when citizens united, the supreme court decision came down, it basically said -- the decision basically said that corporations and unions don't have enough power. they don't have enough influence and they don't have enough money so they let them have unlimited powers on all those fronts, and that has finally thrown a big rock in the pond. the ripples have spread out and poem are finally getting it. i did a little research and was shocked to discover the thing that's really problem make the are the huge super committees, super pacs where there's very little disclosure or any and unlimited money can be raised. there's 149 super pacs out there, and just one of them is raising $240 million. so these super pacs are absolutely dwarfing the actual campaigns of the candidates. it's not really a campaign anymore between candidates. it's a campaign between special interests. >> at the end of the day, why -- i mean, it's so apparent. why is it that this auction process for our policy-makers, how did it get to this point? we always talk about the supreme court but you've been in the offices of so m

, which is obviously a big part of the problem of citizens united.e said, directly in his decision, that there seemed to be no reason to think that there'd be any corruption, which is outrageous in and of itself, but i guess the point being, when i look at your language and jimmy's language and what dylan has talked about, i wonder, again, isn't it easiest to just say, no money. no money can be spent in these elections period, so that it's not about corporations or people or limited liability or unions, it's no money. >> well, look, i think there are two problems we need to address here. one is the issue of big money in our elections. and i think you're right. people are ready to say, get the money out. but i also think the second problem that has to be addressed and is as equally fundamental and important is this idea that corporations can be treated as people with constitutional rights. that not only occurs in the election contest, but it occurs in all other areas in which corporations go into court and they make claims, big, large corporations mak

the first mid-term election following citizens united. although we see an upward trajectory in spending we do not usually see it quadruple. many commentators think that 2010 was a dress rehearsal for 2012. this is when corporations, unions and other big players who are trying to exploit the citizens united decision will really come into the fore. >> ifill: when we talk about super pacs, the term itself sounds sinister. who is behind it? and why are they different from regular pacs? >> well the super pac is a term to describe the new independent expenditure-only committees that could form. basically the citizens united decision said that labor unions and corporations could spend unlimited amounts of money independently of candidates to convince voters to vote for or against someone. >> ifill: without coordinate ing with thend candidates. >> that's a very important point. so these super pacs have been formed because they can raise money, you know, not just from individuals which is what pacs, political action committee, could do but they c

some of these demands include banning private court contributions to politicians overturning citizens united with a constitutional amendment passed in a national single payer health care system and ending the wars as working list that has yet to be adopted by the whole general assembly in new york city the plans are underway to hold a national assembly meeting next year on july fourth in the city of philadelphia where the group's website one male and one female delegate from each congressional district are below. acted by local occupy movements and will converge on philadelphia to join others in creating a petition of grievances those grievances will then be submitted to all members of congress the supreme court and the president ahead of the two thousand and twelve elections well still unclear if other cities besides new york have agreed on this plan of action yet or even if new york is fully agree this is yet another sign that the occupy movement is growing and becoming more and more organized and specific and it's doing all this ordinary rallies around the world with hundreds of thousands

various parts of the progressive family calling together on a response to citizens united and you have a very specific budgetary it and i tom i was going to say you know at the nation immediately after that decision which we're coming on two years of we wrote an editorial called democracy in and we said with no quarter for sin a sin is cynicism or compromise this must be the battle of our times in the same way the amendment to end slavery the amendment to bring women's rights the vote women's. the right to vote as you know tom jane i we're talking about this you've been on this issue for many years but what this does is put our democracy at risk and we're seeing it sitting here today the super committee flooded with contributions we see it every day in our life because every issue we care about that would lead to civilize in advances is blocked is obstructed by the corporate money now just metastasizing through our system so the amendment strategy which you mentioned occupy minnesota is championing is critical it will be a long fight as jay and i know but we the people campaign dot org

dies, that he or she -- that he, i should say, is replaced to somebody committed to overturning citizens unitedat means, at the very least, we have to have barack obama as president of the united states, so he can make sure that we get decent supreme court justices in there. yes? >> [inaudible] >> how do we get decent people to run for office so we can get these jerks -- that is what you said -- out of there? how many of you have run for office? how many of you have run for political office? keep your hands up. let us everybody else applaud the people that have run for office. [applause] it is no fun, in most cases, to run for office. it is very hard. i ran for governor of massachusetts in 2002. out of six democratic candidates, i came in a close cent -- a close second. if i had run, i would have run against the republican nominee, mitt romney. i would have with his ass. -- whiopp -- whipped his ass. if he becomes president, i have nobody but me to blame. let me tell you something seriously. i have been around politicians my life -- my whole life. i have learned by doing that a greater respect

