welcome back to the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour the hoover institute recently published an article saying that california's public universities are trying to create a nation of liberal activists that's really going on a golden state or is this just part of the right wing agenda also autism spectrum disorders affect one in every eighty eight children in america but until recently their causes have been a mystery but these new research reveal about a link between pregnant mothers and the rise of autism and some people say terrorists and dictators could be funding mitt romney's campaign by laundering their money through karl rove's super pac but the american public will never know who they are tell you why and let's go we take.

in the best of the rest of the news republican congressman allen west turned some heads last week when he said this about democratic members of congress. it. was later said he was referring to the members of the house progressive caucus which had recently introduced the budget for all to end our wars create a public option and modestly raise taxes on the super rich the romney rich in america are exactly the primary policy positions of the day's communist party as far as i know west's comments did draw a reaction however from the communist party usa their vice chairman libro piano told politico i don't know that being a communist in congress was off limits or out of bounds there aren't any now and if

there were in the future does that mean that the voters don't have a say can't choose a communist to be in congress so what does congressman west need to know about communism and more importantly what do the american people need to know about the communist party joining me now is liberal odell a piano liberal welcome good evening tom how are you great and i'm fine thanks so much for joining us i suppose i don't need to use the old the you know made famous by joe mccarthy are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party but because the answer is yes what is the platform of the communist party usa well our immediate platform is for. a program for jobs for education for rebuilding the infrastructure in this country to help put people back to work and to shift the begin to shift the huge inequality

puts our country in the benefit of the one percent instead of the ninety nine do you agree with marx and engels that private property should be ended. well we think that private property is not an absolute right and that you know as you mentioned before the break when you take private property and you. day a fire it suddenly private property becomes speech and it becomes a right to vote. you know so our feeling is that you know this system is really set up in a way to benefit the the mega rich at the expense of everybody else so is the solution of the communist party usa to do old fashion marx and engels communism from each according to his means to each according to his needs and to have the you know elimination of of capitalism i guess replace it with

a centrally run government. our long term goal is definitely a socialist usa which to us is is taking our existing democratic rights and really expanding them to include economic and social rights to. address mounting inequality by as you said socialism is is from each according to their. to each according to their need and from each according to their work and communism is. such a system much further down the line where all everyone's needs are met. is i don't think that that's an important distinction ok is there anyone in congress who represents the communist party platform. well as i said you know we have a long term program a vision of socialism and then we have

a short term program which is based on what are our political realities now. you know what do we need today for working people and there isn't i think a lot of people in congress that we could agree with on on various short term reforms. you know whether it's the the buffett rule which was voted down today or filibustered in the senate or it's around expanding infrastructure in this country do you do you realize that if you endorse any policies you're going to. hand a huge hammer to the people who oppose those i mean if you genuinely for example one of the buffett rule and you endorse it you're just handing to the right wingers oh the communists want this well you know i think this is gets back to allen west you know he was attempting to smear congressional democrats by saying you know

they're secret communists they have a hidden agenda but you know i don't think that works the way it did in one thousand nine hundred eighty four when mccarthy tried it i think you know the rasmussen poll a few years ago showed about twenty percent of americans favor socialism to capitalism the gallup poll in two thousand and ten showed thirty eight percent of americans have a favorable view of socialism. and even something like seventy percent of republicans so you know i think most americans they look at those statements and they say you know that's that's just ridiculous and whether we support a program or a policy or not. i think that americans can figure out whether something is good or bad just very very quickly we're completely out of time but just one very quick question i'd ask how many members do you have. well we have a boat to three thousand members were

a small party but you know thank you we were struggling got it leave it oh piano thank you so much for being with us thank you tom. while congressman west was wrong and there are no communists in congress republicans still might argue there are communist pouring out of california public universities it's based on this claim that rick santorum recently made this statement about california's public schools public interest just read something last night from the state of california and at the california universities there there it's several i think it's seven or eight of the of the california system of universities don't even teach an american history course it's not even available to be taught just to tell you how bad it scott in this country where we're trying to disconnect the american people from the roots of who we are so they have an understanding of what america should be. that was

