if. can the lower show get the real headlines with none of the mercy or can we live out of washington d.c. now in light of the news that respected journalist tim hetherington and chris hondros were killed while libya so they 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 asked 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 then 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 vote 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 picked on 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 that these cruel actions aren't cause for concern that's later on the show but now let's move on to our top story. yesterday we reported to you the very sad news the 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 besieged 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 during each of three. solution we also reported to you the brutal assault of marlowe that 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 as jack writes 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 hate 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 is a 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 it was not about their families and all the sacrifices that it made but i think about my time dealing with your claims are you kosovo but i was embedded with the military when i was in iraq multiple times when i was against your state or africa or anyplace else in the world and the sacrifices that these men are making is really women i should add to our making a really truly extraordinary consequence hastert won't because he's concept the politics of it frequently what happens is the good people simply go into these zones and tell the truth if the truth is what some people want to hear it first than you do is it over there just hack it or just tell you something that's

a lie or you're just here for politics unfortunately just because the truth hurts you doesn't make it any less true it would be. their sacrifices they made really says a lot about who they are i think frankly what they were trying to do so if 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 and we were hit by an i.e.d. and i saw this very up close and personal i still remember a feeling in my chest before i even saw it trying to understand what was going on to watch it just lower part around us and work is good and she you know what i do think the sacrifice is there i do think that we see this for those who are civilians living in these zones trying to deal with the soldiers were sent into

these zones we're trying to deal with it the fact that these people are willing to sacrifice themselves from stories i think it's really occur because we owe the independence that comes from journalists who are willing to do that the only people telling the stories are typically the politicos who are trying to actually get a particular story out not a true story but a particular one and again that's what makes the sacrifice so crucial and i think so orton's but if you also look at the culture are especially television kateri in this country what do people like to watch people like to watch stories about celebrities or they like to watch reality t.v. right we had polls 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 with the how do we change that. boy i love the questions tonight i really do i remember sleeping on a cot. somewhere in iraq in the middle of

a few thousands and it was better was rough at the same time there were more than a thousand journalists covering the michael jackson trial in los angeles and there were eight others in iraq eight of us and i remember looking around at these people thought to myself hills going on i mean what happens when you are more fascinated by whether or not michael jackson shows up in his pajamas or whether or not lindsay lohan is going underwear that day versus what's happening in the world interesting . act for really everybody not just the americans not just the iraqis and yet i continue to scratch my head and wonder what isn't we're supposed to do are we supposed to give people what it is that i think they need to hear or do we just get that what they want and we just sort of we gurdjieff take cotton candy in just toss the can say here you go get 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 kind the right. 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 often 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 and afghanistan what do you think the difference is though when you're in bed with the troops versus a situation like libya where this is a civil war where there are obvious forces and there are rebels that also aren't organized and really supposedly the nato allies aren't supposed to be on either side. it's a very very difficult distinction to make sometimes but i think there's a critical distinction to make i mean this is an example i was actually an embed with the u.s. military when i was in afghanistan this last time i remember the would be

a sheet of paper and the sheet of paper essentially said you can get blown up it's not our fault it's your fault and i walked out the front gate of the biggest into afghanistan itself but you know what this is also were difficult to this if you will bed with the u.s. military he was military is trying to sell him to i mean they're trying to convince you of a particular point because they want you to report that point as well as true and so sometimes when you have a journalist who has the guts in this case to actually step outside of one side the legal side or outside of the side or the other side with your side you're on it actually step into the middle of. the absolutely most interest and what you actually are probably getting closer to the truth but neither side is willing to provide you that is really where the rubber hits the road and that's why i think they went there because they wanted to tell that story there was no other place to go to get it but rarely were and that's the tragedy. and i think all the more

reason for us now to talk about these men to remember them and honor them for the worth hated him hetherington and chris hondros and we actually interviewed some hetherington here on this program last year people can still watch that online on our you tube page if they'd like jack thank you very much for joining us tonight. thank you so much. also a concert night president obama held a town hall meeting at facebook's california headquarters so is that a savvy move by a bomb 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 the lawmakers inside the beltway convinced the american public that the middle and lower classes threats suffer while the wealthy get all the tax breaks stick around for our discussions in just a few months. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right.

i think. on the well. we never got the shows they're going to keep you safe get ready because you get your freedom. h.r. been here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

new website which is twenty four seven live streaming news towns like to do about the ongoing financial hurricane unlimited i call it the videos for download. and stories you never find the name streaming. video so. me. most aren't just. a guy's welcome to show and tell on the ellen show we've heard our guests have to say on the topic now we want to hear audio just go on to you tube the video response or the twitter for part of the questions that we post on you tube every monday and thursday to show your responses. your voice. tax day 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 you not 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 it's sad to 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 you know that that's the way that the media portrays it for many in their american public support where in which it's here you go you actually have the courage to put forward a plan so let's just stop right now and commend you know i know there's a clear producers come out with a plan which i know the democrats are very like him and that i think will do well is heard all right so you can let me. run fortunately for paul ryan when he held a town hall with his constituents they call them out on the rich pay less well the middle class disappears.

