welcome to the ilona shell we'll get the real headlines with none of the mersey are going to live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to take a look back at yesterday's elections in wisconsin specifically the recall vote scott walker survives most people would say the election was bought so we're going to host a panel discussing how exactly it is the money influences the votes then kevin joins us to discuss the latest round of motion hearings for bradley manning as well as the southern anger and investigations announced into white house leaks we have all of that morphy tonight including a dose of happy hour but first take a look at the mainstream media decided to miss.

all right so today everybody is following up on yesterday's big win for scott walker and big loss for unions in wisconsin the wisconsin recall is over republican scott walker wins big and a big night for governor scott walker a devastating blow for labor the first united states governor to survive a recall effort today both sides are talking about a wisconsin ripple effect republicans believe a lot of a lot was accomplished the tea party types think that they can replicate what has happened here in wisconsin to other states because the unions didn't walk or a big blow for organized labor the very group that pushed for this costly recall effort pension reform or pension reallocation is now stronger than it was so in those terms democrats have lost democrats who were outraged over his move to encode

active bargaining rights for most public employee and it's going to build in other governors to take the same steps that walker did to make the same reforms that are necessary in order to protect the economy fifty two percent sided with the governor on limiting collective bargaining rights last night wisconsin organized labor and state democrats didn't come close to succeeding in wisconsin voters were clearly objecting to the lavish pay. benefits and pensions going to retired state workers. now will be spending a good amount of time on our show tonight talking about this as well but i like the mainstream media will actually look into how and why it is the money has such an influence what that says about voters in the country if they can't be easily bought but there's something else that needs to be brought up so if you watch any of the cable networks today they're each spinning this to fall into line with one political party or another despite claiming to be news outlets we all know they employ some of the biggest partisan hacks that are out there and that's n.b.c. fox news i'm talking to you but so what happens when all you do is talk about

political strategy but you forget about actual real people and we see this on a daily basis in the mainstream media every time a jobs report comes out they act like it's just a bunch of statistics not actual lives that are being affected much the same way they ignore the housing crisis and it's exactly why they fail to see the relevance and connect with the occupy movement because the mainstream media only represents a tiny elite bubble and so with this battle in wisconsin i feel like we're seeing a lot of the same thing not across the board but for the most part when people say if this is a loss for labor they just need it in the political sense of getting candidates elected rather than one that focuses on workers' rights what's going to be lost and so in light of that i'd like to highlight a new report that's out there from the food chain workers alliance of this actually shows the plight of workers who are largely non-unionized whose working conditions continue to deteriorate as we see mass corporate consolidation and ask for more product at lower prices and at the expense of this country's workforce so who are

food chain workers wells mother jones put it today these are the people that pick slaughter store process and deliver this one point eight trillion dollar industry of food to us the people we think so little about while simultaneously of course becoming foti is that are obsessed with finding the next great dish in restaurant and this one point eight trillion dollar industry makes up about a sixth of the country's workforce and yet when surveyed only third. point five percent of them make a livable wage more than three quarters of these workers said they have no access to health care coverage through work over half have no health care at all and seventy nine percent either had no paid sick time at their jobs or didn't know if they have this benefit now some of these workers aren't paid hourly but peace rate and his mother joins also pointed out in two thousand and eleven the bureau of labor statistics found within the top twenty of the lowest paying jobs nationwide there were food preparers and servers fast food cooks restaurant servers and hosts farm workers and. a lot of people out there probably think of barista as they think

in a college students right well guess what for millions of people out there this is their job this is their life and they're underpaid they don't get benefits they're struggling because so many of them have no protections so this battle is much bigger than just wisconsin and scott walker it's bigger than just public sector workers it's about a national discussion and debate about working conditions overall but that's what i think the mainstream media is choosing to miss. all right so let's get back to talking about wisconsin governor scott walker last night survived a recall effort on the battle as many saw it was between people power big money power let's not forget the walker outraised his challenger tom barrett tend to want two thirds of walkers more than thirty million dollars came from out of state compared to a quarter of barrett's three point nine million and last night some very strong emotions were on display as to what this new era of citizens united really means.

