which guards from the sandy hook tragedy freshen americans hearts of gun control is on everyone's mind what to do how do inforce laws to protect our safety but one news network has remained suspiciously quiet during the debate and had we want to know why fox news is censoring itself. and one of the heavy weights in the gun control discussion is of course the national rifle association but the honorees national influence might not be as all powerful as the media would have you believe had we'll tell you how this group keeps missing the target. and

a tender issue that causes major controversy a new report out of kansas is looking at how the meat tenderizer process could be harmful to consumers usually the question is where's the beef but this report will be asking what's in the be. tuesday december eighteenth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v. . today the nation continues to grieve the deaths of twenty six people most of them are young children after the massacre at sandy hook elementary school in newtown connecticut the tragedy has ignited a debate over gun control in the u.s. even those with staunchly pro-gun views have come forward saying the time has come to take a serious look at the country's gun laws many are saying this latest massacre of young children is a turning point for a call to action even rupert murdoch the media mogul whose companies are known for

being conservative tweeted his support for some kind of change he tweeted on friday terrible news today one will politicians find courage to ban automatic weapons as an after similar tragedy and from sunday night. words from poetess on shooting tragedy but how about some bold leadership action despite all this fox news one of murdoch's companies apparently mandated that their employees refrain from talking about gun control altogether new york magazine reports that the executive producer producer in charge of weekend coverage said quote this network isn't going there and we were expressly forbid it about talking about gun control over the country embroiled in debate over the role of guns in our culture how can you ignore it to discuss this and more i was joined earlier by christopher chambers he is the journalism professor at georgetown university i asked him if you think fox has done a disservice to the public. yes. in

a nutshell i mean this is policy that come down from above from you not from michael clemente the editorial director but from roger ailes and you know you have to understand there's a couple of themes at work here ailes and rupert murdoch don't see eye to eye on everything as a matter of fact ailes is probably seen murdoch drift a little bit even he's facetiously even blame that on murdoch's wife wendi who's a young supposedly progressive person he's blamed it on murdoch's son james who he views as a bean counter but it's it's basically you know calling the shots and so when you have this sort of situation where from the top down from ailes to clemente to the anchors or by from bret buyer to the actual where the magic is done the talk shows and the guest and host driven content that is the thing that they

hit on again and again and again and that spreads out because so many of their contributors also write for conservative magazines websites except rick cetera so it's it's basically spreading out like an octopus and at the head of the octopus you have to have a unified message this is their unified message and it happens to diverge with what the chief wants now we heard because of this mandate apparently fox was virtually silent over the weekend they didn't mention the issue of today at let's play a clip. one of the things that we've seen as a side story if you will from the murders that can and connecticut are is this reignited debate over gun control in this country with some lawmakers saying the president should take the lead on the issue and at the very least push for reinstating the assault weapons ban sen dianne feinstein of california author of the original assault weapons ban says she has been working on this bill for more than a year and that it will be quote carefully focused to protect the rights of gun owners the n.r.a. will soon start pushing back and sources close to the industry tell fox news they

will know just for starters that columbine happened in one nine hundred ninety nine smack in the middle of the ten year period when this country had an assault weapons ban ok so they're starting to talk about it today and watching yesterday and on their evening talk show they had mentioned that now is not an appropriate time. to begin awake and wake in the wake of the tragedy but i think about that death all of us i mean that's the those are the talking points coming from the n.r.a. the politicians that are in matched in the n.r.a. and in conservative causes i mean that's that's that's not speculation on my part that's politics and media one hundred one for the last fifteen years they have a message they have a narrative that narrative has to percolate through their delivery system which unfortunately are their very competent very wonderful anchors and reporters who i would legace any news outlet but there is the set up the delivery system for the

