the klein of american power continues. things are so bad. might actually be time revolution. and it turns out that a killer drink at starbucks has a surprising him really here. welcome back to our tease coverage of the twenty twelve presidential election i'm christine prison now and i'm tom hartman so where does the race to the white house stand here at ten pm eastern time take

a look at the electoral map. and right now we have well kristie. it quite a few of the states have been called right now the count stands with romney at one hundred fifty four electoral votes obama at one hundred sixty two you saw some of those states up there the only real battleground states that have been called are new hampshire and wisconsin and i suppose pennsylvania as well those michigan and michigan those all levers of power to the president so you see there what is still you know it looks like. the most important things are the ones we just don't know yet we're talking about florida we're talking about virginia we're talking about ohio some of these states virginia being one of them the polls were supposed to close at seven pm and people were just in such long long lines that i'm not sure if there's still voting now but up until about twenty minutes ago there were still people voting in the state of virginia so most likely it's going to be quite

a while before we hear some of those and i think it's fascinating that mitt romney has lost all four states where he has mansions in california and michigan he grew up in a mansion in michigan massachusetts new hampshire and paul ryan his running mate wisconsin they've lost that and as we did talk about in the last hour scott walker who launched a successful recall election there in wisconsin and yet the state this time around went to obama so certainly some interesting. trends that we're seeing there but as we do wait on more results to come in i want to talk more about voting we've seen over the course of the last few years numerous voting laws changed across the united states in fact more than thirty states have enacted some version of voter id law or changes to the way people cast their ballots republicans claim it's an attempt to stop. fraud democrats argue it's voter suppression so who's right joining us now to talk more about this is brad friedman read blog dot com one of

the great investigative reporters. in america who has been doing this this election protection beat now for years and there's nobody in the country who knows this stuff better than bradford. hey tom and christine great to talk to you both and to answer your question it's voter suppression area there you go and you find a coincidence brad that the states where there are long lines are the states that the republicans have to win. well it is interesting isn't it although i must say it wasn't only those states i was just looking at a video report out of south carolina where you had a woman who said i've been here four hours i can't wait any longer i'm leaving they said oh well it's only going to be another hour i got to tell you you know no matter what the cause is i believe this is a national disgrace at this point these lines that we're seeing three four six nine hours to vote we saw that in in ohio certainly in two thousand and four you would

think we would be beyond that now clearly we're not and in many ways it seems to be getting worse we're also getting reports from all over particularly in philadelphia long time voters going to the same polling place they've been going to bring yours and all of a sudden they're no longer on the voting rolls today they have to vote provisionally so something is going on that you know we may not fully come to understand until the days and the weeks after this election when we can fully sort out exactly what is going on here today i think you make a really important point brad and it is so interesting we've solved much more technical problems than this and yet when you look at these polling places how disorganized it is and the amount of problems people are having it seems like there's something a little fishy going on there it just seems crazy that they can't figure this stuff out put a man on the moon but we can't run an election i know when i. it's clearly by

design in places like ohio and florida where we have these extraordinarily partisan the secretaries of state and governors you know much of the problem in ohio from two thousand and four was solved by two thousand and eight with early voting. under the democratic secretary of state previously jennifer brunner then you have this republican guy come in john hughes dead and cut down on early voting the same thing happened down in florida where they went from eighteen fourteen days of early voting down to eight why because it was too easy to vote previously i think the answer by be yeah apparently it was too easy and they had to make it harder at this just it's absolutely disgraceful it really is i know in a it's crazy to hear some of the excuses that have come out when they talk about the reasons why they needed to do that you know right if you want

a whole lot of the mainstream media you may feel there is a real problem in america you may think that undocumented immigrants are flocking to the polls or those sneaky liberals are you know voting multiple times and it made me because of what we hear i want to play something really quick that's sort of been the echo chamber during this campaign season. it's our duty to ensure that lectures are fair. beyond reproach accurately reflecting the will of the. that's what voter id is all about when the group through the vote checks the numbers they couldn't believe just how rampant the fraud really was most republicans are all about programming voter fraud huge fears of voter fraud in the presidential election tonight the north carolina republican party is the latest to fire a company under investigation on charges of voter fraud you might think voter fraud is a massive problem given all the attention it's getting this year we said in south carolina

