welcome back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour at the polls yesterday voters in one hundred communities across america overwhelmingly said no to corporate money influencing our democracy with a constitutional amendment overturning so this is united now on the horizon and democrats are still in control of the senate republicans still in control the house does that mean more partisan gridlock for the next four years or can something be

done a lot right away to bring on the change america desperately needs. your take my take a lie the phone lines are now open so if you want to tell me your opinion make a comment ask a question live on the air give us a call at two o two nine zero four twenty one thirty four now it's time for the first caller of the night. that is jeff in manassas jeff you're on the air. first time caller. just wanted to ok i said thank you go ahead ok i just wanted to go do you have trucks on the drug works and i think awards fraud is so beyond our control now with the economics to come out of you go along

with the whole machine in making drugs illegal. i'm sorry jeff i missed part of what you're saying kurt was talking over you say so and so i guess what i'm saying is basically i think that the you know the drug war itself you know the amount of money that's creating and generated probably care about where you the chance of it ever becoming a legalized. machine now you're you're. absolutely right jeff and and i appreciate your calling in making that point because it's a really important one is that this is the drug war nixon's drug war has become a multi-billion with a b multibillion maybe multi tens of billion dollar industry it's feeding the fuel but the private prison industry it's responsible for half of our prisoners it's response it's feeding a billion dollar testing industry it's feeding law enforcement you know large chunks of law enforcement history and and frankly you know to to paraphrase dwight eisenhower's cross of iron speech every every person arrested in the drug

war is a resource taken from the rest of us that resource taken from the rest of america fred in st louis missouri a fred thanks for watching the big picture what's on your mind tonight yes but you . don't really get it total and used to happen hundred fifty products to. the up and down the oil. strange new oil without every right right right and motive but yeah this is this is you know fred i appreciate your point and it's a really well made this is exactly why it got criminalized back in the one thousand ots in the nineteen teens when when help and pot were legal and in fact i mean you go back to the founding of the country george washington grew it the a read the first drafts of the constitution were written on paper and then you know henry ford comes along makes a car that can run on you know the mr diesel diesel engine that would run a hemp oil and reform makes

a car that will run an al call made from him and you know holy cow we can't have this and so you know the oil industry the rockefeller's of the paper industry in the newspapers they didn't want that competition so they came up with this whole reefer madness thing and thus we have you know one hundred years of stupidity and it's been just about exactly hundred years so i think it's time to to unstupid it. is. better or be to inhale word california. if you know i mean for anyone who think you are i don't like to make a suggestion to you i really appreciate your show but i would like to see you do more on immediately because we have charlie rose. several go the media outlet is part of it you i doubt we have going on is in this country today and we're not going to get anything done if we don't have good journalists and media to start our them on their on on their own nation what do you think they

do and how they're going to be people because they're letting it slide i am a liberal i just did you just keep going on no one in that given the fact that people do it if you and i think you're absolutely right anybody that is out there. in the mob yeah you're absolutely right about it and many people appreciate your perspective and in fact it's more than just the media it is the it is the laws under which the media operates the media in the united states and in any country for that matter but here in the united states the media delivers at least the electronic media delivers via airwaves television and radio cable or the internet all of which pass through public space public airspace public rights of ways and therefore we have some claim we the people to say this is part of the commons so if you have a radio station or a television station and you want to use that common space up until nine hundred

eighty seven the requirement was you have to pay back for that or pay for that with an hour a day or the equivalent of an hour a day of actual news programming informing the populace thomas jefferson talked about you know an informed educated electorate and reagan blew it up in eighty seven and we've had a problem ever since we need to we need to seriously be looking at some say going back to legislation like the old fairness doctrine that talks about programming in the public interest richard in bellflower california a richard what's up. one of your guests mentioned the fact that the popular vote was only about two million votes difference what my question is because of the voter suppression how much bigger could that number then i think excellent point richard i appreciate a call i think at least five million my best guess is that i've seen from people who do this stuff for a living who look into voter suppression and the consequences of it is that is that

