up polluting a river that causes cancer and other illnesses they put all the health risk all the dangers out to the american public those are stories that we tell every week and you know what they're working. well i'm hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture is jeff sessions colluding with donald trump's sham election integrity commission to suppress the vote i'll ask investigative reporter greg allen just

a moment and of republicans get their way flying in america could gets all lot more dangerous soon the reason why in tonight's low rumble with dave akala and charles. did devastation in puerto rico as a result of hurricane maria is of an apocalyptic scale eighty percent of that island agricultural industry was destroyed flooding is rampant and most of the population could be without power for as many as six months this is the kind of disaster we're only going to see more of as climate change kicks into gear but for the banks toure's who already have puerto rico in their gas grasp it could be just another chance to bleed that island dry for more on how the vulture capitalists have ruined puerto rico and how they could use hurricane maria as a launching pad for more of their financial piracy i'm joined now by greg palast

puffin foundation fellow and investigative reporting filmmaker and creator of the new documentary the best democracy money can buy a tale of billionaires and ballot bad it's the new version of which you could buy next week only greg palast dot com greg welcome back. glad to be with you tom so greg as i mentioned when trump finally brought up the devastation in puerto rico earlier this week on twitter he pointed out correctly my news that the island owes billions to wall street and the big banks i don't think many americans understand exactly what's going on in puerto rico can you elaborate for us what the situation is there with regard to debt and quote billions being owed to wall street and quote yeah well trump should know because it's his cronies who have had toward errico and it's lightbulbs by the throat and they also control the island by the light bulbs the puerto rican electric authority oses tens of millions billions of dollars to a bunch of vulture investors who are collecting usurious interest rates twenty

percent plus and this includes knights head capital and other vulture investors the entire island has been in the grip of vulture investors that i've been tracking including. stephen nugent's partner in in vulture crime john paulson who has been the big vulture investor in puerto rico earning returns of twenty percent plus down the us government issued bonds at one to three percent puerto rico pays twenty percent it's this type of usury makes it impossible for people to live there it's cranked up the there's you know they've stopped these vultures have stopped the electric system from being fixed they knew it was going to be blown down it could have been didn't need a hurricane maria could been the big bad wolf just huffing and puffing that thing was ready to blow right over. maria did it but the truth is that system has not been fixed in decades because the vultures are saying pay us our interest first now

how does this happen puerto rico is the these are the only americans whose state does not have an it is a state it's the colonized state whose state does not have the right to declare bankruptcy to work out its debts as a result you've seen the island squeeze so much that people are literally abandoning the island fleeing the island as nothing do with hurricanes they're fleeing one way because they can't afford the electric rates they can't afford the taxes there the schools are closing hospitals are closing you had hospitals closed way before this tragedy they knew this was coming and now the vultures are going to be are clapping hands and popping champagne corks because you're going to have a big so-called help package for puerto rico and watch this is exactly how the vultures work things die they feast and they're going to be collecting this disaster money you watch it's trump's cronies who are the real guys who put him in office to what extent is the is part of the game that they're playing here

privatizing puerto rico's electric system and other government own entities. their private was going to privatized everything at fire sale prices and they're going to turn it over to these guys who have the bonds were buying bonds at thirty cents on the dollar and they're going to say oh yeah puerto rico's this money but these guys it wasn't money lent by these guys these vultures like john paulson and company the multi-billionaire who headed the trump's so-called economics panel when he was running for president that's a guy who worked with steve nugent to take down the u.s. treasury for billions of dollars so what they're doing is they're squeezing puerto rico the hedge funds there was going to be a bill that was about be passed in the u.s. congress to allow puerto rico the same type of financial protections every american state has but it was killed by marco rubio who flipped this position after

two fundraisers were held for him in the hamptons by hedge fund managers with billions invested in puerto rico so you know basically they they bought themselves that senator rubio and he helped choke off the island this was a tragedy that was going to happen they saw it you knew that that electric system was going to blow down and this is the this is the problem so they're going to not only privatized it but these guys are going to be paid off big time for doing nothing but choking off that island and letting people die in the dark you're going to see a cholera epidemic among american citizens you know imagine it's amazing the other thing is amazing is probably half of americans don't realize that perkins are u.s. citizens i mean that's that's how bad our our media has become since the death of the fairness doctrine and the way is there any way to stop these vulture capitalists or is there or is there any kind of motion to try to you know basically