that if you have to show a picture i.d. to buy sudafed if you have to show a picture id to set foot on an airplane then you should have to show picture id to protect the lot of the most valuable most dangerous thank you thank you. all right so brad i just wanted to ask you i mean why was this the big story why did so many people in america so many dinner conversations revolve around the fact that people that weren't supposed to be voting are voting. yeah well i've got some good news there i've got some good news for governor nikki haley you don't need to show a picture id to step foot on an airplane she was lying and this entire campaign of you know the the call for photo id has been a lie the reason people talk about this over dinner is because of the propaganda that that you were just showing there from fox news from the republican party this has been a systematic effort this is gone on for the past decade and frankly the democrats

have not answered it they haven't responded some of the civil rights groups have but really there has been no concerted effort to push back against this scam and it has been an extraordinary scam and you know it has cost a lot of people their ability to vote at all in this country we need to see from the democrats and from the voting rights folks a concerted effort to turn this time i did this in anti voter tide that the republicans have been able to get away with i think i couldn't see the picture but i think that was governor rick perry at the beginning talking about the need for voter i.d. so that every vote would be counted well across his almost his entire state they use one hundred percent on verifiable voting so machines owned by the way by mitt romney's colleagues from bain capital a company that's been taken over by them if he really cared about making sure that

every vote was counted and counted accurately he would make sure that everybody in texas a got to vote if they were eighteen years of age or older and they got to vote on paper ballots so that he and we and you and me we could all oversee those ballots and make sure that they were counted and counted accurately there is no move i'm sorry to say no organized effort by the democrats to push back against this extraordinary and vote. any effort by the republicans brad friedman. said the democrats need to aggressively be taking this on that there needs to be a serious blow back a counterrevolutionary movement as it were against all of these various ways that our elections are being gamed largely by the republicans the democratic party did this once before this what we're seeing right now used to be called jim crow and in

the one nine hundred sixty s. right after jack kennedy died he had gotten the ball rolling lyndon johnson picked it up with bobby kennedy pushing him really really hard and we had the voter the civil rights act the motors rights act we we we broke through that we busted up jim crow or at least the law and it's been some years and do you think that this might mean that that was a waking up moment for the democratic party bill moyers tells the story of taking the legislation into president johnson president johnson saying you know if i sign this bill our party's going to lose the south for a generation i'm going to do it anyway it's the right thing to do do you think that the democratic party that this might be a wake up moment for them that they that they might realize that they actually won a lot bigger four years ago than they thought they did in that this time if it's a squeaker or even to the not it should have been a much bigger election victory you know i would like to hope that this would be a turning point at least on one aspect at least on the voter suppression aspect you

know because because these these pictures these lines i mean i find them to be absolutely stunning you know snaking around the block i think you might see an effort to do something about that maybe. that would be good and it's obviously needed but you know the other aspect of this is the counting systems themselves we've been reporting at brad blog dot com of last days this remarkable story out of ohio that the republican secretary of state. john hughes dead has installed a court unquote experimental software on the voting tabulators in thirty nine challenge ease in the state of ohio within just the past few weeks he secretly did this we've got the contract to grab lot dot com this is not a a conspiracy theory but nobody tested this software nobody certified this software this was put right on to the tabulator systems of thirty nine counties in

the state that everybody almost universally says is going to determine who wins the presidency tonight and we're talking about some of the largest counties in that state cuyahoga county franklin county and cleveland and so forth. and yet i seem to be one of the very few people myself along with bob bitrate just in the good folks at the free press dot org who broke this story we seem to be the only ones who are alarmed about this and you know i don't understand that if you go back to two thousand and two tom i know you're familiar with this the the infamous software patch i was writing about it i was i was writing by and by the way i just there's a great piece in harper's right now about about this and i think that that's a that's great that we push back on brad friedman brad thanks for the great work you're doing thanks for being with us tonight. always great to be with you guys thanks for having and check out brad blog dot com for brad's work and we will be

back with more our to election coverage in just a moment but we want to have an give you an update on the electoral college count as we move closer but really really quick i want to tell you i claire mccaskill has been declared the winner of the senate race in missouri where mccaskill of course running to hold on to her seat running against todd akin todd akin of course made the phrase legitimate rape a phrase. again claire mccaskill will hold on to her seat in the missouri and. here's mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that americans.

are. dying to hear what. they want to feature a little. girl the others. are going to distract us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break this that.

