well i'm john are in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight the big picture the iowa republican party has adopted a new platform one of the strips islands of their freedoms and liberties this move in iowa a sign of things to come from republican parties nationwide also according to the new york times president obama is playing judge jury and executioner when it comes to america's war on terror should the president have this much power and what does this say about the future of the executive branch and with the wisconsin recall recall election just a week away governor scott walker is hanging on to a slim four point lead to campaign contributions to america's millionaires and

billionaires keep him in office will democrats take back the state capital. so this at seven pm a seat in the polls close in the texas republican primary and mitt romney officially reached eleven hundred forty four delegates he needs to clinch the republican party's nomination for president romney hits this milestone just as he's been dogged by donald trump's embrace of birth or is but the biggest problem on mitt's hands might be his own party losing touch with reality case in point the republican party of i was proposed party platform for two thousand and twelve in a letter to the editor in the des moines register mark potok a senior fellow at the southern poverty law center and frequent guest on this show talked about the virtues of iowa and how rejected slavery twenty years before the civil war approved interracial marriage

a century before the supreme court and decriminalized homosexuality thirty years before the court legalized across the nation but all that was thrown out the window with the iowa republican party's. opposed platform last week as potok writes like the corn it produces in such copious amounts i would generally seem to healthy and sensible place that idea of the state ended for me last week when i read the platform the proposed platform released by the platform committee of the republican party of iowa at platform is absolutely thick with ideas from the extreme right lunatic conspiracy theories and barely concealed hatred for president obama and anything that smacks of multiculturalism it sneers at science is down on poor people and despises really despises the united nations so what exactly is this vision for america that mitt romney will have to embrace well it's a vision that flat out rejects climate change referring to it as a quote plan to take our freedoms and liberties away so don't worry about the mile

long free tornadoes the unusually harsh windows winters and the deterioration of crops like corn is the seasons change public is in iowa just pray it calls for the elimination of federal agencies like the department of agriculture which makes sure our food is safe but a part of education which ensures that quality free public education is available to all americans even those born in poor parts of the country the department of housing and urban development which keeps americans off the street by giving the homeless shelter the food and drug administration which ensures that our medicine is safe the environmental protection agency which keeps the air we breathe in the water we drink save the interior part which keeps federal lands cared for so the future generations can enjoy our national parks or they're just letting the oil companies the stubble the platform also calls for the repeal of the sixteenth amendment that's the one that gave the government the power to levy a federal income tax you think our deficits are bad now wait until republicans succeed in getting rid of the income tax for the top forty four percent of

americans who pay it and opposes anti bullying laws so that your gay son or daughter or nephew or niece could be ridiculed in school until they can't stand. anymore and kill themselves it calls for more stand your ground shoot first laws so the trigger happy lunatics can claim self-defense when they gun someone down in the streets it calls for the teaching of creationism so that while other nations are teaching their students actual science here in america will teach our kids religious myths it outlaws progress feet attempt to out taliban the taliban it eliminates osha which oversees workplace safety despite the fact the more americans die on the job in any given year every single year they were killed on nine eleven and in ten years a war in iraq following and it also repealed hate crime laws and speaks out against shari'a law which is not a threat anywhere in our country but makes a great bogeyman for conservatives oh and it reignites the war on women to

completely outlaw abortion this is the view the republican party has for america and we need to ask mitt romney who spent most of his time pandering to the far right whether or not he really intends to do any of this stuff you know it's too late for real republicans to take back their party at this point it's been captured by nutty billionaires and fringe conspiracy theorists so now we just have to make sure they don't win because if they do and this is their agenda then we should be worried they sort of serve platform that ends the income tax and mandates teaching the bible in public schools but it's stone cold dead serious and it will affect you . now for more on this one welcome roger hickey co-director the campaign for america's future roger welcome hi tom thanks thanks for being here great to have you with us how do you explain this lurch to the right by the iowa republican party which traditionally has been kind of an eisenhower republican party they just can't help themselves they keep they keep. focus enough on their most

extreme elements who are most active in that state and it's just like mitt romney who is about to be embraced by donald trump the birth of her tonight you know in las vegas they say they simply have this this suicide pact with the right wing of their party and you know the the republican party could have a shot on economic issues of doing damage the republicans to the democrats this year they could have a shot but then they go and do this kind of thing where they're talking about abolishing teaching of evolution and suddenly even republicans are going to have second thoughts like dick lugar are calling them out i mean it's it's but you know barry goldwater was pretty hard right ronald reagan was pretty hard right there and goldwater was during the peak of daddy coke fred coke's you know funding of the john birch society the coal water would never say john birch society it's the tea

