it's. can be a loner show where you get the real headlines with none of the mersey or can we live out of washington d.c. now in light of the news that respected journalists who hetherington and chris hondros were killed while libya today we want to take time to reflect on the risks that journalists around the world take to bring us the truth and although tax day is already come and gone the country is still up in arms over the tax disparities between social classes and add to that a recent video showing republican paul ryan being booed and it really makes you

wonder when will washington get the hint that they're not representing the average american i'm president obama is currently campaigning in california and yesterday he made a stop at the facebook headquarters so is this an attempt to get the young both or just the money from silicon valley then people across the country are celebrating religious holidays this week whether it be passover or easter but today we'll tell you about another group holding a convention atheists and we'll speak to one of them and find out why they think they're the most take group in america and believe it or not some people are ok with the idea of torture a recent poll unveils which demographic thinks that it's acceptable to torture the enemy we'll have details on the poll and more importantly we want to know why some of these people think of these cruel actions aren't cause for concern that's later on in the show but now let's move on to our top story. yesterday we reported to you the very sad news that tim hetherington a photojournalist and director of the academy award nominated documentary restrepo

was killed in libya it's now been confirmed that award winning photojournalist chris hondros also lost his life when the men were hit by a mortar strike in the city of misrata since march fourth journalists have now force excuse me since march for journalists have now lost their lives in this war at least forty nine detentions have been documented as well as at least eleven assaults and according to the committee to protect journalists ten journalists are thought to have died covering the arab spring uprisings across the middle east and north africa just this year and here in egypt three. lucian we also reported to you the brutal assault of lara logan every death is a devastating loss and a tragic reminder of the risks that journalists take to bring the world the images and stories from the ground in conflict zones joining me to discuss this is jack wright's former cia special agent and criminal defense attorney jack thank you so much for joining us like i said this is a very tragic reminder of the risk that journalists take to bring us the truth and in this particular case i also think it's important because this is

a war that no one really can explain right there still is no clear mission no clear goal here in this war in libya and so do you think that also highlights the fact that this isn't political what these people are doing they really are just bringing true stories from the ground well you're absolutely right when i first heard about this it was very sad is it i thought about their families and all the sacrifices that it when i think about my time dealing with your claims you can coast ago when i was embedded with the military or when i was in iraq or old times or when i was in afghanistan or africa or any place else in the world and the sacrifices that these men are making is really in the end when i should add to our making a really truly extraordinary we should come to protest it won't because this concept of the politics that are frequently what happens is it would people simply go if you need zones and tell the truth if the truth isn't what some people want to hear the first and you do is they say oh well they're just hack they're just tell

you something that's a lie or you're just here for how it is unfortunately just because the truth hurts doesn't make it any less true it would be as men were their sacrifices today really says a lot about who they are i think frankly what they were trying to do so do you think that sacrificing your life putting your life in that type of danger is worth it when it comes to telling people the truth. it's such a hard question because it's such a personal question i remember being in western baghdad in two thousand and six and i was embedded with the tenth mountain division when we were hit by an i.e.d. and i saw those very up close and personal i still remember a feeling in my chest before i even saw it trying to understand what was going to watch it just blow apart around us and what is it but you you know what i do think as sacrifice is there i do think that we see this from those who are civilians living in the zones trying to deal with it the soldiers were said you were trying

to deal with this fact that these people are willing to sacrifice themselves to tell these true stories i think it's critical because we have needs that comes from journalists who are rooted who they're the only people who are telling the stories are typically the politicos who are trying to actually get the particular story out another charge story but a change to reward and again that's what makes the sacrifice so and i think so important but if you also look at the culture are especially television kateri in this country what are people like the watch people like to watch stories about celebrities or they like to watch reality t.v. right we had polls there are statistics showing from last year in two thousand and ten of the war in afghanistan only made up four percent of media coverage so how do we come to terms of that how do we change that. boy i love the questions tonight really do i remember sleeping other cuts. somewhere in iraq

