11/14/18 11/14/18 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! >> this is the largest economic development inititiative that hs ever beenn done by t the city or the state or the city and the state together. amy: after a months-long pr campaign to choose its second head quartrters can a amazon has announced plans to build new office complexes in new york city and outside washington, d.c., in exchange for more than

$3 billion in tax breaks and other forms of corporate welflfare. new york taxpayers will even be forced to build a helipad for amazon ceo jeff bezos, the richest man in the world. but some local officials are pupushing back. i am absolutely disgusted that the mayor and the governor of the city of new york unilaterally made the decision to give away almost $3 billion of taxpayer money to the richest man on this planenet. he does not deserve a dime. that man is going to be extracted out of here instead of being circrculated at the local economies. it is about time we stand up and say no to amazon and jeff bezos. amy: we will speak with new york councilmember ron kim, who has introduced a bill to block the amazon deal and redirect taxpayer money away from amazon anand toward d student t debt r. then as dedefense secretetary js mattis visits the u.s.-mexico border where thousands of troops

have been deployed, we speak to fernando garcia of the border network for human rights. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. in california, the death toll from the deadly fires has reached 50, with scores still missing. report the paradise fire is 30% contained. in southern california, firefighters are still battling flames from the woolsey fire, which killed two people and ripped through homes in malibu, scorching almost 100,000 acres. authorities are investigating reports from utilities companies of power line issues that came in just minutes before both the deadly camp p and woolsesey firs started.

on capitol hill, police arrested 51 youth climate activists tuesday as they held a nonviolent sit-in protest inside the office of house democratic leader nancy pelosi, demanding a green new deal and urgent action on climate change. philadelphia activist sophia zaia of the sunrise movement said she was compelled to act because of the historic wildfires raging in pelosi's home state of california. people were burned alive by wildfires in her home state. she has come to that crisis with a water gun, saying she is going to have a committee to talk about evidence of climate change gecko that may have been helpful in 1968. but today, so far from what we need.

amy: new york congressmember-elect alexandria ocasio-cortez, a democratic socialist to last week became the youngest woman ever r electd to congress, joined the protest inside pelosi'i's office, tellig the activists she'd push for the u.s. to get to 100% renewable energy. she was on capitol hill for freshman congressional orientation. today's protest came as the fate of a landmark lawsuit brought by young climate activists remained in doubt. earlier this month, the supreme court allowed the case to proceed, but ruled lower courts could continue to weigh in on its fate. on thursday, the ninth circuit court of appeals put a temporary stay on the case while it hears a challenge from the trump administration. the 21 young activists launched their lawsuit under president obama, arguing the federal government has failed to take necessary action to curtail fossil fuel emissions, violating their constitutional rights. defense secretary jim mattis is scheduled to arrive in mcallen,

texas, today to visit some of the thousands s of troopops depd therere by presintnt trump lasat month. nearly 6000 active duty troops are currently stationed in texas, california, and arizona following trump's escalating attacks against the central american caravan heading toward the u.s.-mexico border in the run-up to the midterms. according to some reports, the border deployments could cost $220 m million, despite ththe ft the pentagon does not see the caravan n as a risk. mattis' visit follows the trump administration's announcement of new immigration rules to deny asylum to anyone who enters the country outside of a port of entry. a few hundred migrants from the central american caravans have arrived in the border town of tijuana tuesday as the vast majority are still at least 1000 miles away from the u.s.-mexico border. we'll have more on the latest news from the border later in the broadcast.

members of the progressive caucus held their first dose conference since the midterm elections tuesday with the caucus expected to grow to members in the new congress is seated in january. democrats took a cooler tone when asked about plans to abolish ice, an idea many progressive congress members mes pushed earlier in the air the height of the public outcry over president trump's family separation policy. whous cochair mark pocan introduced a bill over the summer to do away with ice, said abolishing ice is still on the agenda but that higher priorities for the caucus are health care, jobs, and dealing with the culture of corruption. more than one week after the midterm elections, results from a handful of races are trickling in while other remain undecided. california republican incumbent congressmember jeff denham was unseated by democrat josh harder as democrats continue to increase their gains in the house. two congressional races in

orange county, california, are still too close to call with less than votes separating the 1000 candidates. in maine, republican congressmember bruce poliquin has filed a federal lawsuit hoping to block the first ranked-choice voting tabulation in a federal race. maine voted to implement ranked-choice voting in a 2016 ballot measure. unofficial tallies have poliquin with a narrow lead over democratic challenger jared golden. in georgia, democrat carolyn bourdeaux has said she will ask for a recount as provisional ballots are still being counted in the congressional race where she is trailing republican incumbent rob woodall by less than 1000 votes. in more news from georgia, state senator nikema williams was among 15 peaceful protesters arrested tuesday at the state capitol as they called for all votes to be counted in the georgia gubernatorial race.

