thank you. well i'm john harmon of washington d.c. it here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. as a member gets closer and closer republicans are continuing their efforts to prevent thousands of eligible voters from voting that's the motivation behind voter suppression groups want isn't that only republicans ever get busted for voter fraud also despite high rent winds and lots of rain from hurricane isaac the republican national convention sort of got underway this afternoon what can we expect to see and hear over the next three days and how are protesters in tampa making their voices heard and do the far right radical views that republicans have on brave and

abortion really make them the party of light and what does that mean for president obama and the rest and the rest of the democratic party's policies. you need to know this is the effort by republicans around the nation to rig the election in november by kicking millions of democratic voters off the rolls with voter suppression id laws is now well documented less well documented is the racist history that is motivating these very same voter id laws after the civil war african-americans were finally recognized as equal citizens in america but southern lawmakers couldn't study stomach the thought of now freed slaves voting so they passed a series of laws requiring blacks to pass little literacy tests or pay all taxes before they could vote few months ago attorney general eric holder made

a connection between these new voter id suppression laws and our nation's dark history of discrimination against minority voters. many of those without i.d.'s would have to travel great distances to get them and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them we call those paintings. thanks to the voting rights act passed in one thousand nine hundred sixty five things like poll taxes and literacy tests to keep minorities from voting were supposed to be outlawed that's why the department of justice is issued a number of challenges to these new voter id laws saying that they violate the voting rights act so if you're a public and lawmaker and you still want to keep blacks and minorities in voting what's your next move to rid of the voting rights act and that's exactly what they're trying to do attorneys generals in alabama arizona georgia south carolina south dakota and taxes all republicans efile the amec is preferred of the court brief with the supreme court calling for certain provisions of the voting rights

act itself to be struck down plain and simple republicans want free reign to do the same thing the racists in the south the civil war keep minorities from voting difference between now and then is that the republicans are using the excuse of voter fraud to justify these laws but considering that actual voter fraud occurs less often than people dying from t.v.'s falling on their heads in the motivation behind these voter suppression id laws is fairly obvious and it won't just affect minorities it will also affect a lot of average americans and this is this is the this is the big issue yesterday i was talking to my old friend a business partner terry who lives now down on the floor of the florida keys as a picture from a few years ago the reason i was down there a few weeks ago terry went to renew his driver's license they wanted for forms of id including yours birth certificate and two letters showing his current address from a government or financial institution. four pieces idea to him from

a bank fortunately teria to bank accounts of his wife or the letters with her in her purse they would even take his passport because it really just expired the strategy is simple and laid out three decades ago by this man paul wayward the man who helped run the reagan campaign and founded the american legislative exchange council alec which is now largely funded by the koch brothers and has been pushing these voter id laws all across the country here's paul weyrich laid it out to a group of republican christian activists. how many of our christian have what i call them grown good government they want everybody to vote i don't want everybody to vote elections are not won by a majority of people they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. leverage in the elections quite candidly go drop out go only populist go down. i've always said that the only way the king of the one percent

can win an election is by lying but it is lies right now that obama opposes welfare to work and the opposite is actually the truth but i should add to that that the other way romney can win or maybe he needs the two of them together is if he keeps a lot of people from voting here now to explain more about this strategy is steven rosenfeld journalist and senior fellow at alter net and brad friedman founder and publisher of the bread watch welcome gentlemen. stephen thanks tom good to be here thank you stephen to you first what is true the vote what's the organization's goal . well true the vote is an organization of right wing grassroots republican election integrity activists that's what they would call themselves but what they and they grew out of used in texas the last three years got a lot of money behind them they have a new national strategy that is much bigger tom than policing the polls and

checking for voter id and they are basically like they could be compared to the early christian coalition that went to communities and got involved at the grassroots and they have three primary focuses one is to challenge voter registrations of new people who we register and people and people are on the rolls to is to train poll plate polling place watchers now this is new and there's no democratic car larry or the on the liberal on the scale if they're trying to do this and they want to watch how people are voting and they it's not just id they want to make sure they're not being overly assisted it would help reading a ballot or being helped as a handicapped person and the third strategy they have is to basically file lawsuits with judicial watch and challenge states to clean up their voter rolls because they don't understand that somebody might move outside of jurisdiction and states have to wait for two federal cycles before a name can be removed so it's a very big strategy if hundreds of money behind them they say they're going to have

