alonzo marvin in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture we already know mitt romney's run for the presidency is receive financial help from chinese gangs now it turns out he may even have connections to el salvadorian death squads around the stay in the presidential race with new bombshells dropping every day also republicans have a tough choice to make raise taxes on the all important millionaires and billionaires or cut spending to the massive military or republicans able to break their promise to multimillionaire lobbyist grover norquist in order to protect their defense industry donors and all across america record high temperatures and

a lack of rain are causing a nightmare for our nation's farmers and our agriculture industry just how badly has the largest drought in decades hurting our food supply and is this a glimpse of things to come in the age of global warming. you need to know this when you mention these small handful of wealthy families have pretty much own to el salvador in the reagan eighty's you often think of the infamous death squads that their right wing military government supported as tom brokaw reported in one thousand nine hundred eighty three on n.b.c.'s evening news . a death squad strike could anyone they suspect of working for their gross or sympathizing with them even when friends are involved most of the victims are the sons and fathers of the poor the children and husbands of these women who marched recently against gadhafi. these people routinely used rape and murder including

that of children as a way to suppress the labor movement in that country as well as routinely disappearing or killing the oligarchy ponens in gruesome ways that were meant as warnings to others a few of the death squad members felt so bad about what they did that they later gave on the record testimony about for example that a november first one nine hundred eighty nine press conference former silva door and soldiers cesar v.l. oven. martinez excuse me said the some of the military units in the intelligence unit he was part of participated in what he called a heavy interrogation what you and i would call torture and after that it was his job to clean up to kill the victims he strangled some slit the throats of others injected some with rat poison he said they couldn't use bullets because the bullets might be traced back to the military he also said that a u.s. advisor worked at the desk next to his and he reported to him as the u.s. was providing a monthly budget and teaching torture techniques to the salvadoran military around

now you're probably asking yourself why am i talking about the el salvadoran death squads in the one nine hundred eighty s. well because in the midst of all this in the one nine hundred eighty s. a management consultant with deep connections to the reagan republican party was charged by his boss at bain consulting to start a new company bain capital and was sent off in search of investors. yes that consultant was yep mitt romney and guess were all met went off to find investments el salvador el salvador investigative reporter justin elliott looked into this and what he found led him to write an article for salon titled the roots of bain capital in el salvador civil war romney tapped el salvador's wealthy families including one linked to right wing death squads as elliott notes back in one hundred eighty four wealthy salvadoran families were looking for safe investments as violence in upheaval and gulf the country he points out the u.s. was enthusiastically supporting the right wing government of el salvador and

a quote eliot the war which pitted leftist guerrillas against a right wing government backed by the reagan administration ultimately left over seventy thousand people dead in that tiny nation the vast majority of violence a un truth commission later found was committed by rightist death squads and the military which receive us training and six billion dollars in military and economic aid in it or is death squads were financed by members of the salvadoran oligarchy and had close links to the country's military death squads kidnapped tortured and killed suspected leftists so who were the oligarchy who owned and ran el salvador according to al it one of the most prominent families was the desoto family and mitt romney recruited for their members to provide much of the initial funding for bain capital elliott writes for members of the disloyal family were among the original bain investors or limited partners in the country in the company the globe reported their relative and one time business partner landed

a solo was an important figure in el salvador. and family was a big part of the ruling elite of the country at the time according to two time pulitzer prize winning reporter craig paes was quoted by elliot as writing that orlando does sola was in the inner circle of the group around his saw at the time that the of the song was well known to be involved in the death squads to sold his name appears in a december one nine hundred eighty three f.b.i. cable as one of twenty nine people suspected by state department officials of furnishing funds and weapons to sell the door and death squads in august of two thousand and seven mitt romney told the miami herald that he traveled to latin america at least a dozen times and search a start up money for bain capital and money eventually represented about forty percent of all the outside cash he brought in even bragged about hunting for cash among some of the most authoritarian and brutal regimes in the world telling herald reporter open oppenheimer that the investment for the company that i started bain

