it's not just because of the citizens united ruling. my own view is that the greatest threat to transparency, if you can be call it a threat, is the increased activism and political engagement of nonprofit groups, as i'm sure you guys know. the internal revenue does not require nonprofits to discover the source of their spending. there are minimal reporting requirements and that's probably for very good reason. it dates all the way back to the civil rights era when the irs wanted to protect groups active in issues like civil rights and protect the anonymity of their donors. but nonetheless, beginning with the 527 organizations in 2004, we've seen millions of dollars flow through nonprofit groups of different types to be spent in arguably campaign-oriented fashion. now, 527 groups disclose everything to the irs. so eventually you saw the money and where it has come from. i would argue that there are a number of transparency challenges that have been presented. super pacs present special tran r transparency problems for three reasons. one

citizens united had just made it much, much worse. today's effort is to focus on those rogue corporations that may find a way to spin their money so that they can corporatize our election process. i was quoted today in the "wall street journal" by an off hand comment that i made which i think is probably a good one. i basically said i'm a peace-nik. i believe in peace. but this is a shot across the corporate bow. simply saying to them we're watching. >> i guess i'm wondering how you plan on finding out who's donating to c-4s and c-6s considering they don't have to disclose. there's not much information since they don't have to disclose. >> again, i'll start, and others will join in. first of all, this is a multiheaded beast. i think the central theme running through this is we're going to show corporate america there are serious consequences. whatever form their donations take, how ever they attempt to launder them or obfuscate we're going to show there's consequences. in the end, we believe that many people who look at corporate amer

that's the problem with citizens united. it allows corporations to drown out the voices of regular people. that's why we're here today. no corporate money. no secret money. common cause is calling on corporations to refrain from all political giving including money in super pacs. c-4 organizations. and c-6 trade associations like the chamber of commerce. this fall, common cause urged the nation's top 700 corporations to pledge to refrain from political giving this election season. we are working to give that onrerocess. common cause also recently teamed up with trillium asset b investment official and the green century fund to file shareholder resolutions at bank of american, 3-m and target on behalf of their shareholders, asking these corporations to refrain from political giving. each of these resolutions will go to the vote this spring. we plan to organization press conferences and rallies at each of these shareholder meetings. we plan to let corporations know that there will be a great cost in playing politics. we plan t

for moderates voted today to send a message to their congressional delegation to overturn citizens united and clear that corporations are not people that money is property and not speech and end of corporate buyout of our democracy. as one of the authors of this resolution bill butler from jericho vermont said is there are put these together i think you have the beginning of the most dynamic political movement in this country it's because people are realizing they have to do it and they have to do it now this is movement politics at its best it never starts in washington d.c. it starts in the towns and cities all across the united states will bounce or built locally and they catch fire and when their voice gets loud enough and when the parade gets big enough then a politician will run out in front and carry a flag and say hey this is my parade so bring the movement the parade to your town or city go to move to amend or and free speech for people. and make sure that our democracy is not stolen by the fat cats favorite candidate ever again because this is the essence of american democracy t

is a must much smaller expense and i think you know you explain it well let's let's get out of citizens united here it looks like the plutocrats want to hijack our democracy this blows my mind the largest corporate lobbying organization in the nation maybe in the world the u.s. chamber of commerce is is targeting two democrats right now one of them sure a ground already spending money on the campaign here eight months out and they say they plan to spend fifty million dollars to defeat democrats specifically to defeat democrats. more than a dozen senate seats more than thirty house seats that they've already targeted and used to be a crime and this is in one thousand and seven the tillman act was passed to make this illegal and the supreme court has overturned this how can it be a good thing for our democracy to have corporate interests deciding who are candidates here are you know or are having such a large influence as you said sam low information voters people who just pay attention the last few weeks before the campaign and they can watch via well we're already seeing the effects of it beca