pundits for the host driven shows where you have the right wing you know mentality come in in this rehash of this shot back out you know in these various media outlets where they're pundits feed into somebody like laura ingram this is nothing different than what they did ironically two weeks ago to bob costas and one of their own employees jason whitlock when costas and whitlock talked about guns with respect to the kansas city chiefs who killed his. we had an assault weapons ban and columbine happened well. somehow they got those guns it's. this is their this is their message machine work they're also message the message machine is also mental health they also say well you can't guard

against crazy people well i mean what they don't say is that the people that they support politically the people they have on the show of pushback against obamacare which is mandated mental health parity and they don't cover cuts in mental health services by state and local governments so what you see is the picture of lanza or the shooter in the batman theater you see this crazy face plastered boom boom boom boom boom but you don't see the children you do not see any reference to the children their parents the deaths of these children you see crazy person crazy person crazy person crazy person that is the message so you know that this is just the mean in the scene that they have to fire on to fit their business model it's nothing more complicated than that now obviously a lot of america devastated grieving over this tragedy this massive tragedy. young children that passed away and this and then we're seeing that these views on

stricter gun laws are the highest that we can pull up some there was a poll that was taken washington post poll if we can pull that up there it shows that stricter gun laws the views on stricter gun laws are the highest it's been in five years and views on gun control measures have also increased this in the wake of the tragedy fifty nine percent support a ban on high capacity ammunition clips fifty two percent support a ban on semiautomatic automatic weapons we see that most people do not support a ban on handguns sales except to law enforcement so chris we're not talking about disarming the american right right but we are a see. that merrill and i are in favor of doing something and that's ironically what murdoch who i don't usually agree about a lot of things whether it's media or politics i think that's what he was hitting on because you have to also understand this disconnect between he and ailes murdoch comes from this mill you of the united kingdom and australia which have some of the

toughest gun laws in the world in the u.k. he mentioned the oz massacre scotland they outlawed most magazine fed weapons of any kind because of that in australia it is a flat ban and the and this is where murdoch has cut his teeth in the media ailes does not you know he doesn't identify with that and he looks at that as a kind of a different orientation that the boss has that he has but all murdoch is saying is what most people with common sense are saying to people need you know you know a two two three caliber bushmaster to hunt squirrels you know you used to hunt people right doesn't make sense that chris great happy has always as president chambers a journalism professor at georgetown university. meanwhile the n.r.a. has been silent since the tragedy we haven't heard a peep until now in a brief statement this afternoon the n.r.a. said quote the national rifle association of america is made up of four million

moms and dads sons and daughters and we were shocked saddened heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in newtown the n.r.a. is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again well organised ation has been portrayed as a force you simply can't reckon with dictating u.s. politics despite what you hear from the mainstream media however the n.r.a. may not be as untouchable as you might think in fact this past election proves just the opposite the n.r.a. had a less than one percent success rate in the two thousand and twelve election more than ninety nine percent of the money they spent went to losing candidates most of their funds went to towards opposing president obama as we know he's still our president they did support twenty seven winning candidates but they happen to be candidates they've barely banked on just a few hundred dollars in some cases so is the n.r.a. simply not as powerful as the media would have you think to discuss i'm joined now

by josh gerstein a white house reporter at politico nice to see there josh so we're going to start off now with the statement from the n.r.a. just moments ago came out this is what this is what they said that they were going to offer meaningful contributions so events like sandy hook never happen again do you think this is just a pressured response or a turning point for the organization. well it does seem like they're trying to echo president obama's call for some sort of meaningful action you know i suppose you could fault them for being a little bit nonspecific on the other hand the white house has yet to be terribly specific about what beyond the assault weapons ban the president would favor in terms of actions to address this particular crisis so it does seem like an array's trying to publicly strike a tone reasonable ness will have to see what kinds of actions it is that they're talking about my guess is in the final analysis it won't be the same kind of

