think plastic. coated like the old if you go did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioning the constitution. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy correct call for us. to make you know i'm sorry and on this show we reveal the picture of what's actually going on we go beyond identifying the truth rational debate real discussion critical issues facing america among them are you ready to join the movement then welcome to the big city. well i'm sorry but i washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. today thousands of people

gathered in pretoria south africa to pay their final respects to nelson mandela as his body laid in state in the in that nation's capital but mandela may never have been such an important figure in south africa if alec american legislative exchange council had achieved its goals back in the one nine hundred eighty s. more on that straight ahead plus late yesterday congressman paul ryan and senator patty murray announced a budget deal that would avoid another government shutdown but not everyone is happy about it so what does john boehner had to say to conservative organizations that are bashing the budget and are his criticisms valid. beauty knows this today marks the first of three days the nelson mandela's body will lie in state for toria capital of south africa thousands of flooded pretoria

to pay their last respects to a man who united a nation by bringing his beloved country out of its brutal apartheid regime but as some groups here. there way the south african apartheid regime was still be in power today and one of those groups is alec yes the same corporate lobbying juggernaut that's brought us stand your ground shoot first and voter suppression idea laws played an active role in encouraging more investments in american companies operating in south africa during the one nine hundred eighty s. according to new documents uncovered by people for the american way and the center for media and democracy as the global community began to increase pressure on the apartheid regime it was a huge push for people in each will funds and pension funds to sell their stocks in companies that were operating in south africa in hopes that less investment in business that did business is that a business there would lead to a regime change and bring an end to apartheid but according to the newly discovered documents alec led a massive campaign using state and federal policy papers monthly newsletter

so-called fact finding missions and panel discussions led by lobbyists on the payroll of the south african apartheid regime all done to encourage more investments in south africa no less joining me now to enlighten us about alex attempts to prolong the south african apartheid regime is calvin sloan legislative representative for people with the american way cal would welcome me thanks for joining us how did you uncover these documents it was a it was a it's been a long long time in the making about six months we are working with center for media democracy we went to the library of congress to the president reagan presidential library in simi valley to the berkeley bancroft library in berkeley california and filed open records requests to find the original documents of these these were alex newsletters their memos as well as the reagan administration's memos to alec and within the administration in their discussion these were original

source documents and it was it was pretty interesting to look at yeah i can imagine we're talking about the american legislative exchange council here alex how does their involvement with. in south africa get started. we don't know exactly how it got started but we do know that by the early one nine hundred eighty s. they were heavily prioritising it we can imagine though given what alec represents now what their modus operandi is in general that its inception was derived from the corporate agenda out response to the corporations that fund it and our corporations at the time of apartheid had substantial holdings in south africa they had assets on the line that were very high yielding and many would argue because of the apartheid itself that engendered very low labor costs and the divestment movement directly threaten the bottom lines of those investments so alec starting by the early one nine hundred eighty s. and well into the one nine hundred eighty s. mobilized their networks against them so this was all about at the end of the day

apartheid eighty percent of the population south africa not being able to vote and having all these restrictions on their behavior and basically it was all about cheap labor you know i think it wasn't it was definitely related to south african investment and the profit margins that were on the line in south africa but what was also reflected in the alec literature was that this was more expansive and that the idea that social investing could take off in america was a very threatening concept to the corporations and to the corporate world in general the this concept that social investment and economics would be in the same arena was frankly terrifying and they they saw that coming and they realized they needed to stand against south africa or the where they draw drew the line if people wanted to absolutely use their money for socially responsible investing. this was

where they were that's yeah you know and and it wasn't just with interest and with the south african apartheid divestment movement. in one thousand nine hundred one nelson mandela was free he took a trip to america and visited visited berkeley and think the american people on behalf of their efforts in supporting the divestment movement and at that point you know history really show that the case was closed divestment works social investing work and eight years later in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight alec had the audacity to adopt a resolution against principled investing they did the resolution and said something around the order of whereas currently the tobacco and alcohol industries are are under the public target and in the future fossil fuel industries the nuclear industry might come under the scope of social investments actually in some way forecasting the future of the current climate change divestment movement so in

no way is that they learn a lesson if anything they double down to support their corporate funded agenda sure well i mean that's that's their job so you would expect that ronald reagan in his diaries. noted that he believed that. the disinvestment movement was actually hurting the people at the bottom in south africa. that belief was fairly widespread and there was some actually probably some truth to it as well probably certainly some truth to that. was alec responsible for reagan taking the position that he took i don't think we can say that there was a direct responsibility but we can certainly say that alec influenced the reagan administration before going into that i'd like to take a step back and address the issue of whether divestment would hurt a black south africans that. had a certain bit of truth to it but really denied the overall truth of the fact that apartheid. killed black south africans in the words of one south african who was

