and welcome back to the big picture i'm sam sacks in for tom hartman coming up in this half hour ever since it was created seventy seven years ago yesterday social security has been a much needed lifeline helping millions of americans survive if this is the case and knowing that so many americans rely on social security to live why do conservatives want to eliminate it and what's the easiest way to make sure every vote counts and to prevent massive vote counting errors from ever happening again well tom will tell you in tonight's daily take. the case so it's pretty well known that paul ryan wants to end medicare as we know it he literally wrote the law to do just that there's no one in congress more actively trying to kill medicare than paul ryan so that's a known fact

a lesser known fact is that paul ryan also wants to end social security as we know it see back in two thousand and ten ryan proposed a new program that would shift social security funds out of the coffers of government and into the hands of wall street he also had plans to reduce benefits and raise the retirement age looking at ryan's plans for social security in two thousand and ten the congressional budget office gave this fairly obvious assessment saying social security payments would be quote more uncertain because returns on stocks are risky and quote no kidding you see had people like paul ryan succeeded in privatizing social security before the two thousand and eight financial meltdown americans would have been even worse crisis with millions of seniors losing their retirement benefits and a plummeting stock market. it's important to remember that yesterday marked the seventy seventh anniversary of social security being signed into law by president

franklin roosevelt and thanks to this program twenty million americans are out of poverty today so the question is why does paul ryan and others within his party and libertarians why do they want to get rid of it well let's ask my next guest adam by lee joins me now he's the editor in chief daily i don't welcome back to the show thank you sam so it's often been said that the best way to judge a society or civilization is how they treat their young and how they treat their old social security right now is keeping twenty million seniors out of poverty do you have a problem with that. well first off i think your statement there is pretty profound you know the how society treats are young and old well if we judge social security on that statement alone that it's treating both pretty poorly first the young or going to be overtaxed for a program that probably won't pay paid them in twenty thirty years i mean we don't know that right now social security you know has a two point six trillion two point seven trillion dollars surplus it's going to

what do they do with that surplus stamp they actually take that surplus and they invest it and they invest that in treasuries the treasuries are then immediately spent so that surplus while exists on someone's computer was going to be an existence still twenty thirty five no it won't now it won't and that's not true so you will and i will either way either way how can you say that social security is not treating the young and old well there's twenty million americans who are now living in poverty that would be living in poverty if there wasn't any social security what is your alternative what your alternative first off would be to allow people to take that money that they paid in and either invest it save it dude ever they want to do with it you know before seventy seven years ago seventy seven years and one day ago people could do whatever they wanted they could rely on charity they could rely on the same want to go into the robber baron area you want to go back to you know your great russian era when people had no people of the streets and every ok well first off. ok is an exaggeration to imagine you know that there

was people just living in the streets for hundreds of thousands of years before social security there was never a strong middle class as we seen post social security be true but that had to do with booms in the economy not the creation of social security what we're talking about now is people are paying doesn't when seniors have money in their pocket when they're not you know living in destitution and in their spending money doesn't that help an economy isn't that part of a boom ok but you're not talking about one hundred percent seniors poor people forward. nineteen thirty five i mean what we're talking about is a very exaggerated look at social security what enjoy really nice retirement for them today were they able to retire at sixty five and live the next twenty years older people that you really didn't live to sixty five this is a relatively recent development that we live in towards have an easy or eighty's now into our nine so do we do with it that we have to think we have to somehow help these people or a you don't yes we do have to have civilization why way they care for their own say

we're not we're not talking about helping people but we're talking about is authorizing government with the force of guns in forcing a law that says you will pay all part of your paycheck that's what thing is helping people i'm not sure that that many people isn't forced with guns to pay into their social security or pay their payroll tax or not about adjusting that police are coming toward the war from the i.r.s. but what's happening is is that if you don't pay your taxes you will go to jail so you see it will be to try to suggest these are private retirement accounts you think wall street's a safer place in the government for money. well not necessarily arguing that that wall street's your best but it may not be you know but i'm going to leave that decision up to you you can figure out how you want to spend your money however you want to save it if you want to be very risky with it or if you want to be very frugal with it that's your call but what we're doing now is we're saying let's let the social security ministration take that money and it's spent immediately that money comes in the door it's spent that day. and i don't think exists i would say

