think. it would like to do if you did you know the price is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy shrek health risks. that are going on i'm sorry and on this show we were real the picture of what's actually going on when we go beyond identifying the truth rational debate a real discussion critical issues facing america ready to join the movement then welcome to the big city. well i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. if you as many liberals

they'd see a ted cruz presidency would mean the end of the world well it turns out ted cruz's father thinks the same thing but for a very different reason one of the shocking reason why later in the show and what's the happiest country in the world and it's not america i'll tell you which country actually is the happiest country in the world and why in spades deleted. you need to know this bank of america has been found guilty guilty of a sling seriously hustling on wednesday a federal judge jury a new york city found the bank will labile for fraud in connection with mortgage sales made by housing giant countrywide financial which bank of america bought back in two thousand and eight starting in two thousand and seven countrywide began selling shoddy home. loans to fannie mae and freddie mac.

is part of a program called high speed swim lane or hustle according to the justice department bank of america continued selling junk mortgages even after they bought countrywide when the housing market collapsed fannie and freddie lost billions on the toxic loans they bought from countrywide and a bag of america and had to be bailed out by taxpayers you and me so out of the bag america has been found guilty of fraud that means finally banks are going to go to jail right face the music. alexis goldstein communications director at the other ninety eight percent alexis welcome thank you for having me great to have you here with us so let's start out by just in caps lee summarize it will be a way before them countrywide were up to thirty or so essentially during the lead up to the crisis countrywide and bank of america after they acquired countrywide were trying to make as much money as they possibly could and so there was this focus within the company on volume getting as many loans as they could push out to

homeowners this pos is because they were making a commission on each loan or because they could turn these loans and derivatives and make a pile of money on that or both because of both i mean mostly it's the latter securitization was incredibly profitable wall street was taking the loans that countrywide was originating and then packaging them up in what's called a mortgage backed security which you can think of as just one thousand mortgages all put into a box and then investors buy off chunks of that box and then they get that monthly mortgage payments incentive and then other posters book bets on whether those exactly and then others what about some abouts and that's how we get them and truly oh you know the problem is the price of houses will only ever go up you always have the value of your home nobody invision what we had right which is all of these foreclosures so people thought this was like the best thing that had ever happened to them so they needed to feed this origination machine and so countrywide was basically naming programs like march madness and fast february in order to try and get the people at country by. to give out as many mortgages as possible regardless

of the quality. and none of us had anything to do with the republican talking point of jimmy carter passed a law requiring banks to do this sort of thing there's a lot of talk of the republican party about oh the crisis is because of greedy homeowners or it's because of the community reinvestment act and it's because we gave loans to minorities but really it's because wall street deliberately went into communities of color with predatory loans actually would put bounties on the heads of some black community members that times and they were just making so much money on it they needed to give out more and more loans and then once they gave out loans to everyone that had really good credit scores they started to give out loans to people who didn't and went on down the train you know convince people to take out second mortgages when they own their house outright and so that republican talking point about this is all about greedy homeowners or fannie and freddie this lawsuit shows us well actually fannie and freddie kind of got swindled by bank of america back on earth and i'm assuming this was not limited to the bank of america you know and it's been in the news that there was a thirteen billion dollars proposed settlement between j.p.

morgan and the justice department about pretty much the same thing although instead of talking about selling holmes they were talking about selling what i referred to before the mortgage backed security which is just the bundling together thousands and thousands of loans and they got in trouble for essentially the same thing which is misrepresenting the quality of the product that they were selling and thereby committing what we call securities fraud now back in the eighty's charles keating a bunch of his buddies in the securities and the savings along business three years after reagan deregulated the snell's you know they blew up the s n l's and this course the deregulation of the banks was in ninety nine in two thousand with the commodity futures modernization act and graham wiley so this was seven years later really what a servant raveling in two thousand and seven but. but still back in back in the eighty's when the snows went down in flames keating went to prison the senators associated with him particular john mccain were humiliated nearly and several of them lost their jobs over this thing keating five yeah the keating five exactly and . and not just him you know reagan had over

a thousand prosecutions over six hundred people wanted to jail many of them for long periods of time and this was for something that was like one in one thousand the size of what happened in the two thousand so why use a during the reagan presidency reagan was not reluctant you know the justice to part was not reluctant to send banks used to jail but now they're totally afraid to is does this track back to citizens united and wall street's influence i think it is and i think it also tracks back to the fact that the economic advisers for president obama are essentially the same people who are the economic advisers under clinton it's people who grew up under a guy named robert rubin which was the deregulation and so he's ascent robert rubin was this guy who worked at goldman sachs all his career then took a stent to the treasury and then kind of cashed out after and went to citi group and he had all these people under him like her and summers and his essentially whole economic team was inherited by the obama administration and so he's kind of surrounded by people who are drinking the kool-aid that wall street is our only hope is that they're drinking the kool-aid or is that that if they told the truth

