and but even if they don't i think there is one that doesn't disclose it but if you can go to the department of labor website and figure out where the money is so you can't go to the koch industries web site there's no there's no disclosure and the few documents we have we still don't have a full picture we have a tip of the iceberg and we've got two years after the election already ended so

they could draw millions arguably billions in the presidential race that's coming and all the congressional races and we won't know for years and we may not even know that right what about internet ads i mean a lot of these things don't have to disclose disclosure the f.e.c. and now most most americans don't watch t.v. where you know traditionally you spend these types of ads are moving to the internet they don't slow as we had see their amazing lee thanks so much for being with us tom thank you are you are seriously one of the best reporters out there this is a mind boggling stuff thank you thank you tom. in other news there is a war on journalism and free speech going on in this country and scott braddock is the latest victim braddock a well known texas news radio reporter was fired last week after excerpts of an interview with a woman who was forced to undergo several medically unnecessary transvaginal sonograms to obtain an abortion through the new texas sonogram known all as employer k r o y news ninety two f m says he was fired for filling in for another

reporter on a competing radio station braddock claims that's not the case scott joins us now from texas to talk more about the situation and right he really may have been fired scott walker great to be with you john thanks for joining us why do you think you're fired. i have been telling people this over and over again i don't know that because i'm a journalist i was a journalist when i worked at the k r o y news ninety two a damn i'm still a journalist today and hope to work professionally again as a journalist after all this blows over i think that it will but to people have started to guess about what the reason is as far as why i was fired because the reason that was stated by the station makes no sense they say that i was in violation of a contract that i had not signed and i talked to a lot of experts both the people who are in the legal profession and people who are you know in my industry who say that that makes no sense that they can't say that you violated a contract that you never signed the violation that they claim i made was filling in on a nonprofit community radio station here in town it was a paper to a friend and he asked me to put him on the radio program i was happy to do so and

a couple of days later i was told in the boss's office this interview that you mentioned that one with carolyn jones and i'll let her speak to the specifics of what she went through and she spoke about it on my radio program people can be sure it at scott braddock dot com and they can judge whether or not the interview was fair but they told me that filling in on the station that i was going to be shoved out the door if they didn't ask me any questions that in say why were you on the other station they didn't give me a chance to explain myself they just said your editor you're in a right to work for less pay i'm quite sure so or employer at will so doesn't your employer just have the right to fire you because they don't like the kind of eyeglasses you're wearing they could do that and that's a problem you know. i think they'll agree that it is it texas is a right to work state but they cited a contract violation as the reason that was they were firing me i thought the problem is again i have not signed that contract if they want to say that you know

they are going to show me the door for no reason they can do that but they did not choose to do that when i met with the managers at newsnight too they said they were letting me go for a contract violation and again to a lot of people it makes no sense so my supporters on both the left and. the right i'm known as a fair journalist supporters on both sides of the aisle have been saying there must be something else here they're filling in the blanks themselves and some of the blinds are being filled with some pretty awful stuff ok well listen assuming and you're saying you don't know so let me assume rather than you that this might have had something to do with the fact that you were just doing a straight up interview just a straight up you know right down the middle report about the reality of this transnational. ultrasound law the sovereign we have a sonogram or have you ever experienced this kind of censorship or reaction to any previous controversial stories or is this the first time you've touched anything else that you know that controversy i have for a decade him texas a and you know people who have followed my career know this i know i've interviewed the most controversial people saying the most controversial

things there's always some complaint from someone here in there because when you cover controversy as you know whether you come from the right we're from the left work you cover it right down the middle like i do it is maybe somebody who doesn't love doesn't love your coverage doesn't like your coverage and so you have a they're free to make free to say whatever they want to freedom of speech is for everybody right but i have never had anybody suggest that i should not cover something i've never had anybody say that shouldn't have done this or that you know you know way that was this heavy handed and again i've talked to legal experts and to people who are you know experts in my industry who say that it seems really heavy handed i was fired for filling in on another radio station and the subject matter that was covered during the program that was discussed you know with my managers partially was this sana grandma and look i'm a conspiracy theorist i'm a journalist over over my career i've hung up on

a lot of conspiracy theorists i've not answered their e-mails but i don't think it's any stretch at all to say that if somebody covers controversy all the time like i do and if you do it in a fair way they're just going to be you know at some point. some story that you do that rub somebody the wrong way and if that person is somebody in authority they might you know choose to deal with that in a hoodie and. scott braddock thanks so much for being with us and sharing your story with us i wish you the very best you get thank you you know the process is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution and we reporters straight up reporters start getting fired for delivering straight up news when our democracy is in trouble. just. it's the good the bad in the very very. sick karim slee ugly

