a lot of jobs are going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. this morning the n.r.a. announced it's meaningful contribution to solving this nation's gun violence epidemic are meaning more people and putting guns in all of our schools are republicans going to stand with the n.r.a. and this ridiculous suggestion finally decide to put american lives first in the gun lobby second and as christmas approaches millions of americans will sit down and watch christmas movie classics like a christmas carol and i will bring you the

big pictures version of a christmas carol and talk about where this world has been where it's at now and what it might look like in the future. it's friday are you ready to rumble joining me for tonight's big picture rumbalara michael moroney communications director with the franklin center for government public integrity democratic set is erica can only and neil ok senior writer of human events online and editor of the guns and patriots com thank you all for joining us tonight let's start today with the n.r.a. earlier today the n.r.a. hella press conference to announce its meaningful contribution to the latest debate over gun violence in america and as expected wayne la pierre pointed the finger at everything and everyone except himself in this laughably commercial like press conference he didn't to question so it really wasn't

a press conference here blamed the media video games including one that was put out ten years ago and only on the web and nobody ever saw and america's mental health system for this nation's culture of violence not once did he point the finger guns and then he got to announcing the n.r.a. is me. contribution take a listen. the only way to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally and invested in plano absolute protection the only thing that stops a bad guy. is a guy with it. would you rather hear. your nine one one call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away or from a minute away what if when adam lanza started shooting his way into sandy hook elementary school last friday he confronted

by qualified armed security really generous contribution to solving this nation's gun violence problem is a mean what is arming more people and putting them in our schools isn't time for lawmakers on both sides the aisle to give up their associations with the n.r.a. and put in place the reforms that america desperately needs neal no. absolutely not and i think i was disappointed that he spent a little too much time dealing with the media and the problems with the media violence before he actually got to and which i thought was the meat of the of the issue and i thought it was a good positive step and i really we need more guns air erica currently we do that i'm one of the things that astounded me was when he said there's a lot of retired police officers out there who would like to go back into the service of their country this is the wal-mart greeter solution are going to have some seventy five eighty year old guy we are live shaking it shiny

a better rap i think crazy thing i've ever heard i'm watched i think completely with mouth agape thinking oh my god i mean. first of all there are about nine thousand public schools in this country so are there ninety nine thousand like seventy year old recent retiree police officers that are really really wanting to go in there and if he advocating that because he said that he wants the president to have these people in place by the new year he wants a hundred thousand roughly government employees put in place when we're talking about government cuts in spending and deficit reduction we want to put more teachers in the schools we want to hire security if we gave the n.r.a. the money they would take care of oh ok i think they're going to have now so i think they're going to develop a plan and i don't think they actually have the plan nothing they don't need to develop a plan this is the things they're allowed or not when they're no there is no no because they can offer a plan but there's but life waiting for them with bated breath the reality is that the majority of americans do not own guns and those that do own more often i think

it's about a third of those camera the exact number but within that it's a smaller subset of people that own more than one and if there is about i think it's three hundred ten million guns out there right now it's about nine in ten americans are represented by a gun but they're not they're being put into these kind of smallest mark categories people that own guns to be like a motel but if i were people who were owning arsenals and caches of tile and that's going to go to the killer louder michael apropos of these of these questions seventy six percent of americans support closing the gun show will show loophole the n.r.a. doesn't sixty nine percent of americans support banning internet sales of animal you know and guns on like the n.r.a. doesn't sixty three percent of americans say ban assault weapons the n.r.a. says no only ninety five percent of americans say convicted violent felons should not be able to buy a gun the n.r.a. says no we want them in fact the inner wants terrorists to be able to buy

