hey guys i'm having martin welcome to breaking the set we're living in a time where investigative journalism is on earth time and now lawmakers on the hill are debating a serious question what defines a journalist after the d.o.j. was caught scandalously hacking a few phone records to uncover their sources congress has been working on a media shield law oh protect journalists from being forced to reveal their sources and testify under oath while some senators argue that this coveted title belongs only to someone who is employed by a giant corporate conglomerate others are trying to ensure that bloggers freelancers and basically anyone who provides news and be afforded the same protection under the legislation a compromise that push the bill out of committee define the term as someone who has

a strong relationship with a media outlet within the past twenty years sound vague about the problem the bill is totally open to interpretation and under this compromise important organizations like wiki leaks are left out which means their sources are still fair game for prosecution by the d.o.j. so if you think this media shield law needs to be revised to protect all journalists for the sake of transparency and join me and let's break the set. the please please please. please very hard to take the turtle to get a little. better. with that right there those.

little. little little. little. little. little sleepy. little. unlike most modern democracies across the world here in the u.s. americans are only ruled by two parties and these days those two parties are nearly identical especially when it comes to u.s. foreign policy considering that we're given a choice of war or more war one man has had enough of this vicious cycle and found it is own third party in two thousand and twelve called the justice party his name is rocky anderson and he's the former mayor of salt lake city since serving as mayor he's been very vocal about the degradation of the rule of law and the privacy of all americans he joins me now to talk about how we got here and how we can finally break out of a two party dictatorship thank you so much for joining me rocky great to be with

you having thank you for addressing this of clear to me is the most important issue that we could be discussing it and neither of these major parties or any of their so-called leaders are even mentioning these core issues that really determine whether we still have a constitutional republic absolutely and i want to play a clip from george w. bush in two thousand and four and. it requires a wiretap requires a call. order. nothing has changed by the way when we're talking about chasing down terrorists we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. it's important for our fellow citizens to understand when you think patriot act constitutional guarantees are in place so there is saying that of course a wiretap requires a court or it isn't two thousand and four and then we have the wall street journal article that just came out last month that stated that in the six months surrounding the two thousand and twelve winter olympics in salt lake city the f.b.i. and n.s.a.

teamed up with qwest communications to warrant leslie wiretap all in e-mail and text communications coming in and out of salt lake city this occurred during your first term as mayor rocky did you have any idea this was going on and what was your reaction to this story no if i had had any idea all hell would have broken loose this was in two thousand and one to two thousand and two the olympics were in february of two thousand and two president bush's statement that you just played by the way he ended that statement by saying we get a warrant in every instance because it's required by the constitution and we value the constitution well it's also required under the foreign intelligence surveillance act that makes every single instance of this kind of surveillance a federal felony so if there is any semblance of the rule of law in this country everyone participating in that surveillance would be prosecuted but i must say the indifference has been stupefied we have our governor who's saying he'll he'll cut

the n.s.a. some slack after all this was the months after nine eleven a former senator senator bennett says well i'm not surprised if they weren't doing it i would be surprised and yet he was in congress congress to pass the foreign intelligence surveillance act making these very acts a felony and he wasn't out there pushing to change the law so that means that there are certain people in our government. who are just above the law they can commit these federal felonies without any ramifications and consider the savvy this was the largest that we know of the largest surveillance of the most people indiscriminately united states citizens and they were grabbing the contents of every one of our text messages and e-mails that means this is a very different country this is like it's a man living under the k.g.b.

except the k.g.b. didn't have the kind of technology you have it's so disturbing that this kind of all encompassing surveillance was going on unbeknownst to even the city's mayor yourself rocking back ben i want to get into obama considering how he ran his two thousand and eight campaign as the transparency of president are you surprised at all by how he's exponentially and expanded bush's covert surveillance state. i'm not really because i didn't expect any better of the man i thought the whole truth and change was nothing but a big p.r. ploy but i know a lot of people did have hope for real change and you know i hope that i was wrong and that we would see some major changes but instead we see an even worse situation we have a president who oversees the most secretive punitive government punitive in terms of those the those heroes who put everything in their lives on the line so

