well i'm tom arbonne in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. today marks the eleventh anniversary of the bush administration's failure to prevent the nine eleven attacks and eleven years later first responders are still struggling to overcome the effects of those attacks is our government doing enough to support these heroes and are they getting the health care they are entitled to also some politicians like mitt romney have billionaires financing their every move other politicians aren't as fortunate or as corrupt in a politician who refuses to take money from corporate donors really hope to win an

election in this post citizens united world and the financial crisis that america was still is still reeling from was caused by a bunch of c.e.o.'s and executives on wall street who were allowed to do whatever they wanted with no fear of punishment after seeing what happened to our economy as a result republicans still want to let wall street roam free why. you need to know this our nation remembers nine eleven today and is reminded about the utter failures of the bush administration leading up to the attacks as a new op ed published today in the new york times uncovers the bush administration was repeatedly warned in the months leading up to the attack that terrorists were operating in america and determined to carry out an attack we all know the infamous memo bush received titled bin laden determined to strike in us on august sixth the month before nine eleven what we didn't know about was the slew of other memos the

bush received in the months before like the august sixth memo all went largely ignored as journalist kurt eichenwald uncovered in that new york times op ed as early as may of two thousand and one. the cia was warning bush overcoming attack on may first the cia warn the white house there was a terrorist group presently in the united states on june twenty second bush was warned that al-qaeda attacks could be imminent but the white house did nothing why well as i can well points out it's because bush and his team of neocons in the white house were functionally delusional rather than taking the threat seriously they all argue that bin laden was just bluffing to distract america from the real threat saddam hussein as i can while writes and intelligent official and intelligence official and a member of the bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assume power at the pentagon or warning

the white house that the cia had been fooled according to this theory bin laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack that distracted ministration from some saddam hussein whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat that prompted the cia to write a new memo to bush under the title the us is not the target of a distant from asian campaign by osama bin laden that same day the administration learned that a near term attack would have quote dramatic consequences and quote a few days later on july first bush was told the operation was delayed but quote will occur soon and quote on july ninth counterterrorism officials had a meeting where they openly talked about asking for a transfer so they wouldn't be blamed for the coming attack again on july twenty fourth bush was warned the attacks were still being planned then came the august sixth memo bin laden determined to strike in us. ignoring

all these warnings and believing they were part of a disinform ation campaign staged by saddam hussein displays not just total incompetence on the part of the bush administration but also downright negligence negligence that americans pay dearly for and continue to pay dearly for it's now been eleven years since the attacks and since then we've seen eleven years of continuing war eleven years of continuing surveillance and eleven years of a continuing disintegration of our civil liberties today we honor the victims who lost their lives on that day but as a nation we must also recognize the profound impact the decisions our leaders made in the months and years after nine eleven that have made our country less safe destabilized the planet and shredded our constitution i hope the future memorials to this day aren't clouded by war anger and zina phobia. now on to those who continue to struggle eleven years after the attacks i'm talking

about the united of first responders the police officers firefighters and many volunteers who rushed to the rubble to look for survivors and spent days weeks and months ultimately over a year a ground zero recovering bodies and cleaning up the rubble those men and women are today dealing with horrible sicknesses because they were told by the bush administration of the time that the air they were breathing in ground zero was safe when in fact it was filled with poisons cancers heart problems respiratory problems continue to plague the first responders today and tragically have led to the deaths of many as a thousand of these brave americans a year and a half ago congress passed the james said nine eleven health and compensation act to give first are sick give the sick first responders the health care they deserve for serving their nation was a hard fought victory just to get the bill passed as republicans in the house opposed it and even presidential vice presidential candidate paul ryan voted

against it. but passing it was just the first battle the next battle for responders was proving that the cancers and illnesses they suffer from were indeed caused by the toxic rubble at ground zero now there might be some good news on monday the national institute for occupational safety and mounts that they do recognize a link between more than fifty types of cancer and the work done in ground zero thus giving health care coverage to more than seventy thousand surviving first responders joining me now to tell more about their story are two of those first responders john doe evelyn and kirk arsenal welcome to you both. thank you for your thanks for joining us john how are things with you since we last spoke are you doing. well first off i just want to say thanks again tom for for inviting us back on and i really do appreciate all the efforts that you guys personally a doing to help the nine nine eleven responders so thank you very much from all of us my pleasure so how are you doing. my health honestly it's

