good speech. good. run i mean very little.

talk about the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour while america's billionaires spend their days living in the lap of luxury millions of hardworking americans are worrying about how they'll survive day to day this is so wrong to give working class americans those who are barely scraping by off the minimum wage a higher wage to help them survive and while it hasn't been in the news much lately the keystone x.l. pipeline project is still very much alive just like this nation's addiction to fossil fuels is the time we moved away from these environment destroying forms of energy and instead invested in the cleaner and greener energy sources that so many other countries are already using. in screwed news new jersey governor chris christie might be very popular right now but he sure is not a friend of working people in the garden state. this week christie vetoed

a bill passed out of the state senate that would have increased that state's minimum wage from seven twenty five an hour to eight fifty an hour currently the federal minimum wage is seven twenty five an hour and has been about rate since two thousand and nine but if it had kept up with inflation starting in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight the minimum wage right now would be over ten dollars and fifty cents an hour let me repeat that if the minimum wage today were to have the same purchasing power it had in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight that it would be well over ten dollars an hour instead of the seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour currently is and all the state in jersey's senate wanted to do is modestly raise that state's minimum wage to eight dollars and fifty cents an hour still well below the ten dollars plus where it needs to be for minimum wage workers to get by but governor christie vetoed it arguing the pain working people in his state more money will hurt the economic recovery in new jersey where the unemployment rate is nine point six percent well above the national unemployment rate but governor

christie is still hypnotized by trickle down economics or the sort of economics that says if you give a bunch you're rich people tax cuts and all that extra money they keep will eventually trickle down on to the rest of us and it will do more than just create a nation of it's after thirty years of trickle down economics we know what really happens here go down economics just makes us a nation of peons of peons working for a minimum wage is lost half its value since the nine hundred sixty s. if christie and the rest of the conservative movement would step out of the bubble and they'd see that giving more money to working people actually does help the economy a new jersey policy perspective analyzed the economic economic impact in new jersey of raising the minimum wage and found it would lead to an economic boom it would mean four hundred thirty nine million more dollars in the hands of working people in that state that would increase economic activity by two hundred seventy eight million dollars in the first year an equivalent of two thousand four hundred twenty new full time jobs would be. created all this from raising the minimum wage for

working people across the state a move that governor chris christie just veto and all around the country want we're watching the breakdown of this free market laissez faire capitalist model that we've been told for thirty years is going to produce great high paying jobs for everyone reaganomics hasn't worked reaganomics has failed and now that it's failed now that high paying jobs are being outsourced and low paying jobs just don't cut it for most americans this is a time to consider government solutions to ensure that everyone has a right to a job and a right to a living wage i think so and frankly i know franklin delano roosevelt thought so too that's why his nineteen forty four state of the union address roosevelt introduced what he called a second bill of rights it was an economic bill of rights that would guarantee every american a right to employment a right to a living wage a right to housing health care education retirement and the right to compete in

a marketplace free from monopoly kerry was back in one nine hundred forty four only in an all out. its second bill of rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity going to be established grown regardless of they were rates free among the. other right to a useful and remunerated job in the industry is well trumped up bombs mines throughout the me right there weren't enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreate the right of every farm a raise and so is the product now to repent which would give families family a decent living the right of every businessman large and small. prayed in an atmosphere of freedom freedom from unfair competition and domination

by monopolies at home or abroad right of every family to have decent home right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to a tree and enjoy good health right to adequate protection from the economic fears of all a sickness accident and unemployment the right to a good education for all of the rights spelled security. unfortunately have died before you could really fight for the second bill of rights but today is working people struggle like they have never struggled before since the time of f.d.r. since the great depression we should be taking a second look at f.d.r.'s second bill of rights in particular the right to a living wage right. to grow by at it with well being and recreate with his veto this week we learned the governor chris christie disagrees with

f.d.r. he disagrees the working americans living in the wealthiest nation on the planet should have a right to a job and a wage at that job that affords them to live at least a reasonable one so why is that why is it that four hundred billionaires in america have the right to own more wealth than one hundred fifty million other americans combined yet working people in new jersey don't have a right to a small increase in their minimum wage which has my next guest you know as very joins me now he's an entrepreneur and host of the truth for america radio show and author of the book conscientious equity you know welcome back. thanks for having me thanks for joining us so what do you think was going through chris christie's mind when he vetoed you know a block and a half for people who were still making less than they would have made in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight at minimum wage jobs. well first i think f.d.r. would also support a right to work and be free from oppressive unions but governor christie he's got it right i mean our entrepreneurs are our job creators are risk takers they're