capital was quote from mitt romney came largely from latin america my largest single investors came from el salvador ecuador colombia and guatemala and of quote from mitt romney all countries where the then reagan administration was secretly funding death squads and violent right wing governments or insurgencies so the question if the media wants to know what rubbed off on obama when he was sitting in reverend wright's church how come nobody is asking what rubbed off on romney when he was sitting with the oligarchy in el salvador colombia and guatemala. it will be it may well be that the other shoe is about to drop in the main story and that it isn't about another factory that shut down its workers and something overseas instead it may be that at its birth bain was contaminated with blood money keep an eye on the story now want to turn over to mike papen tonio attorney and host of ring of fire radio robert kennedy jr eight mike how you doing good how you doing though great so now we have a connection between romney and el salvador and death squads how much worse is this

going to get. well there's a new story every day if you his mitt romney's new talking line is the reason i don't want to release anymore financial information is because every time i do the democrats get ahold of it in they spin it out of control this story that you just told i would say is one that is going to take hold and it's one that the media needs to talk about this story that the c.r.c. story is another story that comes out of us asking questions about about where his money comes from the c.r.c. story is right here in the united states it's an ugly story i'm curious your take on just slightly to change the topic we'll come back to this and just a second the bain part of it which is the politics of this and romney was being interviewed by robin wright whose father was in the tuskegee airmen and she said you people the last time i heard that in presidential politics and you know correct

me if i'm just way off base on this was when when ross perot addressed to address the end of one thousand nine hundred two and he took a world of grief for that. well it's a term you hear i was been raised in the south all ma live and it's a demeaning term it's a term that she hear in the south but you certainly don't expect to hear it from the wife of the person who wants to be present united states and i think what it does is it just shows that you know i hate to use the term out of touch is way over used in this i think what it shows is that it's a divide and it's a separation between the reality of what most of us on the street regard is kind of common sense and what the romney campaign seems to can't grasp and that is they simply do have a disconnect with what the rest of america understands and says that even in their in their everyday language it certainly seems so i mean it is sometimes the things that slip mean when a deal for audience looks like what do you make of the salon story about bain's investment in a for profit health company that has

a history of neglect and wrongful death lawsuit and that only got worse after being took over the company invest in the cup. it's an important story because in two thousand and six when bain bought this company what started happening is the quality and safety issues started to erode the word stories started emerging about overcrowded overcrowded conditions understaffing under trained individuals running these places under financed facilities but what was happening is people were dying because of it this is a company that's been sued numerous times for just absolute abuse and neglect now the reason it's an important story the reason it comes back to romney is romney is still making money on this company see what people missed home is that it went when romney left bain he had an agreement where he could make as much is the average has been anywhere between four hundred and one point two million dollars

a year just on spin off companies understand he has forty eight accounts still with the bain corporation but this company is important i mean this story is important because they've been sued so often they've been they've had so many regulatory hits and for romney to say i didn't know about that is absurd well and also i mean republicans are saying well you know he's just a businessman lawyer you're going up against capitalism quack quack quack but shouldn't we be questioning what a presidential candidate is profiting from especially people are dying that's right it comes out of this basic question don't we judge the character of the person who is running for president according to the character of the corporations that they they they connect themselves with don't we judge i mean if you think about you talked about the right reverend wright issue what they were trying to do with obama in that situation is was is say simply that he had an association with this guy therefore he must be just like reverend wright and if you follow this story what

you conclude is you have a company that has been there's been sexual predators involved. with this with the staff of this company people who have died because they don't have enough staff to take care of the people that are supposed to be there for drug treatment for psychiatric treatment even for weight loss and story after story comes out of this out of this situation that gives you a picture of how romney regards business business at all cost is long as you're making a profit doesn't make a difference of people are dying if people are being injured of people are being sexually assaulted as long as we're making money everything's ok in the minute we have left here pat given these dark stories of bain isn't this all the more reason why romney should be released his tax returns every time he does it leads to a story like this he's been told to go out there and say that the democrats take

these stories and they blow him out of proportion no the democrats and anybody with the brain takes a story like this and says this is a direct reflection on the character of the person who wants to be president of the united states that's very important it's not a minor issue it goes to the heart of who he is tome absolute well tony thanks so much for being with us tonight thank you. after the break speaker john boehner is in a pickle as he took off the one percenters or say goodbye to the military industrial complex stated.

