it's one person one fold in brussels business it's one euro one folks. mission. critical three. years. arrangement three. three. three. three brokers closing video for your media projects free media. tom. what about the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour legislators in vermont are standing up for organized labor elsewhere across america republicans are continuing their efforts to break apart unions at a movement to protect organized labor beyond the horizon nationwide also the

department of energy is supposed to be protecting you and me from america's vast stockpiles of as a deadly nuclear waste so why are they thinking about letting radioactive material from nuclear weapons and waste sites be recycled into consumer goods and if you watch meet the press this weekend you heard david gregory talk about the crumbling state of the u.s. postal service but like virtually all the rest of the media in america he left out one pretty big detail about the post office its demise so you wonder is it that i'd still take. the most of the rest of the news it's been a rough few years for working people see the labor strongholds like michigan and indiana as right to work for less laws republicans of missouri and pennsylvania are considered. and similar laws meanwhile republicans in congress are taking it

a step further senator rand paul introduced a national right to work for less law this week and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell threw his support behind it it's well known the right to work for less laws screw workers typical worker and a right to work for less state earns about fifteen hundred dollars a year less along with fewer benefits and more workplace accidents and more workplace deaths but now there's some good news that's coming from the state of vermont which is setting the opposite example with the introduction of the fair share bill think of it as kryptonite for right to work for less laws joining me now to explain more about this bill is and how it benefits organized labor is the bill's sponsor state senator philip ruth author of the book the acts president senator breaux thwacking to the program. good to be with you tom it's been a long time a good listener to you both thank you it's great to you're great to meet you good to see you to begin with what is your bill do. this was

a bill that was designed to bring all the communities in the state under the same regime which is to say. everyone who receives benefits from collective bargaining would pay a sheer of the costs to do the bargaining the way we had it for the last fifty years was that some groups were grandfathered enjoy the benefits without paying any of the costs and then other groups had a bigger share of proposal in their collective bargaining agreements other groups didn't so this was designed to level the playing field for everyone and to make sure that there was equity in all the corners of the state is that when you say grandfather do you mean preen one hundred thirty five wagner act national labor relations act or are you talking about a time when there was a certain category of civil servants who were simply treated differently under the law sorry that was sure and. in one thousand ninety seven ninety ninety eight

the state made the figure sure were agency fee a subject of collective bargaining at that time the state employees. who are not part of the union were grandfathered out and so for the last fifteen years the category of employees has enjoyed the benefits without the costs so the idea was to not only bring everybody. who hadn't bargained for a fair share in but to also include these grandfathered state employees so this is especially the the polar opposite of right to work for less laws which say essentially that the union has to represent you bargains on your behalf and you get do you get all the benefits of what the union does and yet you can tell the union that you'd rather not pay for the cost of that in fact you can you can force the union to represent you but you don't have to pay i mean the way that that's all right to work for less works and of course it devastates unions it would be like if

we were to pass a national law that said that anybody can use any private golf club without you know a country club without having to pay any kind of membership fees or even usage fees frankly pretty soon you see country clubs going out of business which might not be such a bad thing but. an imperfect metaphor i understand that it is so you're basically bringing everybody in into the club has ever exactly in to go along with it which is the state employees circulated in a kind of mock at that so i called the chamber of commerce and told them that i wanted the benefits of they were going to zation but i didn't want to put pay the dues and they hung up on me. and essentially no other professional organization would accept the situation that the unions have been forced to accept for at least the last fifteen years so we just figured it was time to. do it was

right it so happens that it's occurring in the same moment that wisconsin another with midwestern states are moving in completely opposite direction i actually think that helped us because vermont some of the politicians in vermont wanted to define themselves against that tradition that trend. do you think that if rand paul and mitch mcconnell and and the republicans in the senate along with their colleagues in the house who actually control the house who not only are opposed to card check but probably in favor of this national right to work for less law i think if that were to happen that that would put firm on and your proposed legislation passes without modern opposition of federal law on what might be the result of that. you know it's hard to say with divided government at the federal level i don't worry all that much about them getting together to affect us either for good or for ill. so you know there are

