sturdy measures being pushed now by the canadian government what's really going on with our neighbor to the north will united states ever see similar protests also many people are asking why mayor bloomberg wants to ban sugary drinks and what's so unhealthy about that just how dangerous is high fructose corn syrup from a sugar found in most sodas and sweetened drinks and in tonight's daily take michigan governor rick snyder is destroying his state's democracy and the people of michigan have no way to fight back how can we learn from michigan's death of democracy so the same thing is repeated from state to state. to the rest of the news states across the nation are desperately looking to bring new industries in that will create jobs or snow in history has the that has a normal way one industry that has enormous potential to create jobs is green

energy but considering republicans in congress are hell bent on austerity and behold the interests of big oil and investing create jobs is pretty hopeless instead the high new industry for jobs in the future might be domestic drones that's right drones for jobs still on the jobs more than a dozen states are scrambling right now to get approval from the f.a.a. the federal aviation administration to run one of six drone test sites around the country in hopes that the burgeoning drone industry might bring new jobs with these test sites were mandated by congress this year to prove how easily and safely domestic drones can be integrated into the u.s. air space states like florida ohio and colorado are all trying to get into the domestic drone game but what are the consequences of this show american citizens be concerned about the proliferation of domestic drones in our skies jeff morally joins me now he is a staff writer at salon and the op. through the forthcoming book snow storm in

august washington city francis scott key in the forgotten race right at eighteen thirty five jeff welcome i am looking forward to your book but it's not about drones so let's talk about that right now to begin with what has led to this domestic drone industry and why should we be concerned about what the congress passed a bill earlier this year or ordering the f.a.a. to integrate un mandate into the domestic air space until this year the f.a.a. was basically focused on mandate and really was on mandation was an exceptional case congress has reversed that priority saying you have to make a priority for a mandate so this there's a big push behind it there's a big industry behind it on capitol hill and that's how it came to be with the danger right now is that we really don't have any legal framework for what what these unmanned vehicles can do in terms of surveillance in terms of intelligence collection so that the industry is

a little bit ahead of the wall right now and that's why we should be concerned is is there any concern that we may have drones that are not just spying on us but are actually armed like the ones that we run in august on for example. there is a capacity to our armed drones i've talked to a bunch of police departments around the country that have obtained permission to fly drones and they uniformly say they're not interested in using these for surveillance or for our armed use but what would they use them for that capacity is there what they're looking for is situational awareness which is a hostage situation looking down at a fire for example kind of things these helicopters. and also for search and rescue and i don't think anybody would have a problem with drones being used for those purposes but the fact that this is a very powerful revolutionary technologies can be able to do they are a lot of things that have not been possible before that's the cause for concern think of it this way there's about close to one thousand nine thousand police depart. and public safety agencies the united states right now only about three

hundred of those have an aerial capacity usually helicopters ok those helicopters cost five six hundred dollars an hour to operate with drones you can do that for you know five or ten dollars an hour so a lot more public safety agencies are going to be able to purchase an aerial capacity what are they going to do with it that's the question and that we know we don't really have the answers yet this is sort of met in a way isn't it to the militarization of america's police forces you know all the surplus military it's a direct consequence that this is a technology that was developed in the war zones overseas and now former military officials who are experience using the technology over there bring it back to the domestic market to market it here and i think that's another reason for cause for concern this is a technology that comes out of a military background to fear its military uses domestically is not irrational. has the posse comitatus act been restored or is it still gone it's still still in effect yeah it's still in effect so that it's been brought back since the you know

it's gone for a year or two yeah ok so. that that says that the military shall never turn their guns on american civilians the police though are not considered part of the military know and so you know the these these these drones if they were big enough could be used for. there's one drone manufacturer that offers the capacity for to load a shotgun with rubber ball or tear gas container or a grenade launcher which can be used to project tear gas canisters so people are clearly contemplating it people in law enforcement are clearly contemplating i think law enforcement would do well actually to renounce the weaponization of it to kind of to to satisfy public fears and to make people understand that this is not a technology that they need to fear and that it will be used for the positive things like search and rescue that it can be used for how powerful is the drone lobby and what are the chances of that happening. drone lobbies very powerful

