that it did not start with citizens united.ght that this began in collegecolonial days. >> we cake our cue from master martin luther king jr. we're in a constant battle, and you have the money power which keeps reconstituting, coming back and looking for ways to dominate, and then you have the democracy power. the problem today the money power has been on a winning streak for quite awhile, and we need to reassert democracy goals. we need to be talking about constitution amendments and equalize the situation. we've never been a full democracy. we are not a perfect democracy we never be, but as we trend down democracy, that right to vote is under all the. it's not just under assault from voter suppression or voting i.d. when you have the money power to define so much of our electoral process you end up with a situation where an awful a lot of people who ask, why bother. you cited a a lot of polls we cite another one, the majority of americans think their respective in congress would sell them out for for a campaign contribution.

an amendment to overturn citizens united passed on may 21st with a whopping 76% of angelenos in favorame out with the get money out campaign. the campaign united activists politicians and personalities and included ads like this one featuring council members with dollar bills taped over their mouths. it's one of the many efforts to do something about the money corrupting our electoral process. are these symbolic propositions enough to overturn citizens united? maybe not but at least they're steps in the right direction. to give us more about the get the money out campaign, host of the under current part of the "the young turks" network she comes interest to us from los angeles welcome to the war room. >> thanks for having me. >> michael: i want to know what inspired you to get behind issue and launch this campaign. >> i got involved in the movement when i saw financial reform fail. i was pretty touch by the 2008 financial meltdown, pretty angry, and once--i thought financial reform was something that was bipartisan, that everyone could agree on, so when that failed pretty spectacularl

the consequences of citizens united. like the superpacs, flinging themselves around the country to raise money for their campaign. that was number two. now, no candidate, obama or romney, even mentioned the issue on their website. i had a researcher look at that and said, tell me the last time there was an issue that was on the top ten of this list that neither party even mentioned. and he looked as far as he could find and there was not ever a time that an issue on the top ten list that was ever mentioned by either party. there's a wonderful convenient reality of our political parties that they don't want to talk about this issue. they constantly say it's not an issue america cares about. but i think america doesn't care about it because they think, what's the use. nobody's going to do anything about it. i've got better things to worry about. so, of course, they don't care about it, they don't talk about it, and they don't vote, they don't get involved. because they rationally look at the system and say, the system is b

the citizens united would not -- would be repealed in my view and you would aren't have corporationscould give unlimited amount of money. the corporation is a lot of good things and it's not a person like you and me and that's essentially they've been endowed with the status by the supreme court and that's just bizarre. >> i agree with that. >> congressman, was there also an interesting moment on the hill this morning between congressman mcdermott and congressman ryan. i want to play that for the people right now. >> i haven't heard a single word here about what questions you think we ought to be able to ask you about your tax-exempt request. anything else like the circus that's happening in the oversight committee or here is simply political theater. >> all right. thank you, time's expired. mr. ryan is recognized. >> um, i'm going to deviate from my original question in response to what i just heard. you know -- [ applause ] >> mr. chairman, the -- mr. chairman. >> welcome to washington. >> the committee will be in order. >> welcome to washington, indeed. >> boom! >> i wonder where

citizens united simply provided that hook. as a longtime political observer and first women hop, i knew exactly what the democrats were up to with their complaints about this decision. i have seen what the proponents of disclosure have intended and that past and it is not good government. that is why the donor list has been protected of the socialist worker party since 1979. that is also why the supreme court told the state of alabama that it cannot force of the naacp to disclose its donor list back in 1958. the president could claim as he did six months after wagging his finger at the supreme court that the only people who do not want to disclose the truth of people with something to hide. he can claim that, but the fact is there is very good and legitimate reason that the court has detected folks from force-- edat courts have protect di folks from forced disclosure. they know that failing to do so subject them to the kind of harassment that we have been seeing here the last three years. the political response to citizens uni

the real reason, the real reason the left was so concerned about citizens united was that they thought it meant more conservatives would start to form what are known as social welfare organizations, something they've been doing literally almost forever. groups like planned parenthood and the sierra club, for example. and what's notable about social welfare groupsthe real reason, n the left was so concerned about citizens united is that they thought it meant more conservatives would form well for organizations. groups like planned parenthood and the sierra club, for example are groups like this. what is notable is that they do not have to disclose their donors, they do not have to disclose their donors. that was the main concern of the president and his allies, they were not interested in the integrity of the process. if they were, they would've been just as upset at left-wing groups for remaining private for their donors. they really wanted was a hoax to stir outrage about conservative groups so that they could get their hands on the names of the folks who supported them. as a longtime