a lot of things that i would like to happen but they can't make it through the house of representatives similarly i can't see them managing to pass legislation that would take away this new fierce you're right that the unions have one thing i want to put it put out there though is in contrast to the national split between republicans and democrats on this issue this was a bipartisan effort the economic development committee which i'm the vice chair but to cheer as a republican from rutland which is the conservative end of our state and we had two votes on that committee from republicans and those people stuck with us on the floor so we do have a large democratic majority but we were able to get buy in from republicans who at least in new england do believe in collective bargaining and thought that there was a certain amount of common sense to this so these are we have a about a half a minute these are kind of the the left over jim jeffords republicans before he

left the party absolutely and they are they are few and far between nationally but there is a tradition here in vermont and you know partisanship is not at a real poisonous level in the state house here we work on many things we work together and i think mitch mcconnell would do well to take a look at it as a model for. although i frankly doubt that he's going to do that. vices and your suggestions great state senator philip berg thank you so much for being with us tonight thank you tom i love your program and thanks for the put together this legislation get roland's absolutely great sure. moving inside. now from vermont down dark and saw here's a tip don't be late on your rent if you live in arkansas because if you are well known you could wind up behind bars according to a new report from human rights watch landlords and corrupt public officials abused

in arkansas a failure of vacated law to bring charges against more than twelve hundred tenants in two thousand and twelve alone almost states handle late payments and evictions of civil matters arkansas' new use of the failure to vacate law could put you in jail for being as little as ten days behind on your rent one woman interviewed by human rights watch said she was only three days behind when her order landlord order to move out and threaten to have her arrested as was clearly a revival of debtors prisons in america something that we outlawed in this country in one nine hundred thirty three thanks to the republican great recession more americans than ever are finding themselves struggling they are behind on bills behind in their mortgages and rather than providing help for these hard working americans republicans want to throw them in debtors prison why well because the private prison industry gives the republicans big bucks there write laws that lead to more people going to jail which then means more profits for private prisons this

is predatory capitalism at work in america folks. just. it's the good the bad in the very very dips of tisha slee ugly the good the american people nearly twenty six thousand people have signed a petition on the white house's we the people page to fire assistant u.s. attorney steve. heyman was the lead attorney in the prosecution of internet pioneer aaron warts tragically took his own life last month. been accused of. gross prosecute prosecutorial overreach and trying to turn schwartz this case into a career booster if convicted schwartz was looking at serving more time in jail and some drug dealers burglars and even murderers but this problem is bigger than just

american justice system is broken and needs to be fixed and spoke with aaron didn't die in vain and that his death will be a catalyst for change that is desperately needed in our judicial system. about senator lindsey graham on c.b.s. this face the nation yesterday the republican senator threaten to place a hold of the national security nominations of chuck hagel and john brennan until president obama explains how the white house reacted to the benghazi attacks there are a lot. i'm not sure i understand what do you plan to do if they don't give you an answer are you going to put a hold on these time i am in a yes yes yes i'm going to ask my colleagues just like they did with john bolton joe biden said no confirmation without information. but john bolton was crazy so anyhow rather put in place leaders that can help america prepare for the possibility of future terrorist attacks graham would rather continue to do well and

been ghazi. that's what they say about beating a dead horse and the very very ugly who else but the n.r.a. speaking at the n.r.a. is wisconsin state convention this weekend bob welch a lobbyist for that organization said that the n.r.a. will wait until the quote connecticut effect has subsided to continue to push to block any and all reforms of gun control went on to say that quote we have a strong agenda coming up for next year but of course a lot of that's going to be the laid as the connecticut effect has to go through the process. just goes to show how deluded the n.r.a. is a view that tragedy in connecticut as a national turning point in our disco. over gun control it simply is something like the common cold which. eventually goes away. i don't think it's going to be the case and now is the time to act on gun control because if we don't yet ari will

continue spending millions of dollars to keep guns on our streets threatening the lives of americans everywhere raising the profits of the gun industry and that is very very quickly. coming up it's time for the mainstream media to wake up and start telling the truth to the american people about the demise of the u.s. postal service i'll help them do that inside story to.

