welcome back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour an arkansas high schools is the center of a discriminatory lawsuit after school officials denied an african-american students valedictorian honors could this kind of racism be the result of a growing gaffe and socio economics in america and as time draws near until our nation's debt deadline is a question for john boehner and his g.o.p. buddies that no one has bothered to ask i'll reveal what the question is in tonight's daily take. there is a race controversy breaking out in arkansas it centers on what happened at

a high school in the city of mcgee it mcgee he said secondary school is facing a lawsuit from the parents of eighteen year old kimberly wimberly after wimberly who had the highest g.p.a. in her entire class was denied sole valedictorian honors simply because she's an african-american hearing the name in an african-american student valedictorian at a profit predominantly white school could cause a quote big mess principal darryl thompson went ahead and named another student a white student with a lower g.p.a. as the code valedictorian now principal thompson and the rest of the arkansas school board in the area will have some next ruling and to do in a court of law still don't think racism is alive in america. but beyond the overt racism on display in arkansas there is the quiet underlying racism beneath the socio economics of this country according to new numbers from the q research center the wealth gap between whites and our nation's two largest minorities

african-americans and hispanics has grown to disturbingly high levels than a white households control twenty times more wealth and african-american households and eighteen times more wealth than hispanic households this is the greatest wealth inequality between races ever recorded in the history of this nation so what well since slavery so why is this happening and what can be done about it joining me now to weigh in on this issue is don rojas executive editor executive director rather of free speech t.v. and currently attending the annual and overly c.p. convention in los angeles don walker. thank you tom we can be on your program great to have you with us i understand the n.w. c.p. passed a resolution today to end the racist war on drugs that seems to be the top news of the day can you tell us about that. yes they did. their post several other of the new services. that are put into the day to day problems of african-americans in particular but. for working families across the nation.

one of the resolutions that i think is particularly important and relevant is calling on the policy makers at the national level to institute a serious jobs program for america. jobs the lack of jobs the economic crisis that it's created that has created this. unemployment epidemic in the african-american community is front and center on the minds of the thousands of people who have come to los angeles to dissipate in the and you're going to please you people but you're. don granted it's only been two generations since the end of legal apartheid in the united states only one generations since l.b.j.'s great society program cut poverty in africa america but conservatives are already calling for the end to all anti-poverty programs that

survive the clinton cuts and an end to affirmative action programs what's the strategy coming out of the end only c.p. to close this enormous gap in wealth between whites and african-americans. i think we're going to see. a c.p. that that is more activist more. not confrontational that's a silly but but but certainly in gauging in and mobilizing an organizing a push back to this sort of the african-american community as a consequence of these these policies both at the national and state levels be. many of the states to be elected to tea party governors back in the midterm elections in november. some of the states where the african-american communities are hurting the most. you you cited the growth in the in the wealth gap twenty twenty to one ratio between. the well of the average african-american

household and the average right house or the income gap between whites and blacks and. latinos and hispanics is also growing and there are millions and millions of families. in communities of color across the country that are literally living from paycheck to paycheck and you know if they do in fact and so many of them afford and all the employment rose into. a state of unemployment there to be experiencing difficulties qualifying for unemployment insurance for for many of these states so they end up a c.p.s. mission i thought this particular moment in history of the country is to just as critical as it was right in their place in people's form one hundred two years ago . don you mentioned what's going on in the states with republican governors one of

the things the seems common across them is this alex sponsored legislation that requires a driver's license or similar i.d. to vote in. this is targeted right head on and urban people you know i mean i wouldn't d.c. or i i don't own a car anymore but but in particular people who have spent their entire lives in in inner cities which are an awful lot of african-americans is the end of a c.p. going after this yes this is this is this is a one of the points that was addressed in ben jealous president and c.e.o. young dynamic president c.e.o. is going to be seen in his in his speech yesterday to the convention. in the state of wisconsin for example it is this but i surely you agree jess you know the tens of thousands of potential voters hundreds of thousands probably in the entire state who are who cannot or will not be allowed to register to vote you simply

because they don't have a driver's license and most poor people living in the inner cities can't afford to have their own cars so therefore there's no need for a driver's license and in that case the to make the criteria of that narrow it's a huge concern to open as he says not only the end of the c.p. but the social justice organizations and other civil rights groups that have taken up this issue dani at the original name of the end of a basically the national association for the advancement of colored people is from a different era you point out it's one hundred two years old what is the end of a sleepy doing now to reach out to younger people of color. i was pleasantly surprised i've attended several in the police he conventions over the years i used to even work for the end of a c.p.s. you know tom back in the one thousand nine hundred ninety nine hundred ninety s. i can tell you. i have been really quite surprised at the