the republicans intentionally threw at least five million people off the voter rolls and and or an aggregate of five million people between three being thrown off the voting rolls and having to wait two three four five hours or being intimidated with giant billboard to say you might go to prison if you vote and you screw something up i would guess that obama's victory was actually at least five million larger this time and probably at least three million larger four years ago. steve in fairfax virginia a steve what's on your mind tonight. well it's a good job first time caller besides the tax advantages of having a new product on the market like marijuana the mexican people and the mexican officials are so glad to see this happen so that the cartels down in mexico have no leverage to commit the crimes that they've done to kill all the people they've killed because it's legal now we can grow it ourselves yeah you're absolutely right stephen i'm sure that the mexican government would have would appreciate your

saying that as well because they issued a report about a week and a half two weeks ago we covered on this program that said that this was the mexicans that said that if three states in the united states were to do you can decriminalize america just those three states where it was on the ballot they represent such just those states represented such a market it would pull five or six billion dollars out of the illegal drug trade in mexico and help put some of the narco traffickers out of business i mean prohibition creates john villagers' modern day prohibition creates the narc narco gangs in mexico josh in montreal's canada a josh thanks for watching us and canada what's up. josh. in montreal a little hey you're on the air what's up. is it is it me it's on the air it's you on the air you are alive. i i saw money from robert tom cole and robin roberts the mayor ok sorry got the wrong guy that's fine robert go ahead what's up. yeah you

know i've been keeping up with a lot of things appreciate everything you bring on to us you know online this military thing and. but you know what i noticed you know i watched the whole debate all the campaign and when the two parties democrat and republican and i noticed. either one of them talking about the economy never brought up the gas crisis and we know of troops before. how gas prices affect the price of everything cause businesses to a lot of republicans. a good point i appreciate bring it up the republicans try to bash obama on gas prices in fact they ran a whole series of ads on it gas prices are actually down right now by the way about twenty twenty or thirty cents a gallon from where they were just a week ago. but the big point that most people don't get is that probably about twenty percent of the total cost of gasoline right now in the united

states is the consequence of speculation its banks taking the money not all companies tony and pelasgian virginia tell me what's on your mind i know you do in the nighttime. limits although new shoe. i just want to bring up a simple fact and see what your opinion was on between the republican and democratic parties and even the independent. of the tea party issues. the main focus and in my opinion i want to have your opinion on this for wants. is they should all work together for the better good or the common good of the united states of america here's the problem tony you have conservatives and progressives defining the common good differently conservatives believe that the common good is best taken care of if the government doesn't have any role to play as the employer

of last resort or providing for the commons and etc etc and progress is believe that the common good is better taken care of with something that looks like f.d.r.'s new deal so if you're both actually operating in good faith and trying to trying to pursue what you really believe is the common good but your worldviews are that different then you end up with a bit of a problem. and compromise makes both both sides feel like dirty like they didn't quite make it happen so tony thanks for the call jose and woodland hills hate to say what's on your mind tonight. good afternoon what i was going to talk about was . yesterday that the g.o.p. made in the elections in my opinion. because now the atmosphere is right for him to run jeb bush for president come twenty six i don't disagree with you and i appreciate your perspective and and i personally expect jeb

bush is going to be the twenty sixteen republican presidential candidate george in greenville south carolina george we have thirty seconds left it's yours. ok tom and i'm going to bring up with the fact that i've been on lifetime republican and i would not support either john mccain and mitt romney because they simply wanted to extend these useless wars in the mideast here like the fact that even get into the mideast and just fight just least senseless wars. x x x a lot or any of the major parties excellent point. thank you very much i appreciate the call my dad was a republican his whole entire life he was a good and decent man to eisenhower was a republican and he was one of the greatest advocates for peace this country's ever seen because he saw how horrible war was and i just i'm mourning the loss of a rational republican party that's it for your take my take it live thank you for

all your calls but don't get your calls that i try is back next week. coming up the only way america is going to get the change that it desperately needs is a congress works together and ends the partisan bickering and harry reid can do a lot to answer that partisan bickering to i'll explain how internets daily to. you know 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 everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom welcome to the big picture. here is mitt romney trying to figure out. the name of that thing that the americans call. i'm sorry i missed you guys here's another one you said. you know what that is my dear self. once you listen to featurism the only liberal the christian. can see is that the system is. going to fall for you to distract us from what you and i should care about because