help or save puerto rico or are you know have is the federal government just basically throwing them to the tender mercies of steve and hank paulson. and what not the folks that you're talking about here of the world yeah the john paulson the yes i should say that for example senator blumenthal of connecticut he was stunned he was working with mario with marco rubio on a bankruptcy plan on a workout plan that would pay off you know pay these vultures but they wouldn't be allowed to to reap billions and billions in profit from puerto rico suffering they'd be paid off for what they put in and that's possible and so it was all it was all going to be fixed fixed under president obama with the help of blumenthal and rubio because rubio has a tremendous number of puerto rican. people from puerto rico his constituents but constituents mean nothing when you're getting your campaign financing from the vulture funds he literally flipped at the last minute and sabotaged the bill that

would have saved puerto rico and rebuilt the electric system in time to prevent the absolute disaster destruction and death that will be coming because of maria knocking down the electric system when they saw this coming they saw it coming yeah well you know marco rubio is also the guy who was largely responsible not entirely for killing the risk corridors on the to be affordable care act and twenty fifteen starting the process of the downward spiral of that i mean you know he you know the ethics in politics and marco rubio are not categories that should coexist meanwhile you know and i mean you know i had. yeah i was going to say remember marco rubio's big funder was paul singer the guy known as the vulture the number one vulture and vulture so-called investor in america so basically you know he's just marco rubio simply hatched right out of of the vulture nest and this is

a big problem you know apparently even meanwhile the lawyers committee for civil rights under law is a lead. gene collusion between the justice department under jeff sessions and donald trump's sham election integrity commission they were in a letter to the senator to the senate asserting as much what do you know about these allegations and what would be the significance of any collusion like this well it's very dangerous because the justice department supposed to be protecting voters that they have the civil rights and voting divisions which are supposed to be the the cops on the beat to protect your right to vote instead they're collaborating with our friend kris kobach who is the trump vote thief in chief he's the head of the so-called operating as head of the so-called elections integrity commission to change all the voting laws and as a result you have kobach influencing the justice department to flip its positions from defending voters to literally applauding and joining in states in their

attacks on voters this is really really serious stuff and we've seen now in the effect in wisconsin for example where you know now we have the justice department. putting itself behind these demands that voters produce id now they can't remember the whole point of id they claim it's to stop people from impersonating a voter and voting twice or you know and yet they don't find these people they haven't found the state of indiana started this business of requiring voter photo id and they agreed that in one hundred years they couldn't find a single case of voter in person nation but this i d game. you know won the state of wisconsin for for donald trump well in fact at a when you have you know in apropos of that i mean according to a comprehensive new study out of the university of wisconsin in madison the badger state's voter suppression idea you were just referring to greg deterred or

prevented as many as thirty seven thousand eligible voters going to the polls on election day that's more than enough to account for donald trump's twenty two thousand vote margin of victory over hillary clinton. oh it's. well i got to tell you i read you know the press releases that were you know in the new york times washington post story talked about those tens of thousands of voters discouraged or couldn't vote because of the of the id laws you have to understand two weeks before the election the law was reimposed but i read the entire study and it is if you read the actual study oh man it's far worse there was the total amount of votes suppression was astonishing you had tens of thousands of people couldn't focus there were literally five hour lines in milwaukee so you had you had all kinds of other vote suppression going on you had voters who lost their vote because they had the wrong voter i.d. after they voted they didn't know that their vote was disqualified and there was a mail in ballot two thirds of the provisional ballots in wisconsin were never

counted these are out of and by the way these are the two major liberal and minority counties that include the cities of madison and milwaukee got a look at the at the back the back page of this study in the appendix it's grim they were they disqualified two thirds of the provisional ballots from these progressive areas on the grounds that the voter had not produced the id so the voter walks away thinking they'd voted no your vote didn't count man and there were other eerie through this whole thing there were many many techniques that it's clear that they actually counted the votes in wisconsin it wasn't close trump last trump last mazing greg palast it's always good talking with you my friend even though the news is grim thanks so much for dropping by. well coming up is roy moore the gun toting muslim hating same sex marriage opposing alabama senate candidate is he the american version of isis last call and charles our insides long. break.

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move this bar graph we don't skew the facts either talking at lebanese talking at righties oh there you go above it all look at world r.t. america is in the spotlight now every really know i did it classify as and actually took me way more time than i care to admit. republicans are obsessed with fighting what they call radical islamic terrorism so why are they trying to send the american version of isis to the united states senate let's rubble. with a for their eyes alone little rumble our dave mccullough national g.o.p. strategist and charles our economist and president of the market institute thank you both for being here with this great both of those so judge roy moore is