good link in founder reid hoffman often recently lone a million dollars to a website that lets people make direct loans to audit winners and impoverished countries as goal is to get forty thousand people each the went out twenty five dollars the website keep it out or already has nearly thirty five people signed up including me who are loaning out a total of nearly a million dollars to an appearance in kenya peru of more than fifty other countries it's nice to see some millionaires using their fortunes to build economies up rather than tear them down the bad the eagle forum the eagle forum a national ultra conservative group is pushing a law in tennessee that would place limits on the number of foreign born teachers the school could hire the laws specifically aimed at cutting down in muslim teachers our nation already has a shortage of teachers and foreign born teachers even if they're u.s. citizens can help our students succeed and they're just as valuable as any qualified american teacher but i guess in tennessee good old along with all be a is better than kids receiving a good education and a very very ugly the daily texts and the news chapter the conservative smear

campaign against trayvon martin a university of texas a student newspaper published a racially insensitive political cartoon yesterday cartoon features a woman reading to a little girl out of a book entitled trayvon martin in the case of yellow journalism woman is also stone saying to the girl and the big bad white man killed a handsome sweet innocent colored boy it's bad enough that trayvon martin's death could have been racially motivated but to continue to promote racial insensitivity in light of that is very very . wealthy british style. sometimes spies.

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take my take is your chance to send in your questions comments rants and observations about and we talk about here in the big picture or during my radio show our first comments and i comes from a caller on our viewer rant line he had this to say. you guys are so so.

he put the country it was called supply side and me but. i went from making seven dollars an hour to twenty seven dollars an hour an. hour. evil started in two thousand and five with the mickey mouse mug and if you don't believe me you barron's magazine our own able to. day forward from january two thousand and five it's just a big it's not a po allies in this country folks do put that on. when the best argument someone has a call us names three things number one reagan reagan tripled our national debt he took our national debt has been relatively steady from the administration of george

washington couple bombs for a couple of wars but pretty steady right up until reagan and he just shot at through the roof so yeah you give me a three trillion dollars tax credit card i'll show you what it looks like to live large number two you said you went from seven dollars an hour to twenty some odd dollars an hour working for a union. a reagan of course started taking that apart those jobs are gone and then number three is that all of this was all caused by the housing thing in two thousand and five no sorry that that law is he talking about the anti redlining law that basically just banks have to actually consider the credit worthiness of individuals rather than zip codes it had nothing to do with the great financial crash final comment of the night comes from richard posted on our tom hartman dot com message boards he just got back from south africa and wrote just got back from a fascinating trip to south africa suits soupy music and spirituality retreat pretoria time in johannesburg and a visit to an aids hiv service group in zulu country with hiv infection rates

probably forty nine to fifty percent and my first day there i got into a political discussion with some friends of the super circle one a south african business person and scholar said the american whose show i admire most is tom hartman i watch him on r t have read his book on ancient sunlight other people at the retreat from canada and pakistan also said they watch r t richard thanks to richard for helping those who had canada south africa and pakistan to our big picture world map we love getting comments from our international viewers of keep them coming and if you'd like to add your map and have more comments your and have your comments and questions are here on this side of the big picture with snow . we want to know your take send us your comments by visiting the tom hartman facebook page by a twitter at tom underscore apartment or in the chat room on the message boards or the blog at thom hartmann dot com you can also leave a message on our rant line by three six fifty three zero six agreed disagree sound off its all welcome remember that your comments may be used on the air.

i'm under you this week i did a rant about how the supreme court was never given the power to overturn laws based on the constitution clip went up over a democratic underground yesterday and today here are the comments with my responses first comment was from ellen. who quoted from wikipedia not exactly a reliable source of constitutional information saying good role and state courts quote federal state course at all levels both appellate and trial are able to review would declare the constitutionality or agree with the cost issue or lack thereof of legislation that is relevant to any case properly within their jurisdiction. yeah they claim that power but notice this carefully not this message

and none of the ones that follow none of these people commenting on do you actually quote the constitution saying that any courts have the right to overturn laws passed by congress and signed by the president reason why it's not in the constitution please read it second post is from marshall who quoted nixon saying the prose of those who means it's not illegal well nixon did say that it wasn't the supreme court that overruled him it was congress which passed a whole slew of campaign finance and transparency laws in the wake of watergate and was threatening to impeach him which is why you resign that's the appropriate role of congress to pass laws and hold the president accountable if marshall meant to imply that the supreme court is necessary to stop a rogue president like nixon i'd like to make two points the first is they didn't and the constitution supreme court can't it's congress' job to impeach or remove from office a president again please read the constitution second point is even more important