a gun when they're when the legislation was really close to that it would add to the sickness of the basque majority of americans believe that there should be people armed guards in schools so even though the n.r.a. . done a great job messaging on this it read the whole are you quote. i think it was i read in three hours talk radio caller after caller after caller parent after parent after parent would say are you really telling me that they want to put guns in my kids' school and it's full of crazy kids you've got kids who are coming to school high on. meth amphetamine you've got kids who are going to school drunk you may i mean they're going to grab that gun out of that guy's holster he's not even look at you got a mob coming up. will you deny the central premise of what la pierre was saying is that had a qualified armed person been there there is a chance that this tragedy columbine i mean where the armed guard ran the other direction well then i got a four thousand people and there were no you know the mall shootings and there's all the athletes are there security at mall shooting where the i mean there the

reality is that we cannot stop people who are mad from doing mad things shortcut but as in in situations where people are a danger to themselves and others we don't give them shards of glass and let them all run around and hope that they're not a great people and i'm going to be so i going to not presenting we have we have had assault weapon man's and there's been absolutely no need to loop holes there and you think the legislation that they would pass to to solve this crisis would have any last loopholes and. the bigger issue here is if they would pass anything that would be banned it would just be feel good legislation if we want to have meaningful reform and it's a very true you know look at our congress and i mean do you really think that they're going to pass meaningful legislation the much better position to take here is to educate people about guns and allow them to are you saying that because fifty

two percent of the elected officials in congress take money directly from the n.r.a. that therefore we should just roll over and do what the n.r.a. wants i'm saying that we won't see any meaningful. they shouldn't come now actually do anything with the weapons why is that that's because the progressives can't decide what assault weapons are low progressives are pretty or pretty darn sure what guns are you know we think our saw rifles and saw weapons and why i mean dianne feinstein has a bill that she's ready to drop in the beginning of next year that's what it's not it's not against progress those are the only amendment to the constitution first of all that the american constitution was written and it absolutely up held the white man's right to own a black man and if we change that there are things that we can change with this is a modern era we live in a country of that and in that market it is great because it has the ability to be flexible and has the ability to be change and to be altered and to grow with our country and i became i know i don't want to live in seventeen ninety nine i'm sorry i don't know what i want so i want a bacterial hand sanitizer i want osho i want i want these things i want to be able

to vote as a woman i want to be able to vote i don't know what you want to change in amendment women got the wrote i'm going to name it but i'm thinking you know by in a minute the idea that you just go back to the constitution sense and don't look at the broader context of where we are in this country the growth in population growth and on technology not going to take those into account is something where i say go america should be where is our well regulated militia that the second amendment refers to i believe heller says the purpose of what heller decision just had that up to you know it did the heller decision donald it followed it neither one of them said that you had to do that are you know has no actually they said that the preamble is just a preamble and is not an active part of the amendment and it was it was a five four decision that's all you need right i mean there are five. suits or two years away in any case big blunder for john boehner last night and capitol hill banners plan b. failed to gather enough republican votes and he abruptly pulled it from a vote after an emergency meeting at the in the house basement. largely because of

pressure put on him frankly i think by talk radio i was watching this play out yesterday and i was catching the treat the trade publications people inside my industry and there is like there was this. credible concentrated effort on the part of right wing talk show hosts all across america to get people to call their members of congress but i think that's what boehner got caught flatfooted do we do we here's here's what he had to say he said he said the house did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass now it's up to the president to work with reid on legislation avert the fiscal cliff this was just twenty four hours after both he and cantor said no problem they got the votes so should we have government michael brown by right wing talk radio you know i think it's a shame that the legislation didn't get there i thought it was a good piece of legislation and it cleared up a lot of our tax issues however i don't think that right wing radio or anything of the sort was making that decision for them i think there is a lot of other factors in there for example i think that a lot of people are worried about their primaries and and how those things are

