though barred on everyone i might be martin and this is breaking the set so it turns out that even in the wake of the snowden leaks proving that the n.s.a. is spying on all the earth citizens the military industrial complex thinks the surveillance state should be taken one step further according to vice by the end of two thousand and fourteen two enormous military surveillance planes will be hovering ten thousand feet in the air with the ability to see three hundred forty miles in any direction on the east coast the booms are called j. lens and they're being purchased from raytheon by the u.s. army for two point seven billion dollars each blimp will be tethered to the ground and will have an insanely powerful cameras radar and built in sensors and you know what that makes sense because just knowing that everything you do online is being

categorized isn't showing enough dissent apparently we need to have a man is seen orwellian symbol of the surveillance state in all of our faces but according to raytheon that's just silly talk because these books have nothing to do with spying on americans their stated purpose is to spot incoming threats since when do we need to put up humongous big brother blimps in order to spot threats look we already have to worry about cameras on top of every building about drones in the sky do we really need giant blimps obstructing our skies implicitly telling the citizens living underneath their ominous shadows to obey so if you want to keep just a shred of privacy in this country and join me and let's break the set. the . it's a. very hard to think that. you

ever had sex with her there the. last year more than half of the detainees at guantanamo bay participated in a hunger strike in an effort to shed light on their legal limbo and abysmal treatment by the u.s. military as a result as many as forty six of the then one hundred sixty six inmates were force fed by inserting a tube in their nose and down into their stomachs a practice that was held twice a day and even during the sacred muslim holiday ramadan it's also extremely painful

procedure that the u.n. human rights office has labeled as torture but today in a rare winter for the remaining one hundred fifty five prisoners a u.s. appeals court ruled that get mode detainees have the right to challenge their force feeding in federal court this decision overturns previous rulings stating that federal courts had no jurisdiction over the conditions of inmates now to be clear the court is not ending the practice of force feeding but the door is now open for detainees to argue their case outside of the military justice system the inmates lawyer john eisenberg called the ruling a big when and said quote this decision establishes that the federal courts have the power to stop the mistreatment of detainees at guantanamo bay the court of appeal. it has given us the green light to continue our challenge to the detainee's force feeding as been unconstitutionally abusive we intend to do that so of course this battle is still far from over for the time being it's an encouraging step in

the effort to ban the sickening practice and shine a light on the conditions endured by these men. let's go to the. primary elections initially began with the intent to have boaters shoes candidates instead of party bosses but over the last few decades the staggering amount of money and partisanship thrown in the mix has become a recipe for disenfranchisement and defeatism in fact the elections in november of last year saw some of the v the lowest voter participation in recent history check this out according to article by debbie charlotte for the independent voter network or i.b.m. in new jersey there was a record low turnout for the governor's race only thirty nine point six percent of registered voters participated weeks prior to that the state saw the lowest turnout in any state election in new jersey's history to replace it senator we were down in

new york despite the big news of the state elected progressive bill de blasio only twenty four percent of registered voters actually turned out to the polls to vote for him finally in virginia forty three percent of voters bothered to show up at the polls for the gubernatorial race as opposed to the eighty percent who vote in the presidential election the year before however these numbers pale in comparison to other cities like atlanta that saw a measly fifteen percent of voting turnout for its mayoral race or houston's pathetic thirteen percent as i've pointed out this stunning voting apathy stems in part from an exclusive primary process in new jersey and new york only registered party members are allowed to vote in primaries while one group is lobbying to put an end of partisan primaries it's a group called and partisanship and advocates to open the voting process to include everyone not just democrats and republicans so joining me now to discuss the campaign and why the focus should be on reforming primary elections is chad pease

legal strategist for n partisanship dot org thank you so much for coming on chads. thanks for having me so chad why focus on primary elections isn't the purpose of primaries to help open the voting process. well i'm glad you opened up with the purpose i mean the purpose of what we're doing is really at the end of the day it's not about candidates it's not about parties that we should think about what's the purpose of elections in the first place it's about voters being able to have a meaningful vote in the participation in the political process so really at the foundation of what we're doing is really defending individual voter rights and so when you hand the process over to political parties to decide the rules and then to decide the candidates for which everyone else gets to vote for you give the vote you give political parties special access to our democracy all we're asking for isn't that political parties don't have a purpose or political parties can't participate we're just saying whatever system

is created in a system designed to elect our representatives it needs to allow an equal playing field for every single voter to participate i couldn't agree more i mean under the umbrella of partisan and nonpartisan primaries there are tons of different subsets that i just learned about today look at your website varying by state close semi close open partisan primaries top to top four on unified primaries are any of these systems fair. right well there's three core principles the end partisanship or coalition really advocates for three principles and any system that embraces three these three principles we believe would be fair and constitutional the first principle is simple that every voter should have a meaning right to a meaningful vote at every critical stage of the election the second principle is that you can't condition that right on joining a political party or any other organization meaning you can't condition my fundamental right to vote on giving up my fundamental right not to join something