robert roode probably be going to jail too i think that it's both yeah it's there has been for years and there have been people who have gotten away with immense crimes for years and i think there's there's that and it's also they're just too afraid of this delicate recovery and they're too afraid of of doing too much to interfere with it but the problem is the recovery is kind of a sham much of the recovery is gone to the one percent and so we're really just kind of creating another bubble which will inevitably lead to another crisis by kind of closing our eyes in our ears and not actually dealing with the issue that these two big banks are too big to manage their criminal institutions this be a vacation if the j.p. morgan settlement shows it you know i can rapid fire list two three things that margaret has done wrong in the last four months but they're really not addressing the problem they're just trying to hope that we can just kind of cover our years you know extend and pretend that the problem will somehow magically solve itself but will go and bailing wire that's holding the thing together that's the scary stuff alexis thanks for the summary early have you been very honest with us. in

other news the supreme court outlawed the death penalty for the mentally disabled in two thousand and two but that's not stopping florida from trying to execute someone who barely means that state's requirements for execution freddy hall who has an i.q. of seventy one just one point higher than florida's seventy i.q. threshold has been fighting to overturn his death sentence since the supreme court's two thousand and two ban on executing the mentally handicapped florida supreme court upheld all sentence last year but on monday the u.s. supreme court agreed to hear his case for more on this i'm joined now from our los angeles studios by mike farrell actor activist and president of death penalty focus like for a welcome back to the program thanks tom nice to be with you it's always great having you mike and let's let's start out here with for a haul he technically meets florida's criteria for execution what's the argument that he and his lawyers are going to make to overturn his desk. well the supreme court ruled that mentally disabled people particularly people with mental

retardation cannot be executed because they cannot fully comprehend the the consequences of their actions. but they left open a kind of door for the states to determine what the whether or not people who were convicted for these terrible crimes actually fit the criteria and the roughly they said seventy this an i.q. of seventy is a kind of bar for mental retardation when in fact most psychiatrists anybody who deals with mental retardation in particular knows that first of all i.q. tests fluctuate and secondly there is no real bar for to determine whether or not somebody is a mental disability but. so what they're going to do is go back to the supreme court and say look you left the states in a position to make determinations about these people so the state of bengal disability and we believe. that the that the ruling should be firm it should just

simply to lock out anybody to quibble about whether or not this individual is is mentally damaged and if if so if he or she meets the criteria they should not be executed very simple we had it you've got you've got texas you've got georgia you've got a number of states that are quibbling today about well this person doesn't really meet the standard and some of them do it by different legal sanctions and others do it by determinations and definitions and things it's pretty ugly we're one of the few. developed industrialised countries in the world that still has the death valley do you think there's any possibility that the supreme court is sufficiently enlightened that they'll simply say this is barbaric. wouldn't it be nice well you know we all hope that that will happen one day because we got to the point where they want to execute children under the age of eighteen for the same action the philosophical point that they don't fully comprehend the because

a brain development don't fully comprehend the consequences of their actions we got to that point because sandra day o'connor when she was on the court ruled that and that was the tipping point if you will of the of the court decision rule that the consensus in the country judging by the number of states that had given up killing innocent killing juveniles was that we shouldn't be doing that while we're moving in the direction now with eighteen states now having no death penalty and a lot of progress progress toward more states we came very close in california in two thousand and twelve as you know. giving it up there will come a time when the supreme court is going to have to acknowledge that the will of the people of the united states is simply that it's a barbaric procedure and we shouldn't be indulging in it as the rest of the world has essentially done yes they are program i don't have time to play a clip for you but larry. was on talking about the man who shot him and now he's

saying this guy should not go to should not be executed the death penalty does not actually reduce the number of people who commit murders and it also makes our society more barbaric your thoughts on that that he's going to correct i let me just say publicly that i greatly admire larry flynt's courage for having taken a public position like that being a victim of this man although he wasn't killed we know it we all know that his life was seriously impaired or by the shot the joseph paul franklin fired but i think what what flint said was really quite extraordinarily on the money speaking of money he talked about how expensive the definitely is but he also talked about the fact that it was not a deterrent that it was really not justice it was really revenge and revenge can't be raised to the level of a sacrament and we shouldn't be killing people to somehow feel that we're going to feel better or that we're going to magically stop other people from killing people

exactly like feral stick around please we'll talk with will talk global climate change like they're all right after the break. for. a. very take. that that will make their.

