lunch hour in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. wall street banks have been committing rampant crimes against the american people for years but have managed to escape punishment why did the department of justice refused to prosecute these criminals and what does this say about wall street's way with the federal government also only in america would someone have to threaten to kill the president in order to get life saving health care isn't it time we made health care a basic human right so sick americans don't have to take such drastic measures and later in the show i have all your take my take a live segment your chance to call in and ask a question or make

a comment live on the air. you need to know this this week p.b.s. program frontline did an hour long special titled the untouchables which laid out a series of crimes and frauds perpetrated on average americans by our banks and driven by wall street the crimes were just after the story the frontline told the other half of the story was how the department of justice refused to prosecute the bank's toure's largely because of a fellow named lanny brower or brewer excuse me senators were frustrated the f.b.i. was frustrated people across america were frustrated and millions of americans have been victimized by the banks on wall street for that matter millions still are being victimized the bankers on wall street got away with murder literally they've been broken families divorces suicides and even murders that arguably can be

tracked back to people's lives being destroyed by the greed of the banks on wall street and not one single wall street executive has gone to prison according to lanny breuer the reason he let them off the hook was because he was worried that if bank executives were prosecuted innocent people working at those same banks might lose their jobs when the banks went out of business. senators and investigators when presented by frontline would brewer's comments to that effect were shocked it's not the job of a criminal prosecutor they said to worry about the businesses run by criminals it's his job to prosecute the crooks they said not to protect them because he's worried that their bank may go out of business frontline special ran on tuesday night and wednesday lenny brower brewer excuse me announced he was leaving his position as head of the department of justice as criminal division this is the same d.o.j. criminal division by the way they refused to reconsider karl rove's bogus prosecution of former alabama governor dean don siegelman so banks get

a free pass while a man whose only crime was pointing out how karl rove was rigging elections and using the d.o.j. as federal prosecutors to push a partisan agenda by prosecuting democrats and ignoring crimes of republicans during the bush administration is still in prison and now that man who alternately was making those decisions as left his job so will don siegelman case be revisited or the banks there's on wall street here's guys that as attorney and host of ring of fire radio might happen tonio a mike. just great great to have you with us as an attorney does this make any sense to you not prosecuting out of fear of what might happen to the business if it shuts down. having been a prosecutor i never thought about it it's kind of the equivalent of saying somebody that you can send a mail on the street to prison or to jail for doing something wrong and you know the family's going to be affected he's going to lose his job but when it comes to when it comes to wall street there's a different standard and this administration unfortunately that this story that

you're talking about i think the landing of that story is this fault falls right at the feet of president obama i'd like to say differently but i've been saying that now for about three years this is a president who appointed geitner he appointed summers an entire gaggle of goldman sachs inner circle types and it was the rahm emanuel white house tom that's that's the tragedy here rahm emanuel was hustling around wall street telling wall street with the first time that obama ran telling wall street to ignore the man behind the curtain that was talking about how he wanted to clean up wall street you had obama on the stump speech talking about criminals and hustlers stealing money from taxpayers and destroying mom and pop pensions are leaving millions of americans homeless and he was going to do something about it but at the end of the day we remember that that populist speech that obama gave on time after time really didn't

go anywhere and as a matter of fact the payback for for obama backing off on this was the influx of money in that first round of elections wall street came up with huge money for for rahm emanuel on behalf of obama and so rahm emanuel was saying one thing while obama was telling the american public another thing we saw it very clearly you've heard me talk so many times about eric holder as attorney general that was important to wall street tom eric holder was the key to what wall street wanted as a pay back so they wouldn't be prosecuted what does this say about the relationship between money and politics regulators and industry and can't we all the malays lay the much of the blame for this at the feet of the supreme court for saying that money is the same thing as free speech and corporations are people. i think in this situation that you know i'm not

a fan of citizens united but i lay the blame here squarely at obama's feet obama listen i've been a huge supporter of obama but we have to say what is apparent he appointed eric holder eric holder is a silk stocking white collar covington and burling corporate defense lawyer who built his business around defending wall street criminals corrupt corporation everything from fraud cases to and i trust environmental crimes obama knew exactly what he was going to get with holder when he appointed him now everybody talks about lanny breuer and how this was his fault well right lenny brewer is not even a lawyer for all practical purposes he's an administrator he's never been a lawyer he's never been an aggressive lawyer do you really think that lanny breuer was doing this on his own we looked nobody from the burned down was who was prosecuted what did we have we had interest rate rigging we had money laundering and drug money laundering tom the drug cartels were benefiting from terrorist