in the middle of the two thousands and it was bad it was rough at the same time there were more than a thousand quote unquote journalists covering the michael jackson trial was angels i think there were eight of us in iraq eight of us and i remember looking around at these people thought to myself what the hell's going on and what happens when we're more fascinated by whether or not michael jackson shows up in his pajamas or whether or not lindsay lohan is wearing underwear that day versus rocks appling in the world of a sitting room. or really everybody not just the americans not just the iraqis and yet i continue to scratch my head and wonder what is it that we're supposed to are we supposed to give people what it is that i think they need to hear or do we just give them what they want do we just sort of regurgitate cut and caving in just tell us a bit and say here you go you're happy now i think i have to believe that people want more than that and i think what these men have shown is that it's true and it's

necessary if sometimes you really do need your vegetables and sometimes you even try to write and i think you know often people forget when we talk about the lives that are lost in war we talk about civilian deaths and we talk about troop deaths of course but i think people are can forget that many journalists also lose their lives trying to bring that kind of coverage now i know that you've been embedded before you're saying in iraq in kuwait in kosovo in afghanistan what do you think the difference is there when you're imbedded with the troops in versus a situation like libya where this is a civil war where there are quite obvious forces and there are rebels that also aren't organized and really supposedly the nato allies aren't supposed to be on i side. you know that it's a very very is difficult distinction to make sometimes but i think there's a critical distinction to make i mean as an example i was i actually unvetted with the u.s. military when i was in afghanistan this last time i remember that had to be

a sheet of paper and a sheet of paper essentially said if you get blown up it's not our fault it's your fault and i walked out the front gate of a base into afghanistan itself but you know what this is also were difficult to do this if you were in bed with the u.s. military the u.s. military is trying to sell you to i mean they're trying to convince you of a particular point because they want you to report that as fact as truth and so sometimes when you have a journalist who has the guts in this case to actually step outside of one side the nato side or outside of the inside or the other side whichever side you're on it actually step into the middle of the fray that's where it's absolutely most interesting and would actually are probably getting closer to the truth than either side is willing to provide you that is really where the rubber hits the road and that's right i think they went there because they wanted to tell that story there was no other place to go to get it but where they were and that's the tragedy of it

all and i think i'll the reason for us now to talk about these men to remember them and honor them for the work they did tim hetherington and chris hondros and we actually interviewed them hetherington here on this program last year people can still watch that online are you to pay to if they like jack thank you very much for joining us tonight thank you so much. now still to come tonight president obama held a town hall meeting by facebook's california headquarters so is that a savvy move by obama or a sign that he's a little too cozy with tech companies and the d.c. disconnect when it comes to cutting services to reduce our deficit can lawmakers inside the beltway convince the american public that middle and lower classes should suffer all the wealthy get all the tax breaks stick around for our discussions in just a few notes. let's not forget that we have an apartheid regime right now and.

i think. he'd want to well. we have a god that shows they're going to keep him safe get ready because their freedom. h.r. been here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

new web site with twenty four seven live streaming news towns like to tell you about the ongoing financial hardship unlimited free high quality videos for download. and stories you may never find the name streaming. let me get this. police. aren't. just stand. by guys welcome to shell and tell the show we've heard our guests have to say on the topic now i want to hear are just going to you tube does video on our twitter first part of the question that we post on you tube every monday and on thursday to show your responses let your voice be. taxed they came and went and washington is hoping that that means americans have forgotten all about the

disparities in our system all about the fact that the wealthiest americans have quadrupled their wealth in the last decade but have the amount of taxes they pay and republicans are also hoping that taxpayers will forget all about the fact that the g.o.p. wants the wealthiest americans to enjoy continued tax breaks and instead will see them as the ones fighting the good fight and making the hard decisions when it comes to cutting spending and reducing our deficit because you know the way or you know that's the way the print media portrays it for many in their american public health care and looks like it's here don't actually have the courage to put forward a plan so let's just stop right now and thank you ma'am no i know this is your producers come out with a plan which i know the democrats are very like him and i think i was encouraged all right so you can let me. but unfortunately for paul ryan when he held a town hall with his constituents they call them out on letting the rich pay less while the middle class disappears.