ideal with radiation fibrosis and i deal with pneumonia all the time i had like thirty three radiations in a chemo was in one thousand operations a level four in opera prefer cancer so you know if you love life you fight hard in you overcome the obstacles well it's good to see you still here last time you were on you were with kenny george how was he kenny would have loved to have made the trip but kenny's health is not very good right now is breathing is down to about twenty eight percent he's on an oxygen tank so he he really has not get out of the house right now but he did tell me to say hello to all you please give him our very best regards and tell him he's in our thoughts and prayers kirk this decision to cover over fifty cancers first of all how are you doing and how helpful is this decision in you know taking this approach a step further oh of the advance of. cancer and i have my lymph nodes in my

neck the. modules of my longs so i have a hard time breathing. i use. in here was that we are . so make me but. i've gotten to the point where i can't even go to work anymore online and this is this decision by the by by this federal agency to cover more than fifty cancers is this helping you guys out in the end your brothers and sisters in the in the similar situations. yeah a lot of them is going to help them is going to they're going to get the medical coverage that they deserve and need. just so many people that it will to we've lost over a thousand people from ground zero that worked as of as of now and

it's just continues to go to the new york police to the new york police. so. thank you chris kenney what was it like in those days after nine eleven to ground zero. john i'm sorry ok you repeat that real quick john what what was it like in those days after nine eleven a ground zero i think a lot of people watching you know there was no there's no footage of that nobody videotaped what was going on inside that area. all right real quick feel is. i like a lot of my union tradesmen who we represent here went down there i thought i was going to go down there pick up steel with my machine and find living people. it wasn't that way when i got down there within the first twenty four hours there was nothing left i was in total shock we went into survival mode

we persisted on pocket some heavy equipment operator and the first few days we were using buckets the bucket brigade there and to be very honest with you. it was something out of a godzilla movie i didn't really think it was real when i first got there it was beyond words and the destruction. of the cowardness that the terrorists show every day and they showed that day it's just a reflection of what we all go through to go down there and see the grace of a human body to see. just a total disregard for human beings these are the people that died down there on nine eleven they didn't ask for they say these people for all over the world so terrorism it's strikes everybody it's not just an american problem it's everybody's

problem and if they were down there especially the first week or so i think maybe they get a strong a hold on what the nine eleven responders dealing with now eleven years later kirk i understand a lot of the folks who are down there now are not just suffering from physical illnesses but they're also suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from having you know seen all these fragments of human bein's is that a common problem among among kerk among your. first responders. is there's a lot of people of the p.t.s.d. the things that we saw nobody should have to see and it's a fact that it's affected by life i've. started to lose the. nightmares of things that stop me in the middle. it is in the

legs that i know john has approached and everybody i know that word has the. paul ryan voted against the bill twice are our leaders fully aware of the sacrifices you guys have made. john we just have thirty seconds here for you ok i know personally that whether they know they know the sacrifices but honestly we all know that we were just a guinea pig down there this took eleven years to get something that we all knew. happen down there we've buried so many people down they already responded to more and more getting dying right now it's it needs to pick up speed we need to get more money into this bill so the responders and their and their families can see some type of closure i'm absolutely with john devlin kirk arsenal thank you both for being with us. thank you for coming out some politicians are lucky enough to have billionaires like shelly adelson behind him donating billions of dollars to buy off

the election but what about those who truly believe in our democracy and want to run without the help of corporate cash and they still hope to one of our last senator sherrod brown after the break. here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot about you sir are you know what that is my other terror cells in your neighborhood all want to give us a defeat terrorism a liberal the christian point you. can secure the borders but. you know the corporate media distracts us from what you and i should care about because they're a profit driven industry that sells

a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break this that. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harkin welcomes a big picture. a . to earn a a. the

. in screw news a new report by the center for american progress reveals exactly why a billionaire like macao casino tycoon sheldon adelson is willing to spend huge amounts of money to get mitt romney elected has promised to spend at least one hundred million dollars helping romney win this election sounds like a lot of money but considering the tax breaks he'll get during iranian presidency for adelson it's nothing short of the cap report ailsa it stands to save more than two billion dollars in taxes under romney's plan thanks to romney's cuts in the top income tax rate dividends tax rate and capital gains tax rate and stands to win big not only that his errors due to as repeal the estate tax which romney is proposing