a lie every single one of california's public universities teach american history with one exception san francisco campus which happens to be a medical school and even that campus offers a history of american medicine so where did rick santorum get his information from the wall street journal which published an article in the activists professors and university administrators in california are wrote in curriculums and pushing a partisan agenda in the classroom so is that really what's going on here or is there a right wing agenda at work here for more on this i'm joined by the author of that article and hoover institute senior fellow professor peter berkowitz professor berkowitz welcome good to be here to have you with us this first of all the study wasn't done by the hoover institution it was done by the california branch of the national association of scholars this is the study the national association of scholars is a group that is funded by the skate foundation among others are largely and they claim to be a membership organization but they have one member. i read this yes and

i can't find anywhere in here and i brought it out to ask you can you show me anywhere in here word actually qualifies how i mean there's all these anecdotes and all the and a lot of commentary and rhetoric i found no actual quantitative analysis of here's proof that the school outcomes are getting worse here's here's a connection between that and professors being liberal can you show me well please as you can imagine i haven't got a command of every page but i'm pretty sure if you turn to page to sixty through sixty five of this you'll find many studies that demonstrate that the quality of education is declined i think if you turn to iran page twenty one or twenty two you'll find pages with graphs which show the number of run twenty twenty one you will see that. in the professional schools that the universe has one. that's not

exactly but perhaps there you go you are asking for data is there some data to show your viewers yeah well what i've seen is that is the number of the margins between left and right faculty yeah he's as politics become you know irrelevant a department that would be a more leftist teaching social scientist and yet he just kept a to you were asking for it right moreover if i go there to know how does how does this tie into oh yes i'd be happy to tell you for so there is no reason why a democrat a man a woman up the left or a conservative man or woman of the right couldn't in the classroom set aside his or her political concerns or biases but accompanying this leftward tilt in the representation is a commitment to a new doctrine as the you quoted in the study as the u.c.l.a. institute of higher education research said more than half of professors in higher education today now believe it's more important to advocate that their student to

teach their students to advocate social change than it is to teach isn't classics and will not be civilization. and that i find it very interesting because a to you right away and i am i'm not disagreeing with you because the history of western western civilization is the history of social change i mean you know there is socrates in the revolution of the four hundred the revolution of the forty five fine and dandy the so you get a history of the of the roman revolution the history of the greek democracy the history of yeah the revolution because of the history of the abolition and he suffered these are all revolution yes these are all social change why wouldn't a professor say yes that yes it's important to teach social change that is the core of western civ because just because surely surely you recognize that what the professors are really saying is we need to change we need to cultivate in students the convictions about change in our society in a particular way today if the professors were teaching. socrates views on this

matter thomas aquinas his views robes appears to use the french revolution is used for and against i would enthusiastically support that you're absolutely right social change is an important part of western civilization it should be taught it's not being taught it well wait a minute just a minute ago you said it that's always been tory that's almost a no i said what's being taught is that advocacy for a particular policy is today i deny that's what so regularly is socrates views thomas aquinas his views this is piers this argument has been made through my entire life i mean you know for a long long time that college is full leftists and there are a lot of studies that show that the more educated you are the more left you are right could it be that facts are left. there what are left are facts facts are left this yes it could be it's highly unlikely in the end i tell you this moral person that those those countries like in europe there are leftists by definitions quality of life is better things work better. well you know the quality of life in

the united states and throughout the western world improved very dramatically beginning in the one nine hundred eighty s. and one nine hundred ninety s. with the presidency of ronald reagan and the prime minister and the prime ministership of margaret thatcher. had to do this on an all vital part of what it was just a matter we're going to have to leave it at that i'm all right i'm very sorry good to talk with you and nice to meet you for talking to your professor peter bergen's thing pre-publication is a central pillar on which this nation was built many clues public university education let's try to preserve it. five.