taking over the nose with this obama economy where tommy it never ceases to amaze me how progressives are so competent of spending other people's money neal the job creators alone are the people who saw all this money for these taxes and for this health care obamacare health rates going up twenty percent regulation costing our economy a trillion dollars a year let's start getting rid of some of these burdens so we can raise the minimum wage can't just do one nice nice you know other nice screed neal but if you go back to the one nine hundred thirty five and you. look at every time the minimum wage has been increased from one hundred thirty five it was first put into law until today every time the minimum wage has gone up if you if you look at two in three year increments it takes a year or so for these kind of things to work their way through the economy first of all you don't see any drops it's not like i'm same two or three years because the first first year falls apart it doesn't but over two or three year period what you see is what in the setup where i was talking about to the over two thousand new

jobs would be created in your city because the real job creators are people like you and they have been in their pockets and they buy things two thousand jobs would be lost to new jersey because they would be going to florida or texas or south carolina look at the financial industry just said they're leaving new york and going to florida which is a right to work no tax state look at what's happened to manufacturing in places like michigan in the lloyd it's going to texas so carolina tennessee going to christie's got it right he doesn't want to lose jobs i don't see how you can neal i lived in oregon is going to increase jobs i lived in oregon i went to the south they're going to asia i lived in oregon when they raised their minimum wage by almost two dollars you know what happened it became more prosperous the prosperity is not only under the reagan administration you know and he was there and he let him in there should business people know what happened was people said you know we had more people who had more money in their pockets they were buying more things there were more people they could afford to go out for dinner there were more to be the waiters were making more money to restaurants are making what they also raise

the minimum wage for waiters from two dollars and twenty five cents to eight dollars and fifty cents i mean now it's a major change and where they were the result of that prosperity. tom god knows that i want people to have a better life but you do that by creating prosperity by having a group really interested me just your billionaire isn't in your last segment you said that the economy is shrinking well that's right it's because of the obama policies that shrinking is because business is cannot afford to do business under the obama policies health care taxes regulations no winner gee actually one of the one of the things that causes this or in it in the report that was it as i said budget office receipts jobs one of the that one of the reasons why the g.d.p. shrank was because the cost of health care went down because of obamacare because of the fish and it's because obamacare because the cost of health care went down i just going through a renewal process for three hundred employees and my health provider says get ready

for a twenty percent increase in debt because it would arrive at your privations company is going to scream and yell no no no no it's because i'm becoming compliant a stephen house and he's got to make his billion dollars and my people these people who are struggling and working so hard they're going to have lists benefits for more cause tom is that fair is that right no it's not and that's why i think we should have a national single payer health care system i think it's insane that we pay about twice as much as every other developments in the world that really we have again and we have a lower average length of life and lower quality of life but but that has nothing to do with the minimum wage the minimum wage going up i'm not talking about the raising of the daily existence i'm not talking about raising wages on people who are making seventy thousand ninety thousand dollars a year i'm not talking about rate you know raising wages on billionaires god knows they've done really really well their wages are gone up two hundred seventy five percent since reagan came into office average working people their wages have gone up the last actually if you include since the bush recession their wages have gone down since reagan became president so you know why don't the throw

a bone to the dog why not say to the working people who are trying to make it on the minimum wage we're going to take your minimum wage back to where it was in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight the economy was doing fine and so. you know tom tom already america has the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized nonsense we just recently surpassed japan when i'm not in a really not interested scale action creators in our entrepreneurs and say hey look our job really is a minimum wage worker kidding you are going to our job we're going to raise how the minimum wage workers and our job creators are to a minimum wage workers i would be the first one to say if you were to take cost out of doing business i would love to pay my employees more i would love to provide more benefits but as i said to begin this i did it that progressives are so good at spinning other people's money i just don't have the money to pay for this tom ok.