interviewed whereas divestment only temporarily. for unemployment so in the in the overall scheme of things certainly divestment was absolutely beneficial and the polling that showed that black south africans were not that were in opposition to the business strategies that alec relied only on one poll done by a white professor at an all white university so that certainly was a very specious argument and history show that it really was not accurate remarkable governance in terms though of the reagan ministration i have to say that yes that the alec was directly affecting the reagan ministration policy the secretary of commerce the u.s. trade representative the department of state all issued positions against divestment after being provided allocute of the literature on the issue remarkable thank you for being with us them thanks for having me.

it's wednesday you ready to rumble joining me for tonight's long liberal rubble are cameron seward program manager of the heritage foundation and andrew closter legal fellow with the heritage foundation thank you both join us and i don't know all heritage this is going to treat yeah ok the american heritage speaking of dictionary defines fascism as quote a system of government and it exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right typically through the merging of state and business leaderships together with religion and nationalism that was the the entire definition one of several and in a piece in the new york times in one hundred forty four henry wallace then the sitting vice president united states said that quote the really dangerous american fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the axis with you know with what the f.b.i. has its finger on those the american fascist would prefer not to use violence is about that is to poison the channels of public information with

a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to. of the public into giving the fascist in his group the money and more power so here we have alec the american legislative exchange council which is merging government and business interests this is the american heritage dictionary definition of fascism they are literally sitting an equal number of lobbyists and largely republican lawmakers together in a room and coming up with good laws and then they're out there promoting the in the public sphere as whatever they are oh you don't need to know about g m o's it's going to cause or if we have to label it whatever it may be this isn't alec a prime example of fascism. either if you know i personally don't think so i first of all i'd say that fascism is a very difficult thing to define and i would also say that. well mostly wrong is a lie and quite clear about anyone one muslim claimed to have invented the word and

what he dissolved parliament and replaced it with a command if. the onus he replaced every elected representative in congress with the representative of the largest corporation in that congressional district i mean how can that be construed in any other way than the merger of corporate state interests me let me start at the beginning corporate interests and state interests are not always easily distinguishable i mean the president said you know you did build that i think that's to some extent correct the government of america exist to protect fundamental liberties one of them is is the right to petition your government is the right to redress and the right but there's no right to do business in the constitution. i think it perhaps precedes the constitution i think it's a pretty continental the bill the right of the government to regulate it there's a right there so it's the asian there is a right to there are rights to property in the constitution business itself is not named in the constitution as such but i think that just gets to the point that it's a really difficult thing to. just jump in with you know it's easy to to single out

. your concern i don't know anybody else is doing both there's there's plenty of groups on the left there's groups funded by the progressive state network funded by george soros that. does this that proposes model legislation what they do is they put it on an open list serv and say here's what we think they don't say vote for this don't vote for this they say here's what we think here's what we think about this issue this is a model was that ideas drawn up on the on the no and in fact alice the left you know sister to alec. does the same thing as well so this is a total misnomer that there's only conservative groups or alec is the only one well alex alex requires their members to actually swear allegiance to them just like. the oath was released last week in these papers and this is a note that conservatism or is an overdose of the actual word of alan to al loyalty to al and you guys don't know where you take sort of questions about people's loyalties but i think the reality is if you have to look at individual proposals you have to look at whether they're good proposals whether they come from alec or

ellis or be here to form logon to your heritage board or anybody it's a nonprofit group ok first of all and i go and see if. you can ok more of that i was alone the rubble after the break. i got a quote for you. it's pretty tough. to say when it's a story. let's give this guy like you would smear about guns instead of working for the people most issues on the beach were pretty chummy bridegrooms days into. the bedroom. were. it was there a. very hard to take. once again on

a life that we ever had sex with her hair. liz lemon is live. at the.