officially the republican candidate for senate in alabama last night he beat out sitting senator luther strange in a special runoff election that use the g.o.p. nomination for jeff sessions old seat every american who's not a straight white protestant man should take this news very very seriously conservative doesn't even begin to describe moore's political views a better term would probably be american isis among other things moore has said that homosexuality should be illegal and gay people should be in prison he blamed nine eleven on abortion he once argued in an op ed that keith ellison should not be allowed to serve in congress because he's muslim more also was removed or suspended not once but twice from alabama supreme court once because he refused to remove a statue of the ten commandments from the courts grounds and a second time because he ordered judges to. five the united states supreme court's ruling that legalized same sex marriage in order to enhance the power of the plutocrat quaffs or the republicans willing to let the american version of isis

take power in the senate it's seems like they're enthusiastic about this well keep in mind though the trump and a lot of. a lot of republicans did not support this guy and in fact i mean i think it's kind of a little bit out there really out there but i think also to call him the american version of this is also pretty insulting to the people who i say have been killed by isis but you know we've had three times more americans killed by white christian terrorists in the united states and by muslim terrorists since spent eleven we you know we have you got this guy calling for the imprisonment of gay people this is an isis thing or actually killed a people you've got. more saying that we have a national religion that america was founded on christianity and when he's talking about christianity he's doesn't include could follow us as i'm as far as i can tell . so isn't this i mean i get it that isis is a bit hyperbolic but but i think george washington's role in over his grave so i

don't see poor. moore's election i didn't support him i think we should stand up against what he's supported and and stood for in the past but not even trump supported this guy and a lot of what trump both of you guys have said trump didn't support trump in his speeches on behalf of luther strange was saying maybe i'm supporting the wrong guy and a far more wins i'll be with him one hundred percent i mean he said this several times he was supporting both of them and i think a democrat would say the same thing during a primary you know it is this is a legit oh a one and even further ok so this guy's beliefs are extreme period but in elections you go to the right or you go to the left and then you come back in the middle to try to win but no more or another grabs a little. never in his life but then tell me i can't stand behind what roy moore has been for and i know you're not standing behind what he stood no or either it's

just that i don't think trump did he went out and campaigned against this guy he came pained early against him and was out there and he knows because the republicans on capitol hill don't support yet today royal morally and mitch mcconnell have issued statements of support for roy moore not pointing out that this guy is an extremist and he's beyond an extremist. i know that i'm i believe that you're right i the republican party has sold its soul here to right wing christian whack jobs no i don't think that that's true i think mitch mcconnell couldn't get fifty one votes for health care he's going to have a problem getting fifty one votes so it is working back to our children's into it is the way he's he's grasping at straws. you have to build a coalition to maintain that and even though it consists of some probably kind of crazy people you also have majority people who are probably more mainstream or kerry trump and republicans in congress are trying to punish blue states to help pay for giant tax cuts for rich people and big corporations in

a move that has even some blue state republicans up in arms the tax reform plan trump unveiled in indiana today includes a repeal of the state and local tax deduction also known as salt as a l.t. this popular deduction allows people to pay a lot of taxes to their state or local government to write those taxes off when they file their federal tax returns it mostly affects blue states like new york or california because unlike many red states they actually have a robust state level tax system where as you like texas and florida don't even have state income taxes so why are republicans trying to punish blue states for having a functional tax system especially because when taxes are higher american society has historically had a stronger middle class as is by the way true of every country in the world the higher the top rate on the very very rich the stronger and larger is the middle class wouldn't real tax reform involving involve raising taxes on the rich back at least to where they were be let me rephrase that question for you when is the left

going to stop stealing money from poor people in other states i mean that is what this is or if you can sell paint and no no no i listened to you when you had a five minute lead and you had a five minute lead in here if you. have the left stops feeling the rich left this also isn't even being played by the poor on the left this is the rich. people in california and new york stealing money from texas stealing money from kansas stealing money from the things that the liberal elites that the cosmopolitan left wants to call fly over country and that's why the left is going to lose elections for every dollar that california sends to washington d.c. how much do they get back. you seventy two cents you know these numbers for every dollar that louisiana cents a while washington d.c. how much do they get back almost two dollars you know what florida is it's i mean if you steal one you know what florida is thirty two cents i mean let's fill out the rest of the numbers here when you're talking about state tax deductions you're talking about a system that doesn't make any sense this rewards

a state for having higher taxes because now they're stealing from other states you're my numbers might be right on taxes tom i can fight those and we can argue them but if you're right that higher taxes are are better than it would be better for them to for them it would be better by the federal government or to back the federal government out of the states but to have a state rewarded for overtaxing their citizens makes no economic sense whatsoever i'd say that this is one of the you know one of the different parts to his tax deal that he wants to push through we don't exactly know completely what's in it yet it was just released i mean the trip was fully released yet he's an assistant so nine page talking points exactly so this may be as he one more leverage that he has to be able to push through as things look i wish they would add in the mortgage interest deduction nancy pelosi as distrait gets like five times the benefit that the that the people in rural illinois get with a bang i mean go nuts i mean there's no we don't remember the housing industry without a doubt people would stop buying homes if they were if they didn't have

