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 this kind of racism be the result of a growing gaffe and socio economic summer and as time draws near and so our nation's debt deadline is a question for john boehner and his g.o.p. buddies that no one has bothered to us all reveal what the question is internets today. there is a race controversy breaking out in arkansas it centers on what happened at

a high school in the city of mcgeady him and 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 weeks remaining to do in a court of law still don't think racism is alive in america. well beyond the overt racism on display in arkansas there is the quiet underlying racism in it the socio economics of this country according to new numbers from the pew research center the wealth gap between whites and our nation's two largest minorities african-americans

and hispanics it's grown to disturbingly high levels today white households control twenty times more wealth than african-american households and eighteen times more open 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 people mention in los angeles but a lot of thank you tom we can be on your program great to have you with us i understand the end of a way 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 in. the past several other of the new services. that are put on to the day to day problems of african-americans in particular but. core and working families across the nation

are. 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 creating that has created this. this unemployment epidemic in the african-american community is front and center on the minds of the thousands of people who have come to the outside to those to disappear to and to go into bits you'd be a bunch of. gone 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 n.w. c.p. to close this enormous gap in wealth between whites and african-americans. i think you're going to see. a c.p. that that is more activist more. not confrontational necessarily but but but certainly in gauging in and mobilizing and 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 the. many of the states that elected the 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 wealth of the average african-american

house or. the average white 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 in mind so many of them have fallen off of their employment rose into. a state of unemployment there too they're experiencing difficulties qualifying for unemployment insurance for for many of these states so they end up a c.p.s. mission at this particular moment in history of the country is just this critical as it was right in their place he was from one hundred two years ago. time you mentioned that 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 id to vote and. this is targeted right head on an urban people you know i mean i would have d.c. you're right i don't own a car anymore but but in particular people who've spent their entire lives in inner cities which are an awful lot of african-americans is the end of a lazy people and after this i guess this is this is this is. one of the points that was addressed in ben jealous of president c.e.o. young dynamic president and c.e.o. of the c.p.a. in his in his speech yesterday to the convention. in the state of wisconsin for example it is this special e he greets us you know. tens of thousands of potential voters hundreds of thousands probably in the entire state. 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. so therefore there's no need for a driver's license and in that case it took to make the criteria that narrow is is of huge concern to organizations not only the end of the city but the social justice organizations and other civil rights groups that have taken up this issue don the original name of the end of place if you 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 c.p. doing now to reach out to younger people of color. i was pleasantly surprised i've attended several the noblest 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 s. early ninety's and 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 and 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 p.k. i said card carrying members of the n.w. c.p. and the numbers of young people who have joined the n.w. c.p.s. college chapters or news divisions of news chapters 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 anomaly 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 the 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 only and a place he will want one of those organizations that organized it one nation march in washington d.c. back in october of last year and the one nation march was and it was it was an attempt to begin building solidarity begin to build actions between communities of color and working working families of course united states who have suffered the brunt of this prolonging 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 and i think it's a stain on the moderate 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 done america still has a long way to go to fulfill the dream right with your king fortunately it seems that most of our country is at least moving in the right direction. just. the. it's the good the bad of the very ignore it never a mostly ugly first good research is a cern the european organization for nuclear research as we speak the largest and

most profound experiment of our time is under way deep underneath the nations with its their five hundred feet underground that is seventeen mile long particle accelerator by the way we could have had one here but we kind of ran out of money thanks of the bush tax of any of its smashing atoms together in hopes of finding something called the exe 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 discovering 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 mike lee the republican from utah admittedly yesterday that what republicans are doing in the debt ceiling is nothing more than a hostage scenario on amazon b.c. when asked if he was saying he'd support the lowing up the economy if the senate

doesn't pass the republicans 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 to us that's right a silly us 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 i just t.v. show last night o'reilly slammed the media for reporting on how norway terrorist anders brit bike is a christian fundamentalist. after you know that there's 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 a threat just like crazy geodes are but the left wing press wants to compare nuts like gravy and mcveigh to state sponsored terrorism and worldwide jihad

but 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 over the last twenty five years and i love it included and maybe the media wouldn't make such a big deal of bread it being a christian if ox news did 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 internet steelies it. drives the world of fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break

through get through it including me who can you trust no one who has you view you with the global machinery 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 by chance to give you my take on it one more time our first comments tonight is from a viewer ratline 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 i believe president obama has an affirmative part with gauging to world raise the debt ceiling card that is to pay all bills through until pursuant to what fourteen sections for the constitution i don't think you have to choice i think we can be impeached not here we believe in fact that the new and very constitution tells him he must guarantee the parents to carry. well that's the