it's a bad news for tom barrett but good news for whisker it's the governor just released the final job numbers and as it turns out he's gotten a shoe game that's right again more than twenty thousand new jobs during my first year in office at the jobs created this year at the total goes to over thirty thousand here barry he said this election's about jobs. i couldn't agree more reforms are working and we're moving wisconsin forward and thirty four million to four million dollars that this was this was the biggest election in america and i hope you keep me on tonight because this hurts us all every single one of you out there in the nation if you're watching democracy died tonight. all right this or that first clip we'll get back to that but you saw the emotion and what that voter out there was trying to say on the streets it was constant not

everybody would agree with that but if we can say that the election it was cons and was bought let's talk about how the money actually works to create votes and joining me to discuss this is kevin glass managing editor at townhall and the jelani communications and outreach coordinator for united republic and writer at republic report dot org gentlemen thank you both for joining me tonight let me ask both of you you know what you think in terms of the influence that money had in this election do you think that it's fair people say that this was bought. well first is that fair share so you know whether you support or you support walker i think last night's election was very scary for a democracy and there's one reason why this was the most expensive election in wisconsin is history over sixty million dollars were spent is actually seventy percent more than was spent in the two thousand and ten election and there's actually a obscure loophole in wisconsin law that allows incumbents to raise pretty much unlimited amounts of money from individuals so there are people writing hundred thousand dollars checks corporate executives are going to walk or obviously union supported where they didn't have anywhere near as much support as corporations and

large donors to walker but both sides are spending tremendously and i think this is just a symptom of how crazy our elections are getting that people at the four dollars even scott walker who won probably didn't want to spend all that time fundraising which he had to do to win this election and so i think it's just another sign of how broken our system has become what do you think of it i think that you asked the right question here in the mainstream media actually isn't asking that question that question is can elections be bought a lot of the social science research shows a tenuous connection at best between money and buying elections you know history is littered with huge money money interests you know linda mcmahon for example in twenty ten in connecticut who actually failed to use their money advantage when steve levitt kind of wrote the seminal study on this university of chicago economist showing that. a doubling in your spending of money might get you one percentage point. and when we look at the numbers if we even take that as the

exact proportion between scott walker and barrett last night that's not enough to make up the difference and like i said social science research is really tenuous on the question of can be bought and it makes a kind of intuitive sense to those that you want to point to be made in terms of once you research certain threshold right does more money actually start to count we're talking about this on yesterday's show to. though is that you still have to pass a certain barrier because otherwise we're going to be a complete no name and nobody's going to know about you but i don't have the exact statistics in terms of voter turnout yesterday but we did keep hearing reports that they had to keep the polls open longer right that they were maybe starting to run out of ballots so it did actually get people energized people who are out there are going to vote and so then i guess you have to kind of start asking that you know. what is it that makes a voter go out there you know how much does money actually influence you is it just

the ads that you see the flyers that are out there how much money does it take to buy used you know how much information do i have to throw your way well lectures in this country basically work like you're selling a commercial are you selling it you're selling a product with a commercial you know when you talk about last night's election you had nonstop advertisements on radio and television walker dominated those you had a lot of mailers and things that the democrats had a pretty strong showing there but on both sides basically trying to trying to sell a product and people were ready to get out there when they see a commercial every single you know hour when they're watching television that makes them want to vote i mean just the reality now as far as what it is about people that write me does that mean that if you're so easily influenced by every flyer every sticker every commercial that comes your way or you you know are you a sheep i think that an informed this is actually another really good question in the social science literature is some of suggested that the appearance of massive massive piles of money actually discourages voter turnout saying that you know if i'm an average voter in wisconsin and i see that tons of corporations and unions

and whatnot are spending tons and tons of money i might be discouraged from going to the polls with this election showed last night is that that's absolutely not true you know there's a there was a pile of money the mainstream media the national media and the local wisconsin media were treating this as the biggest story for the last two weeks and you saw that that complete was completely destroyed last night we had an incredible turnout in wisconsin and it's really actually heartening to see that people are that that encouraged about kind of some state elections the don't have that much meaning on the national stage i'm with you know what have the sense that usually we see a lot of voter apathy right that's a huge problem in the country but let's go back to the clips that we played earlier of that this scott walker ad that was out earlier me. but good news for. the governor just real. the final job numbers and as it turns out he's gotten a ship again that's right again more than twenty thousand new jobs during my first

