it against minimum wage is entirely. there absolutely is because you know it's a pretty good one and milton friedman made made the case that i was wrong. made the right case i think that if you said what the minimum wage what you're going to basically do is scare off businesses that would otherwise hire folks because they have to pay a certain level that they just can't afford i mean if we're going to go around the government telling businesses how much they should pay their pay their employees you know chemistry i mean like who who's going to be buying all these products than if we're not paying anybody a living wage and i say that the other thing is also what is our value system the american dream is that if you work hard enough you could do any order to achieve anything but we don't we're not rewarding labor or rewarding capital the american dream isn't if i just sit and wake up and my father happened to have a bunch of money that i had to i mean i think what you're actually doing is you're not rewarding anyone you're actually punishing people first off you know when when you set that that that way. it was when you said that price floor you're telling

low skilled workers young workers that are coming into the workplace they're not going to get jobs does anybody actually are not the most the most sophisticated minimum wage study that has been done to date was published of ember twenty it was jointly done by the university massachusetts university north carolina university of california their economics department three colleges they compared unemployment data among every single pair of neighboring counties in states in the united states where one state had a different minimum wage than the other state and they changed over time and they looked at a sixteen year period and they said that minimum wage increases did not cost jobs and if we were to raise the minimum wage to just nine dollars and fifty cents an hour which is what obama proposed you did jack sixty million dollars in the economy is two point four million new jobs. over twenty five percent now i ask you this if you think it's going to shrink what i'm saying is if you all if you are running a business and you can't afford to pay the minimum wage you have no right. to be

running a business in america and so who's going to follow the federal government's going to tell them that they don't have a right to run a business are you going to fight the government gives them the rights to run a business in the first two years ago i'm sorry but you don't really think that that the margin is that small that suddenly if we're paying somebody just a little bit more who could be also contributing to another business that then has more workers who are making money that they can put back into the base and we really think that that's going to that people are going to suddenly close up shop but you have to ask what what are the incentives for these for different companies to start paying these different salaries or different wages not a lot of it and then wait a minute that's ten dollars an hour i'd be you know say so if you all have to start making all these decisions based on a wage that you're not paying maybe you can't pay somebody else what you would pay there were you have to you have to cut out somebody's benefits health insurance or whatever because you have to start making all these decisions when you when you start adding in this area doesn't show that what history shows there is that every time the government way to tell you how many for a living wage has not gone up so in

a sense they are paying people last and they're still cutting benefits so you know inflation adjusted the minimum wage has gone down by three bucks asses and i'm sixty eight both pay is going down yet they're losing their benefits as well i believe is one of the this is the last minimum wage hike and it's not just the bad economy that's what's causing the crashing than it does with an unknown way believe here's. the continued economic policies but mitt romney well here's is president obama first of all defending his economic policies. last september i sent congress a detail jobs plan full of the kind of bipartisan ideas that would have put more americans back to work it had broad support from the american people it was fully paid for if congress had passed it in full we'd be on track to have a million more americans working this year point rate would be lower our economy would be stronger. of course congress refused to pass this jobs plan in

full we learned this week when roberts what's his name robert draper's new book came out that on inaugural day january twentieth two thousand. two thousand and nine yeah that fourteen republicans met and and including eric cantor and they and five senators and they agreed that they would block everything that obama was going to try and do as a way of crashing his presidency and mitch mcconnell basically announced that the next day or cantor bragged about it one of them talked about how we were going to become the taliban with regard to obama and this is. the news. obama now mitt romney in response to what obama just said is is saying well here's what mitt romney does. he wants to add more to government he wants to know the stimulus he wants to hire more government workers he says we need more firemen more policemen more teachers did he not get the message of wisconsin the american people did this

congress to. help the american people so we need fewer teachers fewer firemen unfair police officers this is the campaign the mitt romney is going to win on adam well let's just address exactly what mr obama said the beginning. first you know he already had his treats he got his stimulus in two thousand and eight i did not know seawater was using it was published his were not. one point now i understand second and third largest if you get out of that was tax cuts not actual spending every minute i looked into it and what is your sense of that was what the white house said at the time when that bill was signed to a person and it went well over the only republican in the house voted against it but it didn't matter it didn't matter because it was actually did matter but what you want to remember just was there was a complete control for those first two years of the obama destruction by the democrats in congress the truth is there actually was that i'm a little bit above that you know that you all you need is one republican senator if you had ninety nine democrats and one republican senator you could still have