groups were benefiting from but instead what is this the department of justice do it's a mr rich and they go after weekly leaks they go after people like aaron schwartz for god's sakes they go out they try to infiltrate occupy movement they go after pro athletes for adults for doping this cannot be put on anybody's lap except obama and it's hard for us as progressives to buy that because we think this is our president but really we don't have as much money is wall street and this is where this lands there's nobody to blame here except obama he saw exactly what was going on he was in office for four years he saw zero prosecutions and all this effort that it appeared that he was making he could have done much more to make sure something happened lanny breuer was merely a mouthpiece for policy that's all he was watching the. the public broadcasting special it sure looked like lanny breuer was the guy who was the stopping point

like he was the he was the door or the wall or whatever you know some lousy metaphor here do you would you fall p.b.s. for not going beyond him and bringing up the issue of eric holder his boss or obama holder's boss or frankly tom frankly i was amazed they didn't this is no secret that the man on the street does not understand how all these parts are connected the man on the street doesn't understand that rahm emanuel was nothing but the money grab of wall street obama knew that rahm emanuel was collecting dollars from wall street on those very days that obama was out talking about in this populist type of speaking where we're going to do something about wall street obama knows the same thing you and i know tom and that is you stop crime by punishing the criminal you stop crime by putting people in jail that's no surprise

to obama that is there's nothing sophisticated about that he knew that just as well instead what we saw was we saw a parade where obama you've got to believe was watching the same hearings we were watching when we saw a lot lloyd blank and blankfein we saw jamie diamond we saw robert ruin appear in front of congress and said gee we didn't know what was happening or you know i don't remember what happened or clients take the risk while they were saying those ridiculous things mom and pop was losing everything they had in their pension program people were being put on the street by the by the tens of the thousands in foreclosed homes obama was watching the same television and reading the same news reports we read tom and i would love to come to his defense here but i can tell you i've been a prosecutor and i've seen these documents is a private attorney if the defense if the d.o.j. . they said they couldn't find the documents hell all they had to do was come to my

office and they would have seen the documents and they would have seen that these are people that needed to be rounded up and put in prison just like ronald reagan did in the s. and l. crisis where six hundred to seven hundred bankers went to prison for far less than we see out of goldman sachs or citi group or any of these other folks that participated in this horrible part of american history does this is there any possibility of good news in labourer's resignation with regard to governor don siegelman or is that that's pretty much now in obama's lap for a pardon as. this is a president that doesn't have the courage to do anything about the outrageous events that took place around don siegelman the only here's the real problem when you drill down into all of this the only thing that changes american policy in this company legally is the private civil case let me give an example in this situation tom had civil lawyers been able to go after these companies after after citi group

and bank of america and all the regular suspects had they been able to go after him in something outside of arbitration and taken to a courtroom and let a jury hear these cases where you would have we have seen a real result we would have seen these companies settling for five hundred million dollars we would have seen some serious money on the table but what's happened is this administration has even resisted arbitration rewrite where we can rather than being limited by arbitration where we don't get a jury trial a jury never hears these facts the public never hears these facts were left by going into a room with three arbitrators that are generally controlled by the industry again if you let the system work it works obama i love again i'd love to say that this is something that we can blame on the supreme court we can blame it on somebody else as obama watched frontline he knew. exactly how complicit he's been in all this

remarkable just a half a minute your thoughts on the filibuster reform to. well i mean you know there's a are you ever surprised when we start hearing tough talk and all of a sudden it's you always want to say go get the votes to accomplish this and you always hear the democrats saying we don't we didn't we didn't acknowledge what we want to because we didn't have the votes it wasn't aggressive enough because we didn't have the votes will do not go get the votes that's what the american public expects you to do well so my cap and tonio thanks a lot thank you great having you with us. after the break isn't it time that we made health care a basic human right in america so the sick americans don't have to threaten to kill the president and sets in jail just to get health care.

let me let me i want to know why don't you let me ask you a question. here on this network and this is what we have in the pain we have our knives out. the truth is this money was spent sitting there together here in the situation with b. and i didn't really talk about the amazing really. 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 trying hard welcome to the big picture.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dog and. i'm sorry i missed the guy who cares an awful lot about what. are you know what kind of might terrorist cells. want to give us a feature isn't the only poll that chris. can secure the voters. are going to look at you distract us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm happy martin and we're going to break that.

welcome to america you have to go to jail to get the health care you need. a law in florida is reporting on a man who threatened to kill president obama just so he could be arrested thrown in jail and receive much needed medical care fifty seven year old steven esplin told a judge last week that he quote would have no intent to hurt the president but he knew. federal agents would arrive and take care of him if he made the threat has been made this threat against the president after he was kicked out of a hospital for giving a false name in line that he had health insurance here's where we should all ask ourselves exactly why is it that sick people who need care are kicked out of hospitals because they don't have health insurance but ultimately esplin had no