this is state senator nikema williams speaking after her release. blackas singled out a as a female senator standing in the rotunda a with cononstituents ie capital, a body i serve in, and our singled out and arrested today for standing with some e y georgians were demanding that every vote be counted and i am incredibly proud and will continue to stand with the citizens of georgia. amy: on monday, federal judge blocked georgia interim secretary of state robyn crittenden from certifying the governor's race before friday and ordered the review of thousands of provisional ballots. until last week, the secretary of state was brian kemp -- who's the republican candidate. kemp stepped down from the post last week after the election. during the campaign, kemp was accused of overseeing a widespread voter suppression effort targeting african americans. unofficial voting numbers put kemp in the lead at 50.3% of the

vote over stacey abrams, a progressive democrat who's seeking to become the nation's first african-american woman elected governor. if kemp's lead shrinks to 50% or less, the race will go to a runoff. in washington, d.c., first lady melania trump called for the firing of deputy national security adviser mira ricardel tuesday in a rare move as she released a statement saying, "no longer deserves the honor of serving in this white house." the conflict between melania trump and ricardel reportedly stems from the first lady's recent trip to africa, including a disagreement with her staff about seating on the airplane. the highly unusual move by the first lady came as a surprise to president trump and senior white house staff, according to one source. another official said that melania trump and ricardel never actually met in person. ricardel, a key ally to national security adviser john bolton, has reportedly also clashed

repeatedly with defense secretary jim mattis and chief of staff john kelly. this comes as reports from white house sources say chief of staff john kelly may also be on his way out. kelly reportedly came into conflict with the first lady over staffing issues, including the refusal to promote some of her senior aides president trump has been meeting with his lawyers to go over questions from special counsel robert mueller as part of his probing a possible collusion of the trump campaign with russian agents during the 2016 presidential election. lawmakers raise alarm recently about the fate of the mueller probe after trump fired attorory general jeff sessions the day after the midterm elections. special counsel bob mueller is reportedly writing his finalal report. cnn has filed a lawsuit against president trump and several of his staff, including press secretary sarah huckabee sanders, alleging that white house correspondent jim acosta's first and fifth amendment rights were violated when the white house banned him last week after he clashed with trump during a

news conference. at the time, huckabee sanders said the ban was because acosta "laid his hands" on an intern. who was trying to take the microphone from him. as evidence, she retweeted a doctored video produced by thehe far-right conspiracy website infowars. the white house is now saying the e ban was s because acosta refused to yield to his fellow reporters. cncnn said thahat the whitite 's actioncoululd ve a a danrousus chilling effect for other reporters. in a chicago suburb of midlothian, a black security officer was shot and killed by a what police officers as he was sunday restraining a shooting suspect while on duty at a bar. 26-year-old jemel roberson reportedly grabbed and held a bar patron to the ground after the patron opened fire early sunday morning. when police officers arrived on the scene, witnesses say roberson was immediately shot,

despite the fact that people at the bar were screaming he was ththe security guard.. at the time, roboberson was armd and heheld a valid gun owner's license. one patron who witnessed the killings have the cops "saw a black man with a gun and basically killed him." an autopsy monday concluded that roberson's death was a homicide. roberson was a father of a nine-year-old son interest in. his partner is pregnant with their second child. his family filed a lawsuit against the local police department on monday. a new report by the fbi finds that reported hate crimes in the u.s. were up in 2017, the third year in a row a rise in bias-motivated incidents has been recorded. the numbers are partially a rereflection of anan increase in police reporting of hate crimes.

in wisconsin, baraboo high school has come under intense scrutiny as a photo of at least 60 male students giving the nazi salute went viral this week. one student in the front row is seen making a "white power" symbol with his index finger and thumb. the photo was reportedly taken ahead of the students' junior prom last spring and was posted on a social media site with the hashtag #barabooproud. iowa republican congressmember steve king is coming under fire after conservative media outlet "the weekly standard" released audio of him referring to immigrants as dirt. king was speaking a campaign stop one day before the midterm elections. listen carefully. >> i guess i'm going to have to go get some dirt from mexico. >> [inaudible] .> there is plenty of dirt the west coast, too.