seeing the effects of it because in two thousand and ten when it was the first election after citizens united over three hundred million dollars and outside corporate spending went into that and it elected one of the most corporate friendly house of representatives are seeing now after fifteen months of the republican party being in control the house the voters are fed up with it if you look at the polls that whether it's the war on unions the war on women or whatever you want to choose overwhelmingly overwhelming talking about i don't think i have to struggle to get it to explain my point there is one of saying is this is the way we used to have a system and people said that it helps incumbents and favors incumbents well now we have a system that favors wealthy people and the as you said you could have kratz are going to spend lots of money to protect their interests you know the american people don't want the republicans this was an egalitarian paradise before so this is united no the united states problems yeah i don't know and i don't think this but it they talk about the fact that this k

the only thing to overturn citizens united. but it is not sufficient. and i do worry tremendously that anyone who uses the system to get elected usually does not want to change it right away. i am a co-chair of the obama campaign. the economy and warned me and said they are not going to do this and that i would not like it. i said it was a dumb thing to do because it undercuts the enthusiasm of the candidate, and you will have a lot of pressure from people who want to keep the system. i think barack obama will do something different. i think this keeps him up at night. he is a good man. he is an honest guy. he has been convinced wrongly by a bunch of political aides that he needs to do this. i think that is wrong. but i think it kills him that the system is in place. he and i worked on campaigns of all of the time when he was in the senate. he is sincere. he needs to come out and talk about fixing the financial funding system that exists for campaigns, obviously advocate the overturning of citizens united. we need to get rid of the federal -- federal el

courts so we think that citizens united might have had something to do with it here to discuss with me as katie redford co-founder and us office director of earth rights international ok thanks so much for joining us tonight. so i guess we've covered this case before for our audience but if you can first do you know if we can do a little bit of background basically what they're saying here is they want to answer a bigger question forget about the corporate immunity question let's talk about this alien tort statute and whether we should even use it so can your minor of your is about is. actually it is a law that has been around in the united states for over two hundred years and it gives federal courts the ability to hear claims committed in violation of the law of nations which courts have interpreted to mean among other things human rights violations violations such as torture genocide sleeve very extrajudicial killing. so is it odd that the supreme court has suddenly decided to question whether this law should even be used off it's two hundred years old right if it's since the one ni

well public blowback to the supreme court's two thousand and ten citizens united decision only continues new washington post a.b.c. poll shows that nearly seven out of ten adults believe that it should be illegal for super pacs to operate and fifty two percent of those polled say they strongly supported ban a lot of this let's look at another supreme court case that we covered earlier on the show of kyogle versus petroleum this is a case brought by twelve nigerian plaintiffs who as that shell should be held liable for human rights violations committed against them arguing they were complicit in those violations that were carried out by dictatorship and i have a question of the supreme court would have to answer was whether or not corporations who they deemed to have the same rights as persons to flood money into elections could also be held liable as persons would if they were involved in human rights abuses but it seems that the supreme court has chosen not to answer that question last week they ordered a real argument of the case based on whether or not international cases such as this

citizens united has just made it much, much worse.day's effort is to focus on those corporations that may find a way to spend their money so that they can corporatize our alexian's process. i was -- our election process. i was quoted today and "the wallstreet journal." i basically said, i believe in peace. simply saying, we are watching. >> i guess, i am wondering how -- considering they do not have to disclose. who is donating how much? >> i will start and others can join in. first of all, this is a multi- headed beast. the central theme through all this is that we're going to show corporate america there are serious consequences, whatever form their donations take caught however they tend to launder them, we're going to show there are consequences. in the end, we believe that many people look at corporate america have an involvement. consumer shareholders, etc.. there will be very uncomfortable when and stand. that is the connective tissue for all these efforts. we know that corporations are now are giving to super pacs. that has be

we need a constitutional amendment to overturn citizens united. that will take us a while.ve to get through the house, the senate, three-quarters of the states. but i think short term what we can do is pass some legislation, which can significantly diminish the impact of citizens united. for example, right now, somebody is a billionaire corporate leader. he could put as much money as he wants into a campaign. he can put ads on television, come up with some phoney front group. nobody knows who's paying for the ad. you-f you do something very simple and you say that that ceo has got to have his picture on that ad saying that i, the head daf -- the ceo of this or that corporation, i approve this ad, just as any politician has to do, that in itself would go a long way to diminish these ads because they don't want to be on tv, showing the american -- >> what about congressman chris van hollins bill that would require super pacs to disclose spending and the person online? i've talked to some super pac contributors themselves who say the way to approach this is to do that. >> i th