lists. of the. fall guy so it's always never. right. circle deficit. or. bust. dramas the truth be ignored. stories others refuse to notice. the faces change the world lights never.

so picture of today's long islanders months from around the globe. brokenly. paul go back we can thank one man for much of what we know now about global climate change and that man is dr charles david healing all working for the scripps institution of oceanography in the late one nine hundred fifty s. and one nine hundred sixty s. keeling began recording atmospheric carbon dioxide levels taken at the mount outlaw observatory in hawaii and the result of all his work was the famous keeling curve which show that atmospheric c o two levels were expected to rapidly rise through the twenty first and into the twenty fifth through the twentieth and into the twenty first centuries after killing died in two thousand and five but his legacy

lives on today los angeles based blank theatre company recently honored that legacy with its play the doctor dr killings kirk the star of that play actor and activist mike farrell joins us now again from our los angeles studios mike welcome back thanks tom i get to put on another hat and indeed well you know your your work on the death penalty is iconic it's extraordinary and we've had you on many times over the years about that but you're you're also working in this area of global climate change what got you interested in playing the role of dr healy. well actually what happened oddly a friend a man i did know came up to me on the street and asked if i would be interested in a one man show about to david keeling goes by david although his name was charles david as you said. and i said well it sounds interesting but you know of the effect on global understanding of climate change etc but i said the problem is it would

have to be a play and not a lecture and he went away and some months later he came back to me with a script and i said the problem is it's a lecture not a play and eventually we we settled on worked together in. settled on a script and he did a wonderful job of writing this thing then we set it up at the blank theaters you've mentioned for reading and initially and then subsequently a performer there and it performed at a number of places around the city and are hoping to find a wider venues for it it's a it's a terrific show and i'm like many people who are concerned about the issues of today understand that global warming is a reality and i also understand that it's politically disadvantageous for some members of our society particularly the corporations that profit from. the use or exploitation if you will of the of our natural resources to kind of pooh poohed the idea that global warming exists and they have their inch men in their spokespeople that are out there kind of dumbing down the audience if you will so we thought to

be good idea to put out a put out a story about a man who really kind of stumbled into this area all he knew was he wanted to do science in nature and in doing so he made this discovery about what you described earlier about the rise in the c o two count in our atmosphere and the fact that c o two stays in the atmosphere and what impact it has on our weather mike and if you were king of the world tomorrow now what would you do to stop this climate pollution this this carbon pollution and this the problem of global climate change but one of the things we have to do obviously is support alternative therapies therapies alternative energy policies that we have to discontinue as soon as we can the use of oil and fossil fuels it would because they're polluting us terribly. but we also have to be a leader in this we are in the united states have traditionally been the leaders in

many movements around the world unfortunately we've slipped a bit in that area and have become the captives of certain economic interests that don't want us to be out in the forefront of these things so. i would if you know king of the world or president the united states i would say. we must set policies that are going to stop us from using coal stop us from using oil eventually it's not going to happen tomorrow begin to use the power of the wind geothermal energy use and bio degradable energy use and. the solar energy is the things that we know are there for us nader said a long time ago if solar energy if you could put a a meter on a sunbeam in it that would be the you know that would be the the thing that people would be pressing because they'd be able to make money on it. we but we have to be the leaders we have but first of all i think we have to convince the people in this country to speak out against the members of congress who are the naysayers who deny

evolution and deny global warming and deny all the other obvious things this is the flat earth society is there as i see them now and i you seen that we have about a half of that michael are you seeing movement in that direction well i think so i mean i think in most of these areas the people once they wake up are what jefferson said there are a powerful voice for this country the but it has to be an informed electorate and what we have to do is provide the information. ok mike carroll thanks so much for being with us tonight my pleasure tom always nice to see you it was nice to see you too and look for mike by the way in the upcoming series the red rose debuting in february on the sundance channel. and the best of the rest of the news some people think ted cruz is the leader of

a cult like group and i'm not talking about the tea party last year in a church sermon in texas cruz's father rafael cruz suggested that is tea party and son was among a select group of evangelical christians who are anointed as king to take control of our society among other things take a listen. the pastor. refer to proverbs thirteen twenty two a little while ago we said this that the wealth of the wicked he stored for the righteous. i need east through all the keys i know you did to take the minion that transfer of wealth is going to occur and then things got even weirder joining me now to talk more about ted cruz's perceived higher calling is bruce williams accident wilson co-founder of talk to action bruce