then you have to be ready to go to jail. >> rose: citizens united, back to that. that's the most controversial thing you've ever done. >> i guess it turned out to be, yes. >> rose: it's criticized. most criticized. >> yes. >> rose: because a lot of your friends got upset. >> sure. >> rose: how did it turn out in terms of all that money spent because corporations now could have it viewed as first amendment right. >> it hasn't been at all a as big a deal as people thought it would be. for example, in the 2010 election democrats lost 63 seats in the house. they spent more money than the republicans in every single district. and still lost. and most of the big money in the last campaign came from individuals, sheldon adele son, that wasn't a corporation. an individual giving lots of money and that's been established since the 1970s. that was protected by the first amendment. >> rose: there's a book about you called "nuance absolutism" by ronald collins. >> right. >> rose: and he basically describes your thinking about the first amendment as nuanced absolutism. what do

in age of citizens united -- >> right. >> would the clinton campaign and liberals in this country beeep up? it would seem to me that there would be a lot of folks who would not want hillary clinton as president. it would be a free-for-all financially. >> would she be a boom to right wing fund-raisers. would they be going nuts and different people going crazy? we saw that in the 90s. i would say that clintons have a pretty good record of beating these people back. i'll never forget they ride to run him out of office. >> do you think she want to do it, james? >> i don't know. honestly, i say that with certain certainly. i don't see any need for her to make a decision until after mid terms. and i suspect that's where her final mind is right now. >> latest polls show we could have another clinton bush match-up. attracting registered voters, and 40% and 7% say they are unsure or they would support someone else. wouldn't this be the -- this would be the mother race, wouldn't it? the blockbuster. this would be it. >> one of the things we talk about is1,200 days out. and things are kind of b

beg. >> megyn: this was happening before citizens united it just exploded. >> citizens united made ittimes worse. that's the problem. >> i don't want to get too far afield in the supreme court president. i want to talk about whether really have solved the case. we want to noim. who gave the orders, who sanctioned it and where the accountability. brad, what i see now is this one politician credit ago search republican by saying i did this. i thought it was a good idea. house connection. last week we had issa citing testimony from irs workers saying this is qurmt and a with issa by arrested san panel with respect to particular scrutiny given to tea party those emanated from washington is that right? and the answer was i believe so. there was another employee who told issa and the others: we were told that washington, d.c. wanted some cases. so it seems like we have conflicting testimony. >> well, especially when the person in charge takes the fifth. if somebody is not trying to protect themselves against criminal liability, they would tell the truth and say exactly what they did. if the

together things i want to first point out something interesting in justice scalia's dissent in citizens united v windsor here's the first paragraph of his dissent says this case is about power in several respects it's about the power of our people to govern themselves and the power of this court to pronounce the law today's opinion aggrandize is the letter with the predictable consequence of diminishing the forward former we have no power to decide this case and even if we did we have no power under the constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation if i could have this back let me just this is this is has been stated this is what he read from the bench he said the majority invokes what it calls this court's primary role in determining the constitution's meaning the constitution assigns to us no such primary role indeed it does not assign to us the role of determining the constitution's meaning at all and the at all as italicize was emphasized like of our side where it was article three says is to resolve disputes cases and controversies between two powers and then he goes

. >> citizens united, you know what happened 48 hours beforesco citizens united, scott brown won in massachusettsks later, all of this started. >> sean: interesting. andy kramer,kram we first met in april of 2009. '09. right. tea party express -- >> sean: 20,000-some-odd people came toot an event. >> it was a huge. april 15th.this this is just stockic, though, of a bigger problem. it's like with a disease. you cannot co continue to treatg symptoms and get ryo disease. you have tou eradicate the disease. this is exactly what the tea party movement is all about, iso big government. when you look at the irs, there's so many lakers it's likn peeling back an onion. we can't get to the bottom of te it.n. it had absolutely had to do witz thei. election. is look at benghazi. it's the same thing. nobody can answer -- you know,ou who'sse running the white house? wheres? are the adults? these people work for us. and every single american shoul. be concerned about, this becaust it's not just about tea party or conservative. next time the shoe could be on the other foot, and we could have a republican preside

. >> it calls for the article five amendment that would overturn citizens united and end corporate persone know it in this country. i think it's important that we start taking those steps to do just like you said, to take the money out of politics. >> so republicans at the national level not necessarily the local level oh, wait a minute as mitt romney famously said, corporations are people, my friend. when you propose this in ohio do you think you'll have the people of ohio behind you in saying that corporations are not people, my friend? >> well, i think the people in ohio and all across the country are in agreement on this. that money should be limited in our political system. i think when you get outside of the state houses and outside of the beltway, i think most people agree on that. >> how about republicans. is there a way to get them on your side specifically in the state of ohio here? and i understand that republicans are too different sets. there are the republican voters who i think probably largely agree with you, and then there is the republican representatives. what is your s

