what about the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour when the constitution was written people were just learning out of flush after they went to the bathroom or maybe even not quite yet is it time we redid the constitution and updated it to meet the needs of the realities of america today and transnational corporations have their hands all over our elected officials and our economy isn't time we stop the parasitic effect that these mega corporations have on our nation.

in screwed news war profiteer giant k.b.r. was found guilty last year of negligence and is being held responsible for the poisoning of a dozen soldiers with a chemical known as sodium diet chroming which is used to prevent pipes from corroding the hobby and post reports that one exposed soldier who was told by k.b.r. that the chemical was just a mild irritant ended up dying from sodium diet chromate cause cancer at the age of fifty two k.b.r. was ordered by a court to pay eighty five million dollars in damages but k.b.r. is saying that the government that's you and me the taxpayers should pay for those damages thanks to a contract with the bush cheney administration k.b.r. argues that it has full legal immunity meaning taxpayers should pay for all of k.b.r. as legal costs and pay their victims so far this contract is classified and is not available to the public k.b.r. spokesman said to date the u.s. government has failed to comply with its obligations k.b.r.

is confident it will prevail in forcing the u.s. government's legal obligations one of the lawyers who originally filed the suit against k.b.r. by the way calls the contract k.b.r. has with the government a pretty good balance so here we have another story of a corporation doing harm to americans in this case american soldiers and yet not facing a direct consequence. this is a result so isn't this exactly why as president grover cleveland said corporations should be the quote carefully restrained creatures of the law and quote let's ask my pap and tonio attorney and host of ring of fire radio like welcome back. just great we have here a private corporation k.b.r. operating in iraq poisoning our soldiers k.b.r. kellogg brown the old collage brown wrote division are part of halliburton and yet k.b.r. says it is quote confident it will prevail and foreseen the u.s. government's legal obligation our government's legal obligation to pay their fines what's going on here well they had a whole they had

a hold harmless indemnification that is so unusual that it's not unusual when it comes to military contracts because we had richard nixon put in place some laws were military contracts would be such that they could write these ridiculous contracts that go as far as saying tome that if a corporation is corrupt is k.b.r. the history of k.b.r. is awful we will talk about that but the point is a corporation can go as far isn't intentionally killing a person intentionally committing a crime and not be held responsible under these new indemnification ideas that the pentagon granted k.b.r. in many many military concert contractors to put it in context. you had a hexavalent chromium which was part of this that they understood they were exposing these soldiers to causes cancer causes neurological deficits disease birth defects pulmonary defects they knew it the documents were very clear they knew it

but they got away with it and now they're saying you know what we made a lot of money doing that in taxpayers you have to pay the eighty five million dollars for our criminal conduct why me how did well they why why would the pentagon go along with this i mean even of congress said it's ok why why is it why has nobody said wait a minute this is nuts. yes it happened because there was this feeding frenzy that took place once the republicans tried to bring about the use of private contractors for virtually everything that government and military used to do we had k.b.r. doing our lottery we had halliburton taking care of cafeteria food we had them shining our shoes we had i'm doing everything for the military private contractors had a free ride why if you follow the money on this story it goes exactly where you would expect dick cheney had an incredible relationship with halliburton which was basically a bank run company before the war in iraq cheney was was able to get them no big

contracts no negotiation contracts and all of a sudden halliburton is making a ton of money this was a way for the pentagon to pay back their favors and for congress to pay back their favors to the private industry the armaments industry and so this feeding frenzy that took place we're just now starting to see how bad it was we knew k.b.r. was a bad company we knew the history of kavi are actually going as far as paying out millions to pay millions of dollars to the justice department two thousand and two because of overbilling we knew the history of halliburton its sister corporation where they were actually selling poults neutron generators to moammar gadhafi in libya to be used for nuclear weapons purposes so this is this is a company the this is a company that has an awful awful history pentagon knew it congress knew it and they gave them a blank check anyway and now people are dying and this is just the first part of

the story we're going to start seeing stories like this more and more we're going to start having to pay for all of the corruption in this profit frenzy that we saw take place with companies like k.b.r. . i think you could probably argue that during the nixon administration this sort of quid pro quo was called corruption and now it's been institutionalized. by the supreme court the corporations can make or break politicians and and you know with unlimited resources and funds is this is an example does he threaten to sue over the bailout all this kind of stuff about these corporations that just kind of swaggering around going this is our country this is you know the we own his place it's a world of no risk for corporations tom whether you're talking about a pharmaceutical industry that says you know what we're going to make a product that might kill people probably is going to kill people but at the end of the day we're going to make a big profit in nobody goes to jail where one of the only countries really in the

