i'm sympathetic to hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. the american legislative exchange council claims to be a nonprofit public charity and is thus exempt from paying taxes but if you ever heard of a charity that rights legislation on behalf of corporations i have been also tomorrow outstanding student loan debt in america will surpass one trillion dollars for the first time in american history so what you shouldn't do tomorrow to celebrate this is not so happy day in america. and later while the haze of last weeks for twenty clears where does the effort to end richard nixon's war on drugs stand today.

we begin tonight with the american legislative exchange council also known as alec on monday the organization common cause filed a complaint with the i.r.s. arguing that alec should be paying taxes you see alec claims to be a nonprofit public charity it is those exempt from paying any taxes but common cause as well as anyone else who knows exactly what alec is really up to knows that bats all the masquerade it's all a sham alec is not a public charity and never has been a public charity it's a right wing think tank that gives new meaning to the word lobbying by writing its own corporate friendly legislation and then handing that legislation off to republican state lawmakers to pass and there were specked of state legislatures to boost corporate profits at the expense of working americans that's what alec is

that's what alec does as the president common causes. in a statement quote allen tells the hour i.r.s. and its tax return is that it does no lobbying it exists to pass profit driven legislation in state houses all over the country that benefits its corporate members alec is not entitled to abuse the charitable tax status to lobby for private corporate interests and stick the bill to the american taxpayer a common cause is calling on the i.r.s. to force alec to pay years of back taxes and penalties but alec is pushing back saying this complaint is nothing more than a tired campaign quote to abuse the legal system distort the facts and tarnish their reputation so now it claims it's not a lobbying organization ok then how do they explain this i see these republicans swept into power a year and a half ago a slew of corporate friendly legislation started appearing in state houses across the country wisconsin ohio and indiana went to work causing legislation to break up

public unions and strip away their rights to collectively bargain texas tennessee kansas and again wisconsin went to work passing radical new voter id laws that will disenfranchise millions of mostly poor elderly and minority voters people who tend to vote for democrats republicans in alaska minnesota new hampshire ended in wisconsin tried to or did pass shoot first laws like the one that killed trayvon martin down in florida in addition several states as well as the republican controlled house of representatives have been pushing legislation to prevent the e.p.a. from regulating coal ash that toxic junk that spews out of coal power plants in america all of this is been happening together all of this in what looks like a concerted effort by republicans to push an extreme corporate agenda so what does all this legislation have in common what's the connection between anti public union laws voter id laws shoot first laws and the anti e.p.a.

laws. i give you hit these laws were all written by or are at least carbon copies of legislation written by the same singular organization and that organization is alec corporations are writing our laws folks but alex not lobbying right there just a public charity right joining me now is megan carpentier executive editor with ross story megan both of the show thanks for having me thanks for coming on so i love the irony of this story because here's an organization that has corporate members that write legislation so that their corporate members don't have to pay taxes and now alec itself is you know could be in trouble for not paying taxes do you think this iris complaint. has any wage do you think the common cause has an argument or i think common causes a great argument except legally speaking when it comes to lobbying law is i mean

laws are written by legislators and so of course there's always a little wiggle room and so lobbying laws are very specific about what counts as lobbying and what you would think of lobbying or i might think of lobbying doesn't count in the same way that newt gingrich can claim to never have loved. alec can claim to never. talk to a member of congress and so you need to push for this legislation to pass this legislation that's a lobbying but if i write the legislation and i just handed to them to go that's not very well in fact it depends a little bit on the state but if you go to just one or two legislators and you don't spend enough of your time doing it and that even doesn't count as lobbying the first time these laws are filled with loopholes the state law and then the federal laws which of course is what the i.r.s. is based on are completely different from the state bots so there's this huge patchwork of laws that cover what is or is not lobbying in most cases is not lobbying even though you would i or anybody reasonably thinking about lobbying

might consider it to be and so it's all that everything falls into these loopholes and almost deliberately design is considering this you know it is a stranglehold on these lawmakers they might beat the rap on this one but it's still pretty negative attention and this is been a month in which more than a dozen corporate members of our you know pepsi co you name it have left. could we see the i mean i would just describe it it's not economic forces could maybe be seen. as we know it or at least like having all this influence as it as it used to. but important understand alex finance is these corporations represent a huge part of how alec is funded and finds itself in funds the meetings where these corporations and legislators get together and interact in help develop regulate these kinds of bills that they're pushing in the states what alec has always done is to corporations has sold itself as a place where you can go kind of