high level of participation in this year's convention of young people college age high school age young people and of course a healthy representation of young professional people this is a very heartening sign it means that the end of the c.p. . is growing in fact their own numbers show that they have increased their membership quite considerably over the last two three years they now have two hundred thirty to two hundred fifty thousand active members of the end of a c. peaking reisa card carrying members of the n.w. c.p. and the numbers of young people who have joined the endless c.p.s. college chapter is a new thing visions and use kept as has shown a steady increase in the over the last three years i think that's a very healthy sign for the organization that's great news don we have just about a half a minute left hispanics are the fastest growing demographic in america is the elderly c.p. reaching out to them or building bridges to hispanic organizations yes and i'm very

happy to see that. ben jealous has been very proactive in reaching out not only to hispanic communities but also to other communities of color and to white working class communities as well in an effort to build bridges he was one of the i live in a place and p. was one of those organizations that organized a one nation march in washington d.c. back in october of last year and the one nation mark was and it was it was an attempt to begin building solidarity begin to build a joint actions between communities of color and working working families across united states who have suffered the brunt of this. economic recession and the african. american community it's a it's an economic depression with unemployment rates soaring high is in the low twenty's and in some communities like cotton for example the most probably the

most famous african-american community in the country is not in the world the unemployment rates among african-american men it's fifty percent and higher in that community and that is just an astounding figure i had it but i think it's a stain on our fabric of the country at this particular time so very well said don thanks so much for being with us tonight thank you so much for having town america still has a long way to go to fulfill the dream right with your cane fortunately it seems that most of our country is at least moving in the right direction. it's the good the bad of the very ignore it negative mostly ugly first the good research is cern the european organization for nuclear research as

we speak the largest and most profound experiment of our time is underway deep underneath the nations with its there are five hundred feet underground that a seventeen mile long particle accelerator by the way we could have won here but kind of ran out of money thanks to the bush tax of any of its smashing atoms together in hopes of finding something called the igs bosun also known as the god particle if found the god particle will be the greatest scientific discovery of our lifetimes and could answer all our questions about the universe and use coming out of switzerland today scientists are very close to discovery israel foyer general director of cern said we can settle this shakespearean question to be or not to be by the end of next year so exciting time for science the bad senator might we the republican from utah admittedly yesterday the republicans are doing in the debt ceiling is nothing more than a hostage scenario an emissary b.c. when asked if he was saying he'd support blowing up the economy if the senate

doesn't pass the republican's balanced budget amendment senator lee had this response. yes that's exactly what i'm saying i've been saying this for six and i said i wasn't coming that's right a semi u.s. senator threatening to crash our economy if he doesn't get everything he wants once upon a time that used to be called treason now it's called the republican party platform and the very very ugly bill o'reilly just t.v. show last night o'reilly slammed the media for reporting on how norway terrorist anders breivik is a christian fundamentalist. after you know that there is any way that breivik is a christian because no one believes in jesus commits murder or riley added this little gem. the left wants you to believe that fundamentalist christians are threat just like crazy geodes but the left wing press wants to compare nuts like brave and big they to state sponsored terrorism and worldwide jihad again

dishonest and insane the second reason the liberal media is pushing the christian angle is they don't like christians very much actually fundamentalist christians are a bigger threat in the us than jobbies just as the f.b.i. stats show far more domestic acts of terror in the us and islamic terror of the last twenty five years nine eleven included and maybe the media wouldn't make such a big deal of bread it being a christian if ox news didn't rush to judgment immediately after the attacks claiming it had to be the work of islamic terrorists that was very very. coming up there's a question we all need to start asking republicans i'll tell you what that question is and why republicans can't answer it in tonight's deal he said. drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to

break through get through it if you may who can you trust no one who is in view with a global missionary to see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