so when will washington get it that they're not doing people hating her disgust with me as alex writes a log log of her think progress or thanks so much for being here tonight so try me now are you with me when i say that there is a huge disconnect there paul ryan this new darling of d.c. the new darling of the media well he just isn't really representing what people want you know to the polling out there shows it yeah absolutely i mean this is paul ryan go into office and actually be in the majority and the republicans came into the majority pushing this radical plan to privatizing medicare which is something that they didn't talk about on the campaign trail and you know seventy one percent of tea partiers oppose privatizing medicare eighty four percent of the american public opposes cutting medicare in order to reduce the deficit so they just got way

out ahead of themselves even donald trump has been criticizing paul ryan for getting too far ahead and we're getting criticized for donald trump for being too crazy you know he's being a little bit too crazy so just totally disconnected from what the american people actually want but if you think of the media also plays a role in this i would say that aside from perhaps you know a few personalities that really take it upon themselves the media acts like the world revolves around washington d.c. and around new york and these political and financial centers and they forget hey there's there's a whole other country out there of people with opinions that you don't put on t.v. yeah absolutely and they play this you know false equivalency game where they see that paul ryan made something really bold which it is bold and radical and instead of actually looking at what it does they just say oh this must be some great bold courageous new plan because he's putting it forward but it's courageous the same way jumping in front of eight lanes of traffic is courageous it's you know unpopular and radical but it is not an actual way to solve the deficit it doesn't even do what it sets out to do which is which is solve the deficit it's based on

phony math and it's totally not what the american people want do you think the media also fails to connect the dots and look at the big picture of things they feel like often share their might. or report or a poll number and that'll be the poll for that. ok and then they'll move on with us they won't look at the bigger picture they won't look at these statistics and put them all together they won't look at the fact that the middle class is disappearing in this country they won't look at the fact that nobody on wall street has been prosecuted yet for bringing me economy down and realize that hey we have a systemic problem there's an entire system here that needs reform aren't those the questions that the media supposed to be asking yeah exactly and all they're really interested in is talking about the horse race and who's up who's down and twenty twelve so they never actually get into the policy or into the questions like why hasn't anyone been prosecuted on wall street so you get these kinds of big proclamations where paul ryan is suddenly a hero because he's doing something unpopular but in a democracy you're supposed to do what the people want you to do and the media just doesn't really seem to be interested in in asking those kinds of questions either

because they don't have the the bandwidth to really understand it or they're afraid of being called out as you know liberal or conservative or whatnot so they just sit on their hands and you know talk about whatever's going on that day and donald trump way or perhaps there's some kind of loading going on to the people they think they're just too stupid to understand you know what's really unfortunate as i think that fox news of all the networks is the one that actually gets how to make something big picture they just focus on completely fake fred flake creeping shari'a law instead of the fact that we have the biggest wealth gap in this country we've ever seen right and you create an entire alternate reality but would be really nice if someone in the mainstream media was talking about the real real reality of what's actually going on and you can see it in these town halls you can see people standing up and challenging paul ryan about corporate taxes challenging congressmen in new hampshire just watch on this afternoon in a town hall about paul ryan's medicare plan this is what american people want they don't want corporate tax rates lowered they don't want medicare privatized but it's

you know too tricky too questionable where the media just doesn't think about final clearly like town halls and people get angry if it's the tea party that feeling it and getting angry right now when people are getting angry at the tea party. politicians i guess would say but how do you get people to look past the partisan politics because i think that that's what politicians do that's what the media does so much is they try to polarize as solid so that we don't realize that we have a lot in common we have the same interests in mind and they just try to separate us as much as they can by picking apart small small issues how do we get people to figure out what is difficult i mean you need to really teach them the issues and the facts and educate people and that is the job that the media should be doing but when you look at it through the lens of republican versus democrat i first wrote the horse race it's really hard to get into the actual facts but i think people are increasingly seeing what's going on and learning for themselves people know what medicare is so they know when paul ryan wants to privatizing medicare they know they don't like it but there's more issues that people need to understand it's you

