as for churches three. months three. three. three. three vote. for your media project a free media. are going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture the presidential election is quickly becoming a contest between president obama and his band of board room billionaires so in the face of a billion dollar flood of corporate money how can we still have our voices heard in the upcoming election also a new report shows the credit card companies had about one point one million new credit card for people with bad credit just in december of last year conservatives

are wall street really want to cause another economic disaster for americans that and more. liberal rubble but first more than six weeks after the shooting seventeen year old trayvon martin the streets of sanford florida george zimmerman is finally in police custody facing second degree murder charge the scene in the special prosecutor in the case angela corey held a press conference saying that. today we filed an information charging george zimmerman with murder in the second degree i can't use has been issued for his arrest with the filing of that information in the issuance of the cape use he will have a right to appear in front of the magistrate in seminole county within twenty four hours of his arrest and thus formal prosecution will begin so now will finally get a chance to review the evidence and zimmerman will have his day in court but the question still remains what took so long and had they're not going to public outcry would george zimmerman still be a free man today. and perhaps most importantly for these shoot first laws written

by corporations like we're in this case wal-mart and the n.r.a. and then wandered through right wing think tanks like the american legislative exchange council they prevent law enforcement from doing their job michael bloomberg the mayor of america's largest city has some thoughts on this exact issue there well. it's now clear that these laws have undermined the integrity of the justice system and done real harm to public safety they have some confusion in police departments about when to make arrests they have made it more difficult for prosecutors to bring charges in cases of deadly violence and these stand your ground states have seen a major increase in so-called justifiable homicides these laws have not only made arc have not made our country safer they have made us less safe look at what's happened in three major states during comparable periods before and after stand your ground laws passed before stand your ground law became close became law in

kind of florida the state average twelve cases of justifiable homicide per year since the law was passed the average has been thirty six three times higher three stand your ground george are average seven justifiable homicides a year since an acting stand your ground the average has been fourteen here twice as many and texas averaged twenty six justifiable homicides a year before passing a stand your ground law since the law passed the average has been forty five per year he's right and these radicals shoot first laws need a lot more scrutiny but for now at least the community has a chance to heal as the judicial process begins we'll have more on the topic later in the show but first let's move on to a story that affects all of us frankly far more than the fate of george zimmerman.

getting to know this rick santorum out of the race it's time for the right wing millionaires and billionaires and their super pacs to rally behind mitt romney within hours of santorum suspending his campaign his chief donor multimillionaire banks there forrester freeze told politico he is ready to jump aboard the romney bandwagon the last few months freeze pretty much single handedly kept the santorum campaign afloat with one point seven million dollars in donations to the santorum super pac but now is freeze told politico got some plans as to how i might be able to help a lot of mine is i'm going to be very supportive of romney. freese also said he may be donating to karl rove's super pac on its pledge three hundred million dollars to defeat president obama in november meanwhile the one guy still left of the republican race aside from ron paul who hasn't yet won a single state is new gay marriage and he likely won't be around much longer either

a gay marriage campaign bounced a five hundred dollars check in utah want to submit a paperwork to be on the utah primary ballot salt lake tribune is reporting that the deadbeat gingrich campaign isn't returning calls from the state after the bounced check back in be a sign again bridges top billionaire donor chinese casino tycoon sheldon adelson might be ready to shift his treasure chest to the romney team as well and billionaires against the sitting president brought to you by the supreme court's citizens united decision so in the face of a billion dollar tidal wave of corporate money how do we the people still have our voices heard in the upcoming election well it begins with grassroots activism and organizing and this week all across the nation people are organizing in homes churches and community centers in a bid to take back america it's called the ninety nine percent spring joining me now for more on the ninety nine percent spring is just in room executive director

of move on dot org justin welcome. ice for joining us tell us about the ninety nine percent spring. well ninety nine percent spring is this is really an amazing effort by hundreds of organizations around the country who are united by the idea that. both are the unbelievable levels of inequality in our economy and in our democracy are our huge problem and that we need to confront them directly and nonviolent direct action is one of the most powerful tools we have to call attention to these injustices and put a stop to them really kind of inspired by the bravery of folks we saw last year in wisconsin and in occupy wall street who are totally changed the conversation in america. the and this is really the idea here is can we put even more people in motion to do even more of that this year you starting with this effort sorry go

