log on to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture with millions of dollars in corporate cash corrupting our democracy and politicians in washington only looking to pad their wallets what we're going to do as my friend mike papen tonio and as the average american in the likely have no idea who virgil goode is as for the rocky anderson i'll probably answer you with a blank stare why are third party candidates in america locked out of mainstream media debates what are democrats and republicans really afraid of and the united

states is teetering on the edge of the fiscal cliff just barely managing old on is president obama willing to let go of the country and our economy just to make the rich pay their share in taxes. you need to know this one of the basic american core values has always been about protecting the rights of the power love us from the powerful that's what our revolution was founded on and as we have volved over time that value provoked the civil war in the end of slavery the emancipation of women and a whole raft of laws that protect the little guy from giant corporations particularly in the workplace our system of government is democratic with the will of the people determining the fate and future of things through electing our representatives our economic system is far from being democratic in fact you can make a strong case that the workplace in america is the last vestige of the old days of kings and queens of aristocracy left over from previous centuries outside of work

or own co-ops in most businesses the workers don't elect the c.e.o.'s don't have any say over their supervisors and right to work for less states functionally don't even have the right to organize a union to. try to have a say on the conditions in their workplace one of the more well known abuses of power in the workplace for example has historically been the power of mostly male supervisors over mostly female workers for centuries it was not at all uncommon for male supervisors to imply or even say all right that women who work for them couldn't advance or even keep their jobs if they didn't provide sexual favors to their bosses fortunately a generation ago women rose up and made enough noise about this that we now have laws against sexual harassment the workplace laws that are really about rebalancing some sort of that some part of that disparity of power between bosses and workers similarly in centuries past it was common for corporate bosses to demand that their workers get out and work for political parties or candidates who were buddies with

the bosses workers didn't go along didn't donate to corporate friendly candidates they could be at frankly over the history of this country often were threatened fired or even beaten or killed so a generation of workers who were sick and tired of that rose up and helped push through labor laws that made it illegal for the corporate kings to make their political demands of their employees just like they can't make sexual demands of them for example section eleven zero one of the labor code made it a crime for a c.e.o. to engage in actions controlling or directing or tending to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees additionally the law explicitly said that employers may not coerce employees to adopt a particular course of political action this was further reinforced by two u.s.c. four forty one b. which says about corporations or political funds it shall be unlawful to make a contribution or expenditure by utilizing money or anything of value secured by physical force job discrimination financial reprisals or the threat of force

job discrimination or financial reprisal to influence voters the american notion of fairness so that workers could and should be judged on their. work not on their gender not on their politics but then of course we ended up with five right wing wackos on the us supreme court who in their citizens united decision decided that those with the most money should have the most power in america the most famous part of that decision suggests that corporations are people and the money isn't property it's first amendment protected speech less well known as the corollary of that that if the corporate kings have unlimited free speech in the political arena outside the workplace by buying politicians they also have unlimited free speech within the workplace so this is united struck down u.s.c. section four forty one b. which prohibits employers from threatening job discrimination if employees don't contribute to certain political cam candidates and campaigns so here we are with

new rules that make it possible for bosses to use their positions of power to encourage employees to be politically active for corporate friendly and worker hostile politicians and their parties and make no mistake about it in this era of employer provided health insurance the power to withhold a job is in many cases literally a power of life and death mitt romney a corporate king himself immediately jumped into this opportunity provided by those five unelected right wing supreme court justices and held a conference call with many of america's most powerful corporate bosses encouraging them to push their employees to vote for him. i hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future and he pointed out that with the citizens united ruling now firmly in place this abuse of power by corporate kings a it's no longer

a legal. nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business. because i think that will figure into their their election decision their voting decision yeah that scalia really helped out a lot and romney wants to put a couple more of them on the supreme court so what's the little guy to do to discuss this and other aspects of the political campaign is a man who spent his life defending the little guy president american travelers association co-host of bobby kennedy of ring of fire radio mike happened tony. welcome great to have you here with us one of the effects of this sort of political speech from the boss in the workplace well i think if i'm an employer what i'm concerned about not so much the government is going to do anything but you're not going to have the department of justice come in and say you've broken the law we've seen that history with the with the inability the f.c.c. to do anything with wall street we see with the f.d.a. as an ability to do anything with pharmaceutical industry i think what drives change on something like this tom is somewhere in america in the next year you're