world that says that the c.e.o. at the top of a corporation can kill can kill people just like we see here with k.b.r. and get away with it and nobody goes to jail so until that changes what nothing's going to change look when there is no risk at all for a corporation to do whatever the hell they want to do we know government won't do anything very seldom will the justice department do anything except find a corporation nothing really changes in the in citizens united made it even worse because they said we have to treat that psychopath like a person but we can't put the psychopaths in prison so it was icing on the cake when the when the majority right wing majority of our supreme court said yeah it's ok to kill people even though we're now going to at the same time call you a legitimate person senator ron wyden of oregon has proposed legislation to make these hold harmless clauses these and and them into cation or if i'm using the word

correctly here mike. agreements indemnity agreements go public and be justified both be public and justify any chance that that thing is going to make it through see the light of day and a sense of where that where the politics of it are probably not the only way to to to get any wind behind that sale is to tell the story. in the k.g.b. our story is just one of many stories that we're going to start saying look there's not a legislator there in d.c. that doesn't somehow benefit by all of the no bid no negotiation contracts that were given away in iraq and afghanistan when you actually trace the people who made a lot of money from the armaments industry it was both democrats and republicans who said you know what nixon wrote this law nixon allowed this law to take place during his administration we're going to treat the pentagon different since he was from the time he signed that law. there were many efforts legislative to say it

doesn't make any sense that we ought to allow the pentagon this kind of free will understand this is a pentagon who lost twelve billion dollars in cash money if you recall the incompetence is is staggering the money we're putting away through the pentagon is staggering this is the pentagon who now has a freewheel regardless of how incompetent they are again how do you lose twelve billion dollars in cash within four months that it was shipped to iraq yeah how do you do that and we still the legislators still don't want to take any action on these giant pallets were visible from outer space it's an amazing story my pappa tonio thanks so much for being with us tonight thank you. it's the good the bad and the very very. ugly the good the actual

cathedral the historic episcopalian church in washington d.c. has announced that it will begin i was doing same sex wedding ceremonies speaking about the decision cathedral dean the very reverend gary hall so i read the bible as seriously as fundamentalists do and my reading of the bible leads me to want to do this because i think. it's being faithful to the kind of community that jesus would have us. let's hope that the reverence feeling spreads across america and the more and more americans realize that marriage equality is a universal value. so that congressman tom cotton publican from arkansas during an appearance on the laura anger and radio show the republican congressman argued that women are physically unfit to serve in combat roles in the military he went as far as to say that it's nature that women are intended to serve on the front lines however multiple studies have proven that notion wrong as a survey of several nato allies that allow women to have frontline roles in afghanistan found that they cause quote no significant problems and actually were

better at intelligence gathering than their male counterparts and the very very ugly rush limbaugh and yesterday's broadcast of his radio show limbaugh really outdid himself going on a rant about a supposed a movement that's underway to normalize pedophilia take a listen. there is a movement on to normalize pedophilia and i guarantee you your reaction to that's probably much the same as your reaction you first heard about gay marriage what has happened to gay marriage it's become normal and in fact with certain people it in turn demographics it's the most important issue. in terms of who they vote for so don't believe there's a movement to normalize pedophilia don't pooh pooh it people behind it are serious . and you know the left as well as i do something they don't let go i think we all know what's going on here in the world of conservative talk radio there's pretty

much only room for one major crazy right winger and for years russia's filled that role but now after his ridiculous gun rant monday night with piers morgan alex jones is threatening to dethrone rush as the talk radio king of craziness and limbaugh wants to steal back the spotlight but in trying to one up jones rush managed to compare allowing two loving people to marry each other with the horrifying disgusting act of sexual child abuse that is very very. coming up we wouldn't put giant whales in the small aquarium or a fish tank because they take over all the other food sources and the other necessities that the smaller fish and medium sized fish need to survive so why don't we let massive transnational corporations dictate what's happens in our economy i'll explain in tonight's daily to.

let me let me respond when we're going to let me ask you a question. here on this network is what we have in the bank we have our knives out. i mean this is just a bad thing there's again here it is great we're being i don't mean to talk about the mainland. download the official ati application to yourself choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites from alzheimer's if you're away from your television just doesn't matter now with your mobile device you can watch r.t.