know washington is complicated politics is complicated so you need to just continue to try to educate people and help them understand i think that you're right these could be the right issues because these are the ones that actually hit close to home when we talk about medicare and medicaid i want to thank you so much for joining us and i don't know flushing time ever is going to get it but hopefully the people force them to at some point thanks so much thanks so much. while president obama is campaigning out in california he's heading up san francisco and los angeles he's selling his deficit reduction plan and he's selling himself for reelection but he's also selling himself to facebook that's right yesterday obama held a town hall at the facebook headquarters in palo alto and where exactly border even it wore a coat and tie so is this obama's attempt at connecting with america's youth the second time around or just an opportunity to cash in on the rich and liberal and silicon valley discuss this with me is tony romo reporter from politico tony thanks so much for being here and i mean now ok before we get into some of the other issues at the end of the day obama is going to need the youth vote the second time

around so you know they they helped him so much in two thousand and eight get elected do you think they're going to facebook headquarters is a good way to try to sell that message to young people like hey i'm cool i go to facebook over me and all your tech industry leaders and you know political pundits remember rather well that in two thousand and eight it was technology was the internet that brought puracal by all the dedicated it to the homes of millions the younger voters connected with him on places like twitter and facebook they recognized his campaign it was the tech president that was that little you had upon taking office so it makes a lot of sense that obama would go back to facebook to go towards facebook live to hold the town hall the dinner he did because it really does reconnect with that base that helped him so much about now some would say too that you know these tech industries right now are the take industry is experiencing another boom they're hiring just like it was the one nine hundred ninety s. again and then there are those on the other side who would say that this is all just one big bubble that's being built out but i feel about is it really focusing

on that it out of jobs in the economy or people care about the need to put more emphasis on the fact that technology education that leads to these great jobs and innovation is you know where americans are vulnerable actually you have to remember in the state of the union address the earlier this year we saw mention of google and facebook it's really hard to remember a previous state of the union address where a tech company got such. placements in the speech itself and that's kind of the premise of this when the future campaign that we've seen unfold over the last couple of months so there are some of the tech community that want to see more of that they want to see more investment instead of education they want to see more reform on capitol hill with an eye on education and immigration and they want the president frankly to look more issues like trade that said we are seeing more from obama on those issues so you know the tech community likes what it's seeing but it wants to see a little bit more right now the kid down to where this is really value can talk about jobs you can talk about getting the youth vote but this is about money everyone knows that california is a money pot is specially for democrats there are

a lot of rich people there are there are a lot of liberals and progressives there and especially in silicon valley and at these tech companies during our you know how much money facebook is throwing around when it comes to political issues well with facebook they don't have a political action committee so they're not donating directly to obama through the same kind of pac you see companies like microsoft getting it's important to know the google and microsoft actually their employees were among some of the top five contributors to the president in the two thousand election cycle so because a lot of sense that there was a video of a split sell on to catch on where they're back well you know but with facebook it's an interesting situation you know they do lobby on capitol hill they just spent two hundred thirty thousand dollars in the first three months of twenty eleven to connect with members of congress and federal agencies but that pales in comparison to the googles in the microsoft of the world that spend millions of dollars just in a month not even yours i mean facebook is on track to potentially have its first million dollar lobbying quarter but you know if it still isn't at the level of some

of these other companies where facebook has to its credit in part of the reason why it hasn't looked at a pac just gets is that it's able to connect with all five hundred thirty five members of congress and the president because they're using its tools you know when these politicians have facebook pages they have profiles and accounts and they interact with commenters they're using the technology and facebook that's sometimes been just to connect with the members. but that's exactly what makes me nervous and skeptical of this entire scenario is that i feel like they're going to be using their tools too much sure it's one thing they might you know in the public eye have a facebook account but we also know that facebook as well as you can say google so there are a lot of privacy issues that come into play here both of these companies have a lot of your private information and who wants that information aside from advertisers well it's the government so should we be a little worried well i don't really know if folks are saying that they shouldn't worry just yet i mean there is one school of thought that the president has connected perhaps too much with facebook you know it's a story that we had on political earlier this week we looked at it and there are