>> sean, you know how it is citizens united?yes. >> you know what happened 48 hours before citizens united? scott brown in massachusetts. a few weeks later all of this started. >> interesting. >> amy kramer. we first met in april of 2009. >> 2009, right. tea party express -- >> 20 some odd people came out to an event. it was a pretty big event. >> huge, april 15th. this is just symptomatic of a bigger problem. it is like with a disease. you cannot continue to treat the symptoms and get rid of the disease. you have to eradicate the disease. this is exactly what the tea party movement is about, big government. when you look at the irs there are so many layers. it is like pealing back an onion. we can't get to the bottom. it did have something to do with the election. look at benghazi. it is the same thing. nobody can answer who is running the white house. where are the adults? these people work for us. every single american should be concerned about this. it is not just about tea party or conservative. next time the shoe could be

was a supremere court ruling, citizens united, that allowed unlimited amounts of money to be i am wondering, an organization that incorporates has many options if they want to engage in civic life. then if they move into donations to campaigns, they could incorporate say 527. you are looking at 501(c)4. am i correct? this is the cincinnati office that was looking at this. why might an organization choose to incorporate under 501(c)4 rather and 527 if their political and their intent is political? >> i have no idea. >> it is interesting because they don't have to disclose donors. it is very interesting to me that if one looks at -- i am going to ask you for the record of the organizations that you are looking at there. after the citizens united ruling, how much did your applications increase in the 501(c)4 category, did you say? >> i have the information in 2010, the number of applications in 2012, it was 3,057. >> very interesting trends in here, and there's not a person appear that does not understand what is going on politically in this country. the hidden nature of what is affecting camp

. >> citizens united, you know what happened 48 hours beforesco citizens united, scott brown won in massachusetts, all of this started. >> sean: interesting. andy kramer,kram we first met in april of 2009. '09. right. tea party express -- >> sean: 20,000-some-odd people came toot an event. >> it was a huge. april 15th.this this is just stockic, though, of a bigger problem. it's like with a disease. you cannot co continue to treatg symptoms and get rid ofet theyo disease. you have tou eradicate the disease. this is exactly what the tea party movement is all about, iso big government. when you look at the irs, there's so many lakers it's likn peeling back an onion. we can't get to the bottom of te it.n. it had absolutely had to do witz thei. election. is look at benghazi. it's the same thing. nobody can answer -- you know,ou who'sse running the white house? wheres? are the adults? these people work for us. and every single american shoul. be concerned about, this becaust it's not just about tea party or conservative. next time the shoe could be on the other foot, and we could have a republican pres

. >> what are the links to citizens united? >> fantastic question. of the reasons why the book looks at the onslaught of legislation after 2010 is because there is an explosion at the state level. it is in large part due to one of the driving forces which is james bopp junior who is a legal brains behind the challenge that created the citizens united decision. he sparked along with this group, a lot of the initial campaign finance charges and did so through socially conservative groups. as a result of the unrestricted spending at the state level, it is where we are at right now. >> robin marty, if you could talk about the loss of targeted abortion, a provider laws, otherwise known as the heartbeat ban? trape heartbeat ban and laws are different breed we're looking at how there are a variety of ways of going after abortion regulation. in one case, you can ban abortion at different periods of time so we see the 20-week bans, heartbeat and. that can be as early as six weeks when her be detected. we don't think a lot will survive legal challenges, but we

fighting in states for clean money reform, and fighting for an amendment strategy to overturn the citizens united decision, and fighting in elections to change the supreme court. >> what would you think of having a national general assembly modeled on the original continental congress in philadelphia beginning on july 4 of 2012? coming up with a list of grievances that this assembly debated. >> lawrence blessing has talked about a new constitutional convention. i think it is early. i think it is tricky. i do not mean to sound too conservative. when you say to make a list of grievances, we could sit in this room and come up with a list of six ideas or grievances that need to be made real and lead to change. you need to find your issue, work in your community. work in the organizing around the issue. link up with groups doing work. if it is student debt, find ways to take on the banks, local legislators, and congress in the short term. is not very revolutionary. at the event we did on 9/11, i said i felt this country was in a pre-revolutionary moment. it was about a week before occupy was street la

united states. it cannot be used to intentionally target any u.s. citizen, u.s. person, anyone within the united date. but a u.s. citizen may be the result of targeting a non-us erson. section 202 requires that cable companies and internet companies such as google and yahoo -- it indicated there was direct access to the information and user profiles. as i understand it now, that has been corrected. at the piers the online companies received fisa court orders, although how the information is accessed by the nsa has not yet been clearly defined. the order contains information for multiple accounts and can include requests for content information. intelligence officers are able to add the names of additional search queries up to one year later. for all fisa court orders, companies are prevented from his closing they received a fisa court order. this week google went to the fisa court to seek permission to explicitly state how many fisa orders it has responded to every year. general alexander testified the use of these programs stopped 50 errorist events. for section