this is the most dirt we have ever seen. >> after "the weekly standard" reported king's comments in print last week, king's campaign insisted the remarks were fabricated, challenging "the weekly standard" to release the audiotape. steve king narrowly beat democratic challenger j.d. scholten last week to retain his congressional seat despite his frequent racist remarks, his s, and what nationalist his support for far-right candidates overseas. the united nations has joined human right groups in raising alarm over the planned repatriation of rohingya refugees from bangladeshsh to burma. u.n. high commmmissioner foror n rights mhelllle bacheletet calld on bangladesh tuesdatoto halt the plans. over rohingya were killed, while 10,000 more than 700,000 fled burma from august 2017 to august according to u.n. numbers. 2018 in gaza, a cease-fire brokered by egypt was agreed to by israel and hamas-led factions tuesday. israeli airstrikes killed at least seven palestinians since

monday as violence flared in the besieged gaza strip. israel says one 40-year-old man was killed by gaza rocket fire and 70 others were wounded, marking the worst violence since israel's 2014 assault on gaza. and german chancellor angela merkel called tuesday for the future development of a european union military. >> we have made a lot of progress in the area of structural military cooperation. that is good and is mostly supported here. sayingshohould, and i'm thisis also because of developments in recent years, we should work on a vision of one day establishing a real european army. amamy: her statements echoed a vision recently expressed by french president emmanuel macron. president trump attacked macron during a tweetstorm tuesday following his tense visit to paris for armistice commemoration events over the weekend. trump wrote -- "emmanuel macron suggests building its own army to protect europe against the u.s., china and russia. but it was germany in world wars

one & two -- how did that work out for france? they were starting to learn german in paris before the u.s. came along. pay for nato or not!" and that quote before was angela merkel. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. juan: and i'm juan gonzalez. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. we begin today's show looking at amazon and corporate welfare. protesters are heading to the site of amazon's future office complex in long island city, new york, today to condemn the city and state government for showering amazon with mamassive tax breaksks and other giveaways to entice the company to expand into the city. on tuesday, , amazon officially announced it would split its so-called second headquarters between new york and arlington, virginia, just across the river from washington, d.c., after

being offered more than $3 billion in tax breaks and other incentives. as part of the deal, new york taxpayers will even build a helipad for amazon ceo jeff bezos, who is the richest man in the world. amazon recently became the the world's second u.s. company to be valued at over $1 trillion, thanks in part to the fact that amazon paid no federal taxes in 2017. amazon also built its company in part by not collecting local sales taxes on goods sold online. on tuesday, new york governor andrew cuomo defended the massive breaks for amazon. >> this isis the largest economc developmenent ininitiative thats ever been done by t the citity r the state or the city and the state together. for every dollar we invest, we're going to get back about

nine dollars, give or take. so to find the money that we need to invest in the subways, schools, etc., this is a big moneymaker for us. it costs us nothing will ststop. nada. goose egg. we make money doing this. juan: that was governor andrew cuomo joked he'd even offer to change his name if amazon company selected new york. >> anything else i can think of that will get us over the top anything they want named amazon -- i will change my name to amazon cuomo. amy: but many local politicians have openly criticized authorities in new york and virginia for backing the deals which will create a total of 50,000 jobs. joining us now in new york is new york assembly member ron kim, who is introducing legislation to block the deal and redirect taxpayer money away

from amazon subsidies and toward student debt relief. he recently co wrote an opinion piece for "the new york times" headlined "new york should say no to amazon." welcome e to democracy now! a similar member cam, why should new york say no and what did you learn with the release of information about the secret deal? >> i am outraged that new york and are governor cuomo is willing to give awayy up to $3 billion of taxpayers money withouout any consultation. this isn't my money, this is the people's money. they're willing to give it t awy to the richest man on the lannett when we are literally sleepwalking into a supernova, catastrophic financial meltdown after 10 years after the last financial meltdown. more people living in debt than ever in the history of humankind as we speak right now. in new york alone, new yorkers, one million new yorkers living with student debt unable to pay the minimum amount of barely getting by.