that we the american citizens can know what our government's doing i'm talking about people like edward snowden and manning chelsea manning they knew what they would be facing very likely and yet they stepped up like daniel ellsberg did when he disclosed the pentagon papers so many years ago these are the people's heroes these are democracies heroes and this president has no regard for the rule of law for the democratic system or the very core of our constitutional republic and what makes it all worse we expect there's a system of checks and balances so if there is illegal conduct if there are constitutional violations we can go to the courts where the courts have been taken out of the equation now as providing a check on abuses of executive power because the very perpetrator the executive branch goes into the courts and gets all of these cases where they're challenging torture where they're challenging hayle legal surveillance they get the case is

dismissed on the basis of the the subversive steroids the use stoking about abuses of power during the bush administration actually called for bush's and because of that very thing when you call for obama isn't as well based on the same pretense. i would i think that his abuses of power his disregard for the rule of law his saying as as any tyrant would say that the rule the laws are only going to apply it to certain people and then this latest claim that he one person like george like any tyrant gets to decide when he's going to commit our nation's military to attack another nation that is an impeachable offense and it started off with harry truman and korea and all these presidents since them that have engaged us in war without congressional authorization have committed the same kinds of offenses james madison said and no part of our constitution is there more wisdom than in that

clause that leaves the question of war or peace to the legislature and not to the executive depart speaking of tried as an executive overhaul that obama's taken in a serious situation i want to move on and that interestingly enough even though he's said that he's waiting for congressional approval his own counsel has said that he doesn't need it and he said that a go it alone strike is actually lawful under both international and domestic law rockey what laws are they talking about here you know i really have to wonder if john you is writing their memos for them still from the bush administration a man that made the law as you want a law that said that the president wasn't bound by the law because he was head of the so-called unitary executive branch which theory has been completely demolished by the supreme court except for justice scalia still believes or not but the president does not have the unilateral tyrannical power to commit our military to

hostilities the founders made clear it's clear under our constitution the commander in chief clause simply says and alexander hamilton who believed in a strong executive branch made it clear in federalist sixty nine he. no the president is compared with king george is only the first general or admiral he doesn't decide whether we're going to go to war but of congress makes a decision then the military is in civilian hands and the president is the commander in chief and it what it does be a violation of law it's also a violation of the foundation of our democracy rocking considering how barely a third of americans support the strike i mean why do you think obama's own intent on intervening in another country's civil war. but because i think he's trying to take a stand as to syria finally after one hundred thousand people have died in this conflict and he's done absolutely nothing and he knows that he's being charged that

by about be standing by passively in the face of all this there hasn't been any real aggressive effort to bring about peace in that region and then he slipped and made that comment about the red line being the use of chemical weapons i wish the red line have been drawn for the united states from we're using white phosphorous in full lucia in iraq when we use depleted uranium when we're bombing these other countries trying to have our way with them to dominate militarily and economically good so i just think the people of this country forget your political partisanship forget your party affiliation let's all join hands and let these people know we want to restoration of the rule of law we want to get back to our constitutional fundamentals and reject this concentration very dangerous concentration of power in the executive branch to draw our eye on that in line rocky our own red line we have

about a minute out of. your perspective how can we get legitimate representation from third party voices in this country you know i've used that exact line abby because i think that makes the point so clearly we each need to drop our line and we need to say if you supported the war in iraq which both of the secretaries of state under president obama did and by the way they did it without ever walking down to the secured room in the capitol read the national intelligence estimate which would have informed the them that there was massive disagreement in the intelligence community about the claims being made by president bush about weapons of mass destruction there were six united states senators that ever bothered to read those documents before cat. sting the vote as to whether to give president bush a blank check to make war and neither hillary clinton nor john kerry were among those to even make that offer well thankfully your are out there rocking you're the

voice of the people you're providing not alternatives thank you so much rocky anderson justice party founder awesome to have you on it's great to be with you thank you still ahead these are vanishing and it affects you will find out what's causing these and die off and what we can do to stop it. please. over. did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy shred albus. rule. in

fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and across several we've been hijacked right handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once built up i'm job market and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world if we go beyond identifying the problem try rational debate and a real discussion that critical issues facing and that if i ever feel ready to join the movement then welcome to the big picture.