legislation that various folks on capitol hill will be pushing right they certainly have kept it simple and vague you know gosh we did see them in this last election the way that a played out the fact is that it wasn't a big win for the n.r.a. would you say that their influence is waning. i mean i think it may have eroded somewhat it's really hard to say you know with so much of their money being put on the presidential race and then the presidential race not going their way that's going to cause those figures to be kind of lopsided i do think it has been sort of just an accepted fact particularly among conservative democrats for the last ten years or so. it is not in their interest to say anything in favor of gun control not simply because of the n.r.a. but a variety of gun rights groups and just a general feeling that particularly in the south and in parts of the midwest one of the forces that pushed sort of a middle class white voters away from the democratic party during

a period of time was the sense that they were out of step with their interest in owning firearms and using firearms but you know this is really interesting here the n.r.a. has own members overwhelmingly support so measures that that seem to be these kind of commonsense measures here they are requiring criminal background checks on gun owners and gun shop employees prohibiting terrorist watch lists from members from acquiring guns mandating that gun owners tell the police when they're going to stolen concealed carry permits should only be restricted to individuals who have completed a safety training course and are twenty one and all there and concealed carry permits shouldn't be given to perpetrators of violent misdemeanors or individuals are arrested for domestic violence so. these proposals there seem sensible and most n.r.a. members support them we're talking at least seventy five percent of the members in

some cases that you hear absolutely nothing from the n.r.a. whatsoever they have taken any measures whatsoever why not. well you may find some wiggle room perhaps on the part of the n.r.a. now in the coming weeks to move on some of those measures but i think it's pretty standard in any advocacy group that those that have the most extreme views and will come to the fore i mean there are a lot of people who are entering members at least in name only or in terms of having a sticker on the back of their pickup truck but they may not be very active in the organization they may not follow its instructions they may not donate to political causes that the n.r.a. supports but obviously there's a more strident core membership that believes in sort of a very fundamentalist approach to the second amendment and that's the one that's been calling the tune for some time in amongst the n.r.a. leadership. we are hearing a lot now about taking full action again i think that we've reached a breaking point where something has to change and if so when josh l.

what do you think that change would look like. i'm not really sure if we're there yet i mean one of the things that's going to have to happen is for there to be a counterforce to the n.r.a. on the other side it's not so much that the n.r.a. has exerted disproportionate influence on the process that there's been basically no one on the other side the numbers i've seen talk about that are a outstanding outspending pro-gun control groups by forty to one to one hundred to one and what i find really interesting right now is mayor bloomberg of new york talking about pouring money in on the side of gun control and some of the options he may have to really wage a media campaign to support those voices in congress that want to do more on this issue so i think there is a potential for movement but you if you were going to lay bets based on history you'd have to probably bet against anything significant happened do you think that the response this time around from the public is more i mean obviously we've seen it's been thirty since that one thousand nine hundred nine i believe

a mass shootings do you think that the response of this time is more passionate and more vocal more significant i guess in terms of really making in effect and persuading lawmakers to take action i think there's no question it's more passionate it's more vocal this time and it's it's come more quickly after the incident you know in the past there was sort of a cooling off period and then the issue kind of what went away that said i'm still not sure it's going to be enough to really cause major action in congress and the reason i say that is because the overall fear of gun crime among americans actually gone down way way down maybe down about thirty percent over the past fifteen or twenty years when the salt weapon ban was last passed in the mid one nine hundred ninety s. there were a lot of americans really concerned about crime on a daily basis and we don't see that as much anymore so i think that may take some of the steam out of this effort over the long term. and just say i guess we are

going to have to wait and see josh appreciate you coming on the show that was josh gracin white house reporter at politico. thank you. well this is a story that might make you think twice before biting into your next steak or burger a year long investigation by the kansas city star of deals at the beef industry often uses a process to tenderize me that exposes americans to e.-coli poisoning the way that it works is that several needed needles pierce the meat making it tender and while it could make the beef taste year it also injects bacteria deeper into the meat that was the consumer at risk of getting food poisoning so why risk the health of the consumer i'm joined now by alexis baden meyer alexis great to have you here. first want to talk about this method and how it is harmful to people that are eating this meat well unfortunately our slaughterhouses are filthy they're covered in excrement they the meat that goes through them has excrement and collide

