max keiser for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on our. but. i would like to do. that 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 correct helpless. little. bit like 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 a real discussion critical issues facing america ready to join the movement then welcome the big three. go on to our been in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. tennessee is the fastest

growing state in the country for union membership so why did volkswagen employees reject a plan to join united auto workers more on that just a moment also another day another miscarriage of justice in florida of a mistrial in the case of the loud music shooter michael dunn finally wake americans up to the dangers of stand your ground shoot first laws and america could be living like the jetsons but instead because of president reagan we're stuck in the stone age of the flintstones are you why is that i still need to. you need to know this the fight to preserve the american middle class took a big hit this weekend on friday night retired u.s. circuit judge samuel h. payne announced that a united auto workers led union drive at

a volkswagen plant in chattanooga tennessee had failed while six hundred twenty six workers voted in favor of joining the union seven hundred twelve workers eighty six more voted against doing so the result of the three day long election was shocking to many u.a.w. organizers up until the very end. most thought they did score a big victory in the volunteer state and for good reason to tennessee is actually the fastest growing state in the country for union membership and because the union the u.a.w. wanted to create in chattanooga was supposed to be part of a plan to create a european style works council like they actually have in germany volkswagen didn't oppose the unionization rose fight with. but it appears that a last minute scare campaign by led by republican lawmakers including tennessee senator bob corker of tennessee governor bill haslam worked like a charm it's hard to see just how many votes corker has the other conservatives took away from the u.a.w. but there's no question that there are scare tactics had

a huge impact on that election by threatening to take away volkswagens tax incentives of workers approve the union and by warning that a pro union vote would scare volkswagen away from building its new s.u.v.s in town and see neither which might have been true anti-union crowd apparently so frighten the small number of workers that they provided the margin for the u.a.w. to lose the vote. tragically in this era of declining union membership an anti worker fervor. a failed aloon you know election is not all that surprising union busting has become a two billion dollar a year industry and employers routinely bring in union busting insults and forced workers to watch their videos and listen to their scary pitches this time it was supposed to be different. works councils are popular with employers across the pond and all signs pointed to the chattanooga campaign as the start of a new era for american labor. instead because republican politicians broke the law

and interfered with the vote the labor movement will once again have to pick up the pieces after another stinging defeat what happened in chattanooga on friday is about more than just the labor but it's about the very future of the american middle class the dark truth about the recovery from the great recession is that it hasn't really been a recovery not for everyone that is as writer guy is probably has pointed out recently in a piece for the american blog the current recovery has been driven primarily by the upper fifth of income earners as a result of this recovery it's a recovery there's not really a recovery and the majority of consumer spending over sixty percent is done by people the top twenty percent of income earners less than forty percent on the other hand is of that consumer spending is done by the bottom eighty percent of it . what does this mean it means we could be entering a period of prolong stagnation economy needs middle class people at the bottom

eighty percent of income earners to spend money but middle class people spend money they stimulate demand and when they stimulate demand businesses increase production and hire new workers to meet that demand and the economy grows if on the other hand only rich people do you population spend money they can't stimulate enough demand to keep it economy. so what happens with all the rich people who spend our money is that the economy shrinks something we've been seeing happen in a progressive liberal more and more rapid rate basically ever since the beginning of the reagan revolution. fortunately there's a pretty straightforward solution to this problem a solution that will help us grow the bill class and jumpstart the economy unions unions and more unions it's no coincidence that the decline in union membership since the late one nine hundred sixty s. has coincided almost exactly we decline of the american middle classes share of national income. unions help workers bring home i. wages wages that those workers

can then spend on cars homes and other goods to the economy. conservatives love to say that our fragile economy can't afford to have unions but they've got to back it's our fragile economy can't afford to not have you it's that's why congress needs to get to work right now to pass a national card check bill that will help workers easily join unions without having to navigate an unnecessarily complex selection process that just happens to tilt the scales in favor of management. after all of congress passed to congress pass the employee free choice act back in two thousand and nine like it was supposed to it's very good chance that we would be sitting here today talking about the united auto workers and how they just want a stunning victory for the labor movement in tennessee was also a very good chance the middle class would be well on its way to recovery. joining me now from chicago for more on all this is chuck us jessica stites deputy editor