there are profit driven industry that sells of sensationalistic garbage because it breaking news i'm happy martin and we're going to break this that it's. hard for us the nation yesterday americans weren't just voting for a president or a senator or a member of the house of representatives in nearly one hundred cities coast to coast voters are faced with the question of whether we should amend the constitution of the united states to overturn the citizens united decision that has flooded our democracy with millions hundreds of millions perhaps billions of dollars in corporate cash joining me now to tell us how these votes went is the

national spokesperson for a move to a man for a green party presidential candidate turning activist david cobb david welcome back thank you tom it's always a pleasure to be on with you great having you with us were you at all surprised by the overwhelming positive response across the country yesterday and could you characterize for us what happened yesterday well obviously it was a huge progressive victory across the board a couple of notable losses but progressives won and won big on to. aggressive messaging even deeper time the move to him in coalition with some of our partners helped to put on the ballot before seven million voters in the united states call for a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate constitutional rights and abolish the idea that money is speech we won every single one of those races a third of the state of massachusetts the entire state of montana and colorado. you know across the country two million voters in illinois every single place we won

and tahn by super majorities over sixty seventy in one case eighty percent of the vote this is an unbroken string of victories that moved him in we haven't lost yet and we'll win in traditionally conservative areas move to amend is something that is really uniting americans regardless of party affiliation or ideology it's something you talk about a lot about the idea of a functioning democratic republic it's working time by doing grassroots organizing it's actually working and it's apparently deeply and profoundly trans partisan i mention in the intro pueblo colorado a very conservative famously conservative community and the residents there what what was the how did that vote come out and did it surprise you almost seventy percent and in fact it didn't surprise me because in colorado is where get their swayed for it the local tea party has invited me to come in and do

a presentation and discussion so what we're finding is that by taking off individual issues where we may agree or disagree and instead focusing on the core principles of how the rules of our political and legal system are supposed to operate that there is a norm as common ground elections for candidates are different because you have to choose but the move to amend effort is able to actually go beyond candidate. and actually get to core principles and if the winner yeah and indeed sherrod brown yesterday won his senate seat or kept his senate seat bernie sanders kept his senate seat both of them have been campaigning as part of their campaign basically not explicitly endorse the move to amend so much but they had. petitions on their websites to to amend the constitution i don't think either of them were as comprehensive as moved to amends and and i and i know that both of them are

reevaluating that issue and looking at making the more comprehensive but this this seems to be a a real winning strategy for politicians are you starting to sense that this is starting to get some political mojo beyond i mean sherrod brown a bernie sanders are considered the liberals right but has it gone beyond that. well you know let's put it this way tom again to rank in file republicans are with us on this rank and file democrats are with us on this independence on are with us on this i want to give a real acknowledgement to not just shared brown and bernie sanders but also a shout out to elizabeth warren and alan grayson others who have been champions on this issue of course jim mcgovern in massachusetts what we're seeing is a progressive taking the lead but what we're going to do within the next two to five years is see as a sea change in what people consider possible you know but i don't really think

that this movement is being led out of washington d.c. there are a few notable champions you've mentioned several but let's just be clear this movement is growing in the heartland it's growing in ordinary americans rolling up their sleeves and doing work together across ideologies and it's going to ultimately affect congress but i'd say we move to amend is about a quarter million people right now i think tom the magic number is either a half million or one million when we hit that number what you're going to see is that people who thought it was impossible are now going to say it's an additive all . i'll close with this if you want to see a politician actually lead something build a parade and watch how fast they will get in front of it that's right and hoist the flag david just a quick question we saw in ca in california the vast majority of californians want to know whether or not their food had genetically modified organisms in it and then

and so they got on the ballot and then monsanto and dow come in drop forty million bucks or thereabouts into the into advertising and just blew it out of the water it didn't pass at what point do you have you noticed any yet and if not at what point do you expect that the billionaires and the corporations are going to start coming after move to amend out org well you know they have a. yes and i think it's because they think that will either go away or because they have mistaken the fact that we're doing the advisory effort for a lack of seriousness you know it's true fifty it was closer to fifty million dollars actually defeated prop thirty seven the g.m.o. right to know campaign we started by with eighty percent approval and it cratered as a result of the lies and misinformation by month and down and other g.m.'s pervy years but let's be clear tom ours is a tactic it is building the grassroots first so that by the time they come after us

