well i'm john berman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. alex corporate members are dropping like flies as for the president backlash against that group with their level of influence suddenly dwindling we see in the end of this democracy the story also tomorrow members of congress activists and leaders within the movement to overturn citizens united will meet for a summit on capitol hill already discussed that some of what do the attendees hope to accomplish or some said doyce from florida's nineteenth district will be at the summit and he's going to be here tonight to tell us more about it and inside the daily take republicans lie their way into office because they can get away with it

and they'll continue to get away with it if no one calls them out so how do we stop these lies from influencing american public opinion. you need to know this today health insurance company blue cross blue shield became the latest member of the american legislative exchange council to sever ties with the koch brothers funded corporate think tank in just one month alone this month alec has lost eleven members after several progressive groups organized a campaign against its corporate sponsors the exodus of alec members comes on the heels of a new report by progress missouri documenting thirty pieces of legislation introduced in the missouri general assembly over the last decade that were written by alec and as many as forty state lawmakers with financial ties to alec and the backlash

against alec has now made it to the pages of the new york times the times editorial board took on alec in an article titled embarrassed by bad law. laws alec has been operating since the early one nine hundred seventy s. but it's only just now receiving the sort of attention that it deserves and all this exposure and pressure coming from progressives is starting to pay off in news breaking this afternoon alec decided to dismantle its task forces that write legislation for so-called non economic issues that means no more writing legislation to disenfranchise democratic voters the radical voter id laws and no more giving the no more legislation giving gun owners like george zimmerman a right to shoot first responding to the news common cause president bob edgar said the american public has wised up to alex misguided and secretive attempts to co-op state legislators for corporate profit in holding its public safety elections task forces alec is abandoning underpressure of the most controversial part of its

agenda as an important victory for the american public but is it really even though alec is promising to ditch non economic policies it's actually devoting more resources to economic policies by breaking of unions destroying environmental regulations and pushing for more tax cuts for the romney super rich so it was always me joining me now is leaf investigative reporter united republics republic report lee welcome back. are you just great are you surprised by alex the solution to dismantle economic has forces. well i'm a little bit skeptical with the news because alec is a lobby they're also kind of a p.r. front they know how to play the media very well i'd like to see the substance is does this decision actually change the internal policy making it out. will this affect the legislation that's pending in. state legislatures across the country and

what about the current laws that or are you on the books will lawmakers affiliated with al it stand back and not associate themselves or promote this these types of laws it's not clear oh well apropos of that isn't the damage already done in twenty five states now have stand your ground issue first laws millions of democratic voters have already been. functionally kicked off the voter rolls by these voter id laws and if they're not going to have committees that come up with these laws are you know presumably they're still going to be pushing them a. well that's exactly the point and you know al it's not a transparent organization i was kicked out violently last august from that conference so who knows what's really going on behind closed doors so you know it's a positive step that alec is facing all this pressure and that corporations are

feeling the heat and so much so that they're backing away from their support of alec but you know what happened i'd like to know how does this all affect us how does this affect the people in florida in south carolina and all these other states with new voter id laws if corporations really want to do the right thing they should find efforts to repeal these laws because i mean at the end of the day this is about public policy this is about the laws we all have to live under is there i'm assuming that there isn't any mechanism any institution any organization that can work i mean you know allied force and put these laws on the books to get them into the hands of legislators is anybody writing laws that would repeal the bad laws is there any nine hundred i've heard of efforts in some state houses to try to repeal some of these really damaging laws i mean in florida alone i mean they've enact a law that makes it basically criminal to register other people to vote runs or

damaging laws and i've heard of efforts to repeal them but i don't see a large organization coming in organizing the co-sponsors you know getting this this effort giving it momentum and making sure it actually gets repealed so i don't think it actually exists you were one of the first people to really come out and talk about alec i'm assuming i mean you were doing on this show a long time ago and i'm assuming you were in many other venues as well alec there there genesis goes back to the one nine hundred seventy s. correct me if i'm wrong how did they manage to fly under the radar of the nation that that war. well it's not just al it there are still many other now large corporate interests that never receive much publicity you know the u.s. chamber of commerce that existed for a hundred years but around the same time as when al it was founded in the mid seventy's groups like the chamber grew and became much more partisan became much