instead of bailing out the people, here in new york, our own democratic governor is willing to give -- transfer wealth out of new york individual eckley to the pockets of the richest man on the planet? that is ridiculous and it is about time we step up as democrats, progressives, and put in and the corporate welfare. juan: this whole issue of how mayor de blasio and the governor negotiated this deal, as you say , in secret, and the apparently the mayor agreed to allow -- to bypass the city council by allowing the state to be the prime mover in assembling the land and the project? can you talk about that and what can be done to challenge that? >> i am interested in legislation to call back this deal under the new york state constitution as it clearly states we're not allowed to give any corporate subsidies or money to the private sector or business or corporation. they are getting around this by working with quite as i government agencies that were

designed to execute this type of transfer o of wealth. we can redesign it. because we designed it in a we can redesign it to work for the people of new york. what is the point of having a majority of progressive democrats in the state senate that we work so hard for in the state of new york if we can't stop one man from transferring $3 billion of taxpayers money to the richest man on the planet? what the deal is. it was touted as this would be amazon second headquarters, but now it looks very different than that. >> it is completely indicative of what amazon stands for, which is why i never sign on to the original letter. they represent the worst of our democracy. not just controlling the market, they have become the market in the supply chain to the retailers to the online space, and they tell customers in cities and states, hey, this is the deal we're going to give you. once they extract all the money

from us, they changed the terms. it is not a second headquarters, this is an expansion of growth. democrat iseral touting jobs, jobs, jobs, economic growth. jobs were already in the pipeline. they were already going to expand because the company is designed to expand. that money is not going to job creation, it is going into the sea levels at amazon and it is a complete waste of taxpayers money. juan: i want to ask about the on queens. i understand some of the land being assembled is right next to the largest public housing project in the country. what the impact will be on housing prices in queens, largely working-class borough, as a result of the recruiting in of thousands and thousands of

middle-class jobs into that area. >> ever since i came out strongly opposing ii received countless in mills from people from seattle telling me what has been happening there is residents, how they artificially inflated the value of real estate appraising people out, working families, middle-class, left and right. there are absolutely no safeguards in new york city under the terms the governor has set. he can bring in whatever economist he wants, makeup random numbers. unless we have an audit and an outside perspective dissecting everything one of these terms he laid out, there is no way we can guarantee the protection of people getting priced out of .hese type of communities amy: we're going to go to break and come back to this discussion , expand it to a round table. ron kim is a member of the new york state assembly. he recently cowrote an opinion piece for "the new york times" "new york should say no to amazon."

back in a minute. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. we continue to look at amazon and corporate welfare is new york and virginia have agreed to give amazon over $3 billion in tax breaks to build new office complexes in new york and there washington, d.c. according to the bloomberg billionaires index, amazon ceo was $99os' as net worth billion. on may 1, it was $132 billion. meaning a rose $33 billion in just a few months. if you divide that difference by

the 120 days of that period, you will find he made 270 finally and dollars per day. divide that by 24 hours in a day to get about $11.5 million per hour. the equivalent of roughly per minute. or $3182 every second. that according to bloomberg. amy: you compare that to the medianan amazon employee's sala, $28,000. jeff bezos makes more than that in 10 seconds. we're expanding our conversation, joining us from washington, d.c., is greg leroy, executive director of good jobs first, which is closely tracking public subsidies given to amazon. in portland, maine, stacy mitchell, codirector of the institute for local self-reliance directs its , community-scaled economy initiative. she is the author of "big-box swindle: the true cost of mega-retailers and the fight for america's independent businesses." earlier this year, mitchell wrote a cover story for the nation titled, "amazon doesn't just want to dominate the market -- it wants to become the

market." still with us in new york is assembly member ron kim who is introducing legislation to block the amazon deal and redirect taxpayer money away from amazon subsidies and toward student debt relief. let's begin the segment with greg leroy. your response to the deal and your concerns? >> i support everything the assemblyman just said in his concerns. we know the price tag of the incentives alone in new york city is well over $2.8 billion. parts of it and cannot even put a price tag on yet. a lot of it is automatic and should have been cap. it is way too big for a single project. they're under reported subsidies on the virginie individuals so the total packages together exceed $4.6 billion. amazon is clearly in the way awarded its own press statement, trying to downplay and play a shulkin with the numbers and hide some of these bigger

numbers coming from new york. this is hot real estate. anotother example of amazon getting paid to do what it would have done anyway. no surprises about its location. we are massively subsidizing yet again a company to do what it wants to do anyway. mitchell, i want to ask you about this issue of job creation. the politicians are always touting that it is important to put out the subsidies to be able to create jobs. but one of the unwritten stories that you been tracking is the jobs destruction, especially of small businesses that amazon represents as it continues to grow in our economy. amazon is really concentrating a lot of economic power. as it does that, it is pushing