we will have be so broad and so deep that they won't be able to convince people that up is down and black is white the human effort to move to amend strategy so they're not coming after us yet but they will but we'll be ready there you go from your lips to god's ears david carter thanks for joining us thank you david thank you time going to move to amend dot org for more information and to learn how you can get on. just. the. it's the good the bad of the very very modestly ogling the good residents of troy michigan voters and try michigan to remove their mare from office yesterday because of her blatant homophobic comments over the past few years after a new york passed marriage equality former troyer marriage janice daniels posted on

facebook that she had thrown out her i love new york shirt quote now that queers can get married there end quote and earlier this year she told high school students that homosexuality is quote a dangerous mental disease and quote and compared to the dangers of smoking angles ouster another great victory for l.g.b. tea quality in our nation the bat the state of california among the flurry of ballot measures facing california voters yesterday was a measure to repeal the death penalty in that state and unfortunately california voters chose not to repeal the measure was defeated fifty three to forty the death penalty should no longer have a place in the american criminal justice system with the vote in california it looks like for a while anyway it's here to stay and a very very ugly the maracas school district christine could and it was a middle schooler in the one nine hundred ninety s. she was sexually abused assaulted by two of her teachers now she's suing her former school district in seeking compensation for being raped and abused for so many

years but the district has offered a surprising and frankly appalling defense ragged school district says they couldn't was quote herself responsible and quote for being raped and abused and then she was careless and negligent in the matter of her own rape so rather than admit that i am that they employed teachers who were sexual abusers the school district is blaming the victim saying she brought it all up and bad it's very very . president obama won and the democrats increased their majority in the senate and moved it in a far more progressive direction last night so for now the supreme court is safe from the radical right wing ideology but to guarantee its safety for future

generations harry reid must take decisive and historic action on day one of the new senate term he must end or radically reform the filibuster the filibuster is mentioned nowhere in the constitution it's something in its modern form the founders knew nothing about while the constitution says a simple majority in this case fifty votes now is all that's needed in the senate to pass a law the full of us to requires sixty votes out of one hundred votes to end debate and move on to a vote and thus your pot republicans have used over three hundred seventy times to obstruct legislation during harry reid's tenure is as majority leader for comparison lyndon johnson was senate majority leader for the same period so i misread six years in an incredibly time back in the sixty's fifty's and sixty's and only had to deal with in the entire six years one single republican filibuster harry reid himself knows that something needs to be done in

a senate floor speech in may earlier this year reid praised senators tom udall and jeff merkley who desperately tried to pass filibuster reform at the beginning of two thousand and eleven reid said these two young fine senators said it was time we changed the rules in the senate and we did it they were right the rest of us were wrong or most of us now anyway what a shame. now reid has a chance to correct this mistake and it looks like he'll try to do just that in a press conference that day reid said in regard to the filibuster i think the rules have been abused and we are going to work to change them we will not do away with the filibuster but will make the senate a more meaningful place we're going to make it so we can get things done on day one of the new senator there will be a small window of a few hours open for harry reid and democrats to reform the filibuster and all it will take to change the senate rules is fifty one votes

a simple majority considering the democrats are going to be entering the new senate with as many as fifty five votes this is a real possibility they just have to have the courage to do it today the republican party has been rejected by the american people both because demographics are changing and conservatives are increasingly looking like parcells something is happening in this country and harry reid needs to seize on it by passing filibuster reform immediately or soon as the new congress so this progressive movement can freely march forward without republican relics in the senate obstructing president obama will have the power to do just that but if harry reid doesn't kill a filibuster first so progressive laws can pass and progressive judges can survive the nomination process and will end up with no forward process legislatively and will get weak judges on the bench and that ain't progress senator reid end the filibuster when the new senate session begins in january please and that's the way it is tonight wednesday number seven two thousand and twelve and don't forget

democracy begins with you get out there get active tag your it. peacey. well. it's technology innovation all the rest of elements around russia we've got the future covered. culture is that so much. richer. than it is a america's political arm has finally come to an end it was a really a choice to what degree was this campaign season only about.