well i'm starvin to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture president obama made a historic announcement today becoming the first president in our nation's history to support same sex marriage following the president's announcement will marriage equality gain more traction with the rest of the country and how much of an issue will it be in november also will republicans give president obama credit for falling oil prices and what's going on with the swiss family bachmann all that and more in tonight's along liberal rumble and turns out there are layers of complexity in confusion and the other were bombing plot that was busted open this week but the

real story behind the plot is a mean t.s.a. screeners are going to start asking us to take off all our clothes. you know this the evolution is complete today president obama made a historic announcement coming out is the first president in our nation's history to support marriage equality. but a certain point of just concluded that. for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that i think same sex couples should be able to get married. now it's looking like vice president joe biden's indorsement of marriage equality over the weekend was less a gaffe and more of a rolling out of the president's announcement for today president obama's leadership on this issue is needed now more than ever after north carolina on tuesday passed a radical constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage in all this is clearly

the moral thing to do and it moves the united states a step closer to joining the twenty first century alongside nations like argentina belgium brazil canada iceland israel mexico the nor though the netherlands norway portugal's south africa spayed and sweden they recognize same sex marriage this announcement doesn't come without political peril today mitt romney spoke out against gays and lesbians marrying each other. does not favor. marriage between people of the same gender and i don't favor civil unions if if if they're identical to the marriage of the by name my view is that domestic partnership benefits hospital visitation rights and the like are appropriate but that the others are not so now this will be a major topic of debate heading into the general election and republicans will use it to inject what they call more rally into that election to distract voters from the romney ryan plan to give three trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top one percent and rip away the social safety net from the rest of us. at the same time

with the majority of americans now supporting marriage equality and the president finally taking a stand on this issue he'll be able to use the bully pulpit to get even more americans on board with equality so just how important is today and what does it mean moving forward during an election year chris gardner joins me now he's the senior political editor at metro weekly do you see d.c. z l b g t l g b teaches the weekly paper chris welcome thanks to our viewers i just did three hours of national talk radio on this topic and i here are some of the takeaways that i got and so i'd like you to reality test them with me number one because so many people have come out in the lurch craig generation of people who just stayed clauses and had sham marriages and things fading away and dying off most people realize that they have gay friends they have gay neighbors they have gay relatives and and that they're not we are dangerous and thus the this movement is just as inevitable now at this point in time as the civil rights

of the fifty's and sixty's were after truman integrated the military and suddenly what people were supposed to be like it was not a problem so make sense yeah i mean a think that one of the clearer changes over the past two decades has been since the defense of marriage act was was only passed into law in one thousand nine hundred six by a democratic president is that there has been a generation of people coming of age knowing somebody who's gay and that change knowing people knowing somebody who is going through that whether it's at work whether it's at home whether it's in your place of worship. it really puts you in a position where you have to take the theoretical of what is the quality and look at this person that i know and we saw that with vice president cheney with his daughter and having. there are those who say that obama's going to lose

support among african-american voters i had a lot of african-american voters call in to my radio show today and many of them were saying a the african-american community has much bigger problems than worrying about gay marriage i mean the average net wealth of african-american families right now in the u.s. is a little under six thousand dollars white families over eighty seven thousand dollars a serious problem and b. that to the extent that that community may be homophobic that now now you've got an african-american president speaking out on this issue he's going to lead the community toward more acceptance of gays within their own community where you think well i think that in tomorrow's issue of metro weekly i have a cover story looking out where the l g b t movement is and i talk to an attorney in cleveland ohio leslie hough who had attended several of the marches over time has has been involved in passing anti-discrimination laws in in cleveland in