that this this idea that you have you know people are unhappy to have to give money to social security a source of security is a very popular program it's never missed a payment. lots of people depend on it and lots of people are going to be pretty upset if someone tries to get rid of it suggesting that the popular incident surance program it's not a welfare program people people it's exactly like niters warfare into it and you contribute is a lot of people going out of a little bit i get out of that programs like what you pay in a lot of cases people get a lot more out of it than they paid in so it's not like i just gave them my money to safely hold onto so i wasn't you know disastrous with it over fifty years of my life what they're doing with the money is spending it immediately and this surplus that we hear about it exists on a sheet of paper it is spent it is gone in they will miss payments and that's not responsible track record seventy years haven't missed a payment if we raise the cap on our wealthy people to make them pay their fair share i think social security solvent for the next seventy five years now is that

i'll take the lesser there are a couple of issues thank you the idea of a republican presidential ticket running on a platform to get rid of medicare and maybe even social security would have been unheard of just a few decades ago and it's a sign that something is happening to the republican party as we used to know it there's time to take on it. back after world war two we came out of world war two with an absolutely massive here it is right here this is this is debt in the united states literally from the revolutionary war war of eight hundred twelve the civil war world war one world war two and the question is how did the white eyes in the how are the republican president pay off all of this debt and create this incredible trough all the way down to the point where reagan came into office and with his tax cuts on the rich exploded the debt and clinton dropped the debt and then bush came in with his tax cuts on the rich and explode the debt again so i don't know how did eyes and how or do this after world war two very simple he borrowed money and spent it he created

a national highway system the equivalent of today building a high speed rail system across the country that created a boom for communities all across the nation and for england manufacturers who want to get products support for export which of course stimulate our economy and. where it used to be their pay down the debt he created eisenhower nine hundred fifty three the department of health education and welfare welfare and made it a cabinet position to reduce the number of hungry and poorly educated americans and stimulate the economy to pay down our debt he pushed for and built the st lawrence seaway linking the great lakes with the atlantic ocean to build trade with europe thus creating manufacturing jobs for export those stimulating the economy and paying down our debt he reached out to alaska and hawaii and brought them into the us he openly supported a top income tax rate of ninety one percent of the very very rich which helped pay down our debt he openly supported corporations pain over thirty percent of all tax

collections of the federal level which helped pay down our debt today its culture of fifteen percent he pushed for federal aid for r. and d. so in one nine hundred fifty six i.b.m. built the first hard drive and in one nine hundred sixty the laser was imbedded with largely federal funds he openly supported unionized workers having the right to organize which kept pay up. thus increasing tax income to the federal government paying down the debt he aggressively defended social security and said the right wing oil men in texas who wanted to privatized it were in eisenhower's word stupid and their number is small and quote in one nine hundred fifty six he pushed for a twenty five percent increase in the minimum wage further stimulating the economy and helping pay down our debt he was anti-war and in one nine hundred fifty nine invited cruise ship to the united states just beginning the process of what we today called the top which kept our military budget from exploding and helped us pay down our debt in one nine hundred fifty three he fulfilled his nine hundred fifty two campaign platform of vote for peace vote for eisenhower by ending the war in korea we stop the hemorrhaging of money from that war and help pay down our debt

he made it easier for veterans to get their g.i. bill benefits the discounted mortgages free college education those building the middle class stimulating the economy which paid down our debt he supported civil rights aggressively supported the one nine hundred fifty four supreme court decision brown versus board that led to the integration of schools in fact in one thousand nine hundred seventy seven federal troops in arkansas it would force paving the way for the creation of an african-american middle class that further stimulated the economy and pay down our debt and on his way out of office he warned us about the military industrial complex which is now bankrupting us by tripling our defense budget since one thousand nine hundred seventy with a greater percentage of it going to private for profit corporations than any time in the history of the us these were all considered pro-american back then and they were also considered conservative positions during the eisenhower administration republicans real republicans please take back your party.

time for the new liquid lunch and you know prepping for the show made me a little hungry so i decided to make myself a sandwich here we've got some. turkey some lettuce we got some smith and. don't forget the whiskey yeah i'm just going to go ahead and drench my sandwich here in some whiskey. yeah just just like that just like the saloon maid panini shop in new york city she the chef said slew may have created alcoholic sandwiches which include a. sandwich with gin. ham sandwich with a wry whisky and a beet root sandwich with scotch and since the sandwiches are soaked in the alcohol after they've been made none of the alcohol is burned off the only problem since the sandwiches contain shots of pure alcohol will probably only be able to avail of

all for those over the legal drinking age of twenty one so the next time you're having a rough and stressful day at work and already need a drink by lunch time but don't want to get caught at a bar well maybe you should talk to killa or soak your reuben in some. very prolific coming up roses have an uphill climb in november going up against billionaires and voter id laws. but the most difficult challenge may be something no one is talking about probably explain in tonight's daily to. my parents really truly honestly believe that what had happened was as a result of my father's exposure to agent orange i was born with multiple problems

