going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture right now polls in wisconsin are closing marking the end of a historic day for both the state and our nation a live report from on the ground in the bedroom state also regardless of the outcome in wisconsin one thing is still clear workers in america are getting screwed so how do we stop the injustices against the working class that are taking place from coast to coast talk with teamsters president james hoffa to find out and marco rubio is the new favorite son of the republican party and like his colleagues these cozying up with corporate america but

a new report suggest about his connections to k. street lobbyists and wall street crony it's. easy to know this at this hour the polls are closing in on a historic day in wisconsin which started more than a year ago when hundreds of thousands of working americans took to the streets in madison wisconsin to protest against an overt war on unions culminated today as wisconsinites at the polls to determine the fate of governor scott walker in that state's first ever gubernatorial recall election unfortunately for working people who gathered more than a million signatures to force the recall election against walker and have reenergized the national labor movement erupt against a tsunami of out of state corporate cash something the very difficult to overcome this election day walker massively outspent his democratic rival milwaukee mayor

tom barrett with more than thirty million dollars compared to barrett's four million dollars two thirds of walker's contributions came from out of state donors like banks in oil barons whereas the bric. orders of barrett's money came from within wisconsin and if that alone wasn't enough to seal the deal for walker an obscure election law passed by republicans in the state last year may have prevented tens of thousands of college students from voting since the law prevented them from having enough time to update their addresses before graduating from school last month leading in today's contests poll after poll showed walker with a narrow but consistent lead over barrett proving that organized money does indeed trump organized people or at least could which could mean real trouble for progressive this year as corporate super pacs have pledged over a billion dollars to defeat progressives in this year's elections but now for the latest on the ground in wisconsin want to turn over to christine for anchor and correspondent christine welcome. so

christine madison city the medicine city clerk is predicting voter turnout in medicine is over one hundred percent we're hearing reports of one hundred eighteen one hundred nineteen percent this is you know i mean people are showing up at the polls or registering to vote and then voting from your reports what's the voter turnout look like around the state is this happening in the rural areas the republican areas as well as democratic areas and it's happening everywhere it's on that was really interesting that we visited several polling places today and you really didn't see so many people coming out to vote in the first time ever because here in wisconsin you are able to register and then immediately thereafter cost your vote so i think a lot of people realize this is a historic election they're coming out and they're signing up and they're casting their ballots. a lot of the turnout was in early this morning one woman i spoke to said she worked that whole departments are and everyone that she works with by one o'clock had voted so really really interesting just the way that people are coming out and asked to participate in this election that so many of them so hard for

really you know you said i think one hundred thousand people they are right where i'm standing now right outside of the state capitol and already right now they're starting to show up once again do you think kristin that the average voter in wisconsin is a republican or democrat would be in particular i'm curious about the swing voters are aware of the seven to one ratio of money that's being dumped in and how much of this money is coming from oil barons and wall street fat cats for the walker campaign. is it the money that's coming at him from which side is coming in but i can tell you that they're being inundated with the result the manifestation of that money is coming in the form of radio ads in t.v. ads in fine in paying people to make all of these people are receiving a record number. ok christine we we have we have lost you thank you very much though for the report today despite the results of today's contest in wisconsin one thing is clear we the people always need to be more

organized more active than ever before if we want to stop the oligarchy some buying our democracy like they're trying to do right now in wisconsin this ultimately is bigger than wisconsin as a radical financial managers law in michigan as indiana's recent foray into becoming a right to work for less state in both states working people were the ones being targeted so what do we do about this post wisconsin recall international president of the brotherhood of teamsters james hoffa is here to give us some answers president off a great to see you again good to see you thanks for joining us i'm curious your take on just you know the state of labor right now actually let me start with what happened in the senate today the paycheck fairness bill actually passed according to the constitution it got fifty two votes but the republicans filibustered it so it will become law well it's more of the division that we see in this town and you see it in capitals everywhere state capitals the division between you know basically these tea party people which have taken over the congress here and the

house and they're basically stopping the senate too and basically things that are positive for people like equal pay for women they're opposing that they're building a record that's tremendously bad for the republicans because they fall into this tea party mentality trying to appease those people and is going to come back to haunt them right now you can't get anything done in this town the president can't get anything done initiatives that we have can't get done and it's just absolutely devastating in our democracy and that's exactly what the way it wasn't supposed to work in the way it's happening right now so eventually somebody's going to say this is wrong we're going to correct this and we're going to make sure that we put people in the can work together to make democracy work you know in one thousand nine hundred six when harry truman was president republicans and that allowed. took control of the house and senate for the first time since the great crash and only held up for two hears and kicked out for forty but they not only passed have tartly