east cleveland just recently and she said that her experience is that i mean looking at the congressional black caucus which is one of the most supportive. of the caucuses in congress of. quality looking at early supporters of marriage equality people like julian bond people like jesse jackson and that there is a lot more to what's actually going on within the black community than a lot of the sort of surface level discussions that have been had on this people are acknowledging there's also there was there were a number of libertarians who called in and said you know i hadn't been with the president before but now the libertarian you know the libertarians are kind of schizophrenia there's the you know i refer to them as republicans who want to smoke dope and get laid there's the you know what's have let's be free about social

issues which. you know there is a point of agreement with progressives and then you know economically the try to go with the top one percent. number libertarians call up and said you know the president is standing up use this is a courageous stand this is consistent with our values i'm going to vote for you think he's going to peel away some of the republican libertarian voters well i definitely think that this announcement makes gary john governor gary johnson libertarian campaign for president much more difficult this was the primary issue on which he believed he could draw over some of the democratic support for his campaign in a discussion that i had with him recently when he was in d.c. that was the one issue that he could really point to on being able to draw out people on the left and not just from the right since in the past he has been a republican he was a republican governor so if the if the president comes

a very particular minimisation that's all over. the republican party over it and also the this is going to help him with fundraising not just in the gay community but in the community people who have gay friends neighbors relatives just in general across america with i think it's been clear really since the back in the beginning of the obama administration remember back in the first summer when the d.o.j. filed this brief in a doma challenge that they used some really really antiquated language about the fact that doma isn't even discriminatory because anybody is allowed to marry and that that change over time just in the past three years both in terms of public perception and in terms of obama's position on it has really changed the way that those people are going to look at the president and that's a fine thing chris thank you so much for being with us tonight appreciate it and

thanks for your great journalism. let's hope that if or i should say when republicans try to use the president's announcement today against him during the election that the american people will recognize just how out of touch the republican party is today with american values and why this station has come too far to rally behind relics like mitt romney and the republican party more on this topic coming up in our rumble in just a few minutes. it's wednesday are you ready to rumble joining me for tonight's long liberal rabble are marc harrold libertarian commentator attorney and author and laughlin mark a investigative reporter with the heritage foundation and guys thanks for joining me tonight surely because you have both it's a it's a as the british would say and it's four day in and are you proud that your president has an equal rights for all americans regardless of sexual orientation the practical implications of the president's position haven't changed very much

because he made sure to make clear it is speech today that he still believes that it should be up to states to to define their position on whether gay couples can be married only problem is that the supreme court has disagreed with that well i would like to see him first and foremost instead of articulating his position follow the law established federal law do exactly and if he feels that it's a bad law but he's perfectly free to pursue its repeal but i think the president first and foremost needs to uphold rule of law by by actually recognizing the laws that are currently on the books your thoughts well first of all i don't think the government should be involved marrying anybody i think government should stay completely out of it there should only be civil unions and those civil union should provide equal protection under the law all marriages are absolutely but the marriage part of it when you get wrapped up in the marriage that's the sound of little goes no no is an absolutely legal part of there is over ten thousand laws in the us is that use the word marriage those are all civil law absolutely and they need to stay out of that it needs to change where you see the civil union people

can self define what marriage means to them in their. religion the sacrament the ceremony what needs to come forward is a civil union that is not gender specific it provides equal protection let the government get involved with that if it's hospital that we have is that all marriage absolutely but you don't call it marriage that's where the confusion comes from the need to get out of the idea that here in the in the marriage you go through thousands and thousands of cities counties state has to do all that and i mean i'm going to every play the games that we're knocking about literal it's a conceptual thing what i'm saying is the idea of marriage people can self defined if people in certain church don't want to think somebody else is married or to do that right now i understand the catholic for years there is no you're divorced you're not you know civil is government make it a civil union make it protected whether you have to change the wording in laws i don't know i still agree it's still state laws can do what they want but the bottom line here is they really just need to focus samanta now it's not you know your eye on the ball and i think they're going to point out if i'm understanding the president's position correctly and it's not entirely clear he would actually have been on the pro prop eight side in california because his view is that civil unions