other businesses out. we have lost about 85,000 independent small retailers in the last 10 years. we are seeing small and midsize manufacturers getting squeezed, laying off staff, disappearing because amazon increasingly is the gatekeeper to consumers. it picks winners and losers and uses that power to push others out of the marketplace and again more power for itself. as it does that, it is, as you noted, illuminating far more jobs than it is creating. amazon is highly efficient, highly automated company. it is eliminating a lot of retail jobs. our calculations suggest we're losing about two r retail l jobr every one job created in an amazon warehouse. the picture for working people is even worse than that. pathways to the middle class, being able to start euro business, having a diverse economy with lots of different opportununities, that is really disappearing. we think one of the reasons that wages have not been growing

really at all has to do with concentrated power in the fact we no longer have that kind of dynamism in the economy. juan: amazon, much like uber, model, ainess long-term business model of capturing the market but then increasingly relying on robots to do its work so that eventually, the labor force will be reduced. can you talk about that? >> that's right. amazon's warehouses are becoming increasingly automated. they have not figured out yet quite h how to do everything humans can do, but it is safe to say really humans are literally cogs in the machine and an amazon warehouse. these are highly automated, fulfill the roles only they can fulfill. but over time, we've seen amazon's employment numbers relative to sales decline. that is a measure of this increasing automation. we expect fairly soon amazon

will begin to have robots that can do the things that only humans can do. but again, i think the jobs inside amazon -- ththese are jos maybe that we shouldn't -- thehy are e hard jobs, not necessarily jobs w we want to preserve. i ththink the bigger problem frm a jobs standpoint is when you have a comompany that t has a stranghohold on the economy -- normally, if you go back in time, we have had techchnologicl progress that has at times wiped out entire sectors, entire areas of e employment. and that is ok if you have an economy that is dynamic for yoyu have new b businesses cocoming along, n new industrtries, new creations. but what we're seeing because of amazon's market power, we are not getting those two businesses. we are not getting those new industries coming along and creating new jobs. that is the real problem. amy: on tuesday, mayor bill de blasio applauded the amazon decision. >> we're going to have the

opportunity for tens of thousands of everyday new yorkers, kids who go to our public schools, community colleges, to have opportunities at amazon. and not just at amazon, but we know their presence is going to help build the entire tech sector. that tech ecosystem right now is about 350,000 jobs. just got a huge boost from amazon's decision to come here. but we know that is only going to spark a lot more growth. we see a future where that could the half-million jobs or more. amy: new york state as someone member, ron kim, if you could respond to the mayor and also this business insider report. amazon is going to be placed in long island city in queens. long island city real estate brokers told "the wall street journal" they would is to flurry of inquiries over the past week was that some were even buying units sight unseen the a text message. the journal wrote on tuesday morning -- john "this is the first time in my 20 or career us in the market go from a buyers market to a sellers market

overnight based on a rumor." both you could respond to what deblasio is sasaying come a massivive growth in n the tech sector and good jobs for new york's kids, and students and what isn this city, and going to have the to real estate. >> i think this is a great example of a technocratic democrat who is hiding behind big tech and pushing out thee narrative to the public that big tech. ever single problem in our and humankind. that is not the case. this is an example how big tech artificially raises value. as stacy said, real value comes from innovation, creativity, small business, local economy, circulation of wealth at the very bottom of our economy. that is not happening. it, thisber, you name

is based on an extraction economy designed to extract as much money and value out of our communities. it is not going to add to sustainable job growth or economic growth. juan: greg leroy, in terms of the trend nationwide in terms of these government subsidies for job creation, obviously, the foxconn example in wisconsin is another one. can you talk about what these governments, local governments are doing and what they're getting in return for these subsidies? >> i would be glad to. i want to footnote something on the de blasio quote. we know about four out of five typically of the new job takers on a project like this will not be current residents of new york or arlington, but people moving to the area from outside somewhere. that means a lot of growth getting an deuced, schools having big expanded and infrastructure built and public services provideded. guess who will get stuck with that tax bill if amazon is not paying to help cover the cost of

that induced growth? this whole issue of what we call persistent megadeals, that is these nine figure, 10 figure subsidy packages, hundreds of millions, billions of dollars for individual transactions whether it is hq2 or foxconn or data centers like apple, microsoft, google, facebook -- it is a crazy a dynamic. there's a long history in america of a very corporate-dominated site location system. it is about 80 years old and was born in new york city. even a president who has endorsed this race to the bottom, this war among the states, so-called, by sponsoring foxconn when he parlayed that for thelast year subsidy package in wisconsin. that foxconn package is melting down. it was valued at about $3 billion from the state to begin with. $4.7 millionth of

