so that's how citizens united connects to climate change. while our american democracy suffers and stalls, the evidence of climate change relentlessly mounts. the damage will be done in our atmosphere and oceans. the damage has already started. and i have to warn my colleagues that the denier machinery, the beast i described earlier this month, will ultimately be shown for the evil apparatus of lies that it is. when that happens, there will be more damage to go around. there will be damage to a party that allowed itself to be taken over and silenced by that corrupt apparatus, ignoring the plain facts in front of their faces. there will be damage to a supreme court that went through such peculiar contortions to let that dark money loose, ignoring plain facts in front of their faces. and we, we americans, will hold our lamp high to the rest of the world as a beacon of democracy. we will have some explaining to do, how we, to the dismay of the rest of the world, let our great democracy be stifled by greedy polluters, ignoring the plain facts th

citizens united is really born is a. citizen of the flea it's a money situation that's why you know more attorneys go into the private and back to that money situation former florida republican governor turned democratic gubernatorial channel challenger charlie crist was on my radio show yesterday that's a pretty strong thing to say about the current florida republican governor rick scott take a take a listen i have a record as having been governor before an attorney general before that secretary of education before that rick scott has now a record as governor for the past three and a half years but he's got a record before that and his record before that as the c.e.o. of columbia h.c.a. health care company was that that company under his leadership had to pay the highest fine for fraud in the history of the united states of america at the time one point seven billion dollars in a fine it's like jamie dimon territory it's get in there and you know as a friend said to me the other day listen if you're just in the top ten o

citizens united has helped create government by and for the 1%.those of you not invited into those backrooms, remember the old saying, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. >>> joining me now, kevin roose, reporter from "new york" magazine who crashed that party. he's author of "young money: inside the hidden world of wall street's post-crash recruits" which is out today. congratulations on pub day. >> thank you very much. >> all right. set the scene for me. can this -- did you make this up? it's really beyond character. >> i promise you i did not make this up. although someone said to me today, you know, if martin scorsese had gotten this for the "wolf of wall street" he would have thrown it for being over the top. this dinner has been going on for over 80 years, this group called kappa beta phi. one of my questions always what happens to these guys as they get older and more powerful? how does the psychology of wealth change them, you know, as they mature? so i thought, you know, i've got to at least try to get into this thing. i went

constitution and overthrow citizens united. they're also asking all of the presidential candidates that will soon be haunting new hampshire a big question. how are you going to end the system of corruption in washington? this is just the beginning. more marches are planned in the state between now and 2016. this year's began symbolically. population 12. well-known to fans of american politics as the first town in the united states to cast it's presidential ballots. >> people have said this feels crazy to cross new hampshire in the middle of february. i feel like who is the crazy in this story? we have a congress where members spend 30 to 70% of their time raising money. they live in an environment much like an elementary school where the buzzers go off and they race from their office to vote on issues and they don't know what they're voting on. they stand in an empty chamber giving speeches to nobody. it's a system that produces no progress so the people inside the system are the crazy onesment so if there's crazy here and i'm

saw it, top democrats railing against the citizens united decision. that's the decision to allow super-pacs to raise unlimited funds for political candidates, but now democrats, some of the very ones you watched attack the citizens united decision, are cashing in on super-pacs. can they have it both ways? here for that debate, contributing editor and writer, jim pinkerton, and fox news contributor and bureau chief of talk radio news service, ellen rattner. good morning to you both. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> jim, whatever happened to campaign finance reform? i thought liberals were for it, but no. >> they were for it, tucker, until they decided they were against billionaires funding campaigns until "the washington post" said there's a big article about al gore joining other billionaires all from san francisco who are plotting, that's a fair word for it, to at least spend $100 million this year to elect green climate change activist who is think it is more important to save the penguins in 100 years from warm water than to keep americans empl

that's why the supreme court ruled the way they did in citizens united.y thought the law was a violation of the first amendment. and i know that liberals and supreme court justices don't necessarily agree with that, but it's a constitutional issue in terms of the outcome. but should money buy you more speech than me? >> we have our votes, right? so the votes are what -- the money doesn't necessarily influence the elections, right? >> so why spend it? somebody's losing a lot of money for nothing. >> we all have the freedom to start a newspaper, to start a blog -- >> but not everyone has the money to do it. i mean, i'll ask you -- >> but you can't -- how do you level the playing field with that, legally? you really can't? because to do so, necessarily, it bridges the freedom of speech. >> when you're in a situation in a system where 0.1% of the richest americans gave 40% of the campaign dollars in 2012, you have to ask yourself, who has the louder voice here? >> we'll take a quick break. but when we come back, andy, i do want to come to you on your incredib