are a protected right but the word marriage need not be in law and that was the issue when prop eight well his his view is clearly change what my point is just that for the my point is that the supreme court when they you know when they ruled nation laws and things like that i mean you know they said basically the right to marry is an inalienable right and this is a federally protected constitutional right so if we're going to if the press i don't see how the president can have it both ways i think if you're if you're going to acknowledge that there's an absolute right to marry that includes gay people as well as biracial couples then. it's a federal right didn't he should have some should go ahead in have his justice department take the defense of marriage act to the supreme court and you need if it's only there now are they not are there were you know to get a horse it is that is that is that where i got i could be mistaken i will be obviously there are going to have to be a case or controversy i would be a case that goes up there with the standing they can ask for declaratory opinion just doma up or down but yeah i mean that's one way to go about it it's a semantical distinction i don't think it is as far as where the ask is the

president right or wrong i think the president's right i think that same sex couples should have the right if we call it marriage or civil union how we couch it you know that's not we're not terri that's and that's the part that i think is really horrible coming up after the break. a lot of american power continues. things in our country so. might actually be time for a revolution. and it turns out that a program or drug or starbucks has a surprising. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then something else hears you some other part of it and realize that everything is. welcome is

a big issue. here is what i. love and they alone are so they'll get a real headline with none of them are the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and what actually matters to those viewers and so that's why young people just don't watch t.v. anymore if they want news they go online and read it but we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back in t.v. .

i'm learning mr. blowback there's a nice long liberal rumble joining me are marc harrold libertarian commentator attorney and author and laughlin mark a investigative reporter with the heritage foundation let's get back to it let's talk about wisconsin the field is set for wisconsin now it's going to be the mare. what's his name barry bearak thank you very much yet again versus scott walker and barrett has labor and millions of wisconsinites and walker as twenty five million bucks that he got from oil magnates in texas and wall street bankers in new york city so who's going to win organize money or organize people. well i think the

results on tuesday made it clear that walker certainly has people behind him his turnout was actually about the same as all of the democratic challengers combined so pretty clear that there's going to be just for him just for walker was was the same turnout almost as all of the democratic challengers combined and was greater than falcon barrett the two front runner so certainly does have people behind him was a greater than the two combined it was greater than falcon barrett combined almost as much as as all of the democratic shows are so so you want to see twenty and while he's already spent what he's already spent more money in wisconsin than all of the presidential contenders combined so apparently money can't buy you well we will see what happens but i think when you're talking about money and politics i mean labor unions are the money in politics out of the top and i want more out of the top twenty contributors since one thousand nine hundred nine. what is it twelve

of the top ones that are going to be you know since not since citizens united and no way i mean dick lugar got taken out by the banks yesterday. no no no i mean this is not something to laugh at you know the money that funded the so-called tea party guy it was all for the wall street banks because dick lugar voted against that credit card fee cap and it cost wall street sixteen billion dollars they were seriously pissed off and they took that man out and they're bragging about it so any yeah i've said it before i think money is speech i think this is a situation where money is speech do we always like when people are pretty mad we like when people find pockets to actually like a lot of not just because it's speech doesn't mean i always agree with the speech it doesn't mean it's always a good thing but it is speech and therefore the what's right what's going to property people are going to prevail the more people involved are to be able to see through it if it's some smokescreen of big corporate interests you've got to give people more credit just because there's a lot of money involved just as a message is coming at you a lot of times doesn't mean you're brainwashed by so and other that procter and gamble is stupid now of course not stupid apples they should be advertising

