oh. well i'm john berman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. if you're a c.e.o. of a failed bank the lost a staggering eleven billion dollars on your watch you probably shouldn't be the secretary of the treasury right why is mitt romney considering a wall street crony to be is treasury secretary and what does this say about romney's you for america also voters in pennsylvania got their voice back as a judge blocked that state's voter suppression id law from going into effect what about the millions of other americans whose votes are under attack by conservatives

how do they get their say back and if you look at now i should nationwide polling it appears that president obama's pulling away from mitt romney even in the all important swing states are conservatives are saying that's hogwash and that the polls are being skewed because this outlandish conspiracy theory actually prove valuable for conservatives come november. you need to know that the banks there's blatant fraud in the run up to the financial crisis as in gone unnoticed by one top lawyer in the nation new york attorney general eric schneiderman who also chairs the president's mortgage fraud task force filed a civil suit against j.p. morgan chase for quote widespread fraud in the sale of mortgage backed securities and this is the first legal action brought against the banks by this task force most of the allegations are actually against field bank backed bank bear stearns

which was bought by j.p. morgan chase and just before the economy went into meltdown in two thousand and eight according to a lawsuit bank stirrers at bear stearns knowingly sold defective loans and mortgage backed securities. and kept their investors in the dark about how crummy these deals were and just like the bankers a goldman sachs bear stearns bank stirs openly bragged to each other about how bad the deals were and how much their customers were getting screwed and bear stearns made big money off the fraud at the height of the housing bubble between two thousand and three and two thousand and six bear stearns generated two hundred twelve billion dollars in mortgage backed securities unfortunately all of these securities were to use a more delicate term than the ones that the banks or themselves used crap and when the housing bubble went bust so too did bear stearns which was then bought by j.p. morgan chase bank that is now liable for all that fraud officials within schneiderman's office is suggesting the j.p.

morgan chase is just the first in a long line of banks that could be hit with similar lawsuits yes after going after the banks with lawsuits for their fraud turns out it's a good thing but we need to go a step further instead of just civil lawsuits we need criminal prosecutions back in one nine hundred eighty three ronald reagan deregulated the savings and loan banks and predictably the hustlers among them started committing fraud but in parallel want to george w. bush's brothers three years later in one thousand nine hundred sixty s. and l. industry collapsed because of their fraud so reagan nationalize the banks screwed their stockholders fired all their management and set about a thousand banks years to jail i never thought i'd agree with reagan on anything but he was right the only way to stop the billionaire predators from crashing our economy again is the sense of suits to jail for you could imply that employ the mitt romney strategy and give one of them a job as treasury secretary. you know i'm serious the wall street journal reports

that romney's list of potential nominees for treasury secretary includes this guy john thain so who is jon faine. and john thain is the former c.e.o. of failed bank merrill lynch which was purchased by bank of america during the financial collapse for pennies on the dollar in two thousand and eight feigns bank lost eleven billion dollars leaving it unable to operate without outside help at the same time they lobbied the bank's board of directors to hand him a ten million dollars bonus for presiding over his bank's ruin and he got it and he took it in other words he's the perfect guy for a mitt romney administration somebody who do symbolic his own business laid off the workers who racked up debt and then walked away scot free with an extra ten million dollars in his pocket it's what the romney did to businesses taken over by bain capital it's what they needed at merrill lynch and it's what they both will do to america should mitt romney win in november now for his take on this i want to turn

it over to neil aspirate host of truth for america and author of conscientious equity you know welcome back to the program. tom thanks for having me does it embarrass you great to have you with us does it embarrass you as a republican that romney wants to nominate a bailed out banks or as treasury secretary. i mean there's so much going on and what you just said but first of all mitt romney is quite far from being elected so we're not going to know who is treasurer treasury secretary is going to be for a long time but we do know who broke obama's treasury secretary is and he is one of the most incompetent treasury secretaries that we've ever had i mean we've spent trillions of dollars on this so-called economic recovery there's no jobs to be found there's no recovery to be found for is that he four and a half million jobs like that he's a tax cheat for to have millions of jobs dale gore and i have jobs in five trillion dollars of debt you're not you're not going to let a meal sorry you're not going to lay the you know thirty years of reaganomics and