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in screwed news america likes to think of itself as the richest nation on the planet it's basically considered common knowledge which countries the richest on earth america of course hear from our politicians our school teachers our news media and looking strictly a total combined wealth we are the richest. are into a two thousand and eleven study by a lie ons the united states has over forty one trillion dollars in combined wealth second is japan with far less than half the wealth of the united states and just over fourteen trillion dollars so we're number one right well not exactly our nations combined wealth is astronomically high but that's only because there are a heck of a lot of billionaires living here in fact about a third of the world's billionaires live right here in the united states of america that's four hundred twelve billionaires who live in america and second on the list is china with only one hundred fifteen billionaires. so our total wealth is

inflated by all the billionaires who live here if you want to true measure of how wealthy the united states actually is and you have to look at median wealth or how much americans in the middle are making under that criteria the united states doesn't even crack the top ten in the world according to a report by credit suisse fifteen o.e.c.d. nations have a higher median wealth than the united states that includes nations like australia japan and israel it also includes european nations that are in crisis like spain italy and ireland that's because over the thirty years since we embraced reaganomics the middle class in america has been devastated and the countries the rank ahead of us even the ones that are in the middle of a debt crisis in europe they have not sold out their middle class what do most of these countries with higher median wealth avin common universal health care strong labor unions generous social safety nets and high taxes on the rich all the things

that we used to have here in the united states side from universal health care until reagan came along in the one nine hundred eighty s. declared war on organized labor went to work on doing the new deal and gave the super rich a massive tax cut so that today we're not the wealthiest nation on the planet anymore we just have the most romney level rich people but our working people we're not even doing as well as the workers of taiwan. now in the news coming out of capitol hill how do you make republicans in congress. you force them to choose between raising taxes on rich people or cutting defense spending that's the choice republicans are facing today is five hundred billion dollars will automatically be cut from the pentagon's budget at the end of the year as the result of these seaquest ration debt limit compromise last year publicans are now urging congress to act to reverse the automatic cuts with some republicans even now claiming that the government does indeed create jobs and then we need government spending citing reports that show these cuts to defense spending will kill

a million jobs course those reports are written by defense industry so-called experts and the c.e.o. and actual experts are far less hysterical they point out that even with the cuts the pentagon's budget will still be larger than it was in two thousand and six and that today we're in one less full blown war than we were back that still defense contractors are desperately trying to take spending cuts off the table and some like military giant credit when they are even calling on republicans to raise taxes to prevent the defense cuts course the reason why we're here in the first place is because republicans refused to raise taxes during the debt limit negotiations democrats pleaded with republicans to lee's put tax increases or at least closing loopholes on the table to strike a so-called grand bargain with deficit reduction to avoid a trillion dollars worth of automatic spending cuts clued in that half a half a trillion five hundred billion from the defense department the republicans

wouldn't do it since grover norquist told them they couldn't so no deal was struck and the automatic trigger of defense cuts was put in place so now republicans are stuck between violating their no tax pledge to multimillionaire lobbyist grover norquist or disappointing their war profiteering campaign donors. so what do we do joining me now to give us an answer is david seeley conservative commentator and pro-business advocate david welcome back. thanks for having me on tom as always it's a pleasure thank i want to thank your viewing audience i got some really lovely letters last week particularly from the u.k. this woman by the name of steffi gil you wrote me they were very warm letter it was nice sweet sweet so david why do you hate deficit reduction. well i think you know by now i don't hate deficit reduction what i am opposed to is

uncontrolled spending. untrammeled social programs that don't necessarily work and a gross departure from the generally accepted accounting principles we need to control our spending get around our arms around the budget and then pay off our obligations ok well if you were one of the republicans in congress and you had to choose between cutting defense spending or raising taxes on rich people which would you do . well i think there's a third alternative and i want to go on the record as saying this i think right now to cut defense spending would be very deleterious to us it really breaches the boundary of negligence it surpasses stupidity it almost. reaches the level of sedation you know you're going to save in our in a shooting war where just we're just going to war of them we just close down a war these cuts would take us back to two thousand and six levels we spend our

military spends more than that of every other country on earth combined isn't enough and i. know it is imperative that we were a man very strong peace through superior firepower and it is also essential that we maintain the capability for a first strike ability irrespective of the cost we have to issue is just money if the issue is just the money of this five hundred billion dollars we can pick that up in very short order by just reforming some of the programs we have right back here on the home front you know instance quite literally overnight well we could pick up twenty eight billion dollars over night if we would just amend that i r c section one fifty two spoken about it on your program that's the provision that allows the league. well allianz to deduct alleged dependents who live in mexico a lot of those dependents they're false they're cut from whole cloth we lose and