because there is been a ton of local and infrastructure aid for on top of it. now we are getting different product lines, high degrees of automation, rumors and reports in "the wall street journal" of chinese engineers having to be brought in because they're having trouble recruiting sufficient white-collar workforcrce. it is no secret governor walker put out by the voters last week had stopped touting that deal on the m merits becaususe it was melting down so badly. amy: and jobs dropping from 13,000 to something like 3000. >> correct. because per job keeps going up because the denominator is shrinking. it is the great disappearing deal of all-time. juan: want to ask about the virginia aspect of this deal and what is often overlooked is the amount of business that amazon does with government agencies, defense contractors, and its cloud business. and what its decision to locate

in the suburbs of washington, d.c., will mean? >> i'm so glad you brought that up. a lot of people don't realize amazon has historically made very few profits and only recently any profits at all on its retail business. most of the profits, including all of the profits for some years, come from its cloud computing services, amazon web services. it is the biggest cloud computing company in thehe worl. roughly 40% market share. among its most lucrative clients in that the pentagon and the central intelligence agency and other federal agencies. pointed and others s have out recently, amazon is pushing aggressively to gain more control over federal procurement lines and also state and local government procurement lines. people don't notice, but the crystal city footprint they have now said is going to be one of practically a stone's throw from the pentagon. amy: democratic congress member-elect alexandria cortez

said displacement is not committed to development. investing in luxury condos is that the same as investing in people and families. shuffling working class people out of a community does not improve their quality of life." i want to ask assembly member kim about the progress of letter you refer to. this was the former city council speaker melissa mark, to money williams, all progressive on to theo sign letter asking amazon to come to new york. what is progressive about this deal? i think many of my colleagues are regretting a sign the letter. i want to be clear that many of them are saying now they no longer are willing to sign on thank you third name to the letter. there is nothing progressive

about amazon coming to new york. the corporate giveaway toto the richest man on the planet. to callto make sure back the agreement, toto make se thee taxpayers go to where it is needed -- to the working-class families living with so much debt in new york city. amy: i want to put a question to stacy in portland, maine. in the piece you write for the nation, the subtitle is "the company is a radically a new kind of monopoly with ambitions that toward those of earlier empires." explain. >> that's right. i think amazon is so dominant in so many areas it is not capturing one out of every two dollars that americans been online. as greg noted, controls the underlying infrastructure for a lot of the internet, over 40% of the world's cloud computing capacity. it is increasingly moving into shipping and package delivery.

it is taking on ups and the postal service. it has the largest market share in home voice systems through alexa. on and on it goes. rather than thinking about amazon being dominant in any of these markets, the way to understand what this company is all about is that amazon is about controlling the essential infrastructure that other companies need to use in order to reach the market. its online platform, more than half of all product searches online now start at amazon's website. you orat means is if any, to producing or retailing anything, increasingly, if you want to be able to reach consumers, you have to become a seller on amazon's platform. what that means is amazon now controls or business. they have the ability to gather data on what you are doing, to use that data to compete against you. they can levy a kind of tax on

your trade. they can demo you in the search results. they can retaliate you against you could complain. essentially, amazon is privatizing the market, if you will. in a democracy, a market should be an open place where the rules are set by the public. that there are public rules that govern the buying and selling of goods and how we are going to structure our markets. a what amazon is the situation in which commerce occurs in a private arena and amazon sets the terms of trade. it basically creates thehe rules and regulations by which other companies and other participants are allowed to operate. i think in light of that, it is knows a price that amazon is expanding its presence in washington, d.c., because we have antitrust laws that are designed to put a check on this kind of concentrated economic power. i think jeff bezos clearly sees that as really the only threat

to his future growth. so cozying up to federal government is part of his strategy. juan: i would like to ask greg leroy, on the whole issue of whether amazon needed to be courted and provided all of these subsidies to relocate to new york city or -- the reality is, because of the model they created of delivering products the same day in some cases, to people around the country, they need to be in certain places, specially the population centers. my students at rutgers university did a series of articles about the tent amazon warehouses that have developed in central new jersey to serve the philadelphia and new york city markets. 15,000 jobs created virtually .ithth no subsidies so they actually need to be in certain spots. the politicians perhaps had more leverage than they themselves