that's what i meant. >> just -- just on obama, he is a critic of citizens united. he has at various points called for reform of this system. one of the reasons people are getting out of the system it's structured in a way that doesn't match the political system as is. there are other ways you can reform the system. i still think quite consistent with everything he said he could have done what david wanted him to do and should have. >> [ inaudible ]. >> in fact, a lot of groups on the left have benefited immensely, particularly environmental groups. >> not as much on rights. that's for another day. >> for another day. >> next to mr. cohen? >> [ inaudible ]. >> who has written more powerful stuff on the whole -- >> that's who obama should listen to. >> having hung around john mccain when he was t.r. -- [ laughter ] -- i'm beginning to think if the politicians pick t.r. and pick and choose of what they want. -- but he picked the campaign finance part of it. e.j. in particular, because you know obama so much better than the rest of us, was this a speech or is this real

voters in 53 vermont towns passed anti-citizens united resolutions supporting the constitution. so the corporations do not have the first amendment rights as people and therefore cannot donate unlimited funds to super pacs. although the resolution was unbinding it was a first step to similar resolutions: i asked about that, and joining me now, former deputy white house press secretary bill burton. >> thanks for having me on. >> my pleasure. let me ask a question that i've already ask. if the super pac gets an anti-super pac re-electioned will he really want to eliminate super pacs and will he be able to eliminate them. >> yes. it's not that he has a self interest in making sure that this broken system keeps on going. secondly. democrats have demonstrateed that it's a great bill that if passed and signed into law by the president would have a big impact on how this is all--how these all operate. third, the big difference in this election is that on the republican side they look at the system, and they say yeah, that's how a campaigns ought to operate. but on the flip side there a

verses for laid away and and first national bank versus palladio all the way to citizens united none of these decisions and grover cleveland eight hundred eighty eight and state of the union are a said corporations have become the masters of the people the iron heel is on the throat of the people throughout this entire arc there has never been a legislature that has voted for this and there has never been a president who advocated it in fact to the contrary they have been laws against it and there have been presidents who have decried it. what do we do with this doctrine that the supreme court has been slowly and steadily building over almost two hundred year period. to to get out of this well look i mean first of all it's so institutionalized now it's so ingrained in our system that it really would take big steps because you have to undo citizens united you have to change campaign finance you have to have publicly financed elections you have to have elections of limited duration you've also got to get out of some of the bad habits where in a democracy so for example the gerrymanderi

everyone points to citizens united and says one of the big interests is american citizens have the right to be informed by the broader range of views including the core regions which are a big part of the economy and implore a lot of us. but a lot of people say find but what is the difference if the right is held by the american people as voters and why shouldn't they be interested in the opinions of the chinese government? because the tax code out of context. what they say, what cu actually says is you have the right to have the view of the community heard, the right to hear from everyone else the three sides in the community that is the language that you use and this is a very old not to quote a frenchman but the idea we all sit there and talk among ourselves and come to the opinions of the community. in that sense i don't find the concept weird that we are excluding the views of the chinese or the russian government or the princes to use an example raised several times with me. on the corporate governance, that's tricky but all issues and corporate governance are tricky. it'

since citizens united the supreme court hasn't released audio that quickly until this week until the health reform arguments that have been taken up by the court. here is what some of what the supreme court argued over. >> all that sountdss like you're debating the merits of the bill. you ask really for limiting principles so we don't get into a matter that i think has nothing to do with this case, broccoli. okay. >> broccoli. it was justice stephen brier trying to put an end to the broccoli talk. every time somebody said broccoli in these arguments, you'd have to drink. i have to see what sort of shape she's in after broccoli was brought up eight times in the oral arguments. here is the overall political context for this big high profile case. heading into this big high profile, very partisan inflected court case on this big achievement of barack obama's first term in office, bloomburg news polled americans on how they would decide this case. 17% said the justices would decide this case solely on its legal merits. 75% said they thought the justices own politics would influence how t