gridlock so this idea that there are cracks had to it was a great a lot of those that don't think that was a great part of the constitution or not as we have one already because how our own ideas were asking for a dialogue or asking for compromise and we're asking people to come to the table and when there's a refusal to come to the table the legislation isn't as good your arguments are stronger your ideas are stronger when they're given the chance of public goods at the table to do any of those in fact as i recall republicans were even avoided to the table upon they got their bills through some sort of that they didn't work they didn't know what that means at what point the finger at fourteen people getting together and or going to look like they're voting record in every single one has been they going to have to get all the republicans who don't know what posters are already stopping obama to their statement is a little bit like dereliction of duty out of congress where a particular of the house where instead of passing actual spending bills and particular look at the highway bill the senate version is a two year spending bill which is what the transportation bill should be and they have this now we're just going to pass extensions and then we're going to try to like leverage some something that we really wanted to listen to on there but

they're actually supposed to do these comprehensive bills because you know what you're not addressing spending and equities you're not going to be able to cut spending in certain areas where there's too much spending and where there's waste because you know absolutely because you get to set. that is the sort of what i do want to get i think i think it's interesting that i mean you're making the case that the democrats are the party here at least at the federal level of good government when there is actually no addressing of all of the actual big problem which is you know out of control medicare spending which is something the republicans have been addressing but the bottom line is there's a difference in view of what i wrote on the role that and democrats came together in the senate to come together with a comprehensive two year transportation spending so i'm actually saying it's not democrat i'm or versus republicans i'm saying it's house versus senate it's what's happening in the house right now the house versus senate dynamic it's relatively new if we look back in time over the course of the entire presidency we see a president that has very rarely not got his way on his own or just initiates a bomb macare went through he didn't get i'm going to go watch the tax cuts was it

because of democrats it was because a republican they had the votes you know they have the votes that he never had sixty democrats in the house in the in the united states. joe lieberman is not they had the support to get what they wanted to do democrats back down on them but they never put it to a vote the point is there's a there is a big difference in philosophy here between the way the democrats and the brock obama. view the world of the government and the economy republicans have a different view this is what the public all the election is about building a millionaire should run our country a democratic government expands a parity and i'm going to point out if you think george w. bush i guess he doesn't explain to you know of obamacare majority a new poll just came out a c.b.s. new york times all the showed that a majority of americans want to see obamacare struck down. publicans are winning the messaging war forty one percent want it repealed twenty seven percent just repeal the romney mandate so you know what parts do adam what parts do you

think the republicans want to strike down what do they want to keep and if you get rid of the romney mandate how do you keep all the good stuff. well you know i think it's funny first in two thousand and nine when mr obama told us that this. could be a wildly popular bill once we once it was an act that once it comes out once we get a good one you have to people if they lose if those who said kids if the if the six million kids who are getting health insurance now with preexisting conditions should go back to not having health insurance people are horrified by the idea well your people just don't know what's in this bill here's what they know they do know they are going to enact the benefits that they're receiving from it with the actual bill there's a lot of people who haven't had that denial letter that says i'm sorry i'm a preexisting condition you're not going to get insurance anymore and so they say the lack of that letter isn't necessarily connected with the bill so i think that that's you know one major problem you know if you get a rebate from an alarm or an insurance companies can only spend so much on extras like bonuses and advertising but if you get that check back it feels like

a rebate from the insurance company and it's not necessarily the connections i'm drawn to the bell so it's a bad message and the democrats are remarkable i actually think that most americans actually don't know much about about the obamacare bill except for the individual mandate that's something that i think that almost all americans understand and reject i think what really yes the romney massachusetts' absolutely but i think what is coming out here in this poll that you mentioned is the fact that americans just didn't like the way this bill was crafted they didn't like the way it was pushed through they didn't like the way that you know whatever political message was sent by scott brown's going to massachusetts or anything else that democrats kept pushing it through that's what independents and republicans and even some democrats are rejecting and it tells you a lot that democrats had to use those ways to get this bill through it tells voters a lot that this probably wasn't a good bill to begin with even if they don't understand all the details you know parts of the bill that people do like are the parts that republicans have pledged to keep it low as well as democrats which is cause and which is

a factor. well first i would say of going back to the individual mandate most people don't really know about it and they they think they understand the premise of it but what's but what really is kind of a false a false you know kind of the economy around this is that the idea. that you can opt out of the health system and that is something that people currently believe what just falls i can't guarantee that i cross the state line that i'm not going to get hit by a car i'm not going to get sick and need medical care but i'm not going to just burn by playing a piece out of the out then and so because we can't guarantee that we're not going to get old we're not going to get sick or that we're not going to have some catastrophe that's out of our control and not our fault happened to us we can't opt out of the system and a lot of the reagan push through requirement that if you show up in an e.r. they've got a cure for you but he didn't push through any mechanism to pay for it and it's just been a disaster ever since many a more rubble coming up after the break. there

hasn't been anything good on t.v. . it is to get the maximum political impact. before the source material is for soaps journalism one of the reasons. we want to present. something real.

