it's friday ready to join me for tonight's big picture rumbalara patrick holley reporter with the daily caller medea benjamin co-founder of the human rights group global exchange and the peace group code pink and forest cooper a conservative commentator and senior fellow at the national center for public policy research and welcome to all of you thanks for joining us tonight ok d.c. court of appeals ruled that president obama's recess appointments at the beginning of the year last year unconstitutional because the reason why the president needed to make the recess appointments the first place is because of the republican filibuster in the senate on thursday senate leaders harry reid mitch mcconnell came

to a deal on a very modest watered down so-called filibuster reform package which virtually guarantees that all legislation the senate is going to run up against this fifth the sixty vote. barrier so bottom line here why why are republicans are afraid of democracy which i don't think the republicans are afraid of democracy in a few votes is that i think small d. i think the filibuster has been a vital part of the microsleep for centuries i mean well it has struggled hard since the one nine hundred thirty washington to give his great liberal filibuster against the horrible conservative proposal in the movie that that was what was proposed as the reform you know jimmy smith did it jimmy stewart did not send an e-mail to mitch mcconnell from his resort in florida saying hey put a hold on that bill harry reid i mean however you feel about him politically i think we can all agree that he's no great statesman he's not daniel webster he's not i'm not here you have friends here and so. if you if he is going to be allowed

to change something that has been a fundamental part of our process since the beginning of our country no it's not true i think that the filibuster is on the constitution and it was never part of the of the senate insult until the twenty three of these are very contemporary political issues you know the republicans are in the minority and that's why we're hearing about this right now as minorities versus majorities is that yeah and pox on both their houses i mean if you can't get harry reid to do something that the majority of people i think deserve which is a majority rule then yeah you've got to say that the republicans are afraid of democracy but so are some of the leaders within the democratic party and of course what they think is when what happens when the democrats are in a minority and they want to be able to use this filibuster as well but i totally agree with you tom i mean should have been real reform and if you're going to do something like filibuster get in front of american people and let's see who you are and let the american people judge whether that's a good use of the time of the people that we've elected horace that we have

a graphic that shows the increase in use of of the filibuster here it's right behind us over time is from one hundred sixty one before nine hundred sixty one is basically not used. before you know nine hundred thirty basically didn't exist so why why filibuster you know here's an example of how the liberals are getting hoarse about their own petard when we had the bush administration going forward and pushing what were considered controversial nominees and policies for instance social security privatization one of the things that the democrats led by harry reid and the rest of the gang was to try to use this process as a way to stop me as well as appointees to district courts and except to say let's blow up so so for them to take the advantage of it during the bush administration and then get all worked up when that comes back on them is fundamentally a spear is built through it's not true that just because the filibuster is not part of the. station that has not been with us for ever it is actually part of the roman

system it was part of the upper house in the parliamentary system and at that time it was what you're doing right now which is talking without stopping that exact state as many of the definition of fill are the lies that i now talk the other persons and but you know it when bill frist was the was in senate majority leader and the minority the democrats were saying no we don't know about the sam alito guy it was for the supreme court it was bill frist who said oh well we're going to pull the nuclear option going to blow up the filibuster and the democrats are going to do that don't do that we'll give it we'll give you sam alito i mean this was a part of the you remit i guess let me just as a really simple question don't you think that if the republicans took this if the republicans take the senate in two years what would your bet be that the first thing the leader mcconnell will do would be to blow up the filibuster here very likely to trim back the same way the democrats threaten to do this time this is they'll do what the donor is saying they're going to go as far but they're going to

make some more progress and this is why this is dangerous you're getting close to buy you don't regard when they do it they set the precedent ok well set the precedent or return democracy to america we'll see. rives grogan is a tenacious anti-abortion protester on inauguration day he climbed a tree to shut down the president's speech he's also racked up ten arrests and a half dozen convictions in two years in the house and senate buildings alone so in response to his latest antic antics a d.c. judge has banned grogan from entering the city until his feb twenty fifth court date the punishment has now sparked a debate about free speech media you're an activist you've been arrested a lot of times in this town and when i saw this story you immediately came to mind i'm really curious your thoughts on this i support free speech we have been banned there is a code pink woman that was banned from washington d.c. for an entire year i've been banned from the area around congress and it's totally depends on what the judge wants to. do there is no rhyme or reason you can be

