talk about the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour is trying to rig the election for romney worth really worth getting arrested over why is it that only republicans get caught for election fraud and how far will republicans go to politicize the deaths of the four americans in libya only case of congress and their allies a very far and apparently committing treason along the way is just fine i'll explain in tonight's we take. it's crude news more allegations of election fraud against the republican party a voter registration supervisor contracted by the republican party of virginia was arrested on thursday for destroying voter registration applications thirty one year old collin small was caught throwing away a bag of filled out voter registration forms in

a dumpster police say the crime here's limited in nature but additional charges may be filed in the future already the republican national committee is dealing with allegations of election fraud after hired a firm known as strategic allied consulting to register voters in key swing states that firm was found to have committed widespread fraud by destroying or tampering with voter registration forms filled out by democratic voters at least eleven counties in florida have discovered tampered registration forms handled by that firm now for the latest on these efforts by republicans to steal the election i'm joined by bad brad friedman founder and publisher of the brad blog brad welcome ok tom always a great great to have you back with us why is it the republicans are the only ones who ever get caught for voter and election fraud and yet they're the ones who are screaming that there's an epidemic of voter election fraud in america but yeah they seem to be the only ones that are actually doing it i mean in the case of this collin small this fellow who was arrested last week. in virginia for for throwing

away demmer for throwing away registration forms let's be clear this he was hired by this firm strategic ally and consulting this is the firm that was hired by the r. and c. for some three million dollars to do voter registration in five different states now when they were caught in florida turning in hundreds of apparently fraudulent registration forms the r n c sad that they have a zero tolerance policy for this that they acted swiftly and boldly by firing strategic allied consulting and nathan sproul the guy who created this company at their request but the truth is this collin small fellow was hired by strategic allied consulting when they are in sea claimed that they cut ties with this group in fact they maybe cut ties with nathan sproul they did not cut ties with the machine that sproul created these are the same people doing the same thing that

they were trained to do by this strategic allied consulting company run by nathan sproul who by the way is also a political consultant for mitt romney while a newspaper meanwhile a newspaper in pennsylvania the mount pleasant journal ran an article last week to falsely claim that photo voter i.d.'s are needed to vote at newspapers owned by richard mellon scaife who you know famously has funded a whole lot of right wing things yeah latino heritage foundation are these the sort of shenanigans we should get used to with just two weeks to go oh yeah get used to it it's going to get a lot worse and frankly i've got to tell you i have never seen anything like what we are seeing now i mean it you know it starts with what you were talking about with david cobb earlier citizens united and the money that's brought into the system but you know we have seen these photo i.d. restrictions to keep people from voting we've seen earlier. noting our scale back

we've seen challenges to legitimate voters and their right to vote and frankly all of this tends to obscure the very serious concerns that we still have about voting machines that are run by private companies proprietary systems that cannot be overseen by the public that are a very real threat in all fifty states in the in the union at this point now i've heard from people you know n.b.c.'s chuck todd their top election guy over the weekend said that concerns about voting machines are conspiracy theories he equated this to donald trump's birth or garbage that's a quote from from chuck todd of n.b.c. who does not understand the threat that these systems pose to our country but i'll add to that even the supposedly good guys guys like the folks at think progress have turned around and have smeared me have smeared brad blog dot com today as

a conspiracy theorist site or something saying that i've reported something that i have not what i've reported is that associates of mitt romney and bain capital have indeed taken control of the third largest voting machine company in the country that should be a concern to any american but it's as much of a concern whether it's an associate of romney's an associate of george w. bush's or to associate of. hugo chavez his company that he's aligned with also owns the proprietary technology for the voting systems that are used in two thirds of this country there is no reason why there are private corporations in our public elections and to point out those concerns and the fact that these machines often fail and can be easily manipulated to smear folks who point out those scientifically based concerns as conspiracy theorists i find appalling somebody short sighted and. something that the democrats may come to regret as of november

somebody should point out to ireland recently put their voting machines up for sale as scrap metal after having run these kind of house on the brad friedman thanks so much for being with us tonight thank you tom it's clear the one political party has a vested interest in keeping as many voters from the polls as they possibly can as former republican strategist pointed out. how many of our chris. good government they want everybody. i don't want everybody to vote. people they never have been from the beginning of. the election. and that was paul weyrich one of the co-founders of the american legislative exchange council alec and the foundation and at that time the time that the tape