i'm in the final principle is is pretty simple to it's that if taxpayers are going to pay for something because something we need to keep in mind here is taxpayers are funding these primary systems across in all the states so if taxpayers are going to pay for something that a bridge is another voters right to have a meaningful vote. i'm sorry the taxpayers cannot fund something that a bridge is somebody else's right to have a meaningful vote in other words if the parties want to have a private primary system where they keep other voters from participating well that's fine but the taxpayers shouldn't fund it and anything that is state sponsored that the state runs and that qualifies candidates to be the official candidate on the general election ballot well that should be open to everybody you just brought up a really important point that i think really gets to the heart of this is that taxpayers are funding primaries that we can't participate in and can you break down exactly how this is happening and how much money we're talking about here. i mean

you referred to the numbers in the general election in new jersey but go back to the primary election less than eight percent of voters participated in that very same primary now divide that up only four percent about four percent voted in the democrat primary about four percent in the republican primary and it cost twenty four million dollars for the state to run it you crunch a few numbers that ended up costing. an absurd amount of money per voter to conduct these primaries then if you take well who are the winners of these primaries there's there was a republican winner and a democrat right winner and those were the two winners that got to compete for everyone else's vote so what they did was created a primary system where four percent of the voters on one side four percent on the other side get to decide who the rest of us get to vote for and then we wonder well why do we have such a partisan atmosphere why does it seem like a game where everything is about i'm the i'm the better guy and that's the evil guy

well we've created an election system that encourages that because the guy who wins the primary is the guy who says i'm the best democrat and i could prove that by being against everything the democrats are for and the democrats say well i'm the best democrat and i could prove that by being against everything the republicans are for all we're asking is to create a system where representatives are not accountable to their small partisan base but they're accountable to everybody and when you create a system like that it's better for everybody including republicans and democrats and libertarians because i believe there's very few people in office that agree with their political parties talking points from from one down to one thousand but representatives today can't even go against that party line if they wanted to because they'd be destroyed by their own party in their own primary so as long as that's the biggest hurdle to getting actually elected we have to confront it and we

have to make sure that everybody has a voice and that in that first part of the process chad we have about two minutes left but i want to get the first step on your campaign that people need to do to start reforming this process state by state and talk about some successes that we've seen already with primary reform. well i am a legal strategist for and partisanship dot org i come from an organization called the independent voter project with which authored california's nonpartisan system we've launched a website and partisanship dot org received tremendous support from organizations and individuals all across the country are co-founding member independent voting out of new york has been a huge huge help in organizing people who want to participate i'm excited to announce that we'll be dropping the first lawsuit next month that will be paired with a special sixty minutes style report that will really articulate what we talk about when we talk about the legal and a lawsuit and we've put. the lawsuit asserts those three principles that will be

filed next month in the state of new jersey and we will be challenging their current closed primary system and defending the rights of individual voters and will be tailoring that lawsuit for various states in challenging the voting rights of voters all across the country while everyone check it out it's certainly an issue that needs to be addressed chad piece legal strategist for and partisanship dot org appreciate it. thanks so much. coming up i'll take a look at the world press freedom rankings stick around. the fact that. we're going to go digital the price is the only industry specifically mention 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 why a handful of powerful transnational corporations will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once told us my 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 trucks and rational debate and a real discussion of critical issues facing america for ready to join the movement then welcome to the big picture. i would bet that. a society that case i think corporation kind of can do can do and the banks it's all been all about money

and i've been bashing me pick for politician write the laws and regulations. coming up. here is just too much rat today's. that. i've got a quote for you. it's pretty tough. it's a way it's not story. it's just this guy's like what we're about done stead of working for the people motivations the beach were for each other right on stage and . they did rather well. i think we can all agree that a free press is and for

a free society and sadly two thousand and thirteen saw big decline in media freedom all around the world this disturbing development was highlighted by the latest press freedom index released by reporters without borders the press freedom index reflects a number of criteria including media tree independence and transparency and the map you are seeing now shows how the nations of the world stock up leading the charge for another consecutive year fenland another lens and norway which are highlighted and white and turkmenistan north korea and eritrea ranking dead last these countries along with others with terrible rankings are shown in black. perhaps the most glaring statistic in this year's report was the us is raking on the index which plundered by thirteen a whole spots in just one year that means the u.s. now ranks forty sixth in the world of putting america just above the haiti in regard to forgive the press but as dramatic as this plunge is it's not too surprising between the manhunt for snowden and chelsea manning sentencing and the