now it's so ingrained in our system that it really would take big steps because you have to do citizens united you have to change campaign finance you have to have publicly financed elections you have to have elections of limited duration you've also got to get out of some of the bad habits where i'm in democracies so so for example the gerrymandering that we have has led the wein that suit each party to dominate the process because people don't run really in competitive general elections they only run a competitive primaries the only people who vote in primaries are the extreme right the extreme left and this allows the special interests special leverage you've got to deal with the lobby and. you also have to start pushing back on some. the modern myths the myth that you know all government is bad or have four legs good two legs bad kind of reasoning that you know you sort of hit ron paul if we push government out of the way what will sweep in and it's places freedom you know will sweep in it's place is the robber right because it nature abhors a vacuum who steps in you know the people with t

anything if if if that's the case or is our is what we're seeing right now the consequence of citizens united that you had jack who are the. american petroleum institute president famously came out and said when president first just before he announced he said there's going to be a political price if he says no keystone x.l. short i mean this if anything what this is going to do is it's going to divert oil it's being refined in the midwest down to the actually rather easy to sell gas and which will raise the price exactly so it could it could it be that basically he's he's just looking at this gone right ok the oil companies will take me out with their with their super pacs well the big threat of citizens united is not necessarily people spending money right it's the threat of people spending money. a smart wealthy man will not write a check for. hundred million dollars to make something political happen full threaten it so they don't have to do it. you know and there are there's every reason to believe based on the numbers that we're seeing candidates fundraising that this president will be

so thanks to citizens united we're headed for a billion dollar election cycle or more as we've seen so far in the republican primary the guy with the most corporate super pac money mitt romney is also the guy who's the front runner to win the republican nomination. so is this a good way to run a democracy wherever gets the most millionaires and billionaires to run negative ads on their behalf wins joining me now to give his take on this is conservative commentator and federal tax protector practitioner david david welcome. thank you for having me on thomas always a pleasure welcome back why why do you hate democracy david why do you think that this talk or see is a good thing well first of all we live in a democratic republic. but i have to tell us wrongly that. he says absolutely nothing this super pac issue has been a wonderful opportunity to level the field level the playing field you know for tom was there any between foster the reason and. cambridge is a guy sheldon adelson. tom you're conspicuously quiet on all the money that the unions are giving largely to the democratic party

super pacs well the big threat of citizens united is not necessarily people spending money right it's the threat of people spending money. a smart wealthy man will not write a check for. five hundred million dollars to make something political happen well threaten it so they don't have to do it. you know and there are there's every reason to believe based on the numbers that we're seeing candidates fund raising that this president will be well outspent by corporate interests seven out of ten republican dollars raised in this election cycle have been corporate moneys from citizens united this president has a lot to be worried about i will say that the notion that the president has much to do with the price of gas you want to know where this president has made strides in fighting the impact of gas the price of gas is the one with the auto industry to make gas cars more fuel efficient that saves you know people a significant amount of money based on the fueling of their car and it also has a good impact in terms of climate change so those are things that he should be trumpeting more i th

these billionaires could begin to buy politicians and little russians with their money as the citizens united decision so with enough money to corrupt congress the banks are set out to do it and on their very own republican candidates for president several wall street bankers are among romney's biggest multimillion dollar plus funders and another wall street guy foster freeze owns ricky santorum this didn't start with citizens united that was the high water mark it really all started with ronald reagan appointee and wendy gramm had to see f.t.c. and ken lay making her and her husband an offer they couldn't refuse or a group of graeme's are now retired and incredibly incredibly rich in our democracy is unmeasurable or poor. it's wednesday which means it's time for the lone liberal on our panel dr brian darling columnist of human events and director of government studies at the heritage foundation and david mark tasco executive director the daily caller welcome to both you guys and thanks for joining us first of all i'm curious both your takes on santorum is win and what's going on inside the r

decision i was wrong by the one c three pre-dated citizens united are barred from any involvement and electoral activity by the once the floors are the spawn of citizens united so that was our air and now we're going to take another break but when we come back you said i read it look out at the asian and undocumented immigrants in the state of georgia are being denied an education after the state senate passed a law banning the universities colleges and schools will speak with a professor and student from freedom university that are fighting back.