there's an unmanned vehicle caucus in the congress which has fifty three members from both parties. concentrated in california and texas where the aerospace industry is but not only there as i said in my article for salon there is a budding drone industry around the right patterson air force base in ohio they're trying so people are trying to use drones as an engine of economic development florida seeking to do the same thing in colorado and arizona amazing jeff thank you very much for your great reporting and for coming and sharing with us tonight. right now the canadian government probably wishes it had some drones of a dozen already. has because what started as a student protest in quebec has now turned into a mass movement all across canada on wednesday night in cities all across canada thousands gathered to show solidarity with striking students in quebec and push back against austerity measures being pushed by the conservative canadian government this began when the quebec government passed two asian hikes and cuts to

education prompting tens of thousands of students to take to the streets for months now that since the movement has has broadened as one of the lead organizers derek o'keefe said quote we need to have an open and democratic discussion about the direction of our society current model where governments give billions in tax cuts to profitable corporations and high income earners and then plead poverty as they slash our social programs is broken sound familiar joining me now to talk about some of the action up north is sarah jaffe deputy editor of the global comment sarah welcome. hi how are you doing great great to have you back with us you were in montreal and you've been in new york city for a lot of the action with the occupy movement are there similarities between what's going on up in canada and what happened in the occupy movement new york or or differences or both. i mean there's definitely similarities but the difference is that this is a movement as you said that started out with the student strikes it started out

over a very very specific issue students went on strike and when we say they went on strike not only were they not going to class but they were picketing the buildings trying not letting anybody go to class they're essentially shut down the universities the night time marches came later so this was very much a movement about one specific issue that has broadened everything whereas occupy sort of started out as this this issue this umbrella for all of the issues that can be linked back to wall street and economic inequality more broadly is it so it's more tightly focused in canada do you do you think it will broaden or about it has brought ok so maybe it really has broadened already. started with the last seventy eight which the government passed two weeks ago not even two weeks ago i think in order to try to shut down the student strikes to force the students back to school but also to cut down on their ability to purchase in public imposing

really really restrictive fines on student unions or any union these but also effect labor unions that organized protests that didn't get permission beforehand this made a lot of people very very angry and so what's been happening since then these pots and pans protest the casseroles. they start out at eight pm in your neighborhood people go out of the balcony and bang people go down the street corner and then they slowly build up and break out into these marches that are going all over the city every night hundreds of thousands of people across montreal in quebec all over . the province and now as you said last night they had solidarity casseroles all over of canada and then also here in new york how would you describe the actions of the police against the protesters compared to what we've seen here in united states . it was really interesting for me because i am used to occupy actions in new york i'm used to the streets being aligned with cops i'm used to barricades i'm used to all of that here what i saw at least was there were very few police they would be

bringing up the rear of the march but they were very aggressive with us we were standing on a media road divider in the middle of a street and the cop on horseback rode right up onto the divider to drive us off there have been incidents of pepper spray tear gas i believe rubber bullets beatings mass arrests i didn't see any of that because i got lucky two days before i got there five hundred people were arrested in the streets in montreal a couple hundred arrests in the street to quebec city so there have been all sorts of police overreaction crackdowns are those over reactions and crackdowns back for another i mean government. is the my point is that this isn't really that it's really that it's really the back government not the canadian government at large this is really it was a decision in the province to raise the to raise tuition and it looks like it's backfiring i'm not an expert on canadian politics by any means but one of the

speculations was that today the talks with the students broke down that there might be a call for an election in the province interest so that did not happen you've written and talked on the ground about the student loan crisis here in the united states do you see any guess anything like this coming out of american students we have a little lost them though. yeah well this this red square that i have here was actually given to me by a student activist here from kuni who had been to montreal several weeks before this really got on to international attention the student activists here have adopted the red square which comes from the phrase squarely in the red. there is a norm there are a lot of things we could learn from what the students did up there mostly the way they're organized into unions that are very much like labor unions with paid organizers and staff remarkable surgery if you thank you so much for being with us . thanks a lot for having me from the occupy movement here in the u.s. to the restlessness on the streets of athens to the mass protests in canada the

fight against austerity is underway state two. coming up democracy is slowly dying in michigan and all the ways michiganders have have to revive it are being taken away by corporate interests and the republican party so what do you need to know to avoid a corporate takeover of your local city i'll tell you and i still get. more

news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images for world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to corporations rule today.