understand. , one. are right, exactly long before the hq2 option came out, we have been publishing about the subsidies for making this very point. if you look at the history of the company, in the early years, they grew their market share by having the price advantage of not collecting sales tax. they were legally able to avoid that i wanted what is called nexus. hat is a physical presence in the state. over time, with a prime business model involving to rapid delivery, today, one day, same day, it was inevitable they would have to look at lots of warehouses close to all of those zip codes with lots of prime household numbers. so they started on this issue back i i2011, 2012,2, sometimes under pressure from state to found there were skirting the law and locating in states without collecting sales tax

ahead of time. over time, they had to do that. yet they stillll got paid. they discovevered they could create jobs, even though they're creating one job at the expense of two others as bricks and mortar retailers continue to got down and companies bankrupt, getting paid to do with a one. we said publicly to officials, amazon should pay to arrive, not vice versa's. if amazon is going to come and price a bunch of people out of a city and create a bunch of new expenses by inducing so much growth, they should pay to arrive, rather than get paid to. amy: we did not even get to labor conditions. in september, we spoke to james bloodworth, author of "hired six-month undercover." toiling amidrkersrs abusive conditions, no bathroom breaks. this is bloodworth describing working in an amazon warehouse. sick,you took a day off you're given a disciplinary for

that. if you received a six, you would effectively lose your job. this is a day off sick even if yet a letter from the doctor, even if you phone them beforehand to say you were going to be sick. if you took six days offset, you would effectively lose the job. this was the biggest employer at the time. people were receiving disciplinary for taking a 12 break. the productivity target was so toh that workers were afraid go to the bathroom. a survey came out that found 74% of workers were afraid to use the bathroom because of the productivity target. amy: that was british journalist james bloodworth who went undercover in an amazon wawarehouse. i want to end with assembly member cam. >> it is ridiculous.

i want to end by saying the e.u. has already considered -- is already considering an open antitrust case against amazon. imagine for the last two years, instead of competing and embracing every city and everyy state united,, calling amazon accountable,e, having open investigations by the attorney general's office in every single state investigating to the antitrust practices? that as leverage. that is role leverage. that of doing that, we give them billions of dollars to come to our cities and states. it is not too late. i think we should move forward and hold amazon accountable. amy: just the beginning of the discussion. new york state assembly member ron kim, stat stacy mitchell, anand greg leroy. this is democracy now! when we come back, we go to the border. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. juan: we turn now to the u.u.s. mexico border, as jim mattis goes to the border. nearly 6000 active duty troops are currently deployed in texas, california, and arizona following terms escalating attacks against the central american caravan headed toward the u.s. in the run-up to thehe midterms. trump has warned that the number could swell to 15,000. more than the u.s. forces in afghanistan and most trouble the number of troops in iraq. according to some reports, the border deployment could cost $220 million. despite the factct the penentagn does notot see the caravan as a

risk. a few hundred migrants from central american caravans have arrived in the border town of tijuana tuesday as the vast majority is still at least 1000 miles away from the u.s.-mexico border. amy: mattis' visit comes just after the trump administration announced new immigration rules to deny y asylum to anyone who enters the country outside of a port of entry. aim of thehe american civil liberties union calls illegal. well, for more, we are joined by two guests. fernando garcia is the founding director of the border network for human rights, an advocacy organization based in el paso. and liz castillo is immigration reporter and managing editor with neta, a commumunity news outlet in the rio grande valley. she has been speaking with asylum seekers on the bridges and to the volunteers helping them. welcome to democracy now! fernando, i mean, the lead up to the midterms, one action on the part of trump after insult, whether he is introducing an order that would ban all immigrants coming into the

country outside of a port of entry or talking about the caravans as invasions or invaders. can you talk about what is happening ye? >> at the border, we're seeing everything you can imagine. racist, anti-immigrant that only agendas of the president of the united states. i just came from mexico. i went to have a discussion with our colleagues there working with immigrant nations. what i saw was children, mothers and fathers to make young people and persecution and poverty. that does not match with the president is talking about. such crisis of criminals coming to the border. the only crisis is the one the

president is creating by all of these things. it is not only how he is demonizing all of these refugees, but the construction for border wall, the deployment of active duty soldiers -- which is setting up a very important precedent, probably even violating the constitution of the united states and every olod provisnn called -- - that you cannot apply thehe national guad or the soldiers within the united statates unless there e n emergency or there is a war. nothing like that is happening in our border. obviously, t this is a clear example of distorted narrativeve being promoted by this president. juan: liz castillo, you have been interviewing migrants at the border. could you talk about what you're findingg the perspective, there point of why they're coming? the majority of the people i