in the action all over it and so you know once you have it all processed and it reaches the grocery store and you cook it entirely through you should be able to cook off most of the remaining ecole of this on the surface of the meat but this process which has these needles pushing the surface into the core of the meat is pretty much impossible to cook it well enough so that you can kill it collide inside of me. that sounds pretty gross quite frankly oh well why did these companies do it if it poses a health risk well they want to get the biggest value for their meats and if they have a tough piece of meat that couldn't otherwise be sold because it's taste list they can inject fillers tasty fillers into the meat to make it more tender and more tasty so they can sell us something that wouldn't otherwise taste good by

tenderizing it this way you know is this a go is this a common practice is this something that most young meat producers ninety percent of meat producers or you. in this practice and we have huge consolidation in the beef industry right now we have four major beef processors j.b.s. is the largest and they're producing eighty seven percent of the meat so if you're buying meat from your farmer's market or a restaurant that has a local supply of specially pasture raised beef which is much healthier then you're not going to be as likely to to be subject to this type of disease vectors now what about getting labels on the on on meats that go through this process we certainly should have them the consumer deserves the right to know we are served a steak we think it's a good take a good steak but actually it's been tenderized it wasn't a good steak it was a tough steak and we deserve the right to know exactly what we're eating and what the health risks are certainly if you're cooking at home there should be

a label that tells you to what temperature you should cook it and what the risks are of eating the product well how do we get that these products labeled well the u.s.d.a. is considering it right now we really need to to make a big stink over this it is as you mentioned quite disgusting and the more people who know about it and tell the u.s.d.a. that they want action the better chances are certainly i believe that practices like this that increase the incidence of disease in our food should be banned i don't know whether there would be some kind of a backlash from the beef industry in terms of getting a label because people might not want to buy their products if they knew precisely what was being done to the meat i guess it would cut down on their bottom line just a bit but they're getting sued and they're multimillion dollar lawsuit that they're responsible for for people's deaths or you know people becoming sick their entire lives children dying old people dying because of eating beef so i think that even the beef industry has an interest in regulation that would make our food safer yes

absolutely i do want to ask you though because if this is what americans eat and you said ninety per. then of the beef industry this is what they do it's very common practice with the meat that is sold here in america. if this is what americans are eating is it really that bad because if people got sick from it would they just stop eating the meat altogether one would think there are over seventy thousand cases of food borne illness mostly related to me in this country it's not causing a lot of people to go vegetarian yet i think most people aren't aware and i think that that's an undercount probably of the food borne illnesses related to meat production so people are getting sick a lot of people yes but most people don't end up in the hospital or dying so you know your your risk is great but the severity might not be so bad of course now we're being our meat industry is so fouled that we have antibiotic resistant

disease that is spread through the production of beef and other meats and at that point then your chances of being sick in a way that is not able to be overcome is very great and it was just a practice that is used throughout the world in other countries in the industries in other countries or is this pretty unique to the u.s. well the u.s. is the largest producer of beef and i believe that this process is more prevalent in the united states and we're a great exporter to so whatever we do impacts the rest of the world there was a case from canada where there was a collide tainted beef that had been tenderized mechanically this way and increased the incidence of exposure alright for people that are watching it and are disappointed because they wanted a burger or her v four for dinner tonight i mean what kind of advice do you give you give consumers what do you do do you just make sure your meat is called well done or do you just job buying meat do you just become

