thank you both. good evening and welcome back to our t's continuing coverage of the presidential election i'm christine friends now and i've been it's eight o'clock on the east coast as polling stations across the country continue to close putting us closer and closer to seeing which candidate will leave this nation for the next four years and i thank our regular viewers for tuning in as well as those watching from around the globe is our duty america's broadcasting worldwide tonight in more than one hundred countries and online are to you doctor. well this has been

a day filled with extremely long lines at polling places even here in washington d.c. where some reported waiting for up to two hours to cast their vote in virginia up to four hours and in florida up to six hours and it's been a campaign filled with mixed messages ups and downs and a whole lot of money how will all this translate into votes and winners is still to be determined but we will soon know and we'll bring it to you live with an in-depth discussion of what it all means for you the country and the world and of course people are not just voting for president all four hundred thirty five seats in the u.s. house of representatives are up for grabs as are thirty three seats in the senate there's a lot at stake in this election. well let's go now to our elections night analyst found facts to run through what we know so far which polls have just closed and what we need to look for for the rest of the night fam there's some new information to you christine thank you tom just a little bit of new information so here's what we know we've got kentucky west

virginia south carolina and indiana all called and now georgia has just been called for mitt romney as well president obama has from up there none of this is really a surprise at all this is what it was expected to happen but we do have polls close now in florida virginia ohio pennsylvania new hampshire these are all battleground states is wall determine who the president is they're all still close to call to sql to call some numbers in virginia romney has an early fifty nine to forty percent lead in virginia that's very early only eight percent of votes in and in florida it's fifty one to forty eight obama with thirty seven percent of precincts reporting no two quick senate updates in indiana which is close and has gone for romney and in virginia the two senate races there are still too close to call those are going to be really important to see who controls the senate at the end of the night and get up that it's forty nine to three the electoral count tom. back to you guys all right sam jackson of course we're going to be checking in with you

obviously throughout the rest of this night whether it's a long night or a shorter night that remains to be seen it does it's going to be a very interesting one throughout the night. we novels to this we know use the move to this years a billion dollar presidential campaign all thanks to the five right wing justices of the u.s. supreme court who in their citizens united decision twenty decided that those with the most money should have the most influence over our american democracy all ordinary citizens like you and me should have our voice is silenced this is the first presidential election in which millionaires and billionaires transnational corporations trade groups unions even foreign governments you name it it could be bach would. can spend unlimited amounts of money to put their guy in the white house. and on capitol hill citizens united has affected spending in every political race across the country overall the campaign spending mark in the twenty twelve election cycle is forecasted to surpass six billion dollars joining us now to

discuss more of the effects on citizens united is jim hightower national radio commentator writer public speaker also author of the book swim against the current even a dead fish can go with the flow jim thanks so much for joining us tonight what do you think how do you think the political landscape this election season would have been different had the citizens united case been ruled the other way. well quite a bit different i mean start where the supreme court the black robe on the court. gave it to us hurdling our our elections or into the deep squat unlimited corporate money. that the result of there as the about a one out of every four dollars billions of dollars you're talking about in this these races come from the dark entities that have been created by the supreme court you know what it is not just that the effect that that big

money has but there is another thing got unleashed by this citizens united decision and then is it gave corporate executives permission to instruct their employees how to vote asshole you got these are outfits like the koch industries the c.e.o. of bet outfit and try coke empire their c.e.o. or similar letter out to each of their employees with georgia pacific instructing them they would suffer untold ill if obama were to be reelected and just in case that was a little too subtle for them the letter from the c.e.o. also included to him the slate card for the employees to take into the voting booth . using the designated names of mitt romney the other anointed candidates of the koch brothers this is the kind of thing the you know

if you need another this gets a whole new meaning to the political boss and if you need another reason to go out and fight to overturn says you nag but there it is jim you make a really important point the supreme court has ever since the marbury ruling nine hundred three and basically making a lot something that is not. provided in the constitution is one of their their powers the conservatives have been hysterical about it since roe v wade in seventy three progressives are increasingly upset about it since since two thousand and ten and citizens united why do you think it is that there has been virtually no discussion about the supreme court in all of this media coverage of the presidential races when mitt romney has has got you know whack a doodle zz advice he's got robert bork advising him on judicial nominees the guy