well go back there's a nice long liberal with cameron stewart and andrew kloster let's get back to it at a press conference today speaker of the house john boehner went after conservative groups that are already were already opposing the just announced budget deal before it was even announce when asked about the group's spanners this. i mean the groups are going to post before they ever saw if. you weren't there if they're using our members and there you see the american people. this is you. so what i'm curious your guys' he got his take on well first of all they saw the

outline the proposal that was put out an official kind of executive summary of the bill and that's what these groups including heritage were going off of both left and right judging of what was going to come of this so-called bargain the so-called deal so beaners push back here is. purely political is it not he wants to get this legislation through clearly. and i'll tell you why because he wants comprehensive immigration reform that's what he's clear in the path for in the new year. is this is this is this is this is not reasonable not to have you know a government shutdown and all these other many legislations any people will see this as speaker boehner swans. long as. you know the rumor is he won't be around for another term or he's not going to round you'll step down rather it's easier it is down he's going to push them. to i don't know i don't know but i

certainly this is this is to clear the path in the new year you know especially during you know you have a lot of primaries coming up in a lot of a lot of mid-term elections in twenty fourteen and are your thoughts and honestly the infighting here is not anything that i. it happens all the time with anybody deal there are people that like it people that don't like it i would personally hope that we went back to some sort of whatever proposal some sort of regular order and didn't have these stopgaps i hate the c.r. as i don't think do you think that this is better than something that's not as good or not. when i get as in there that's how i would describe it it's better than so you know it's better the sun is terrible but it's still bad. i would say it's bad too but for different reasons you know i mean where i'm sure clete opposite of should act as though it was a better than something is a better than doing nothing is that ok which throws into question you know is are we going to be bludgeoned to cut or are we going to be surgically cut what we wind not why not take this opportunity then as as the two budget chairman in the house

in the senate why not take this opportunity and direct the cuts in the sequester why not use that's what i did no they didn't they did away with the sequester caps they blew through that half of the some simple stupid thing where they blew it so this is a western law discussion from day one the headlines of the discussion where we're not even talking about keeping sequester we're talking about how to get above sequester and how to do it in a way we can sell to our constituents and not say that their taxes will raise we're going to say user fees and spend a lot of our day or when you go on an airplane that's going to solve all the problems of the world. ok scientists have discovered that new age seven and nine bird flu this is like. one with some incredible what forty percent mortality rate or something in china that it has developed on its own apparently resistance to tamiflu which is the only anti-viral agent that stops the flu and. this is spooky stuff. doesn't

this once again remind us that there's two reasons to have a good national health care system the first is so that if any of us individually get sick we can get that remediated you know you break your arm and get a fix on that without going broke but the other and arguably a more important one from from a national point of view from the national security point of view from a quality of life point of view i would think even from you know the koch brothers point of view from the from a billionaire's point of view is that the guy next to you who's coughing is not coughing up to work yellow says or a deadly bird flu that when somebody gets sick they have mediately go to their physician knowing that it's not going to break the bank so that dangerous illnesses can get caught doesn't this demonstrate the need for a national health care system sort of like the one that the heritage foundation proposed and that president obama's put in place well i would say more importantly than all of that is that we have a robust innovative pharmaceutical infrastructure and pharmaceutical industry in

this country has come back in forty million people can't get access to this for. well no i think right now honestly i was joking with andrew on the way over here i think you know if we go to single payer health care which is what we're talking about here if we go to single payer we just say in a national health care system i see you know that everybody is covered that everybody's in and that's the goal of obamacare is not single payer at all i mean you know i'm in favor of civil obamacare is not single payer while it's on the path toward single single payer i mean we behave you reduce said that much in your stymieing by i think the rest of the health care industry i think about twenty sixteen when you're a mom goes single payer under the provision in obamacare that allows that that we're going to see the candidates and i guarantee you won't see any pharmaceutical companies relocating to vermont to with their innovative but the major makers on a surgical companies are not the united states right now anyway many of them are you have merck is a german company you've got by air is a german company you know merck is a swiss company the i mean you know i what. all final act so smith kline has has

their major employers now in london they all have research arm of the united states they all file patents in the united states they all take advantage of our government to get on with their research you know our we pay and we're going to help out in system which i think is very important to developing these techniques what does any of that have to do with our not our having or not having a national health care system i mean isn't this a reminder isn't this this flu a reminder that we really need to be sure that everybody the united states one way or another has health insurance having more has access to health care you know well i personally think that the folks that need health care should be able to have health care but i also think that sort of the way that diseases spread is such that not everybody always needs to be inoculated not everyone needs to be quarantined and not everyone necessarily needs to be covered even if there are certain people or are out over here and are not going to infect other people and i mean if you're looking at it from an epidemiological standpoint no i don't think this necessitates

a national health care system and i also think that if you have a national healthcare system it may help over here but it may also hurt over here if you missed something you missed something big and you missed it on a national scale so you can also sort of you also to know if it's a command control you know old soviet style health care system perhaps but i you know that's not what we have that's not what anybody's talking about i mean there's i mean look tom the the bottom line here is you're arguing for obamacare and i'm saying no you're going for any well i mean any universal coverage and right in which you know there are ways to do. so you can't write there's ways to have universal health care coverage that's not our current system that's not the system that's being implemented now under obamacare so how do we get to universal coverage from where we were three years ago without obamacare simple there's tons of simple fixes that would also reduce the cost of health care as well because remember that is what then came to. if you can buy you buy insurance across state lines you equal