was made he was working on the reagan campaign now thanks to the nationwide efforts by conservatives to keep democratic voters away from the polls and rig the election for mitt romney. foreign election observers will be on hand to make sure that the voting rights of minorities in america are protected come election day more than forty four observers with the un affiliated organization for security and cooperation in europe will be deployed at polling stations all around the nation to monitor the election and potential disputes at polling stations these observers were asked for by civil rights groups in the united states and raise concerns over systemic efforts to restrict the votes of minorities ahead of the election including voter suppression id laws joining me now to discuss more about the need for these observers on election day is hilary shelton washington bureau director of the end of the hour it's great to have you back welcome thomas good to be with you thanks for joining us what what provoked you to go to the u.s. it was very clear to us that there was so much going on of the distractions over

the election process and a country as to this probably no more heavily partisan time in our country than during an election season so asking one leader of the of it's going to be a member of one party are the other to be supportive and helping us address these issues always raises i on the other side we know we need to reach out for independent observers and. it's an organization that does that throughout the world and it's done in the united states before it's an independent nonpartisan organization that is sin in observers then from throughout the country as a matter to which you go throughout the country forty different states to see what's going on to see if they're going to be problems and those trying to get to the polls on election day see the problems of those registering as we move towards the end of the registration cycle in most states across the country and then see how the county and the tail end of the election process ends up occurring after election day the support that we have the independent set of eyes and ears on the ground seeing what's going on and then doing the report to

a very will help us improve our electoral process as we move forward and now these these voter suppression id laws these photo id laws that are being promoted this is the latest thing to come out of alec out of paul weyrich. organization and when we look at the demographic breakout of who does and doesn't have photo i.d.'s we've got a graphic of this that just lays it right out you can see you can see it here after americans twenty five percent don't have these asians twenty percent latinos one thousand percent and so on all the way down to two whites more you know the republican eight percent it seems that that if you wanted to rig an election if you just used photo id as as the filter you could knock off you know about half the electorate in this part of it as a matter of fact if if you really want to become paranoid if you look at the number of african-americans that made the difference in elections in two thousand and eight we know that it did in states like north carolina north carolina was run by

about six hundred one by about six hundred forty thousand votes but if you apply the photo i.d. law to north carolina the governor vetoed it and did allow it to move forward to actually end up eliminating seven hundred eighty thousand african-americans from the rolls well so if you want to look at from a very partisan perspective it could very well lead to that but it doesn't just end with photo i.d.'s the problems we're experiencing also with them shortening early voting in a number of states eliminating things like sunday voting which african-americans use in very high numbers if you look at florida for instance florida is a state in which thirty two percent of all those that utilize sunday voting before election they just happen to be african-americans and african-americans only make up five percent of the florida state population so we know there's a major problem and we know we need someone here in an independent way that can observe what's going on and make an official report that the u.s. can respond to the the u.n.

is sending forty four observers in that sort of a drop in the ocean well it's actually more than forty four top observers with a half staff that goes beyond that they have about one hundred twenty five people on the ground in forty different states they've spoken. many organizations cite in double a c.p. leadership conference on civil and human rights and the a.c.l.u. and many others but they're also speaking to election officials representatives of the state department representatives of the justice department and find out what's going on and began digging in and observing the process throughout as we move towards this election yet the carter center which is the gold standard for the world has said that they can't observe us elections because in so many of our states old vestige old jim crow laws prevent or new ones for that matter frankly prevent observers from coming into the election area for example absolutely as we would have of the great work the cost of senate does throughout the world we believe that he will do an excellent job force as well in making sure the kind of observation that the carter since we've given so much well deserved credit for

providing throughout the world is done right here in the united states and hopefully we can both prevent these kinds of issues of voter disenfranchisement from occurring all together at the very least we did to see what's going on and move forward after the election to strengthen the process and prevent the kind of shenanigans we're deeply concerned may happen in this election which of the very best thank you so that's a great lunch for the with a few facts. after the break the king of congressional witch hunts congressman darrell i say has done all that he can to tarnish the obama administration over the last two years but his latest efforts have gone too far this time congressman i said was kicked out of capitol hill i'll tell you why and i still take.