welcome to the capital and i'm lauren lyster. it is what drives the world the fear of great use by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made who can you trust no one who is you and with the global scene where we had a state controlled capital so it's called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more. i think i. welcome as our tease election two thousand and twelve

coverage we want to update you now on where the race stands between governor mitt romney and president obama we do have a look right now at the electoral map right here. let's talk about some of the newer developments i guess the new states that romney has won utah and montana so at this moment at this hour governor romney has one hundred sixty three electoral votes president obama has one hundred sixty two so certainly as close as most people predicted tonight and it's going to continue that way although you know i'd say the trends are really really looking good for obama so we'll see how this plays out absolutely and certainly some of those swing states that have already had you know some of the congressional or senate races called for the democrats so florida being just one of a few examples. of course we're going to update you more as the night goes on and one little fun fact here nine hundred fifty six thousand nine hundred fifty six is

a long time ago that was the last time where where both the presidential candidate and the vice presidential candidate on a check at the this was the democratic ticket of stevenson as a skiff over. lost their own home states and romney has lost all of his home states michigan massachusetts new hampshire california all right his loss was. and you know other one of the new laws under president obama is called the national defense authorization act the n d a despite saying he wouldn't sign it last year on new year's eve one very few people seem to be watching the president did well two sections of the n.d.a. sections ten twenty one and ten twenty two lay out new terms that critics say violate free speech and due process giving the government the power to indefinitely detain u.s. citizens several journalists are part of a lawsuit which challenges the constitutionality of the n.d.a. one of those plaintiffs is killed surprise winning journalist and author chris hedges and i spoke to chris back in april as the case of hedges v obama got

underway and here's part of that interview. the most interesting exchange occurred at the end of the day when the judge was questioning the government lawyers and kept trying to press them for an assurance that i or any of the other plaintiffs would not be. you know that they could government could guarantee that we would not be picked up by the n.b.a. which of course permits the government to strip us of due process hold us and not only allow the military to hold us but hold us in a military facility including an offshore military facility and the government just repeatedly would not do that it was a really sort of frightening moment when it was clear that the nebulous language of the bill even in the view of the government offered no protection yes certainly that was one of the things that could have been you know at least something they could have done is to add language one sentence perhaps that said you know this will not affect the journalists who are doing their job or american citizens i mean

dianne feinstein had proposed that they inserted into the legislation. wording that exempted american citizens and that was something that the sponsors of the bill carl levin and john mccain as well as the obama white house decided not to do really really interesting that happened. we saw last week even though this bill has passed it was signed into law on new year's eve when a whole lot of us were you know out celebrating the new year. it we're starting to see both republicans and democrats in congress even as recent as last week sort of retake interest in this matter retake interest in the n.d.a. and perhaps talking about. doing some things in the future to change it but mark udall are already trying to to make an amendment to take out some of the controversial aspect of it that wasn't put into place why is it that these lawmakers are taking this up again i'm not sure why i mean i think that if you and we're really you know this is a long document the n.d.a. we're only talking about two sections section ten twenty one section ten twenty two

which in essence allows the executive branch. to strip an american citizen of their constitutional rights to due process and to hold them in military facilities that's what we're question a very very tiny part of the bill which i think you know you don't have to be a legal scholar to determine is clearly unconstitutional mean the agreed just violation of constitutional rights is really undeniable so that's your argument and it's a very solid and kind of simple one what is the argument of the government who says that this is in fact a viable law well the argument of the government is that we are not covered persons . and that's also part of the language of the bill covered persons or people who substantially supported. the taliban or what they call associated forces which again is undefined what our associate enforces what is substantially mean what is supported mean you know these are very very vague terms that encompass

a variety of groups many of which did not even exist. during the attacks of nine eleven and i think it was telling to all of us in the courtroom that when judge for us pressed the government on this issue the government would offer absolutely no guarantees that our constitutional rights would be protected because given the language of this bill or now war they can. or want to talk more about the n.d.a. and also about civil liberties and some of the changes that have taken place regarding all american civil liberties over the last four years and so i'm joined now by amber lyon investigative journalist and filmmaker from in l.a. and also here in d.c. tina do priya syndicated columnist and investigative journalist and amber let me start with you just because we were just talking about the national defense authorization act actions ten twenty one ten twenty two this is something that no one talked about why it. well there was

