marvin to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture for the first time in twenty five years teachers in chicago are on strike leaving more than three hundred fifty thousand students walked out of the classroom with the story behind the teachers' strike you can expect to see a resolution anytime soon also since republicans across the country a fuse to give up their war on voting democrats are fighting back and trying to protect their right to vote are democrats taking a grassroots approach to stopping voter suppression from coast to coast and we'll talk to former alabama governor don siegelman as he prepares to start

a seventy eight month prison sentence all thanks to karl rove and a republican which are. getting to know this the nation's third largest school district is with out teachers today after contract negotiations fell through over the weekend the chicago teachers union declared a strike and walked off the job this morning this is the first time chicago teachers have gone on strike in twenty five years all together twenty nine thousand teachers and school workers are joining in on the strike to demand better pay better working conditions and stop the march toward privatization of the city's schools at the heart of the strike or several issues one is a four percent pay increase teachers were promised last year but was cancelled by their rahm emanuel instead the mare is asking teachers to work a longer school day also teachers are asking for a state. in a classroom sizes

a law that's in place in thirty two other states but not an illinois plus teachers are trying to reverse the mayor's plans to slash public education funding and use that money to create two hundred fifty nonunion for profit charter schools chicago has now become ground zero in the battle over how we as a nation will educate our children but we embrace the public school system that thomas jefferson and horace mann works hard to create support teachers who perform one of the most important jobs in our society or we will we hand off educating our kids to the money changers in the corporate c.e.o.'s who see education as a get rich quick scheme keep an eye on the windy city for more on this who are bring in mike staff writer for in these times and neil mccabe stan a staff writer for human events gentlemen great to have you both with us mike what's your take on the story behind the story or what's going on with the strike or i mean what's going on in this strike is basically the chicago schools are in a position where they're not able to operate i mean you've got mary manual throwing

folks out left and right you've got zero funding compared to the suburbs chicago schools have a third of the funding the chicago suburbs meanwhile rahm emanuel is diverting taxpayer money away from the schools in the form of tiffs and sending them to groups like penny pritzker who's the owner of hyatt hotel helped develop some hotels so you got all of that going on and on top of that you have a situation in chicago recycling you know they had a guaranteed four percent raise in their contract and mehr emanuel never even gave it to them so neil twenty five percent less funds for the for the city schools them for the suburban sixty six sixty six we're talking about what are the chicago suburbs spend on average about twenty four thousand chicago spends per student congressman's eight thousand five hundred per student well that's a lot of people is a lot of people in the last few years who have been working without raises and there are a lot of people who have to work more hours than a lot of people frankly who would be glad to have a job so you're saying he should. join the race to the bottom i don't like that

term race of the fall is what it's what ronald ronald reagan gave some in you know when i started as union busting in his war on the middle class it's been a race to the bottom for the right well let's let's stop and ask another question what's the best thing for the kids all seems like in the suburbs is spent spending twenty four thousand dollars a year let's talk about the chicago strike right now the best thing for these kids is for the teachers to get back to work. but i'm not disagreeing the union has no other choice in this matter the you know emanuel took away the ability to lift the school board there is no other venue for them to get input they tried for months and months and months and rahm emanuel for years to even sit down and this is able to really reform you know this would lead to the same thing in new york where basically there was you go do or other cities where you centralize control under the mare i mean obviously you know rahm emanuel is you know he can be abrasive that maybe he's not a consensus guy so maybe his personality had something to do with this what he did i sit down at the bargaining table however

a little bit yeah he wasn't of the party do you went to the d.n.c. for two days what if but if the teachers had the heart of a servant they would worry about the kids first and they're not doing that went into it so so you can be a commentator and author and you don't have to have the heart of the servant you don't have the we're going to party all sorts and just being here with you so you can't you get work for a paycheck but if somebody is going to be a teacher in an inner city school one of the hardest jobs in america they're supposed to just be. totally altruistic and get the snow well i mean they are paid what they are the highest paid teachers in america know what is seventy thousand a year ten months a year not bad. so that's not down work it's less than new all right it's less than new york but there's a lot of people who would work ten to get you some of these years and you obscuring the issue the issue could lead to a child's point was no but the issue here that the union the union spoke last night and said they are not that far apart on pay the big issue to them is the fact that romping go in and fire anybody they want and any time they want there's not many