editor and web editor at in these times just to welcome. and there thanks for joining us from what you've gathered what's the mood like in labor circles today. so i think this was a surprise to a lot of people in labor the u.a.w. had gotten a majority of workers to sign cards saying they were interested in the union and u.a.w. really expected a victory. they were gearing up for their victory party on friday night and this came as a shock to them and i think has a ripple effect shock across the labor movement and people are really looking at this to try to figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it so what went wrong . well you brought up one major factor and certainly the u.a.w. believes that republican interference was the major factor in what went wrong

that there were these threats by republican politicians you had bob corker state senator and the u.s. senator from the state and the former mayor of chattanooga saying that folks wagon would not produce its new s.u.v. line in chattanooga the union election went forward and what was so crazy about that was that the books i guess c.e.o. of the chattanooga plant came out after corker statement and said no we don't know what bob corker is talking about that the union election results have nothing. to do with the s.u.v. indecision and corker double down and said nope i had inside sources the plant manager isn't the guy making this decision i've talked to the people making this decision and the union election would hurt the chances of that c.v. line coming to chattanooga and. we have a reporter down in chattanooga right now mike allen who's been doing some fantastic

work down there talking to workers and his sense from workers was yes this character they thought if they live if they didn't get this s.u.v. line me it would hurt jobs you know it would threaten their livelihoods. i understand why republicans hate unions basically i mean historically if you look at all the way from one hundred thirty five when the when they were the wagner act was passed and maybe it was thirty three whatever the year was the national labor relations act and unions were essentially legalized and started really being a major political force they have been supporters financially of the democratic party and the republican party has been supported mostly by business and billionaires so you can get it that you know ever since reagan declared war on unions it really wasn't about unions i mean there was this ideological piece for some people but really it was mostly about defunding the democratic party. is there

any discussion among the members of the unions or in chattanooga about that dimension of a or is that something that just typically flies under the radar i've seen very little mention of that in the press. that's an interesting question would be a good question for mike to start asking folks down there i think this sounds we've got is that regardless of what motivation. corker may have. workers just believed them they thought he had inside knowledge and you know in the case of the other big threat to the union. republican leaders of both the state house and the state senate who both said that it would vote for the union would mean would jeopardize future subsidies to folks wagon and so that's not just making a prediction that they have the ability to make that happen. yeah. yeah but

you know i don't want to. make it sound as though this was the only factor in the union defeat i think there were a couple other factors from talking to workers both on the pro-union anti-union side and these are things that the u.a.w. might be a little less reluctant to kind of explore but i think there are things that that do are important lessons for other unions and other campaigns like. and one of them is that what we've heard from communities supporters of the union drive so people in chattanooga who weren't necessarily employed at folks like and but are pro union you know they exist even in the south pro worker folks who started a committee called chattanooga for workers who are organizing events to support the union drive lisa they did not receive a lot of support and partnership from u.a.w. . and i think that's something that the u.a.w. and other unions may look at going forward and campaigns especially in the south

that really are and anti-union climate and you need to work to bolster the u.a.w. thought this was in the bag just because volkswagen didn't oppose it because. you know from germany which is entirely unionized basically. i think it's possible they thought the neutrality agreement they signed with folks i can really give them an edge i mean they were let into the plant last week to give you the u.a.w. was to get pro union presentations to workers and you know that's the complete opposite from what happens in a campaign that's opposed by management. yes you have work you know sitting in captive audience meetings hearing about how terrible unions are so you know maybe it maybe there was a little bit of hubris there are market will just jessica studs thanks so much for being with us tonight thank you coming up comcast says its plan a forty five billion dollars takeover of time warner cable is going to be just great for consumers but should we celebrate or fear the merger of the two biggest

cable companies in the country. i want to answer right after the break. i got a quote for you. it's pretty tough. if they were it's about story. let's give this go look it would be about guns instead of working for the people most issues in the mainstream media we're pretty much on the bridegroom's dish or even if. it's. a good read it won't. appeal if it was a. very hard to take i. want to get people to. lie have

you ever had sex with that her thick hair cut. and. if it was. if. if. what if if. what if the public.