a mainstream media blackout on and i don't know exactly why that's the million dollar question everyone's trying to figure out whether it was a systematic cover up of this story but really the n d a affects everybody because if it's creating a chilling effect not only on journalism but also on whistle blowing and we need that whistle blowing so that we know what's wrong so that we can go back and fix problems in our government and it within these corrupt corporations and when you have legislation that says that you can be indefinitely detained book for doing for whistle blowing or poor potentially eating whoever the government wants to decide is the terrorists that day then the next people from coming forward and the other thing chris hedges was talking about is as a journalist the n.d.a. terrifies us because we can be forced to potentially give up information on our sources and if we tell the government we're not going to give up information on our sources which is the number one rule in journalism then they can accuse us of aiding

a terrorist group but they consider our source to be terrorists and then we can end up being induction it lead to teams so this is going to have a chilling effect on investigative journalism and certainly another aspect of that critics of the n.d.a. have brought up is just in general that the language is so they really are associated forces so i think that was another problem but let's talk let's expand this a little bit i mean this is one of many examples of a change really in civil liberties in this country a change in civil liberties but also we consider obama to be liberal you know i mean if you ask any republican if you ask someone on the street obama is the guy who is a socialist he's a communist he's way way far off on the left and it's just not true when it comes to civil liberties is just not true when it comes to things like drone attacks he's not here to the left on a lot of these issues but because he's been framed that way now we just kind of sume that. and he is on the left at this issue and he's just not if you have

a sense. as a reporter have you had a sense that this is a topic that either a the mainstream media has no interest in or the reporters i mean what's why is no why it seems like only the the people on the on the you want to call the far left and far right you know it's but but but that's i guess what it's called by the mainstream media are talking about these things about civil liberties in the united states it should be the should be a mainstream issue shouldn't yes it should but i always believe that it's not due to it's always never describe something that could be you know a conspiracy that could be explained through just. laziness and incompetence so i think that it's much easier to get to get excited about abortion or all these different wedge issues that we kind of you know in the tea party and different things that are allowed and shiny instead of going and talking about

stuff that's complicated and there's new wants to it and it's kind of scary and it has the language to it and there's nothing that you can put on. a battle cry you know and it could be boiled down fairly simply the under this new law the president of states can decide that you tina are an enemy of the state and order your death your execution and do it without any judicial oversight this is something that is absolutely in effect a call to the constitution and i'm sure that president obama knows the season teach constitution by the way he said he would when it comes to the n.c.a.a. he said this is something that he wasn't going to sign right he was before he was against it before he was for it and he and fits into the narrative of george bush and not to the narrative obama so much so it's sort of pushed into the narrative at the. cost of foreign policy to say mitt romney and president obama agree on so many things right exactly i mean it's stunning if you're exactly right. so my question

about it is given the horrific nature of those could it be that people are just afraid to even go there i just think that it doesn't fit into the preexisting narrative and people are fundamentally lazy in the media but i know i work and i had amber i want to bring you back into the conversation i agree with tina and that some people you know they're just so far out and focusing on abortion and other issues that they have to begin to focus on several liberties issues but you are also crossing another line as a journalist when you do begin to cover these issues that make you slightly more vulnerable or it's more risky especially career wise so i think there's a little bit of fear i also think that you're you have some journalists who are obama supporters and and really don't want to bring this up because they still fear romney getting enough is that they're they're a little less likely to to criticize obama and that's what i've noticed so am i i mean the president when the second term do you think that journalists will be a little more likely to say hey let's start talking about this now that we don't have to fear you know republican coming into the white house for the next four or

are there for it i don't know. what. i think i know i have i know i have friends in the journalism community who i know will be more apt to discuss these issues once we get through tonight and they know who their next president is but i do know there was more of a kind of a reluctance to criticize obama that we've seen over the past year in the united states amongst journalists and that's what really allowed obama to get away with signing one of the worst pieces of legislation in the history of the united states as far as our civil liberties go well certainly an interesting discussion and of course we had our tea have been talking about this because we think it's extremely important amber lyon investigative journalist and filmmaker in los angeles and tina dupree a syndicated columnist and investigative journalist thanks ladies so much thank you . we have more our election coverage in just a moment stick around. tim

kaine has just been declared the winner for a virginia senate and this was a one of the tightest races. in the country the virginia senate race tim kaine a democrat has just been declared the winner.

is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. understand it. and realize. it's a big.