now a quick update on the american legislative exchange council known as alec koch birth or excuse me brother founded a think tank just lost one of its biggest fish wal-mart the world's largest retailer is now the nineteenth organization to drop its alec membership following public outrage over alec written shoot first laws has swept the country and are responsible arguably for the death of trayvon martin in florida as the nation's biggest gun retailer wal-mart was instrumental in writing alex shoot first laws is now fleeing that organization as more and more americans wake up to the fact that corporations are writing our laws at twice

a year alec conventions from alec to governor rick snyder's so-called financial managers in michigan to corporate america has pledged to spend over a billion maybe two billion dollars this year to elect mitt romney our democracy has never been in more danger and that's why we the people need to be more active and organized than ever before. crazy alert ever feel like your life is a bad t.v. show well you're not alone according to a study published this week by psychiatrist brothers joel and in gold is a rise in america of truman show delusions and delusion where the sufferer is believe that their the star of a reality television show secretly broadcast in their daily lives that illusion gets its name from the popular one nine hundred ninety eight will be the truman show where jim carrey plays

a man whose life is secretly being filmed and watched by thousands of television viewers. this morning surprise surprise it's gone if you watched every move to giuliani's so many cameras you go there in this town. i believe true it is the first child to have been legally adopted by a corporation that's correct for a look at it everyone you know was pretending. the gold brothers studied many patients suffering from this delusion including one man who believes he's the subject of a secret reality show on h.b.o. and everyone in a small illinois town is an actor for the show so it appears reality t.v. today isn't just trashy it's also making us go insane.

it's thursday so let's get geek a fied wednesday the f.d.a. rejected pleas and pressure from the core refiners association to rename high fructose corn syrup as corn sugar after the ruling the corn refiners association issued a statement saying in part that the vast majority of american consumers are confused by high fructose corn syrup so i think it's time for a little reminder on just what this stuff really is so we can clear up the confusion i felt this corn syrup as a calorie providing sweetener used to sweeten foods and beverages mostly processed and store bought foods it's produced through an enzymatic process from glucose syrup derived from corn is first introduced to america in the one nine hundred seventy s. and that's about the time the waistlines in america started to grow despite arguments from the corn refiners association the contrary i for corn syrup is metabolize differently in the body than normal table sugar and that can cause

problems in health issues. has been proven to contribute to over to me to weight gain and obesity but that's just the beginning of a heavy flow of dose into the liver the organ responsible for metabolizing it disturbs glucose metabolism and leads to other metabolic disturbances that promote insulin resistance in the body and the development of type two diabetes according to dr barry popkin professor of nutrition at the university of north carolina win for dos and. the liver it causes a process called life with genesis or fats like triglycerides of cholesterol are produced life with genesis is the major cause of liver damage among americans causes a condition known as fatty liver disease which reflects over on seventy million people studies conducted at the children's hospital of oakland research institute showed high doses of dose of the body create holes in the intestinal lining quality causing a body wide inflammation that promotes dementia and memory loss and tests conducted by the f.d.a. have shown that some high fructose corn syrup even contain measurable levels of

mercury every year the average american consumes more than forty pounds of high fructose corn syrup making fifteen to twenty percent of their cal oric intake bottom line here is that this stuff makes big changes in our metabolism and people should be concerned about how much of it we're consumed. there's something arrived in michigan and much of it centers around a guy named jeff timur. we'll get to who jeff timur isn't just a minute but first follow me as i explain what's going on in the fight to keep democracy alive in michigan first there's governor rick snyder who moved into the governor's mansion last year immediately passed one of the most controversial laws this nation has ever seen it's called public act four and it gave snyder the power

to appoint what he calls financial managers what i call little dictators to seize control of cities in michigan fire all the local elected officials break union contracts slash spending on social services and sell off huge chunks of the commons city property at a fire sale price of their corporate buddies' so far cities like benton harbor flinty course and pontiac have met this fate and citizens of those cities no longer have control of their local democracy this is literally at least at the local level the death of democracy but michiganders didn't give up especially on democracy so after rallies marches and a massive petition drive a group called stand up for democracy collected two hundred twenty six thousand signatures to immediately put snyder's little dictator law on hold place on the ballot in november so the michiganders could have a vote on whether or not to repeal it for good order or to keep it so even though