ahead finish your thought i'm sorry i was in there and so i'm kind of the first step is to start this week by training tens of thousands of people across the country in the history and practice of nonviolent direct action. absolutely great the you talked about the issues broadly on a more specific level what are the issues that you're going to be addressing with those sure. well the training begins with really looking at how the one percent have rigged the rules in their favor. and how that that has led to many of the problems that we face today and look at how skyrocketing inequality over the last thirty years has has led to so many families in america falling behind and having a harder time making ends meet and a democracy where our voices are as you just pointed out in our last story just

being completely drowned out it was a huge problem before citizens united and citizens united it's gotten a lot worse so. the training has a kind of a bunch of content about just telling that story through the lens of what our each community has actually experienced what people's lived experiences have been what the actual challenges facing our families are and then linking them up together to see how they're sort of a broader story here. in terms of concrete issues you know the thing about this training is it's really there are so many organizations that are part of it so you have people who are focused on foreclosures people who are focused on these corporations that are polluting our air and water people who are sort of progress on job creation and the. you know up to and including folks who were working for you know justice for trayvon and to stop racial profiling who see both commonality in our issues as well as the idea that we can train together and use nonviolent

direct action to call attention to all of these places where the ninety nine percent is being left behind it really is quite remarkable i also do a three hour radio show it is you know and today i had a bunch of people call into the program who seem to share this one saying that they were today with the prosecutor in florida who is a republican appointee or a republican i guess and very tight with rick scott the republican governor that her office leaps for five hours in advance of the six pm. press release that she was going to be indicting george zimmerman tonight and it basically blew up what was the signature opening event of president obama's campaign that he had twenty patriotic millionaires today at the white house and then they went to a to a community center i guess a right not a community center a headstart center and to promote the buffett rule to talk about inequality in the united states and to talk about you know this this reading of the game by the one

percent that you've been talking about and you know some people didn't think that that was a just a coincidence without you know getting into the conspiracy theory aspect of that the larger question is given the kind of singular focus of our media that story of the day how do we how do we break through and the end and so severely off in the media not really focusing on these issues inequality isn't being that discuss that much anymore how do we break through that. well i think what i think what we're doing is taking a page from what we saw last year and have seen throughout our history which is that even in a media environment that is largely kind of rigged against regular folks in the ninety nine percent that we can use. kind of the moral clarity and power of nonviolent peaceful direct action to change the conversation and to directly confront the folks who are responsible and you know occupy wall street was really

one of the main inspirations for this effort and and they you know that was a bunch of predominately young folks who most people said they were crazy and they went in and they were able to make income inequality in a major issue of conversation in america in a way the efforts of move on and lots of other organizations that really failed to do it for a long time and i think you know we and we've seen that throughout our history that this kind of direct actually going back to the civil rights movement before that as a power as a clarity and a power to. to to inspire folks and to create a moral crisis for the people who are behind our problems and the institutions who are you know who hold all the power and are creating these problems and i think that that what we see in the last year is that tool still works and we need a lot more of it mean a lot more of us who are going out and basically peacefully and with

a lot of moral clarity raising how to put a spotlight on these issues and just want to say that folks can find these trainings and get involved at the ninety nine spring dot com and i hope everybody watching will do that is the ninety's in spring the kind of umbrella group that move on or has emerged as opinion with and yeah that's the that's the web site that kind of a clearing house website for all of us. that's absolutely great justin thanks so much for joining us yeah thank you tom as always for all of your great work i really appreciate what you're doing justin rip billionaires can spend all the money they want now on our elections but they still only have one vote and they're a lot more abuzz and there are a bell so get active and get organized go to the ninety nine spring thaw of ninety nine spring ninety nine spring dot com for more information coming up tonight slowing liberal rubble.

put in future of the need for those like nine years old true. i think that's an amateur get a sense that i was proud because. he was kind of the jester. i'm very proud of the world with its place. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then you glimpse

something else here sees some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. for.

it was there you ready to rumble joining me for today's long liberal rubble is our lawn service adam bitly the editor in chief of net right daily dot com good to have you with us out of it here george zimmerman is now a police custody faking facing second degree murder charges we can kind of now leave it to the courts i guess to figure out his fate and who did what all that kind of stuff but. from everything i've been able to see the reason why this guy was not held from day one is because of this stand your ground first law and in florida and that law as mayor bloomberg pointed out in the earlier clip that i had wherever it's passed we see justified viable homicides exploding which is presumably an unintended consequence i don't think that the that when the n.r.a.