this is you know i will challenge any sitting congressman or senator to refute these figures we lose twenty eight billion dollars a year into this or the rest we could probably pick up david you wouldn't be losing this or you can't those people in order to be taking deductions have to be painted this is in the first place so it's kind of a way out of memos about your argument but we're not we're not talking about illegal immigration here today we're talking about the defense department and you know i saw that the government doesn't create jobs you know have me out there and you got all these defense contractors saying oh don't cut our projects you know lose jobs. does the government creates jobs. well in this particular forum it certainly does you know anyone who enlisted in the military the way i did the way my son did the way many of the viewing audience does these men and women who have served with distinction they were employees of the government so yes the government does however at the risk of being redundant it is

essential that we say stay strong here and to negate the costs that we are wasting throwing away these dollars on these entitlement programs for illegals is folly because that is real money they could be used for the military or anything else but i would remind you that irrespective of the rhetoric this is ministration is not paying down the deficit and we have no reason to believe they would use those monies to pay it down either well presumably they could be mandated i mean congress initiates all spending but the fact of the matter is and you're a big fan of cutting waste and fraud the fact of the matter is that right now the pentagon can't account for two trillion dollars that's gone missing they can't account for hundreds of billions of dollars that have gone missing just in iraq and afghanistan isn't it time to say that and a gun ok five hundred billion dollars cut at least until you tell us where the two trillion. let's just audit it but why don't we audit with real accountants.

not these partisan characters something else it's a tough one so am i am in favor of an audit want to go on record and contrary to what i hear from some people these are not talking points you know it's very important that these individuals who use the taxpayers' dollars they are a fiduciary and they must be accountable for that and when money goes missing we've got to find where it went irrespective of the political party right now i don't disagree i mean there was a pile of hundred dollar bills compressed into bricks wrapped in plastic that was big enough to see from outer space it was it was several billion dollars that was physically airlifted into iraq and then just vanished this is the kind of right you know this is no way to run a war was it was dwight eisenhower they had that i think it's an urban myth i think not but maybe i will say that was was eisenhower we have just

a minute left was eisenhower wrong when he warned the nation of the military industrial complex. i think we have more of that today than we ever did previously but. you know it's a very complicated issue and to cut our military spending right now when we are at this very delicate point in time i think would be folly and the consequences would be very dangerous it's in central that we stay strong well you know staying strong is one thing having a fat and happy military well and we can we can will live to debate that another day david see that thanks so much for being with us tonight. thank you tom thank you do your viewing audience thank you as the old saying goes when the elephants fight the mice get trampled so expect republicans to try to please both their bases war profiteers and the romney level super rich and push for even deeper spending cuts in unemployment benefits and other social safety net programs that help

working people time to contact your member of congress and tell them to invest in rebuilding the middle class instead of building more unnecessary missiles tanks and warplanes. crazy alert pole dancers putting on a street show over the last year and a half for the street signs in south auckland new zealand have either been banned broken or brought home and authorities have determine the people responsible for the street signs water of the city's local prostitutes that's right city officials are blaming the local prostitutes use of the street signs for holding and see the routines as the reason for all the destroyed signs. donnelly

a south auckland city official the polls are part of there is soliciting equipment and they often snap them some of the prostitutes are big strong people but according to some people the act of pole dancing on street signs is actually a sport called urban pole dancing and those who participate in it should not be published punished one urban pole dancer said it's fun to do it at a busy intersection to get people to look at you and they don't look at your trash on the bright side incidents of road rage are reportedly down considerably. coming up the united states is experiencing its worse and drought in over five decades a drought that has caused the price of crops to go to corn to skyrocket to new highs is this devastating drought a direct result of climate change and our scorching temperatures and freak weather conditions the new norms of growth global warming or.

download the official anti up location tool on phone oh i pulled touch from the choose ops to. watch on t.v. life on the go. video on demand tease mine gold coast's and says feeds now in the palm of your. question on the dot com. more news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the

world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations rule the day.