the high court's decision to end our elections over to trans national corporations last year citizens united case despite the arrests the movement continues to grow and gain support and perhaps more importantly fundraise the original and largest occupation in new york since the coddy park just revealed that it has raised more than three hundred thousand dollars in donations through its web sites and through passers by i bet hall now for a round up on what happened this weekend and where the movement the occupied general goes next i'm joined by sarah jaffe in new york she's an associate editor alter net and from chicago again your mouse yes miss so gloria press liaison for occupy chicago and brainchildren forces but occupy chicago one of the one hundred seventy five people arrested saturday and joining me here in the studios in d.c. anthony allen which is about member of the welcoming committee with occupy d.c. welcome to all of you have mangled anybodies in your badly if so please correct me . let me start out i'm curious first of all. in fact with. sarah. what personally has has been your b

should be listening to it interview with time magazine stevens went after the war on drugs and citizens united first on drug penalties even said i think generally the so-called war on drugs is emphasized more severe punishment than is appropriate throughout the country there are some instances where penalties are so disproportionate they could well violate the eighth amendment and stevens went after the citizens united decision decision he descended on laying out the absurdity of the money is speech argument saying if hollowed out to it's a lot of logical conclusion that would have provided first amendment protection of the watergate burglars they were financed with campaign expenditures so now the question is how do we kick clearcuts thomas off the court and put justice stevens back on. the bad bank of america c.e.o. brian moynihan first bank of america takes forty five billion in bailout money from we the taxpayer and the bank announces it will start charging a five dollar a.t.m. fee on the taxpayer because it has a right to make a profit yes that's ok so that's their quote and now the bank

turks where we spoke about the young turks campaign for a constitutional amendment against the citizens united ruling artist welker said on facebook right on with the constitutional amendment activism ana the status quo of a corporation as a person is a fallacy of best if not an outstanding invitation for criminal activity minus the personal accountability and you know what i think ernest is absolutely correct of the status quo is simply not working citizens united ruling has allowed money to further corrupt our already fragile political system and drown out the voices of everyday people even more and the occupy movement is evidence of that the bottom line here is that americans just don't see the government representing their needs above those of the fact cats it's as simple as that so in september just fifteen percent of americans said that they trusted the government to do the right thing always or most of the time and the approval for congress just tied an all time low at twelve percent so this point a constitutional amendment to get the corporate influence and money out of politics is jus

>> it's not so much soup pacs but another vehicle empowered by the 2010 citizens united decision and e kochs and operatives and donors had been taking advantage of for years but they used in the wake of president obama's election and in the wake of the citizen the united decision in a much more overtly political way. again, in 2010, they were able this combination of super pacs to coordinate on behalf of republicans. there's an open question as to whether they're going to sit down again or take it in their own direction and back more tea party oriented candidates that could cause trouble for republicans. >> well, they're going to be swimming in money either way. you indicate rove's operation will probably have a couple hundred million dollars. the koch brothers you think are going to have more than a couple hundred million dollars to throw into this. what is the problem for republicans if there's this giant swirl of money going around? why would they care about this tension between rove and the koch brothers? >> the potential problem, lawrence, is the koch brothers instead of backing

elites in this country so tell me a little bit of what you want to see do you want to see the citizens united decision go away to get some of the money out of politics do you want legislation you want you know a new law to be passed or do you think the afterword outside of the current political system i think right now i mean i'm a long time activist people that if i were organized the october twenty seventh movement people who are organizing occupy wall street occupy d.c. and all these other occupations this hasn't happened in a vacuum this is happened because people understand that the system doesn't work for us they voted they've lobbied all of the things that we've all done protested whatever it is these things no longer work anymore so i think most people do feel if you have to we're going to have to work outside of the system you know we don't think that you can go to congress and ask them to pass a bill done with that that is no longer an option congress is not able to function so how in the world would they be able to pass a bill that we feel is necessary like single payer medicare fo

the citizens united case and the buckley versus vallejo case before it, put the power in the hands of the corporations who essentially make up our elections an auction. we need to change that. the message from the street is this system isn't working and people are determined to see a new system come forward and frankly this is what founders anticipated in order to create a more perfect union. this is what democracy looks like. that perfect union continues to evolve. >> you are both in the organizing business. you ran a campaign for president. you have your mayor. you keep your seat in congress. you're one of the nation's largest and most politically powerful unions. how do you get them off the streets? you want them on the streets protesting but how do you make energy and bodies and get them involved in campaigns? in working to do the business of changing things. all of the things you just mentioned to get them done, you have a democratic president. obviously if you want to do campaign finance citizens united you need votes in congress and you don't have them right now. how do you tak