advertising doesn't work. course advertising works what i thought people could see through the fact that it works and the fact that you can convince someone to do something that's why it's speech it's expressive because it convinces somebody if it wasn't speech it wouldn't convince anybody to do anything so that i agree with it has an impact on people but that's what makes it speech is not speech it facilitates speech and the question is whether it doesn't know it's there or you're dead on a sort of edge and be pretty constant with the right i'll never know but what if you're still a taishan implies that by blocking that facilitation you are hindering speech and would be the i agree what the first amendment says is congress cannot prohibit speech and by prohibiting the means of speaking you are prohibiting speech except that buying a t.v. ad is not speaking no it is it is it facilitates speech as you said and by prohibiting the facilitation of speech you are infringing on the right to and historically the supreme court has interpreted that to mean political speech is the most protected there's a whole bunch of kinds of speech that really aren't all that protected like you say and would it was an important and and and the that it is the speech of persons and

should be protected so why are we letting corporations with what the supreme court says is is what we're going to buy now that and it's pretty clear that. people when money is speech yeah and that's in my opinion the problem if you can stop guys like you you know you can stop sculptor's by outlawing hammers or pics or whatever i mean you know you can go after the facilitation to stop the speech well theoretically you can effect speech by going after the means to create the speech i mean if somebody is an artist and you add all the tools to create the art you can go after the art so here you talk about going after the money it's the facilitator of the expression but you're still going after the expression well i just i think that the whole doctrine of money is something other than property is is wrong but any of us turn to oil prices while prices continue to fall we're at a twenty one year peak and i'm in supply here domestically in united states and a seven year trough in demand and yet still gasoline prices are really high but they're falling because apparently futures speculators. started off their futures

apparently because of a comment that was made a few days ago by a saudi prince about the price of oil being too high. it looks like the people who are really suffering from this is the republican operatives who've been trying to blame president obama for gas prices and so i'm curious do you think that they're going to give him credit now for gas prices falling you know because. i know you know i don't know what i think that's a legitimate position that each is not deserve credit for it well you know you look at it he's got more oil drilling than any other president has got to. be and i was going to have more growing on federal lands is that a nine year low right now it's drilling on private lands that's up and that is you know that the president plays no role in drills really about drilling on federal lands is that a maybe a nine year low but it's only because the gas and oil companies are capping wells right now because they pay we've got plenty there's the world water why didn't you mention the this the number of reasons that production of oil right now well let me

rephrase that the number of leases that have been that have been taken that have been offered and taken on federal land are at an all time high. the number of opportunities to drill or an all time high number welds that have been either drilled and drilled and kept and all of them in the bottom line is the oil industry's got everything they want plus huge tax breaks to the oil prices have been going down now for two months and we've seen i mean it's not a coincidence that at the same time we've seen a rise in supply of oil being produced nine billion more barrels out of the other way around though i mean typically when prices go down it's a consequence of demand going down or prices go down and people consume more supply isn't right because supplies are going to go back up supply is going up prices are going down right right that's what's happening right now as as production but that she had at high levels that it is right now again on private land when prices are going down. again so i mean it just speaks to the fact that if we would explore

more of the energy reserves that we have available to us and they were not have it in them and then my point is we're not getting closer because when ok take the gulf for instance you know at the pump it's pouring it on permits issued in the gulf of mexico i mean the know well under a moratorium and ok but it still takes nassif amounts of red tape to get through in order to open up in there i mean there are wells that have already been drilled in the gulf right now not being right now because you can only drill one well for so long because because there we have become you know what are the the largest export of united states is right now. the number one export of this country for the last four years four months of gasoline were the worth hits our largest export we are awash in this stuff last last question quote for michele bachmann loves america so much that she apparently decided to become a citizen the switzerland michelle's husband marcus marcus bachmann took a break from healing the gays to revisit his rights and become a swiss citizen along with the rest of the bachmann family here's bachmann talking

