news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images from seeing from the streets of kenya that. giant corporations rule the day. syria. iran warns of consequences after israel launches a bombing a regular target near damascus. decorated cia veteran who turned against the agency and got thirty months behind bars john kiriakou tells r.t. he was sentenced for blowing the whistle on. unique footage surfaces of alleged atrocities committed by the mahdi army as reports on the civilian casualties remain

. french plans for a military handover to the can troops. british prime minister david cameron defies warnings of an imminent threat to u.k. interests and travels to libya. to help train the country's stretched security forces. the big picture with tom hartman is next. well going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. a startling new report is

fine in the nearly half of all americans are just one financial shock away from complete ruin should we help pull these americans out of financial despair by spreading around the wealth of america's billionaires also all across this nation hazardous fracking operations of destroying once pristine lands right in the environment and local communities in the process but some towns and communities are standing up to this environment destroying corporate greed and say no even when the federal government says yes how you doing that and later in the show we'll have a your take my take live segment your chance to call in and ask a question or make a comment live on the air. you need to know this welcome to america half the nation lives right on the razor's edge

a shocking new report out of the corporation for enterprise development finds the forty four percent of americans are just one financial shock away from complete ruin as nearly one hundred fifty million americans who don't have enough savings to keep them out of poverty for more than three months if they should suffer a job was an accident a sickness or some other financial shock and the recent study out of the consumer federation of america found that forty percent of all american households were. paid paycheck to paycheck with virtually no savings this is what's become of the wants of wanted american middle class after thirty years of trickle down reaganomics and one reason for that is because they're paying too much in taxes or more and governor mitt romney made these comments about the forty seven percent. or so. while we there. are those that are. here. now let's

exit the billionaires fantasyland and enter the real world of tax policy and see who are real takers are in the real world state local government are taxing the super rich and half the rate they tax the poor that's a conclusion of a new study out of the institute on taxation and economic policy which examines state local property and sales taxes and if you're going to look at taxes let's look at all the taxes right around the nation according to the results the poorest twenty percent of americans pay an effective tax rate of eleven point one percent middle twenty percent pay nine point four percent guess how much the top one percent pay just a measly five point six percent half the rate that the poor pay in some states around the nation like washington texas florida and south dakota which had no state income taxes the poor are paying tax rates six times higher than the top one percent. this disparity has

a lot to do is states moving away from progressive income taxes and towards sales taxes which are regressive since working people spend one hundred percent of their income and are thus taxed on one hundred percent of their income the billionaires on the other hand can't possibly spend all their income no matter what so they're taxed on only part of the ring conservatives want you to believe that half the nation doesn't pay taxes and that half of the nation is called takers but that's not the reality in a country where the top one percent pay half or as little as one sixth of the taxes that the poor pay and who are the real takers. we wonder why our economy continues to falter it's working people and consumers who don't have enough money to spend meanwhile the billionaires have more money than they can spend in ten lifetimes something has to be done let's start by rolling back the reagan tax cuts things worked great for forty years before that put in place a new wealth tax on everyone making over

a billion dollars and redistribute yes that working some of that wealth down to working people who will actually spend it and thus stimulate the economy consider this the forbes four hundred richest billionaires in america have a combined wealth of over one point seven trillion dollars now imagine we took some of that wealth leaving each billionaire with all four billion dollars of vows a million that they're free to do whatever they like with you can spend a thousand million dollars your life to try what's about. that would suddenly free up one point three trillion dollars of wealth to be spent and invested in our economy the average price of going to college at a state school pegged at roughly twenty two grand a year that one point three trillion kids and fifty nine million young people an entire generation to school we have an entire generation of college graduates who have access to good paying jobs would stimulate the economy who pay taxes to lower

our deficit and who once again make america once again the most educated nation with the most sophisticated workforce on the planet and by the way we've done that before during the two eisenhower administration the top tax rate on billionaires was ninety one percent and an entire generation went to college for free it was called the g.i. bill and we went from six percent college rates to over twenty percent college graduate rates in a single generation it built america but what about those one hundred fifty million americans who don't have savings and one set back away from poverty. imagine if they had an extra eight grand in their bank account it wouldn't be so fearful of poverty they could spend more money in the economy and they could take more risks even the billionaires would earn more money now that they have more consumers spending more money at restaurants at shopping malls and on vacations and what would we sacrifice for this new prosperity for millions of americans we simply asked the billionaires like the koch brothers the walton family shelley to get by