banned from the rayburn building you can be banned from all of congress you can be banned from the entire city and that's just wrong should we have should we be banning people who are speaking whether they're anti-abortion protesters or anti-war protesters it's not about what they are talking about or their point of view it's about what kind of antics they're up to and if you're harming people threatening to harm people scaring people you can run the risk that yes you're going to be told we're tired of dealing with this i don't think that my. climb a tree but don't tell me can't come to the nation's capital you know i don't know the circumstances entirely but as i say you can reach a point of your activism where you are or in some cases the claim was that he was throwing the baby feces or things associated with with unborn children and people as part of this whole that's the song are doing that's a whole other thing that's run the i think everybody on the panel agrees that somebody gauges an assault they should be should be charged with a crime there you know it's very funny because the judge in this case cited two

reasons for a spanish number one was that because he was sitting in a tree he was in danger in people because the limbs might fall on people and number two was because he was interrupting obama's inauguration and i think if number one really is the case that he got banished that's such a great president because the next time an occupy protester or the next time an environmental activist goes up in a tree we could say hey we're concerned about those. are all agreeing that this is really really thin ice that this year i cannot give you a story i was in brazil when lula da silva was president and we went to an event where he was giving a speech an indoor event so there's these protesters you know when we protest we hide our banner then we pull them out their banners were right out there and they walked inside and they started yelling against lula and they didn't stop for the entire time there was a phalanx of police people in front of and i kept waiting for them to be pulled out and arrested never happened never happened at the end of the thing i went up to the place and said why didn't you arrest this people like happens to us in the us he said. we were there to protect their right to free speech well now lou was.

arguably a more progressive president was he not of brazil or was he right when he was progressive he was a metalwork areas a worker who became a president he came from the union movement but it's to give you an example and i have i've seen this in other places free speech is protected more in some other countries than here in the united states we had a nineteen year old girl yesterday in john kerry's hearing who spontaneously got up and spoke out very quickly from the heart and she got pulled out of the room which is fine but she got arrested why wrester pull it out and say if you go in again you'll get arrested nineteen years old she's arrested and now faces charges i don't think we protect free speech enough in this country we we will fight to the death over the second amendment but not the first it seems bizarre so it seems as some of those let's talk about climate change no surprise here but charles koch is secretly finally millions of dollars into a covert campaign to cast doubt on global climate change the independent newspaper

the british newspaper is reporting that a shadowy organization known as the donors trust has been funding climate change deniers and the donors trust is receiving much of its funding through another shadowy group known as the knowledge in progress fund which is headed up by charles koch in his wife according to the newspaper the independent the koch's have given nearly four million dollars to the donors trust since two thousand and seven if the koch's and these other secretive billionaires truly believe the climate change is not a threat and that they are doing noble and good work preventing governments from transitioning to new energy sources renewables green then the question why are they so secretive or we've had this conversation multiple times and i know you guys go on this tirade against the koch brothers ziering is i really i'm asking why should during the red scare privacy and secrecy was crucial and all the left supported during the civil rights movement all of the left supported the right of people who were supporting civil rights to peep their main. but to not have to be put on the list to not be

investigated by the f.b.i. it's your only wage and assume you don't like the sub here completely changing the issue completely change you know not know the question is i want to know why don't they have. these guys secrecy texan that you would give people when i would be glad to have a chat with you sometime when we're debating the topic of of privacy and the fourth amendment that kind of thing or people's right to secretly but i'm wondering what is it that they're hiding if they really believe patrick if these guys really believe the climate change is just a hoax or if they just come out and say it i don't think one of the transparently get was i think a lot of conservative scientists from the heartland institute and other places have said that it's a hoax and they've been absolutely demonized for a group rule the democratic congressman led a smear campaign against some scientists from the department of the interior just because he was he did one project for hardly years ago but i think the issue here is that progressive billionaires have given a lot of money pushing climate change and that's

a direct attack on people's livelihoods because as we've seen there's been a lot of plant closures there have been a lot of job losses so if i work for the koch brothers if i'm an employee i want them fighting for me i want them funneling their secret money to look out for my job. if you say well who are going to cause a little interrogation and fine and other things you'll say it's soros i mean you'll be able to be able to lie and still be able to name them but if you're really having. unaccountable power if there's a health study and it's funded by the pharmaceutical industry i want to know about it if there's a study on climate change that's funded by people who make their money off of the oil industry i want to know about it you know the koch brothers are making a lot of money off the religious are throwing a lot of carbon into the atmosphere horace to think that might have something to do with their pain actually see i think that is another form to assumption merely because someone has a financial stake in the matter doesn't mean that they're not capable of supporting arts supporting science are engaging in any other activities but the only reason you guys want to know the names is to retaliate if you're not into. scrutinizing