going to play back in the politics of ever in other words we're raising taxes on billionaires and those billionaires are going to nuke us in the primaries won't have primaries for i mean there was just an election i mean is there is no moment other than maybe two weeks ago or three weeks or a month ago in which they are less than the threat of a primary is less than it is right now i mean i think i think you cannot underestimate and this is something that people do because it sounds so insane that a right wing hosts like rush limbaugh who's not in any way lucky to have such influence but as somebody who has sat in offices where there's been controversial legislation like the health care bill when somebody some someone like rush limbaugh or sean hannity or glenn beck talk about radio nobody number one of my point is that when they said something on the radio we heard a lot of the same words echoed not the same way that even fox news or bill o'reilly had the ability there's something about these radio audience and the radio fans that are very active and when rush limbaugh says call your congressman is a real a fact he is incredibly effective they have a big impact because you know like the thing about democracy is those that

participate also of middle world heritage action to neal you think the that that eric cantor has six you know he's been standing behind boehner for a couple years here with that knife. in his left kidney you think he has finally shoved it is i may be betraying a confidence but cantor was working hand in glove with boehner on that and this afternoon cantor staffers just like brutus was working caesar and cantor staffers were bragging that they had the votes and they had it in the bag and so that the i would say that this is once again an example that kevin mccarthy is the worst republican house whip in the history of the republican party it's his job to count and organize these votes and this is what the fourth or fifth time his speaker has had to pull a bill of a major bill but it's a job to make sure that those votes are there before somebody. but i mean the majority leader does have to go and have the meetings i mean well as they're making those counts there's an extra five ten in the hand because because you know that

something can change with one person you shouldn't go to the floor this is a situation in some situation that's been festering ever since the budget control act was passed you know a year and a half ago. and so this is to see how this lame but it was a legitimate plan more on tonight's big question right after this break. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly 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 hartman welcome to the big picture.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i missed the guy who cares an awful lot of money from you sir are a fool you know what kind of mind their terrorist cells in your neighborhood all want the usa to defeat terrorism on the on the liberal and the christian point you. can stick your beliefs up out of the. you know the corporate media distract us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells a sensational stick garbage he calls it breaking news i'm happy martin and we're going to break that.

welcome back to the big picture rumble joining me tonight michael moroney erica committee and neil cable to get back to it george will the conservative columnist for the washington post published an article arguing that registering more americans to vote would give the wrong people access to vote will writes that by introducing quote small voting requirements and we can quote filter potential voters with the weakest motivations is not to say that these voters are apt to invest minimal effort and civic competence as indifferent or reluctant voters are nagged to the polls or some day proud of their by a monetary penalty for not voting the caliber of the electorate must decline looks

like george will is on board the paul way we're training here is the the republican consultant to the reagan campaign in one nine hundred eighty who worked on both bush campaigns and co-founded the american legislative exchange council which has produced all these voter id voter suppression bills here is nine hundred talking to a group of republican activists in a church in dallas. now many of our christian. what i call them grow good government they want everybody to vote. i don't want everybody to vote elections are won by a majority of people they never help i'm probably going to rock a priest they are not now a model for us our leverage in the elections what kind of like goals up the voting populace goals our care our leverage in elections goes up as the voting populace goes down so what's erica what's with the republicans it was three states this week announced more voter suppression of voter suppression id well i think it's an

incredibly important this continues to be it seems like this is just here to stay from now on i think it goes back to one of the things that i've talked about a lot is that this idea that for others to somehow get more rights or to to get a leg up or to do well somehow threatens your ability to do something your freedom you have somehow lose if others do well that you know you will lose if these other people can vote that your vote maybe won't count or won't be as good and then i think it's i think it's incredibly cynical i think it doesn't have a place in our democracy i think we should be ashamed of themselves i wish that it was the kind of thing that people whispered about instead of so blatantly openly saying we don't want certain kinds of people voting are you eighteen are us citizen . the point of the point of will an article though wasn't to talk about that he doesn't want one poor people to vote he was saying he doesn't want people that aren't civically engaged to go out and vote because they're not going to make the right decision for the country they're just going to be going on whatever bandwagon