some who felt that the facebook political the political facebook obama brand has become actually tied in some sense you know you don't live in a political bubble and when you go out you have a talent pool on facebook why people start to connect those two things they connect obama and facebook much as something that obama google in the two thousand and eight campaign but on the privacy issue in particular you know facebook is one of many companies that are out there lobbying on these very issues right now there are a number of bills right on capitol hill both the house and the senate where they go is anybody's guess at this point but that's part of the reason that facebook and other companies are mobilizing with a lobbying effort over in d.c. there definitely is a lot of money there of course obama is making a stop in los angeles today says you have silicon valley then you have hollywood the whole end of it i'm not sure if he has as many celebrities backing him as he did the first time around but i think you'll start seeing more people crawling out of the woodwork soon but i must add that you know russian president dmitry medvedev was at facebook last year i think he kind of beat obama sort of time. was

a facebook although i think about bobo was the first presidential candidate who had a kind of facebook presence so look at a first for everybody you know there definitely is tony i want to thank you for joining me. now while president obama was out in san francisco rubbing elbows with tech giants and c.e.o.'s created by a not so friendly crowd before he had a chance to speak a group within the crowd which i'm very proud to say came from my alma mater u.c. santa cruz started singing to the president and their message was loud and clear the bradley manning is being detained unfairly and without just cause. ok.

ok. ok. that's. ok because. i guess that would be the president trying to respectfully treat their song like a joke because the leader of this group was as courted out of the building the rest of the crowd then let their lyrics resonate which work yes it's true that terry jones is illegally free to burn a people's holy book and shameful effigy but in another location in this country alone in a six by twelve cell sits bradley twenty three hours a day and night the fifth an eighth amendment say this kind of thing ain't right we paid our dues where is our change i think that's a pretty strong message and it comes just days after an official announcement that p.f.c. bradley manning is going to be transferred from quantico to fort leavenworth in kansas now reports say the person who organized this protest actually paid to have a song composed and written and paid for the tickets of each protester just to

ensure that the president himself got to hear those words and although obama continued on his schedule failing to mention bradley manning any further i think it is clear the message has been sent the even though manning is being moved to a new facility that doesn't change or justify the actions of the government has taken against him so perhaps as it finally stares the president in the face finally realize that the public knows what's happening and they're not going to stand for it anymore. all right it's time for show and tell on tonight's program last time we discussed the government crackdown on some of the most popular online poker sites we want to know from our fans at home if they thought of the obama administration is acting ethically or if they're overstepping their bounds so let's go to producer patrice in a sente for more. we all know the rules of what happens in vegas stays in vegas ok

but does that mean what happens overseas should stay overseas well when it comes to online gambling many of you think so the obama administration stepped on a hot button issue this week when they made arrests and shut down three major online poker sites but was i carried out due to the possible criminal actions of the owners or was the government overstepping their bounds to put pressure on offshore gambling sites most of the comments were just like show me who did all this on facebook you ministration was definitely overstepping charles fritz agreed went on to complain the government was overstepping by a long shot they were to say can't smoke weed and now no online poker tournaments what are you going to do now in your spare time castle man tweeted of all the problems out there why did they put online poker at the top of the list yes i'm wondering the same thing some of you think you have the answer jack lowe pointed out that in the us casino owners probably have lobbyists to put a stop to online casinos ok no surprise there congress even has bills pending to

legalize online gambling the kaiser said on facebook it's just part of a larger plane helping us pay sites to get started competing against off shore sites if that's the case but in the end who do you think will have the winning hit if you have a comment we want it right here. well thanks patrice and here's our next topic for you at home we've just told you about obama's trip to san francisco and now he's been rubbing elbows with major tech companies like facebook and google but is this really a good idea for the president to be getting chummy with tech giants that have lots of money and lots of our personal information so let us know what you think do you think the government is too close to tech giants you can respond to us on facebook twitter and you tube and you know your response just might make it on air. now we're taking a break but still a concert a fox news host claims that that network never inside islamophobia we have the video to prove him wrong it's nice tool time segments and this is the holy week for

christians around the world but the main atheist mention kicks off in iowa and they're expecting a large crowds we'll speak with dave silverman president of american atheists about atheism here in america that in just a month. we are right. and. we have the. safe get ready because of the freedom. i guys.