but about the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour in a moment we'll be taking your calls in our new york take my take a live segment so if you have something to say or to as give us

a call at plus one that's a u.s. call two zero two nine zero four twenty one thirty four and we may live in the wealthiest nation on the planet and have some of the best opportunities for success in the world but some countries really don't want to be like us i'll tell you why in tonight's daily take. a while coming to your take my take a lie our phone lines are now open so if you want to tell me your opinion ask a comment make a comment ask a question live on the air give us a call at two zero two nine zero four twenty one thirty four or to get to our first caller that i'd carry in miami kerry welcome to the program thanks for calling in. actually it's very funny so much. it's

a pleasure to speak with you before i get to my question i just wanted to say thank you for having judy collins on last week what a treat that was great to have her back. she is a delightful voice even sang for us. and both were singing voice and her political voice are so desperately needed also the question i have for you is about the dream act and i've haven't seen this this matter debated in the mainstream media specifically the military provision of the dream act whereby these young people do not have a college trajectory they can enlist in the u.s. military and of course they can be exploited by the military industrial complex how come nobody is registering concern about that and what it what are your thoughts and feelings about the fairness of that you know most people choose not to be sure most americans are going to marry construes not to enlist in the military and here

we're saying to this most vulnerable population if you want citizenship you've got to risk your life for these wars. perhaps you know something i don't my understanding is that right now one of the ways you can become a u.s. citizen is by enlisting in the military serving a tour of duty and then taking that citizenship test and in fact that there's a large cohort of people in the military who are not citizens who are doing that in order to get their citizenship i didn't know that this is part of the dream act. i can see that already exist in law. as an alternative to going to college they will be eligible for citizenship but they are right now ok. thank you gary for the call appreciate it calling. i don't disagree with you that being exploited by the military industrial complex is a pretty crummy way to to get your citizenship on the other hand there are some

people who actually think that the military is a great career they like the idea of military service particularly when we're not in time of war it's been particularly brutal ten years since george bush opened the gates of hell when he started bombing afghanistan after they offered to give us bin ladin. two billion dollars national g.d.p. country so that's my take on it i think it's a shame that that's what people have to do put their lives on the line. glory in lakeview illinois lori welcome to the program thanks for calling. i want to thank you and tell you how much i enjoy your program and get your thoughts and just wonder if you are familiar with the. with the world settlement front. in where. national economic. and i'm sorry i'm not familiar with that. ok well that is something that i believe

everyone will be hearing about in the very near future. financial plan right. here sharing that with us i wish i knew i'll be right up front and tell you when i don't know about something. a lot of things i know a lot about there's a lot of things i don't know anything about that's one of the ones i don't know about john in los angeles john thanks for calling thanks for watching the show what's on your my time i love your show. the thing i want to do ask you about. in two thousand and six and two thousand. seven the u.s. department of energy and mit together did a massive study and the question was what could we do with geothermal. and it's available online and the answer is that with the existing technology we could generate thousands of times our total energy needs for sure i was wondering if you heard about that and if you could let people know what thank you i appreciate

bringing the topic up i don't know about that particular study but we did the show we did do the whole show i came in by skype from iceland about eight months ago year ago they're about and the city reykjavik that we were doing the show from is ninety nine percent of the electricity in the in the city and the heating in the city comes from geothermal i mean iceland is a is on a volcanic island basically a very large one but they've got live volcanoes and so they just pull and heat up convert into electricity we could do the same thing here in the united states you're absolutely right we could be doing it aggressively we could be doing it successfully in the technology this isn't rocket science and have to be invented you've got an entire country that's already using barbara in philadelphia hey barbara what's up. hi sam i love your show thanks. sarah about all this warmongering and cost thing about iran i mean i have it's persian one of the oldest civilizations and i want to know what your thoughts are you know the government doesn't ask. israel has nuclear weapons and they've never had to be expected why in

iran why this distrust and what can we as little people in this country has voices aren't heard do to get our voice heard and say we don't want to go to war with iran it's an excellent it's an excellent question barbara and i appreciate your bringing it up i think that what we need to do individually is let our legislators know we're not we're not afraid of the bogeyman and there are there are a lot of nuclear power nations including pakistan which is far more frankly my opinion unstable and dangerous than iran so it's i consider it a non-issue and i would just call my legislators and say you know don't put me in that historical you know batch steve in brooklyn new york a steve what's on your mind tonight. are you doing. considering boycotting the so the folks here why would you feel like there's not really a choice and so you are really you want supreme court justices do you want supreme