zero. zero zero. zero

. so sometimes you know it you know and sometimes you know it's you don't know and sometimes as the firesign theater says everything you know is wrong and i'm going to call you here your right. to make. sure. you go to school. and as states about one in every eighty eight children has either autism or part of an autism spectrum disorder and while autism is quickly becoming an epidemic in this country its causes largely remain a mystery however new research suggests an alarming link between two other very common health problems in this country and their possible role in causing autism if

you think that autism is still it is sort of the doctors and scientists know very little about that everything you know is wrong joining me now is dr herb hertz pitch pitch. an environmental epidemiologist with a special thank you thank you very much for the specialty in autism and a professor and chief of the division of environmental and i patiently health within the department of public health sciences at the university of california davis dr walker tell us thank you for having thank you tell us about your study what did you set out to investigate we have been casting a very wide net in terms of chime to identify factors there associated with the risk. there not that specific we do genetic factors although we are also looking at but the non-genetic ones the ones that need to be amenable to change and in this

particular study we began looking at material nubile conditions in particular a set of conditions called metabolic conditions including obesity diabetes and hypertension. what we found was that the women who had children are tism or not since they can disorder were more likely to have been a nice during pregnancy or at the start of pregnancy i should say or to have had diabetes or hypertension now we don't know whether this is a cause unknown or coincidental because something else happens to be associated both with the net of our conditions and with autism but we think it's intriguing and we really are further investigation. i saw a study last week that suggested there might be an association between consumption of high fructose corn syrup maternal consumption. pre and through before and during

pregnancy and onset of autism in the child. are you familiar with that and be aware there are also people who are suggesting that there's a link between high fructose corn syrup and an obesity could that is there a link there or not and i guess see a half or just conjure syrup is which analyzed over the sugars is that you know that everything in the. i don't know yes to any of those questions that i have not studied very closely. i think it is true that the sugars that we been eating for were you know maybe a few hundred years compared to high fructose corn syrup are. they made you go through a different process in terms of having catalyzed and you know that that may be one of those kinds of things that maybe abstaining from obesity and upstream from

autism in you know maybe it's not the only city at all. but. as i said i don't i'm not familiar with that we're convinced point in time. we do know that hypertension diabetes obesity has certain consequences that could be very harmful for the developing brain and those include. this increase dysregulation of blood sugars so that you end up with steaks and valleys and the tissues end up sometimes in depriving the oxygen essentially. and we also see chronic inflammation occurring with all of those conditions so these are the kinds of enjoyment see the tissues in specially in the brain which can be very sensitive to small parts or patients when it's there and particularly during the period when so many real events have to happen in order to form the brain the brain to

become a really efficient organ dr patrol thank you so much for being with us tonight we're out of about everything you know about the triggers and potential causes of autism or at least some of them possibly is right. just. the. it's the good the bad of the very very dextrose simonis trail is slowly ugly the good of british columbia supreme court justice robert johnston johnston ace of justice with the british columbia supreme court struck down a portion of canada's medical marijuana laws he concluded that a restriction for the use of dried marijuana let me only do that in canada's medical marijuana access regulations was unconstitutional the restriction through

is upheld medical marijuana users in canada will be able to possess marijuana in any form brownies i think it's time the american government followed on in just this johnson's footsteps and starting to embrace marijuana as what it is medicine and a decent recreational drug the bad representative virginia foxx in a radio interview yesterday fox the house chairwoman of the subcommittee on higher education attacked people who are drowning in student loan debt after college. very little tolerance for people who kill me if they graduate with it he wouldn't panic and knowledge that he had or even a. no reason for being that here's a news flash for you congresswoman college tuition has increased five hundred percent in the last twenty five years while pell grants now cover the lowest amount of college costs in their history thanks to republican austerity demands let's hope young voters in your district have just as little tolerance for you and the very very ugly miami dade fire department captain brian back when back when

a captain with the miami dade fire department is under investigation proposed in a racist rant about trayvon martin on his facebook page he wrote i and my coworkers could rewrite the book on whether our urban use or victims of race is profiling or products of their failed the blank ignorant pathetic welfare defendant excuses for parents and quote actually both in trayvon martin's parents are hard working americans a full time jobs and they're not dependent on welfare i guess back then didn't care to look into that when he knowingly added more fuel to the fire and such hateful words and that is very very.