. i was missing my leg and my fingers and my big toe on my right foot i use my hands a lot in my artwork i find myself drawing my hands quite a bit to me for my hands you know just as if anyone would. but they do tell a story they tell a story of. oxen. oh oh. oh

. just. and now it's time for tonight's the good the bad and the very very ugly the good truck taught last week mitt romney relentlessly attack president obama claiming that he was trying to undermine the welfare reform law passed in the one nine hundred ninety s. welfare reform that's proven to be a failure today by the way well i never seem to see this morning chuck todd interviewed i will republican governor terry branstad who continued the lies about the welfare law rather than letting it all go out actually stood up to bridge that attack to take a look. we reformed welfare in the one nine hundred ninety s. now the obama administration is straight on do the work requirement we think that we need to instead of trying to put more people governor branstad i can't let you go and i've done that i have it in the same hand all done that they've used

different they haven't been going to work requirement is a program. i'm trying to say and i don't have in the work requirements. i'm trying to go back to you you level the charge about the welfare work requirement it turns out that's not true. where did you get your information absolutely nothing about this is the issue has been. every charge there's been leveled about this welfare reform order that the president signed that every accusation that has been leveled by some republicans have been proven to be not true wow imagine that someone on the mainstream media is standing up and telling the truth for once you know rather than being fair and balanced and letting all the lies and misinformation slip by as long as you let a republican democrat talk it's all fine. maybe someone's been watching the newsroom i don't know. the bad i will governor terry branstad you know even though chuck just stood up to the governor as you saw and called out the lies fact is

branstad went on national television all over the place and real. lentulus lee repeated the same lie over and over and over and over again take a look we were a form of welfare in the one nine hundred ninety s. now the obama administration is straight on do the work requirement and now the president of the state says by executive order in july weekend that which was very effective one of the fact of the matter is the president did it he didn't have to take this action to weaken this strong work requirement that was passed back ok multiple sources have come out saying president obama is a ministration have done nothing to undo the work requirement of the welfare law even though in my opinion he should because as i said the work requirement is a failure and more people are living in poverty than ever before today it didn't work but conservatives like branstad are continuing their attacks over this issue and we've said it over and over again on the show that the only way republicans can

win this election in november is by lying. and lying some more and it looks like governor branstad got that memo. now the very very ugly florida governor rick scott if at first you don't succeed wiping away voters from your state's voting rolls then try try again at least that's governor scott strategy you know it's yesterday that his administration will begin yet another voter purge term move in eligible voters from the rolls before the election on november sixth of course we all know this is just another attempt to take away the votes of eligible democratic voters and help rig the election for mitt romney and paul ryan governor scott knows what he's doing there and if he thinks american democracy is all about keeping brown people from voting so that white guys win the white house and he is indeed very very ugly.

so did you know that one of the first orders of business for paul ryan after being selected as mitt romney's running mate was this secretly fly out to las vegas and meet with a billionaire it's true the new york times just reported it says just four days after the vice presidential announcement paul ryan was secretly flown to vegas for a closed door meeting with billionaire casino mogul sheldon adelson now a dosen is currently under federal investigation related to allegations that he bribed the chinese officials for favorable casino contracts and there are also those reports that it also has a history of doing business with chinese crime games with the tree ads so why was it so important for paul ryan to fly out to meet this guy well because so far this

election. is spent more money to defeat progressives than any other single singular person anywhere in the country or the world he's spent fifty million bucks on the cause already and he's promised to spend more than one hundred million dollars or whatever it takes to make sure romney wins and obama loses that's why paul ryan's first order of business as the republican candidate for vice president was to stand before a bill said in person and promise to be a loyal lapdog promise to kiss the ring there's no question about it it's going to be hard for progressives to win in november with people like sheldon adelson willing to dump their fortunes into this election just like it's going to be hard for progressives to win with voter i.d. laws disenfranchising half the city of philadelphia. but the real test for progressives this year the real uphill battle they have is something that only

a few people are really talking about and that is if progress is can overcome the corruption of electronic voting machines. and that is the subject of tonight's there with it. ireland decided this week to scrap their voting machines like the one stored here and. they're selling them for scrap metal because they found that they were too unreliable and too easy to hack they'd only use them once back in two thousand two thousand and. unfortunately america hasn't learned as quickly as the irish used to be in america that exit polls are the gold standard determine if there were shenanigans in an election for over a century we use them and we got very very good at it they almost never deviated by more than a few tenths of a percentage from the actual electoral outcome and when they did it was a sure sign of fraud such a sure shot such a sure sign that exit polls were used successfully to expose and then overturn