just to wrap this up but i want to say for the record that i think you and i are both entrepreneurs that if somebody can do business in a way that at least allows their workers to have a decent life it's got a broken business model and i i'm guessing you would you would agree with me on that i would agree tom but it's just how we get there we all want to get to this how we get away for a week and there is over and we will live to debate that another time neal thanks a lot tom i look forward to it thank you. coming up all across the globe nations are turning to clean sources of energy like the wind turbines off the coast of the u.k. are the solar panels across the german countryside but you don't see so much of that here in the u.s. what can you do to make america a nation of cleaning green energy sources so you and i still eat. there.

the first baby steps are joy. folds and bones are not a big deal. but they can cause terrible trauma. for children can be broken by bare touch. and only the will of life can make old pains and sores weigh. fragile people on r.t. . going to take three. three. three. three. three.

four year media project free media. dot com. and welcome back now a quick update to our republicans are trying to rig future elections news turns out republican efforts to change how electoral college votes are counted in several blue states to benefit republicans have hit at least a temporary wall at one point it looked like republicans in pennsylvania ohio wisconsin virginia and michigan would all pursue this change immediately but now prominent republicans are backing off at least for the moment they have for years do this after all a spokesperson for awhile governor case it said they will not change the electoral college in ohio virginia governor bob mcdonnell also came out opposed to the legislation and on tuesday the virginia state senate privileges and elections committee voted down a bill which would have changed how that state awards its electoral college votes

all democrats on the committee voted against the bill as did four of eight republicans officially putting an end for the moment to the election rigging effort in that state meanwhile in michigan republicans were considering a similar vote rigging election rigging scheme governor rick snyder slammed the idea saying he doesn't think it's the appropriate time to look at. next summer he also said i'm very skeptical of the idea i really view it as a question of you don't want to change the playing field so it's an unfair advantage to someone then again it's not it was the same governor who said he wasn't interested in passing right to work for less legislation in michigan last year and then within a month or so turned right around and passed the right to work for us law anyway. but at least for now it appears the republican election rigging effort is on the whole so now is the time for progressives to get active and push for a national popular vote to make sure republicans can't get away with these antics

in the future go to national popular vote dot com to get involved. just. the. it's the good the bad in the very very potent tory asli ugly good patrice sufi seppi a south african mining billionaire announced earlier today that he will be giving half of his fortune including future earnings to charity worth around two point seven billion dollars what's up he said that he wanted to join the giving pledge which encourages the world's wealthiest to give at least half of their wealth to charity speaking about his donation most said he said that the money will be used to help the large portion of quote poor and disadvantaged and marginalised south africans. over half self-evidence lived before world poverty we can only hope that

america's billionaires decide to stand alongside missed one and donate some of their vast fortunes to help the entire nation and especially those americans who struggle to survive. the bad tenor of tennessee's state senator stacey campfield a republican has a proposed bill in the tennessee state senate that would tie a family's welfare benefits to their children's academic success campfield believes that by threatening to take away a family's welfare benefits children who perform poorly in school may perform better because their parents will be more more motivated to see them succeed. campfield doesn't realize is that children from families who receive welfare benefits who perform poorly in school are doing so most likely because of their. family situation the stress of having to worry about their family surviving day to day affects their academic performance so in reality taking away welfare benefits or poor academic performance will only make the problem worse not better. and the

very very ugly united states conference of catholic bishops a group of catholic bishops is submitted to briefs to the u.s. supreme court in the two marriage equality cases that are currently before that court in both of the briefs the group argues that the court should rule in favor of l.g.b. discrimination because the community doesn't deserve any legal protection since the only thing that defines them is their bollen terry actions the brief goes on to state that quote indeed with this distinction in mind this court has recognized that a finding of a suspect or quasi suspect class for equal protection purposes is simply inappropriate and the distinguishing characteristic is a proper product of voluntary action. it's been proven time after time that being homosexual is not a choice a person doesn't just wake up one day and decide to be gay and yet the conference of catholic bishops argues that the l.g.b.