if you've been watching the corporate media over the last month you probably think syria is the only country in the world or at least the only one when it should be paying attention to. us navy destroyers now in the mediterranean could be used to carry out limited military strikes cruise missile strikes designed to deter or prevent another chemical attack by the assad regime former defense secretary donald rumsfeld he says it's better to do nothing if you're not going to do something consequential you get assad on t.v. you expect this kind of mustache twisting villain you know it's like a very homely muppet you know kind of very nice guy and then he makes you all these

horrible threats a master manipulator trying to scare the american people this is why obama wants to do something this whole thing was set up by putin to make obama look like a monkey that he what a shocker and coulter saying something just controversial enough to make the rest of the conversation completely irrelevant but you know this really speaks to how the corporate press has been covering the syria crisis so there's a regurgitation of government talking points or using syria's civil war as filler still avoid having to talk about the many other important issues happening in the u.s. that actually affect our lives i'll start with what congress has been quietly trying to push through all all eyes have been on syria provision on the latest spending bill that will extend the so-called months and the protection act which is. to expire and i guess you don't remember the shady piece of legislation was quietly snuck into the latest farm bill with a majority and congress having absolutely no idea keep in mind that the very purpose of this earmark was to absolve monsanto of any accountability whatsoever

against legal actions made against the company as if that isn't ridiculous enough now lawmakers are trying to push for an extension of the monsanto protection act even though it was never voted on to begin with if an extension is granted it will solidify the notion that g.m.o. products monsanto produces are lawsuit proof as far as monsanto goes well it would if fish really put the company above the law so what else is the media dropping the ball on right the immigration debate or lack thereof see even though actual reform is taking a back seat the issue remains front and center in the minds of eleven million undocumented immigrants living in the u.s. just this week over one hundred arrests were made outside the u.s. capitol during a demonstration for immigration reform when it comes to the debate the only thing congress seems to agree on is ordering more drones building more walls and making american southern border even more militarized than it already is. somehow dealing

with the millions of human beings permanently living here or fairly regulating the food we're consuming is a non issue for a so-called representatives and corporate controlled media because instead of dealing with tangible issues here at home that citizens can actually change it's much easier for the media to focus on the nation's attention on a war we can't control. you know that one third of the food we consume in the us depends on pollination from honeybees and might not be something you normally think about but there's a long list of crops that we simply couldn't have if it weren't for being everything from fruits and vegetables to flowers and anything else that needs pollinating depends on these little insects it's vital source of life is being threatened by a strange phenomenon called colony collapse disorder it's a mysterious occurrence that's addressed in death in

a film called vanishing of the bees. ok i'm calling flaps as it is one of those signs the really unstable signs that our food system is is unsustainable asr an indicator of environmental quality when the bees are dying something's wrong we put agencies like the e.p.a. in place to moderate the abolition of corporations and they have done of the instead they've been corrupt that we're in a war and we're going to lose a percentage of our troops consistently. or we're going to keep fighting so what is causing colony collapse disorder and how can it be stopped further explore this issue i'm joined by the director of the film vanishing of the bees investigative journalist and founder of honey colony dot com marin county and thank you so much for coming on have be it's my pleasure so can you explain a little bit more in depth about what exactly colony collapse disorder consists of . well with colony collapse what occurred is that in

a very short amount of time let's say a typical hive has about fifty thousand bees and in a very short of time the worker bees will abandon the brood which are the babies and the queen and so the beekeeper comes upon his hive and it's completely empty. and so your film exposes very clearly that bees aren't just dying they're abandoning their hives entirely where are they going. well we believe that they're dying one honeybee cannot live without her hives for more than twenty four hours so here they are flying around in a monoculture where everything looks exactly the same and they are taking these a systemic pesticides back to their hive and so it affects the future generations and they kind of get all simers where it impacts or navigation navigational can capabilities and also impairs their brains your film also

explores several theories about what might be causing c.c.d. can you outline what those causes might be. what first when we started investigating we looked at mites for instance is the number one enemy of the honeybee it came to the united states in the eighty's and is now all over the world we looked at pathogens of viruses. loss of habitat and of course all of these play into effect and there's a lot of variables that are all interconnected but at the root we believe are these systemic pesticides these new nicotine noids that are nicotine based so even though there's been no real conclusive. basically correlation between the die off and do you think that that's the most likely culprit based on the evidence that you've done well there's actually when we with the film came out there was no. dependent

research but now there's research coming out of yale out of harvard there's plenty of research to back that up of the company's syngenta bear crop science continue to deny it and the environmental protection agency does not do any independent studies it's kind of like the fox guarding the hen house and so they depend on bear to come back and say hey these products are safe and so we do not use the precautionary principle in this country in europe there has been a provisional ban against new nick such as it made a quote prid a two year provisional ban. in the past. on the protests and on sandoz mana corn which they claim is causing the bees to die do they know something we don't about g m o's have there been any conclusive evidence at all linking g m o's to c.c.d. well we know that g.m.o. is affecting the gut and the mistake is that