the insane deregulation of our banks in two thousand and then bush's mismanagement of the economy leading to that great crash you're not going to lay that until. well we're going to also lay it on bill clinton who started this whole thing with the mortgage crisis that broadens to this point but you know it's the old when dr in that era kids births were not built and this was all this was phil graham's idea actually if you want to get back to that if you want to you want to make his wife and wendy happy because she was on the board of enron and ken lay wanted to start speculating in unregulated markets and so phil gramm introduced the commodity futures modernization act but back to bit romney mitt romney has as said that he's considering a failed banks there is a treasury secretary doesn't this tell us something about mitt romney but but but but come on tom that's a little bit insincere i mean bill clinton's treasury secretary was was reuben who was a cochairman of goldman sachs i'm not here to defend what the world but i am i will

not defend robert rubin that i'm alison you ronnie. and i think this will be bill clinton's not running for anything this is totally this is totally hypothetical we don't know who it's going to be but it can't get any worse than tim geithner i mean look at his record and you talk about bonuses how about the hundred sixty five billion dollars of bonuses does. or took not that none of that was that he was at the fed he was not a bank there he could but he overseen but he was the treasury secretary when these bonuses were paid in your in your opinion maybe there's something we agree on here i in my in the set up which i believe you heard i say i pointed out that you know reagan deregulated the snails in eighty three they the hustlers got into the business including neil bush was silverado and they crashed the s n l's in eighty six reagan said over a thousand people to jail he also took over

a nationalized all the s n l's he created the resolution trust corporation over a twenty year period reprivatize them was reagan right is that what we should be doing right now. well what actually happened to solve the problem was in the george h. w. bush administration when he said no new taxes read my lips and he raised taxes to bail out and to save the savings and loans so he wanted to i mean community bankers we need thank you so you just don't feel in the back and read the history of the resolution trust corporation that those those banks were taken over by the federal government and then were gradually re privatized and as i said banks toure's went to jail so you think that right now i mean here's your opportunity for taking and taking your tim geitner shouldn't banks be going to jail. all for people who break the law in who break the public trust to pay the ultimate price and if that means they must go to jail to let them go to jail but i don't think we can condemn every

banker in the world because they're not all part of this i mean there are people who broke the public trust cinema jail ok. thanks a lot for being with us tonight. thanks tom. mitt romney probably doesn't want voters to know that a bailed out banks star is on the short list of nominees for treasury secretary also doesn't want voters to know about a factory in free point freeport illinois that factory belonging to this insider technologies is in the process of shutting down shop and laying off more than one hundred seventy workers those jobs will instead go to workers in china despite the fact that this inside a factory in america has been more profitable than ever before that's because the majority owner of sense out of technologies is drumroll bain capital yet the company that made mitt romney rich and continues to make him rich are decided it's more profitable for them if they so often american jobs to china so that's what they're doing the workers assata are not going down without a fight joining me now on the phone is one of those workers tom gall rap welcome.

hi gentlemen how are you i am great so what's going on at the plant right now. yeah absolutely brought in some. some. great some. big. containers ship they're going ships to bring in to put the equipment in so when we discovered that they were bringing them in and they were going to load up some of the equipment and try to take it out our community volunteers decided they were going to try to stop it so they went to the exit where the trucks would go and they blocked the exit and prevented trucks from coming in or going out until the police were called and they were asked to be removed tom these are these are not just these are not like staples kinds of jobs are they these are to tell us about your job about the jobs that are being lost a sense out as

a result of this behavior by being. very technical automation jobs. transmission sensors for tar and the people that do it are very talented very knowledgeable and we make the best parts in the world there. and then just guys who are well paid to write these. i mean we're not getting rich but you know we have the american dream and we had it ripped out from underneath us by bain capital because they want to make another dollar there's no limit to how much money they want in the balance between profitability of a business and responsibility communities where they are is completely out the window now it is it absolutely is tom i tell him i'll bang port dot com and i want to encourage people to go to bain port n.p.r. teen dot com tell us about that and what you all are doing right across the street

from the factory here we have just a minute left right being part is in camp across the street from the factory in the stevenson county fairgrounds and we're keeping out there and we are protesting we have events every saturday. we're trying to raise awareness of outsourcing these shows it's more than just our company it's a thing that's going on throughout the country or there are a lemonade these well paying manufacturing jobs moving them out of the country and the jobs that really mean in these communities like in freeport illinois are minimum wage jobs with no benefits and they're destroying these communities. well said tom tom go rob i wish you and your colleagues the very very best thanks for being with us tonight. ok learn more about this fight and to get involved go to court dot com. coming up