who you know reagan couldn't get on the court because he was such a such a such a crazy and that these you know major issues that are going to affect generations into the future have not been discussed well that this is what louis tomlinson no matter how cynical you get it's almost impossible to keep up the fact that this direct assault on our people's democratic majority has been overturned. by the members thirty five men on the supreme court the fact that that was not even mentioned in any of the presidential debates is astonishing particularly that it was not mentioned but obama not only because it would have been the right thing for him to do but also it would have been a political event take it because he's going against mr. corporations are people my friend wrong. well as you know because you know the president at first you know

thirdly didn't hide his opposition to the ruling of citizens united but also you know the rules were changed in the middle of the game and it was a game he had to play of course priorities usa came in and he said you know i have to accept this outside money in order to compete we'll have to is a very weird thing for the prince of the united states he is president of the united states of america. if he had stood against as i dare say he would not have. needed amount of money that he is going to have to raise with some of the dark entities working for him. and running of course that a whole lot more in and crossroads of the car over to you and others that you assume are commerce on the far right wing extreme out there raising that money to good against all democrats but in some point we've got to stand against this in the good news is people are at the grassroots level we have two propositions on the ballot today one in colorado and one in montana to say that the corporations are

are not people and their speech is not money they're already know that money is not speech. these i think are going to have very good chance of winning and that would be a very instructive lesson tonight. in some of these states that are not per not blue states or top if we're not talking about california or new york colorado and not and montana purple states where ordinary folks are standing up and saying we've got to do something about this so it's coming from the grassroots i think it's like one hundred sixty cities and states have already passed resolutions through their city councils or the state legislatures calling on congress to send us a constitutional amendment that we can put to the people of whether corporate money should feel they ought to control or part i think it's important to remember our citizens united has not just affected the general election this role of money in politics has also had a major impact during the primary process that i know it seems like forever ago but

i one time when we were watching the earlier debates there were eight republican candidates standing on the stage and certainly money played a role in who lasted and who didn't i want to get your take jam on the process as a whole sort of leading up to other republicans having a nominee. is not just money but it's money from a handful of super wealthy individuals children. for example you seem to care. las vegas. where we don't know you because you can't know until after the election how much you could but we do know that if you put some thirty five million dollars into their primary election spend up to one hundred dollars to defeat barack obama this is a guy with a very special interest agenda in washington d.c. wanting favors from the next president of you so he's hurling this money and usually to back newt gingrich which gives some clue as to but. a lot of them

a lot of their money shelly adelson made in macau in you know offshore outside the united states arguably the largest contributor the largest donor to republican causes in the united states is taking foreign money into the united states to buy campaign to buy an election at the same time that he's been investigated by this administration's justice department for corruption and if his guy wins in all probability that that investigation gets dropped with four on one of the same doesn't isn't as bizarre as it was saying he's going to get really tough on china. i don't think so you know he's also over and. trying to build a multibillion dollar a casino over there but it's not his money he's putting in he wants the spanish people who are already extremely hard hit by they were sturdy program over their. money for him to read

a show you know it's. yes. i think it's there it's really important what you said jim which is that just about the very small number of people contributing this money i remember i did a story when this first happened and i went into sort of time to a bunch of people on the three and asked them how much money they would give and they said you know i could give one hundred dollars i definitely could not afford to give a thousand dollars so when you think about how much money people like sal. and others are giving you gotta think that they expect something in return right. bingo you know. remember back to trying to keep an s n l scandal in one thousand nine hundred eighty s. navy's cheating before a congressional committee and it was a one in half million dollars that you gave to key members of congress do you think that had any influence on their votes and keating said i certainly hope so. and of course they expect return on this investment and that's all it's really i mean

they're just investing two billion government or two there will and you're right they're ordinary people you know we don't have a lot of money to give any such a tiny percentage of the american people to give any money or top into these campaigns and that's why we've got the public financing of our actions so that you know we're not as from. certainly cannot underestimate the importance of citizens united and its role jim hightower i want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with our discoveries of the two thousand and twelve presidential election will continue after this break.

