or about the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour yesterday civil rights advocates scored a huge victory win in a case over the controversy on national defense authorization act like a journalist chris hedges one of those who played a major role in the when and in science daily take there's one thing we all need to learn before november third you keep america on the right track and out of the hands of republicans tell you what it is. in the best the rest of the news civil liberty advocates led by journalists and writers chris hedges daniel ellsberg and noam chomsky secured a big victory yesterday federal judge catherine forrest struck down the controversy indefinite detention provision passed and signed by president obama on new year's

eve last year as part of the national defense authorization act of the n.d.a. a judge forester agreed with the plaintiffs that the provision could chill the first amendment and leave journalism vulnerable to indefinite dissent detention if they associate with terrorist organizations while trying to cover stories the obama administration is appealing the ruling but joining me now to explain what this ruling means and where we go from here is one of the lead plaintiffs in the case investigative journalist chris hedges the author of numerous best selling books including his latest days of destruction days of revolt chris welcome back. thank you tom great to see you to begin with what did you argue were the consequences of this indefinite detention provision and how did the and how did judge forrest respond to that and argued. well this provision section ten twenty one of the national defense authorization act which as you pointed out was signed by obama into law on december thirty first. overturned two hundred years of legal

precedent authorizing the military to carry out the tensions of u.s. citizens those deemed to be terrorists associated with al qaida or the talan or what they know of useless nebulously termed associated forces. these people could be held in military facilities including in our offshore you know colonies without access to due process until in the language of this section of the law until the end of hostilities which in any age of permanent war is for ever there's no exemption in there for journalists as somebody who has spent time with leaders of al qaeda indeed. lawyers carl mayer. went through the state department terrorism list and there were seventeen different organizations on that list that i had been with as foreign correspondent judge forrest concurred that

this was a gross. violation of basic constitutional rights to the courts and to legal representation in the final hearing in the first week of august she brought up the one hundred ten thousand japanese americans who had been held in detention camps in world war two in similar circumstances and she struck down this provision it's a fascinating one hundred twenty two page ruling which is quite strident in terms of its condemnation. the government the executive branch's destruction of the separation of powers it's really quite remarkable to differ. we know the bomb an obama administration will appeal they already have the per the temporary drunken which judge forrest passed until the final ruling which turns out to be this permanent injunction so they have sixty days to appeal this ruling that will take

it to an appellate court if the appellate court upholds this rule and then it will go to the supreme court assuming the obama administration would challenge an appellate court decision that to. back to judge forests decision. getting into the mind of the administration why do you think this provision was so important to the why is the obama that why they put it in there in the first place and why are they fighting to keep it. well the assault on civil liberties under the obama administration has been more egregious them under george w. bush the track record of the obama administration is literally abysmal refusal to restore it is corpus interpretation of the two thousand and one authorization to use military force act as giving the executive the right to carry out assassinations of american citizens the yemeni cleric of course i'm going to lockey and sixteen year old son two weeks later the use of espionage act six times to shut

down whistleblowers who exposed were crimes that govern our government malfeasance . the supporting of the fires amendment act which retroactively made illegal what under our constitution had been illegal warrantless wiretapping monna train and eavesdropping of tens of millions of americans and now of course the n.b.a. and i think that the security and surveillance state understands that in a time of environmental catastrophe and looming economic instability they want are sure forms the capacity of the legal system to grant them harsher forms of control and in essence criminalize any form of dissent it was interesting one of the plaintiffs alexa bryant from us to of rage in that case. because of the dumping by wiki leaks of five million e-mails by the

security firm stanford we were able to see back and forth in those e-mails an attempt to link alexa o'brien's group us day of rage with out cut that's clearly what they're doing they are in the name of the battle against the war on terror creating a legal system by which any any form of legitimate dissent especially if it's dissent that mushrooms into a mass movement could be shut down. chris hedges thanks so much for being with us. thank you just. in screwed news all eyes in pennsylvania are on the state supreme court today the pennsylvania high court heard oral arguments in a challenge to that state's controversial voter suppression idea law this is the last stop for those opposed to a law that could kick more than a million democratic voters in the state off the rolls of november