a million people though i don't believe it as poll watchers in the swing states and that's something we need to look at it's absolute mazie bread. do americans realize i mean you're you're in touch with a lot of people all the time on a regular basis to americans realize how influential these voter id laws are and i and i read on blood. dot com recently that. a republican just got busted it was conservation legislator committed voter fraud do people realize that you know to the extent the voter fraud is happening it seems to be republicans. well it would it actually was the wisconsin legislature legislator it was his wife she had declared her residency you know i had a ho and then voted three times in wisconsin over the past year and this particular legislator rep ryan robin voss was a big proponent of that state's photo id restrictions no you know i don't think

that people understand. how this fraud really happens at all they hear all the time democrats are committing voter fraud you know fox news doesn't actually put up front the fact that it appears that mitt romney himself actually committed voter fraud back in two thousand and ten when he voted in massachusetts a special election between scott brown and martha coakley even though he didn't own a house in massachusetts until july of two thousand and ten that's why i would argue by the way that he doesn't want to release his state taxes from two thousand and ten but no they don't understand it and some of this blame has to go to democrats and progressives in voting rights at activists to be frank the you even refer to it tom as voter id people here voter id and they say well that makes sense what's wrong with identifying yourself the fact is most states already require some form of id when you go to vote that's fine as a matter of fact federal law requires it for everyone who votes for the first time

if they haven't registered in person but that would that we're talking about you know reasonable idea like bank statements paycheck stubs not this very strict narrow polling place photo id restrictions that are being put in place purposely to keep democratic leaning voters from voting but i think when we call it voter id people think oh well what's wrong with identifying yourself that's not the problem the republicans of have done a very good job of brandy in this it's bizarre stephen on the to the vote i understand you went to a true vote summit in colorado and also wanted to ask about john fund i've been debating john fund on the air. on my radio show for over eight years. he's a regular on the right has worked for a bunch of different groups my understand now he's he's affiliate with us tell tell us about that. well and john fund was one of the first republican editorialists editorial writers public intellectuals to really wave this voter fraud flag and the

problem with the analysis that he had that he has is he omits he's a real master rhetorician for the dark side he omits all kinds of facts that he knows better because he's a smart guy to basically make the case that that the system is weak it's a boehner bill and it's democrats and far more the republicans who are manipulating in it mostly the local level to maintain their power bases so what's happening is she and some other folks whose names we all eat there they're being looked at by these grassroots tea party types who have just discovered the topic of election integrity it's no different in the folks in ohio two thousand and four who said oh my god what happened what can we do and they're being misled by people like john fund who basically will i don't even want to go into details just and he's really

he enjoys making fun of the of the folks on the on the left and it tells people that god is on their side and they need to just wither the criticism and do what they need to do and here's the thing he tells them to that what the left does is that we bear false witness because we don't admit that things can go wrong in polling places all kinds of stuff can go wrong at the polling places because our elections are underfunded ill equipped poorly trained but it's not a democratic conspiracy to steal the vote and everything that goes wrong from their side is a democratic conspiracy and the burden of proof is. not given to the voter or if it's given against people to participate it's like you're guilty before before you know you know that was not in the wisconsin recall with scott walker they came in and they said hundreds of thousands of these petition signatures are questionable and therefore they need one people to show up with pruett the government

accountability board retired judges there said no no no that's not how the law works in wisconsin we require we give them the benefit of doubt to the voter what's so permissions about these people tom is that the fault lies with the would be voter it's guilty of guilty until proven innocent we just have a half a minute left brad what can people do about this other than you know reading stephen's great work over alternate oregon your great work abroad dot com and spreading the word. people really need to educate themselves about the rules the laws in their own county how their votes are counted and they do need to participate in the process i'm sort of half a mind with true the vote i like that they're going to be out at the polls i think the more eyes the better but what they're doing is intimidating people we need people out there watching to make sure that everyone can cast their vote and that that vote gets counted and counted accurately thank you brad stephen thank you for

both very much thank you very much thank you we'll be right back. pepper spray that just burned your eyes right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. this is much stronger than anything if you buy off. thousands of times i'm stronger than any kind of bird you ever put you know. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything. you don't know i'm tom harkin welcomes a big picture. into

the only military mechanisms to do the work to bring justice to accountability. i have every right to know what my government should do if you want to know why i pay taxes. i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of american exceptionalism.