court justices who will do away with child labor laws who will take away your right to sue a company if they harm you if they damage you who who are who will take away a woman's right to choose to have an abortion if she's raped i mean those are the kinds of people the nominee will put on the supreme court. of the supreme court also if elected a president for those we all voted for president and. so did a did because there were five right wing crazies on that supreme court and we have five right wing crazies on there right now but three or four of the members of this from quarter over four of them are over seventy years old right now the next president and i appreciate your concern your point and as well may that the next president. if nothing else you know forget everything else the next president is going to appoint several supreme court justices over the next four years and that is going to shape the next generation this is a big deal election bonnie and stevens point wisconsin bonnie what's on your mind today but i wanted to let you know about that factory in china was that they were

by china china or this. company i'm a part of and i and they came and got all of the machinery and i know they had to do it put it in china is doing this they don't for damn. sure about it so your data showed your point is the a foreign government was subsidizing the export of an american factory it's not a country well that's just common sense i mean i don't you know we we do the same thing here in the united states frequently we say to companies if you if you'll build a factory in this town the town will give you a twenty year tax abatement or here's one hundred million dollars i mean we do that all the time so that's just that's smart on the part of the chinese what's stupid is that we're encouraging bain to do it bunny i appreciate your point and thank you very much for the call jeff and fairmont illinois hey jeff what's on your mind today. just not there now it will be shortly

ok jeff you're on the air what's up. hey hey i appreciate the show and everything and i just want to give a little shout out to my buddy rudy and that's my question i mean i think the show on about fracking you know about you know growing with all the natural you know looking water and earth it's not just water it's water with toxic toxic waste basically this is they they've figured out a way to take the toxic waste by products of refining and instead of having to pay a very high expensive fee to properly dispose of it they call it fracking chemicals and inject it into the ground. to act and you know i've come to find out that cheney had to do with that but was that we're all a third for like polluting all the people lane and if you don't grow the people blame yeah you're in people you're mixing up two things dick cheney but dick cheney did not jeff thanks for the color earth yet jeff i bet appreciate your calling what

dick cheney did was basically slipped through in the dark of night into law in two thousand and four i think it was his company halliburton which had been almost bankrupt when he became vice president he had run that company into bankruptcy but buying dresser industries which had all these as best as liabilities his company had had to develop this fracking technology so when they wanted to start doing fracking you know cheney cheney promoted and said the clear air act of clean water act provisions don't cover it it doesn't matter so that that's it for your take my take live thank you for all your calls if we didn't get your call tonight tries back next week. is the good the bad of the very very hammer of finally oddly the good fight. patel

during a panel discussion yesterday at the john jay college of criminal justice in new york city patel from the brennan center for justice and other criminal justice experts argued that the n.y.p.d. should have an inspector general to examine the conduct of its officers and its tactics the suggestion comes in the wake of a variety of n.y.p.d. scandals including widespread spying on muslim americans and the use of controversial stop and frisk tactics all across america police forces have come to feel that they're above the law we need to reel them back in and have them do what they're supposed to be doing serving and protecting behaving the way that they're supposed to be behaving bad donald trump yesterday donald trump gave americans more reasons to think he's a joke after announcing that he would give five million dollars to the charity of president obama's choice to president obama released his college application information and passport application information apparently trump is unwilling to release his own information when contacted by the guardian newspaper and asked for drums college and passport records trump's worker bees are fused to disclose the

information and said the request was still good and that is the irony of all ironies and the very very ugly republicans in congress the past two years the numbers of americans who've become sick or even died for contaminated foods has risen to forty four as risen forty four percent that's roughly forty eight million americans either getting sick or some of them dying from tainted food and while these are huge numbers republicans in congress want to defund laws that would curb and prevent food borne illness outbreaks like salmon el or you simply put republicans care more about playing politics and appeasing the interests of big ag than they do about the lives of the americans they're supposed to be representing and that is very very