. >> citizens united, you know what happened 48 hours beforesco citizens united, scott brown won in massachusettsater, all of this started. >> sean: interesting. andy kramer,kram we first met in april of 2009. '09. right. tea party express -- >> sean: 20,000-some-odd people came toot an event. >> it was a huge. april 15th.this this is just stockic, though, of a bigger problem. it's like with a disease. you cannot co continue to treatg symptoms and get rid ofet theyo disease. you have tou eradicate the disease. this is exactly what the tea party movement is all about, iso big government. when you look at the irs, there's so many lakers it's likn peeling back an onion. we can't get to the bottom of te it.n. it had absolutely had to do witz thei. election. is look at benghazi. it's the same thing. nobody can answer -- you know,ou who'sse running the white house? wheres? are the adults? these people work for us. and every single american shoul. be concerned about, this becaust it's not just about tea party or conservative. next time the shoe could be on the other foot, and we could have a republican

there are plans to occupy the supreme court from the second anniversary of the citizens united decision. that crazy decision has given the rights to corporations to unleash their treasuries into our already polluted political system. go there. go to your local congresspersons office. go to banks charging student loans up the highest rates. go to those places. i think we will see more of that. occupy congress means not only closing out the super committee. it also means finding movement candidates who will run in the electoral office. this is where people get ammocete -- antsy because they say you are taking over the energy of the occupy movement. we need good people to run. >> union unity of purpose if you are going to get anything done. my wife and i ran at an event for gloria steinem recently. -- you need unity of purpose if you are going to get anything done. they were chanting about the notion that the occupy movement is male-century. -- male-centric. they had a chance that that it t mean 99% men. you have people rending this garment of unity. >> you always find there are divisions.

out this is the as you can see the amount of five a one c four groups has skyrocketed since the citizens united not that. the next slide different slide but yes it's because it's over it's regular americans want to get together there we go here we great spending on politics i mean it's hasta great as regular mistake a lot of those got nervous have for obamacare but what you want to break this to us here is the rise of five a one c four. i believe not coincidentally same time next slide please ok rise a five one c. for applications and then here's the kicker five a rise of five a one c four spending next slide that red part is conservative spending the blue part is liberal spending this really seems to get i want to find other ways to track their money through to their candidates because liberals don't have billionaires who are funding the real now wait a minute their years of use and unions and all kinds of the conservatives are using grassroots organizations that are battling other boards tell me who had more money that was donated to them barack obama or mitt romney and where do you get that

if it's the case that the citizens united increased the volume of c-3s, i am ahead of one. hope the conversation doesn't tar all c-3s. but if we have increase in c-3 and c 4, we need transparent system to pull sun seth of applications. we have can't target specific groups. >> leigh it there. healthcare law promise to bring down cost. the very people meant to health proving costs on the way up? >> reduces most people's premiums. bring down the deficit by $1 trillion. because we spend the healthcare dollars wisely. everybody has different investment objectives, ideas, goals, appetite for risk. you can't say 'one size fits all'. it doesn't. that's crazy. we're all totally different. ishares core. etf building blocks for your personalized portfolio. find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. ishares by blackrock. call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus, which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. read and consider it carefully before investing. risk includes possible loss of principal. help the gulf recover, andnt to

that's because of the citizens united ruling which allows corporations to just dump millions and millionsdollars in to these races. now members of congress pander to the extremes because they are afraid of one of these groups coming in and getting involved in their primary elections, saying you are not to the left enough. we are going to come primary you or you are not priet enough. we will primary you and take you out. >> first thing that comes to mind and i'm talking politically when i mention speaker of the house john boehner. >> the speaker has made efforts to try to work with democrats. >> it doesn't seem that way and it seems like there is so much friction there. >> what he seems to be hindered by is what i think is a radical part of his caucus that believes the federal government has no role in our day-to-day life. this is a part of his party. the tea party caucus. we should call them by name. that's who they are. and this tea party caucus seems to want to disrupt everything in washington just for the sake of disrupting it. it is sort of like the dog that chases the car but once it