going to have thirty or forty or fifty people walk into an attorney's office and say let me tell you the story about what happened to me in the workplace and the story is going to sound an awful lot like to experience trial or it's going to sound a lot like that time that wal-mart said to their employees we want you to clock out and then we want you to go move these one hundred boxes what in effect you're extracting something from the employee you're extract ing more from the employee then you bargain floor for when that employee took the job or is going to be a similar analysis also with the sexual harassment the the analysis of this case in the right hands is going to cause an employee. an employer big problem i would i would never ever tell an employer to do this whether they thought it was legal or not and yet mitt romney did you think that's because he figures if he becomes president the justice department as well prosecuting these cases well again i don't think it's going to ever come down to the justice department we have a justice department that hasn't had

a great history of fighting back where they should that nobody on wall street's been prosecuted for stealing eighteen million eight hundred million dollars from the american public but what you're going to have is the private industry within the legal industry say this this on its face doesn't sound right you're going to have jurors sitting in jury boxes that says really you're going to deprive this person of the ability to feed their family because they chose not to vote republican really seriously are going to do that listen a jury's going to hear this case they're going to be great they're going to lawyer rise up and you're going to see this case in front of somebody in somebody's court will be in cincy now by contract. he said that this would be basically a violation of contract like with wal-mart where they where they you know clock out their contract the group of bargaining was you work these hours you get this pay and then yeah it's an implicit it's not a written contract but it's an implicit it's an implicit relationship between what

you're extracting from that employer for example in most sexual harassment cases tom you rarely see anything explicit it's always do this for me and you might move up in the food chain that's the kind of the language but it's never explicit but those cases are cases where the jury always sees through that and they said no what you were saying to this the young lady is do this for me or else and this is the same thing this is far more explicit this is sort of the reason the reason i ask is because if you know clearly given the law you can't employers can't be revising their contracts to allow. for sexual harassment and they in our ababil it can revise their contracts to allow for people to move out or boxes after they've clocked out but are they going to start revising their contracts to say that you may be the recipient of political information from the boss and you agree to that and by country it could be there if you have one hundred employees in most working

areas you'll maybe only have ten fifteen percent of that are under a contract with the rest of our kind of fire it will work you know work and fire will but those people in our contract are in a more of a unique situation and it's interesting you point that out because that would change the analysis of whether there's a case there or not but look they've done this is this is gone mom to i'm just one of this would if this would take i mean basically what's happened is the supreme court is rewriting labor law you know citizens united and is that is the consequence of that going to be that employers will start filtering employees or firing employees based on their politics wouldn't surprise me at all but in this if you take a look at this fact sheets situation situation you say well we want to we want to rely on labor law to change this the man on the street tom can't bring a case it has to be the labor board that brings the case and says something's wrong never ever count on the labor board doing that so unless you can articulate

a case that comes from the man on the street the person on the street that's been wrong from this this is this will continue until some jury says no this isn't right and one of these employers that are listening to mitt romney for legal advice i mean can you imagine listening to mitt romney for legal advice on whether or not what you're doing is appropriate or inappropriate a little scary it's very scary so but i would always tell if somebody of employer was going to be i'd say never ever do this because you're setting yourself up for something that could get really ugly but on the other the koch brothers seem to feel confident that well the koch brothers feel bulletproof in most things but then they sent this letter out to fifty thousand people but somewhere in. that fifty thousand people somebody has a damn it this is wrong and i'm not just doing it for myself i'm doing it for my children i'm doing it for the next generation of workers here that's how it changed takes place in a courtroom do you think that romney is saying this to all these corporate leaders back in well known i don't know how they're doing it could be could swing the

election tell me it tom if you look at the history of this this this is we're just seeing the stories now we haven't even heard all the stories usually we hear about the the miners in ohio who had to give to a pac or else they might lose their job we look at another company there's basically the employers tell him do this or you're going to lose your job it doesn't just happen if there's no displaced process here somebody has gotten together with the leadership go do this this is the new message on the street and if i'm on the other side of it and i'm saying and i'm talking to the same people i would tell them it's insanity do not do that protect your company this down the road could get ugly makes absolute sense like happen tony thank you thanks so much for being with us on after the break. after the break while president obama and mitt romney were the only ones debating tuesday night they won't be the only ones on the ballot for president of the united states why are third party candidates consistently shut out of mainstream media debates.