your take my take is your chance to send in your questions comments ranson observations about anything we talk about here on the big picture or during my radio show and it's my chance to give you my take on it one more time our first comments tonight is from the viewer rant line a lot of ideas have been tossed around about how to resolve the debt limit debate in congress and what president obama can do about it if republicans succeed in bringing our nation to a default one of those ideas is the so-called constitutional option here's what allen had to say about it and i believe president obama has an affirmative obligation to work raise the debt ceiling that is to pay all bills when do we presume to what article fourteen section for the constitution i don't think we have a choice i think you can be impeached if it is not here with you to get to me and very concept to shintoism to not guarantee that that steve perry. well that's the

fourteenth amendment however which says that the crew of the dead of the united station of the question it was written after the civil war and it was basically the debts of the union soldiers an army the question the next paragraph goes on to say that the debts of the the confederate soldiers are not going to be paid but article one section eight the first and second paragraphs of the constitution in the core of the constitution itself are really quite explicit they say only congress has the power to raise taxes pay debts and when quoting the constitution draw against the credit of the united states so most legal scholars are saying that what this means is that since congress has limited its own ability to borrow by instituting the debt ceiling first in one nine hundred seventeen then again in the thirty's only congress can borrow beyond it on the other hand all of the money that has to be paid has been authorized by previous congresses reagan to bush to clinton bush they're the ones who ran of the bill and not those presidents but those congresses

so you could argue that congress can't authorize an expense and then prevented sela from pain it particularly given the fourteenth amendment so you see this kind of contrast between these two points of view the bottom line is that opening up this can of worms should only be the last resort approach here's another viewer rant line message this one from danna who makes a pretty astute analogy about what's going on in america today and a famous shipwreck from almost one hundred years ago. hey come i was just thinking this morning about the movie titanic and how what we're going to do to day very similar in metaphor completely the arrogance of the builders thinking that they had something that could never fail and the classes you know first class construction class it's so similar to detain situation are we seen a shrinking i think show unfortunately i think so today in fact we may have already sunk with real unemployment of sixteen percent

a fifth of all american households living in poverty and millions more homeowners about to fall into foreclosure and luckily for the first class passengers like the banks in the corporate c.e.o.'s they got off the ship that's why banks their profits corporate bonuses in the stock market every turn of the same levels they were at before the great bush depression so much for women and children first right next up we have a comment left on my message boards over tom hartman dot com this is from corrine who wanted to talk about what the left can do to combat the rights laws quarter rights is the left fast enough at taking on the republican narrative machine seems to take us weeks to publish meaningful attacks on terms like job creators sero way for us to get quicker about it for instance forty eight hours after prominent republicans introduce their new coordinated deceptive narrative chunks we coordinate the act of bits using shared back based arguments analogies that can easily be digested by the public imagine a site where the sole purpose was undermining the specific manipulative words and

phrases produced by the republicans deceit machine and nothing more excellent suggestion and the democrats have been lousy at messaging for example they created his legislation called the low income heating assistance program by heap the s.-chip program sounds like something you want to avoid when you're walking through a cow pasture it's actually to the state children's health insurance program republicans they come out with things like the patriot act healthy forest initiative which cussed out for us to clean skies act which. the skies clean coal. doesn't exist but in any case it's a great idea current and to a certain extent those sorts of rapid response web sites already exist i don't media matters dot org has a great job of response calling out republican lies so to do a number of other sites think progress dot org democratic underground dot com truthout org. dot com common dreams dot org unfortunately websites don't have near the reach that corporate cable news has where the drudge report where most of these lies are first fed into the media but you should check them out and spread the word

for others to check them out first as well our last viewer comment comes from david via twitter he has a suggestion about how to known the pain of listening to speaker of the house john boehner even tweeted no party idea that john boehner drinking game here was shot every time speaker boehner lives great idea david word of warning though i tried this last night with banner gave his response to the president had to stop or i would have blacked out and that will do it for your take my take tonight if you'd like your comments and questions heard on the segment this segment with big picture listen up we want to know your take send us your comments by visiting the tom hartman facebook page twitter at tom underscore hartman are in the chat room on the message boards or through the blog at thom hartmann dot com you can also leave a message on our rant line at two two five three six fifty three zero six agree disagree sound off it's all welcome but remember that your comments may be used on the air.

with less than a week to go until our nation it falls is looking more and more likely that if a debt limit deal is struck this week it will be almost entirely on republican terms that means massive spending cuts targeting working and middle class families and not one shiny penny of tax increases on corporations millionaires or billionaires. so now is the time that we ask the republicans a question a question that i guarantee they can't answer and that question is can you name one thing just one thing that millionaires and billionaires will have to sacrifice in this debt limit deal as part of a shared sacrifice approach that's all what will millionaires and billionaires have to give up like the rest of us i've asked this question to several conservatives on this show in recent weeks and i have yet to get a real answer. can you identify for me one just one.