here's mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that the american. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares enough. to feature a little. silly but it's. going to distract us from what you and i should care about because there are profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm not me martin and we're going to break that.

welcome to the capital account i'm lauren lyster. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who made the decision to break. it's already been made who can you trust no one who is you know with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capital it's called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more.

welcome back to our t's election night coverage and there are of course some important national policy issues that have been largely ignored by the candidates and parties this election season but perhaps none are as pressing as dealing with america's lingering housing crisis while recent numbers show some improvement in the area millions of families across the nation are still reeling for example today over one point two million families in the united states are in some stage of the foreclosure process while eleven point four million families are still underwater on their mortgages. and yet despite these sobering numbers neither democrats nor republicans have paid much attention to the housing crisis over the past several months it rarely came up as

a topic during the presidential debates now if he is reelected president obama has announced plans to create a mortgage refinancing plan which could help to alleviate some of the effects of the housing crisis unfortunately so karen to the congress is going to pass such a plan especially with the republicans in control of the house in all probability is going to stay that way and as for mitt romney he really doesn't have much of a plan at all to help the millions of struggling american homeowners so what does the future look like for the american housing market and can either candidate take the actions needed to put an end to the housing crisis once and for all and joining us now for more on this is mike papantonio he's an attorney and co-host of ring of fire radio mike welcome how are you a path great to have you with us this was a pretty surprising a huge issue impacting so many americans this mortgage debacle started in two thousand and six and yet we heard so little about proposed solutions to deal with the rampant foreclosures to entire neighborhoods across america why not well i

think you saw an effort by by obama in eric holder to somehow convince the american public that they were paying attention to what happened it happened with this great american morning scam what we saw in september is there a cold or come forward and say listen we're going to deal with the criminals we're going to deal with the banks who did this to you now he did that because there was there was a lot of anxious about the fact that obama had been in office three and a half years eric holder a better attorney general for three years and nobody understood why nobody had been purple or nobody understood why there had not been prosecutions this was a big issue in this state because you had people that were were victims to this great american more good scam and they're still as. in question even after the september announcement by eric holder that this administration is going to do something they're still saying what has been done i can tell you what's been done

eric holder said that we're going to indict three hundred bankers that has not occurred there hasn't been a any meaningful investigation all that we've seen and this is been a problem this is this is absolutely been a problem for people in florida who have followed this issue i think not just in florida but throughout this country but what they've noticed is that the very people who seem to be most responsible for this mortgage scam burned down the goldman sachs crowd were the very people that obama seemed to be hanging out with they were on his abbott they were the tim geithner's in the larry summers so i think eric holder saw there was a problem here that people were becoming more sophisticated about understanding what happened to him and i think in september we saw their effort to say hey we don't we haven't done anything for three and a half years but we're here to tell you we're doing something now have to what extent do you think that might have been a consequence of you know in this post citizens united world the president knowing

that you've got over a dozen guys individuals individual men on wall street who earn over two billion dollars a year any one of those guys just any one of them could have taken one month's worth of income and what you know just clean the borgias just wipe the slate to what extent do you think it may be that obama has been holding off because he was afraid of a giant money bomb falling on his head and if that's the case could it be that after the election he actually will come out and do something about tom i don't expect anything more look the people you surround yourself with to help dictate policy eric holder for all practical purposes is one of them eric holder is the guy as a lawyer represented the white collar criminals that should be perp walk right now . tim geithner was very much a part of the goldman sachs crowd as was larry summers he surrounded himself at this point there were huge big chaffed of to that i would love to tell you that

there would be some grand awakening this second term but i don't see that because he's surrounded himself with people who are so much a part of the industry that he almost can't shake these policy issues away the downside for him is people are starting to understand wait now let me understand ronald reagan for example in the s. and l. crisis prosecuted six hundred bankers six hundred bankers went to jail and were prosecuted in some form or fashion in this case zero bankers zero goldman sachs types have been prosecuted for stealing eighteen trillion dollars in this american mortgage scale and so people are waking up to that and i think i think this announcement that you saw eric holder make in september was a recognition that there is a blame game that's going to take place i don't see it getting better second term i think you've had really upon a crucial part of this story when we talk about the housing crisis and that is the