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the two party to operate was on full display tuesday night with only two candidates on stage in the second presidential debate that doesn't mean that a prominent third party voice didn't try to attend the debate green party presidential candidate jill stein was arrested outside hofstra university alongside her running mate as they both tried to walk into the debate hall. being american people actually do they're easier to races which are not much paid for by multinational corporations and the other three ladies and gentlemen you have struck the vehicle because trees in traffic if you refuse to move you will subject to us. coming. to the help you think you want according to debate rules by both major parties third party candidates need to be receiving at least fifteen percent support in the polls over stein's name is not even included in most major polls same is true of third party candidates libertarian gary johnson so the question we

should all be asking is why are third party voices shut out of the mainstream media the fates and how do we change this joining me now for more on this is christina tobin founder and chair of the free and equal elections foundation an activist a leader in the elections reform and voter rights movement christine thanks for joining us thank you so much for having me it's a pleasure to have you with us i remember ross perot in one thousand nine hundred two warned of a giant sucking sound you know this was the. nafta nafta he was so right actually you know when we look back on it look at our trade policies we haven't had that kind of a crack open in the in the presidential debates you know the breaking the mold as it were. why not i mean the two party system really evolved from the creation of the australian ballot back in the eight hundred ninety s. and from there on we had the federal election commission at evolving one nine hundred seventy four and those two things are really the lifeline of the two party

system we haven't really had a big breakthrough because this is a they adjusted to ross perot and since then we've had ralph nader independent he ran a couple times green independent ron paul i mean look at what happened to him in florida the republican party would rather crash the party and let him take over so we haven't had that kind of reform yet but here at free and equal elections of what we're doing we're going to change that ok and in fact we have a promo the. show the promo for your debates coming up here. this presidential election is not just about obama and romney there are also third party candidates on the ticket and they will influence its outcome see a debate among this nation's major third party candidates right here at our top twenty third.

so what can viewers expect to see in those debates viewers can see for candidate gary johnson libertarian green party. fortunately she was arrested yesterday that was so wrong virgil goode with the constitution party and rocky anderson the former mayor of utah with the justice party so really great candidates and i look forward to well being a cold moderator with that debate with larry king of all people larry king so it's i'm very humbled by all of this happening so quickly it should be very interesting and. apparently there's a panel before that that i'm sure you have what i'm going to do how does that work oh it's so cool we have four political correspondents the final one yet to be compared yourself thank you so much for being a part of the stork event we also have josh tallie and another individual ben swan fox i'm so excited in their fourth want to be a lady to be announced so yeah you'll be on from six thirty this seven thirty an

hour before to interview a celebrity's hopefully jesse ventura ralph nader hope to see him tomorrow in d.c. and ron paul just just got you know now knows about what we're doing so fingers crossed that ok sounds like a plan to third party movements i mean the conventional wisdom seems to be the third party movements whole away from you know that if you vote green you're really voting against a democrat if you vote libertarian you're really voting against a republican how do you respond that thinking that's a two party system brainwashing us but if you go back to the origins of the constitute constitution you'll see there is no mention of corporations no mention of party is what i'm learning here a free and equal elections is that parties really don't work and working directly with this campaign there's a disconnect between the green libertarian the campaigns and the parties and i see the candidates as individuals so i do of course see a huge movement of independent youth out there eight hundred twenty eight everybody running for office is so much bigger than the presidential election of state federal congressional races in two thousand and four. seen it for equal actions

we're going to unite those people across the spectrum eventually australian ballot eight hundred that was the secret ballot was. just the party if there were a lot more choices and voices than the ballot access barriers started to evolve in two thousand and eight i worked as the national ballot access corner for ralph nader so i headed in and helping to collect well over half a million signatures to get on the ballot throughout the united states so ron paul said the number one reason to us our team he didn't run as a third party in a way it's because of the restrictive ballot access barriers and then there's the commission on presidential debates should one thing sure well the reason i raise the australian ballot is in australia they look very like us they had a winner first past the post winner take all election system that basically produced a third party system the same problem the madison identified after the constitution was written and freaked out about an federalist number ten and said please don't form political parties because there will only be two. and they fixed it with