more influential and started working with more and big businesses i mean you've covered this really well on this show and i think a lot of folks who are troubled by corporatism it's dominating american democracy they have to not just look at these individual corporate lobbyist or these individual policies they have to look at its root causes. and conservative and pro big business infrastructure organizations if you will that develop legislation that exists to constantly lobby to constantly air ads to constantly fund the elections it's a big problem and the way they do it is becoming but night people walk by that chamber of congress every day and they kind of shrug their shoulders for them because they think they've always been there they weren't there in the time the founders i mean this is something that's been growing and becoming a bigger problem since the mid seventy's since the palmetto basically i mean that was that was the point it was louis palls memo that radicalize the chamber of

commerce and it's but in any case a the the. the story of alec being funded by the koch brothers is well known and it seems that between the koch brothers and the late joseph coors and richard mellon scaife and the sarah safe skate foundation there's a few hard right wing folks out there who are quite well known and have been funding these things for thirty forty years you know the heritage foundation and the cato institute and the alley and things like that is there and that's that's incredible depth you know a lot of deep. very deep pockets that have brought a lot of money out and change the face of america in the last thirty forty years is there much breadth to it is there much with i mean if these if this small number of very very large funders were to stop funding these organizations with the right wing machine guy up and blow away or is there just

a never ending supply of of rupert murdoch's out there. well i hate to come on to your show and be so cynical but i think traditionally a lot of the the financier's work limited to some of these you know the korean escapes and a koch brothers but now it's so much bigger corporate america the big publicly traded companies and the big private once they see this as a great investment you know the return on investment is massive they spend you know maybe a couple million every year i mean individual corporations funding groups like al and they receive you know tax loopholes and special subsidies and laws written only to benefit them in terms of billions of dollars so it's not ending any time soon you know i will recently viewed a video from inside alec conference from just two years ago and it was. an executive from glasgow smith and kind of a big pharmaceutical company and he said you know this is the organization that i

meet and i brought all my lobbyist and all the big executives from my organization to this conference because this is what we need to be funding this is what corporate america needs to be finding and you know i said the perspective of this one executive he was talking about how he sits on many corporate boards and he'll be and he was going back to those other boards and encouraging his colleagues to go to alec and find out and encourage out and this is a big problem and it's encouraging again it ten companies have dropped off of alex membership but there are dozens and dozens more possibly even a hundred more and we don't know what will happen in the future. republic report you get your newsletter every day and people can sign up for it over your website i'm i'm assuming yes. i seen just a mind boggling number of stories lately one of the one of the in the last minute and a half to minutes here that we have what in your mind of the top things that our viewers

need to know about right now. well if you know a lot of americans are just finishing their tax returns. we had a great story by my colleague matt stoller over the weekend about how the company that owns quicken and turbo tax they've lobbied has spent millions of dollars in the past couple of years to make it much more annoying to file your tax returns lobbied the california government and the federal government against free e-file in software that would automatically create program a return and send it to you with all the information filled out you would just check it over and spend no money to send it back and. this was this is something the government has been capable of doing for a long time this is how it's done in australia is not exactly it's that i'm completely prefer you just put it basically your social security number or their equivalent and you get everything you just check it you send it back well the company that owns quicken in term of taxes a company called into it they spend

a ton of money lobbying to just make your tax it's much more difficult to file so it's a fantastic story in a courage folks check it out amazing and of course you know they make money off you in their software incredible. with their public report lee thanks so much for the great work you do. alec has been working in the shadows to undermine democracy for thirty years but now in the face of grassroots activism alec has been exposed for what it really is a corporate political machine that's keeping pressure. coming up after the break members of congress activists and leaders within the movement to overturn citizens united will meet for a summit tomorrow on capitol hill that will be discussed and could this be the beginning of the end for the citizens united decision.

there hasn't been anything yet on t.v. . it is to get the maximum political impact. before source material is what helps keep journalism honest we. we wanted to visit. some feel.

wealthy british style. sometimes the type of. market why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with much stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on our cheap.