and wal-mart put this thing together that they thought oh you know let's have more good people but that's what's happened this law was written by lobbyists for the america's largest retail operation largest employer wal-mart and the national rifle association a. lobbyist for the gun manufacturers industry was laundered through the koch brothers american legislative exchange council handed off to republican mostly some democrats while makers in states around the country and then voted in the law is that any way to make a. well you know i think it's not entirely fair to just point the finger at. what we see with our in this case in many instances many laws come about because of this type of thought on both sides of the aisle. because of this type of work i mean here is you have a group that's formed by people that are interested in getting sort of laws passed in this case an array of wal-mart wants to stay in your current use alec. in the

same way that democratic groups use labor unions to get favorable boyer was well but my concern is you know when a labor union does that they're pretty or proud about it you know we're long we were lobbying for card check you know every arse and we alec flew under the radar for almost thirty years and now they're taken off their website all the information about the loss of the push i understand as a career come from here but i think it's also a relatively new argument and out stuff where has always been in the past i guess i have my big concern and think about my big concern you know speaking as either as a progressive or even as a a goldwater or eisenhower conservative republican. why do we have corporations writing our laws well i would say there's something that we can agree is a bad thing i don't want corporations writing laws no more than i want a labor union writing a law or any other special interest group or writing

a well. to see that they suddenly wrote this law and the government didn't have a role in this is to forget that part that the legislature did indeed take up the well you know the politicians if you want to point fingers at anyone i would worry too much about how it argue look at the politicians better with with it with alex that you have a one to one ratio so you get you have alec meeting you get five hundred two hundred fifty politicians who show up going to two hundred fifty lobbyist show up and they vote together on whether or not a law is a good law if it's a majority then those politicians take it back to their state introduce it it seems crazy to me well you know they can take it back but the state you know it comes down to the politicians again they have the choice they risk their. main thing is that is the voters if they don't please the voters they're out of office and now one thing is brand new and why hasn't anyone been looking into this before you know i thought this is that's a good look what happened and yeah. i disagree i think it's incompetence on the

part of our media but you know i think in the broad principle maybe we are going to rule president obama held events today with the millionaires and secretaries they call themselves patriotic millionaires twenty guys who make more than a million dollars a year and they all are saying go ahead tax my income after that first million dollars here's what the president had to say. about the first president to call for this idea there but it's got to do that for sure some years ago one of my predecessors traveled across the country pushing for the same concept. he gave a speech where he talked about a letter he had received from a wealthy executive who paid a lower tax rates than a secretary and wanted to come to washington and tell congress why that was wrong that wild eyed socialist exciting class warrior was ronald right now and in fact we hear is. it's a letter from a man out here in the country an executive who's earning him six figures will be one hundred thousand dollars

a year he wrote me in support of the tax plan because he said i am legally able to take advantage of the present tax code nothing dishonest doing what the law prescribes and wind up paying a smaller salary than my secretary gets or get i mean paying a small and started paying a smaller tax than my secretary pays at so any of that's ronald reagan one here's another from reagan war earlier but if we're going to close the amount of detection tools that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid a there's. in theory some of those who would rather stand but in practice they sometimes made it possible for a million years to make a bus driver was maybe ten percent of its sound and that's where he's using the million euro to pay more in taxes than the bus driver or way up and the people in

the crowd you know more so what's wrong with progressive taxation and what's changed with the republican party that ronald reagan is now a wild eyed socialist and gauging in class warfare. well ok i wouldn't go back far to say that but you know i think it's funny that here we are having a debate that seems to come out you know just as this video showed thirty years ago which is you know point the finger at the billionaire they're not paid enough and they need to pay their fair share we have this buffett rule called buffett himself calls for it says that he needs to be taxed. i'm not sure if you're aware of this but he's currently fighting a. company is fighting the government on a tax court but they aren't nearly a billion dollars i think he doesn't want to pay yeah he does not want to pay that well what he's saying is that legally he doesn't have to essential that what he's saying change the law but if someone's going to get the lawn changed and someone