a one stop shop for state level lobbying so you can go and get access to a bunch of legislators from different states all at once at a meeting and push your thing piece of legislation whatever for corporate taxation and on the side they've been doing uses as there is out calling their non profit their corporate non taxation task forces doing things like the stand your ground laws because you have similarly minded legislators on the same place those are obviously not good for corporations but they've always until now they haven't cared that's going on at the things they fund yeah i mean we have just both thirty seconds look at how crucial is it for the progressive movement for just movements in general that are weary of corporate power that is now out of the shadows that people are talking about our children since the early seventy's but it's just now starting to get attention in the media i mean how important is that i think it's important suddenly is a great disinfectant as the sunlight foundation says as the saying goes and to have people actually paying attention and caring for once that this stuff is going on is

really interesting because mostly this sort of lobbying and state level loving kind of falls under the radar most that i don't know if we will see what happens and hopefully this is a start of something more to come and it disappears. thanks for having. the issue of alec boils down to one single question in a representative democracy like we have in america who or what exactly should be writing our laws well here's tom say answer. there's a bigger picture here that needs to be talked about and that's exactly who or what should be writing our laws i mean this is really a much larger issue frankly than whether somebody should be able to should you know whether the trayvon martin or george zimmerman or whatever the question is who makes our laws you know you would think that the laws would be driven by a process of public outcry that was when the people say we have we have a problem we need

a legislative solution the legislators would react but there's no outcry for hey i want to shoot first it's not like you know it's just this country's been around two hundred twenty plus years two hundred thirty plus years it didn't just suddenly say you know cheerleading we need the option to shoot first but walmart and the n.r.a. thanks very much a lot of people have the option to shoot first because you know if it's a justifiable homicide it's fewer lawsuits for wal-mart plus that's the biggest gun retailer in the united states and the n.r.a. that's the trade association the represents the gun manufacturers so this diminishes their liability increases their sales so wal-mart n.r.a. on this council at the at the american legislative exchange council that puts together this law and then it gets passed off it to through alec through the american legislative exchange council where you get the koch brothers from to get passed through one of these meetings where the legislators are sitting literally next to lobbyists republican legislators state representatives and state senators

state assemblyman sitting next to rob us one on one. the legislators pay one hundred bucks to be there and in the case of virginia the state paid over two hundred thousand dollars to send their legislators to these alec meetings and the lobbyists can pay anywhere from twenty thousand to one hundred thousand dollars to sit next to that legislature and they have equal votes. the republicans or the lobbyists equal votes a democratic congressman from wisconsin marco can pay his hundred bucks went to an alec media came back and told us the story. with the. meeting serious for a corporate lobbyist or legislators they get it together they have you write legislation they have cast force that interestingly are made up of half legislators in exactly industry lobbyists when you needed a vote majority vote from each group for something to do and so you actually know we did it right the registration to me but what's on the legislation to corporate or to yes. this is not them ocracy that's not even

a republic that's corruption what we have right now is a nation that has been captured and not just our nation our state legislators and legislatures as well which is the focus of alec has been captured by billionaires and lobbyists. in addition to produce seen the the laws that are of benefit to corporations and lobbyists these things are producing unintended consequences like the death of trayvon martin americans are right to be discussed and our progress is you're fighting back this month color of change and other organizations threaten a boycott against corporations who are alec members and immediately alex sponsors started dropping like flies today candy bar maker mars struck alex so to arizona's largest company arizona public services they join coca-cola pepsi into it kraft wendy's the gates foundation all have dropped their ties with alec alec calls the boycott intimidation campaign back they released a statement saying it's harder in job creation and real solutions that improve

dialogue among political leaders is needed most now its mission has never been more important a mission of corrupting democracy and that admission is to advance the interests of the one percent and the big corporations both in the ballot box by pushing legislation that will disenfranchise millions of democratic voters and the economy by pushing legislation that repeals things like environmental laws screws topic surfaces sector employees unions gives legal cover to gun sellers alec is one of the biggest threats to our democracy frankly in my opinion and the fact that they're responding this to this boycott this way means that it's working so let's keep it up wake up your friends and neighbors and ask your politicians caught up or just say hey are you a better of alec to show up to those things and take money from the koch brothers spread the word. coming up after the break tomorrow the total amount of outstanding student loan debt in our country will top one trillion dollars for the first time in american history will hero occupy wall street to commemorate this momentous day

. emissions free couldn't take three cones for chargers free. range month free risk free stews and free. download free books just plug in video for your media project and a free medio don carty dot com. more news today violence is once again flared up the phone and these are the images . from the streets of canada. shanghai for asians around the day.