protections they're taken over schools or through these corporate takeovers that they're firing everybody from the from the teachers to the lunch lady to the janitors all the charter schools are open in those kids are going to school today and try to have the schools are open and those kids are going to school today and so the only people who are suffering are the ones who happen to have members of the you know well let's bring up something else even if the kids in chicago were in school today there is no guarantee they would even have books one of the key issues in the contract negotiations are the teacher unions once there to be books on the first day of class as opposed to what's currently there which i think they can cut a deal on books i think and i'm very i think your books and a thirty percent pay right even if they're spending eight thousand dollars to be student in the city and spending twenty four thousand dollars per student suburbs something's really screwed here oh yeah there's a lot i mean there's a lot of waste everywhere i mean i am not talking about waste and yes i live in cambridge i mean it's not just it was it where they spent twenty eight thousand dollars per student and part of that budget they included afterschool programs

where you could take buses and go all around and while they were getting this twenty eight thousand a year per student cambridge rindge and cambridge rindge and latin was within a breath of losing its accreditation i mean a lot of these there's a lot of waste in these budgets we don't know if it's maybe a twenty eight thousand dollars per student but it eight thousand dollars per student how i don't mean this a thousand you have to see and you can run away there's only one school nurse for every three schools you don't even have guidance counselors in some of the schools or you have an epic crime wave hitting chicago where people getting killed people are seeing their parents killed and i have nobody at school to talk to our child supposed to learn to cut a deal on. nurses and books i don't know why they haven't cut a deal like that i think is moving is not a arab thing it is not a car you know sixteen cars are you even paying attention to what the union leaders are talking about there whereas a six percent increase in what they're asking for is three percent per year what they got is according to n.b.c. in chicago what if they took notice inflation just went back to our side and here

is last time and i. want to know where like the biggest recession ever right there why do you need to do is central office staff they had fifty million in two thousand and thirteen why isn't that money going to frontline teachers so there's a guidance counselor and a nurse in every school this is a c. and so you're saying that because rahm emanuel has extra office staff these kids have to suffer he's taking money from the school district and giving it to hide it so we're going to add it to united airlines to develop corporate headquarters and that's the reason why these kids can't have teachers yes because there's only an a liar and he's denying funds to the school kids you don't get a do over for sixth grade you don't get a do over for second grade i mean it's all the more important the chicago actually be serving their kids and serving is properly used teachers should not be extorting and it went no it's why it's so much more important the teachers or maybe standing up and saying we're going to get we're going to i'm going to want to start right campbell whom some mayors follow oh my god we got to wrap this up but mike neal

thank you thank you absolutely i appreciate it now for more on this i want to turn things over to gloria steinem author activist and co-author co-founder of the women's media center gloria welcome thank you why are you supporting the chicago teachers in the union strike. because i am empathetic witness i have no role in this strike it's a democratic mayor you know but it is so overwhelmingly clear that these teachers have been taking it on the chin for twenty five years working in schools without enough heat with asbestos with not enough textbooks with social workers do you know that there's a thousand students per social worker if they need to so it is outrageous what's been going on and it is now especially outrageous that the mayor has the chutzpah. to. say that this is selfish on the part of the teachers it is

simply outrageous he says he has no money but in fact it doesn't seem to be true because he gives it to the police department even though they didn't ask for it he gave seventy million dollars for charter schools even though the independent stanford report made clear that charter schools on the average do less well worse than public schools and he has a huge you know break the unions strike fund of twenty five million dollars so he's already spent more than one hundred million dollars that could have been given to keep the schools open and to improve neighborhood schools that's remarkable it to what extent is this an extension of the war on working people that. ronald reagan kicked off in one thousand nine hundred one when he started out by busting patco. well it certainly is war on unions this is

a kind of arab spring moment with some rosa park moments. as part of it because this union which is eighty seven percent female and almost half. african-american and latino i mean i really don't think even given the anti-union sentiment that there would be quite this degree of hostility and contempt for a union of white guys with hard hats but setting that aside it is in general clearly an anti union movement and i think it is also in general in the nation a movement toward trying to turn schools into the profit centers that prisons have been turned into in many states so this is part of the privatization agenda of absolutely converting our of a commons into into an opportunity for some you know somebody like mitt romney to make a buck yes and you know it for mayor emanuel now it to be so fervently and supported

by romney i mean you know it shows how far he has sunk from from his supposedly roots well you know way though wasn't wasn't this up by mary daley before him. well you know no school problem is new in this country but he came in with a determination to fire people when actually he appointed a commission to make a recommendation and the commission the independent record recommendation of his commission was that the teachers get an eighteen percent raise but then he immediately distanced himself from that that's that's remarkable gloria steinem thanks so much for your perspective and thank you for joining us tonight thank you . after the break as republicans across america continue to introduce a rash and legally questionable voter id laws democrats are fighting back but