with being simple billionaires rather than multi-billionaires something tells me that. the no billionaires campaign is the best way to get our economy on track and reverse thirty years of failed reaganomics go to no billionaires dot com. now for reaction from the billionaire side i'm joined by want to be a billionaire austin peterson director of production of freedom works and editor of the libertarian republic a us to get their family back thank you now you're familiar with hoarder right hoarders people that stack up things in their home you know newspapers empty cans whatever you know we we know that this is a mental illness and the reason why we intervene when we find people who are hoarding is because a it's not so good for them but that's not the main reason we intervene be it's a public health hazard right rats mice cats god only knows what all right. how is somebody who is hoarding money. any different aren't they also damaging our public

health damaging our economy and our and our government and acting out you know a mental illness or you know hoarding money is obsessive compulsive disorder where the obsession instead of our newspapers is on money well not really because think about it no poor person ever gave you a job and you have to understand that the real income levels are not out of the chorus twenty five percent have risen over time so if you look at most americans they usually start off poor you don't know what's going on but they become richer over time and i wanted to talk about the statistic because from one thousand nine hundred five to nine hundred ninety one the average income gain for rich households was four thousand dollars but the average. game for poor households was twenty eight thousand dollars a year so the rich may be getting richer but the poor are getting richer faster so i mean i'm not sure what the issue is the issue is why do you tell him that i just selfish and i see why do you care what somebody or sudden is that any of your business what i have there's no scrooge mcduck going swimming and gold coins yeah sure there is and gets them or they can create jobs we want more billionaires they go through so that we can close to this thing i'm trying to have

a reasonable conversation going you know we can we can shout at each other if you like that's no problem but but i'm i'm really concerned about people who are mentally ill and they're mentally ill their mental illness is showing up in affording syndrome and it's harming the rest of society while us because time to tell us they're going to talking about what you're talking about social issues if you'd like to talk about a social issue that you think is mental illness then we can talk about mental illness i don't mean i said i don't mean i one hundred people to be billionaire i was soon i mean it's not a thing and the problem is with so little is there is that eventually you'll run out of other people's money so because you that you have the truth the truth is so enough that i just don't think you very much the socialist would rather that he's doing just fine thank you for than the poor get everyone who is doing just fine thank you and estonia's to already is a member of sony last conversation very let's go back to stony and tom remember there are they have a now a free market a cause studies on actually he says well i didn't look at all that our conversation yes they are and i've been to a stone where i have not remember paul krugman wrote about a stony as the as the as the total model every want to do about people who are

playing monopoly and they're hoarding all the money ask the government they have the monopoly on everything they have monopoly on force they would not be on patents they have the monopoly on everything tom what monopoly capital they have i agree with you know bill gates is a welfare queen and we should take away the paddle in their youth and loans billions of dollars for the research and he said well we are surging into africa is a welfare quote are you crazy so he takes some how does well our money and you know that we were halted for africa but big story going to tell me for just a moment i really want you to pay attention this is so important because i really. how do you know just the first question a lot of bill gates because i want to he made his money by creating a product that benefited millions and millions of people and then what did he tell you he didn't invest or seize or no no no no no no i mean why don't louse country what allows him to be a billionaire rather than a simple millionaire by helping people who knew copyright and satins laws well federal government what regs of a government well you know without and those are copyright and patent laws thomas

jefferson thought copyright and patent should not last no more than three years now the last seventy years like a libertarian and well so i'm saying bill gates is a welfare queen and i don't know why you're not necessarily yes of course it was discussed plans had to copyright ideas that were well over ninety ninety seven want to tell them seven billion no it's not that's not the way to stop the stop but you don't want to stop billionaires because from one thousand nine hundred seven ninety nine has this reporting behavior sixty one percent of small households went up twenty percent in their income value and half moved up to the middle class and higher their purchasing power is higher poor people the percentage of poor who have electronical appliances in their homes and who can afford them whether they have this is not is vastly greater than they have their eyes are not sure of the war and i think the only reason i wish they had the poor if you're out there trying to start down the street they would love to hear you call it out and tell them how one drive because they can't afford two cars instead of one only one plasma t.v. instead of two tom they own way better off than they have ever been in human history and which you would rather let one hundred years ago sleep hungry please talk listen if you think that the guy hundred years ago we were in the middle

actually one hundred twenty years ago we were in the middle of the worst to possibly live in a lot of history look at the university and the native americans have been the one minority group that have been helped by the government most of all over the bay and they are the poorest to. kill off in a day i was wrong when we got out and then i got home i did it oh yeah they killed in it wounded and they had massacred them and took their guns and then so happy yeah they should because that was the government that did it tom this lovely government you sit down and worship that you worship the state but tom the state is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else so you like the government it kills the indians. no i don't tom i'm a libertarian that means that i'm anti-war think that we're all shovel but really we have occupy the north american continent us europeans well i think we should have done is done with your property rights like the way the jews did for israel they purchased it they purchased the land it began a system of property private the name of their. land really well why not why couldn't they because they didn't have a concept of private property when they should have been or not they should have been slaughtered by pete by the american government and they did and they killed