friend decade up north austin terrorist attack. ex hostages blood listen to their lives after the tragedy. still gives try to cross out the past. because their future will yet be written.

which. he gave to. the chief you. meet. folks such. as.

and welcome back as corporations seize control of more and more of our constitution because of the supreme court's citizens united decision people of iceland are rising up to take back their constitution over the weekend voters took to the polls in iceland to approve a national referendum calling for a new constitution to be approved in the wake of iceland's financial crisis in two thousand and eight a new constitution was drawn up by a special panel of twenty five citizens who took suggestions from facebook and twitter to draft the world's first ever crowd sourced constitution according the results sixty six percent of the nation approve the new constitution which includes reforms such as nationalizing more resources giving voters more power to call for

their own referendums and an acting term limits on the presidential office joining me now from iceland to explain what all this means and what happens next in iceland is smarty mccarthy executive director of the international modern media institute's mario welcome to think you can further it thank you for joining us first of all this was a non-binding resolution right this was basically a will of the people telling the politicians get with the act. yes that was the reason actually constitutionally the there is no process for allowing a citizens referendum to change the constitution so now it actually has to go to the parliament which will take it forward and. then there will be a new general election after which through they have to confirm the bill yeah so what is the political situation like in iceland that even makes a rewrite of a constitution possible. so off through the crotch there's been this kind of pull

scrushy vibe or some a lot of protests originally back into the us made to his mind which led to the formation of new political movements and. it's basically a lot of people who were formerly entirely plus the baltics that become empowered to participate there's a strong interest in doing something new but at the same time we've seen a lot of. trash denialism in the sense from the right being a lot of people seem to have forgotten the independents party's role and it's a new conditions for the crush there's been this interesting and something which is actually going to watch it a model. from the right wing saying vote every part of the constitutional processes entirely. and so on despite it's not so since that awful truth so it is it's still a bit unstable and we don't know what what we'll see next so what i'm what i'm

getting from what you said and from one when we were in iceland the lesson here it all reporting from there that the the right wing basically did the deregulation that brought about the crash there and now you're saying there they're trying to reinvent history and say oh no we had nothing to do with that or are they saying that our our so-called reforms had nothing to do with the crash. so in some cases they're saying that the reform for good thing was done the it was just a feedback system to the market which may or may not be true but the good news a certain group within the right wing which has been saying berkeley very clearly there was no cross that you know it's bizarre see here this because we are. trying to reduce no no to mind but that's what's happened here in the united states

none of our banks stars have ever been held to account in fact they're giving themselves billion dollar bonuses what did you all and in iceland do with your baxter's. shortly after the crash. russian prosecutors office which was intended to investigate the crash and so far it's prosecuted because of who serves a couple of up on players who were involved in the studios. there have been a couple of cases of civil servants who've actually been and have been investigated and one that is currently. doing jail time but there's a couple of bankers who made it to custody so we're cleaning things up but there's a very long process because you know there is a very strong need to protect the law absolutely smart mccarthy thanks so much for being with us and i. think it's much appreciated it's probably time we did

a little housekeeping with our own constitution here in the united states or at least just reread it to show that nowhere in it are corporations given the same rights as people. just. it's the good the bad of the very very ultra fit denny asli oddly the good carol costello last week us dello interviewed the american family associations bryan fischer after he attacked a new effort by the southern poverty law center to promote diversity by encouraging school kids to sit with someone new during lunch on october thirty after the interview and after being put in its place bus by costello fisher took to twitter twitter and tweeted that costello was a member of the. well today costello his response responded to fisher's remarks live on the air take a look. he days ago he came after me

a homo should be he is immoral he is unnatural and it is unhealthy that is a simple straightforward statement of fact but for the gay gestapo they're going to call it an insult now carol costello she showed you what this looks like i mean costello when i was on with her and she showed you what the gay gestapo looks like in action because she cut my water off just as soon as i started to talk about the health risks of homocentric behavior. well mr fisher if that's the mission of the gay guests then i'm a proud card carrying member. and i'd say where do i sign up good for you carol for standing up for diversity and fighting back against the hatred at a difference that is tearing america the bad todd akin akin the republican running for senate from missouri made waves this past summer when he said that women can't become pregnant from legitimate rape despite the backlash from the comments they