other choice to receive medical care first why that he had health insurance and then when that didn't work he tried to illegally threaten the president's life his state's governor rick scott is critical of obamacare and is unlikely to adopt the provision in the law that expands medicaid coverage in his state which would help people who are homeless people i guess for now that as one is headed to jail he's going to get the care he needs he's already receiving chemotherapy and once he begins his four year prison sentence he's scheduled to have heart surgery this is a cautionary tale of what happens to a nation that doesn't provide basic medical care to its citizens but it's not the first time something like this has happened to meet james richard verona north carolina back in two thousand and eleven verona walked into a bank told the teller that he's robbing them for one dollar took the dollar and then sat on a bench and waited for the cops to arrive to arrest him he see veronika worked for seventeen years as a livery driver for coca-cola unfortunately he'd been laid off

a few years ago he lost his health insurance developed a protrusion in his chest as well as arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome is illnesses prevented from working which then prevented him from receiving health insurance since again this is the only developed nation in the world that doesn't provide basic care to all of its citizens with no other options barone decided he had to go to jail to get the health care he needs so he robbed a bank for a dollar when asked why he would resort to such desperate measures to get health care of their own simply said if you don't have your health you don't have anything . this is complete insanity and it brings us to another story this one of ron paul ron paul represents libertarianism in america and ideology gaining steam in this country as well as an ideology that sees no problem with the two stories that i just told you about the libertarians health care is not a basic human right to be provided by our government having ever heard of survival of the fittest or the strong survive to ron paul and other libertarians freedom

means being free not having to buy health insurance and not allowing the government to tax us in order to pay for a basic safety net of health care for all americans here's ron paul lane that idea out during one of the republican debates in two thousand and eleven. my advice to him would have a major medical policy but not before us that have that he doesn't have it and he's very needs needs intensive care for six months to pay that's what freedom is all about taking your own risks this whole idea that you have to. take care of you thank. you saying the society should just let him die. no. yeah essentially yes let him die just like ron paul did with his own campaign manager from two thousand and eight can't snyder die paul ron paul didn't provide health insurance to his campaign staff so snyder didn't go to the hospital when he got sick he got sicker and sicker before of being finally diagnosed with pneumonia but then it was too late snyder went to the hospital but died of complications from

that pneumonia since he didn't have health insurance he racked up four hundred thousand dollars in medical bills before he died which were left to his surviving family to pay snyder had helped raise millions for ron paul but in the high stakes libertarian world he got sick and died with no one to care for him and ron paul's campaign not paying a penny of his medical bills how many more stories like this do we need to hear before something changes either we make health care a basic human right in america just like it is elsewhere in the developed world or we commit ourselves to a rest desperation and a sick population. so that's my take now let's hear from austin peterson director of production of freedom works and editor of the libertarian republican austin welcome back thanks for having me tom so what part of the right to life out of the declaration of independence life liberty the pursuit of happiness what part of the right to life to libertarians not understand how can you have life if you are sick and you can't get access to health care well that's what conservatives say to

liberals such as yourself when it comes to abortion and when you talk about a right to life you're talking about health care you know this is a very emotional topic for me personally because my mother died from cancer when i was very young and she suffered and also suffer from a a pharmacist who gave her diluted prescription drugs chemotherapy diluted her chemotherapy drugs and she died as a result of this and now the here's the thing my father and mother worked very hard in order to pay for the health insurance that was necessary in order for them to be able to pay for her cancer treatments they did this on their own it was a woman on business my mother on the business and my father ran and they worked very hard in order to be able to afford the treatment that was necessary so that when my mother did get cancer she was going to be able. before we didn't ask the state for a darn thing and we worked our butts off to make sure that we would have what was necessary so that my mother would be taken care of because we knew that that would be a possibility so when it did happen when that tragedy happened hit our family we would be able to afford that health care so this is not an issue of me not wanting people to get health care or what is this is an issue of me making sure that my father making sure one day when i have my own children making sure that i will work hard

enough to make sure that the people that i care about will be taken care of because i do care but what i will not if there is no what i refuse to do what i refuse to do is to go in take a gun and to walk into your house and take from you to demand that you take care of my mother i love my mother very much tom but i would never ever say that it would be morally right for me to steal from you to take care of the people that i love ok so by saying take a gun and go to my house and steal from me you're talking about our taxes talking about yes that's right so your of your strongly of the opinion that right to life does not mean the right to health care that if there is no right to health care the you know you talk about what's the difference between a positive right in a negative right and negative right is that a right that we can exercise or doesn't impede or just say it's your right and a positive or a right would be something like that you have to go when you have to take something from someone to give you some this is what is between my right and positive right my right to say i don't want to be taxed trumps your mother's right to survive another day do you have to be taxed for me to exercise my freedom of speech tom