but they basically refused to do anything about harry truman's fair deal plan the national health care system you know paycheck protection all kinds of things they they just cancel all of them he alternately ran against them as the do nothing congress are the republicans right now playing out the exact same playbook and and do you think that the american people are going to wake up to it the way they did when you know an infant in the election forty eight absolutely i think that barack obama is going to run against congress he's going to run against a do nothing congress he's going to say that i have proposed one hundred things to put americans back to work to make america a fairer place and i have been opposed by the republicans going congress and you know what go tomorrow and i think that's a sound program it's true and i think that that's the program he's following they're painting themselves into a corner because they've sold their soul to the tea party and by you know going to these initiatives that are so extreme you know fighting you know fair pay for a fair day's work you know fighting you know going against you know people have you

know abortion and things that we have thought were resolved twenty five thirty years ago and resurrecting that all over again is really going to hurt them in the end hurt them in november and hopefully have an effect on what's going on in wisconsin tonight scott walker talks with a billionaire funder about how his strategy is famously got caught on videotape i mean there was a where he said that his strategy was going to be first go after the public sector unions the government employee unions and and bust them up and then go after the private sector unions people like your people you know the teamsters and he used the phrase he said divide and conquer. is that it is his coming out and saying that shocking in awakening people across the country or do you think that people just figure ok yeah that's what the republicans are all about we all knew that republicans you know who are with them who don't like unions are going yeah he's our guy or is are we close to some kind of a moment of national oh my god awakening i think i think we are i think eventually

the american people have to figure out what's going on when you see people on video one time he was telling everybody well this is about the budget this is about balancing the budget and then we turn around and we see this video where he's saying we're going to basically take out the unions it's about unions it's about the fact that we have power the fact that we have boots on the ground we have money we're organized he sees us as an obstacle to what he wants to do to basically turn wisconsin around into something that you know basically you know he's for the rich is for the big corporations and to make sure to keep the workers down and basically make sure they don't get a fair pace for the pared day's work and i think that's what we see coming out of this so he basically lives when he goes there and says all this is about the budget it's not about unions i'm just trying to make it so we can have a better budget and we really have revealed that he's a liar and basically that came out i think that's going to resonate when we finally get the results tonight i think people have seen those videos have been two or three videos where he reveals what he really is talking about where he's saying

something different on the public record when you lie like that to people people realize there's something wrong there so i think that we've got a good chance tonight i know the polls are just you know are close and let's see what happens but you can't basically lie to people and tell them i'm doing it for this reason and then find a video that says i'm really doing it to get rid of unions right and also just given two billion dollars in tax cuts to billionaire that's exactly right and basically tried you know to raise the cost of the workers the teachers that you have as drivers and to make them pay more for their pensions to basically contribute to everything which before they were not contributing to well he's giving. tax breaks you know the big corporations and trying to privatized everything in his state so it's clear what his agenda is help big business you know it's the reverse robin hood where you know we're going to take from the poor and give to the rich what do you say to the you know i do a radio show in addition the t.v. show and today i was just taking callers on this topic and i had a number and some of them i know are being paid to call these right wingers

a call into progressive shows quite right but solve them i think were were you know genuine kind of i guess from the reagan democrats or reagan republicans or whatever people who are calling in and just ranting about unions how do you how do we educate the younger generation of americans that doesn't remember what it was like in the fifty's sixty's and seventy's when you know a union meant a career and a job and a decent retirement how do we wake them up in the in this maybe the media has done that because it is amazing because unions are the reason why we have an eight hour day the reason why we have so security the reason why we have you know a paid vacations health care pensions things that we take for granted were done by labor unions and the answer is the people you know that work hard and work thirty or forty years teaching school like a teacher in wisconsin that's gone to college as a teaching degree that teachers are children should they have a pension should they have good pay shouldn't they be taken care of and have good health care and they're saying no one who believes that and the answer is i mean

some of these you're right some of these young people don't understand what it was like before and they fall into this trap but you know when finally they realize we're going to take from them they realize that we had a member a teamster member that admitted that she voted for scott walker and she said what a mistake i made because i didn't understand that i thought it was about balancing the budget and i didn't realize he was going to take away collective bargaining so they basically are sold by this media this multibillion dollar media that comes out with these slick ads that say all this is a good looking guy that really wants to balance a budget and we're cutting through that so great to. thank you very much james hoffa president great to have you with us win or lose a movement started in wisconsin a year ago and it's now taken hold nationwide today's recall vote will not be the end of this movement at last until working americans all over from michigan to indiana to florida are victorious and able to reclaim the american dream stay organized stay active. after the break well it shouldn't come as much of