year in office at the jobs created this year at the total cost over thirty thousand mayor barrett he said this election's about jobs. i couldn't agree more reforms are working and we're moving wisconsin forward. all right so there's been a lot of reports out there showing that this ad actually just used a lot of tricky math out there to put these figures together but then so. are the voters to find out on their own you know are they supposed to do their own research or are they just supposed to take everything as they see it well it's interesting in the united states we have a few different things we were privatized campaign finance system it's pretty much unique in the dust realize world even european conservatives i talk to want to see that this year said it's crazy that we do that as a country and we also have long elections so people here see more ads than just about any candidate and i'm sure you know i am and we work a lot of people don't have time to research things i mean it can be pretty destructive i mean ninety four percent of federal candidates who have more money.

in a federal election ninety four percent of time the candidate has more money wins and i actually think most elections are actually worse than this one because in this one the national media gave enough coverage to both sides to every one had name recognition or let's say you're in a in an open primary and there are ten ten candidates the candidate who has the fundraising advantage almost always going to win because they can get name recognition they create enthusiasm in viability for themselves to be able to win so i mean i think more and more of our elections continue to be about who has the most dollars who's spending their time dialing for dollars you know not only are these politicians like scott walker going to have to spend so much time fundraising which i'm sure even he doesn't want to do but they're also going to have to their campaign donors almost every politician will pay back their campaign donors in some way when most of his money came from out of state will have to wonder what sort of things are going to put in the next budget and the next tax code i mean just another sense of how crazy the system is it maybe it would work the other way there at one and most of his money from the unions maybe paying them that especially it was either way the system has been totally corrupted by the money and i'm curious you know one thing having to do is in the sense that like i mentioned earlier there was a lot of outside out of state money that was flowing into this election why are conservatives

cool with that you know i mean if we're so hell bent on states' rights in the autonomy of the states then why and why does that blogger then that two thirds of walker's campaign funding came from outside of the state know what it seemed to to be was that was obviously scott walker implemented a bunch of collective bargaining reforms and the truth of the hour on those is they're not as huge as the mainstream. media has made them out to be but as you know anybody my question you know why is it ok ok you and. ask me and you decided to make this their stink and so they pushed out all their supporters they made they made this into a national election and in response to that obviously a lot of money flowed in to wisconsin because a lot of conservatives came with that as a conservative that even though you think that every state should be autonomous have its own elections that anyone else from outside the state can pour money into the tent school if we if we see that as

a problem then we would say wisconsin needs to reform their campaign finance laws wisconsin are not telling me what's going on i don't we're not there yes or no i haven't studied the literature on this if wisconsin on their own decided that these were the rules that their elections were going to operate under and you know i respect that i think that the states should decide for themselves and they obviously decided that this was the best way to conduct it's here or there no no firm stance in a photograph up to what do you think i mean what does this say for for unions across the country for labor for the obama campaign that's happening why would they go support obama now if all he did was send a tweet i think that you know labor did actually make some mistakes there were there was a section of labor that was actually for this is united because not only is that isn't united free of corporations to spend just about as much as they want and out independent of candidates but also free of unions to do the same things so they said ok that's great now we can spend more money on democrats i mean the question i have for them is how is that working out for you you know you're always going to be outspent by corporations by other big interests and the democrats really have not

done that much for labor they you know they don't even attempt to do the employee free choice act they can tell you to pass trade deals that are bad for labor and bad for the middle class what's the solution if you have to play the game even though you know you won't win it what else do you like as the research is big stone whether money purely buys elections as ed pointed out in congress something like ninety four percent of people win reelection and most of those get more more money but it's really hard to separate that out from the incumbency affair. something like ninety eight ninety eight percent of incumbents win reelection and when you know i'm going to donate to a campaign i want to be on the winning team so i'm going to donate to the incumbent and it's really hard to separate out why the money is going where it's going and from you know quality to be less so much was constant is probably don't get a vote for president obama to you right if they think that it's safe to bet on the income that i got to wrap it up but gentlemen thanks so much for joining me tonight thanks for having me. i had sort of comes and i was out of update on to christopher and bradley manning was back in for me today for another hearing before the real

trial begins firedoglake kevin gusto is going to join us to discuss what did and didn't happen in the courtroom. of american power continue. might be time. for the rulers record books. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome is a big issue. here

is what i wrote a. book and they alone if so they'll 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 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. .