we're just now finding out that at the end of last year anonymous donor gave karl rove's crossroads super pac a ten million dollar donation to run ads against president obama and thanks to the supreme court's citizens united decision the wild west nature of political spending now that that ten million dollars donor will likely remain completely anonymous we probably won't know who it is ever during the two thousand and ten midterm elections there was another anonymous donor who also gave ten million dollars to rove so it might have been the same person for all we know one person additional twenty million bucks to karl rove to help elect mitt romney and other republicans that donor could be a person like charles koch it could be a corporation like goldman sachs it could be a special interest group like multimillionaire lobbyist grover norquist your posts americans for tax reform we just don't know but i'm hearing a lot of things around town today as to what karl rove's donor might be let's just say some people are saying things course in real journalism you actually quote

sources or you make statements of fact that's what real news does but there's this really neat technique to insert an opinion into news that most people don't realize is something no real news organization would ever do it's called the some people say technique here's an example. some people say that this late undermine what the u.s. troops are doing there some people say some people say john kerry has some similarities to an earlier massachusetts politician some people say in light of what's happened with the oil for food program some people say supported by iran some say i've heard a couple people say it some say that it's a sour grapes book some people say some people say some people say it's just too violent there's too much blood some people say some people say well some people say some people say some say it some people say some. people say there's some people who say something but major league already have those words now called news is that really a news organization so they can get away with this and this show isn't

a news show it's my opinion so let me tell you what some people are saying here in washington d.c. some people are saying that karl rove's ten million dollar anonymous donation came from iran's mahmoud ahmadinejad a strong ways shia muslim who's president of one of the few shia run states in the middle east some people are saying that ahmadinejad's a huge admirer of karl rove and a big supporter of the republican party after all george w. bush decided to sunni iraq not shia iran giving shia ahmadinejad heck of a lot more influence in the middle east and taking out sunni saddam hussein iran's biggest enemy against whom they fought a multi year war it cost them both billions of dollars and killed over a million people so some people are saying on the potentially in dollars if the road is payback from shia iran for all the great things rove and bush did for them against the sunni muslims in addition some people are saying that the ten million dollar donation of karl rove as strings attached and if romney wins of the

republicans take the senate then all those sanctions president obama put on shia iran would immediately be lifted and we might even go after another sunni run country that iran doesn't like just like bush took out soon iran iraq and flipped it over to rule and some people are saying that all the aggressive bomb iran talk coming from mitt romney. it was just a show and the behind closed doors mitt and mahmoud are best friends not only that i heard some people in washington d.c. say awkward new job is holding fundraisers for mitt romney and karl rove in iran and plans to send dozens of fact checks stateside to front groups like american corporations and american in coming weeks he's hoping he can get into those sweet weapons deal from republicans like reagan gave iran during the iran contra affair some people say that awkward in a johns fund raising could be enough rope to buy romney our election so here we have ten or even twenty million dollars anonymously handed over to karl rove to defeat president obama and the democrats this november and beyond what some people

are saying most likely will never know who gave that money or what strings are attached to it we want to know if it's a hedge fund billionaire who's demanding the republicans keep the romney rule capital gains tax loophole lied open we want to know if it's an oil baron who wants republicans to keep the taxpayer oiled subsidies to his industry flowing we want to know if it's a war profiteer who wants republicans to keep the never ending war on terror going and keep up the high demand for cruise missiles and we won't know if as some people are saying the donations are from rogue dictators who are making secret deals with the republican party like you did back in one nine hundred eighty we just won't ever know and that's a critical flaw in our democracy created by five unelected hard right wing kings in black robes appointed by republicans to the supreme court it's time to put an end to this chaos in our elections and not lead foreign or corporate millionaires and billionaires speak louder in our democracy than actual american citizens would vote it's time to overturn citizens united and corporate personhood and say explicitly

that corporations are not people and the money is property not speech could move to amend to get involved that's it for the big picture tonight don't forget to knock or see begins when you get out there and get active your.

if. it is easy to. see. the sun.