them because the government took their guns first and then it moved in and filled them and we're going to have guns also you discover there was a lot of trust so much you a caveman we ok had without our idea really and seriously what you're already doing . other than they had guns and what happened they came in a nation or they said take all of their guns and then what happened when they couldn't take their guns they murdered them austin thank you for much for being with us thank you tom peters coming out michigan governor rick snyder says he has no plans to change the way his state boards electoral college votes and in turn help rig the twenty sixteen election for republicans but it's nader telling the truth there are plans to attack our democracy alive and well in the great lights lake state.

that speech. will. be. good bill. i mean they really think. it's technology innovation all the developments from around russia to the future

covered. in screw news in the last few weeks we've seen unprecedented efforts by republicans in several blue states to rig the electoral college ahead of the next presidential election to make a virtually impossible for a democrat to win the white house but those efforts have slowed down in recent days with a lot of publicity on them on tuesday the virginia state senate privileges and elections committee voted down a bill which would have changed how that state awards its electoral college votes

at least for now all democrats on the committee voted against the bill as did four of eight republicans seemingly putting an end to the election rigging effort in that state at least for now meanwhile in michigan where republicans are considering a similar scheme and governor rick snyder slammed the idea saying he doesn't think it's the appropriate time to look at it he also said i'm very skeptical of the idea i really view it as a question of you don't want to change the playing field so it's an unfair advantage to someone. number of other prominent republicans have also come out against the idea including ohio governor john k. sick virginia governor bob mcdonald in florida state speaker will weatherford so at least for now it appears the republican reading effort is on a whole or is it my next guest isn't quite so sure never india alexander bullock joins me now from michigan is the president of the detroit chapter of rainbow push and president the highland park michigan p robert welcome back. thomas

so good to be bank how are you great but i'll get better i hope the same is true for you you are from michigan where your and i'm from michigan actually but you live there now you and your governor are governor rick snyder says he's not interested in changing the electoral college can we trust him. you know what i don't buy it we can't trust rick snyder remember tricky rick snyder is the same governor who said right to work was not on his agenda and then in the lame duck period last year he rammed right to work down our throats this is the same governor who's who started his term with the language of shared sacrifice but then began to strip the our income tax credit tax working people and the middle class pensions and to basically those so municipalities and school districts would emerge as the managers while giving tax breaks to corporations and so this is a governor who has proven that he cannot be trusted. apparently and the fact of the

matter is that they don't have to do this tomorrow republicans have four years before the next election so do you think that may be some christmas eve when nobody's paying attention or some friday night or if there's a big national disaster another god forbid newtown kind of thing that all of a sudden the republicans in the house of representatives in the senate and the governor's office in michigan are just just like that going to have his legislation passed. i think so in fact state representative peter has already said he intends to. bring this bill back before the state legislature we've seen chase both also say he supports this bill we have a number of tea partiers in michigan who have a significant amount of influence and of course it is the deval family that has a lot of financial capital a lot of money to throw around in michigan and so governor rick snyder one can't be trusted and secondly he's also the governor who does not control the republican

party in michigan but is controlled by that party and so we really don't know what could happen but we do know that they will use their political power to stack the deck and potentially rig the election are you suggesting that for example when rick snyder said he didn't want to have right to. work for less legislation and then you know in a month or so flipped upside down and change that that was because. you know the people who are pulling the strings of the billions are there are some billionaire and multimillionaire families in michigan who are very active in republican politics that they basically say jump and he said. that's what i'm suggesting in fact we've heard two things one governor rick snyder said well it wasn't on my genda you know but you all brought it up with the constitutional amendment to enshrine collective bargaining in the michigan constitution so since you brought it up we decided that we would consider it and then we've also heard the other tale

well it wasn't on my agenda but others within the party who had influence brought it up and we executed either way this is a governor who obviously will go back or flip flop on what he said and we have no confidence in his claim that rigging the vote fixing the vote so that the electoral college vote is changed in the congressional districts will determine who gets those votes will not be on the table in michigan what's the latest on the financial managers law there that the people voted down. well the latest is that they put an appropriation in a new deal for a new emergency financial manager which means that the law is repealed prove it goes into effect later on next month however there is a lawsuit right now in the state supreme court before the state supreme court and we're hopeful that the state supreme court will side with justice and the people. i