the reason why early conservatives at the constitutional convention didn't allow the people we the people to vote for us senators or for the president senators back then were appointed by politicians in each state and the president is elected indirectly by the electoral college the reason why was because conservatives didn't trust we the people with the full reins of government they also thought that the senators should represent the interests of the rich like in the british house of lords or the house of representatives directly elected the only body was directly elected back that should represent the interests of the average person just like the house of commons in the u.k. thomas jefferson and many other founders thought this tooth and nail they didn't think there should be a ruling aristocracy in america they said that all decisions should ultimately made by you and me we the people every two years in elections that either kept politicians in office or threw them out because they'd mad and made bad laws. unconstitutional laws as jefferson wrote to his old friend samuel kercheval the

appointment of senators instead of their being elected was the first republican heresy in this first essay of our revolutionary patriots and for me a constitution he added that because of john marshall's marbury decision he gave courts the power to strike down laws remember it's not in the constitution if the courts now had even more power than the executive the president he wrote a fraction once possessing themselves of the bench of a county used about county governments but you can apply to federal government as one can never be broken up but hold their county in chains forever indissoluble if these justices are the real executive as well as judiciary in other words marshall your logic logic is that the people can't be trusted to throw out politicians who pass unconstitutional laws and therefore we need to have naing all wise people on the supreme court to decide whether a law will be rejected or not it isn't democracy that's a kingdom with the supreme court justices as keynes if you really want that kind of

country remember you can't vote the supreme court out of office in that same letter jefferson talked about how the appointed senate and supreme court would defend the rich as the senate did until we had meant of the constitution in one nine hundred thirteen so that we the people can now directly elect our senators jefferson wrote that he and the other progressives of his era want to people to have the most their object is to secure self government by the republicanism of our constitution as well as by the spirit of the people and to nourish and perpetuate that spirit i am not among those who fear the people they and not the rich are our dependence for continued free. then over a dui lars seventy seven said the buck raises stop so far there are plenty of things the founders did not anticipate in a functioning democracy the supreme court is not corrupt and therefore would be competent to handle things like this actually the founders did in to support this they debated it link the constitutional convention and they rejected it the buck

for all lawsuits does stop somewhere the supreme court it's an article three section two the constitution but the bulk of what's constitutional that's not a power given to the supreme court that as jefferson pointed out is way too much power for nine unalike to people serving for life to have the founders and framers the constitution didn't want us to have kings and queens in america striking down laws passed by the representatives of the people and that's why they didn't give the supreme court that power again read the constitution if congress passes an unconstitutional law and the people will rise up and protest and throw the bums out and a new congress will fix it or the president has the power under the constitution to veto it because he thinks it violates the constitution bats in the constitution but not the supreme court because they are not answerable to you and to me this is not

supposed to be a came to another comment on to you is from spectator who said it's called balance of power three co-equal branches in theory actually those phrases never appear in the constitution the first one the first of the three branches of government first among equals article one is the legislative branch and they in only the legislature only congress has the power to tax and spend and create laws the second among equals the presidency as the brain has the job to carry out the laws congress passes and can veto laws that the president thinks are unconstitutional. and the third among equals the supreme court is as the constitution says the final court of appeals so if you and i have a lawsuit it goes from court to court to court to court somebody finally house to have a final say again it's in the constitution which even puts the supreme court under the regulation of the first among equals the congress has the language the supreme the constitution the supreme court shall have apology or

a stiction both as to laud fact with such exceptions and under such regulations as congress shall make congress is the first among equals read the constitution so i stand with my argument that legal scholars from thomas jefferson to the current dean of the stanford law school make that the supreme court does not have the constitutional powers strike down laws that power resides with us with you and me it's called elections again please read the constitution nowhere in there will you find anything and says that the supreme court has the power to strike down laws passed by the house passed by the senate and signed into law by the president who are by the way unlike the supreme court were all elected and are answerable to us we the people we live in a constitutionally limited representative democratic republic not a kingdom ruled over by five out of nine people sitting for

a life on an unelected supreme court the supreme court has been acting illegally for centuries and congress should take action to stop it as presidents andrew jackson abraham lincoln and franklin delano roosevelt. tried to do read the history read the debates and wake up. that's it for the big picture tonight don't forget democracy begins with you like you this is you telling your friends that you know that the supreme court actually doesn't have the power to strike down oh but what about who's going to you know. if the supreme court doesn't strike down laws that you know how would how would we get to a broad review board yet or through legislation to get it through the people it's you want me get out there and get active tag your it will sort of.

i've . got. the

it is easy. easy easy easy easy. since i've. i've .