a surprise it turns out the possible republican v.p. senate candidate senator barak or regret rubio is very cozy with wall street and corporate america so shouldn't a rubio romney take it be corporate america's dream come true we'll talk to investigative reporter leaf on about that and other stories in the wide wide world political corruption. wealthy british style sun. that's no time to. market why not. gamble why not what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger or

a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to conjure reports . there hasn't been anything yet on t.v. . it is to get the maximum political impact. before the source material is what helps keep journalism honest we. we want to present. something else.

in screwed news the newest darling of the republican party is this guy senator marco rubio from florida he's a favorite of the tea party and will be sitting atop any short list of potential vice presidential picks for mitt romney but he's not just well liked by the republican establishment and the tea party he's also just as well liked by a high powered k. street lobbyists turns out as investigative reporter leaf on with the republic report has uncovered rubio's right hand man is chief of staff is still collecting

big bucks from an elite d.c. lobbying firm and has a vested interest in making sure the banks there's a for profit health insurance executives the private prison contractors represented by the firm all collect big legislative victories we already know that mitt romney is wall street's favorite candidate collecting more than seventy percent of all of wall street's political donations so far this election cycle so would a romney rubio ticket be a dream come true not just for wall street but for all of corporate america and its lobbying firms joining me now to talk more about this story and other news and big money's rosie of influence our politics is lee fox investigative reporter with united republican republic report lee great to see it good to see time to have you back with us so what's the deal with rubio's chief of staff well in two thousand and eleven marco rubio recruited his chief of staff from the lobbying firm navigators global this is a big k. street firm with lots of corporate clients and that's. not unusual for an

incoming republican and some democrats they all hired lobbyists from k. street to run their office what's unique about this is that marco rubio's chief of staff says our conda didn't actually sever all of his ties with that lobbying firm when he went to become a public servant under rubio documents that we obtained and published on our website show that he still owns stock. and his lobbying firm and he's receiving a stock buyback agreement that means as the firm succeeds he succeeds and he's received between fifty thousand dollars and one hundred thousand dollars in payments from that firm it's kind of the equivalent of his still being paid with stock options you get the carry on my back is the equivalent of exercising an option and you know for any businessman or person who's involved in the private sector and they go into public a public life it's fair to own stock but this is a unique case this firm isn't like a funeral home or a car dealership this firm is dedicated to influencing congress they're lobbying

senator rubio at the same time they've got an inside man in the in his office that's that's absolutely amazing are there any sort of ethics violations at play here on rubio's part and could this harm his chances to be v.p. unfortunately this is business as usual on capitol hill rubio's office informed the republic report that they cleared this arrangement with the senate ethics office and they okayed it so as mcconnell says now. why don't you know that actually it's the it's harry reid in charge of the look on both sides of the aisle there's really no ethics and for some it we've got a story coming out tomorrow showing that in two thousand and seven congress passed ethics reform for its staff but there's been literally no serious in force but only two senators have even filed the necessary documents when negotiating for a future job it's a toothless agency the senate ethics office so so it's true that senate senator

marco rubio cleared this arrangement for his staff or his chief of staff to continue having a financial relationship with a lobbying firm but does it make any difference when the senate the senate ethics office does nothing so we have the best democracy money can buy basically the best senators money it's tragic movie non to. another big. businessman who's gone into the public arena rick scott down in florida we've got the florida recall going on and or excuse me the for the florida purge of voters going on and you have uncovered some other forces beyond just the normal political involved in the tell us about this you know only three weeks ago we published a story and weeks as centrally found fifty five million dollars spent in the two thousand and ten elections that was previously unreported and connected to the koch brothers and several other very wealthy political donors or that there was spent to get rick scott elected that was bad all over the country for partisan purposes to

get republicans elected and from that documentation that we were able to buy it spawns many other stories of course so as we look at the voter purge in florida as they take out. people in the voter rolls they queues of being non-citizens although many have been documented to be bonafide citizens we have to look at the the motivating factors and when we look at that fifty five million dollars that we found from two years ago one hundred thousand dollars went to the official who's who helped devise the voter purge plan and in just the last few days it's been revealed that that fifty five million dollars honey pot is going to be expanded into four hundred million dollars that spent in a larger one billion dollars plan to take out president obama using mostly secret corporate cash. in this in this election cycle while.