and most of you say often refer to citizens united as you did it's just a moment ago and that case sort of being a profound wake up call in terms of the problems with the system with democracy in this country i hear we are it's twenty twelve it's an election year we're in the process of what's been a pretty long g.o.p. presidential primary and of course in november will the election. anything that you've seen already so far in this election cycle that either trouble trouble you or given you hope. there's a little on both sides there's been a couple bills offered there's one bill called the occupied amendment which is a constitutional amendment to reverse citizens united now that one i love there's some really really bad stuff too though many republican party officials and states that are controlled by the republican party have been pushing a slew of bills to reverse voting rights to make it harder for minorities elderly people college students to vote it's basically jim crow two point zero and the idea that the guys who scream about economic freedom we want economic freedom but they wan

they receive corporate money and where they can receive corporate money after citizens united. corporations are people now yes well go. because you can see three's have to be issue based but they can you know put a candidates name say they're bad on an issue run an ad or have a bus tour and it's perfectly fine so a lot of this is bus tours well it was multi-faceted let me just throw a quick example in one race in colorado and it isn't in dozens of races but betsy markey cory gardner benchmark of a democrat sitting congresswoman if you looked into the empty seat you saw maybe five or ten thousand given to the republican opponent really everybody by the coast but there were millions spent they had to i think tank in colorado called the independent institute which set organizers to hold tea party rallies to put out talking points against betsy markey they had ads that didn't show up because their issue ads against betsy markey for you know killing jobs and passing obamacare they had three different bus tours that would toward the state colorado is what. will they get different nam

. >> let's talk about citizens united and how that influenced the way that we're seeing these ads and who's paying for them. there's one question from one of the students at george mason university who e-mailed me earlier. will there be any legislation changing the disclosure laws for political ads, for example paid for by americans for a better america doesn't tell you who is really funding it. that is a direct result of citizens united from two years ago. >> there is legislation that now has been introduced in congress to increase the disclosure requirements from the so-called super pacs. so one of the results of the citizens united court decision was to basically free multi-millionaires and billionaires to give large amounts of money. $5 million or $10 million to so-called super pacs which then can run electoral ads designed to either elect somebody or try and defeat someone. in my view, this is one of the worst supreme court decisions that we've ever faced because as we've already seen in election year 2012, the super pacs are running the negative ads in this campaign. just one in

that to me begs the question of what's happened with citizens united, i have a petition with 125,000 signatures on it. i encourage people to come and sign up, sherrod brown.com and sign our petition to get a -- to organize and get a constitutional amendment to overturn citizens united because it is clear you can see the impact that its had on ohio voters right now. and i assume in the fall. >> senator this ed is. what do you fear? if things are going and happening for the democrats in ohio, how could -- how could it unravel? the president's polling very well in ohio right now. a lol of policies worked well. how would republicans get back in good favor between now and november and win? how what do you fear? >> what i know they are doing, watching them up close, is the whole mitch mcconnell strategy of doing nothing, nothing to cooperate with the president. you remember his statement from a year and a half ago, my number one goal, mitch mcconnell, the leader of a political party in the united states senate, says my number one goal is to defeat this and make barack obama serves only one

and citizens united, again, you had a very badly polarized ideological core. justice kennedy is in the center, and i think he enjoys being unpredictable. he'd like to call it the kennedy court, and he took another step yesterday when he was the swing vote on giving counsel to defendants on plea bargain cases. but the conventional wisdom is that the court is going to strike it down. >> kennedy will vote with the conservative. >> that's the conventional wisdom. but he probably watches c-span, and i would urge him to follow the facts. a big point in these issues is whether congress has established a sufficient factual basis for the legislation which is followed. and when chief justice roberts testified on confirmation in response to my questions, he said that it was congress's job to establish the facts. and that if the supreme court deviated from what congress had followed, found, that it was really legislating and it was not an appropriate judicial function, but in citizens united there was 100,000-page record of congressional fact finding. and chief justice ro

when you actually look at the facts and if you read citizens united they assume facts that are clearlyue and proven untrue in this election cycle. i think we're going to see a second bite at the apple. >> i this i we're going to see a big bite at that. >> there's another case through the state of montana that may make it to the united states supreme court. >> to reevaluate. ok, you are going to hang on here. we're going to talk about electing women. thank you so much for joining us. we really appreciate it. we may have you back to dive into it a little bit deeper. this money stuff is not going away. >> if you are a democratic politician and a woman and pro choice, simply put you are going to be on the front lines of the social war. we're going to get stephanie's thoughts on that and more right after the break. you are in the war room, only on currenttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt rrenttv al junkies in the war rule. i've been calling for people to help decorate the set. these are vintage authentic political buttons sent by ernest sanders of warren michigan. thank you! thank you for joinin