can stay in the senate race and is trying to unseat democratic incumbent claire mccaskill but a fundraiser recently taken last more points with female voters when he compared. gaskell to a dog referring to mccaskill a control the crowd she goes to washington d.c. it's a little bit like one of those dogs you know fads end of quote i think it is rape comment made it pretty clear he has very little respect for or understanding of women but this latest remark really seals the deal and the very very ugly arthur allen last week we told you a growing number of c.e.o.'s are pressuring their workers to vote for mitt romney allan head of a software company in florida is one of those c.e.o.'s allen has sent two e-mails to his employees first urged company employees to simply vote for romney but the second urged employees to donate up to twenty five hundred dollars out of their salaries to the romney campaign and now here's the real kicker charlie after urging employees to donate their money to romney allen also asked that employees defer some or all of their salary until december so that the company can pay an interest

payment on a portion of its debt so not only does allan want employees to spend their hard earned money on donations to romney he also wants to fund it is screw ups meanwhile allan flies around in his fifty million dollar corporate jet this doesn't scream corporate greed and corruption i don't know what does and it is very very ugly. for last two years the republican chairman of the house government oversight committee this guy darrell i saw this guy. a former small time crook has been committed to burning down the obama presidency since day one and he's used his gavel on the committee to obstruct the obama administration with investigations and conspiracy theories that he basically only hear about on fox so-called news things

like slow and drug fast furious and now his commitment to destroy president obama has led daryl isaac to in my opinion commit treason against the united states of america. last friday their allies to release one hundred sixty six pages of state department documents that were classified as sensitive and related to the september eleventh attack on our consulate in benghazi you see after failing to burn the president over cylinder and fast and furious i said made sure he was going to exploit this tragedy in libya to its fullest extent and part of his exploitation is to not only embarrass the administration by revealing everything they knew in libya before and after the attacks but also to sabotage the administration's foreign policy in that nation going forward as part of that document dump i said chose not to redact to black out the names of libyans who've been working with the u.s. government in libya of course now that those names are public those men and women

are in danger and are likely being hunted down right now as i'm speaking by the men who attacked us on nine eleven in gaza also these key intelligence operatives are now compromised and thus can no longer be used to give us intelligence which hurts the president's ability to conduct foreign policy and counter terror activities in libya senator john kerry the chair of the senate foreign relations committee released a statement about isis saying the wholesale release of state department documents by the house oversight committee darrell isis committee has exposed libyan nationals working with the united states to possible danger this is irresponsible and inexcusable and perhaps worst of all it was entirely avoidable it is profoundly against america's interests in a difficult region and then senate majority whip dick durbin echoed these sentiments saying this on fox so-called news. this idea of chairman ice but he's going to don't put names in public of libyans who are risking their lives to

support america and keep us safe in an effort to get a political toehold in the selection is unconscionable it is an acceptable i said defended his release saying one of the individuals he exposed was already known to be working with the united states he had nothing to say however about the several other assets he exposed in libya who had cooperated with us and who are now in danger even wiki leaks went to great lengths to redact sensitive names when they released their trove of state department cables last year but i say in his sterile rush to burn the obama administration before the election chose to not even take those commonsense measures he chose to put at risk the lives of innocent libyans and americans and embassy because embarrassing the white house politically and now is his top priority no matter what the consequences according to article three section three of the united states constitution treason against the united states

shall consist only in levying war against them or in here or in adhering to their enemies giving them aid and comfort by releasing the names of the libyans who've been working with the united states in a very dangerous part of the world has provided aid and comfort to our enemies in that region those same enemies who attacked our consulate on september eleventh and killed our ambassador another diplomat and his two security guards this is treason they're all eyes that should be stripped of his gavel on the oversight committee and kicked out of congress let him go back to making millions in california selling car alarms made in asia he's doing too much damage here in washington d.c. . and that's the way it is tonight on the big picture monday october twenty second two thousand and twelve. for more information in the stories we covered visit our websites atar been our com for speed dot org dot com and if you missed anything i'd show you can now watch it in h.d.

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