welcome to the capital account i'm lauren lyster. one story we've been following here on the show is the case of imprisoned activist tim de christopher who was thrown in jail for an act of civil disobedience see in late two thousand and eight he disrupted a bureau of land management oil and gas drilling rights auction by winning the rights to fourteen land parcels now for that action in july of two thousand and eleven christopher was given a two year sentence and this march it was revealed that christopher was thrown into isolation in prison over an e-mail that he sent that contained quote a threat to wage a campaign against a donor who he felt was engaging in immoral practices and it christopher was being moved a guard told him that an anonymous congress member complained about the e-mail implying that that was why he was being put into isolation now the public outcry the follow this lead to the reintegration of the christopher into the general prison

population but the question of why he was put there in the first place still remains so that's all we asked you to help us figure out which congresspersons senator complained to the bureau of prisons about this letter as it represented quite an underhanded abuse of power we also file the foyer request about the topic and we asked for any and all correspondence in march of two thousand and twelve between the federal bureau of prisons and any member of congress or their staff concerning to christopher so today we finally have a response b o p said that nothing turned up here it is in their words a search was conducted in the correspondence tracking system and mr christopher central file no records were found there are no other locations where this record would be stored that would likely lead to the covering of the record with a reasonable amount of effort now does doesn't mean that a member of congress didn't play a role in the christopher's brief stint in isolation as passé one of tim's lawyers told us today a request to isolate him would not have been sent in a written or traceable form so we'll keep our ears and eyes open for any new leads

but for now we have no evidence that a lawmaker did pressure the bureau of prisons to throw to christopher in the whole . now you got a couple other big stories today when it comes to leaks for starters the third motion hearing for bradley manning began in fort meade today it's expected to last three days as we've reported to you before manning's offense is going to try to get ten charges out of the twenty two brought against the army private dismissed and there's some big news on what the judge will force the government to hand over but away from manning out of the white house john mccain is now leading the charge in calling out the obama administration for what seemed like politically motivated leaks you know like the kill list story that stuck to that story and the f.b.i. has even launched an investigation into who provided the leaks about cyber attack so we have to ask if the white house is getting a taste of its own medicine here to discuss this with me is kevin gusto list civil liberties blogger for firedoglake kevin thanks for joining us tonight let's start with with manning and you know and tell us what happened at this hearing today all

right so as you said there are ten charges that they would like to get dismissed and these are related to the allegations of espionage under the rise disclosure of information and then we've also got you know whether he did exceed is authorized access to computers as an intelligence analyst and you know particularly today we came clear is that you know this is a sort of david versus goliath battle quite literally because you know the mannings lawyer is named david coombs and he is trying to pry government information out that could be helpful to the defense of bradley manning. these that these brady materials right and he's talking about them before on the show and i were the last time we were speaking to kevin zeese about it and it seemed outrageous because turns out that the government hadn't even started looking into it for nine months after somebody mentioned day and then why had they not even begun and so i mean did any of those answers questions get answered today it was quite

a fascinating development because today the judge actually did something that i think should have been done months ago and she forced the government to go item by item through the requested individual pieces of evidence that david has asked to be provided and said look what do you know about this what do you know about the content what do you know about where it's located about the agency that said to have it what do you know about legally whether you would be able to provide it what do you what can you tell me about whether you would be opposed to disclosing it and giving it to the defense and this was remarkable to me because the judge i think finally saw that there is a game being played and it was exposed right in the middle of the hearing we saw major ashton fine is like the lead prosecutor in this case and he got caught misrepresenting the evidence like at least two or three times he was called out and david coombs even said look you know you're lying about the evidence you just