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in the best of the rest of the news our constitution the law of the land that we largely base all government decisions on was written over two hundred years ago when george washington and those nations other founders sat down in philadelphia to write america's new governing doctrine life was very different than it is today for instance back in the late seventy's hundreds fire extinguishers and lightning rods were considered high tack and flush toilets have just been invented or popularized the fact is we live in a very very different time than the days of the american revolution almost every facet of our lives today couldn't have been possibly imagine two hundred plus years ago so with that being said should we still be relying so heavily on a document that was written when i glasses and carbonated water were just becoming popular joining me now is professor lewis michael side arm at waterhouse professor

of constitutional law at georgetown university law center and author of the book on constitutional disobedience the fessor side and welcome thank you so much for having me telling us to thank mr blake for joining us why should we give up on our constitution you know the arguments really very simple this is our country we live here we have a right to have the kind of country we want nobody would want france or germany to tell us what kind of country to have there's just no reason to allow a bunch of people who did not even represent a majority of americans when they lived and who've been dead for two hundred years to tell us what kind of country that isn't isn't. if you if you accept the concept of just the review which i frankly disagree with but it's been kind of subtle law since eighty three and marbury vs madison. if you accept that couldn't you make the

argument or could one make the argument that we really have been continuously fine tuning our constitution ever since it was written through the agency of the supreme court you know interpret in the constitution finding slavery and finding and in dred scott eight hundred fifty six pulling it out of finding you know separation just pick one topic i mean there's dozens of them. isn't hasn't it evolved even though it hasn't evolved so. i think that's really a good point about the supreme court. the supreme court doesn't enforce the constitution certainly not on issues people care about like affirmative action or gay marriage or abortion the supreme court more or less making it up and and maybe an effort to write and maybe it's a good thing to have a body that does that if you were ambivalent about it frankly. but one thing i guess i'm really clear about if you're going to have a body that does appear to be honest about what they're doing and probably they should be elected and maybe they should be elected i don't actually think i mean

article three section two seem says that congress will define the regulation so i there's something to be said for having a lead body that's removed from politics. deciding questions of political reality but whether we have that or not we ought to be honest about what they're doing and what they're doing is not in forcing the constitution and. that's a good thing and a bad thing if if we were to crack open those the constitution right now have a constitutional convention and there's actually a conservative movement to do so on july fourth of this year to insert into a requirement for a super majority for a nice increases in taxes that rich people if we were to. convene a constitutional convention don't we in this post citizens united when billionaires and transnational corporations for interests actual corporations can basically buy our legislators who would be making those decisions. don't we run

a huge risk so i'm not for a constitutional convention either. just as i don't think people two hundred years ago have a right to decide what country we live in i don't think we have a right to decide what kind of country people should live in two hundred years from now so what's the so so the solution is to operate like many other countries in the world do the united kingdom new zealand go in law to. function without a binding constitution that's not to say that anything goes and there's chaos there's not last i looked there wasn't chaos in great britain we have traditions we have all of mr cromwell might have disagreed with you. yes but you know we had a civil war also after all. so so we're not. now house senate president there will be your right to free speech. all that is is

good or new daughter say the real difference is those things would have to be justified to americans now instead of just saying well somebody a long time ago said we had to have it that what is is there or we just have a half a minute here you have a mechanism for saying ok we're going to set this thing aside. all it takes is people of goodwill the next time somebody says to you but that's unconstitutional you say so what right why should that matter. and if nuff people say that then things will change remarkable. thank you for being a real pleasure thank you for having me on thank you will be.