company has pollute the environment in ecuador and poisoned and basically killed a number of citizens united states refuses to be forthcoming with regard to bring in this oil company to justice supposedly mr snowden will be transiting through havana and we all know the difficult relations between cuba and united states so i would say that mr snowden should sleep soundly tonight attorney and historian general holder great to talk to you thank you very much and a few thoughts here in r.t. thank you we'll have more updates on the edward snowden story of this short break stay with us this is r.t. live here moscow coming up to twenty minutes past the hour now. download. stream quality and enjoy your favorite. if you're away from your television just. now with your mobile device you can watch on t.v. anytime anywhere. you're watching on t.v. like here in moscow we're following the story of whistleblower edward snowden he's the seventh person the obama administration has sought to punish for leaking classified data let's look at some of his major revelations while he disclosed the documents showing

but relative to the united states, a citizen of the united states population, much less than citizens of the united states. crime, much less than citizens of the united states. >> look what you have done to him. >> come on maybe in south chicago or detroit. >> he is right about the statistics though. >> less crime. a lot less crime. >> they are walking on egg shells. >> how do you gauge their crimes though when they are not registered. >> gavin, the point he is making is because they are so scared of being deported they actually don't commit crimes. >> they are not scared of being deported. they go to city hall with signs saying this is bs. i don't care if you know i am illegal. i am shameless. >> we are not getting anywhere. >> you can't say all of that on one sign. i am crying foul on that. >> bill, part of the new bill that i read is for every illegal immigrants made legal, you get punched in the face which is why it is getting passed. >> it has taken six years, but i see a theme in your questions. they are directed ready to me. in 2000 a million people crossed the border and were

we're not having a debate about whether or not we agree with citizens united. we're not having a debate about whether or not we want to change 501c3 or change 501c4 processes. i would submit to you if that's the goal, perhaps introduce legislation to do so. the problem is that this irs agency has discriminated against people based on their political views. [applause] and for anyone -- >> order. >> for anyone to defend -- >> resume order. >> from -- >> will the gentleman -- >> i have to ask the guests and committee to refrain from applause and displays of emotion or attention. we need to keep decorum in the committee. i respectfully ask that our members reframe from clapping and cheering. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> you may proceed. >> for anyone to suggest that these individuals' rights should be limited more than others simply because of their political beliefs is nothing more than discrimination. there would be clarify if there was an issue of white versus black, of jews versus christians, but because it's conservative versus liberal, there seems to be som

judicial activism and this is a court seeking to get into a game and create results as you saw with citizens united where they hold that case over to a place that it didn't begin it and what's significant about this is something that was it within the ruling by the court that really troubles me this suggestion that because african-americans are finally voting at proportionally equal even larger levels than than white americans cock asian americans. because after only about one percent of it because soaps are getting elected after americans are getting elected they're saying well the problems done what with all due respect the problem was done in the eight hundred seventy s. for a while too we had laws we had reconstruction and you saw african-americans moving quickly into positions of power they were also voting at high levels and then suddenly you ended reconstruction and an awful lot of stuff fell apart i'm not saying we're in the same position i think that would be unrealistic but what i am saying is that you know federal interventions do matter the voting rights act has mattered it has moved us

citizens united, i saw john mccain on campaign finance reform, his bill still is worthless.ell you that, is as worthless as it was back then. he made loopholes and 527s but at the end of the day with citizens united 1/2 and lack of true campaign finance reform you have a situation where a super pac comes along where we convict on karl rove or george soros, whichever side of the aisle you want to secure but the super pacs may go after people so the average member need $3 million which is $10,000 a day that they have to raise. they take their staffer and go across the street and get on telephones. either political party does that. that doesn't mean you have bad numbers, they are victims of this. i promise you many members of congress would like this to change too. many members of congress do not find it delightful to raise this money. some like it, a lot don't. that comes to the conclusion it is still corrupt. jack abramoff and i go away, staff people, didn't change anything. might have made people feel more comfortable but didn't change things. so i put that conclusion there

it's been more than suggested, suggested here in the hearing it's about citizens united.nd about 501(c)(4) groups and the undisclosed donor list. i think some some of my colleagues help disabuse of of the notion. i want to know why groups filing for 501 like the content of the prayers? why were they left in limbo if this is about the abuse of 501(c)(4) status? lastly we heard it's about organizations trying to game the system. but if it's about organizations, why was the irs so concerned about individual donors to these organizations? why in the months prior to a major federal election, the donor information for conservative groups and candidates get to illegally released by the irs? we want to know the answer to that question.