seizure of a.p. phone records by the department of justice doesn't thirteen saw a particularly concerning trend of government action to punish leakers and silence whistleblowers the report added that the case of the u.s. is quote one of the most significant declines amid increased efforts to track down whistleblowers and the source of leaks but our biggest ally the u.k. saw three point drop at thirty third which actually is quite generous considering parliament's attempt to indict guardian journalist some of the country's terrorism act following the release of snowden's leaks taking another look at the rankings map you'll see that other countries that have traditionally remained the lower on the index like turkey russia and china have preserved their spots on the list showing no signs of improvement but one finding that really stuck out to me was the ranking of eritrea which fell dead last at number one hundred eighty even behind north korea. my knowledge of the small is dr going to country was limited prior to my research into this story but it's certainly worth mentioning that in the short

time since eritrea's independence in one thousand nine hundred one the country has spiraled downward into this current grim condition in two thousand and one nation's leadership banned all private media leaving only a tightly controlled state media and its place reporters without borders and notes that there are also twenty eight journalists currently detained in the country and that access to reliable information is impossible in the absence of satellite and internet connections but between the abysmal conditions that keep eritrea and a media black hole america's thirteen point drop in the rankings. and the inability of other world powers like china and russia to improve their standing in the two than fourteen world press freedom index plane paints excuse me a global community in decline. uninhibited access to information is humanity's most powerful weapon which is why every society should arm itself with a free and open press in order to be truly free. i.

i. for the last three years california has experienced a drought of epic proportions according to u.s. drought monitor nearly the entire state in the midst of an extreme drought the second highest level in the scale all parts of central california are experiencing exceptional drought the highest level on the scale although some rain has recently hit the state department of water resources is saying at this point it's virtually impossible to reverse the effects of the drought california governor jerry brown is urging all residents to make major cutbacks when it comes to water and cities such as sacramento and folsom are requiring residents to reduce their water usage by twenty percent so with that event this severe how is california coping and are

there any solutions to this problem besides performing a rain dance to answer these questions as well as discuss a host of other environmental issues i'm joined now by brad friedman editor in chief of the brad blog dot com and desi co-host of the green news report thank you so much both of you for coming on. great to be here great to be here brad let's start with you some are calling this california drought the worst and five hundred years what's been affected in the short and long term. well it's amazing and i know you're from the from the bay area so you're familiar with this time of year it should be raining it should be cold it's not raining it's not cold it has been unbelievably warm for the past several months and yeah we're in the middle of the worst drought on record with with apparently no end in sight so this is a concern but it is sort of feeds into the to the larger concern about the changing climate patterns that we've been seeing the extreme weather whether it's extreme

drought here extreme cold and extreme snow extreme floods out in out of the u.k. we've got a mess on our hands and we need to start connecting the dots as far as why these things are happening you know and also on the short term you're going to have impacts on your food prices because of the central valley of california supplies i think it's something like two thirds to a half of the nation's fruits and vegetables so you know these are important issues on the short term but on the long term you also have issues with how we are going to deal with this ass climate change and these droughts continue to increase over time well let's connect those dots and brad and by the way on top of that. because they're on top of that then add to this idea that we are talking about making things worse governor brown has just approved fracking for california which uses an extraordinary amount of water and you're thinking where is this water going to come from we simply don't have it and we certainly don't have it to do things like

fracking which will arguably make things like the drought even worse i mean this is insane spiral looking at right here but really everywhere really is our climate scientists analyzing the drought. well part of what they're looking at is this i'm sure you've heard of this blocking pattern in the jet stream that's been parked off the coast of northern california which has prevented california from getting its normal rains for the last two winters that same jet stream blocking pattern is connected to the extreme waves that we're seeing in hawaii right now the extreme or the record warmth that we're seeing in alaska right now the crazy winter storms that are going down is that you know the polar vortex from the arctic is punching the southeast and then it's sweeping up and bringing extreme weather to the u.k. as well which is right now going through it's i think it's the wettest january that they've had in two hundred fifty years these extreme weather events are all connected by our global climate system and climate scientists are actively

researching how climate change is directly affecting the california drought we already know that there are cyclical very deep mega droughts that california has gone through we may see those be occurring more often and that's got some very serious implications brad but you know again connecting good news oh i was going to talk about the bill the house is trying to pass that would divert the water from the salmon run restoration project to other areas of the state and i want to see a responsible please go on about climate first. well well you know what i wanted to say is on the green news report one of the things that we do is that when we do it twice a week and we sort of see this week after week after week that these. these isolated incidents that seemingly isolated incidents where it gets you know very cold in the midwest and you have all of these or on the east coast you have all of these climate change deniers are skeptics shouting oh it's cold outside so clearly there's no global warming and i say you know which part of global do you not