four years ago last week was the week before it was citizens united. when we got legislator named john sarbanes who's doing a good job moving forward on a bill that would get create publicly financed campaigns and so you know if you so we can put the person who still maybe fifty or one hundred dollars on the thing footing is somebody who might donate more but it would be public subsidy we're trying to this is the move we're doing right now but i just want to go back to illustrate the nature of the problem that you pointed out a moment ago one point is that. some folks may think well income inequality is just a matter of one group of people have a small group of people have a whole lot of money and a whole lot of people not having that much it's much worse than that because when that small group of people get a whole lot of money there it's some point they can't buy anymore yachts and houses what do they do next they start buying political influence to what enrich themselves even more so that the imbalance in economic power then gets parlayed into an im

lobbyist cause they'll all ways find a way to get around it what do you think lee do you think citizens united exacerbated this problem. while it i'm of two minds on them so this is united and were obvious for one thing it makes raising money for on a politician easier instead of having to be on the phone. for sometimes eight hours a day for some of these politicians begging people for these thirty thousand five thousand dollars checks you can just find one a sponsor someone to to bring in a super pac they can dump a million dollars into your district that makes it much easier to sort of who isn't it's kind of a counterintuitive take at the same time it makes corruption much worse because if a chemical industry lobbyist wants to pressure a senator or congressman all they have to do now is set up a front group and funnel corporate money into that front group. unlimited amounts of money and very easy to pressure a lawmaker when the corruption is that simple in the koch brothers of course have mastered the how do we stop this toxic cycle only because of course in order to play the game yeah got t

so when you look at the full cop text, particularly after the citizen you united decision that opened floodgate,o skrout. so when you look at the full cop text, particularly after the citizen you united decision that opened the floodgate,ut skrout. so when you look at the full cop text, particularly after the citizen you united decision that opened the floodgate,skrout. so when you look at the full cop text, particularly after the citizen you united decision that opened the floodgate,. so when you look at the full cop text, particularly after the citizen you united decision that opened the floodgate, it begs the question how much targeting was there really. and we still haven't gotten the answers to those questions. >> so just so we're on the record, none of the progressive groups were stopped. they all got their tax exempt status. many conservative groups still waiting. one was cakatherine, a small business owner, coffin serve difference group she started up. she said in 20 year, never had any trouble with any federal agency, but after she got involve wrd this, tried to push back, sh

decision the supreme court in the citizens united decision the supreme court said the money was protected by the first amendment the same as speech if that's the case and if money is protected under the first amendment the same way that our rights to speech and association are should there be some regulation on that too and if there is some regulation on using money is speech shouldn't be let's not let sociopaths and psychopaths use money to corrupt our democracy while exploiting people like julie boon for personal gain let's rubble. join me for that as low level rubble are and are closter legal fellow with the heritage foundation and cameron seward program manager with the heritage foundation and guys welcome back you heard my rant we do regulate speech in this country we regulate association in this country what's wrong with regulating money from billionaires. well first of all i just say that what you did get one little fact wrong with. you can't yell fire in a crowded theater if it's on fire if it's on fire because it's so so one man's what the supreme court. recently heard

under citizens united, throw any amount of money they can into this thing.ecoming, i will argue, like the country communists accused of us being in the cold war. it will get there. your thoughts. >> we cover superpacs as a huge deal in 2012. all the spending happened in the republican primary, also happened in the general election. i would argue that they are more influential and a bigger story in a midterm election and here's why. $50 million is a vast sum of money. right? but in a presidential election in which barack obama spent $1.2 million, mitt romney raised and spent $1.1 billion. billion with a "b." $15 million, not all that much. $15 million in a house race, you are by far the biggest spender. $50 million in a senate race, you're likely the biggest spender. i would point out in the interest of fairness, tom steyer, a wealthy guy is out doing environmental around climate change. he has a plant, he wants to seed $50 million and raise from like-minded friends, to josh's point, sort of directed giving. raise another $50 million to spend it on senate rac

now we're in the citizens united era where the traditional campaigns that i just described are, frankly, not even close to the reality of what candidates face. one senator, one incumbent democratic senator now up for reelection has had over $8 million spent against her in her home state with negative advertising that's gone on for months. for months. it's being paid for by some very wealthy billionaires. these billionaires -- in this case, the koch brothers -- spent i believe $248 million of their own money in the last election cycle. they are, in fact, a political party to themselves. they decide the candidates they support, which coincidentally are all in the other political party and they invest huge sums of money in those election efforts. make no mistake, we're raising money on the democratic side too but not nearly to the numbers that we see on the other side. this business of politics is being swamped with money in amounts and levels we have never seen before. what it means is that if incumbent or even a challenger wants to have a viable campaign, they spend more and more time ra