republican operatives and their corporate oligarchy say that they're you know they're going to spend this billion dollars do you think that you know is your you've been looking at how money is influencing politics now really seriously for sometime you think it's possible that they'll actually do it that you know our democracy is gone that it's an oligarchy no. i would say look at the very first election we had after citizens united we had a gosh. of corporate money overwhelm the midterm elections much almost eighty percent of that money came from outside secret money groups and when they elected these pro big business politicians mostly republicans a few democrats the first thing they did a lot of people focus on some of these economic issues but the first thing they really did was solidify their economic their political control passing voter id. pushing other reforms that actually diminished our democracy in florida again making it illegal basically to register large numbers of people to vote these are

efforts to solidify control and i think we'll see even an even bigger tidal wave of money in the two thousand and twelve election and come two thousand and thirteen again they'll be solidifying their control they'll be busting the private sector unions but we're passing more restrictions on voting and other such measures this sounds a lot like the late nineteenth century early twentieth century where you know basically the railroad barons and the steel barons and the chemical barons and you know the the dollars dupont the banking the morgans ran the country and ran the politicians and would walk in and buy senators or you know what you know it's just over the nineteenth century they created entire states just a boost their numbers in the senate big business you know so tell me that story well if you look at throughout the west. the republicans help maintain their control in the senate by crafting different states that they thought

would help them from promote their numbers in the senate with demographic changes that doesn't stay the same forever but. you know some of it i think there are. links from the gilded age that we can see today well and and the reaction to the gilded age was the progressive you know uprisings of the of the late one nine hundred ninety. and then throughout the teddy roosevelt administration that arguably went to sleep during the coolidge prosperity but so-called but then really erupted after the great crash do you think that this might actually have a favorable outcome that it might get so bad that people just go whoa you know this is toxic it's time for a new sherman act it's time for a new tillman act it's time for a new new deal well if you look at the progressive era the first progressive era it came about through lots of muckraking journalism it came through big scandals that made people really understand the fundamental problems in our democracy look at

teapot dome or look at watergate of the every time we've had. a watershed moment moment where congress actually snaps out of it and passes laws to restore our democracy it's come about because of scandal and republic reports obviously investigating things but i can't predict any future reform movement without. some of these issues becoming more animated for the voters. fox news just ran a four minute spot against the president haven't they jumped the shark. well you know that this is part of a bigger trend you have. big media being consolidated under big corporations and you know it's being it's become very difficult for regular people get their voices heard and when you have companies that have a huge broadcasting rights basically developing their own campaign commercials it

shouldn't be any surprise is what i'm saying and it's tragic. with republican or you're doing great work out there lead keep it up thanks tom thanks for being with us tonight. moving on from the veep stakes to the top of the ticket all presidential candidates most likely vote for themselves on election day but mitt romney has a little extra incentive to punch his name this. here the group citizens for tax justice discovered that romney will save five million dollars in his income tax bill if he wins and is able to put into place is so-called tax reform plan which is basically a massive tax cut for super rich people like himself currently romney pays fourteen point seven percent in taxes far less than most middle class american families and under his plan that top tax rate would drop to just thirteen point one percent whereas under president obama's plan a quarter billionaire like romney would have to pay his fair share like all working americans for a guy who made a living laying off thousands of workers to crank up his own wealth is really far

fetched to think romney would use running for president to crank up his own wealth i don't think so. crazy a large bovine banging blocks busy bystanders trying ever is in kids winning pennsylvania were treated to a very unusual roadblock during the friday morning rush hour because sex that's right a cow and ball decided they couldn't wait till they got back to the farm and decided to make not so beautiful bovine love at the intersection of two world pennsylvania highways according to state trooper john cora officers tried to shoo them off the highway but it just got the bold mad and it started to escalate after a couple hours of the bovines refusing to budge pennsylvania department of agriculture officials told the utterly in love to get a room and corral them into

a trailer kinky cow couple are now at a local farm until police could find their owner rumor has it that the horror whole idea or deal was actually part of a new ad for chick fil a's eat more chicken campaign. carried out last week there was a media firestorm over rudy eugene the so-called miami zombie who brutally attacked and ate the face of a homeless man and while the cause of the attack remains unclear mainstream media has been very quick to point the finger and scare up the american public why.

more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations rule the day.

but go back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour ron paul supporters can cause quite the stir the broken fingers and broken hip.