to the. welcome back this is big picture rubble joining me tonight are adam by the editor in chief of net right daily eric a new democratic strategist and michael warren writer with the weekly standard and let's get to our quick fire question the bush era tax cuts are set to expire in january first of next year and president obama is making it clear he's not going to extend that the tax at least that piece of it

that is the tax cuts for the wealthiest americans when asked about the president's stance on the tax cuts earlier this week press secretary jay carney told reporters quote he the president will not support an extension of the upper income bush tax cuts you could not be more clear and quote so will republicans play hostage taker again and hold the middle class hostage over tax cuts for the very rich is going to happen until the present budget is out there not holding the middle class hostage to suggest that they are is absurd so there's going to be a threat to the government if they don't i think if mr obama is correct mr curry who says what mr obama saying is correct then mr obama appears to be holding middle class hostage i think the middle class is disproportionately disadvantaged by government shutdowns by bills not passing when when companies have this capital have this money but they're not spending it because of the uncertainty of not knowing when things are going to happen or if they're going to happen in congress it's the middle class that suffers and and furthermore it's about paying your fair share michel you know i think that republicans should listen to bill clinton well

at least bill clinton before he got a call from the obama campaign and extend the tax cuts i mean you nobody wants to raise taxes while we're still stuck in a recession that's the argument i'm going to. i think we should not only roll back the bush tax cuts we should roll back the reagan tax and spend ending i'd like to see more spend a lot of rightly or could only michael and thank you all for joining sixteen trillion dollars on the left. warren harding was elected the twenty ninth president of the united states back in one nine hundred twenty what followed were two and a half years of what many historians consider one of the most corrupt presidential administrations in the history of our nation ultimately costing hearting his life

before he could finish his first term in office the signature scandal of the harding administration was something called the teapot dome scandal it involved his interior secretary albert fall a couple of major oil companies and lots and lots of money basically what happened was that the government owned a bunch of oil leases in california and wyoming here one here in el kills california one in teapot dome wyoming it was for national security there were fears that we could be in a war with japan soon in the military would need quick access to oil so it was good to have some reserves on hand ready to go so these reserves were managed by the secretary of the navy since again it was military oil when hardy moved into the white house all that changed immediately signing an executive order to hand off control of those oil leases from the secretary of the navy to his interior secretary albert fall who was a good buddy a big oil. and in one thousand twenty two within

a year of being given the oil leases interior secretary fault turned around and gave them basically privatized them gave them to two big oil companies mammoth oil which is owned by oil baron henry sinclair and the pan american company which was owned by edward edward doe haney the koch brothers of their day these two guys these are secret no bid contracts and they were a great deal for the oil corporations so hard in hands off strategic oil leases to fall and fall immediately hands those leases off to big oil if all this sounds fishy it's because it was fishy a few years after the oil deal people started noticing that interior secretary albert hall was spending money all over the place which was strange his fall had been a pretty poor guy that he was known to consistently be broke and even unable to pay his local taxes but now he was spending like crazy and using lots and lots of fresh hundred dollar bills a senate investigative committee took an interest in falls new found riches launched an investigation into the interior secretary and what they found was the

fall had received three hundred sixty thousand dollars in today's money would be well over thirty four million bucks way over that in so-called private loans and bonds from these two same these very same oil oligarchy to whom he had leased the military's oil just a few years back remember those oil fields in california and the teapot dome in wyoming henry sinclair with mammoth oil gave him two hundred sixty thousand dollars in what were called liberty bonds and ohanian with pan american company gave fall one hundred thousand dollars no interest no security loan that's pretty straightforward bribery no doubt about it and interior secretary fall was thrown in jail. it likely would have taken president hartings administration down as well although harding died a few months before the investigation got really intense the teapot dome scandal was the signature scandal harding administration although there were several others

historian frederick louis allen perfectly describes the scene in washington back in that day back during the party in ministration writing his book only yesterday the lousy gentlemen with cigars stuck in their cheeks and rolls a very useful hundred dollar bills in their pockets began to infest the washington hotels the word rant about that you could do business with the government now if you only fix things up with the right man the oil men lick their chops had they not lobbied powerfully at the chicago convention for the nomination of just such a man as harding who did not take this conversation or conservation nonsense too seriously and would not secretary harding harding secretary interior albert the fall less than devote are devoted to develop the national national resources on friendly and not too stringent terms when these scandals became began coming to light hearted starting to feel the noose tightening he became stressed paranoid and depressed eventually falling ill on

a train and dined in one thousand twenty three in the early one nine hundred twenty s. in america political bribery and corruption were actually punished so america's most powerful people were thrown in jail and the press and the pressure sickened and ultimately killed a president of the united states. but today in america with a few tweaks by the supreme court this is a very same blatant political corruption not only goes unpunished but wins the game of politics and not only that many of today's politicians have to do it just to survive politically. that's how corrupted our democracy has become. you might have read that the house of representatives just passed a massive thirty million dollars tax break for medical device companies while the guy leading that charge the primary sponsor of the bill was republican congressman eric pauls as the sunlight foundation reported the congressman just received more than one hundred twenty thousand dollars in campaign contributions from you guessed