so when will washington get it that they're not doing the people's baiting here to discuss with me is alex sideswipe blogger for think progress or thanks so much for being here tonight thanks ultraman now are you with me when i say that there is a huge disconnect that 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 that the polling out there shows it yeah absolutely i mean this is paul ryan going to office and it actually means that 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 really out ahead of themselves even donald trump has been

criticizing paul ryan for getting too far ahead and we're going to criticize her by 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 you think of the media also plays a role in this i would say that aside from 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 that 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 sort 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 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 he think that the media

also fails to i don't know connect the dots and look at the big picture of things they feel like i'm sure they'll might throw out a statistic or report or a poll number and that will be the poll for that. ok and then they'll move on with it 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 last read has been prosecuted yet for bringing the economy down and realize that hey we have a systemic problem there's an entire system here that needs reforming our friends the questions that the media supposed to be asking yeah exactly and all they're really interested in is talking about the horse race you know 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 are perhaps there's some kind of loading going on two of 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 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 a transaction 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 to questionable where the media just doesn't think you're nothing like town halls and people get angry it's the tea party that's doing it and getting angry right now when people are getting angry at the tea party. politicians i guess if they were 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 us off 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 you know by picking apart small small issues how do we get people to figure out who 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 the first write 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 medicaid want to thank you so much for joining us and i don't know if washington ever is going to get it but hopefully the people who are thanks so much thanks so much. well 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 and he's also selling himself to facebook that's right yesterday obama held a town hall event facebook headquarters in palo alto and mark zuckerberg even wore a coat and tie so is this obama's attempt at connecting with america's youth a second time around or just an opportunity to cash in on the rich and liver and silicon valley discuss this with me is tony romo reporter from politico tony thanks so much for being here with me 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 had 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 and go to facebook vote for me well you know industry leaders and you know political pundits remember rather well that in two thousand and eight it was technology was the internet that brought caracal ball and then a candidate to the homes of millions the younger voters connected with him in places like twitter and facebook they recognized his campaign they'd be they knew if he was the tech president that was the battle he 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 that town hall of the day and he did because it really does reconnect with that base that helped him so much into dolls now some would say too that you know these tech industries are the tech 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 that would say that this is all just one big bubble that's being built up but i feel like obama isn't really focusing on that enough of jobs in the economy or people care about he needs put

more emphasis on the fact that technology education that leads to these great jobs and innovation is you know where americans should be vulnerable actually you have to remember the state of the union address 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 so. the high placement 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 education they want to see more reform on capitol hill with an eye on education immigration and they want the president rightly 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 of it right now let's get 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 example 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 do we know you know how much money facebook is throwing around when it comes to political issues but 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 the truth about the election cycle so it makes a lot of sense that the rising going to taste good so long to catch on we're back 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 to federal agencies but that pales in comparison to the googles in the microsoft's 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 quarter but you know it still is not the level of some of these

other companies facebook has to its credit in part of the reason why it hasn't looked at a pack just yet 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 of accounts and they interact with commenters they're using the technology and facebook but sometimes they 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 through 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 the 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 inexorably tied in some sense you know you don't live in a political bubble and when you go out you have a town hall and facebook why people start to connect those two things they connect obama and facebook much as some connected 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 the lobbying effort over in d.c. father definitely has a lot of money there of course obama is making a stop in los angeles today to see how silicon valley they have hollywood a 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 we'll start seeing more people crawling out of the woodwork soon but i must add you know russian president dmitry medvedev was at facebook last year i think he kind of beat obama to the punch on that. wasn't facebook although i think about what was the first presidential candidate. kind of

facebook president so look at the first everybody out there definitely is tony i want to thank you for joining us thanks for having me. now while president obama was out in san francisco rubbing elbows with tech giants and c.e.o.'s greeted 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. ok. ok ok.

ok. this. question of course. i guess that would be the president trying to respectfully treat their song like a joke but as the leader of this group was as courted out of the building the rest of the crowd then let their lyrics resonate which works yes it's true that terry jones is illegally free to burn a people's holy book and shameful effigy at another location in this country alone in a six by twelve cells bradley twenty three hours a day and night that they have an eighth amendment say this kind of thing ain't right we paid our dues where's 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 that it is clear the message has been sent 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 of finally realize that the public knows what's happening 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 a part of the obama administration is acting ethically or if they're overstepping their bounds so let's go to producer patrice and essentially for more. we all know the rules 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 on my poker sites but was that 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 joe me who told us on facebook you ministration was definitely overstepping charles fritz agreed went on to complain the government was overstepping by a long shot they really 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 do they put online poker at the top of the list yes i'm wondering the same for some of you think you have the answer jackalope pointed out that in the us casino owners probably have lobbyists to put a stop to unlike you seems ok no surprise there congress even has bills pending to

legalize on my gambling the kaiser said on facebook it's just part of a larger plan helping us pay sites to get started competing against off shore sites if that's the case in the ad who do you think will have the winning hand if you have a comment we want right here. well thanks patrice and here's our next topic for you at home we 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 to come tonight a fox news host claims that that network never incite islamophobia we have the video to prove him wrong and nice to all time segments and this is the holy week

for christians around the world but the main atheist invention kicks off in iowa and they're expecting a large crowds will speak what they sell from any president of american atheists about atheism here in america but if it's going to. give we the far right. we haven't got the guts to say so get ready because the freedom. hi guys welcome to showers tell me i'm going to show.