a vegetarian i mean well what do you do well those are all good options but i would recommend buying organic meat meat buying. at the farmers market from a farm that pastures their animals and one of the reasons why we have it collide in our food supply is because we're having animals eat what they wouldn't eat naturally a cow's body is specifically designed to process grass and we're feeding them corn and we're feeding them soy and that increases the incidence of a colon and their gut and our exposure to it you know i know there's even sometimes a debate over what constitutes something that is organic and it is more expensive so if a consumer is at the grocery store and paying more for this for this meat do we know that they are in fact not using this questionable practice of tenderizing well it's not banned under u.s.d.a. regulations for gannicus at this point but the reason why you there would be a less and incidence of recall i an organic is because it's not being processed at these huge plants the problem is mainly concentrated in enormous slaughterhouses

that i mentioned to start out with are filthy these are slaughterhouses that are processing six thousand cattle per day and organic isn't being processed at that scale so that greatly reduces the incidence of disease really interesting and i guess i'm going to have to think twice when i'm at the store and i'm purchasing meat or maybe i'll stop eating it for a while i don't know i have to decide really appreciate your telling of telling us all about there's a what's going on that little x. is great and may or meyer political director of the organic consumers association. also had here on our t.v. for being culturally and the one percent mitt romney sure knows how to pinch pennies but now the media outlets are asking for a refund that story next. was

. well it's no secret that mitt romney is a bit thrifty despite being a millionaire hundreds of times over the former presidential candidate always maintained during the election that he was a penny pincher at heart and his wife ann agreed take a listen. would you say he was frugal or cheap cheap cheap. cheap well what do you want to know what he does when we leave the house he turns up the hot water heater do you know what he does with your children the hot water you know what he does when we come back from the house he pretends to he forgets he's got to turn the hot water heater on and he says cool cherries they're not that bad. turns out this was no joke a group of ny news outlets that traveled with the romney campaign agree the media group sent a letter to the remnants of the romney campaign they said they believe they've been

overcharged for costs incurred while traveling from one campaign stop to another here's their complaint quote we are not quibbling over charter flights or hotel bills but we are focused on what appeared to be exorbitant charges for food filing centers hold and ground transportation some examples seven hundred forty five dollars per person charge for a vice presidential debate viewing party that was in october eleventh a one hundred twelve dollars charge for a meal in a hold on october eighteenth four hundred sixty one dollars for a meal and goes on there are three hundred forty five dollars for food that was at the end of october so as you can see the groups include the new york times the wall street journal the l.a. times the buzz feed and more. now while these outlets agreed to pay for their own food and transportation they know that the charges are beyond the pale though the journalists are footing the bill buzz feed reporter became a cop and described that reporters with mitt romney got used to seeing five or six

catered meals a day long but fate tables filled with often untouched food that campaign staffers all so much thought as it turns out there is no such thing as a free lunch in romulus and the media outlets are demanding the specifics of each expense over two hundred dollars the letter also warned the romney campaign that some of them are contesting the charges with american express this whole saga is all the more bizarre considering how much cash the romney campaign had on hand after losing the election twenty five million dollars according to reuters land romney was right her husband is not frugal but if he forces journalists to pay for his campaign mismanagement then that definitely is cheap. and we are going to leave it out there but breaking the sad is coming up and a half hour here in our team let's check in with abby martin to see what is on today's agenda abby liz i just left it at that romney story just so so you know iraq i mean the war is over all the troops are gone right. i think that's

a trick question it is indeed i mean turns out the country is way to worship now than it was before we invaded the infrastructures completely deleted the health effects of the depleted uranium is going to the radiation does not go away for millions of years literally we're talking to dolly awasthi activists the rocky american about all of that and more what's really going on the country that we've left we're also talking to trevor tim about the new initiative that encrypts the donations to wiki leaks to kind of bypass that whole war on the truth one was wars and the war on anyone who wants to donate to this truth telling organization will be breaking down also we're talking about drones stream the guy who's now tweeting out every single drone strike since the first one happened in yemen in two thousand and two highlighting him josh vaguely so stay tuned for all that and more breaking the. thanks for that if needed that is going to do for the news that for more of the stories the coverage check out our you.