instant voting or voting you know so now there's multiple political parties in australia and new zealand and other countries that have the same problem we're one of only seven or nine democracies in the world that does this first past the post winner take all that always produces a two party system is there much effort that you're seeing on the ground and with these candidates to push for things that are systemic changes proportional representation of the rank voting fusion voting. absolutely the movement i foresee evolving and thirteen these candidates recognising from rocky to rappel ralph nader ron paul everybody in our debate sees that the parties don't work and they are all like for instance in there for opening the debate it's proportional representation is definitely if you check out fair about fair vote pretty there we're working very closely with them so we're actually going to have a second debate at least maybe even poor but a second debate where out there is to run out voting the people are going to decide on the twenty third which to. candidates will of allah to the bait in washington

d.c. on october thirtieth so we want to teach the people of the american idol type voting text messaging that instant runoff voting is the way to go proportional representation as well yeah and most americans don't even know about it yet. because the largest city in the united states that has. it which was the consequence of efforts by the green party. for the free and equal elections foundation hundred twenty three an equal you can check us out at three am the equal dot org again free and equal dot org i have a p.d.f. page now which is kind of cool so it really came from my dad my dad dad ran for governor back in ninety eight when i was eighteen i'm thirty one years old now and he was wrongfully knocked off the ballot and so i thought it was in illinois he ran as a libertarian i'm an independent i've never voted democrat or republican never will truly an independent but you know i didn't like that it made me upset to see that

he deserved to be on the ballot myself but they did the rig system in chicago and nationally as well so no two i got on the ballot ralph nader gave me a call in zero four works for him six got the green party on the ballot and then national for nader knowing i would work for ron paul two we've been endorsed by ron paul and ralph nader equal election so it's really very unequal is genuinely nonpartisan trans partisan you're about cracking open the system about open one of the systems all part of. working with honest media honest individuals like yourself and everybody christine great pleasure having you with us so great thank you very much keep up the great work next week and chicago thank you and don't forget to tune into our t.v. this tuesday october twenty third at eight pm eastern for the free equal lection foundation's third party presidential debate featuring joel stein and gary johnson as well as the justice department candidate rocky anderson and the constitutional party's candidate virtual. other. news corporations are not paying their fair share

in taxes which means workers have to pick up the bill a new study by citizens for tax justice finds that the federal government lost more than four hundred thirty billion dollars in revenue from corporations hiding their profits overseas corporate profits stashed overseas are not subject to our nation's corporate tax rate currently more than one and a half trillion dollars at a minimum and corporate profits are stashed away overseas and looking at more than two hundred eighty corporations of the fortune five hundred that hide their profits overseas citizens for tax justice found that if these companies all brought their profits back to america and paid an average twenty seven percent corporate tax rate than the united states government would collect four hundred thirty three billion dollars in revenue every single year ice nearly half the size of our current budget deficit the simple truth is this these corporate guys are patriots they're corporate predators who as long as they're getting quarterly profit goals have no problem parking their money overseas or the nation of their birth collapses it's

time to tax corporate america for the roads bridges and educated work force that they use but don't want to pay for. crazy alert it's all about the binders play really and one of the more memorable lines from tuesday night's debate mitt romney said that he looked through binders of women to fill positions in his that ministration when he was governor of massachusetts i went to a number of women's groups and said can you help us find folks in the broadest binders full of women. well in the two days since romney uttered that hilarious line it has gone totally viral with people all over the internet making fun of it one of the best places to find all the binder humor is on amazon dot com where

a listing for a binder for sale has received over four hundred hilarious romney's binder inspired reviews one review reads amazon reviews is a life saver is so many binders in the market today it's impossible to know which binder is best to keep my women in thanks for all the great reviews i settled i thanks to all the great your he's a settled on the avery durable view binder with two inch easy turn rings and couldn't be happier i can keep my women neatly organized in two distinct categories no mixing up no more mixing up like reiki pre-menstrual women would like to tell the nazi women thanks guys you're the best and another the hilarious review says durable few feature is a nice plus it lets the owner keep track of things like who's aging better than whom whose lives are biggest of cetera so so important in making those token hiring decisions in related news office supply stores reporting record sales and binders and worrying about the potential for a great binder shortage in two thousand and twelve. coming up is president obama really willing to push america off the edge of the fiscal cliff or for that matter

are the republicans willing to push america off the edge of a fiscal cliff just to make millionaires and billionaires a or avoid paying their fair share. that's. the mission of free credit patience three times four judges is free to make amends three. three stooges free.

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