it has the rest of the news so what did we learn from monday night's defeat of the buffett rule in the senate well first and foremost we learned the republicans in the senate did exactly what their billionaire campaign toner donors told them to do prevent a tax increase on the romney rich we also learned that a majority of senators can't pass legislation anymore fifty one out of one hundred senators voted for the buffett rule a clear majority but the bill failed because a republican filibuster and we also learned that the american people have lost their voice on capitol hill a recent c.n.n. poll found that seventy two percent of americans including a majority of republicans support that very same buffett rule that the republicans blocked in the senate monday night unfortunately those seventy two percent of

americans don't have multi-millionaire lobbyists like multimillionaire grover norquist working for them and therefore they can't buy off lawmakers to listen to them and now thanks to the supreme court's citizens united decision a millionaire could walk up to a member of congress and threaten to fund the campaign for their opponent in the next election a few years she doesn't vote the way that millionaire wants that power don't expect the rip on power to lose at least not until we pass a constitutional amendment to overturn citizens united and explicitly say that corporations are not people and that money is property not speech luckily there are some in congress working to do just that tomorrow members of both the senate and the house along with several activists and leaders within the movement to overturn citizens united will meet for a summit on capitol hill to discuss getting corporate money out of our politics are the members of congress set to attend that summit is representative ted broich from florida's one thousand fistric representative voyage joins me now welcome has with

this great. we with you thanks so much tell us about the summit the summit is a a milestone in the battles over translucence united we're going to have members of the house and senate who have sponsored proposed constitutional amendments to overturn citizens and i come together with activists from around the country and stand up and start the process of really building a movement we're going to ask people to sign a declaration for democracy we've already seen a huge groundswell of support for this so that elected officials all over the country will be asked to go on record whether they support efforts to overturn citizens united and return our democracy back to the people it's going to start tomorrow it's a really really exciting day that is great what what will the declaration say the declaration says that that anyone who cites the declaration is committing to support a constitutional amendment overturning citizens united so that money is not speech

and returning our democracy again back to the people taking an ad to the hands of the special interests and giving it back to the public or polls right so salute you on that what do you think of the failure of the buffett rule in the senate when seventy two percent of americans are on it even even republicans think this is i mean. we've had close to ronald reagan saying you know is it is it a good idea that a billionaire pays a lower tax rate than a bus driver i think that's crazy i mean this is seems like common sense it is common sense the majority of the senate as you pointed out majority of the senate support of the buffett rule an overwhelming majority of the american people support the buffett rule it's just a basic question of fairness and whether someone who earns in excess of a million dollars a year ought to be paying the same tax rate as as a middle class american there is this is evidence of why it's so important for us

to chain. the nature of this in this political system we have so that we have elected officials who do the people's work that's that's why this is also important elected people to do it rather than rather than the work of the right right. as a member of congress what's the environment like when you know some somebody who's got a lot of cash in their profit can basically come to you and say ok i'm going to fund your opponent i mean it seems to me like you know if you're for it and think. well we saw in the last election in two thousand and ten we saw a massive increase in the amount of spending by outside groups now we're at the point where heading into this election everyone knows that at the last minute a week before the election two weeks before the election and that one of these outside groups and i mean a super pac can come in and they can decide to spend a million dollars or more to really dictate the outcome of the election. i think

what we've already seen in this election cycle is a growing frustration among the american people of the way these super pacs are trying to take over but i think we're just now seeing the tip of the iceberg just as to what's coming and it's going to be awful for democracy and that's why we're we're trying so hard to fight it so it seems like the upside might be a combination of a certain kind of fatalism ok it's going to come i'm going to do my best and do the right thing anyway and be maybe people will see through what happens and say enough of this already you know we can hope for the best you know occupy wall street has really changed the dialogue in the united states and there are some within that movement who are concerned that people like yourself politicians who are insiders are suddenly talking about social justice and you know. rational reasonable things what would you say to them. well the the occupy wall street movement so many issues

that ought to be on the agenda on the agenda in washington income inequality ought to be on the agenda crushing student loan debt ought to be on the agenda and what we realized is that just as as activists were occupying wall street in cities all across the country we realized that for decades now corporate special interests of occupy washington d.c. and if we want to be able to have the debate that we need to have so that congress can act in the best interest of the american people then we need to get that corporate money out of politics there are i don't i don't know too many of my colleagues who like the campaign finance system the way that it is and the direction that it's going we were in a position to be able to do something about it and that's why the number of us have stepped up to try to do good i just said joy it's great the work that you're doing thanks so much for being with you i really appreciate it and we can contact your