sticking a whale a fish tank is generally a bad idea i mean think about a whale in a fish tank. eating habits fat body pressed all up against the four glass walls and there wouldn't be much room left for the other fish for the goldfish the zebra fish the sucker fish the the tetras whatever to swim around and of course the way already all of fish food and likely eat the fish themselves so eventually all the fish die then all you're left with is a whale alone in a fish tank good as that i mean really what good is a whale of a fish to a point is whales don't belong in fish tanks they don't belong in fish tanks any more than giant trans national monopolies belong in our economy you see nature has a way of restricting the size of animals and their ecosystems to make sure they don't get too big or too populous and cause problems for the other animals in the

organisms that share that ecosystem with them call home you all find a whale in a pond in nature they're found in the big oceans nature has mechanisms to keep things in balance similarly our economy must have mechanisms to restrict the size of corporations to make sure they don't become too big and cause problems for other smaller or medium sized corporations businesses trying to make a living this was the intent of the sherman antitrust act passed in one thousand nine hundred in the height of the gilded age a period of time that belonged to the robber barrons time was also known as the long depression it wasn't too good for working people at periods of time when there was a bunch of whales in the fish tank of our economy that's when the sherman antitrust act was passed and it was eventually used to break up oil and sugar and tobacco monopolies among others and it worked pretty good scoop in a whale's out of the fish tanks let in

a smaller fish or small businesses swim freely and prosper. but the last great breakup of monopoly happened in the one nine hundred seventy s. and eighty's when richard nixon's justice department went after eighty and t. which at the time was the largest corporation the world and the justice department after them for violating the sherman antitrust act that its and its heirs after a settlement eighty and he agreed in one nine hundred eighty four to break up into bell system to break it to break its bell system into seven different smaller companies known as baby bells and that opened the marketplace for new players to jump in offering new services new prices eighty whale was taken out of the fish tank in the end it was good for all the investors involved in fact the value of a t.n.t. and all its former subsidiaries tripled after the break up breaking up monopolies is good for an economy whether it's the breakup of standard oil and american

tobacco in the early twentieth century or more recently the break up of a t.n.t. removing the whale from the fish tank always leads to more competition in the market which is common sense tells us means lower prices and better products unfortunately there haven't been any such success stories since the break up of a t.n.t. and that's because it response to the a.t.m. tea break up ronald reagan pretty much stopped in force in the antitrust act he said enough that grow as big as you walk we had an air of mergers and acquisition mania the monopolies they have returned even the baby bells began merging together again forming bigger and bigger telecom companies. this week robert reich warned of a future bailouts of wall street are inevitable why because too many dang whales in the wall street fished he points out that the five largest banks now have almost

half of all u.s. bank deposits five banks half of everything. that means our entire banking system relies on just a few whales they must be saved at all costs are going belly up or else the entire system goes belly up but it's not just banking consider a food industry. phil potted to add mother jones magazine agriculture monopolies exist from farm to shelf just for companies control ninety percent of the global glink grain trade three companies seventy percent of the beef industry and just four companies fifty eight percent of the pork and chicken industry on the retail side wal-mart controls a quarter of the entire us grocery market one company and just four companies produce seventy five percent of our breakfast cereal seventy five percent of our snack foods sixty percent of our cookies and half of all the ice cream sold in supermarkets around the nation and then there's the health insurance market just for health insurance companies united health group well point at humana control

three quarters of the higher health insurance market this is basically no competition in this market prices continue to get higher and higher while the profits for these whales skyrocket as well. also from newspapers to television radio to movies functional monopolies whales dominate the markets and cellular phone market just for companies eighteen t. mobile the rise in wireless t. mobile and sprint nextel control eighty nine percent of the marketplace and in the internet market just a handful of corporations. as time warner environment controlled more than half of that market if we were to give the internet oligopolies the same treatment richard nixon gave eighteen t. in the one nine hundred seventy s. and maybe we have americans could enjoy the same super fast internet speeds and super cheap rates the most of the rest of the developed world joyce the difference between them and us is that they've kept the whales out of our fish tanks. for

example south koreans get internet speeds two hundred times faster than what most americans get that they only pay twenty seven dollars a month on average for the service same is pretty much true all across the rest of europe raising health care food and energy costs could all be traced back to the whale in the fish tank phenomenon a problem here in the united states recently here we kicked off the hash tag no billionaires campaign to draw attention to the parasitic effect billionaires have on our economy check out the website at no billionaires dot com but trillionaire transnational corporations are just as harmful to our economy and we need lawmakers willing to stand up to these corporate whales and get back to enforcing the sherman antitrust act once again but the fish of small and medium size businesses swim freely. and that's the way it is tonight wednesday january ninth two thousand and

thirteen and don't forget democracy begins with you get out there get active or. wealthy british style. but i'm tired of the free.

markets why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max keiser for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report on our.