talk to cited poverty, threats of persecutition, fearar of safy in their country of the majoriti origin and that is the reason they're coming your. we been talking to asylum when theince mid-june zero-tolerance policy for started. we have continued to witness an ongoing flow of people coming to the border, which started with smaller groups but continues to be larger and larger groups. at this point, we never really see a group smaller than 20 people at any given bridge. the average is usually far larger than that. made up of families, made up of children, sometimes younger than he year old -- than a year old. people have medical conditions, including a teenager this past month that had an attack on the bridge. what we'rere seeing is at the beginning of the summer, there were people only waiting there for maybe three or four days, which in and of itself is hard

amount of time to be living on an international bridge. what we're seeing is far larger waits. no one is waiting less than seven days. some people are waiting two weeks. some people say they have been waiting on the bridges for a month or more, particularly folks coming from african countries, which is something that my colleague has been closely following and reporting on. juan: fernando, the whole issue of why so many people are coming from honduras? most americans are not paying attention to what is happening in honduras over the past two years. u.s. government's involvement in supporting what is considered legitimate government at this point. and also, the constant deportation from convicted felons who come out of prison who are from honduras and sent back constantly to reinforce the gang violence there? >> that is true. sometimes we're reluctant -- as

the effects to see of u.s. policies in centrtral america and the rest of latin america. important ine very terms of the u.s. . involvement. the first is the so-called trade agreementsts. even the one they're negotiating with mexico and the one they have negotiated with other countries, especially in latin america, those trade agreements are not producing jobs. can least jobs where people live with dignity. have housing, hehealth care, better salaries. that is not happening in central america. their reasons for people to leave because of those living conditions. the second thihing is the violence. we've heard about gangs and killings in mexico, but also central america. guess what? guest where they're getting the weapons from? the united states. at the same timeme, most of thee

weapons people are killing with in central america are coming from the united states and we toually are closing our eyes these issues. if we don't want immigrants to come, let say for a minute that is the goal, i think the united states would have a great opportunity to implement some kind of plan marshall to elevate the living conditions in central america, having a decent seller, decent housing, health care, some people would not have to come to the united states. but that is not happening. we are attacking the immigration issue when the worst-case -- the military issue. another scenario, this is the picture of america today. soldiers at the border preparing to defenend the country from children. from others. from immigrants, from refugees. how come we have got to that point? , can you talkllo about military exercises on the border?

there are not thousandnds of trtroops and thousands more u.s. troops that are being sent to the border. the cost i think is something like now it is being estimated something like $220 millioion. >> yes, it is a shocking view for people who are from thehe valley, watching people in full riot gear with helmets and guns. they seem to be conducting what can only be described as worst-case in areas. completely out of touch with the actual people that we have met on t the briridges, which againr .omen, children,n, elderly peope there is this real kind of real fear coming from not just the drdrills and the exexercises one bridges and the messages ththat other law enfoforcement agencies are sending, including local agencies, whichh a are saying things t to the fact they are ready with armored vehicles and that kind of thing, but also the effect it has -- that is cast on peoplele when they see military

humveeees driving of a highway r go to the walmart and are active duty troops in full gear shopping next to tm.m. there is b been a really draramc increase in militarization within a really short span of time. we're talking about in the last two weeks. there is a real fear in the air and a tension and a concern given the history of border patrol, p pticularlyy this s ye, but beyond thisis year, really, when it t comes to responses -- disproportionate responseses to such as rorocks being thrown. it might not even take a rock for the first bullet to ring just because of the tension and the message being sent in the way law-enforcement agencies seem to be preparing for w whats a refugee caravavan. juan: liz, we just have a little time left. what about the children still in u.s. custody who were separated from their families?

still 171 children, despite momonth-longng judges order r to reunitite them with their families? >> it just speaks to thihis broadeder affect that is playing out onon the border r and the bridgeges of thehe lack of a controlled and orderly process. i think the trump administration ruled w when it was announced lt thursday is a great exaxample of this sort of p pattern of d disr and this wilillingness to ignore and just pretend there is order when t there isn't. what we're seeeeing on the brids is a process where people e are taking two weeks or a month oror some people are being lost track of. there is no orderly process at ththe border. people cannot go too port of asasylum and go througugh ordery process and d hope to be procesd within a week, at least. amy: we have to leave it there but i want to thank you so much for joining us, liz castillo for immigration reporter and

managing editor with the community news outlet in the rio grande valley called neta. in a want to thank fernando garcia. we will do part two and post it online democracynow.org. fernando garcia the founding director