understand in that because while it gotten very very cold in the midwest we saw temperatures in the fifty's and sixty's in the middle of the night up in alaska a couple of weeks ago so doing what we do we connect those dots by continuously reporting on it rather than taking these sort of isolated incidents and you know declaring everything's fine or everything's not based on that you need to look at the globe and when you look at that globe and you do it regularly you see there are very serious problems and i think wrens that you see over time you know now specifically speaking to the projected g.o.p. legislation that the house the republicans in the house are trying to pass that let's be clear is not a solution it is a political it's a political bludgeon political theater that's wrapped up in mitigation it's a false promise because it's not going to make it rain and the problem with diverting river restoration means that it impacts the fishing industry the

commercial fishing industry that brings in billions of dollars to the state of california and the tourism industry that also brings and billions of dollars to california it's only addressing one aspect of agriculture in california agriculture already uses seventy five percent of the water in california so you know what we're looking at we're trying to look at our long term solutions that will bring the rain back which we can't do so can we adjust our water storages our water delivery our water efficiency especially and reduce water waste those. difficult policy choice is that these little slapdash crazy legislation bills that the republicans like to pass will do nothing to solve what a concept long term solutions they never heard of discussed on the house or i as i don't know does the let's move on to another horrific spill to come out of west virginia in which hundred thousand gallons of coal story spilled into an offshoot of the kind of well river this is coming just a month after the state's last chemical spill what does this say about the danger

of the state's dependence on coal. well i think coal owns west virginia pretty much the coal industry has ensured that there will be very little regulation very little oversight of the massive amount of industrial waste that is generated by the coal industry most people aren't aware that the process of using coal to generate electricity creates massive amounts of industrial waste before you use the call that's what those two spills in west virginia were about one less from a chemical used to wash coal the other is the waste water after washing coal before it's burned and then of course we also have the big coal ash spill in north carolina that was eighty two thousand tons of coal ash that's got you know toxic solid byproduct that's left over after you burn the coal so we have these enormous spills that are impacting the water supplies in west virginia and north carolina and hopefully that's that sort of a wake up call i mean sometimes these disasters do have the benefit of focusing the mind on the issues of our water supply you know from california to west virginia to

north carolina to basically all the areas around the country where these processes are impacting our water supplies and the state and local and federal officials have not done their jobs in oversight and regulation and by the way the media has also not done its job the corporate media by not connecting these dots by not explaining you know when they when they talk about clean coal in the spills the two spills now in west virginia were from the chemical that is used to supposedly clean the coal and then the coal slurry that is left over after you supposedly clean the coal and then as he said down north carolina the coal ash that happens after you burn this so-called clean coal and then you spill all this crap and it gets in the water supply and it get it out of the water supply and you can't clean it up they're going to try to dredge the river and north carolina which is going to kill all of the aquatic life that's not already been killed by the fall that point is when you

weigh. until these problems happen to try to solve them best you can do is try to mitigate them you know you see cameron a conservative out in the u.k. prime minister. saying that he is willing to spend any amount of money that is needed to deploy the military to deal with the unprecedented rains and floods they're having don't wait until it's too late and what the climate scientists are yelling and screaming about with their own fire is that it is either too late already or it is just about to be start taking action now rather than trying to clean up these messes in color in california you know for coal in the east coast take action now and the media needs to report on this and connect these dots love how cameron's answer is the military. power of the military will deal with the floods and all the climate change issues you have about thirty seconds left does he now that they spills are making headlines approximately fourteen thousand reported

oil spills in addition every year in the country what is going to take to wean ourselves out of fossil fuels. oh i think it's going to take a concerted effort from the people the people when the people get together in america and they push very hard for change the people are able to get it done because right now industries the fossil fuel industry has all the money in the world being the most profitable industry in the history of mankind they have the money to ensure that the politicians don't do anything so it's going to take an uprising from the people. all right well if they get any of these change thank you so much you guys brad friedman does it go and you guys everyone check out the brad blog and the green news report thanks so much you guys. and that's our show join me again tomorrow when i break that all over again.

we welcome aaron eight and abby martin two of a terrific hosts on the r.t.e. network. it's going to give you a different perspective give me one stock tip i'll never i'll give you the information you make the decision don't worry about it i'll bring you the said works but there are others in the mine it's rubbish ideas and consciousness in frustrated with the system extremely you apologists would be described as angry i think i'm a strong enough single. shots are forced. to finish line of the marathon. let. us begin.

did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution which says that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy schreck help us. to make you know i'm sorry and i'm this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going going to go beyond identifying a problem to try to fix rational debate a real discussion critical issues facing america by december ready to join the movement then welcome the big push. on to our washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. just when you thought the war on voting was dying down it's not how republicans.