a huge win for residents of the keystone state this morning as a judge ruled that pennsylvania's voter suppression idealogue can't go into effect before november that was similar voter suppression efforts underway across america is the win in pennsylvania really something to celebrate or too little too late. here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call i don't know. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot like you sir are a little you know what that is my other terror cells in your neighborhood i want you to listen to feature stories on the on the liberal and the christian apologetics. consumer beliefs of others because. you know the support you need distracts us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven

industry that sells us sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm not me martin and we're going to break this that it's. utterly. 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 everything. i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

there was a big victory for voters in pennsylvania today commonwealth court judge robert simpson ruled this morning that the state's republican back and voter suppression id law cannot go into effect before the november election after two days of arguments the state failed to prove that the new law wouldn't disproportionately affect minority and low income voters people who tend to vote for democrats that was of course why republicans in that state first passed the law as the top republican lawmaker in pennsylvania. brag. voter id which is going to allow governor romney to win the state of pennsylvania done. so

at least the republican strategy to rig the election in pennsylvania has fallen short unfortunately there are several other states where similar efforts by republicans are still rolling along and ultimately this issue will likely be settled by the u.s. supreme court the near future a court whose right wing members have already ruled five to four that americans do not have a fundamental right to vote that was in bush v gore joining us now from our l.a. studios is brad fried founder and publisher of the bread blog bread live dot com brad welcome back tom good to be back thank you for joining us and good to see you my friend does this decision effectively kill this voter i.d. law in pennsylvania till the election yes and no and i hate to be confusing about this because it needs to be clear and this judge this republican judge i believe purposely made a ruling here that was not particularly clear so here's where we are for this november the photo id restriction will not keep anyone from voting they'll still

be asking voters for their id and the state will still be putting out advertisements on television telling people to get their id so you know it's likely that a lot of people will see this and go oh i don't have an idea i'm not going to go vote but the fact is you can vote without a photo id even though you will be asked for it this november in the election beyond that the photo id restriction law will kick in next year unless it's challenged if it's found to be unconstitutional this ruling today essentially speaks only to what will happen in this november's presidential election and i expect frankly a lot of confusion to come from it but you're right it is good news in that the one point six million people we were concerned would not be able to vote at all at least have a shot of casting a vote this november what's the latest on the growing. and see alexion fraud scandal. this is an amazing story it continues to blow up we're now up to some

twelve counties in the state of florida who have found what appear to be fraudulent registration forms turned in by this republican company strategic allied consulting hired by the republican national committee owned by a mitt romney a paid mitt romney political consultant so it still continues to grow late last friday the republican florida the republican party of florida filed a criminal election fraud complaint against the republican company strategic allied consulting and just before coming to the studio today i got word from an insider that the department of state down there has now informed all of the supervisors of elections in all of florida's counties that they need to set aside all of these fraudulent registration forms of the forms believed to be fraudulent because they

may now be needed in a court case was so this is moving forward now on a criminal level and we're still finding out how this affects voters in the other four states where this same firm nathan sprowl's firms were operating and there has been some reports in nevada and denver of destroyed democratic registrations found in the trash so this continues to develop and it's continues to be a remarkable story of the republicans being hoisted on their own petard ard brad just one minute there's a new story out about voting machines and just like in two thousand and four companies that own those voting machines are funding the republican candidate in this case but romney is this concerning. it always concerns me you know i've been yelling for years about privatizing our public election system that's what we've done and we've let these private companies come in. no matter who their own by whether they're supporters of romney's or obama's or anybody else the fact that

there are private companies who have proprietary rights over these machines that the public is not allowed to oversee the citizenry cannot oversee its own elections and that continues to be a grave threat to democracy we continue to trust in all fifty states in these electronic voting systems to report the results of the races that are either correct or not correct and really the citizens often have no way of knowing one way or another because of this you know this is the ultimate fraud or sin against democracy the privatization of our vote fred friedman thanks so much for being with us tonight brad always my pleasure thank you tom. over the weekend more swing state election polls were released including in ohio where president obama has a sizable nine point lead over mitt romney fifty to fifty one to forty two percent of the vote last wednesday a c.b.s. new york times quinnipiac poll was released in battleground florida which showed president obama with another nine point lead over mitt romney and yesterday the