it the medical device industry so in one thousand nine hundred twenty two it was illegal for an oil c.e.o. to give one hundred thousand bucks to interior secretary to the interior secretary paul and in return get a favorable land deal from that interior secretary but in two thousand and twelve it's perfectly fine for a medical device company to give money to realize your congressman and in return get a huge tax break millions today this sort of corruption isn't just done through the exchange of money but also through the exchange of people as well for example guess who's speaker of the house john boehner his policy chief is this guy brett loker as the republic report discovered bret loper used to work in the medical device industry and in two thousand and ten worked really hard to kill the medical device tax provision in obamacare now the industry lost that fight so they gave brett local one hundred thousand bucks to leave his job according to republic report in

the industry and go work for the soon to be speaker of the house john boehner which is slightly less lucrative but his mission was simple get the tax repealed and sure enough chording republic report within a year and a half the industry's agent in boners office got his boss to bring congressman paulson's thirty million dollar medical device tax cut to the floor whip republicans up to vote for it and are sure the bill through we the people's house of representatives welcome to the revolving door at its finest. so in one thousand nine hundred two it was illegal for an oil c.e.o. to give money to the interior secretary at every turn and get a land deal from that entire interior secretary worth millions but intended to but in two thousand and twelve it's perfectly fine for a medical device c.e.o. to give one hundred thousand bucks to a soon to be policy maker and in return get a tax break worth tens of millions of dollars and then there's the issue of super

pacs or giant slush funds the politicians can now use to run for office slush funds that anyone can donate to as much money as they want and in complete secret so when the koch brothers super pacs slush fund gives millions to scott walker to get elected governor of wisconsin and then survive a recall a year and a half later and walker turns around and pushes for legislation to give big energy companies access to public lands at a fire sale price you have to wonder if that's any different than what was going on back in the days of the teapot dome scandal or when michigan governors like rick snyder republican rick snyder's elected in two thousand and ten thanks to corporate super pacs slush fund money and then turns around and passes legislation giving himself the power to take over entire cities and sell off public lands to corporations and a great price through his financial managers like he did to gene clock park in benton harbor at the wonder again it's not that pretty much the same thing that

albert faulted in one thousand nine hundred eighty two i think so. this is how politics works now a complete dependence on corporate money for survival republicans do it democrats do it mitt romney does it president obama does in fact that president obama isn't willing to do more of it if he isn't willing to commit himself to the super pacs slush fund of corruption game then he'll lose. in november in the last eighty years the supreme court has given corporations more and more power and more and more rights culminating in the two thousand and ten citizens united decision which made it unlimited political bribery completely legal through these giants slush funds that are called super pacs machine called super pacs they should be called slush funds they should be called bribery systems i mean this is the supreme court has created a system that is that is that has taken the teapot dome scandal and said oh yeah

that's fine no problem let's just do that over and over over it and already two years into this bizarre experiment in something that does in quite seem like them ocracy any more political survival for many members of congress not all of them if they lose you know if they're a small and of state or a small enough district they can still do retail politics they don't have to worry quite so much they don't have to depend so much but for most of the rest of the politicians their political survival depends on something that looks an awful lot like bribery. we need to overturn the supreme court decision get the money out of politics and out of washington d.c. altogether with strict new laws to bolt tight the revolving door and reform wall lobby we don't need another warren harding for information on how to fix this go to move to amend or. that's the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered visit our websites and thom hartmann dot com free speech dot org

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u.n. observers reach the side of the latest massacre in syria but struggle to make sense of what happened while international efforts to solve the conflict are stepped up with russia taking. any long tougher fines for protestors violating public comes into force today in russia after a lengthy parliamentary debate now demonstrators could face be out of pocket by seven thousand euros for breaking the rules. after being blacklisted by baltic states acuity bullies or the so-called threat to national security reporter investigates what's really behind the motion. a.t.m. in the russian capital you're watching r t with me marina joshie you want to servers in syria say they can come. firm the details of the latest massacre in the country

the monitors have investigated the scene of the killing but are unable to determine how many died or who's to blame for several explosions and gun battles have since erupted across syria and in the capital damascus from where we are now joined by our correspond maria you know so worried tell us what's happening where you are and has the fight come to present the doorstep. yes exactly damascus last night has been hit by what some have been describing as the heaviest fighting between the rebels the opposition the armed opposition and the governmental forces we've been deed been hearing sounds of explosions and heavy shelling and separate shootings for several hours nonstop and as it's become normal for the syrian conflict we've been hearing conflicting reports on exactly what happened and why this occurred the london based syrian observatory for human rights have been saying that the rebels before it all started it's all good.