what's their plan. download the official publication so far choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites from alzheimer's now t.v. is not required to watch on t.v. all you need is your mobile device to watch on t.v. any time. dear mom i'm sorry that i had to do this i've been in so much pain in the past year that i can't take it anymore the stomach and chest pains have been getting worse and no doctor has been able to help me please know that i'll finally be at peace and with no more pain i wish i could have had a life with it was

a bit well he's pictured her being my wife and mother to my kids i love you all so you all in heaven when your time comes i'm going to meet jesus christ. thousands of u.s. troops in iraq received one of these drugs a drug called lariam and it may have prevented many soldiers from getting sick the question tonight is whether or not soldiers were adequately warned about its rare side effects serious life changing side effects. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

in screwed news while republicans are reliant on billionaires to win the election this year democrats are starting to enlist the help of lawyers in response to a rash of voter suppression ideal laws and restrictions on early voting and voter registration president obama's reelection team and the d.n.c. are deploying teams of lawyers and states around the country to challenge right wing anti voting laws the voter protection teams as they're called are monitoring any new law changes putting pressure on local election officials and training poll watchers to keep an eye on any shenanigans come election day it's a crime as such efforts are necessary in america the beacon for democracy around the world with the republican party committed to kicking millions of largely democratic voters off the rolls by november one of the choices there i'm joined now

by hilary shelton director of the washington bureau and senior vice president for advocacy and policy at the end of. a nonpartisan organization hilary shelton welcome good to be with you today thank you for joining us tonight attorney general holder in a moment of candor i think he went off script referred to these laws that have been promoted by largely the american legislative exchange council. which was founded by a guy who said i don't want everybody to vote but in any case he's referred to these laws as poll taxes if they are such how are these state legislatures getting away with this because many of the state legislatures are not bound by section five of the voting rights act the pre-clear exception which makes them have to go to the department of justice to preclude change the type of place or matter of an election it means they can make these changes under the guise of stopping voter fraud but we've heard those stories before. absolutely right in the days gone by before the

passes the voting rights act and. when they passed poll taxes when they passed grandfather clauses when they passed all the things that will prevent you from being able to vote they didn't say black folks either but we knew very well those were the jim crow laws of days gone by we say now with the same guys we have the same kind of program put in place to prevent millions of americans being able to vote because of their race because their income because of the gender because of this student status because their retirement status because they don't have the proper id to be able to participate in the voting process according to the brennan center eleven million americans will not be able to vote in this upcoming election if there are states that require them to meet that very high standards of having those state issued very stringent photo i.d.'s to be able to come to the polls and participate and by and large who are those eleven million people they are african-americans twenty five percent of them out of five. african-americans will

not be able to vote if they're in states that require them to have those same policies in place women who have changed their names and they have a different state than there are using in other places. divorce those who have professional names that utilize on the job in a different idea for those kind of issues those kind of students. texas if texas was not blocked by voting rights section of the justice department. very well texas would not allow students to use state issued student to be able to vote yet they would allow those who have concealed carry permits to be able to use that to go to the polling from out of state in virginia you can get one online on the internet i mean. we looked at the applications for concealed carry versus the application for a student. in the colleges and universities the applications for students was a lot more detail than the.

and this law isn't into place why you side with these laws and they'll say well we're trying to prevent voter fraud and yes the obvious question how much voter fraud have you had to take such extreme approaches to stopping people from being able to actually cheat when they go to the polls say well we haven't had any if you asked for this is the state attorney in pennsylvania how much voter fraud have you had in person voter fraud in which a photo id would have made a difference the answer is we haven't had it next logical question is how much impersonal voter fraud are you expect in the election coming up in november the answer is we have no resistance to the voter fraud there is the question then why indeed are you going through such an extreme measure to them lock out so many

eligible americans have been able to participate in this important process for us this right sacred process in our democracy of being able to go out and cast a vote and have to count it and the only conclusion is we want to make sure that everyone can vote even in pennsylvania there were those the head of the republican party said unfortunately this is good now we can make sure that mitt romney gets elected into the u.s. white house this makes no sense whatsoever unless what you want to see is at the expense quite frankly of our democratic system for participation. to actually support our democracy that you want to see your candidate win in a way rather than having to actually make the arguments and win on the merits of the issues and you want to be the winner anyway we have a graphic that shows you know who doesn't have id in the united states on the screen here behind us african-americans twenty five percent asians twenty percent latinos nineteen percent student college student age eighteen to twenty four year

olds eighteen percent seniors people who are no longer driving eighteen percent people poor people but they're working poor less than thirty five thousand or fifteen percent and then you get down to the republican constituency of whites eight percent so this is is who. is going to be bumped off the voting rolls absolute somebody set down i mean paul weyrich back in one thousand nine hundred eighty the guy who founded the american legislative exchange council gave a speech in texas where he said i don't want everybody to vote elections are not decided by a majority of voters now they never have been in fact art in fact let me let me just play this clip for you hilary if you haven't seen it you're going to make your hair stand up here take a look at how many of our chris have what i call. wrong good government they want everybody to vote i don't want everybody to vote. won by a majority of people they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. leveraging the elections quite candid like.