will give the heirs nearly nine billion more in an era it's so as it was in a said before is hundred million dollars contribution isn't a contribution at all it's an investment in fact it's an investment with an eleven thousand percent return now we can all see why the oligarchy are so happy with the supreme court's citizens united decision but on the flip side how are members of congress who are willing to play ball with billionaires supposed to survive this on slot of corporate and one percent cash let's ask one joining me now on the phone to senator sherrod brown democrat from ohio senator brown welcome tom thank you you're cynical guy to think that sheldon adelson actually want something from mitt romney well in republican house so how can you think that well because he actually said it at that meeting with the koch brothers and he said there was a new gingrich i mean that's you know it's tax savings but it's also anti labor law it's when it's the sort of guy stillman's or the koch brothers or that boil interest it's it's weakening environment repealing environmental rules for all of

its worth of scaling back labor law i mean it really is there they really want to buy the government internists and do a country of a few really wealthy people and everybody else i mean that's a clear yet take us back to the days that charles dickens wrote about him. what's it like being a senator who's devoted his service to taking on moneyed interests run for reelection in this post citizens united air well it's it's i mean i will not i will never whine or complain i consider privileged to want to get serve in the senate and second to to fight these people because they they want to do really bad things for our country and to our country but i i think it what i've seen is when these ads are all over the place they're up seventeen million in ohio now the the koch brothers are in jail needles and brokers in the same cast of characters but i'm also seeing a pretty amazing outpouring of progress as a lot of small contributions in terms of money but more than that a whole lot of people turning out to go to a small county and one hundred people are there on

a wednesday afternoon kind of thing ready to fight back and i mean it is a choice would you rather have exxon or rich rather have these hundred people out of work and door to door would you rather have wall street originally have rather had these six hundred labor activists going to plant gates and talking to their to their labor friends i mean it really is what politics is there shouldn't be this kind of money but there are ways to fight back as you know and organizing and going in really making the contrast here's what they want to do here's what we want to do that's what wins elections you know a lot of democrats have moved toward the republican position since citizens united opposing for example in the bush tax cuts expires opposing stimulus spending opposing cutting out the oil subsidies trying to weaken wall street reform is all of this a consequence of citizens united i think much of it is i think when you if you if you know that when you vote to take away the tax break basically to do all industry enjoys or the hedge fund operators pay fifteen percent when they should pay which

is less than most people pay people pay on their wages regular wage earners i think that we would when you try to when you have an amendment to do that i had the amendment to break up the six largest banks and where we're. getting more and more support for that by the way we had thirty five i think votes two years ago and more and more people are coming around to that position but i think there's a fear by some of my colleagues if i vote wrong and this karl rove is going to come down on me the koch brothers needle sins and summons and next on it and spend millions in you know spending you you poor you were perfectly on target when you said it's such a small investment for them a guy worth one thousand billion dollars dropping one hundred million when he gets an estate tax break or elimination gets capital gains breaks gets other kinds of laws he wants changed it's a terrific investment for their side and that's why when when i campaign i really am trying to put in the minds of the voters the question why are they spending this

kind of money against brown why would they come into our state and spend huge numbers of dollars well of course they would because wall street doesn't like might break up the banks build a chinese and outsource corporate outsourcers don't like our legislation to level the playing field chinese currency the oil industry doesn't like our efforts on taking away their tax breaks and if the voters start thinking that way and we can get that message across their money is just simply starkly counterproductive and that's where we're trying to get in the next seven weeks and i certainly hope you get there people senator sherrod brown people can check out your website assured brown dot com thank you so much for being with us thanks thank you very much tom thanks for your activism and speaking out thank you. now for another angle on the story of money and politics sarah jaffe joins me from new york she is labor editor with all her net sarah welcome back hi tom thanks for having me and thank you for joining us i just spoke with senator sherrod brown our legislators like him an endangered species in this post citizens united world or is aggressively coming out

as a progressive and saying no i stand here is that actually a strategy that can they can beat the big money i mean let me tell you what i was just reading a piece today actually on buzz feed talking about how elizabeth. warren's message is getting through we're seeing some people who are looking at the odds and or says citizens united saying well being republican lite is not going to get us anywhere because paul ryan is always going to be willing to be that much more extreme so the only other option we have is like the senator said counting on those hundred labor activists counting on people counting on those not just the small donors but the people who go door to door to talk to their friends or talk to their family who actually understand that the only way we beat big money is by working together well and then famously in california races carly fiorina and meg whitman both got trashed by current candidates who spent massively less than they did i mean the jury brown spent pennies compared to what meg meg whitman was spending of her millions and because money had become an issue in the election people people were