a duction but they you know they could they could tweak it all we've got one of the problems that we have in the united states now is unused there you know it's creating the light in many cities if there was we could change the way that we taxed you know as you know i mean my point is that taxes exist and you know you both know this you know there's there's two reasons for taxes one is to raise money to run a government the other is to alter people's behavior or businesses behavior you provide incentives you provide you know the trip and and. just you know some of the horrible situations that are being created by by by these land speculators there's a great piece. that was in the new republic i was reading this afternoon about this this guy in in texas as i recall who bought up a whole bunch of properties in baltimore you know i mean literally for like a thousand bucks apiece because they were tax sales and then just let them disintegrate i mean you know that there should be some anyhow if we're going to if we're going to go for taxes and see much more you know what i'm just you you have

to know whether to stay like that correctly where i'm from in kansas not not where i'm from in kansas but i'm from candice in kansas they're still giving away land in the south western corner but to get that land you actually have to go and move there and stay there and build it only that is yeah i mean there's a way to do this and that's my point if you're going to do tax reform rather than just cutting rates or changing rates or moving things around let's actually have a good conversation about what is it that we want to encourage what is it we want to discourage let's not encourage state stealing money from the middle i get it when you're the host of the left and it's and the midwest all the midwestern states by the way have state taxes so wealthy people in the midwestern states are going to get hurt by this as well but not nearly as much as the blue coasts. you know i'm not sure missions taxes are that much lower than california's or or you know i lived in michigan for twenty eight years anyway if republicans get the moving along if republicans get their way flying in america is about to get

a lot more dangerous as the federal aviation administration considers rolling back a series of protections senator john thune of south dakota is pushing for a bill that would scale back the training requirements for the pilot flying your airplane currently pilots need fifteen hundred hours of training in the sky before getting their license their commercial pilot's license uninfluenced plan pilots could mean part of that requirement with a ground training simulators this is all about the airline saving money and protecting their bottom line the pilot union opposes this even sully sullenberger as come out against it what could possibly justify this other than saving money for the oil it's becoming a pilot is a very very expensive thing it's one hundred grand born on you the person who wants to become a pilot not on the airline the airlines don't generally pay for that although they are starting to go ok yes i think my rabbits last year it did not cost me one hundred thousand bucks i don't know if a lot of it's a private through a little bit. from the pilot but you know you're on a t.s.a.

air transat. a pilot a commercial pilot i'm not a commercial. commercial pilot is like you said one hundred fifteen hundred hours and hundred thousand dollars in schooling and the regional airlines this is not a prom that really affects the larger airlines they're pretty well step but the regional airlines the ones that get you from smaller airports the smaller airports they are running out of pilots in fact the reason why they're running out of pilots is michael moore pointed out his movie is the burger king managers make more than the guy in the left seat or the woman in the left seat that the pilot in command of even the copilot literally burger king pays their managers more than a lot of these these these regional airlines that often have the names a bigger lines on the side of their airplanes i mean if if they're worried about a pilot shortage and they're. am work workers this is the progressive regressive calling out of this is supply and demand if you've got a shortage of pilots pay them or no this is well no you're saying they need this

long run up it's hard to get fifteen it's hard to accumulate fifteen hundred hours in a plane i know you want to support the airline industry and i know you want to support the unions but most of you who are actually got their fifteen hundred hours in the military yet know that in that's the sole and burger right i believe you guys through the military vast majority so now the left wants to put everybody through the military ok you can have your choice. to do it long or through the military tom that's how i have fun i want jobs and when you have fifteen hundred hours in a simulator a the technology is there to do stuff like that but fifteen hundred hours in a simulator can happen a lot faster than if you have a fifteen hundred hours in a simulator is not going to prepare you for real life from urgency i can tell you i've been in simulators i've been in real life emergencies and it's a world of difference good to it's good to learn where the gauges are but you know we've got to wrap it up it's great having both you with us tonight charles david thank you so much and that's the way it is tonight and don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport get out there get active tag you're it. illegal

. all the fields and. every the exterior. the if you get it on the open. according to just. look. for the rye.

there's a real irony going. to let him think i'm responsible for boys new people and there's always holdouts one because it always. seems to be a little more airy now wholesale surveillance you feel you have already while there's room to do so since then trump has used social media well i always thought the story was it's garbage in real.