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being you know is wrong. department of energy is tasked with among other things keeping america safe from our nation's vast stockpile of nuclear waste the deal is supposed to make sure that american citizens are never knowingly put in contact or online for them as radioactive materials and nuclear waste and apparently the deal he is not doing its job because radioactive materials could soon be coming to consumer goods near you so if you think the federal government is doing everything it can to keep you safe from radioactive materials and everything you know is wrong joining me now is current sharman independent investigative environmental journalist and author of the article radioactive metal from nuclear weapons facilities may end up in your shopping bag and who what why dot com care and welcome. thank you it's great to be here thanks for joining us what is going on here that we might have radioactive waste in your belt buckle. yeah well i

think that it's important to view this in a larger context and that is that the entire history of the atomic age really is one that unfortunately. is defined by a real lack of care and concern about radioactivity and i'll give you just two quick examples back when the u.s. government was still doing above ground atomic bomb testing they actually sent soldiers in who were stationed. about seven miles or so away from the bomb blast they sent them into ground zero without any protection whatsoever thirty minutes after the blast and then afterwards when these soldiers got sick they denied that there was any connection between the radiation exposure and the insane crazy illnesses that they developed and many of these soldiers died never seeing

any compensation whatsoever on the second example is three mile island which was much worse than was ever publicly disclosed and to this day people are told that no one was injured as a result of that t.m.i. accident because not enough radiation was released when in fact thousands were sick and joined a class action lawsuit against the government that went nowhere so i think that you have to view this latest proposal in the larger context of the entire tommy game. do you think that there is i mean the perhaps just a sense of of fatalism or defeatism that's driving this we've got so much radioactive waste that has been dumped in the pacific ocean from fukushima now it seems that you know virtually all the fish coming in off the west coast if not now soon will be you know of containing. some amounts of radioactive cesium and other

elements you know hey it's in our fish it used to be in our milk from the above ground tommy the fifty's you know put a little in our in our metal what the hell. where i think i don't know i mean. radiation is dangerous and it's not meant to be you know where it destroys the chemical barns in our cells and it can break up d.n.a. so is this isn't do you think that this is the consequence of you know any i mean is there even an appearance of sound medical and or scientific oversight on this or is this you know is this an example of agency capture of an in an industry that's corrupted a regulatory agency. and. the whole of debate about radiation i find really interesting and very very much too narrow that goes on and

basically any scientist who has raised red flags about it. they get shot down they get vilified you know terribly so and certainly the nuclear industry slash government because after all the even the nuclear power industry has created. pretty much from the government from the whole weapons proposal it was meant to be. you know the public face the peaceful face of the dark side of the atomic weapons and so it's kind of. i don't know i think it's like a whole sort of thing on its own in terms of. the level of privilege that sort of care and care were our job well so thank you very much for joining us tonight thanks for a great article. thank you. last

week the u.s. post office announced it's ending saturday delivery of mail in an effort to save two billion dollars a year since then our news media has completely botched the story and given coverage to a republican party and its corporate donors for years they've been trying to destroy the us post office it's the largest unionized employer in the nation and now they're going to make it happen it looks like but almost nobody is reporting on that aspect of it that wal-mart is the largest employer the second largest player is the post office only one of those two has a union one of the most egregious examples of this media malpractise occurred on sundays meet the press when david gregory reported on the post offices cut back by saying this. for many the decision to cut back to five days carries more symbolic

consequences than practical in this information age of emails tweets and text messages what we affectionately call snail mail seems somewhat impractical but the bigger question is this is the current model sustainable even with the most recent change well put out once of the report to gregory bring up the real reason why the post office disparaging cash and is now taking drastic measures to find savings post office was described as just the latest victim of the digital age rather than what it really is the latest victim of the conservative war on unions rewind back to two thousand and six things were going well for the post office they were making money they were even seriously considering replacing a large part of their fleet the largest fleet of vehicles in the nation with electric cars it would have been a huge boost for the electric car and a huge slap in the face of oil barons like the koch brothers the post office had to be stopped and republican congressman john mchugh was the man to do it had been a member of the koch funded american law. just light of exchange counselor alec who