campaign finance reform you know he's called for that but the supreme court blew that up with citizens united. and i think i would like to see him as a more outspoken advocate for an amendment to the constitution that would clearly say that money is not speech and production that's protected by the first amendment the corporations are protected by the fourteenth amendment this is not to be you know totally in the bag for obama i use these to drop the ball or. if. i have some problems with some of the things that he's done but i think overall nate can you imagine what would have happened if mitt romney or or even worse john mccain had been elected i mean we see i think we would have already been at war with iran at this point i think you know progressive obviously have a complicated relationship with president obama as you said there are some things that we are unhappy about what he's done you know we talked in the show earlier about the transpacific partnership i was really pushing hard for this free trade deal that could damage the middle class america but i think it's also important for peo

undo the inequality of capitalism and i think the last thirty or forty years all the way up to citizens united and all the other decisions have been the process of the biggest richest and the biggest corporations to make sure that politics didn't play the role that piketty show. as it periodically did in the past that now they will control the politics with money and so we'll have to let capitalism implode on itself because it cannot be stopped politically from the inequality that in the end will swallow it up its previous book the one that was first published in french. yes it can be inside as you may know the leading authorities around the world what inequality how is that for the how is that analysis different from marx's analysis and us capital . i think the difference is marx always integrated politics in economics he didn't like the idea and he would have he would have made fun of the notion of a politics department or a political science department over here in an economics department for him these were intertwined realities and the difference between him and pick kerry would be he want

happening right now is that we have something called social welfare organizations which since citizens united and another court decision called speech now we don't know who these guys are unless someone leaves a sheet of the names of the billionaire secretly pooling their money with the cokes in a photocopy machine thanks a lot brad friedman and others who have passed this list to me amazing great and every time i cover the koch brothers on the show people write me asking when i'm an expose george soros i mean is there anyone on the left that's doing as much political damage as the koch's are on the right. well the problem is that the left is not really responding that is for example the devotes family which was part of the funding be that pooling their money with the koch brothers their amway products they put forty four million dollars into michigan. politics this is the center of the u.s. auto industry the center of american unionism and yet they just passed a horrendous right to work what's called the right to work law basically it prohibits contracts between unions and businesses which s

>> you can after the post citizens united era of super you can write a check for however much you likeit into a super pac and they can spin than on any political cause or candidate as isg as the super pack ♪ i not cordoning with the candidate. was few years ago, steyer in as a hedge fund manager and a legit guy, how the go from a hedge fund manager to contribute in $50 million in go >> he has joined the fray and he is late to the party. lastd a lot of republicans election and a lot of democrats introducing as well and now tom this issue, climate change and will contribute his personal wealth towards this issue because he feels so strongly about it. >> the titans of industry who have given -- how much this $50 million look like? , we sawis real money what sheldon adelson did last year, we saw so many people stepping in to give to the barack obama campaign in 2008 but also hillary clinton coming around in 2016. this is real money and in individual giving real money, you cannot do this before in american politics. citizens united has changed the game and is allowing individuals from both

works of course with this legalized system of bribery and corruption we have especially since citizens united by which money forces wield such disproportionate influence over our political system compared to the average citizen is how expensive it is to run for office if you don't either have wealth or have access to wealth so i looked at my four hundred thousand names on facebook and my two hundred thousand on twitter because i i have been writing books you know my first book came out in one thousand nine hundred two so i've been out there for a while and i thought to myself looking at my social media. numbers i thought well if everybody sends me five dollars i could do this and my it's a grassroots campaign and i've announced publicly i'm not taking pac money i'm not taking lobbyist money and my average donation is fifty nine dollars. that's how it should be and. we're almost out of time i just want to get to a couple more things that is incredible but you're saying that you're still not being treated as a legitimate candidate even though you've made a lot of money through grassroots funder

fact have a more competitive democracy will it be hampered by the the supreme court ruling in citizens united versus the f.e.c. is that going to help a third party chances. yeah but not not down much more than it before i mean there is a pile of corporate cash before susi united now there are you know five piles of corporate cash and it doesn't really matter to a third party a small third party robbing you of you since you wrote that historical gears ago and things gotten better. gotten better in some ways the cars are much safer for example we have more disclosure for food but on in other ways no they've gotten worse since we were midnight radio buddies years ago in washington larry the power of corporations over our entire society not just politics or elections they're even commercializing childhood there is want to control our genetic inheritance patent our genetic inheritance on and on they can threaten to leave and go to some third third country dictatorship and leave the jobs in factories empty here power is i don't think he's ever been more concentrated in a few giant global corporate