well there's a difference between all of the rights and negative rights which are right it's something that must be provided in order for you to be able to provide something that is a positive right something that must be provided force must be introduced into the equation so what we're saying is you don't believe that there are a utopian society where absolutely everyone could possibly be taken care of in health care you know you really believe in a communist society we're absolutely every single person so then why do they way you're you have this character as a why do people have to wait ten months for him to get an eye exam in places like sweden where my interned goes and he can't even get an idea that he has to wait because he doesn't have a big problem was i so i didn't hear that side is can he do a scene why did he have to wait three years to go and get a knee operation in a place like canada. they're socialist medicine they're streaming across the border throwing everything you can at the wall and it's not sticking because you're trying to make this an emotional and his exact same rights yes it was over rights there is there a right to health care and you claim that there is a positive right developed country in the world says yes there you are my body you own a part of my body my law my time and my labor and you own health care the doctors

time your logic is no really you think that doctors go and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars and work their butts off to go and get those medical degrees and that they don't have a right to profit off of that don't you understand how the profit motive works that if they want to if they were going to make more money would have more patients that's how capitalism works tom by helping each other i don't make money by this new law student stop the filibuster machine here i'm not suggesting that we don't pay down your suggested a little trays don't hear about people tell me you're wrong yes you could tell you're suggesting what heartless outrages observe the outrageous that you brought up this thing with ok it's not really right ok if i had a good set of laws have lead anyone to start dying paul kills me as if your life as people are dying out there and you have to have their own life let you live by a country that didn't work by always health killed by those who was killed by a far distance and didn't give a damn about her if she was killed by a cat is what you're trying to tell me to do with the government anyway you want to do is you want to tell every american out there that if you don't have a job and in fact you want to tell yourself austin this is the really sad part you

want to tell yourself that i'd rather not have a job and therefore you don't have access to health care you don't have the money to pay for it then you're dead it's not about having a job tom it's about lowering costs and you don't necessarily have to buy a bit to have a job to pay for certain procedures in lowering costs are low. life is a right right now life is a right ok so the new abortion rights are against abortion this has nothing to do with when life begins old babies all that we can a million baby have that keen sense of when you have that god you know again you keep trying to change the subject over right to life should be on the pro-life or the right to life was originally for people who are good opposed to death penalty as well but neither is. children this is this is not about that this is if somebody is pregnant they should have access to medical care ok and i am perfectly willing to pay taxes for it and you should be to ok who you are eight so you are willing to do or try to use allowed of being part of society that's what libertarians you are willing to use they're saying don't force me to do what you think is right

absolutely i will i think absolutely i will be i will own up to the absolutely tracks and we're sure not a night as we should invade russia ocean pakistan because i think that's right and i think this is pathetic and everything if you don't want to pay taxes you're also building it on your hill like her and everything if you don't want to pay if you don't want to pay your fair share of the cost to society you're just trying to weasel out of it i could just make up anything that we want that's a right what else can we do i have a right to i have a right to gorm a food right i have a right to a steak i don't roll an arm a food in the declaration of law i don't recall health care in the declaration of life is in the is in the declaration of independence how do you have life if you're sick and you can't get treatment while you know how do you have it will you have it you have got it you've got to fight us all where do you get why you have to go fight for yourself you've got to go to this so we have the right to stand outside the hospital and bad and you have a right to die what about this guy have a right to you have a right to die and that's and i absolutely and i'm going to favor is that argument again are just changing the type you're saying to the subject no we're talking about rights tom what right right right is something right must be provided right

absolutely be provided right so a positive i agree that negative right this is a right is something that it is the obligation of society to provide oh really society just said well you're confusing we i was reminded of government i was a car you know by our forgetting everything you have to also know it was created by us how this turns society the taller government is us how many want to understand libertarians hate america haters and who love america throw away the manager terry hate the idea of america no american was sounded really really good to america was founded by guys who said where the general welfare we're going to do is to give the first to sign legislation we had to improvise there with our terror and started the war on terror people in america. was george washington no no i wasn't a start i sometimes if the founding fathers were all thinking about americans them with a job because they were born you were were there with an absolutely brilliant i know it's an important one why the little terrorist but i do know is that in order to operate all again i just i'm just astounded that. that liberty i mean

i just kind of tragic i'm genuinely and i'm saying this to you to tell a human being i think what i want is a fraggle i'm not this is not rocket science i said i find it trad no talking points ok how are you going to care for people who can't get a job. and are sick are going to well i will personally help them tom i donate all the time to causes that i find to be so you want to put your phone number up on the screen and if somebody sick they should call you if you can go to austin peterson doggoned go to the libertarian public dot com anyone who needs help i will be glad to help people as much as i can within the my own hours yourself that's right but what i will not do is i will not take a gun and come in your house and demand that you do the same or empower the i.r.s. to the site that's correct peterson thanks for being with us thank you tom i think we've figured out where we boasted. coming up the phone lines are now open for your take my take a live segment so if you want the chance to ask me a question live on the big picture give us a call it to a tune i know for twenty one thirty four we're talking with you after.

i think. i'd. say. 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.