member of congress and tell him to join join the movement to kick corporations and the romney super rich out of our elections to move to amend or thank you moving on from the middle class getting screwed by romney millionaires not paying their fair share in taxes to the middle class getting screwed by high gas prices today president obama unveiled a fifty two million dollars plan to curb oil speculation on wall street. they were announcing new steps to strengthen oversight of energy markets things that we can do administratively we are doing and i call on congress to pass a package of measures to crack down on illegal activity and hold the con of all those who manipulate the market for private gain at the expense of millions of working families. so while mccain became president we now drill for more oil domestically than it any other time in this nation's history yet the prices continue to go up because of oil speculation by the banks there's the president's

plan very straightforward it involves empowering federal regulators to keep a closer eye on the commodity markets and it increases the penalties on banks toure's who artificially jack up the price of oil i think republicans will support it. i don't think so given that they've already blocked efforts to cut off oil subsidies for oil barons and have defunded and blocked regulations to rein in banks there's there's nothing courageous about standing up for the rich and powerful at a time when the middle class is as president democratic president grover cleveland said in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight is being trampled beneath the iron heel of corporate power but there's a bigger picture here big goes beyond how wall street is screwing with the prices of gasoline it has to do with how we as a nation should handle our own natural resources argentina has a lot of oil it's not owned by argentina though back during the reagan era argentina's ronald reagan was

a guy by the name of carlos menem he the president he privatized the nation's oil industry along with a whole bunch of other things including its post office i mean he really was like you know a modern day republican argentina's oil industry ended up being owned by a spanish company called repsol. now we have a new president argentina cristina fernandez de kirchner and as she pointed out recently we are there's argentina we're the only country in the americas and nearly the world that doesn't control its own natural resources this is the recuperation of the sovereignty of argentina's natural resources so the argentines are trying to get their oil back now the spanish who own the or argentinean oil company they've gone crazy they're calling it. as if it was almost an act of war the new york banks by the name of boris a girl he called it running close to chavez's model oh ok but the fact is

that in my opinion every country should own its own oil i mean are you going to say is he saying that like saudi arabia is like chavo say they own their own oil or sarah palin's alaska which takes money from their oil and distributes it to their citizens every year argentina's president personally is say. she should nationalize or nations or instead of having a buy her own oil back from a european from a company based in a european country and frankly we should be doing the same here nationalize our oil so we don't have to buy it back from british b.p. or dutch royal shop every nation should own and develop their own natural resources they're part of the common wealth and the revenue from them should fund social programs like in norway where they pay for health care with their oil money things that help a lot of people there. i suppose tragically in a bizarre kind of fashion the good news is that the president of argentina is not

nationalizing her nation's oil away from american companies because back when american companies owned the oil in iran iraq and venezuela and they nationalized their oil the cia helped overthrow three democratically elected governors and governments although in venezuela the coup was very short lived it's time for the us government to stop doing the bidding of trans national oil companies including having you and me pay the full cost of military protection protection for the shipping lanes and fighting wars in foreign countries to help them get more oil we should consider nationalizing our own oil supplies for the benefit of the people instead of people like exxon mobil's lee raymond who got a four hundred million dollar retirement bonus of the largest in history a nation's resources should be for the nation not for the billionaires not for the big corporations like exxon mobil or the koch brothers oil.

crazy alert poltergeists appalled a nation paul bin birmingham england is being frequented by a creepy customer a groping ghost customers and staff at the one hundred seventy year old queen's arms pub report that a ghost residing in the pub frequently pinches their ball. and staff have nicknamed the ghost grasper after casper the friendly ghost except grasper is a bit too friendly actually be seen here a waitress at the pub is one of grasper is victims still local newspaper quote my instant reaction was that it might have been a sleazy bloke trying his luck but when i spun around ready to give him a piece of my mind there was no one there the staff of the pub of called in a team of ghostbusters to investigate grasper and his paranormal pinching so watch out ladies drunken men may not be the only thing a lot to deal with next time you go to a bar. after the break the only national organization focused on the needs of

restaurant workers held a rally here in washington d.c. drawing attention to the struggles these workers face dr jill stein green party candidate for president was at that rally and she's going to join us and tell us more about. player. you know how sometimes you see

a story and it seems so for life you think you understand it and then you limp something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. download the official anti obligation job on the phone oh i pod touch from the top still. life on the go. big.