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twenty fifth marks and almost all miss day college graduates in america it's when the total amount of outstanding should alone dead the country tops one trillion dollars that's trillion with a t. . trillion dollars for the first time in american history by some estimates college loan debt has already topped that staggering mark and now also for the first time in history outweighs total credit card debt and total automobile debt in america whatever the exact number is it doesn't matter college loan debt is to quote former new york gubernatorial candidate can even go in too damn high the proliferation of expensive for profit private colleges the spiraling high cost of tuition the budget cuts the federal pell grant programs and the anemic job market for young people are all inflating it's student loan debt bubble and to make matters worse interest rates on student loans are about to double something that president obama warned about today in chapel hill north carolina but aside from president obama just

talking about it hardly anyone from our lawmakers in congress to the student loan profiteers on wall street seems eager to do anything about it but the occupy movement is doing something about it and getting directly involved in this issue that affects so many millions of americans here to tell us about plans for a national day of action tomorrow on the student loan debt crisis in america is pamela brown with the occupy student debt campaign welcome to show hi thanks for having me thanks for coming on first what do our viewers need to know about tomorrow's day of action. well here in new york we are having a four o'clock rally in union square where reverend billy and the his stop shopping choir will announce the debt jubilee along with david greenberger and francis fox put in as well as jill stein who is the green party presidential candidate so it's

a mock celebration because we are breaking the link between higher education and wall street tomorrow and so we thought we would celebrate this this horrible milestone with the banks or. it's great you ventured to cuba you want to get into the explain what that is. historically when deaths have been incredibly high in societies which the necessary to maintain. just harmony within society has been to a race the stats and so that's basically what it is those jubilees come every fifty maybe one hundred years we certainly haven't had one here in the united states so we thought hey why not one trillion dollars we may as well however own jubilee yeah it'd probably be one of the best things we could do economically for a whole generation of young americans coming out trying to find work i mean this is

this is an issue that the president has been speaking out a lot about on lately here isn't exactly made many friends with the occupy movement as far as the wars go security. the environment you know tax cuts for the rich things like that is this is this an issue in which he can start to forge some sort of support from the occupy movement and what does he need to do to do that. well i think that today one of the things that president obama has been working on is trying to rally support to just simply keep the interest rate on our newly generated newly originated student loans at three point four percent rather than rising back to six point eight percent and that is of course important but it's actually a fairly small measure and a small move a small reform that we could benefit from compared to what's really necessary. the occupy movement is engaged in taking direct actions having

a much bigger change i mean we actually believe that education is of raid and that therefore there should be access to education for all right now we're talking about sixty thousand dollars a year for tuition at a private college that's in saying that's a lot of money so we're looking for a much broader change you mentioned education is a right i mean that's something that most of the developed world already considers except the united states a real quick what's a website people who want to develop more contract out it's one to you day dot org one as a number one it hasn t. for a trillion day dot org ok one can go to org thanks a lot people groan all right thank you. take notice of what's happening tomorrow and find a rally near you in demonstrate against the rangers student loans in america the next generation is counting on you. now on to the failed war on drugs the

haze of last week's or twenty is clearing and today more americans than ever support marijuana legalization as gallup found for the first time ever a majority of americans now support legalizing the rectory ational drug with incredible method but this will benefits it is marijuana that means regulating it taxing it and selling it just like alcohol which i might add is a far more lethal and dangerous drug and marijuana but despite the widespread approval for legalization president obama hasn't gotten the message and is even going back on his words regarding medical marijuana raids in march two thousand and eight when running for president president obama said this quote i'm not going to be using justice department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue despite making that promise to not use federal agents to crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries that are operating in compliance with state law president

obama is just what president obama's justice department excuse me as conducted nearly two hundred raids on marijuana facilities roughly the same amount conducted during george w. bush's eight years in office and president obama's raids have occurred in nine of sixteen states plus the district of columbia that have passed medical marijuana laws leading to sixty one federal indictments all since october of two thousand and nine most recently just this month the justice department raided and shut down the legal marijuana trade school known as day and university in oakland california without giving a single reason yet as to why it was shut down so where exactly does our drug war stand today as public support for marijuana legalization reaches new heights if federal crackdowns continue. even needleman is the executive director of the drug policy alliance and he joins me now to talk more about this issue ethan welcome