. governor romney and i we both agree we agree we had to bring the tax rates down i felt the same as the president did governor romney i'm glad. you agree that let's come back to something the president i agree on and the two you agree that the voters have a choice gap so soon you may be wondering who to vote for when romney and obama agree on so many things never you do have other options come november sixth tune in to see the second round of debates between the major third party candidates on october thirtieth. here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that many americans

call a donor. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot of money you sir are a fool you know what that is my terrorist cells in your neighborhood all want to keep us safe to feature a something on lift all the christian. consumers of the stuff out of the. you know super you need distract us from what you and i should care about because they're a profit driven industry that sells of sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break that let's.

get the best of the rest of the news. story we've kept tabs on here the big picture is the troubling saga of former alabama governor don siegelman he was the very popular democratic governor of alabama became the target of a political hit job orchestrated by karl rove and the bush white house it's now led to siegelman serving time in prison in louisiana on phony trumped up charges he's been there for over a month now as one of america's few political prisoners now joining me for the latest on governor don siegelman situation how he got there and what he's doing is his daughter dana siegelman and it's great to have you here thank you so much for having me thanks for joining us it must just be ripping you up to see your dad taken off to jail and know that this is just a political witch hunt by karl rove and his buddies it's it's unbelievable that the that the justice system in this country has failed us so i mean it's not just don siegelman my father it's you know it's failed hundreds of people and i think people

across the country know and have experienced injustice within the government at some level in the system created by man by min is going to be flawed you know we think it's a sacred system it's been around a long time we've got past the witch hunts in salem you know we targeted women we burned single women at the stake we called them which is then we got across you know we move past the racist courts of the south there so we think and we pat ourselves on the back and we think oh well we're doing a good job you know we got rid of this prejudice and that simply not true and my father was one who was targeted and so tell us the story of what happened. my dad was one of the longest running democrats in the southeast if not the longest running democrat he'd held all of alabama's law highest elected offices he was the first governor to endorse al gore for president against bush and he was indicted one month before his reelection campaign by the bush administration if that wasn't

suspicious enough the u.s. frost. the peter that brought the charges was the wife of the person running my dad's opponent's campaign and if that weren't suspicious enough the bush i mean the judge that presided over the trial was a bush appointed judge who had defense contracts making money in the war in afghanistan and iraq and he during the course the trial was was awarded those those defense contracts by the bush administration. now my understanding of what your dad was accused of was appointing a fellow to a state board that had to have the head appointed by the governor who had served in the position under three former governors who were all republicans if i'm correct right and no i think one of the one of the to the governor was a democrat but in any case three former governors had appointed this guy to this job your dad came in he didn't richard scrushy didn't even want the job at that point your dad said would you please continuity fill the job you know we've got to

move on and and that fellow who he appointed to this nonpaying position who had never donated money to your dad fact you know he'd been serving with republicans he gave money to. a cause that your father supported which was having a lottery in the state to generate revenue to pay for education and because he gave money to the lottery fund which has been opposed by jacques abrams off of ralph reed and all these guys they said that your dad committed bribery first of all let me let me just say you have and it was right you have this right i just want to get to the to the biggest thing which is this this case was directed and carried out by karl rove right there is sworn testimony that came out after the case was closed ok so it was never used in the actual trial that that called rove directed the department of justice under bush to target democrats and specifically my father he's actually the one that vetted the judge to be the judge that presided over the

case he's actually. the one that brought the canaries the prosecutor and the person that ran my dad's opponent's campaign to the state of alabama to do these things he and a bunch of republican operatives sought to throw my dad out of politics and what i what i need your viewers to understand is it's not an isolated case this is been going on for years and we it's ok to forgive people for doing terrible things but forgetting will never change anything and that's what i'm scared about which is why i have started a petition not only to pardon my father who is completely innocent and a victim of a political prosecution he was his motive his motive was to bring education to the state of alabama to get underprivileged children the opportunity well. that's your problem it's horrible it's horrible and so you take a person who really cares about something like education you throw them in prison you shut them up because they they spoke out for gore against you and they spoke

out against the war and and you put them in prison because why because the democratic party always wants a southern democrat to go national and my dad had been touted a potential presidential candidate will go by republican journal and fact he had never said you know look i'm going to go national the point being cold eyes were all over my father and and his friends and operatives as well and i want your viewers worldwide to know that they can sign this petition dash don dot org free hyphen don dot org. translated into a language educate people i mean why should we rely on the american people i want to rely on the american people but we need international pressure the united states to hold other countries accountable for the injustices that those countries carry out well what about other countries holding us accountable i'd like to be held accountable as well so i'm just asking your viewers educate yourself about the