i'm laurin the sphere. is screwed news tropical storm isaac grazed the coast of florida yesterday hammering tampa with everywhere and rains and i winds put in a damper on the republicans two thousand and twelve republican convention but undeterred republicans gathered this afternoon to declare an official start to their convention and kick off a week long and strata ganz oval bob i eighty rich guy free market promotion and bashing government working people and poor people. already seen glimpses of what republicans will offer for their vision of america over the next few days there is of course the official republican platform which supports a federal ban on same sex marriage a reinstatement of don't ask don't tell and a call for more on constitutional anti immigration laws will be on the social

issues a parade of republican speakers this week in tampa will trumpet their economic vision of america it's a vision that will argue for more austerity more spending cuts in government it's a vision that will argue for more tax cuts for the rich and fewer regulations of wall street banks or texas oil barons and private health insurance vampires and it's a vision that's already being played out with disastrous consequences in the city hosting this year's republican national convention that's right if you want to know what mitt romney and paul ryan's vision of america looks like and check out tampa florida joining me now to explain why that is is will do a staff writer at salon dot com will welcome. thanks for having me it's great to have you with us who is a brilliant piece you wrote why is tampa bay and i are ron ike perhaps even iconic choice of cities to host the r. and c. . it's pretty fair to say that what mitt romney and paul ryan

are suggesting for their vision of america could be called the tampa fixation of america basically means no real no real invest in infrastructure any more anything that would perhaps benefit future generations as far as roads as far as trans the far as a sustainable but sustainable development all that stuff has really been hamstrung in tampa by regional politics. and tampa bay was supposed to be part of a high speed rail system in florida what happened to those plans. yeah that was originally proposed by the obama administration as part of his larger size people proposal for the entire country the original plan was supposed to be a line linking miami orlando and tampa and it was killed by governor rick scott and that's been a big thing with lots of republicans opposing high speed rail now you could argue the merits of that particular project there were some people who thought it wasn't maybe the best way to spend limited funds on rail transportation but the fact is is

now there's an empty forty acre lot sitting right in the middle of the city of tampa where the terminal is supposed to be and that's kind of a great symbol for how things have worked in tampa for quite some time now refusal to build refusal to spend and kind of just just a hole in the ground where things might have been do you know when when rick scott turned down that money there were a lot of us out there saying myself included saying that he's doing this because he knows that if he takes this federal money which had already been appropriated and was basically added to him and builds this high speed rail system it's going to put thousands of people to work and not just in tampa and us lower the unemployment rate in the united states improve the economy of the united states and that you know from a partisan republican point of view that may help the president get reelected and therefore he turned down the money to what extent do you think that this stamp of occasion and the high speed rail as the as the perhaps iconic example of that. is

just that pure politics things that had been a republican president a republican congress the money would have been taken in a heartbeat the high speed rail would be there and unemployment would be at six percent to what extent is that is that that versus some bizarre theory of governance that we're seeing in a larger scope. i think there's a couple things you could say about that i mean i'm not sure i don't know if it is really sort of a part of a larger plan to keep you know the economy from improving and i do think that in some cases politicians are be telling any kind of spending to kind of boost their credit with the tea party in case they want to run for a bigger office someday i think we saw that with chris christie and new jersey when he killed a new tunnel that was supposed to bring trains between new jersey and manhattan which is desperately needed it already been started he held it i have no doubt that that was for political reasons because it would benefit in new jersey as far as his

strange kind of philosophy towards land use and transportation the republicans have a very. strong they have a faction that believes in total earnestness that a lot of this stuff is kind of part of a larger united nations conspiracy to make us all take the bus and live in tiny apartments on top of each other i mean maybe that's not you it's spoken like a new gingrich i think at a certain point a few months ago i was talking about the elites that ride the subway so there is a sort of part of their philosophy that goes way off the rails in terms of thinking that things that are used collectively any kind of collective service is somehow impinging on our freedoms i think god forbid we should be like a european city it's like what kind of mistakes did tampa make back in the reagan eighty's. what kind of mistakes they make i think a big part of it was basing a lot of their economy on real estate and services of the service economy essentially but what that it was more what that led to rather than just those