welcome to the program i tom thanks for having me on thanks for joining us tell us about rafael cruz a sermon. well this is the narrative that's being promoted. quite heavily in recent years it within the put politicized religious right it's an expression of dominionism which is basically the idea that. select believers and especially heterosexual christian men but none necessarily exclusively it beckoning include women to should aggressively move into and take over take control of all relevant sectors of society including government and business education and media there's a laundry list and. this is an idea that was conceived back in the one nine hundred eighty s. but then it got simplified more recently into something called the seven mountains mandate huge mountain being a sector of society so what rafael cruz is telling it is

followers people in the movement. which is no heat in waiting compas five to ten percent of america by some stretch people who might get this it received this sort of message in church or through some medium. so the encouragement is that believers should do whatever it takes to. in take control and this can be done by stealth it can be done over but ultimately the idea is that a small minority will call the shots a small minority of christian believers who are in this very specific sort of politicized christianity that it's not representative of either christianity on the whole or even know all jellicoe as a it's a very distinct political movement that comes out of two strands of politicized christianity one is christian reconstructionism who are people who are overt theocrats and then what some of us call charismatic dominionism basically

they're the charismatic wing of the christian right these are the people who cast out demons and so on but they're heavily politically involved and they they represent more than the foot soldiers of the movement so anyway. ted cruz his father is encouraging believers to take dominion and so ted cruz is their guy as far as i can tell is the king back in ninety nine i spent a week with his holiness the dalai lama. they they made a movie out of it back to harrison ford narrated it and and the thing that astounded me other than you know that his holiness was really a pretty amazing guy was that literally from his first ability to speak he had been told that he was the reincarnation of a bit of a divine being essentially. and you can see how that shaped him in actually a fairly positive way and just imagine what kind of impact that would have on

somebody is it possible a ted cruz since he was a child has been told by his father that he was annoyed by god to be the basically king of america and to change america to a to a you know like the early massachusetts before they joined the united states before the revolutionary war a theocracy basically. oh sure it's very possible and you know we'll never to know ted cruz is mind but i can tell you that ted cruz knows exactly what to do to line up support of the politicized religious right now their words less july until the two thousand and thirteen ted cruz and rand paul could both be found at really what is the key go to events for politicians who want to line up the religious right support and that's in iowa a group of pastors nairo pastors gathering which in this case was held under something called up which is that is. something which is as the name of the renewal

project and this is. something that's been running since about two thousand and four so which is an attempt to mobilize and politicize pastors in specific states and this is being done now this is the event that chris was out in july two thousand and thirteen amicable now as i know i know that george w. bush was first brought into the reagan campaign at his father's campaign actually george herbert walker bush campaign as the guy who would be their connection to evangelicals apparently ted cruz played that role in the george w. bush campaign and and also played a role in getting it before the supreme court when when he. appeared to have lost the vote in florida. yeah i was astounded to find this notebook by one of george of you bush's top advisors to me if they go clean help i hope i'm spelling out pronouncing that correctly but go home and says in a book which had

a forward by karl rove. which it is a serious you know political confessional testimony and copeland stated that. when in one thousand nine hundred nine ted cruz was on the working with the campaign to elect george w. bush and bush for president and he had the connections to. get go going to meeting with paul why rick who really was one of the top one two or three of the top among the top three architects of the good and why rick was the guy who back in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven i don't want everybody to vote i mean he spotted alec he helped heritage foundation it's amazing the ted cruz was like right at the nexus of this stuff and his mentor was was paul weyrich anywhere yet we had a bruce wilson great work you're doing thank you for the writing keep it up. ok well thanks very much for sharing your thanks for being with us. our phone lines

are now open for our your take my take a wide segment so if you want to chance to ask me a question live on the big picture give us a call at two or two i know for twenty one thirty four i'll talk be talking with you after the break. i know c.n.n. the m.s.m. b c news have taken some not slightly but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate. that was funny but it's close if it's like think. it's because one full attention and the mainstream media works side by side with you is actually on you. and our team is we have a different brain. because the news of the world just is not this funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not i. if.

you guys stick to the jokes that will handle them it's. going to. i would rather questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on our t.v. question. why

not cite active camps. where patients are forced that the router and or strike never turned the world's attention to the police and that something cool of hearts minds. take by take it live our phone lines are now open so if you want to share an opinion or comment ask a question live on the air give us a call or two and soon i know for twenty one thirty four if you're outside the united states the country code for the u.s. is one let's go to a message received on our rant line from a viewer in illinois. hi. why would you feed your character or dog anything that came from china i certainly would not nor would i eat anything that came from china nor would i use plate.