fraudulent elections in places like ukraine serbia and georgia polling companies were really good at this and they had great success here in the united states in the election of one thousand nine hundred eight when voting machines only recorded seven percent of the national vote but in the elections of two thousand in two thousand and two something odd begin to happen. right after the bush presidency began it was called red shift because in certain states where there were a lot of voting machines being used republican candidates did better or better in the vote the machines reported then in the exit polls in the election of two thousand and four new york pennsylvania florida and ohio lead the charge with a red shift toward george w. bush of two hundred seventy six thousand votes in new york two hundred twenty eight thousand votes in florida hundred ninety thousand pennsylvania hundred sixty thousand in ohio you can see here's the these are those four states and it

continues on down through here so you can even see this is this is the red shift and then there was some blue shifted to can you can. four in texas interesting but this was just the beginning of the voting machines they started the year two years earlier this is the two thousand and four election in two thousand and two when voting machines began to appear everywhere across america because george w. bush had cited to effect a law called the help america vote act or have a big billions of dollars to the states so that they could buy these machines from private corporations like de bold and e.s.o.p.'s. it was the high water point of the privatisation of our vote for two centuries our vote was counted by volunteers in government workers overseen by representatives of the political parties that all changed in two thousand and two thousand and four now over ninety percent of our vote is recorded or countered in secret on corporate machines and those corporations tell us who won our elections why is

a secret well because the voting machine companies say they have copyright and trademark rights to keep their software and hardware secret from us and so that red shift has continued and in some cases accelerated in every election since two thousand and two to this day expect to see it this november if any of the exit polling companies will release the raw data something that most stopped doing when their numbers were totally screwy in two thousand and four particularly in ohio. back in two thousand and four tina brown had a t.v. show called topic a with tina brown on see him b.c. and one day she was off and howard dean filled in for dean had bev harris a black box voting dot org on the show and together they showed how easy it was to rig an election. this is the official program that the county supervisor sees as we can see here howard dean has a thousand votes and lex luthor have five hundred so you're beating lex luthor and

you see we have eight hundred votes here for you and four hundred for lex luthor let's just let those we'll make that four hundred. and we'll give one hundred votes to tiger let's just see what happened here we go back into gems the legitimate way and as you can see now howard dean only has five hundred votes like lex luthor has nine hundred in tiger woods has one hundred we just edited on lection it took us ninety seconds it took only ninety seconds to change the outcome of an election. machine few months later on march seventh of two thousand and five john kerry's wife teresa heinz kerry told a group of seattle guests at a march seventh two thousand and five one for representative adam smith according to reporter joel connelly in an article in the seattle post intelligencer two brothers own eighty percent of the voting machines used in the united states connelly said that i carry added that it is very easy to hack into the mother machines which is what you just saw our dean and about here as do canada

experimented with voting machines and dumped them as did the never know though it's this week it's ireland we should follow suit it's not just that any technology particularly a secret proprietary technology is vulnerable to hackers i mean it's true but but far more important is the concept of our commons we created government in the united states to administer our commons the things we all own in common our roads parks our police and fire stations our army our libraries our public schools and of course government itself because it administers all those commons government itself is the ultimate commons in the way that you and i tell our government how to behave is through our vote. so the lynchpin of our republic is our vote it's the most crucial of the commons of the things that let us do everything else. and without

any public debate or discussion george w. bush turned that most important part of the commons head beating heart of democracy the vote turned it over to fewer than a half dozen very secretive and republican party connected corporations this is insane we need to learn from ireland's experience and sell our voting machines for scrap metal and go back to counting paper ballots by hand like virtually every other developed country in the world does privatizing our vote was a crime against democracy it's time to undo that crime and take our votes back from the other corporations you can learn more over a black box voting dot org. and that is the big picture for tonight wednesday august fifteenth two thousand and twelve if you missed any of tonight's show you can now watch it in h.d. on hulu at hulu dot com slash the big picture for more information on any of the stories we've covered visit our website said tom hartman dot com free speech at oregon r.t. dot com and also check out our two youtube channel is there

a link to tom foreman dot com also thom hartmann dot com check out all the way different ways you can send us your feedback and don't forget as tom always says democracy begins with you get out there get active occupy something tag your it will see tomorrow.

download the official publication. choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorite. t.v. is not required to watch on t.v. all you need is your mobile device to watch on t.v. any time. stop and look at current events unemployment the national debt failing governments ask yourself does it really matter who wins with billions created daily you can gamble with your money or.