he driving his opponents at the polls and it's turned down is typically engaged because they're going to the polls the problem if you're get someone to sit on the couch isn't going to engage they're not going to be less it's not that i want to figure out a message out but if you can go to the polls you can fill out a piece of paper and mail it and it's not that george miller who are we to decide what they like and i think filling out a paper and voting with your team every day when you decide to enroll everyone then you're deciding what gauge a minute this is the maybe he said it's only going to provide us this way his point maybe was that it is better to have an engaged voting population but no that's not what he says he explicitly said that we need to calibrate micro calibrate who can be allowed to vote. but i think and this is this really this is this is actually been a genuine debate since the founding of this republic and i mean this is what george will is saying is the exact same thing in essence that sir edmund burke said when thomas paine went over and having such a huge pissing match with him in the two weeks of the state as i was on his way to

go get a rest of the french revolution and that paine wrote the entire book the rights of man as a rebuttal to it. if i've got this right he said it does me no harm if a man is allowed to engage as serve aisle a profession as a hairdresser or tallow maker cattle maker but it does society considerable violence of such a man is allowed to participate in governance by voting how is this not different from that and that was a debate we thought we settled in seventy and eighty seven i think a lot of this sort of so-called voter suppression is basically we just want to make sure that you are you are who you claim to be and that we know you know that there are thousands of people registered in florida in new york and we don't lose out anything no thank you motor fraud. i don't know that there's a mistake and there's a problem to be thought so why is it a problem to present an id our president presented and i don't want it but i want to begin with so now creating more people dying to tell the lies you know how do you know it's not a problem because it's never going to write the events of a new giant you've only got a what if you have one it comes there are so angry

a pennsylvania judge who was ruling on the pennsylvania voter id law said that there was actually no instances are evidence of voter fraud and no and opened up my folders i did hold last year died from television's falling on their head than george w. bush was able to find in seven years of having ninety three federal prosecutors looking for votes because the justice department did fine people and they chose not to prosecute it they found fewer than three hundred over a seven year period to prosecute man oh oh one percent me and i was about seven and a half million people off the voting rolls this last election was so i was producing an idea you need to do to get cigarettes you need to board an amtrak train the president has an idea where you can buy cigarettes there because there are issues you don't want on your team buying cigarettes they're not issues if you don't know anything about it for honestly let's be you know what actually there's a lot of people like you let me show you let me show you the areas where the d.m.v. are going to get to let me just show this graphic a good meal ask the question it's right behind us here this is people without photo

id that would satisfy the requirements of the republican laws that are already in place twenty five percent of african-americans twenty percent of asians nineteen percent only to latino eighteen percent of eighteen to twenty four year olds eighteen percent of seniors are saying they want to buy scent of african-americans in america don't have a driver's license a student id a liquor id an i.d. for cigarettes but look right in massachusetts in massachusetts you get a picture id from the state that's a ton of those twenty nine others have no idea what you said i don't know i don't know how hard it is how do you have a driver's license why would you pay the twenty dollars and thirty dollars and get that renewed why if you don't have a car these are actual statistics going out of a car the state will prevent or provide you with another id but why would nobody. nobody wants to suppress the vote if we were does the republicans do that because it wasn't easy why is it that the democrats aren't doing the same thing. i don't know i mean it was same it was the democratic party who you know the why don't they

are going to fifty's who were pushing the exact same kind of laws because then the south the democratic party was the party of segregation what it flip suddenly became the republican party that was pushing these laws i think that what people are concerned about is they want every vote to be treated as important and vital and i don't want my vote devalued by the possibility of somebody coming in i wouldn't register with her that my point that your vote with some house valued by somebody else having the right to vote next month i mean somebody somebody said as you're placing a value on me here and then there's been no no no and if you're going to leave me even if there is no evidence that that actually happened there's no evidence that your vote was under duress as profit was under attack so there's no advantage because because other people's votes are under attack because of that yes so we can get them i do yes so you want to buy every one driver's licenses you want to go on to take a driver's test to do that mean and if you want to drive like that you're not paid for cylindrical we don't let everybody an id card allows people to operate in