overturn citizens united. >> remember, the high court does not allow any recording devices other thants own audio equipment. spectators and reporters have to pass through metal detector before entering the courtroom, so it is unclear how the videographer snuck in. the supreme court spokesman is reviewing the video and its policies. now to the legislative branch of government. representative dave camp is pushing to revamp the tax code. his plan would eliminate dozens of rates. >> i am not going to accept 2% growth as the new normal. i'm not going to accept a minimum wage economy and the fact we are not creating jobs. kids are living at home because they cannot get out on their own. we need to grow this economy and create jobs. one way is through progress tax reform. heat has taken a lot of for this proposal. the banks are fighting against the plan new tax on banks which is intended to offer it -- offset lower rates for individuals. >> i think it affects about six banks. look. they are going from a 35% rate to a 25% rate. in the financial sector, there are not a lot of provisions, looph

president of citizens united, thank you for joining us first of all and my first question to you, whatrs do to re-establish trust with the american people? >> i think the irs commissioner is out of touch with reality. he's out of touch with the american people. look, what the irs did was unconsignable and the american people don't trust them and without congressional notice or approval by a single hand reinstating the bonuses. it is an outrage and congress needs to act and cut his budget. >> he said that he wants to re-establish trust. but at the same time david, it is unclear and some would say she's not going to in fact whether barbara bosserman lead investigator for the department of justice will be allowed to testify. if you want to re-establish trust allow her to testifyine though she is controversial for donating $6,000. >> one, she knows better. she is a lawyer, understands the rules as a lawyer and prosecutor. she should be recusing herself. she shouldn't wait on eric holder or anyone else. she should recuse herself for having donated $6,000 for obama's campaign. that is appear

but washington is out of the ball game in part because of citizens united. the big money and power is shifting around the country including to silicon valley. i don't think the democrats and progressives have any choice the advisor is one of the shrewdest political operatives ever to come through washington and he has been out in california for a long time now. let's just eliminate all the middle men. let's put -- put them in a ring and let them go at it because that's sort of where we're headed. >> we should let rich people vote based on how they pay taxes. >> i think some people have suggested that. >> i think that's worth looking at. >> we have got a talented team. >> he does what he can. >> i think that's totally right. that was the big political story. the big policy story i think is jim's rather remarkable comments which i want to read to you, give you your thoughts and get yours. i probably shouldn't say this but i will. had we been transparent about this spying from the outset and said to the american people and their elected representatives, we have

administration from the very top, white house counsel like bob bauer were hyper paranoid about citizens united, a supreme court case that let free speech flow. and they wanted to find new ways to shut people up, like true the vote and the tea party organizations. and the irs and the treasury department in that e-mail is going full board trying to figure out how to do it. >> and what wound up happening, they targeted these conservative groups. it delayed their applications. hundreds of them basically gave up or didn't ultimately get approval because the process was so onerous, they needed donor lists and all sorts of information that was not appropriate to ask for. so that is how the irs went about sort of cracking down on them. now, today, chris, they're trying to -- oh, we're very -- it was inappropriate. but what we would like to do is just push through this new rule that is going to stop them from doing any voter registration activity from backing any candidates, doing all this sort of stuff that had been previously allowed. now they shouldn't do this because this new rule just cut them off

thanks to citizens united he can do that, the koch brothers can do their thing.ly channel it to candidates who back him on climate change. is that how it goes? >> that's right. the question is, how effective will it be. there was a poll last year, and americans were asked to rank the top 20 issues, global warming was 250 out of 20. it's not clear how effective it's going to be in the midterms when voters don't care about the issue. >> he may be going after democrats as well. they took a poll of who they should go after, marco rubio was one, mary landrieu from louisiana was another one. it's basically, you're with him on climate change or you're going to get it. >> he said in the new york times it's important that democrats control the senate, they're with him on the issues mainly. if that's the case, you wouldn't want to go after mary landrieu, she's one of the prime candidates, if she fell the senate would go to the ans. yes he has her on the list, but he wants the democrats to win. >> that's interesting, his wife is named katherine, and they call themselves tom

democracy, citizens united decision, or corporations are now people to give as much money as they want a true capitalist parties. i believe a corporation is a person to take it to colonoscopy. [laughter] democracy, the nsa, my friend and comrade and contributor to this book just heard a good article about the msa. the nsa knows every tweet, every keystroke on your computer, every phone call you make. even ex-president jimmy carter said we no longer have a functioning democracy. what about guaranteeing a decent way of life for everybody? real wages haven't come up in 40 years. quality is ridiculous. the walton family from wal-mart and the five kids and a daughter-in-law are worth $69.8 billion. that is more than the entire 30% in the bottom of this population . wages? we've got to fight to increase the minimum wage is $7.50 and the guy then ran chase manhattan bank, jamie diamond just got a bonus of $20 million. the guy makes $80,000 a day. [inaudible] >> yeah, just what frances says, putting the economy and a whole. they were discussing whether they should get the bonus in the committe