i said the guy who founded the american legislative exchange council co-founded the heritage foundation worked on the reagan campaign and both bush campaigns just landed right out but it's a it's sad for those of us who are strong supporters of democracy and those tenets of democracy a government of the people by the people and for the people the blue the people should have the opportunity to cast an unfettered vote and have it counted but those who would strip that away just to be able to win the election rather than again when all the merits of having the best ideas that's what our freedoms about that's what democracy is about that's why the vote is so important that our country so well said well we thank you so much for the players who are going to. thank you i'm now joined by my pap and tonio attorney and host of ring of fire radio mike welcome back. just great mike will these lloyd teams of lawyers be able to mitigate some of the damage caused by these voter id suppression voter suppression id laws.

they will some of it tom but the real fight is going to be on polling day that's when the fight is going to play these people don't understand this this little fact and that is that twenty four states in twenty four states you can have random people off the street approach somebody in challenge them to vote they can say well we don't think you're entitled to vote because you're an illegal illegal alien or may be accuse them of being a past felon or accuse them of being somebody who's voted already or voted in the wrong polling area twenty four states that can happen and they can do that without any proof whatsoever people the reason this is never been on the radar screen is we've never really faced a year like this to where it's very clear that the republicans have a very clear agenda and that is to keep people from voting so right now we're aware of it but most people are not aware of this very unusual thing others fifteen states in the union where somebody could make an accusation randomly but they have

to have proof that that rant that random accusation actually has some has some body to it twenty four states you simply say it and what it does tom is it slows down the process it disrupts the process and that's really the goal here for people like true the vote these organizations understand if they can target latino where it is if they can target african-american areas and they can be disruptive they can slow down the process then they have a success in the early one nine hundred sixty s. william rehnquist who ended up chief justice supreme court made his chops in the republican party by being a one of these poll challengers in arizona in hispanic and native american areas basically being very intimidating he was apparently a very tall guy and a white guy and you know in a minority area and he would just challenge people and they would freak out and leave or in some cases he could prevent them from voting. the republican party then

was operating under some sort of a court order preventing them from doing agene didn't it extend to this kind of behavior as well it absolutely did this is this is something that's been borrowed from banana republics tom this is what you see in a country where it's nothing less than a banana republic where you have people who are in power who want to keep people from voting against them this is borrowed from places like south south america parts of africa parts of asia it's not unusual to see that in those kind of settings the republicans have this has been around for quite a while as you point out rehnquist was a master of it who later became supreme court judge but he kind of made his reputation by being the guy who could stop people from voting so right now the goal is to stop african-americans latinos students in so they target those areas their goal is to put one million of these voters these voting poll people out on the

street here's the other part of it people are talking about what they want to do is they want to target people from there when they leave their car and go to the line to vote they're going to throw a camera up in their face they're going to put a recorder up in their face they're going to call themselves citizen journalists and whether going to be doing is they're simply going to be discouraging that person from voting that person then goes home and says gee you better not go to the polling place here because they have people with cameras they have people with recording devices i don't know what's going on and all it is tom is a small percentage that they're trying to a small percentage percentage they're trying to sway here to scare him away from the polls right and you know presidential elections are typically not won by five or ten percent if you can not a one percent or two percent off shave that off of the vote you can as the state legislator in pennsylvania you know we've devoted id laws in pennsylvania now romney for president right. well wasn't just said there it was said right here in

florida where you had jim greer. who was actually had to admit in a deposition a criminal deposition the attempt to change the laws voting laws in florida was was engineered by the republican party in florida to keep minorities from voting so there's no there's a shameless about it there's no there's no cover up here we've moved well beyond the era of dog whistle this is you know this is dog bark and they're they understand his call rove figured out the last election with obama all they had to do is as you point out tom is shave a few percentage points in they win doesn't make any difference what the groundswell is on behalf of obama and against romney the they understand this is the last chance they have the demographics as you've talked about so often are shifting in this country if they don't win here they understand this may be their last time so it's going to be pulling all the stops out you're going to have lawyers who are going to be at these polling at these polling places to try to

prevent it yeah amazing mike papen tonia thanks so much for being with us tonight and. we'll be right back. wealthy british style. is not on the title.

market so why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on our. iraq. coming hours on my. crime. or name which aren't. coming up.