a lower court upheld the law in august the city of philadelphia alone nearly half the entire city could be blocked from voting for not having the proper idea under this law and those most affected are minority voters who tend to vote for democrats meanwhile in florida governor rick scott announced his state will restart its voter purge effort which so far has been rife with errors leading to eligible voters being notified that they're being removed from the voting rolls joining me now to discuss more on the right wing election rigging that's plaguing our nation is kesha gaskins senior counsel with the democracy program at the brennan center for justice keesha welcome thank you tom what kind of outcome do you expect from pennsylvania idealogue case we're hoping that the pennsylvania supreme court reverses the decision of the commonwealth court and finds they are likely the plaintiffs are likely to prevail and that they will institute a temporary injunction to block this law from being in force for the november

elections didn't some of the questions that the particularly the chief justice were asking kind of indicate that the court is leaning in this direction that they they weren't they were believing that there was such a threat from from voter fraud and they were concerned about the the fact of you know half of philadelphia not being able to vote. i think the questions in the court really reflected that very concern the very concern that there are tens of if not hundreds of thousands of eligible voters that could potentially be barred from voting and that because this is the kind of harm or injury that cannot be fixed there's no redress for being denied the vote the court is certainly considering least based on its questions the impact particularly on the scope of the numbers of voters that could be affected by this law you know if the supreme court fails to uphold fails to strike down the law if they uphold the law is there any other recourse for example would be to the department of justice i mean the eric holder

has already said these kind of laws are basically a poll tax if the d.o.j. can come in and change it or is that not possible well the d.o.j. has already indicated to pennsylvania that they're on july twenty third that they were instituting a investigation under section two of the voting rights act obviously pennsylvania is not subject to section five. however on august nineteenth pennsylvania indicated did not intend to cooperate with that investigation and i'm so there really is i mean the d.o.j. is working in pennsylvania but certainly pennsylvania is slowing down those efforts certainly there's also an opportunity for another lawsuit should plaintiffs in in pennsylvania decide look the law may be legal the law may be in place but there's not there's insufficient education there's insufficient ability certainly that suggested by the testimony at trial that. the ability of pennsylvania infrastructure to be able to reach all these voters may be

in question and that the inability for pennsylvania to be able to enact this law reasonably to be able to enact it fairly may give rise to an equal protection challenge as well so that may be a sort of an eleventh hour lawsuit should this prove to be an six. well remarkable moving on to florida where famously in two thousand governor jeb bush successfully through katherine harris successfully through some somewhere between ten thousand and eighty thousand largely african-americans off the voting rolls governor scott has has tried to restart this do you think the elections officials in florida will follow governor scott's orders and start another voter purge well i mean we've seen from some of the newspaper stories that the election officials have already had some of the training but the election officials really are finding that the information coming from this purge is very confusing which is our concern that that

removing voters from the rolls based on nameless. can be very problematic this close to an election certainly we don't believe that citizens non-citizens should be on the voting rolls but we are equally concerned if not more so that these lists are not misused that there are not problems with name matching is it improper surnames being used so we are very concerned there's no indication right now that local election officials are going to refuse to comply but there certainly has been some conversation from local election officials being very concerned about how confusing this process is becoming. just the minute or so we have left other voter id issues around the country we should be aware of well i think the thing that we really need to be aware of is that although we saw a spate of laws being passed in two thousand and eleven restricting the vote we are now seeing real push back through citizen efforts and through court decisions we're have seen full reversals of many of these laws seven laws in six states limiting

the right to vote and voter suppressive laws. so the really the big issue now is making sure that voters are educated where they are that we continue to push back against these restrictive laws and that everyone understands what needs to be done in order to vote where they live there. keisha gaskins so well so thank you so much for joining us tonight thank you tom. after the break there is one thing one thing that every american has to understand before the november election it's absolutely crucial for the success of our nation in the future clay what it is and i still take.

you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly 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 hardy welcome to the big picture. here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of god saying that your motives paul. the far left doesn't want the usa to defeat terrorism.