fourteenth amendment however which says that the crew of the dead of the united states should have a question it was written after the civil war and it was basically the deaths of the union soldiers and army 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 a court in the constitution draw against the credit of the united states so most legal scholars are saying that what this means is this since congress has limited its own ability to borrow by instituting the debt ceiling first in one nine hundred seventeen and 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 to bush they're the ones who ran up the bill

and not those presidents but those congresses so you could argue that congress can't authorize an expense and then prevent himself from pain it particularly given the fourteenth amendment so you see the contrast between these two points of view the bottom line is that opening up this can of worms should only be the last resort of the president here's another viewer rant line message this one from diana makes a pretty astute analogy about what's going on in america today and a famous shipwreck from almost one hundred years ago. hey tom i was just thinking this morning about the movie take candidate and how what we're going to get a 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 didn't check in class it's a similar age again situation are we seen this thinking i think show unfortunately i think so too down in fact we may have already sunk with real unemployment about

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 and 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 now stuff we have a comment left on my message boards over at tom hartman dot com this is from coron who wanted to talk about what the left can do to combat the right's rise quarter writes is the left fast enough of 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 interviews their new coordinated deceptive narrative chunks we coordinate the aca to bits using shared fact 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 create a piece of legislation called lobby for low income heating assistance program and i keep the este schip program sounds like something you want to avoid when you're walking through a cop after 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 for us a clean skies act which. this guy's plane called. doesn't exist but in any case it's a great idea koren and to a certain extent those sorts of rapid response websites already exist i don't media matters dot org does a great job of rapid response calling out republican lies so to do a number of other sites think progress dot org democratic underground dot com truthout dot org now buzz flies dot com common dreams dot org unfortunately as websites don't have near the reach the corporate cable news has or the drudge report where most of these lies are first fed into the media but you should check them out and spread the word to 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 numb the pain of listening to speaker of the house john boehner david tweeted you know the idea that john boehner drinking game do is shot over ties speaker boehner wise great idea david word of warning though i tried this last night when boehner gave his response to the president had to stop or i would have blacked out and that'll do it for your take my take tonight if you'd like your comments and questions heard on the segment this segment the big picture listen up we want to know your take send us your comments by visiting the tom hartman facebook page by a twitter at tom underscore when we're 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 to achieve 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 defaults it's 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 the question is can you name one thing just one thing the millionaires and billionaires will have to sacrifice in this debt limit deal as part of a shared sacrifice approach that's all well 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 who won it 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 off that we program that exist in the federal project 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 one thing. 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 with the president regarding the debt that is it qualifies as shared sacrifice balanced budget amendment that's not sure 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 indeed in the ryan budget there means testing social security and medicaid which mean that wealthy people would not get the money that they put in for all those so the wealthy people will lose

a thousand dollars i think gordon exacts 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 in the u.s. 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 this gold part is the factories of our soaring 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 it up and then you know this is the recession which would go away if we did away in

a way with these things so now when it comes time to do something about this massive tax cut if you will that publicans aren't asking the people who benefited 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 jet owner or the oil companies to give a 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 in a bad economy but that's a lot 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 haven't been taxed 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 jude wineskin invented the phrase supply side economics back in one thousand nine hundred ninety eight and it became an article of faith during the reagan administration and for a generation of so-called conservatives since then. 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 never ever in history demand creates jobs people spending stuff out of their pockets taking money out of their pockets and demanding stuff that's what creates jobs rich people are the magic ones made one hundred dollar bills and create jobs he never had they never will the 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 paid for their campaigns and like paul ryan and his 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 jig would be up and the republicans of 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 about sacrifices should millionaires and billionaires make in the name of deficit reduction if they can't answer the question then you know it's true republicans only care about the rich and special interests as harry truman said in one thousand nine hundred at the democratic national convention. here it is the people know the democratic party is the people's party and their republican party is the party has no interest and it 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 the thom hartmann dot com free speech dot org and. also check out our two youtube channels or

a links it's on bartman dot com this entire show is also available as a free video pod cast on i tunes and we have a free thom hartmann i phone and i pad app at the app store you can send us feedback at twitter as arbonne or tom underscore arbonne on facebook it's on others for arbonne our blogs message boards and telephone comment lines they're all over thom hartmann dot com and don't forget their mark receive begins with you get out there and get active show up participate your it will see them.

but. so. far.