the actual findings you'll want to go to their houses and protest at night you want to engage in a very you know they way they only have a gated community going so far away to go private jets not the koch brothers the people that end up taking these resources you want to know their mail we already know as hatchard said the heartland is to people they come on this program and debate with me i mean you know if. they're right out there and either do it the people who are. just don't want anybody to know who they are you progressive's target them and that's precisely to mark them i bring them on tell me how to talk with them you target the people that take a position that's different from yours you did it in the gay marriage argument you're doing it in the climate change argument you consistently do it on t.v. policy people who are people who are out there willing to go on me whether they're coming on my show or sean hannity show it doesn't matter they're out there or by by their own volition i want to know who's in their paycheck and why well and as tom said they should be proud if they feel that this is good science and this is

contributing to an important debate or less than any of our in about what i'm hearing more and more of tonight's big picture rumble right after the break. the worst year for those things. like how super the. radio guy for a minute. because you've never seen anything like this and so. let me let me are going to let me ask you a question. here on this network and this is where we're having the debate we have our knives out. with the truth is this money was spent staying married to get married this is the way we're being i don't mean to

talk about the surveillance we. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't i'm tom harkin welcomes a big picture. automatically

the big picture of all joining me tonight are patrick howie medea benjamin and horace cooper let's get back to it austerity continues to cripple the british economy according to new economic numbers the u.k. economy shrank three tenths of a percent last quarter two thousand and twelve this will be the third time since the conservative government came out of the great britain came out and said you know we're going to cut our way to prosperity it's never been done any time in history anywhere and you know it's it's messing with the u.k. when what are people going to learn the financial times this morning b.b.c. was talking about the one zooms are pointing out it's like the consumes patrick well i mean first of all you said conservative government it's a coalition between the conservatives a little bit we have

a nick clegg is is you know isn't our ally kerry really isn't a little rosier you know austerity is a two headed beast you can't have a sturdy alist you have tax hikes in taxes cripple the economy. we were doing this austerity is all about tax cuts we're going to cut spending and let's not austerity there's no definition of austerity i've ever seen ok so what you have. should have been doing is cutting taxes cutting regulation and cutting spending then you'll be able to see the government gets out of the space in the private sector is based operate they haven't been doing that they've been doing the opposite they've cut some spending but they're also increasing taxes well then why is it that when that doesn't work g.d.p. to debt ratio was at four point nine percent now it's of four point three percent they said they were going to get it down below two percent and happen when you spend a little bit less and tax more. of the private sector the actual opposite that you need to do they are penalizing the very people that they need to be out there

encouraging them to sort of ideas the private sector that drives economy it is. produce most of the jobs so supporting the small business sector is a good idea given corporate welfare is not a great idea and forcing corporations to pay their fair share is a good idea but you also need to invest in you need government investment and we're at a time here in our economy where we saw that some of the investment that was done the first time around the stimulus did help the economy and now we may need more investment just like the british need investment look at our infrastructure look at our crumbling bridges look at the fact that we don't have a decent rail system and look at the fact that back that we don't have a decent manufacturing system in this country we need government investment and i would have to leave that as the last word thank you very much patrick to do it for us thank you for joining us.

on the fortieth anniversary. of roe v wade a wall street journal n.b.c. poll found that seventy percent of our nation supports the supreme court's decision they gave women the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion nonetheless there are millions of americans who think that women even if they've been raped should not have that right tens of thousands of them today made their annual pilgrimage to the nation's capital to march for life this forced pregnancy rally has been held in washington d.c. every year going all the way back to one nine hundred seventy four you can tell they really believe it's an issue of life and death as every poster slogan and every speech is filled with the word life it's called the march for life they've named their moment the pro-life movement taking that name from the mid one nine hundred seventy s. in the mid ninety's or excuse me from the anti death penalty movement that used to

be what we call the right life the right to life movement this country these folks are on a crusade and they have every right to march and to have their voices heard but yet every year the march for life makes a very odd decision they almost exclusively bring the republican party into the fold as allies in their pro-life movement they've given credence to what's called a pro-life caucus in congress that's chaired by a republican who is a self a champion of life and it was none other than speaker of the house john boehner himself the leader of the republican party in congress who kicked off the rally today with a pretty recorder to rid the prerecorded speech. why on earth this movement would make an alliance with a political party that seeped in the blood of numerous anti-life policies defies all logic by bringing republicans into their rally year after year after year they've turned their annual so-called march for life in a march for death here's what john boehner had to say friday afternoon at the rally

. it's up to us to be her voice to commit ourselves to doing all we can to protect the sanctity of life. for the new congress that means bringing together a bipartisan pro-life majority and giving to work. with the will of a pro-life majority this in the same guy who's used his current republican majority in the house to do the bidding of the most notorious purveyors of death in our society including the gun industry big oil the health insurance companies the war profiteers the drug warriors the climate change deniers in the agribusiness believes can we really trust the sanctity of human life to a political party that puts gun sales ahead of the lives of first graders in newtown teenagers in chicago or even their fellow members of congress in tucson is more than ten thousand americans are gunned down every single year in this nation why are so-called pro-life republicans sidling siding up with the n.r.a.