cause we're talking predatory lending we're talking blatant mortgage fraud but i think for a lot of americans a lot of people frankly who were standing in those long long lines today they really felt the effects they saw their neighborhoods around them really just crumble to the ground in some cases even people who paid those mortgages on time father neighbors be foreclosed upon so i guess my question to you comp is what kind of solutions are out there regardless of who wins tonight in terms of changing the system well changing the system only begins when there's a recognition that we we have to deal with bad conduct you'll never change the system unless you deal with bad and you have to do it the old fashioned way unfortunately when i say that ronald reagan was more proactive on the s. and l. crisis. than obama it is because reagan's advisers told him that before we can change the culture of s n l somebody has to be able to tell the story that uncle

johnny went to prison ten years ago for doing something wrong obama doesn't seem to grasp that if he does grasp it he's being advised not to go forward you don't change any of this culture nothing happens until there is a huge punishment for not playing by the rules you can find them a four hundred fifty million dollars it doesn't mean anything you can threaten them it doesn't mean anything until someone goes to jail in this the part of the department of justice unless eric holder is removed from that position this second term nothing will change and we will perpetuate a culture that is predatory a predatory culture that consumers have no chance to survive you know mike let me put this in the frame of partisan politics for a moment if i may the year you've pointed out the deficiencies of the president what's what's mitt romney's position been on this and what might you expect from

a romney administration well that's the only silver lining here tom is when you should when you ask the typical person in the i four corridor or who is living in a neighborhood that is basically closed down because all the houses are boarded up when you ask them who is more akin to to what occurred here who is more responsible which one of these candidates do you put in the camp that's most responsible for what occurred here on the i ten corridor they're going to tell you mitt romney it is the old bain capital ilk it's that it is that it's that ugly image that flows the vein capital it also flows to an issue like this so i you know i don't expect anything go get me wrong i don't expect if mitt romney's elected to see any improvement he is completely captive to that industry. the truth is the silver lining news and i hope we see it in florida the silver lining is that a lot of voters do they were so sure mitt romney to the type of occurrence the put

them out of their homes well magazine says to me you have very little optimism other than the fact that people are more aware that something needs to be done i guess i'm wondering why you think though this wasn't a question you know in most of the debates or that reporters wrote a lot of stories on in the mainstream media housing a huge huge problem in this country and yet we barely heard about it during the campaign well one problem is reporters are lazy reporters drive stories according to what's fed to them you had an obama administration that was unwilling to feed this story they could have fed the story had they prosecuted somebody you had a romney administration that certainly would not see the story and so you had some some outlier reporters like met with mother jones and you had some great reporters with alter net and some wonderful reporters with salon dot com who actually did the digging and did the hard work but the it is virtually impossible to go to

traditional media and tell a very narrow brain very narrow vision producer that it's an important story unless you have the major candidate driving the story obama was unable to drive the story because he's that much of a very responsible for having have been nothing changed for having prosecuted nobody anybody you have mitt romney on and willing to drive the story because he really is in every sense of the word one of them. and tony thanks so much for joining us so much thank you michel join us again a little later on well the map is getting filled in maine illinois connecticut massachusetts have all gone for president obama and alabama and tennessee have gone for romney. this is bringing the electoral numbers to eighty two for obama and seventy eight for romney i think. yeah yeah ok and certainly tom you're saying just some new information to get me and the virginia's pause in the

reporting of the results daily koz is reporting the thing for the center for american progress and progress because so many people are still in line so you've got a real enthusiasm a lot of people showing up in virginia to vote i think that frankly bodes well for obama but you know we will see n.b.c. is reporting thirty romney's well angus king is winning the senate seat in maine is the independent who's sort of republican and bill nelson has been declared the winner the democrat in the senate race in florida so we've got i think it is a huge i mean not that says it's a suburb closely contested but it was pretty closely contested and the fact that they're calling the senate seat already for florida hey maybe that means we're not going to be here until four in the morning maybe i think an awful lot is going to. basically election stuff that's the big issue in florida and in oil and we're going to certainly be talking about that more because i know you spoke about it for hours today really the three hours three hours that radio as well our election night coverage will continue after this short break.

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. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything is. part of the big picture. of american power continues.