party which was largely funded and created by the son of fred koch and songs david and charles koch. has achieved national prominence and. credibility is i guess not too strong a word. how did they pull that off when their father couldn't do it with the john birch society when they're preaching basically the same message. you know basically the you've got craven politicians like mitt romney who are trying to prove that they are more conservative than all of their conservative opponents in the primaries and this guy just panders to them and you have that going on that syndrome going on with politicians all over the country in utah in indiana you have. stable once once once very moderate politicians republicans now having to prove that they've got hair on their chest in

terms of the republican right wing and and it doesn't work i mean in most of these cases the ultra right wing. tosses them out in these primaries and so you have a lot of very very worried worried politicians who are just trying to hold on other seats and figure out what they can say to this inflame the base in the meantime the rest of the country is looking at this and saying well i might agree with him on some of these things but these guys have gone off a cliff they're they really are out to lunch when you're when you're threatening the the economy iowa. teaching creationism as the theory of science in their classroom it really really is over the edge to to taking back america you're putting together the take back the dream conference june

eighteenth one thousand and twenty right so tell me about this well it's going to be a gathering of progressives from all over the country. we are talking about what we have to do as progressives in order to win in november but to create a mandate and a majority in the congress so that we can actually get things done next time around . it's not the electoral politics is not the only thing we have to do we've seen that that occupy wall street and occupy movements all over the country who are not electoral at all have really changed the dialogue but we absolutely have to come to washington and remind people that there's an election on and that we've got to have an agenda that's so compelling that we win in the congress as well as the white house so what is what is that and gentlemen well it is first of all it's in besting growth invest in jobs and it's a wonderful contrast with the austerity programs that the republicans are now pursuing just like angela merkel in germany they have

a plan that they're putting forward that would actually put us back into recession and so it's a matter of calling out the right wing what they would do to america especially the economy and then pushing the democratic politicians to become a little more bold and a little bit clearer about what they would do to create jobs what they would do to protect programs like social security medicare and what they would do to turn around the vast inequality that's starting to plague our country and threatens to turn us into a third world nation so we are gathering people together from all over the country we have move on dot org and rebuild the dream and lots of other organizations that are joined together with as. to bring people together. to build on what we've done over the last year and send people back energized and ready to fight. and you know i've said for years politicians don't lead they never have what they do is

they notice a parade going by and if it's a big enough parade they jump out in front of it hoist a flag and say this is my parade. you know and movement politics is where always begins whether it's abolition or suffer a fill in the blanks or. how do we bring about that parade right well first of all we've got to get the politicians to notice that the majority of americans are already there they were there looking for somebody to lead the parade the majority of americans want to see jobs created in this country and can't stand the stagnation that's condemning them in their kids to just a. job to job to to unemployment so we've got a point out to the politicians that the that the public not just the left not just the progressives but the vast majority the public wants to see bold leadership and they want to see politicians will fight for things like social security and medicare that the republicans with this ryan budget would shred would just take

apart and make it no longer part of the american system you've got to point that out that's all you have to do is point out what the republicans would do and suddenly the american people according to every poll rally around you. are going to get the we've got to get the politicians to to really lead highlight the contrasts the conferences take back the american dream and it is eighteenth nineteenth and twentieth what all of your audience think about coming to washington and we'd love to see them here check it out thank you roger thank you tom great to have you. once again the campaign for america's future take back the american dream conference is scheduled june eighteenth through the twentieth here in d.c. for more information or to register go to our future dot org slash conference. after the break the new york times is out with a new piece reporting on president obama's kill list top secret list of suspected terrorists maintained by the u.s. government that started back in twenty just how many american values are we willing

to compromise in the name of security. of american power continues. things are so bad. might actually be time for a revolution. and it turns out the procureur director starbucks has a surprising new year old. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you. see some other part of it and realize that everything is. welcome is a big issue. here

when you. look in the loan itself you know get the real headlines 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 to t.v. .