i mean terrorist cells in your neighborhood. the only liberal and the christian. folk all want to hold. up in support of the congress. you know the corporate media distracts us from what you and i should care about because they're a profit driven industry that sells us with a shovel stick garbage because that breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break this that. it's thursday already geeky i'm got microbes if you find yourself putting on weight very easily and have a hard time losing well it turns out you might have

a little organisms that are living in your digests digestive tract to thank for that a new study from the university of north carolina school of medicine has realized as revealed that some gut microbes little organisms that line are just of track can increase the absorption of dietary fats which causes the host organisms in our case humans to take away a greater number of calories from the same amount of food created dr john rawls associate professor in the department of cell and molecular by physiology u.n.c. this is the first study ever that demonstrates how microbes can promote absorption of dietary fat in the intestine and change the body's metabolism of raul's and his team of researchers u.n.c. discovered the new role gut microbes play by carrying out an experiment in zebrafish which are translucent they fed the fish fatty acids that were tagged with fluorescent dye and they were able to see the absorption and the transport of fats in areas where the gut microbes showed the right side of the chart and no got

microbes showed on the left side of the church after viewing the fat absorption team realized that one specific group of microbes for mickey lights it played a very large role in increasing fat absorption in previous studies from a cue lights had been shown to exist in large amounts in humans who are overweight and obese. well the u.n.c. study only involves fish the researchers say that is still offers new insight that could be used to help treat obesity and other health disorders if scientists are able to successfully manipulate the amount of gut microbes in a human and they could realistically cut down on the number of gut microbes in those who are obese helping them to lose weight similarly scientists could increase the number of gut microbes in those who are malnourished and starving which would allow those people to absorb more calories and fat from their food and could help reduce famine and hunger so well gut microbes are deep within your digestive track and you really to realize there there is think these little organisms can go very long way in helping to prevent some of the world's most common epidemics.

it's the good the bad in the very very sky a plot of sleep ugly the good the maricopa community colleges officials some arizona's america community colleges have decided to go against arizona governor jan brewer's orders and allow work permits to be enough proof for undocumented immigrant students to get in-state tuition at the colleges and now since one state school has decided to ignore brewer's orders the rest of the states colleges and universities including the flagship university of arizona might follow it's time we gave undocumented immigrants in america chance to receive an education and give back to the country that has done so much for them. the maricopa county community colleges for understanding. the bad ohio governor john case at a romney campaign event yesterday case it was attempting to pay tribute to the

wives of the republican candidates what came out of his mouth sounded more like another conservative attack on women it was. you know change for a minute karen case and in general ryan. they operate an awful lot of time in the shadows it's not easy to be a spouse of an elected official you know they're there at home doing the laundry and doing so many things while we're up here on the stage get a little bit of applause right they don't often share it there i mean there is the republican party for that matter of trying to cozy up to women voters in attempt to win some of their vote in november and make them forget about that whole war on women thing i'm not sure saying women spent all our time and home doing a laundry was the best way to do it and the very very ugly rush limbaugh we're all used to limbaugh saying pretty outrageous in mind blowing things by now so it's not often that he actually top him self but on a show yesterday limbaugh did just that and became a truth or take

a listen. what if. ayman al-zawahiri. and other own kind of leaders gave up osama bin log for the express purpose of making obama look good. giving obama's stature political capital obama. so the president out of state star good little later the free world is in bed with al qaeda and taking directions from them. bad enough limbaugh thinks that the fact that he would put such an outrageous claim out over the year that is very very.

with a member looming in the fate of the obama presidency hangs in the balance billions of dollars hundreds of billions of dollars are being bundled to be spent against voter suppression id laws are kicking his voters off the rolls and state after state after state and republicans in the house of representatives are sabotaging his economic recovery and been doing so for three years right now there's a chance of this election will be a replay of one nine hundred eighty. rock obama could become jimmy carter and i'm telling you right now that it's up to us it's up to progressives to make sure that doesn't happen we've seen this movie before as investigative journalist robert perry points out a new column that consortium news dot com the progressive anger toward obama is nothing new it's the same sort of anger that jimmy carter faced. in his nine hundred eighty bid for reelection in the same sort of anger that eventually cost

carter a second term and set the stage for the reagan era revolution which we've all we're all still trying to put an end to even though progress is blamed carter back in one hundred eighty for being too moderate shifting democrats to the center he deregulated the trucking industry deregulated the air travel and stuff like that even faced a serious primary challenge in one nine hundred eighty three ted kennedy so when the election came around progressive stayed home sick carter lost and got stuck with reagan for eight years and his policies for the next thirty two years but think about it for a second imagine a progressive hadn't turned on carter in one thousand nine hundred imagine if they fought to give carter a second term and teddy kennedy had never tried a primary and what might have happened for one we likely wouldn't still be dependent on dirty fossil fuels imported from people who don't really like us in the middle east that was one of carter's main missions to us not just north