police. prosecutions in the united states signed the petition and freed ashdown dot org posted on facebook posted on twitter talk about it there's lots of evidence out there go read the affidavit this war testimony by this person get that mention karl rove you know gets no fat the word out and spread it around dana thanks so much for being with a time i wish you would be here very very much please give my best to your day absolutely thank you. just when the austerity ravaged people of greece thought things couldn't get any worse the universal health care system got dismantled and turned into an american styled death system as the york times reports this week the greek health care system that ensured coverage for all of its citizens before the financial crisis it

has today been completely decimated by conservative technocrats and austerity pushers in the past greece provided universal care thanks to employers individuals and the government contributing to a fund to administer medical services for the entire nation even though those even those greeks who lost their jobs still received health benefits for a year and after those benefits expired greece made sure those individuals still received the health care they needed at no cost to them but then as we all know the banks toure's swept into greece and swindled the country and when the global financial markets went bust greece was left with a debt crisis and the banks demanded all of their failed investments back so the banks decided to suck whatever money they could out of greece's social services in particular its health care system to give the money to the banks tears in july of two thousand and eleven the bankers and technocrats put up their demands they said

they'd give greece a bailout to ward off a complete collapse but in return they wanted a big chunk of the money it was being used right now to treat sick greek citizens under pressure from the entire eurozone greece agreed to the deal. and for the first time unemployed greeks who had lost their health benefits now had to pay out of their own pockets for any medical care they needed if that sounds familiar to any of those are you in the us and here in the united states that's australia to us because that's essentially how our health care system works today in america if you don't have a job you don't have health care you're on your own and while conservatives here tout our health care system as the boast of the world even though every international study disproves this claim the greek people are horrified with what they now have to deal with americanised health care as dr kostas surreal goes the head of greece's largest on college apartment told the times of the york times

we are moving into the same situation that the united states has been in where when you lose your job and you are uninsured you're not you're not you aren't covered today that's the case for roughly half of greece's one point two million long term unemployed workers one of those unemployed workers is a woman named alina who was diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago but under the new greek law could not receive any medical care because her benefits expired and she had no money without treatment her cancer grew to the size of an orange and broke through the skin of her breast leaving a gaping wound at this point any sort of medical treatment for alina was socially hopeless she was given a death sentence by the banks toure's after seeing alina dr serene. things like that are described in textbooks but you never see them because until now anybody got sick in this country could always get help in greece right now to be unemployed

means death. the same is true in the united states right now we're being unemployed and being sick is literally a death sentence in the american health care system as a two thousand and nine study by harvard university found forty five thousand americans die every single year because they lack health insurance the difference between the united states and greece is that we've never ad a universal health care system that covers everyone like greece so when we hear the tens of thousands of americans die every year because they don't have health insurance plus thousands more are condemned to death by for profit health insurance death panels who say you've reached your lifetime limit no more treatment most americans just shrug it off as the way things work here and there are those who you know like mitt romney say quote we don't have people that become ill who die in their apartment because they don't have insurance no you go to the hospital you get treated you get care and it's paid for unfortunately that's only after your cancer has grown to the size of an orange and ruptured through your skin and you're

already well into your deaths that's the sort of ignorance you'd expect from a plutocrat who resides in a different united states and the rest of us that's why we should all be paying close attention to how the greek people handle their new americanised health care system because it will give us a clue as to what we as americans living in the wealthiest nation on the planet should be demanding from our government when it comes to health services in the face of rising unemployment loss pensions and skyrocketing suicide rates we've seen greek workers pour into the streets demanding and and to this conservative austerity and now faced with a new health care system like ours that doesn't care for the nation's most vulnerable expect those protests to grow even fiercer it's still unclear what the endgame will be for greece and its fight against austerity but they certainly won't go down without a fight and it's time for us here in the united states to at least begin our fight

for universal health care. and that's the way it is tonight on the big picture thursday october twenty fifth two thousand and twelve and don't forget democracy begins with you get out there get active tag your it will sit on. a mission and free to critique a should free concert for charges free. range means three six three stooges free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects and free media done to our teeth on tom. wealthy british scientists on. time crisis.

market why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on our.