that will affect millionaires and billionaires in the proposals that are being put forward by the republicans well i think that ideally we should cut almost every program that exists in the federal budget can you name one thing republicans have proposed in debt limit negotiations that would require millionaires to make sacrifices like the rest of us just pumping. well i think the issue here is the republican party is strenuously opposed to the spending that's going on please name one thing that the republicans have offered in all these negotiations of the president regarding the debt that is it qualifies as shared sacrifice balance budget amendment that's not shit that's not going to hurt the republicans but can any one of the three of you name one shared sacrifice that the republicans are offering that they put on the table sure dan. in the ryan budget they have means testing social security and medicaid which would mean that wealthy people would not get the money that they put in for those promo so the wealthy people lose

a thousand dollars i think gordon is x. foundation the richest one percent of americans have seen their incomes tripled over the last thirty years since ronald reagan moved to the white house and that's not because they're working three times harder than the rest of us it's because republicans and a few democrats have dished out some of the most generous tax breaks to these guys in the history of our nation tax breaks that allow billionaire hedge fund managers like warren buffett one of the richest men on the planet to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary tax breaks that have allowed the richest americans to enjoy paying the fewest taxes in the last fifty years and the tax breaks that have bankrupted our government tax breaks that as this chart shows are the real driving force of this goal part of the tax breaks of our story national deficit in fact this is the tax breaks and this is the wars in iraq and afghanistan so it's like you know this is this is what's bringing about and then you know this is the recession which would go away if we did away with it away with

these things so now when it comes time to do something about this massive tax cut fuel that publicans aren't asking the people who don't benefit the most for a shared sacrifice instead they want poor people students working stiffs and senior citizens to pick up the tab and his speech last night president obama himself now a millionaire from his book sales phrase the question another way. most americans regardless of political party don't understand how we can ask a senior citizen to pay more for her medicare before we ask a corporate general or the oil companies to give up tax breaks that other companies don't get how can we ask a student to pay more for college before we ask his fund managers to stop paying taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries how can we slash funding for education and clean energy before we ask people like me to give up tax breaks we don't need and didn't ask for yet that's exactly what republicans are doing not asking the rich to

sacrifice anything republicans attempt answer the shared sacrifice question by pointing out that these very same rich guys are job creators and then they say it's insane as job creators to sacrifice anything about economy that's a lie and you don't have to look any further than our current economic situation to figure it out corporations are sitting on two trillion dollars worth of cold hard cash rich people having to tax this low in the last half century and government regulations are sparse in other words it's the perfect economic climate for job creation according to the republican ideology so where are the jobs here's the truth it hasn't been much spoken since june when ski invented the phrase supply side economics back in one nine hundred seventy eight and it became an article of faith during the reagan administration and brigette a so-called conservative since that supply doesn't create jobs i could have a warehouse full

a store full of buggy whips and those damn customers they want car stereos it's not supply that creates jobs it never has been and never ever in history demand creates jobs people spending stuff out of their pockets taking money out of their pockets in the mandaean stuff that's what creates jobs. rich people are the magical ones made one hundred dollar bills they don't create jobs they never have they never will a job creator myth is spread by republicans just to hide the real reason why they're not asking millionaires and billionaires to sacrifice like the rest of us and that's because the republican party is wholly owned by millionaires and billionaires that's a pays for their campaigns and like paul ryan it is hedge fund buddy buys them six hundred dollars with a fancy one over dinner that's the only constituency that they care about if the american people found out that republicans only care about the richest one percent of americans then the jury would be up and the republicans would all be kicked out

of office we need to expose that truth about today's republican party last night president obama encouraged us all to call our members of congress and demand action on a debt limit deal i agree but i take it a step further call your nearest republican congressman and ask him the very simple question what sacrifices should millionaires and billionaires make in the name of deficit reduction if they can't answer the question and you know it's true republicans only care about the rich and special interests as harry truman said in one thousand nine hundred seventy at the democratic national convention. where it is the people know the democratic party is the people's party and there are public and party is the party of special interests and oh as has been and always will be some things never change. as the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered visit our website to tom hartman dot com free speech dot org and. also check out our two you tube channels or links of thom hartmann dot com

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