how terrorists act and where they tend to hide, it may not always be feasible to capture a united states citizen terrorist who presents an imminent threat of violent attack. in that case, our government has the clear authority to defend the united states with lethal force. of course, lethal force by the united states will comply with the four fundamental law of war prpl force. the principle of necessityt hav definite military value. the principle of distinction requires that only lawful targets such as combatants, civilians directly participating in hostilities and military objectives may be targeted intentionally. under the principle of anticipated collateral damage must not be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage. finally, the principle of humanity requires us to use weapons that will not inflict unnecessary suffering. these principles do not forbid the use of stealth or technologically advanced weapons. in fact, the use of advanced weapons may help to ensure that the best intelligence is available for planning and carrying out operations, that the risk of civilian casua

oregon new york city and los angeles viciously introducing measures to push back against the citizens united sime washington listens to the people of vermont and all over our nation stops corporate cash from both driving and county elections. the bad georgia state some georgia state senate voted yesterday to ban un documented and immigrants from attending any of georgia's public colleges passing of the vote comes despite the fact that state college officials repeated lee told government officials that the bill was completely unnecessary federal law does not prevent undocumented immigrants from attending public universities and colleges leaves it to the states to decide whether or not to admit undocumented immigrants and guard was the undocumented immigrants the chance to further their education is not a value on which america was for it and the very very ugly representative cory gardner despite only being in his first term as a u.s. congressman gardner is doing all he can to line his pockets with money from big oil and then some to cozy up with oil executives and gardner introduce legislatio

i will say one thing about citizens united. it's going to cause chaos in all of these races. men and women are going to have to deal with this in ways that we hate to see. it has opened up a floodgate of unregulated contributions from sources that we may not even know about. so what i tell our emily's list women candidates, our historic number who are willing to step up this year in this environment is that we have your back. as an organization and a network, we try to do everything we can to get as much money into the hands of the candidates so they have the ability to tell their story and talk directly to the voters. and at the end of the day, that's the most important thing. these big organizations that are going to be spending what it sounds like hundreds of millions of dollars, as karl rove keeps talking about on "american crossroads," we are hoping that our candidates will have the resources that they need to get their message out to the voters. and voters across the country i believe are going to see through all of this big, big spending and look directly at who the ca

of course it's a lot easier for them now since citizens united has used not only raise unlimited corporateney but she don't have to report each corporations are paying which builds. but they also could not do it without the assistance of the nation's media. and that is what drives me crazy. i see it every day and night scene for a variety of reasons but i see some of it is to budget cutbacks and newspapers were just don't have as many people as they had to do some good independent investigative reporting. but some of this is just because they are lazy and they don't want to do the work and instead they just take the lines fed to them and turn around and repeat them. listen to this from walter cronkite appeared just before he died. cronkite said, what do i regret? well, i regret that in our attempt to establish some standard, we didn't make them stay. we couldn't pass -- we couldn't find a way to pass our standards on to another generation. it's not sad? and that is where we are today. and you know, i see it every day, even at the white house can which is supposed to be the best of the best

we can overturn citizens united.ct the president so he can appoint the future justices. >> he is taking super pac money, but you are chairing his campaign. >> i agree with the president on many things. he is doing a far better job on international relations he made this country saver, he passed healthcare, and you can disagree with him on some things and still support him and he'll listen to you. he should haven't done this. and his campaign will be stronger if he sticks with the people. >> ones you havely you have a campaign and have a group trying to take money out of politics, you have the book "while america sleeps." there is a bit of a recall going on in wisconsin, and it turns out in the polling you are the most likely to defeat governor walker of all of the candidates. any chance you go into that recall election in >> i'm not running for office during these two years. governor walker is also going down. and we're going toen up with a really good -- a good governor. so i'm not going to be doing that. i have thi