i'll go back to our country's heavily docu concentrated cable market appears to be headed straight down the road to monopoly late last week comcast announced a massive forty five billion dollar takeover of time warner cable if approved the merger would combine the two biggest cable companies in the country and give com has control over approximately thirty percent of the american t.v. market not surprisingly the deal going to be just great for consumers its c.e.o. brian rogers told me that buying time warner will ensure that comcast customers get

access to better products faster and. it's a really special transaction for both time warner cable and for comcast shareholders or employees and mostly our customers the deal is pro competitive consumer we're going to be able to bring better products faster internet more channels on demand t.v. everywhere and a national local platform that other people however are not so enthusiastic about the deal joining me now for more on this our chance williams associate policy director of free press and todd boyle media and democracy program director for common cause really extraordinary organization it's great to have you guys both with me tonight chance break this deal down forty five billion dollars who is comcast. time warner cable and the time warner cable is not tom time warner the bigger right so exactly comcast is one of the most powerful companies here in washington d.c. i think that's demonstrated by the approval that they were able to secure of their

merger with n.b.c. universal a few years back huge power players and they expect that this deal will go through and they are selling something that they're hoping washington will buy but from what we've been hearing from the american people folks were suspicious of this deal from the very start these are two companies that always rank on the bottom when it comes to consumer satisfaction in customer service so there are some real questions here and customers are right to be asking questions you notice when comcast talks about the benefits of this deal one of the things that they never mention is lower prices for consumers and in fact consumers can expect that their prices will continue to rise at this merger is approved that's coming. at the consumer level it seems like increasingly we're seeing basically something that looks like monopoly here i mean it's it's. what from the consumer point of view how is this going so what this means for consumers is that an uncompetitive in consumer

unfriendly industry is getting less competitive and less consumer friendly so there's no way that this helps the average everyday cable or broadband consumer rather we can expect that a big powerful corporation that's able to write its own rules will continue to do so will be more a bigger and more powerful and one thing that we should be very clear on is that the reason that there is so little competition in broadband there so and cable is that for years these industries have written their own rules in congress and through friendly regulators in washington so they think that they've. got quite a bit in the two thousand and eleven merger with the c.u. that chance reference and. i think they can go for one more bite at the apple to line their own pockets and her consumers in a way chance this is not so different from you know how the telephone industry used to be mean at the cable companies it just kind of picked up that monopoly i lived

in vermont years ago and the legislature vermont had passed a rule that the rise and when the baby bells got broken up and then spun out and fries and ended up gobbling up the baby bill in vermont and so they owned all the copper in the state coming into our house. even though they own the copper even though the on the phone line coming into our house they had to offer it to any phone company i want to provide telephone service so we had sovereign debt as in sovereign you know because from i used to be a nation before it was brought texas where the tube and everybody got the pawn but anyhow it was great service twenty five bucks a month you know the phone company guy who did the pair's live like there are two blocks down the street for me to walk over fix things and and then i went back to this vermont state legislature and said let's ban this you know we own the copper we should be able to determine who comes into the house and who doesn't know in europe. the model is that you pay for the copper and then you also pay for your

internet service provider or your t.v. provider this is why in france for thirty five or forty dollars a month you can you know get all these different plans high speed internet cell phone t.v. everything stuff that we would pay maybe two hundred dollars a month for here would that be an alternative and in fact i like to ask both of you that ultimately would would an alternative to this be to say ok we can set aside our monopoly concerns if we allow essentially monopolies to occur on the copper as long as there's no cost no monopoly on what's passing through the copper or the fiber or whatever. well you know i think one of the things that has been a real plus in the rise of the internet is that people actually can't compete with your cable service. provider on video so you have netflix you have amazon that are providing video service and that is part of what this deal is obviously about comcast wants to keep their hold on video service in this country and they don't

like the fact that netflix and amazon are competing with them and they're competing using that wire that same wire that they bring into your home the same wire that they are going to control that will reach two thirds of the homes in this country so it's a big deal for them and it's a big deal for consumers when you think about the control that they can exercise there but what if you were able to say ok comcast that's fine thank you for bringing the water to my house i'll pay fifteen dollars a month for the water now the stuff that's coming over the wire i want to buy that from a t.n.t. or i want to buy that from the company that chance just started down the street because he's offering me a better speeds down there where you know obviously there are mechanical limitations but or he's offering me you know whatever it's. that right now it's not happening right now whoever owns the wires as you were your eye as pete sorry charlie and that is currently with the way things are set up that's not a possibility i don't think that's going to be a possibility that's put on the table to get this merger approved that certainly nothing that we're hearing from comcast this is about more control for the not more