american us energy independence and a massive investment in renewables stead we are reagan he took the solar panels off the roof of the white house and made our nation's addiction to middle east oil far far worse at carter one we might have had peace in the middle east with a two state solution between israel and palestine which carter was tantalizingly close to achieve and we know for a fact that had carter won we wouldn't have seen the air traffic controllers union decimated by reagan kicking off a thirty year war against labor that still playing out today in the streets of chicago we know we would've seen massive tax cuts for the rich that exploded our budget deficits to the mine the top tax rate under carter was seventy four percent for millionaires and billionaires reagan dropped it down to twenty eight percent that widened the enormous gap between the rich and the poor and effectually crashed our economy which we're all dealing with today. we wouldn't if carter had been re-elected we wouldn't have seen the rise of the neo con war machine it's led to

every president since carter starting their own brand new war carter had no wars by the way during his four years we would've seen the gutting of social safety net programs the destruction of public education the trashing of financial regulations and ultimately that is sooner gratian of the american middle class so the question for progressives is was it worth it was it worth holding carter up to the purity test in one nine hundred eighty and then leaving him behind in the election because he didn't pass the test knowing what we know now knowing how the last thirty two years played out in america can we as progress is really say that a principled stand against carter moderation was really the right move i don't think so and so today we're in the same situation today there are progressive who are turning on president obama because he's not progressive enough or the turning against him because of the drone wars and the indefinite detention and his

continuing the war in afghanistan these are all legitimate gripes and should be said out loud and clear but we cannot let these criticisms lead to a repeat of one thousand nine hundred can't we can't lead we can't let them leave to the carter is ation of barack obama think about all all those criticisms from drones to detention and we really say that sitting in this election out or voting for a third party is going to bring us closer to a world free of those things no it'll bring to it it will bring us to a world in which mitt romney wins and doubles down on reagan's and bush's same exact policies and mitt romney isn't even a gifted actor and politician like ronald reagan but make no doubt about it is administration has the potential to be just as destructive as the reagan administration and we would all pay dearly for. carter had just gotten the ball rolling on energy independence when he lost

a second term as we know today we're nowhere near energy independence similarly president obama has just gotten the ball rolling on health care reform in a country where we get it that we're all in this together and even though that health care reform doesn't have a single payer system or even a public option it's at least a start the ball is rolling. if romney wins at all stops and we snap back to the status quo before obama we snap back to bush and the reagan revolution. well that would really be worth. this election we all have to understand something that is absolutely crucial it's something the progressives didn't think about back in one thousand nine hundred which led to our downfall it's something that activist tom hayden told me about recently. but what i'm telling you is is that no matter how militant how radical how revolutionary i've ever been in my life or your viewers have ever been in their lives. progress comes by the

inches progress comes by the inches that's not to say we don't need the vanguard in the streets those demanding progress right now people like joel stein and movements like occupy we do need those and the inch by inch we do gain is thanks in large part to those who are demanding change now but we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good we can be willing to throw away inches in pursuit of miles and end up slipping backward losing everything president obama may not be the progressive we all hoped for but he's at least started something and if progress is fail to recognize it and if they fall into the trap of cynicism and guess what mitt romney wins and has a couple more school leaders to the supreme court and thirty years from now when the corporatocracy reign supreme in the middle class is dead the law look back and regret the purity test we imposed on obama. there's too much at stake for that kind

of black and white thing. and that's the way it is tonight thursday september thirteenth two thousand and twelve you missed anything i did show you can now watch it on h.d. in h.d. on hulu at hulu dot com slash the big picture for more information on the stories we covered this is our website thom hartmann dot com free speech dot org and. also check out our two youtube channels there are links of thom hartmann dot com so their show is also available for free video podcast on i tunes and you can visit tom marvin dot com to download the audio podcast of our daily three to six radio show and we have the free tell her i phone and i've had apps that the app store you sent us feedback on twitter at tom underscore arbonne on facebook at tom underscore harben our blogs message boards and telephone comment lines at tom hartman dot com and don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport it requires actual participation and you know if you're not happy with the parties doesn't have to be in the parties in fact the movement politics typically generate more activity and more change in the parties then party politics

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