it was t.v. . you could technically run for office in switzerland now to what you would consider that. as you can see there's a lot of competition in my head i would have to run against him to be very stiff because they're very good so if the bachmann's didn't become citizens to bring the tea party to switzerland then why they do it for the universal nonprofit health care or because switzerland been a pacifist country for two hundred years run by social and liberal democrats or because gays are explicitly protected from discrimination by the swiss constitution so marcus cannot come out of it what you think. the sense of about the gas and oil prices so we never got to this but i have no idea why they did it you know i have no idea why they did it i don't think we can be overly critical of it look there over there dual citizenship good for them i really don't have any idea what their motives are but it's an interesting question the other half of it is you know what would happen if if you know president obama had dual citizenship with kenya or you know any i mean i'd be bernie sanders if he were still in the presidential race she

wouldn't have gone for the dual citizenship but you know i know you were working out of washington is not relevant as a candidate the reason would be relevant for the present theoretically is because there's a constitutional you know requirement for him to be president already showbox it is going to air is he going to get to a citizenship with france i've been to switzerland and i got to say it's probably the most beautiful place i've ever been in my life the alps are just credible so they have you know i i would imagine healthier just imagine you know he's a great place to retire and yeah i can only imagine it's very good social safety system and i think you just want to find. another way to get back on your show i just want to make some news for you ok mark latham thank you very much i think it's not very good to have it. in screwed news the republican party kicked another moderate to the curb last night

after thirty five years of serving in the senate indiana senator dick lugar lost a primary battle tuesday night to wall street's candidate tea party republican challenger richard mourdock moredock attacked lugar for crossing the aisle to support the auto bailout the start nuclear treaty and president obama's supreme court nominees but lugar's real crime was voting on the side of the big box retailers to put a ceiling on how much banks could charge the stores in credit card fees that vote caused the banks sixteen billion dollars and to get revenge they showered money on murdoch using conservative blogs like red state k. street hacks and funding millions in t.v. advertising in indiana to quote republic report as political pointed out quote the banking industry is making an example of senator dick lugar and quote now lugar will probably follow in the footsteps of indiana's past four senators and become a multimillionaire lobbyist himself as for murdoch the plans on carrying the bankers water all the way to congress are rolling on here was murdoch on m.s.n.

b c giving his definition of bipartisanship. i certainly think that bipartisanship fodder consist of democrats coming to the republican point of view. i guess when you're an agent of the bank's toure's there's no room to compromise but here's the bigger picture and what it means for our democracy the u.k. had a very interesting event earlier today or yesterday the queen came about gave her annual speech to parliament and she said that parliament should reform the house of lords instead of being appointed and semi hereditary these to be entirely hereditary the house of lords should be at least eighty percent elected in the near future that would make their operate chamber their kind of arbt called the senate would make their upper chamber more democratic more responsive to the people instead of just respond to the needs of the hereditary rich now while both chambers of commerce in the us are elected right now we're actually starting to look more

and more like the old house of lords the house of lords in america was comprised of bank stars oil barons health insurance leeches war profiteers and they're spending enormous amounts of money to elect their politicians they just got rid of us senators that they didn't like and dick lugar and a hereditary or appointed house of lords is pretty offensive to those of us who believe in democracy and it's a good thing the queen is calling for at least an end to that practice there but here because of the supreme court the real overlords of our nation with the supreme court and their citizens united decision wall street banks juries can now push their own candidates and the corporate media doesn't even pointed out they just call this guy a tea party they don't call him an agent of the banks the queen wants to amend the way the government works in the u.k. we need to do the same here and end the crazy idea that's been promoted exclusively by the supreme court the corporations are people and money is not property but instead his speech go to move to amend to work to learn what you can do. after the

break corporate america has a new plan to take over every aspect of your life from the education your schools to the transportation in your towns just how dangerous is this new drive to privatized everything in america. of american power continues. things in our country. might actually be time for a revolution. and it turns out that a programmer drink at starbucks has a surprising him greedier. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything is ok. i'm

charging welcome is a big issue. here is what i. love and they alone until they all get the real headline with none of them are the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and for what actually matters to those viewers and so that's why young people just don't watch t.v. anymore if they want news they go online and read it but we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back in t.v. .