tax treatment so someone over here make money and somebody is making fourteen thousand dollars a year and can barely buy food is going to now buy a policy that because of the state by state should insure its commissioners over one hundred bucks is going to drop down to six hundred dollars because we're going to go to the lowest common denominator and just like we do credit cards some folks i don't need health care i was off healthcare for a while as well and and you to be on a car accident and yet thank goodness if i had i mean on the one hand i could have been irresponsible and i could have said gosh i just hope that someone will pay for this for me and just go to the emergency room and put it on the taxpayer or i could have said i'm going to live with this it was a it was a calculated risk i took that kind of risk behavior is what drives the market at the rest of your life i mean it's crazy not to have health insurance so people i think should be able to make their own choices about their own life decisions particularly in this arena i think it's very important for our spillover costs but that doesn't necessarily necessitate it let's let's talk about the the auto bailout

the treasury department just sold their last shares in general motors and so you know we no longer own g.m. and or even any little piece of it and g.m. is doing really really well and this. was called a bailout but now that we've sold all the stock i think it's obvious that actually it was a bridge loan but whatever you want to call it this bailout saved two point six million jobs just in two thousand and nine increase personal income more than two hundred eighty four billion between two thousand and two thousand and ten and these are pretty nonpartisan numbers. this that two hundred eighty four billion in personal income is all taxable personal income that wouldn't have occurred so we're not even counting that in you know the tax revenues in against the you know that this is a net net positive doesn't the end now you've probably seen the ads that edgy is running on t.v. the merry christmas ads with the present a.g. comes out and says you know we paid back all the money and we fact the government

made a profit and we're still here. in the fifty one thousand people of a.i.g. we should merry christmas or whatever it was that fact and. doesn't don't both of those be bailouts arguably as much as i. wince at bailing out banks don't think demonstrate that when capitalism fails there are appropriate times for the government to intervene. the worst first i would say i'm not sure those numbers are nonpartisan i thought that that was an auto lobby group research studies center for automotive research ok so number one they may be inflating the numbers so that they can get bailouts down the line so damn right you know that well i think look first of all this this did cost there was a cost to this right it cost the taxpayer a couple tens of billions of dollars number one they're going to. know the taxpayer lost on this the taxpayer was a net loss of i think thirty billion dollars on this number to it that does not include that's not offset by the tax revenues that were collected from people who kept their jobs and that amounted to thirty billion dollars when surprised twenty

six million times that have to be pretty high taxes i guess it would. take it over a decade but on the other hand this was a dangerous precedent that was set via the bankruptcy code and how this was dealt with so usually they was given much favorable treatment the government could have come out in the black in the positive on this but yet they lost money on it because they gave favorable treatment to the u.a.w. and kind of put aside normal bankruptcy procedures and in procedures that have been usual you gave us you know gave up a lot to i mean they said well we're going new hires of fourteen dollars an hour and one in new hires but right but when you do when you go through bankruptcy generally you bring your salaries down to the market rates unionized workers you know the unionized workers keep their jobs and they bring down to market rate just like they are all the airlines the airlines did as well and they did not do they busted their you it's in the brought their salaries down to market rates that's

part of the bankruptcy. code and change of bankruptcy code if you don't lobby out all seems well that's rather than rather than a debate. in bankruptcy code i'm just it during the great depression government became the employer of last resort in this case government became the lender of last resort it seems like that's an appropriate role for government these were all great excess policies that were imported by the f.d.r. administration and how it has. the right you know maybe maybe after talk about corporates maybe you have to go after the. interesting point actually and cameron thank you for being with us and gives much for you. coming up the mainstream media is already praising tuesday's budget deal as an example of what congress can do when lawmakers sit down and decide to call for what was the deal really all that great the answer after that.

i would rather as 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. i know c.n.n. the premise n.b.c. and fox 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 in for the truth and might think.

it's because when full attention and the mainstream media works side by side the joke is actually on here. at our teen years we have a different right. ok because the news of the world just is not this funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not god. if. you guys stick to the jokes well handled it makes sense. that.

i suspect. they would like. to do 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 which i call books. will. never go on i'm sorry and on this show we reveal the picture of what's actually going on will we go beyond identifying a problem to try rational debate a real discussion critical issues facing our family member ready to join the movement then welcome the third. party back the big picture to our been here with you coming up in this half hour senate and house negotiators have reached a deal to fund the government for the next two years that offers billions in sequester relieved.