university of new hampshire released its latest poll in that state with president obama having a whopping fifteen point lead over romney but apparently it means nothing just as former governor of new hampshire and close friend of the romney camp johnson and. we ask about new hampshire i'm sure you didn't miss it right there in manchester fifteen point deficit for mitt romney. you know i'm guessing you'll argue with some parts of the you know interview with a fifteen i'm not going to argue with is it although it's a chuck do you really do you really believe it's right let me just test year your political wisdom do you think it's possible for that to be right. now you know it's a piece of dry believe it's a new isn't the only conservative who thinks polls showing president obama leading mitt romney are pieces of garbage in fact that's the newest conspiracy theory coming from the hard right joining me in. now to talk more about the rights to stain for negative polling isabel stand or to bureau chief for alter net del

welcome back thanks for having me see you so so what is this whole skew polls theory coming out and i think it's sort of like in the alternate universe that is the right wing universe this is the unified field theory that encompasses all possibility of any outcome possible because if obama wins it's going to just morph into. you know a conspiracy about how he didn't really wait around when she was still. the most serious all those illegals right however if romney wins and there's been a lot of voter suppression this will be the alternative narrative that that the polls for prior to the one that matters on election day they were all wrong in the election day paul was correct so you know i mean it's just going to work any way you slice it well and it becomes the alternate i mean what if. people like greg

palast you know the b.b.c. reporter who was on our program last night he said already in florida eighty thousand people who are all african-american because race is identified on your voter registration eighty thousand people already been removed from the voter registration rolls this year you know he's got he's got photos of the whole thing i mean so what if these voter suppression efforts are successful and romney does take the election you know in the sort of studies you know every time and then turning out there be sure and wear whatever i mean you know it's but but but but in particular that is that going to become the narrative the corporate or the mainstream media picks up to well it's going to be a tough one for mainstream media right because it's a narrative that is aimed at them or it's and it's in there a tip that says we can't trust you guys because we know you're all liberals but what it will do to mainstream media is. further further further. create

a chill factor in the way and all the false equivalency as we see in mainstream media what both sides do it and all of that kind of stuff which is not necessarily true but you know this thing didn't start out i think as a dark conspiracy theory i think it started out as a way to get people to the polls you know when i when i went to see ralph reed speak in june to his own people what he was saying is don't believe the polls. because if we do our job right the model that the polls are based on is going to be wrong because they will have under sampled the. percentage of social conservatives who will vote in this election so ok it was and of course he doesn't want them to believe the polls because he was among them to be depressed and not show up because they want to be depressed and i give him money and there's that i mean ralph reed is always all about that but that's that's just but then it morphed into this conspiracy which are very convenient you know one of the things that i've

seen in the last couple of election cycles that has troubled me about the media response to candidates getting ahead is that and even in the primaries when it was hillary and obama that when one candidate gets ahead the media kind of beats up on that person until the next one until they're you know they just want to keep it like this because that brings in the advertising dollars it doesn't seem to be happening in this election cycle could it be that the reason it's not happening in this election cycle is because there's so much money being poured in the t.v. stations networks they don't have any extra time to sell. and this is my very very very conspiracy theory about well i hadn't thought of it that way but you know i think a lot of what's going on is reporters really don't know what's going on i think that the landscape is so shifted in this election i think when the history is written this will be the one where everything has so shifted between the. the technological changes that have happened with cell phones and tablet devices and

how that's being used to micro-targeting it all this stuff this is going to be the year where that all shifted and the twitter thing and reporters really are not able to keep up with the news cycle it's going to it's going to be remarkable. the what we just have thirty seconds the latest on these voter suppression efforts are they you know pennsylvania's blocked one you expect a lot more. i mean i wish i did i think and i was course now i think so i mean i think that there are going to be places where north with thirty days out for you we'd need a spate of really enlightened judges and lawsuits happening to happen very very quickly in quick succession so we're going to have dealt thanks for being with them which is always good to have you thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. raise the alert the waves have gone to the dogs at least that's what

beachgoers are saying and honey and beach in california over the weekend as the fourth annual surf city dog competition and extravaganza got underway fifteen hundred spectators looked on in awe as forty six powerful pooches took to the waves to show off their best surfing skills the dogs varying in size and breed rode some pretty gnarly waves and did their best to hang ten or so or a few white belts but the term doggies got right back up on their boards and without the weights there was no winner declared all of the pups are given a participation medal and perhaps more importantly a bag of dog treats so next time you head to the beach be sure to take fido with you and see if he or she has what it takes to become the next great doggie supreme . after the break in what seems like a never ending chapter in american history u.s. special forces are once again back in iraq our military deaths in afghanistan are now over two. what are we going to call it a day and prove and show the ball and prevent the losses of more.

thank.

you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then a 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 sorry welcome to the big picture .