a lot of people you know bash monsanto or as i say i'm on satan and they are guilty of a lot of things and we have about eighty eight point three million acres of corn in this country and most of it yes is genetically modified but it's also see treated with cloth and i had in which is another systemic pesticides so bees do not directly pollinate corn it's when pollinated however if there's nothing around in the corners tast ling and they will go and bring back the pollen back into the hive and so there's a mistake there's a confusion and blaming just monsanto when it's really we need to. look at bayer and syngenta and these companies these biotech companies that are making these systemic pesticides. speaking of the fox guarding the hen house i know that you just said it it's kind of erroneous to place all the blame on monsanto but what's your opinion on them. research group looking into colony collapse as. or was

this move to sort of avoid any sort of culpability perhaps in the future about their presence i interviewed monsanto and be a logics. and they say that they care about the bees and they're kind of they are researching a they would be kind of inoculating the bees against viruses so just like we've created all these antibiotics for humans the same is going towards the honey bees i also kind of i've been saying for years you know the genome has been sequenced and for all we know we will one day have a genetically modified b. which terminates at the end of the year and then we don't have to bother with them because the attitude towards beekeepers is that bees come in they pollinate for four weeks and then they want them out of there because they have to spray or fumigate or whatever they're doing and the bees are kind of looked as a nuisance so it would be great if they can control them and not have to bother with beekeepers all together i know you mentioned that here in the u.s.

of course we don't follow the precautionary measure but a lot of european countries do there's a lot of the caution in measuring taken a banned pesticides and whatnot in other countries is there anything happening here any measures that are being taken independently that are forcing this kind of. measures in the run c.c.d. here in the u.s. . yes absolutely there's a core of beekeepers and environmental nonprofits such as beyond pesticides and pesticide action network and center for food safety they launched a lawsuit against the environmental protection agency several months ago to to try. make the e.p.a. do its job because quote a night in for instance was not properly studied and yet there was a provisional approval and it was put on the market nonetheless and i also believe

that it's up to us to be the change that we want to see and the more we educate people that's the number one step towards effecting change there's still lots of people that don't even know that bees pollinate one in every three bites of the food we eat i certainly didn't back in two thousand and seven i'm not ashamed to admit it so i really think education is key right it's extraordinarily serious issue i didn't realize the impact as well and now it worries me greatly and i'm really happy they're doing the work that you're doing but i know you said there's a lot of research coming out that confirms the person sides being the primary cause cause for c.c.d. but is there any sort of factors that could be completely beyond the control of humanity that are also affecting the population. will actually mention loss of habitat for instance but in my opinion our food supplies is being poisoned we are being poisoned via the air via the soil and in the water and

certainly in our food supply i mean if you visit the grocery store conventional food is doused with chemicals and then if you look at the ingredients most of the foods are highly processed within gradients that we cannot pronounce let alone digest and all of these things we say with the bees there's this sub belief will effect the bees are dying slowly it's very insidious pesticide and hard to point the finger and say this is what's killing the bees and i think the same thing is happening with humans with all the increase in cancer. autism allergies auto immune conditions so forth these are environmental toxins that are sick. they also say that these systemic pesticides if you put it together with a mite aside or a fungus side they're a thousand times more toxic or like like your like your films i mean the big colonies dying off is indicative of what's the larger problems in our society and

our environment as a whole thank you so much everyone check it out vanishing of the bees very important topic. investigative journalist really appreciate you coming on thank you please check out colony dot com which is my next project which is all about putting troops back into the food supply we will and thanks so much for joining you guys this week have a great weekend. crosstalk

rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want. plus there was a new alert animation scripts scare me a little bit. there is breaking news tonight and we are continuing to follow the breaking news. alexander's family cry tears of joy and great things out there that have read dark and a quart of water found alive there's a story made sort of movies playing out in real life.

but. they would like. to do you know the price is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution which says that's because a free and open prize is critical to our democracy trek office. will. never go on i'm sorry and on this show we were the all the picture of what's actually going to go into the world we go beyond identifying the problem to try to rational debate and a real discussion of critical issues facing america among the young ready to join the movement then welcome to the big city. but i'm john martin in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture.