well. hello i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture it looks like they're finally figuring out their message problem so why does it seem like democrats are missing a big opportunity to send the republicans acking once and for all as richard esko just a moment and senate republicans still don't know which health care bill they're going

to vote on this week because obamacare is the republican health care plan i'll ask you mon freeman and r.j. asco in tonight's liberal progressive. event today and very vill virginia democratic leadership unveiled a set of policies that they're collectively calling a better deal as minority leader chuck schumer went out of his way to point out the goal of this new agenda is to show every day working americans that the democratic party is actually looking out for. american families deserve a better deal so this country works for everyone again not just the elites not just the special interests today democrats start presenting that better deal to the american people so it looks like democrats have finally found their message but is

it a winning one and do the actual policies of this better deal go far enough to reverse our slide into oligarchy employed talk recy joining me now is richard s. co-host of these euro our. and senior fellow at the campaign for america's future richard welcome welcome back to the program great to be back it's great to have you and thanks for being with us through the whole half hour here first things first it really does seem like the democrats at least understand that just being the party of not trump doesn't make it so. might be overly optimistic or have they finally turned a corner well you know those aren't the only two possibilities i think it's a step forward for sure i mean i you have to acknowledge there talking for example the schumer talked to wrote today about breaking up monopolies about antitrust that's certainly part of the right message you know he's talking he didn't say a lot about trade but he did talk about better trade deals you know they would move

there definitely it's a big step in the right direction i don't happen to be a fan of canned phrases like better deal that get repeated over and over i think in this day and age it message wise it does more to keep using a catch phrase like that i think we should all learn from the hillary clinton campaign and better deal is kind of relativistic right it doesn't say a good deal a great deal says not as bad as the other guys but you know there are things i could nitpick but i think it's worth starting out by saying this is definitely a step to the left for the democrats and as a person of the left i think that's a good move there ok well that's that's good what about the policies i mean you know. endorsing the medicare negotiate prices i mean that's kind of a no brainer it's although it's been a huge political battle because the republicans are so committed to keeping that six hundred billion dollars subsidy for the pharmaceutical industry of being able to sell a tire lee retail to medicare plus it hurts medicare the republicans love that too

. but you know you say there's that but then you know the flip side of that would be you know single payer that could negotiate everything the democrats are not willing to go that far they say they want to break up the big monopolies or actually they said. i want to start examining the mergers and holding the merge companies accountable rather than breaking up the big monopolies and there's a real consequential difference there all these are this is not franklin or teddy roosevelt yes no not no by no means and i also think that that kind of parts thing of policy and that kind of parsing of words is what dooms the democrats every time i mean it would think about how much more effective it would be as policy and as politics if you were were to say let's break up the big banks who basically got a pass in this entire policy because they have too much power economic power and political power let's break up the big corporations whether and any corporation that has a monopoly whether it's your cable company your credit card company anyone else who

won't do a fair deal with you you know they talk about arbitration and things like that which are important but they get into it and look i'm sympathetic to what schumer and palosi have to do on one level which is they have to placate you know diverse a group of elected officials that they represent but i would sure love to see the democrats go further than they're going here i mean there's no question about it and i feel that the role of people frankly like us. or if i if you don't want to be included me is to push them way further they laugh than they want to go because i think those policies will be much more popular as well as affect them but you know i think on the policy side for example yes it's good medicare should definitely negotiate drug prices but we should also expand medicare and make it more of a if you're not willing to go full single payer yet make it available to people fifty five and older make it available to kids start phasing it in for larger groups of the population if you want to negotiate drug prices negotiate them for

medicare and medicaid and tell the drug companies they have to honor those drug prices with everybody that walks in the door you know really get bold really get tough and i think they'd be a lot more successful and a very simple one simply allows. the importation of pharmaceuticals from canada had some in the you know it's the instant competition in a really consequential way the republican party at one point in time in our lifetimes had a spectrum of people in it from literally progressives all the way to its right the democrat so the republicans looked at this and said you know we're just going to start ignoring the progressives in the republican party we're going to start ignoring the moderates we're going to actually start primary in them we're not going to support them anymore and the republican party has turned into far more of a of a right wing party essentially a you know a more monolithic party. more consistent with their base of support among the billionaires and fox news and whatnot but it's there and that has allowed them to

take control of the supreme court of the house of the senate of the white house and of thirty three i think now state capitols that's pretty substantial democratic party right now is looking at a relatively monolithic republican party i mean you know only two defections on health care it's a and and they're looking in the democratic party at the whole spectrum from joe mansion to elizabeth warren and it seems to me like all of this parsing that i'm seeing in the better deal is is you know schumer palosi tom perez is their way of saying you know we want to keep joe manchin in the party and we want to keep a list of warren in the party who want to keep it a big tent party with with a broad diversity of opinions and perspectives even if part of that diversity is people who are basically corporate sellouts. i personally if i was running the democratic party you know i would be i would do it more like the republicans have and say these are our goals this is our ideology this is where we want to end up in

ten years and and say to some of the some of the blue dogs you know frankly you know good luck but you're on your own what do you think well look i think the. underlying issue was really important first of all the republican leadership didn't do that the republican base did that and because of gerrymandering so many republican at this seats in congress are safe seats that it became a race between the ultra conservative and the hyper ultra conservative tea party freedom caucus right so it was really the base taking over the party which is something that progressive activists should look at you know what i sometimes describe as a not so friendly takeover of the democratic party in certain districts primary blue dogs going after blue dogs and but i think here bates point i think democrats have to recognize now they're basically one step up from a third party even though there's no other party out there with the the fact that

they've lost two thirds of state houses two thirds of governorships all three branches of the federal government republican cheating and collusion and gerrymandering and everything else have contributed to that but they're basically in the wilderness now and what better time to your point to restructure yourselves and when you're in the wilderness especially around policies that we know people even republican voters want expanded social security expanded medicare better wages higher even though on an infrastructure going for ever education for all three higher education free tuition free higher education so they could come up with a much more quote unquote left agenda i mean these blue dog democrats are an artifact of when rahm emanuel and those guys were searching for corporate money and running candidates that would lure them money they've got to move beyond that now it seems like they're sort of in the old bob dylan you know when you've got nothing you got nothing to the right position so what the hell you know this is the leader of another word for not not going to hurt us trampling said yeah. so you know

there's going to be serious corporate opposition to this to this better deal program that they're putting forward as milk toast as it is. how do you see the democrats pushing back against that how do you see that plane well you know it's going to be tough because i think a lot of them don't want to push back i think a lot of them want to present it as lip service and i think there will be an effort to water it down as lip service you know we saw this back and forth about a draft version of this document led with better skills better jobs better wages that's all bill clinton corporate sellout democratic party it's not the fault of the workers that they are they can't get decent wages or decent jobs it's a i'm rather it's not the fault of the corporations it's the fault of the workers they they don't know what up they are trained enough that's a total con job you know it's inequality it's corporate control of the media that's causing it and i think you're seeing that war continue to play out of will continue

to play out that's why that's why i'm not completely optimistic this is the opening shot in a war that we're going to have to fight on behalf of the democrats because i don't think they'll fight it for themselves in some cases as well and in fact. they're. you know the reason why al from in eighty eight eighty seven eighty eight and and then bill clinton in ninety two you know when the two of them got together why the d.l.c. brought all this corporate money into the democratic party was because the unions were being successfully killed by a by reaganism and unions have been the traditional funder of the party so given that we are living in a post barclays citizens united world i mean you know the corporate democrats would say hey without corporate money you guys are you know toast particular in the big states in the final minute we have here rich richard is that you know how do the democrats deal with that problem well it's a fundamental schizophrenia that they've lived with for quite

a while my answer to that would be you guys better figure out how to mobilize volunteers and how to do that bernie sanders twenty seven dollars per you know bernie raise an enormous amount of money two hundred thirty eight million dollars average donation twenty seven dollars. they better figure out how to channel that in their energy because i think they're going to lose the corporations one way or another anyway you know well that's i mean just even going half way is going to at the very least anger minow it's like why not just go all the way go for broke ok you know solid richard richard usko thank you so much for drop by my pleasure it will be right back coming up right wing oligarchy like the koch brothers don't just want to roll back a few regulations they apparently want to repeal our democracy to have the damning proof of their plot against the constitution and tonight's big picture panel with richard and come on free right after the break.

there's a real irony going. on here it's always the it's one that's always you know three. or are you know wholesale surveillance you feel you have all meanwhile is going to do so since the instructor has used social media. as a scar a real. i think the average viewer just after watching a couple segments understands that we're telling stories in our critics can't tell me you know why because their advertisers more let them. in order to create change you have to be honest you have to tell the truth parties able to do that every

story is built on going after the back story to what's really happening out there to the american what's happening when a corporation makes a pharmaceutical chills people when a company in the environmental business ends up polluting a. for the causes cancer and other illnesses they put all that health risk all the dangers out to the american public those are stories that we tell everyone we can you know what they're working. all. but how to do. it themselves. so when they want to express. some want. to do right. it's like.

the national weather service in sterling virginia has been a special marine warning for chesapeake bay north pool's island but until nine fifteen pm at seven twelve pm a strong thunderstorm was ok to twenty nautical miles northwest of middle river is that twenty knots hazard wind gusts thirty four knots or greater and small hail force radar indicated impact voters and small craft could be thrown overboard by suddenly higher winds and waves capsizing their vessel locations impacted include north east river turkey point specifically dylan and aberdeen proving ground move to safe harbor until hazardous weather passes. stand your ground shoot first laws voter suppression idea laws has drawn up a dangerous new piece of model legislation as john nichols reports in the nation

and calls for the repeal of the seventeenth amendment which gave the american people the right to directly elect their senators the proposed resolution would instead give state legislatures the power to like senators as wild as this sounds it's a popular idea among republicans mike lee ted cruz and jeff flake of all said in recent years that they support repealing the seventeenth amendment why do republicans hate democracy i think you know the thing that provoked the seventeenth amendment in addition to the whole progressive you know the something the man was passed in one thousand fourteen as i recall and the whole progressive wave that had been building for the two decades before that was in the late one thousand nine hundred seventy william quark of montana he was a copper baron and he went to the montana state legislature this was when the state legislatures elected the senators the federal senators and gave a speech public speech on the floor and said i have in my pocket

a wad of thousand dollar bills pull them out waved him around and he said any of you who vote for me to be montana's u.s. senator i'll hand one of these bills to you as you walk out of the chamber and he stood there he watched the vote and as they walked out he passed the dollar bills to them and you know this was nothing new and this was nothing you know insanely shocking at the moment in the place but it got picked up by the new york newspapers and so horrified the washington d.c. in new york that the united states senate refused to seat william clark for six months as a huge battle over whether he would even be allowed to have a seat because he had bought it through bribery and that kicked us right into the into the seventeenth amendment so why would republicans want to take us back to those days i don't get it it's the good old days. when we could murder greely do you know that much of. the republican idea is that this is new and you say before you lose this is. happened before the judge was john birch society and some of it was trying to fight for this thing yeah but i do think there is reason to look at

the seventy's in terms of how current we can screw up the undemocratic to have a senator who represents millions of people who did the same vote as a senator who represent one hundred thousand people so i think this from discussion the but to see this going down there with they have put it so that the state legislature the republican controlled state legislators i mean is all above them good old boys trying to circle the wagons to keep our this is a consistent. obviously for the thirty three or thirty four state legislatures that are a point controlled by republicans so that would give them sixty six or sixty eight senate seats if they flipped right say own mourning troll two thirds of the legislatures in this country is that what this is about and by the way c'mon you know what he suggested suddenly it hit me with whoa what if we said ok you want to change the seventeenth the moment you want to change the senate let's change the damn sun let's let's make it proportional let's say that you know

a small state in the united states has one senator and every other state has a number of senators equal to the smallest state's population divided by the population of the bigger state for the number of senators yes so if you got it you know how divided up by the result of that you divide that math so that for example becoming the senator or one of the senators from california doesn't evolve massive expenditure on media bias and the other things that bring corporations into it come on kind of said what i was going to say in a different way which is before the seventeenth amendment the senate was america's house of lords and let in a fact and let's face it that's what it's become again by and large in most cases because it takes so much money to run for the united states senate in this country that it's become almost a purchased seat i mean there are a few happy accidents and cases where that isn't true but by and large it's not a democratic institution. it does not reflect the will of the people i mean we've even seen gerrymandering congress doesn't represent the majority for all you know

two thousand and twelve democrats got one point four million more votes for congress than republicans but republicans took control of the house now in the senate side it's even worse why should a person who lives in wyoming home of some very unpleasant senatorial characters over a recent memory have who knows maybe one hundred times more voting power in this senate than someone who lives in california why should that be the case well i was you know i guess if if wyoming or vermont you know they're both i think around a half a million people so that gets you one senator then california is what twenty six million people so yeah and i see why only mazie less than that would get more all three how would you have california fifty two senators. as it made of we actually have more park police in the state oh well maybe he was brought up and yeah i have no vote that's right that's right so we need to start was doing season eight and board in rhode island and more than i listed them out on it's going to fewer since

it's remarkable ok moving along the senate will vote on a health care bill this week probably tomorrow that much is almost certain there's just one problem we don't know which health care bill the senate is actually going to vote on mitch mcconnell is still keeping us in the dark about whether he'll bring up for debate the repeal and replace bill that senate republicans have been working on for the past few months that you know throws twenty two million people off the voting rolls or their appeal until a bill that they already put passed back in two thousand and fifteen that would throw thirty three million people off their. health insurance rolls and was thrust back into the spotlight last week after republican support for the repeal in place bill collapsed so isn't this chaos the logical conclusion of what happens when you don't really have a health care plan i mean after all obamacare was the republicans health care plan from the time nixon first introduced it in seventy two through the heritage foundation clean it up and. six through through romney put into place massachusetts if this is the republican plan this is it's got to be why they're so stock

democrats are pretty clear their plan a single payer has been since harry truman greed is good for change in this country because if they had been satisfied with the republican plan that they term obamacare we would be having this discussion most people would be happy with it but their greed is getting the best of them and because the god too far there is going to backfire it's going to actually usher in the universal health care plan where everybody you know because they are people understand what is really at stake here and i told you before my sister actually lost her life because of this debate is very real people actually die because we have convoluted health care and health insurance and i don't think anything short of putting health insurance companies out of business should be acceptable do you want to tell a story real my sister was a victim in a car accidents was cut out the car her health insurance policy dictated that because she was conscious which you're right that the hospital they did not have to do a full body examination they only had to acknowledge when she was complaining of the

neck or showed it has she been unconscious they did a full about exam never felt that she actually had term of bleeding and she collapsed in her home three months later because of that terribly and she's not with us today because of it that's terrible and this is all because that's all the insurance cause of the policy that makes money and this is what happens when you turn the life and death decisions that should be made by the people over to private corporations and you know people talk to the republicans or the conservatives want to talk about bureaucrats and making decisions about life and death well what about executives who is who have a profit motive for making life and death that's how kimono lost his sister you know i used to work in that industry has a horrible thanks that's why i left i saw decisions being made about the deaths of infants based on just accounting ledger kinds of things you know this is not a way to run a health care system that's horrifying it's appalling and. frankly these are just bad human beings you know we're supposed be civil in this town and say that my republican friends my republican colleagues this and that these are awful human