a motor vehicle and you cannot say i just told you another cent did you have fishing ice and said you were just this is so naive you're going to tell us so in a five year old woman who is in a wheelchair all right but you know. there is an elected official you want an example let's say that this will in wisconsin who would serve on the county board for a number of years she didn't have an idea under wisconsin voter id she was just and so how did she get into a building how did she you board an amtrak did you go down because she lives in there's no federal building i mean it's i would say that every american would listen that people use picture i.d.'s all the time not just some people to some people affluent people and even affluent upper class your ben and suburban dwellers too and what is your cost was going to cost of doing this but it was a i do i say it was a lot of trash this topic. let's move along we got a couple of other things here g.m.o. labeling in california last month it was on the ballot the big g.m.o. companies genetically modified companies prop thirty seven you say. so any of this gets heated in california it looked like it was going to win and then they came in

and drop millions of dollars now state senator in new mexico peter wirth has introduced them in an amendment that would require the labeling of all the g.m.o. is there one americans have the right to know what's in their food michael you know a thing is when you when you put a label on something thing that's genetically modified it acts to the consumer they see it is there's something wrong with it and it's really hard to get rid of that unfortunately and especially because there's absolutely nothing that when you put a label on the surface you know calcium and hants people don't say oh there's something wrong with it because that would be seen as a benefit because it is an enhancement if g.m.o. is actually a good thing why hasn't monsanto can the american people but i think what you need to look at here is the fact that there's been a mass campaign by or the organic food industry to label g.m.o. as a bad thing when the world health organization the american medical association says there's actually extra health benefits to genetically modified food so why are the

european countries banning them there they're not banning and then they're saying that the have to label them they're actually banned in several european countries in france for example we believe the u.k. germany germany i mean they're labeled every place else erica i think and i think it is a broader conversation about nutrition and the role it plays and our obligation to feed our fellow mankind but also to responsibly you know farm there are major implications with climate change when water fertilizers and fundamentally the art of farming and the job has changed and so i think this kind of tries to zero in on the kind of mass industry farming for people. i think that they're getting a type of food and they're actually not that you know the the larger conglomerate mega farms have actually changed food and that's something that's been happening for a long time we don't have the bio diversity that we used to there used to be you know hundreds of different types of tomatoes and potatoes and string beans and now it's

all kind of changing it's not necessarily healthy but we do have a problem where what do we do with climate change in areas where we're suddenly going to be running out of water we do have to create seeds in food sector that are better suited to produce food in those areas but at what cost and yes people do need to be educated about it they need to have access to information access to information and better consumer education is benefits and bills both needs but we do have to have a bigger conversation i think overall people don't realise that the potato that they're eating is not the potato their parents made you know thirty's are very concerned about any government regulations compelling labeling i mean there's there's new regulations part of obamacare that will cost the supermarkets a billion dollars and it just gets worse. ok last question quick first so according to some interpretations of the why in calendar today is the end of the world. actually i have an odd possibility the scientists actually researching this is like a news story in the science publications are we actually living in somebody else's

computer simulation. and while we're still on the air which means the world is still kicking apparently it could come to an end in the next few hours of the question is how would you spend your last few hours on earth it will not be listening to r.e.m. who i think cooked up this whole mess. in its brilliance by their part but i refuse to be a part of it but see they had a time machine they went back to convince the my answer to that yeah the bottle of wine and some dark chocolate that's all i need. and they can begin to see the hobbit oh that's a great way i just like i just like to hang out with my family. the world's good and boring ok i'm sorry. michael. erica hill thank you so much for being with if you would think that after the break without really goes through christmas past christmas present and christmas future in the big picture is a vision of a christmas. anthony

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i think. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harvey welcome to the big picture.