realizing that these people were you know is a billionaire and a multimillionaire financing their own campaigns to what extent can we all or do want to what extent is the gestalt is are people waking up to the fact that money is actually an issue in this election when you see all those ads what you're seeing is money. i think that people are starting to wake up to it you know we saw occupy take on this issue head on and we're seeing right now in chicago with the teachers' strike we're seeing another place where people are rallying around working people. i'm hopeful that this is a shift that we're finally sort of getting to a place where populism is not a dirty word again or not a right wing thing where we can actually talk about who's got the money who's got to control and not you know not call for getting the government out of our medicare but actually coming from people getting people back in government who care about

working people again well senator brown has spent a fair amount of time in ohio talking about the money that's up against him and you know i talked to a lot of these people on my radio show here on t.v. shows well and. if there are not that many democrats who will come out and say that you know who say you know here's why they're coming after me and look at all this money and isn't this horrible it's almost like you know they're afraid if they do that they'll get super treasured by karl rove will sure brown started out being trashed by karl rove so you just you know he had nothing to lose and so he's going after it but most most democrats seem not to it do you know of any who have are starting to shift to that kind of strategy of calling out the money that is so that when people see those ads they're already somewhat immune to them and thinking who's running this ad and why are they trying to say this to me i mean i think that some democrats are i think the. there we saw a bit of that message at the d.n.c.

right in some of the speeches and bill clinton who i can't really imagine where bill clinton gets off making the speeches considering his contributions to the current economic situation but we did see it the question now is are they actually going to back it up because the thing with sugar with senator brown is that he does is that when i talked to mike wyman from the turn a lot of police in ohio it wasn't what he was saying on the campaign trail is the fact that he had their back on the senate bill five the one that would strip their collective bargaining rights was the fact that he was there with them working to overturn that bill it was that he had actually walked the walk for years in the house before he ran for senate it's because they actually know him and trust him it's not you can't just use the rhetoric you actually have to do something once you're in office there you go sir geoffry thank you so much for being with us thank you for having me and for a very you know their election news mitt romney has figured out a new way to lie here's how he does it in an interview on sunday with n.b.c. watched by millions of people romney said that there are

a number of things he likes with obamacare including a guarantee that health insurers can't deny health care to people with preexisting conditions and reforms that allowed children to stay on their parents' health plans until the age of twenty six take a look. on health care you say that you are seeing the president's health care plan on day one does that mean that you're prepared to say to americans young adults and those with preexisting conditions that they would no longer be guaranteed health care of course not. i say we're going to replace obamacare and i'm replacing it with my own plan and you know even in massachusetts where i was governor our plan there deals with preexisting conditions and with the heart of every plan well i'm not getting rid of all of health care reform of course there are a number of things that i like in health care reform that i'm going to put in place . so the man who first created obamacare in massachusetts and then disavowed it when he ran for president now supports it again or he did for a few hours until his campaign. and buzz feed that romney actually opposes all

provisions all provisions of obamacare and instead believes that the corporate run magical free market will find a way to cover those with preexisting conditions in other words romney wants to roll back obamacare so the romney big allies strategy works like this go on meet the press where a lot of moderate undecided voters will be watching lie about your position on protecting people with preexisting conditions try to assure the independence that you won't let health insurers act like death panels for children with preexisting conditions and then after the show is off the air immediately backtracked issue a correction to your base correction it to your base the group of right wing crazies who are perfectly ok with letting health insurance companies discriminate against sick children again i've said it before i'll say it again the only way mitt romney can win this election is by lying and now he's coming up with ever more clever ways to do so.

crazy crazy who are no takers for tell you why it is this weekend over one hundred items belonging to the king himself elvis were put up for auction by a mega auctions one item in the collection up for auction was on all of this is personal bible was given to him in one nine hundred fifty seven and sold for a whopping ninety four thousand six hundred dollars over some other items didn't fetch anywhere near that much like a pair underwear elvis wore during the one nine hundred seventy seven concert that happened to be quite stained reserve price for the rather gross pair of tidy whiteys was eleven thousand dollars and says the highest bid was only eight thousand dollars they didn't sell it considering the kind of things people try to sell on e bay these days you'd think someone out there would have paid a pretty penny for a not so pretty pair of pants i guess even though the owner pants were tied to a lot of fame and fortune they just gave too many people a very good. after the break lawmakers in washington have entered is new

legislation intended to chip away at the power financial regulators have over wall street or does the bill give regulation power too and are we really willing to continue letting wall street off the hook regardless of how much damage they did to america.

mr. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so 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 harvey welcome to the big picture.