because citizens united, the decision was based on the constitution, the first amendment. so it would essentially require qualifying or limiting the first amendment. but all of our amendments are, in fact, inherently limited, and this should not be a tough haul. but we need really citizen action to do it. because you were the equal rights amendment, with all of those passionate and involved women, fell short of its goal. that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. and by the way, what better thing for the occupy folks to take up as their cudgel. get big money out of our government, that's how to get rid of the income disparity. that's an important first step. >> and the three things i have looked to as we've gotten into this process, as my own encouragement and as a way to encourage others that are working with me and with us on what we know is a long mountain are this. one, the recent amendments based on fairness. this is clearly a fairness issue. if money is speech, it creates an inherent unfairness. we watched in the vietnam war a constitutional amendment to come up to get the

very murky because many of them operate in a kind of a legal gray zone and particularly after citizens united where any of these non-profits can act as a corporate front it's tough to say so unfortunately we're really outsourcing our. democratic oversight to the u.k. and hopefully the investigation that it will begin a next few weeks i will shed some light back to our own democracy after we outsourced our our corrupt system and that's so that's a remarkable you leave father in the center for american progress as think progress or broadly thanks for the incredibly great reporting that you continue to do it's always a pleasure having you on thank you so much for having me tom good to see you. as the good the bad and the very and this is so good the salie ugly the good the california medical association despite the fact that the federal government is cracking down on medical marijuana dispensaries in california that state's largest group of doctors just adopted a new resolution to support the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes poured into the resolution quote it's an open question wh

united states. and tell our citizens who the true people this is. this is. the. cain leader walking back saying he was joking. he said it in a van in tennessee to build an electrified fence on the border kill people because illegal that's a joke but when he jokes about a joke that's a joke that's not a serious but it's not a serious point you've got to be bad enough not what you did that's a joke i've also said america needs to get a sniff that was a joke. the sheriff joe arpaio is joking merrily he thinks the deadly electric fence is a great idea. but i'm sure he was joking but it probably means that he's taking it serious to do something at the border and stop the illegal immigration joking about killing illegal immigrants means cain is taking the immigration problem seriously i'm sure it came with a joke about nuking mexico are would have fallen head over. and that's very very. after the break herman cain says liberals are out to destroy this country in my daily take on a herman cain where he was out delivering pizzas again. what drives the world with the grow

he was automatically a citizen of the united states. he was also a leading al-qaeda of terrorist acts. question, how big a blow is al- awlaki's demise to al-qaeda? pat. >> i think it's very big, john. he is believed to be the inspiration or the source of the fort hood killer, who killed 13 american soldiers and wounded 29 at fort hood n the largest massacre on an american military base. he is -- i don't know he is the operative chief of al-qaeda, but he is the principle public voice. i almost in that part of the world and certainly in yemen, and so that is a big victory for the united states. but i'll tell you that, john. the important thing is the united states has indicated ever since osama bin laden was taken down that they can run down and find and shoot and kill using drones or airstrikes and incredible number of al- qaeda leaders. it's astonishing -- they must have gotten a huge volume of intel from bin laden's computers or somewhere else

government that would disagree with you that is the supreme court of course giving the green light to citizens united going to be hard to get that overturned we do want to thank you for joining us richard usko senior fellow at the campaign for america's future. well from anger over inequality in the u.s. to greece or folks there are more than angry over the latest austerity measures so calling for revolution just how serious are these protestors are he sara sara firth is on the ground and in the thick of things including tear gas ourselves. people like get me back very quickly all syntagma square as we call it take gas being used in the crowds we're not sure exactly who was setting off that everyone's just trying. to get this back by the riot police now there. are already troops. oh it's all the director of the of the muscle to. come order for. a lot of people that they wanted today to be peaceful once again. in the crowd this these here really very shocking we seem to visions of months of protests and styles today everyone united completely in their opposition to the government have tried to forget

allegedly said corporations are people we've got to roll back this doctrine it was brought to us citizens united the most recent incarnation of it from the supreme court as i said in the legislature ever voted for it no president ever asked for it we need to amend the constitution and just remember that despair and disillusionment will not change anything in operatives paid is not an option we have to get active on this corporations are not people money is not speech moved to amend org so that to see how it can be done our next comment is from the message boards thom hartmann dot com last week i explained how the latest version of the senate democrats' jobs bill which included a want to add one percent surtax on income over a million dollars starting in january two thousand and thirteen we really only cost the super rich pretty much enough that really will raise enough money over the next ten years to cover the thirty five billion dollars cost of hiring and retaining about four hundred thousand teachers and emergency responders. what president obama and what joe biden and what what the democrats