wants their name on that well don't you think that person should set the example no i think that if if if you know i've run a business you know the show is part of my business we you know we was is the show that are also on the t.v. show. right books and that runs through the business and i take advantage of every tax loophole i can find i mean that's just that's what you do at the same time i would say you know i don't use any agree just once i mean i use stuff like you know i can deduct my rent but you know that it's there but. i would think that any any business i mean if nothing else the michigan supreme court one hundred thirty five decided this in. earlier than that in a dodger v ford as i recall one horse every four for you know and the conclusion was a business has to do with the business has to do it has to do with the law that often same as change the law it's all i can do you see any inconsistency while i commend you for taking advantage of these tax loopholes you're proving the point which is

that the people calling for these for these raising of the taxes on themselves with all unfairly contribute they want less who that's also good no it's not they point to a problem and say if you only taxed us more then we would be rid of whatever this are you know i can't i can't wouldn't they claim tribute could pay contribute more voluntarily the i.r.s. hold the gun that's a strong as a total straw man argument it's what we're talking about here is you know mitt romney's got you know money stashed in the caymans he's got money stashed in swiss bank accounts he made you know something over twenty million dollars and he paid thirteen point nine percent taxes on that and yet a teacher in wisconsin pays more taxes more a higher rate of income tax and mitt romney made on twenty three million dollars well that's the flaw of the tax system so it's only so but until that point. people that are calling for this should be studied example everyone knows that this tax system is not incriminating voluntarily is not setting an example changing a lot is setting an example. you're going to get

a class a point think about this for a second thirty years ago we saw that clip of reagan he's calling for that to be changed that thirty years later we've had various parties in and out of the lot this various parties in and out of congress and yet the law remains the same well it doesn't it doesn't i mean before reagan came into office the top tax rate on millionaires and billionaires was seventy four percent he took it down to twenty eight percent but then there was the rangers have no point that the fair share is not coming i don't think it is any earlier today the break the romney campaign has asked a campaign on a conference call about whether or not romney supported the lilly ledbetter fair pay act which basically says that women if they're doing the exact same job as a man in the exact same company in the same circumstances have to get an equivalent pay and here's the question. person will come on time without thinking that i had you know governor romney support those who had better our

family get back and. get back to you and that this is a two thousand and nine law and you know how does somebody who wants to be president have to think long and hard maybe for days about whether they support equal pay for women for the same job you know it's two thousand and twelve and it's funny that we even have to have this conversation at some point sat actually you know are you a liberal i'm a libertarian but aside from that you know so you think the government should mandate the pay levels that no i don't think the government should be in the it that i think that people should be paid for what they're for but they do we think the government should mandate that people of different genders should be paid the same. the love letter x. currently says that women have access to go after the government. use the government feelers and use courts and go libertarians like yes but they can use the government as a tool to close that gap. today if you i'm certainly ok with them you know

doing whatever it is they please if they want to go and prosecute the employer that they believe they were paid unfairly and that's up to the court to the sun but isn't that isn't defining the rules what libertarians call big government the rule here is just saying that if you think you have a claim then you can go to court it's not saying immediately they're guilty and lost must hate it right but today we did see that. this is what ironic the obama white house pays males eighty percent higher than they pay their female voice really they do it for the exact same work the exact same work was in the washington free beacon and male employees on average and some were thousand dollars a point i was female since i've seen the report so i can't really comment on its if so i'm i'm guessing that they will be. a last question quick for santorum is it

leaves behind it an endless amount of ammunition for the obama campaign to use against mitt romney take a look at. someone who is who doesn't have a core he's been on both sides of almost every single issue. in the past ten years if you could be a little different with what we have instead of taking a risk of what may be the. it's a sketch community for the future he presented the blueprint for obamacare and advocated for exactly what obamacare if he should be clear just golf he is the worst republican in the contrary to put up against barack obama. amazing so how long will rick santorum take to adore who knows i think it will be a few days he will use a politician he's going to want to come out of. being on top of the war to support the public my guess is he will do it the day after that and so after he loses the pennsylvania primary he's going to drag it out and that will be his last opportunity to have a moment so we'll see that i'm pretty major i selfishly. coming

up after the break despite twenty five straight months of private sector job creation america's economic recovery has been an unusual and unequal one that's behind the unusual recovery and what can be done to improve the state a labor in our country. for. sometimes you see a story and it seems so. think you understand it and then glimpse something else

you hear sees some other part of it and realize that everything is ok. i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. mr.