beings simple well let's you know tell us what you really think that you know well there you go ok remember that indianapolis carrier plant that donald trump used as a political prop for his fake populism and that and this and that mike pence took indiana money to bail out well just some three hundred american workers home their jobs are being sent to mexico dozens fundamentally prove that the g.o.p. has no interest in protecting jobs for working people they just say the stuff to get elected and govern like the plutocrats they were all long. going to be just it was quoting somebody if you give. if you convince to lois what movie is better than the greatest burden and if you give someone a look down when he won even those you pick in his pocket the hill he would give some of the go he would into his pockets for you has been the tried and proven winning mode of people voting against their own interests and i don't see what's going to take that with the money and aimed to bring our conversation back full

circle what is going to wake them up if we haven't had a democratic party speaking to those people or to the people who don't vote in our cities i mean the people who don't participate and the people who are alienated nobody's talking to each. the national weather service in mount holly new jersey has issued a flash flood warning for north central montgomery county in southeastern pennsylvania southeastern lee county in eastern pennsylvania northwestern bucks county in southeastern pennsylvania until eleven thirty pm at seven twenty three pm doppler radar and automated rain gauges indicated soner storms producing heavy rain across the warn area one to three inches of rain have fallen flash flooding is

expected to begin shortly in the areas of heaviest rain from locations that could experience flooding include quick your town for casy bedminster east greenville out still designs ville jerry bill pins bird cooper's bird ritalin town and from brownsville turn around don't drown when encountering flooded roads most flood deaths occur in vehicles. the great society great society the better society then it wise under the other guys that's not quite so inspiring it's that's that's unfortunate so where. so here we have a situation right now where donald trump is running around trying to convince his voters that he's actually looking out for them and he's bringing jobs back and all this kind of thing while he's not and yet you know fox news i mean how do you how does that how do we i don't how do we wake people up to the fact that they're being

lied to. and that's the sixty four thousand dollar question i don't have a message for that one because fox news is the largest media outlet in the country still is the current numbers you know and they've been proven that they don't have to tell the truth in court you know so i don't know this it's a love fest among some of the most. ignorant people and some of the most corporate controlled information that we've seen i don't know what is going to take the with these people that people have good b.s. detectors so i mean that's why that's why my old boss bernie did ok because i think a lot a lot of these voters sensed that there was something really there something real and i think that if the democrats can do something real people will resonate very rich kid come on for him and thank you both for being always a presence on and that's the way it is tonight don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport you know they get active tag you're it.

the national weather service in mount holly new jersey has issued a severe thunderstorm warning for montgomery county in southeastern pennsylvania central bucks county in southeastern pennsylvania northeastern chester county in southeastern pennsylvania until eight fifteen am at seven twenty five pm a severe thunderstorm was located near pottstown for twenty miles east of reading moving east that thirty five miles per hour hazard sixty miles per hour wind gusts and penny size hail source radar indicated impact expects damage to trees and power lines locations unpacked and. parts of town. west norton

norton doylestown borough ambler collegeville chalfont trap hadfield twinks phil green lean freaks spring mount and gilbert still for your protection move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a building in addition to a large hail and damaging winds frequent cloud to ground lightning the current with this storm moved indoors immediately remember if you can fund or you are close enough to be struck by lightning repeating a severe thunderstorm warning has been issued until eight fifteen pm for the following counties in pennsylvania bucks chester and montgomery. reality one part for part. those with attempt to conquer the. rest was universally designed to push through the t.v. and exploitation field little or are pushed so far to the margins of society

including by a public broadcasting system that has sold its soul for corporate money that we might as well be mice squeaking against an avalanche but squeak we must. was was. what was. talked about five hundred leads them popo nice children we generally grow up viewing police officers as the super heroes of our society right and then once we grow up if we manage that we realize we're really in this country many don't we realize that a certain percentage of police officers are deeply flawed human beings some percentage and a certain percentage are deeply flawed human beings with very little to.