snyder killed off local democracy he wasn't able to kill off state wide democracy he couldn't stop people from organizing collecting signatures and formally challenging his radical law democracy was going to be killed off that easily an issue and that's when jeff timur stepped in. timur is a partner with a business called the sterling corporation which first prides itself as the premier republican communications company specializing in public affairs political campaigns ballot initiatives and fund raising for corporations trade associations issue advocacy groups and political candidates according to stirling corporation's website jeff taylor is a veteran political and public affairs strategist specializing in public policy issue management ballot proposal campaigns and partisan political campaigns the website also notes the timmer overseas development production of sterling's printed materials for clients in other words you knows a lot about font sizes and we'll get to why font sizes are so important just

a moment so jeff timur in the sterling corporation run political campaigns in particular ballot initiative campaigns on behalf of republican clients one of sterling's clients or creations is a group called michigan citizens for fiscal responsibility according to federal campaign papers jeff timur is listed as one of the people in charge of this organization another creation is a group with a very similar name citizens for fiscal responsibility which according to state documents is headed by a guy named robert brandt who also works at the sterling corporation as as a senior counsel. what's the difference between the two groups other than the word michigan in the title apparently not a whole lot the sterling corporation runs michigan citizens for fiscal responsibility and so this is for fiscal responsibility shares an address with the sterling corporation and both are headed up by people within the sterling corporation people like jeff tim or a guy who again knows

a lot about font sizes so why are font sizes so important because one of the sterling corporation's creations citizens for fiscal responsibility lodged a formal challenge with the michigan board of state canvassers alleging in the stand up for democracy petition they contain two hundred twenty six thousand signatures to repeal snyder's financial managers law or at least put it on the ballot should get thrown out because get this the font size on the petition was too small so here's a quick recap governor snyder kills democracy with this financial manager will people in michigan rise up with a petition campaign to repeal snyder's financial manager law and the sterling corporation along with jeff term are and organizations that share the same address at the at the sterling corporation pushed back by saying the petition should be thrown out because of a font size technicality now here's where things get really messed up the michigan state board of canvassers made up of four officials two democrats two republicans

and it up deadlocked over the petition challenge with both democrats ruling that the petitions were valid and both republicans ruling that the font size was too small and therefore should be thrown out. since it was a two to tie the governor snyder the sterling corporation and jeff tim are one at least so far it's before the courts now and the ballot campaign to repeal financial managers law was put out a whole all because of a font size techno technicality which might not be a technicality at all since the petition printers affidavit sworn under threat of perjury you know an oath says the font size is correct now you're probably wrong or you know who are these two republicans on the michigan board of canvassers who decided to silence the voice of two hundred twenty six thousand issue ganders all because of a font size dispute or one of them is this guy norman hsu. where he's on this

screen who's been involved in local michigan politics for several years as for the other republican on the canvassing board who threw out a quarter million signatures over font sizes guess who he is none other than jeff temora so here we have jeff timur. who brought a ruling on a challenge that was brought behalf of corporation on which jeff timur is a partner in employ this would be like being robbed by a burglar then pressing charges to take the burglar to court to get your money back and him thrown in jail only to discover that the judge is the burglar you would think him or would have recused himself but all pretenses and impartiality democracy and basic law and order have apparently been brushed aside now and governor snyder's war on self government and working people an issue democracy is dying in michigan and all of the avenues the people have to revive it are being cut

off by corporate interests and republican party operatives like jeff temper you need to know this story because it could happen in your state next. this is this is really an extraordinary situation where you've got the judge the good the one of the four members of the commission. that is determining whether or not these ballots are good is also affiliated with the organization whose counsel whose lawyer came forward and said these ballots are no good. and it's a problem that's a big problem. as the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered visit our website to target dot com free speech dot org and r.t. dot com also check out our two you tube channels there are links to thom hartmann dot com and our show is also available as a free video podcast on i tunes and you can visit thom hartmann dot com to download the audio podcast of our daily three to six radio show and we have

a free time are going to i phone or i pad app at the app store you sent us feedback on twitter at tom underscore arbonne on facebook at tom underscore what are blogs message boards and telephone comment line at target dot com and don't forget democracy begins when you get out there when you get over their eyes when you show up. your seat of.

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