limit the amount of money that corporations can donate and he also first of all wants to overturn citizens united because he does not believe that corporations are people who are protected under the first amendment and also when it comes to contributions we would like to see the contributions limited to one hundred dollars now that might seem like a tiny amount of money but it makes more sense to have publicly funded campaigns as opposed to having these private corporations fund these campaigns with hundreds of thousands of dollars because in the end as i mentioned you see people who are not being represented in the government and you see representatives passing deregulation and passing policy that is favorable to the big banks and to the corporations and it has completely infected our government and destroyed our democracy i'm just curious what was the response from those occupy wall street you guys got me e-mails about that because one of the things is cannot have demands and so here's a very specific plan of action. you're absolutely right about that it's a very clear and concise goal and that

beginning of time it seems like in this country well especially last year supreme court case citizens united right right last year right right last year which allows corporations to fund any political campaign to as much as they want. so it's really becoming a major problem and it's not going to get fixed and joe about supreme court legislation gets repealed hey i heard they were seeing yesterday i was at the take back the american dream conference and robert rice was speaking and he said you know all believe a corporation is a person when texas and georgia start executing corporations are really kind of an interesting statement just last question for you a lot of big things happened for it some are scheduled to happen for tomorrow what are you hearing in terms of how this movement will take shape and evolve in the coming days. i'm not exactly sure how it's going to take form that the unions are kind of joining up with what's going on because the unions have by far and away many more people than we do but they are a huge portion of our country and i know tomorrow there's going to be a large

obama right now is pushing the ones with panama and colombia ok that's the other side you've got citizens united january. through ten they just completely it was a game changer the supreme court ruled that corporations can spend unlimited campaign dollars that mean those like throwing gasoline on a corrupt system you've got to get the money out of this stuff you've got to break up these big conglomerates reinstate some semblance of regulation and you've got to go after them with rico because if they're able to get away with this what is the deterrent for these too big to fail banks what's going to stop them from doing it again if they don't get a bill face any kind of prosecution or even right now the kids on wall street that are you know they were criticizing they know all this they're connecting all those dots they're corrupt senator durbin from illinois not long ago said the banks own a cent on the senate they own the senate that should have been a clarion call for campaign finance reform instead they've got a supreme court that is actually wants oligarch he wants a corporate oligarchy to run

conservative that we've seen in a very long time we've seen decision after decision prove that from citizens united which you raised whatever remnants of campaign law used to exist the hudson v michigan which blew the fourth amendment to smithereens ruling the evidence could be used after it was found by detroit police officers who stormed a home without announcing themselves and the conservative justices now hold a majority of the court he asked we that's a scary thing with so many important cases for your health and privacy set to come before the court in the coming months and keep in mind of course a supreme court is supposed to be about justice and not about partisanship and unfortunately things like that's a thing of the past and next i will respond a viewer who watched my interview was seen as declan mccullough on the u.s. finally signing on to act which the obama administration originally claimed was a state secret until large parts of it released make mac grasset on you tube every damn thing is a break in states a secret just a way to continuously keep normal business as usual away from the

certain efforts out there pushes to maybe try to have a constitutional amendment to get rid of citizens united and you know get this ruling overturned is there any chance we might actually see that happen and that's a long term project but i think ending corporate. some good the idea that of course that money equals speech and politics is at the heart of our problems and you know so certainly some people believe that until you get that you're not going to get anywhere with a lot of these initiatives certainly on the street legislative strategy and maybe even in a direct action strategy until you stop the situation where politicians get elected by begging very rich people in corporate interests and the leads for money so they can get elected i mean yeah until you in that dynamic you're not going to get very far and that's the theory it's unfortunate that our system works too and a lot of the time we don't even know who it is that they're begging for all this cash which is the one of the huge problems there will be documenting some of that later. this week on the show is he was breaking down wha

government that would disagree with you that is the supreme court of course giving a green light to citizens united going to be hard to get that overturns we do want to thank you for joining us richard asco senior fellow at the campaign for america's future. and that is going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered go to r t v dot com slash usa or youtube dot com slash r g america and follow me on twitter i'm at frenzy have a great night.

enough that you may think the prior decision was wrongly decided that really doesn't yet in the citizens united decision last year the roberts court overturned a century of election law in america to affirm that money is a form of free speech and declare the corporations both domestic and foreign and spend on limited amounts of their corporate treasure chests to influence american elections so with a slew of politically charged cases on the agenda this year just how dangerous could the roberts courts judicial activism be and so this nation and is it about time to reform how the high court does business nearly as a senior attorney with the institute for justice he joins me now to talk more about this issue of additional activism. thank you. the first well you wrote a piece for the wall street journal saying that judicial activism where you've got no judicial activism summarize that yeah if you do activism is a meaningless buzzword in terms of substance but it's a very powerful powerful we coracle device that in my opinion it's designed generally to undermine the ability of the court in the willi