di community should be denied rights because of this faulty logic and that he's here. right now way down in texas a foreign corporation trans canada is using our government's fifth amendment right of eminent domain to confiscate private land belonging to americans to build a massive oil pipeline so trans canada can ship oil from the you know from canada down to the gulf of mexico and then ship it from the gulf of mexico to non americans all around the world. oil by the way that's going to accelerate our planet's plunge into global warming induced catastrophe so the question is

why last year president obama approved the southern leg of the keystone x.l. pipeline which will transport deadly canadian tar sands oil from oklahoma down to the gulf of mexico. where it's going to be refined and then promptly placed on oil barges to be sold in south america europe asia. and mexico they get the oil we get the poison coming out of the refinery smokestacks. odds are little oil from the keystone x.l. pipeline is actually going to make it into american markets according to trans canada itself this product will not reduce the price of gas the united states according to trans canada itself this project project will actually increase gas prices in the american midwest it will not reduce our dependence on foreign oil. it will create only a few thousand temporary jobs and

a few hundred permanent jobs and it's going to put our land and underground aquifers at risk of oil contamination while presenting to terrorists and we're all supposed to be afraid of terrorists sweet little thousand mile long target that they can take out with just a little bit of dynamite. and rodents flowing climate change this pipeline will take us over the tipping point. environmentalist like bill mckibben call it a ticking time bomb for the environment. and nasa scientists james hansen one of the most respected scientists on earth and one of the leading experts on the planet on global climate change calls completion of the pipeline quote game over for the planet and quote actually the plan will be just fine it's game over for us. so again why is construction of this pipeline allowed to continue. why would

a foreign corporation push so hard that people like seventy eight year old great grandmother eleanor fairchild an actress daryl hannah were arrested last october for trespassing on their on her own property as she tried to stop trans canada's bulldozers from repeat a hole through her three hundred acre ranch. why is the state of texas allowing a foreign corporation. to seize privately owned texans land through eminent domain to build an oil pipeline when in two thousand the state transfer to predation department for bid the use of eminent domain to build new one roads across texas. and why is it that we've allowed this foreign corporation trans canada to launch numerous slapp suits these are basically nuisance suits against peaceful activists and property owners threatening them with losing their homes and life savings if

they continue protesting further construction of the pipeline. and most importantly why residing on a rapidly warming planet why are we doubling down on nine hundred centuries dirty energy sources like fossil fuels when we should be focusing on twenty first century clean energy sources like solar and wind i mean consider this last week in chattanooga looks like a river right now as we can chattanooga tennessee a massive solar for us power facility comprising over thirty three thousand six hundred individual solar modules capable of producing thirteen point one gigawatt hours of electricity every year which just turned on. this big enough to power twelve hundred homes but instead it's going to use to power a volkswagen manufacturing plant they paid for it and put it there it's the biggest solar installation ever built in the state of tennessee the solar farm was built by

an american company so economy ranch no canadian tar oils sands necessary. so instead of letting foreign companies build terrorist target oil pipelines across our entire country. shouldn't we be supporting homegrown country companies that can make america the worldwide leader in renewable energy. another for example did you know that the united states just passed germany as the number two country in the world when it comes to producing wind power. did you know that the largest wind farm in the world the all to wind energy center is located right here in the united states in kern county california. but apartment of energy estimates that twenty percent of our national energy could be produced by wind come twenty thirty. but that's only if our government embraces wind power with the same enthusiasm that we're embracing can it is our sands oil. this is

a no brainer and it's what the rest of the world is doing to. the world is rushing toward clean energy from the one point three million solar systems currently on line in germany a rooftops a cross the country producing twenty eight billion kilo outs of energy annually. so the london a re offshore wind farm the largest of its kind producing six hundred and thirty kilowatts of electricity enough to power more than four hundred seventy thousand homes just windmills off the coast of england so given all this tell me again why we're building the keystone x.l. pipeline. why with all this potential for clean and renewable energy and the technology is there we're not talking about the future it's here now why are we arresting americans for trespassing on their own property. it sure looks like it's

just so a foreign corporation can get rid of their toxic oil and a handful of billionaires in texas can make big profits refining and exporting. our clean energy sex success stories seem to be hidden from the news media they never talk about it in our lawmakers or just didn't seem to the tune of big oil turning our nation into a place where foreign corporations like trans canada can do the dirty work of fossil fuel refining are far away from their own populations the president spoke about climate change in second inaugural but we'll have a chance to do something more than give a good speech come march when the rest of the keystone x.l. pipeline is set to be approved so let's keep the pressure on our lawmakers and on our news media all around the world and right here at home we see the potential for clean energy use on a massive scale we have twenty first century century energy solutions that work now today we don't need another nineteenth century oil pipeline and that's the way it

is the night wednesday january thirtieth two thousand and twelve and don't forget democracy begins with you your statement. illo.

little. legs. live. with. it.