say you got the senate and it was disclosed. he was talking about an f.b.i. impact statement and he said look you say that you you didn't have it and here's this filing and it was disclosed so which was it when did you get the impact statement that's sort of dizzying but that seems quite the intent that they just want to keep prolonging of course trying with you in the sense that you know the judge probably should ask that months ago because those seem like very logical and normal obvious questions but so why are they being forced to hand over the government it's the state department's assessment as to. whether there were was any damage to national security right and as well as an assessment from the defense intelligence agency anything else and they're working on getting the wiki leaks task force report from the cia. you know your yeah everyone's favorite investigative report and they also are trying to get files from organising an

agency called. counterintelligence agency and they also want something from the director of national intelligence and so you know in these files it's i think it's still up in the air as to what david coombs and manning is defense are actually going to get but you know the the case you're going to get them that's that's the big thing right i mean i would say that that's a pretty big win for the defense they're likely to get something but what is so clear after today is is that without saying it and this is my feeling without saying it they're invoking state secrets privilege and appointing themselves as gate keeper to decide. to protect the government and do everything they can to not release this information i mean i have to ask myself are they playing a dual role here in addition to being tasked with convicting bradley manning are they also being asked to prevent the public and press from getting additional information about how the government responded to the wiki leaks releases and i

think it's quite clear in the way that they're handling it either this is what they're doing or you know my other theory is that perhaps they don't want to have the trial in september and this is all intentional to delay the proceedings and force the trial calendar to change so where we have the trial in november because i don't know i think we have an election coming up in november and i think what i was running for president would be really interesting though to see you know how it is that the government reacted in that sense whether there was some overreaction whether the whether they were freaking out about wiki leaks or i guess you could say you know the opposite and asleep at the wheel but i want to move on to this other story. leaks here to me this is just such an interesting development i've been railing on the white house basically all the last week when they saw this kill and kill this story come out we saw the stocks that story come out and it was obvious that they were trying to sell the president as what i considered to be a bad ass and it was a complete hypocritical move considering the way if they're prosecuting whistleblowers and so then what do you make of these developments now that we have

john mccain calling for this special investigative council we have the f.b.i. looking into these leaks and who actually provided them what's what's revealing to me is that the government the white house actually has put out an official statement in the last couple hours and what mccain is alleging is ridiculous and while i happen to think what he is saying is probably pretty partisan i know i wouldn't disagree and what's interesting about the white house response is what they say is you know we are not revealing anything that would be detrimental to national security but quite revealing about selective leaks because we know that everything they release is supposed to prop up and make their counterterrorism operations look good overseas no matter what it is even if we're just talking about the kill list they're not going to release something about how they failed to assassinate the number two commander so it's very revealing to me that the the white house lackey is saying that mccain's off we would never damage national

security well i agree but you would possibly reveal classified information that most people would think but what do you mean if you think about you know and again they've been the information for example that was put out there by wiki leaks you could say that most of that was really chest and bear a saying to the government and yet they want to charge bradley manning with aiding the enemy i mean i would say that a story in the new york times that talks about how the president sits there and goes through a deck of cards reading people's biographies and then individually write just one man making the decision as to kill someone that could be considered aiding the enemy until you know if you ask me if they're going to go by the parameters that they. normally laid out there but yeah there's something partisan obviously about john mccain going after i don't think he'd be doing it probably the it was a republican in the white house but again a little frustrating that it's republicans that care and not the left yeah i mean look under this administration they have quite the leaks problem in the cia sting underwear bomb plot thing you know a couple of weeks ago or

a few weeks ago that was a big deal i mean you actually have the possibility of blowing informants cover and actually making it impossible for you to carry out operations in yemen after that so that's a big deal but you know right now the left just really doesn't seem to be tuned into this being a critical issue as to the obama administration's really not caring about whistleblowers or you know the total violation of transparency yeah well we've definitely noticed over here and so i'm going to go we're going to net rates this week too can't wait to see what some people over there have to say if they have anything to say about it at all catherine thanks so much for joining us thank you. are coming up after the break you said and i read it with details on our upcoming show from netroots nation conference and in tonight's tool time well explain how republican senators have turned a blind eye to pay disparities in the workforce.