was deeply in the pocket of right wing interests in two thousand and six he succeeded in proposing and then watching pass the postal accountability and enhancement act it was passed by a voice vote in a republican congress and signed by republican president george w. bush what that law did was ram a poison pill down the throat of the post office it required the u.s.p.s. to prefund its retirees health benefits fund for more than seven decades out into the future and to do well at pretty funny within just ten years with this law congress force the post post office to set aside money for the health benefits of people seventy five years of future retirees who are not yet even born it's an obligation that no other private business or government agency has ever had to comply with before and it cost post office five billion dollars a year so the news media thinks ending saturday delivery to save two billion

dollars a year is worth reporting on but a congressional requirement that sucks five billion a year out of the post office doesn't even receive a mention the post office was regularly running surpluses prior to this poison pill legislation. but every year since post office has lost more and more money to that retirement fund for people seventy five years from now so they're now ending saturday delivery looking to close offices around the nation and will likely layoff tens of thousands of unionized workers are the big winners in all this of the private mail carriers like fed ex and u.p.s. who eventually won't have to compete with the post office and their ability to send a letter from florida to alaska for less than fifty cents or the post office is ability to offer saturday service at no extra cost they're going have to compete with that either private mail carriers charge between fifty and one hundred times more than the u.s. postal service when it comes to paper mail delivery the passage of the postal

accountability and asked me to act in two thousand and six was the culmination of a relentless effort carried out by conservative koch funded think tanks like the american legislative exchange council alec cato institute the national taxpayers union that has spent years writing papers and lobbying congress to privatizing the post office a common misperception is that the post office is a governmental agency funded by taxpayer dollars it's simply not true in fact the photo post office has been largely self-sufficient since the one nine hundred eighty s. and only recently has been forced to appeal to congress for help since a swallowed that republican poison pill in two thousand and six. but the post office does have to fulfill a requirement to by the government to provide universal service postal service it also has given a monopoly over most paper be able to livery conservatives hate that government getting something right for over two hundred forty years let something go call in the c.e.o.'s so we the consumers are going to get screwed when the price of mail

will rise dramatically without a post office but hey it's going to make a bunch of stockholders and c.e.o.'s it for profit corporations like fed ex and u.p.s. really really rich and perhaps most importantly by breaking up the post office and its athletes millions strong unionized workforce conservatives have once again neutered organized labor in america and star the democratic party of a primary fundraising base curiously alec which writes corporate friendly legislation and relies on the membership of republican lawmakers around the nation to pass this legislation at a model build known as the unfunded pensions liability act which calls on state governments to account for exactly how they plan to fund future retiree benefits the law passed by republicans in two thousand and six that has crippled the post office today uses the same principle and then takes it

a step further to require the post office to pre-fund those retiree benefits seventy five years out into the future now as billions are being siphoned out of the post office every year they can't reinvest they can't update their their equipment most of us can't even compete with the private marketplace in the first two years since the two thousand and six law kicked in messrs and fed ex enjoyed a twenty five percent increase in the value of their company so this plan to kill the post office has so far been executed flawlessly by the republican party and their corporate overlords but even they couldn't have expected all the help they've received in the years since then from a mainstream corporate media that fails over and over again to report on what's really happening with the post office whether it's lazy reporting. were an effort to give cover to the corporatists the news media is assisting in the demise of the post office and institutions started by ben franklin it's older than the united

states itself. so that leaves it up to we the people to tell the real story of what's happening in the digital age isn't killing the post office instead the demise of the post office and other good old fashioned story of corporate corruption of politicians and a republican party that exists first and foremost to serve the c.e.o. class and screw the middle class and that's the way it is that i have monday at your eleventh two thousand and thirteen don't forget democracy begins you get out there get active occupy yourself with your it sibyl. it's.

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