i'm learning mr. screwed news the torture programs may have ended with the extra judicial killings have not new york times is out with a new piece reporting on president obama's kill list top secret list of suspected terrorists maintained by the u.s. government that was started back in two thousand and ten it's filled with names of so-called terrors of the president personally oversees and signs off on final orders to kill the list includes american citizens women and teenagers as the times reports the president has taken a complete ands on approach to overseeing the so-called was despite the moral and legal ramifications quote mr obama has placed himself at the helm of a secret nominations process to designate terrorists for kill or capture of which the capture part has become largely theoretical he had vowed to ally an ally in the

fight against al qaeda with american values the chart introducing people whose deaths he might soon be asked to order underscore just what a moral and legal conundrum this could be president obama's hardline approach to counter terror has worried progressives who hope the exit of george w. bush in the white house could mean an end to our brutal and often illegal war on terrorism a reality though president obama has ramped it up which has to be flipping out the republicans armed with his kill list there rob the president has increased drone strikes in yemen and somalia as well as a drastic increase in drone strikes in pakistan just today u.s. led nato forces launched a strike against al qaeda is second in command in afghanistan killing him but despite the cold efficiency the key. in a kill list and launching drone strikes might bring to our ongoing war on terror it raises a fundamental question that has been with this nation since nine eleven and that is how many american values are we willing to compromise in the name of security

cording to our constitution everyone including non-citizens are entitled to our criminal justice system to due process when president obama himself plays the role of judge jury and executioner then have we lost sight of what it means to have a legal system in the first place and even if you trust president obama with this power can you trust a future president joining me now to discuss more on this is ryan morrow national security analyst ed radical islam or ryan welcome thanks for having me but thanks for joining us i have to admit i am really torn by this on the one hand one of the big hits against f.d.r. that i think history has pointed out is that through much of world war two he knew where hitler was and never took him out because the role of the rules of war for a thousand years with the kings never killed the kings and you know the same thing with north korea with harry truman the same thing with vietnam with lyndon johnson and richard nixon so. it seems like you know he's taking the fight to the people

who are you know whatever but on the other hand there's been no war declared by congress so it seems to me that what we're looking at here since it's not an act of war is defining somebody as a criminal and killing them and that's what our court systems for so i'm curious your take on. i can sympathize with your concern over the fact that there has been no declaration of war but i can't really sympathize with your comparison of the drone strikes to the u.s. policy towards one another international leaders and that's because these are battlefields that were striking with the drones and you know during world war two for example i mean there were enemy combatants that were part of the nazis that we would kill we didn't put them on trial the sake of our security they were they were killed in air strikes or by other means and we have to do the exact same thing with al qaeda i just see no other choice you will not get killed in the cities that we had not declared war we didn't we didn't go to. you know fill in the blank most of

the world was at war at that time but you know we didn't go to some you know on alert we didn't go to australia and start bombing some residential areas some city because some nazi had sought refuge there and and this is not world war two in any case my my my point was to actually be critical of f.d.r. that he didn't do what at what obama and i say and you know i mean here's the question you know on the one hand if you knew where hitler was during world war two would you have and you had a drone that could have taken him out would you along with some civilians would you have done it and you know i think in retrospect probably both of us would have would have done so and maybe f.d.r. would've had drones so now we have this capability in the president's pursuing this but he has no declaration of war from congress and so there isn't a battlefield. though they're very much isabel i mean i don't think you would get to know the fact that we are at war with al qaida there may not be the official

declaration of war that something without a declaration of war you don't have what you want for argument. but you know you have there is not a war without a declaration of war and in fact when president obama came into office and i respect him for this he said we're not going to use the phrase war on terror anymore and he has stopped using so you've got people who are who are hell bent for leather are committing criminal acts against the united states but they're not state actors there's no nation that's coming after us it's a small band of religious crazies so you know is is is military action the way to do that when when what it does in the new york times or for this is whack a mole you kill one guy and all of a sudden there's five guys who want to jump in his place because you know they he was their hero. i don't know what other alternative can be proposed and the so-called strategy almost zero that in of itself isn't adequate over the long term it's one of a kind it is doing down a lot of them a lot of damage we can tell a while kind of zone intercepts and so when you find out that al qaeda has

a refuge in a place like yemen and you can't arrest them you can't capture them and the only other option is to let them do as they please or to hit them with a drone strike i say hit them with a drone strike well and maybe but what about what george w. bush did you know george w. bush was confronted with an afghanistan that was a growing massive amounts of opium poppies and producing heroin epidemic in the united states and europe and so he went to he went to afghanistan to the taliban and said i'll give you forty million dollars if you'll stop growing opium poppies they took the money and if you look at look at the opium production of afghanistan is huge it's like you know forty percent of the world's total until two thousand and one and in the year two thousand and one it dropped down to like like by ninety percent because the taliban took his money and actually burned the fields and so there you had a sister and then and then after nine eleven the taliban came to george w. bush now this is where he got it backwards they came to judge every bush and said