well it's a slow it's obviously to be great to have you on so we have high public approval for legalization. colorado california they're all poised they're both poised to vote on ballot initiatives in november to legalize marijuana yet the federal rates continue where do you think we stand today in our efforts to you know literally end the drug war. i will tell you the polls that you just showed are incredibly inspiring when you see the change in public opinion from thirty six percent in favor just five six years ago to fifty percent in favor first time ever a majority of americans in favor of legally regulating marijuana like alcohol their transformation in public opinion is basically almost as dramatic in some respects more dramatic than the shift in opinion on gay marriage is that over the same period of time now unfortunately politicians including president obama or are incredibly scared of what might be called the third rail of american politics

they're so afraid to touch this issue so i think this is an evidently an issue which is going to bubble up at the level of state government and civil society and public opinion on medical marijuana and eventually on the full legalization of marijuana and we're the last people are going to get the message are going to be congress in the white house right where you said you said that this is a third rail that politicians are afraid to touch this touch this rail there's a difference between you're not going out and actively championing legalizing marijuana. growing out of cracking down. on facilities why do you think the president broke this promise i mean what do you think behind. this hardline approach to regal marijuana dispensaries where i think what's going on tom i don't think that obama is troll actively ordering people to go where through the. disparate cities people he's demonstrating is a failure of leadership he made these commitments as you mentioned both during his campaign in early ministration and in the first year of the obama administration

a federal law basically go back and they defer state of local regulations area but i think what happened is that a number of the federal prosecutors around the country especially in california colorado or i once had decided they were going to take the initiative and they were going to go after these dispensaries they were going to shut them down they were going to set acid forfeiture letters and they weren't going to tell anybody. why they were picking out one of the other they were just going to create a climate of fear and now it's loose so much the white house can do in terms of telling us attorneys not to enforce federal law because none of us attorneys are always saying it's all illegal under federal law so wouldn't lekan them obama need ministrations for is not so much the individual raids and you never know exactly which ones were playing by the rules what rules or which ones weren't already condemned for is this failure to send a clear message if the federal government continued to defer to responsible state

and local regulation in this area when you have hard work out legislative compromises asked by state legislatures signed by governors democrat and republican and then with federal prosecutors or i.r.s. or d.a. or a.t.f. agents come in and deliberately violate state law that's an explicit repudiation of what obama said he was going to do there from the focus needs to be today their great point i mean right now where this is a state by state charge it misses trying to get ballot initiatives on the state at a local of our definite state level and what point do we had a tipping point and go for the federal level i mean even to california colorado passed these initiatives to legalize marijuana that's not stopping federal agents from coming in. do you see a tipping point your turn where is about well if those triple as you showed on at our poll continue we're going to hit some point on the one hand look seventy percent of americans have been in favor of legalizing medical marijuana for a number of years sixteen states have legalized it there's almost

a million legal medical marijuana patients united states but still congress is not the only thing in the white house is not showing leadership when it comes to the full legalization of marijuana really like alcohol there's a chance that one of these initiatives to lead we regularly girl one are either in colorado washington state continues here on election day both are leading in the polls right now there's little question that the federal government whether it's obama or romney are going to come. they have to live with they do but i think the more the public opinion supports this the more states that say we're leaving that we get out of that we federal government we want to do is responsible and what you are federal prosecutors are doing had nothing to do with protecting public safety public health i think we'll get it tipping point when sixty percent of americans say that and we see more and more states legalizing it in a state where you know it's going to pay to support them whether there's other boy wrote and you know you're an expert on this issue and if you were a betting man and i said the overunder survive years on the federal government and

then this this nonsense of locking people up for having i on marijuana would you take the over the under here but it seems like if it's going to take more than five years you've had medical marijuana for fifty years the feds still won't do it it's a longer a campaign this is a long term struggle we're going to win it but we can't give up now we can't rest on false hopes also to think about the great work thanks for coming on tonight thanks so much thanks seriously it's really about time we stop throwing people in jail for getting high on pot coming up speaker of the house john boehner thinks republican republican control of the house is in danger come november so did republicans make a critical error when they put contraceptive years ahead of job creation. for. a

few. wealthy british style. the tightly. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines going into cons

a report on r.t. . that. would. be a.