control is that is that the sort of thing the free press has as. you know is anybody pushing that any of the states to have we believe in big open pipes that means that people can access the content that they want through the wire that comes into their home there shouldn't be anyone interfering with that let alone not the internet service provider your cable company that you have to pay to get access ok and todd we're talking about you know basically having open access that's what chance is talking about is net neutrality even though comcast is now your i speak with you like it or not what about fluidity among us so your question cuts right to the heart of matter which is choice and competition and i'll reiterate that one of the. since we have such abysmal levels of competition and low quality of customer service here our broadband marketplace is because the industry has written rules for itself and that i've written competition out of the game and fact in many of

the states that is situation describing about a public entity a municipality creating its own telecommunications services chattanooga being a perfect example or my hometown was in north carolina. the industry's gone to work on the state level state by state using the american legislative exchange council as its vehicle to write competition out of the market and so when we look at why. you know. this is one of the main reasons that american consumers pay more and get less for their telecommunications and arguably we can track all that back in the supreme court discovering the money is protected by the first amendment corporations are protected by the fourteenth but that's old mother debate. but to do so. too it's very interesting and what i understand there's a group of time warner shareholders who initiated a lawsuit on this the chance were were were that come from where is it going to go you know i don't necessarily know where that's going or where it came from but

there's a process that has to be that has to go through for this this deal to be approved certainly the federal communications commission has to take a look at this deal and make sure that it meets the public interest also the department of justice has to review the deal to be sure that it's not anti-competitive that's going to be a year long process there's a number of public interest groups that are involved in the fight people all over the country are very interested in this have seen the year down the road. most likely that's when a decision would be up to a year reagan rather famously in eighty two eighty three stopped in force in the sherman act for all practical purposes which led to this explosion of mergers and acquisition activity was the can they refer to it as the m n a mania you know when you had michael milken and all these guys. they're making the deals in the captains of the universe in this moment consolidation and no president has gone back i mean jimmy carter was the you know presiding over the breakup of a t.n.t. that was initiated i believe by richard nixon was the last president to seriously

enforce the sherman act are there sure many problems here you don't want to hear i think this raises clear questions about antitrust about competition every time the largest provider buys the other second largest provider of cable services then you really need to question whether this is going to have a chilling effect on how position the marketplace does is there recourse is there anything consumers can do if they object to this chance absolutely folks can check this out at free press dot net we have an online petition going which is really important to let folks in washington know that folks in their districts care deeply about this deal and see it for the sham that it is for consumers so folks can really weigh in there and i guess in a common cause dot org you got something going on that's right common cause. consumers to mind more about what we have to say about competition wide variety of issues it seems like it's just it's so time if this is happening in industry after industry after industry we've seen consolidation in food we've seen media we've seen we've seen it now in in broadband we're seen at which is that

last question is is the broadband part of this the scarier purt or the cable t.v. it seems to me that is the broadband real quick to me the broadband is the scariest part of this because that is obviously a communications platform for all of us the two way communications that's the future that's what comcast wants control over it it's the broadband it's how do people connect and communicate and how do they organize and how to access the content the media content of their choice not come close to it or a chance to thank you both for being with you thank you you thank . in the best of the rest of the news today was another banner day for team usa in sochi skaters meryl davis and charlie white took home goal pairs ice dancing competition beating out their canadian friends and training partners tessa virtue

and scott wore five points to finish with a score of one ninety five point five two their first place finish is truly historic before today no american ice dancers had ever won an olympic gold that what was once a sport dominated by europeans has now become a source of pride for an american skating program that looks poised to compete at an international level three years to come less than a week to go in the twenty second winter olympics davis and white's victory gives the united states a total of five gold medals in sochi in eighteen holes. coming up what's the difference between fox news and p.b.s. not so much apparently the reason why right after the break.

a chance our fearless. six and a finish line of the boston marathon. and it.

might have been hearing. from. people. i would rather ask 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 more. i

think. they would like to know that 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 schreck help us. build. them again i'm sorry and on this show we reveal the picture of what's actually going on we go beyond identifying the problem to try rational debate a real discussion critical issues facing our family member ready to join the movement then welcome to the big picture. of the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this hour another stand your ground .