to make it easier to carry weapons of death in schools churches and shopping malls what's pro life about promoting ammo clips of one hundred rounds and it's a party that's pushed hard year after year for more wars in the middle east there's nothing pro-life about military invasions and occupations there's nothing pro-life about blowing up families from forty thousand feet with a drone after years of conflict in afghanistan and iraq thousands of american soldiers are dead millions of iraqi and afghan civilians are dead wounded or displaced and despite encouraging gun violence at home and abroad speaker brainers still has the audacity to say this the march for life really. of course defending alive as much more of than just voting the right way or say the right things it's about promoting a culture of life is not an economic or political commodity and no government owner of the right to treat it as such but

a corporation does so mr speaker it's thanks to pro death republicans in congress that billions of dollars in oil subsidies remain in place for some of the most profitable corporations in the history of the world so they can continue to pump a billion pounds of cancer an asthma causing pollution into our air every single hour and it's largely the pro death republican party it's trying to cripple the e.p.a. which keeps our air and water safe to sustain human life i hate to say it mr speaker but with that when the health of entire communities is sacrifice for the profit of oil corporations then human life has indeed to paraphrase you been reduced to a mere economic commodity and what about the republican party stance on health care in america they've had vote after vote to repeal obamacare which guarantees life saving insurance for millions of americans they want to bring back the corporate

health insurance death panels that get to decide which mother father daughter or son will receive the medical care they desperately needed and which will be turned down just so that the company can meet quarterly profit. as many as forty thousand americans die every year because they lack health insurance and the pro death republican party wants to keep it that way ironically it was republican senator rand paul who addressed the rally with this rhetorical question in our nation long endure the does not protect the sanctity of life. this coming from a guy who believes our nation should not feed the hungry through food stamps should not provide lifelines to the jobless through unemployment benefits should not protect seniors from poverty in old age medicare or social security these programs have saved the lives of countless millions yet the republican party of death wants to destroy rand paul should have asked his rhetorical question about the sanctity of life of his father ron who showed so little regard for life that when he chose

to to run his twenty two thousand and eight presidential campaign he didn't give health insurance to his campaign staff as a result his campaign manager can snyder a raise millions of dollars for ron paul got pneumonia and died in a hospital forty thousand four hundred thousand dollars in debt medical debt that ron paul never picked up the tab for and then nearly four years later ron paul says this at the c.n.n. republican debate 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 it needs intensive care for six months who pays that's what freedom is one of the by taking your own risks this whole idea that you have to carry here. are you saying that society should just let him die. no no ron and rand that is not

what freedom is all about that's what a political party that chooses death over life is all about. this week sister simone campbell one of the nuns on the bus a catholic who does not want to borsch in legalized appeared on m.s.n. b.c. and said this about the so-called pro-life movement. the argument in our nation has really become pro birth when it when you say pro-life the fact is that our church has taught for decades for over a century that pro-life is this broad a ray of everything that supports the sanctity of life and certainly when you look at sandy hook elementary school in the twenty young children that were gunned down that was an anti-life action that we need to and the fact that since sandy hook over nine hundred people have died because of gun violence this is wrong our nation is better than this and a pro-life stance would embrace

a response of approach to gun ownership sister campbell is one of sixty four catholic leaders have signed an open letter to all americans who call themselves pro-life to endorse gun control and she writes the defense of human dignity extends beyond protecting life in the womb. sister simone campbell gets well most of the republican party and some of the democratic party don't get it you can't call yourself pro-life if you at the same time indoors death by way of guns hunger pollution or health care and security can do it only when the so-called pro lifers in the republican party begin to respect not just the wife of a cluster of cells in a woman's womb but also the life of the woman herself in a working class husband's life and her gay or lesbian aunt or uncles lawyer and her child will have to inherit this warming planet slut and her afghan iraqi friend abroad someone. only then. believe genuinely. but

until that day republicans are just the party of death and the pro-life movement who wants to continue using that name and waving that banner should run from the republicans in the other direction. and that's the way it is tonight friday february january twenty fifth two thousand and thirteen for more information on any of the stories we covered visit our website to tom harkin dot com free speech dot org and. if you missed any of the night's show you can watch it in h.d. on hulu at hulu dot com slash the big picture also check out our two you tube channels the links the top part of that also thom hartmann our com check out all the different ways you can send us your feedback and don't forget democracy begins with you get out there and get active take your seat and this young.

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