decisions in and of themselves and that basically meant creating a city that was just as big condo towers with not a lot connecting them not a lot of walkable spaces based clean no real trams that most people want to use and so they ended up with this city that is unbelievably sprawl tampa has something like four point six people per acre in the city proper they have virtually no good ways to get around other than by car they don't really have any walkable destinations so because they decided to go all in on real estate and service economy it didn't really offer any you know. any incentive to create a livable city that people would actually want to it's a genuine tragedy will doig thanks so much for your great writing on this thank you very much for having me and for being here with us telling the story beyond the news being made inside the republican national convention in tampa there's all lot more news happening outside that in my opinion is just as in perhaps most more

important harkening back to the days of the great depression when americans took up living in tent cities across america called hoovervilles a group of demonstrators have set up their own tent cities in tampa in protest of the r n c a call romney bills and here explain what life is like in the romney bills and what the demonstrators are planning over the next few days is mile from the dia benjamin co-founder of human rights group global exchange and the peace group code pink and author of the book drone warfare killing by remote control in india great to see how it has our power how's life in the romney bill's. well i hope you can hear me ok tom i'm in a. at an event that's just about to start here around the corner where there's going to be a gala for people like congolese to write a rumor is that dick cheney is going to be there marco rubio and we're about to get geared up for our millionaires for mitt where we go in our taxi to those in our

gallons and we say tax the poor because we need more. marvelous. is the occupy movement part of the driven driving this year getting people from a you know what's up with the occupy movement down there and around the country that's coming in there have been protests all day today starting out with a march in the rain and there were maybe about five hundred people then there was a that was a permanent march that's when you're showing right now after that there was an uncorrupted march with the poor people's economic human rights justice campaign and then there have been other unpermitted marches like with bain capital workers very angry it went from millions is being capital practices and then there have been just all kinds of protests all day long so it's kind of a

a festival of protests there are more police at these things usually than protesters the police presence is just pretty overwhelming yes there was protest of dogs against romney some of them were in a caravan of cars with dogs on top of their roofs that were quite hysterical but the occupy movement has definitely been part of this that's marvelous media how are the police responding i mean we've seen you know hyper over response on the part of police in cities all over america since the occupy my wall for for decades but particularly the last year or so are they exercising some restraints over. well so far yes the chief of police today came and held a press conference right across from where we were having our rally and she was quite nice she told us about how the police are on. our being told to be very careful around the protesters and make sure we could exercise their

freedom of speech on the other hand she talked about spending fifty million dollars the city of tampa spending fifty million dollars on a ridiculous amount of new. war machines there are literally equipment a-g. to it looks like a police state down here so they say they're going to be gentle on the protesters on the other hand it is really intimidating what's planned for the rest of the week . well we're going tomorrow morning believe it or not the n.r.a. is having a shoot out tomorrow morning coffee. that's right and a shooting range outside of town so we're going to be there to show the effects of all these murders in the united states and murders overseas and what happens when we have such a weaponized society and then there will be more parties by more corporations that

we will be crashing or protesting outside of and then there will be other march is that are for women's rights or who are respecting the right to vote so every single day just about every single hour of the day there is something planned by the protesters and we certainly want to get a message out there that these republicans don't represent us whether it comes to issues around war or women's rights or a living wage is none of the above well so medea benjamin thank you so much for being with us and thank you. crazy or not your average bridge playing granny is going to your grandma and her friends do for fun play a little bridge maybe go out for early bird dinners at four o'clock in the afternoon when not the raging grannies they get together and sing their hearts out all the while telling representative todd akin what they really think about him and

his legitimate rape comments take a look. ok . ok. oh. ok we. i was really ok we only. way. there is a fellow who was the last season oh this is the only was it was a null oath right well maybe a. half there's no old warning really last week because. if rule

was or. you say. no. good for you wait he's will be right back. in.

the capital account i'm lauren lyster. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old a good job with her. incessant ghetto friends that i love driving hip hop music and for. that it was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the role without you.