we will arrest osama bin laden and give him to you as long as there's a trial held in some third country that's not our country is not your country a disinterested party have a trial and swiss whistle or something and just everywhere said no we want to start bombing you that seems to me stupid. i don't think it is because all kind of is much larger than the salma big lot of you have all kind of training camps there a much larger infrastructure i think one of the worst he had so intimately to take him out of. the afghans who are willing to knock out al qaeda they didn't like al qaeda the taliban didn't like al-qaeda they've never been friends that's not true. that's how i want to hear more of are they will they never once as far as i'm aware citing the stuff agreed that they would dismantle al qaeda as leadership even now in pakistan one of the things that we have found out from the bin ladin files and other files we've captured is that al qaeda the taliban are much closer more closely linked then many people had assumed but the taliban are or were going to watch george bush's money and do what he wanted and they were willing to take the

taliban's or al qaeda as money and do what they wanted i mean you know why use soft power rather than kill civilians because you have to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure on a card and like minded folks you have remember what does bothering the taliban and al qaida together it's radicalism it's a very similar ideology and the idea that they would be willing to move over to the united states and work with us and betray their fellow in their minds mujahadeen i think is very shortsighted naive ok well we'll leave it at that i as i said i i think this is a complex and nuanced issue and it doesn't it doesn't work well with simple answers in any case ryan thank you so much for being with us tonight thank you. the constitution makes it very clear everyone including non-citizens absent a state of war has the right to a trial before being killed but bush and cheney made us so frightened after nine eleven that we've thrown the constitution out the window and given dictators and

tyrants around the world the justification to create their very own killed since. last wednesday we told you about how residents and community groups in benton harbor michigan plan to occupy a senior p.g.a. golf tournament was being held in that city are plans to occupy the event were in response to governor rick snyder's hostile takeover of the city and his appointment of a financial manager for that city who has the power to fire all the local if elected officials trim down budgets cut back on public services like police and firefighters break union contracts and so of large chunks of the commons like parks and utilities to crony corporations and fat cats reverend david alexander bullock president of the detroit chapter of rainbow push and president of highland park michigan and he joined us on this show last wednesday to talk about the early stages of the planned protest i understand you were in benton harbor today for the occupy the p.g.a. protests what was the turnout like and what was the protest like was a peaceful. the protest was peaceful again we are about the tactics of violent

resistance to state occupation and emergency management in michigan it was peaceful but it was a full. scale is that we can continue more and more protesters march through benton harbor to the harbor shores golf course including nearly two hundred marchers on saturday and while many are considering the protest a success and a victory for the residents about the harbor it was not without incident some residents about the harbor hired to direct traffic for the tournament or verbal abuse by terminate the tournaments attendees we can use racial slurs and friday night local law enforcement officials attempted to remove a group of protesters from public sidewalks which led to a heated confrontation but all in all the residents of benton harbor and occupiers from all over the country stood up and fought back against governor rick snyder and his systematic destruction of democracy in that state.

crazy alert belligerent and while toad bovines a group of roving and apparently beer craving cows crashed a college graduation party in boxford massachusetts over the weekend pesky party crashers ran into a back yard bullet away the beer drinking college graduates that according to bucks for police lieutenant james writer the cows knocked beer cans off of a table and proceeded to lap up the spilled beer even licked off the table to make sure they didn't leave a drop behind and still thirsty for some liquid courage the cows huddled around a pile of recycled beer cans trying to find any leftover beer and so the cows owner corralled them and led them back to their farm i guess these cows finally got their revenge on the thousands of drunken college students over the years who've gone out to be. there was causing a recall election now heads into its final week with governor scott walker queen to

a narrow four point lead but the progress is needed no heading down the final stretch and what can we do now between now and tuesday to throw walker out of all. the klein of american power continues. things in our country so. might actually be time for a revolution. and it turns out that a procurer drinker starbucks has a surprising him greedy year old. you

know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else some other part of it and realize that everything is ok. i'm charging welcomes a big picture. here even when i was really. lucky to be alone until you 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 that. t.v. .

mr. barr go back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour despite destroying was gazans economy and waging war on its workers governor scott walker as i head in the polls a week before the recall election that is our demo.