hope so too just one one quick question when is rick snyder up for reelection. i'm so glad you asked that question we are already getting ready he's up for reelection in two thousand and fourteen that's all right next year and so we already organizing in mobilizing to make sure that he's a one term governor should be a good and reverend de alexander bowler thanks so much for being with us thank you . in the best of the rest of the news all across america hazardous fracking operations dangerous coal mining practices even developments of big box stores are tearing apart communities and doing unprecedented levels of damage to our environment but as we all know it can be hard to fight back against

a giant corporation one that will stop at nothing to turn a profit so when presented with a corporation that wants to come in and buy up the land you have towns and cities most towns and cities give into that pressure no matter how much damage the corporation plans to cause to the local environment but there are some towns and communities across our nation who continually say no to corporate america and put the health and wellbeing of their environment and their citizens above the corporate interests there are towns and communities that practice self governance and choose to openly challenge the authority of state and federal governments who are in collusion with these big corporations joining me now to talk more about this open defiance of the laws thomas lindsay esquire executive director and chief legal counsel of the community environmental legal defense fund seldom. work he's also featured in the recent article rebel tones in this month's edition of the nation thomas welcome. hey tom thanks for having us back on the show thanks for joining us

again what's the story behind sugar hill new hampshire and why is it important to him. well folks in sugar hill and all across northern new hampshire are faced with huge power transmission line project that's scheduled slated to run through their towns to essentially hook canadian power up to coastal cities in the united states in the northeast and the focus and sugar hill don't want the transmission line and most of the northern towns of new hampshire don't want to be either and so they approached us and asked us for help and we began working with them in the same vein that we've worked with about one hundred fifty other communities and eight states to essentially assert the right to local self-government within sugar hill to say no to this transmission line coming through how does local self-government government. take on the supremacy clause in the supreme court's position that these corporations you know have these rights the i for i forget the name of the case but

the one the souter took so much. abuse for that had to do with them in a domain. how do you do that. or right now it's important to acknowledge that we don't have it we don't have local self-government in other words what our communities want to say no to tracking or colts traction or any of these other thousands of activities that are harmful to our communities every day and that power has been stripped from them and it's been stripped from them by these corporate legal doctrines that have been developed over the best hundred years so which of all this concept of corporate personhood and corporate rights and those types of things essentially these towns are creating something that people think we are already had. and they're writing local laws and adopting that recognize their rights a local sub government actually asserted to say no to these projects and then in the process passing laws that say for example that corporations. that are doing these activities within the town don't have certain constitutional rights and legal

powers within the community and so sugar hill for example the town the us about which is part of the feature article this past week's nation magazine pass an ordinance that bans corporations from acquiring land to put in unsustainable energy projects like these transmission lines and it also strips certain constitutional rights and powers in other words directly challenges this concept that corporations like the transmission energy corporations have certain rights and powers under the law that can be used to know if either local communities lawmaking have you had successes. but when you ask the question about how can they possibly do this we have we generally asked the question back how can how can pay in other words how can we do anything else except take on these local projects in ways that frontally challenge those other legal doctrines as a means of building a movement that eventually is going to change state constitutional law and eventually federal constitutional law you know the property rights are our major

big deal in the constitution and the thinking of the supreme court over the last two hundred years a lot of that property in quotes back at the time of the writing of the constitution was actually slaves it was code for slaves and you know because property rights are fairly well established john locke was the radical one hundred years before the founding of our country in that regard but it was established by the time jefferson came along. how do we how do we wake people up to this we have a little less than a minute times where we have to redefine property in the end do we have to strip these rights from corporations that are claimed as property in addition but it's going to take a movement ten thousand communities press united states who are focused on doing just that and one of the things that these communities have talked to us about over the past couple of years is trying to get a documentary made of their stories so that other communities can begin to follow them and we have this film in production at this point. they're raising funding for it's we the people two point zero and so if folks want to find out what it's all

about they can just go to their browser and type in we the people two point zero it's a treat media film that's coming out but a lot of people have the same questions how can we do that here how can we stop fracking here how can we stop the coal mining that projected to take place here those types of question we need people to try to know and i'm assuming there's a lack assault after august well yes there's a link on our web page as well thomas lindsay thank you thank you to. crazy alert a final farewell to a whopper eighty eight year old dave kind jr was a lifelong fan and patron of burger king so it was of course fitting that after being laid to rest after he died he visit his beloved fast food joint one more time after crimes you know mourners arranged for his person the entire funeral

procession they one last trip to crimes local burger king drive through is the funeral procession made its way through the drive through each mourner was given one of times favre burgers as include a single slice a lot of the time for years considered to be his version of healthy eating time was also buried with one of his beloved burgers so i guess you can have your way all the way to the grave b.k. coming up the phone lines are now open for your take my take a live segment so if you want to chance to ask me a question live here in the big picture debate me whatever you give us a call to zero two nine zero four twenty one thirty four or maybe i'll be talking with you after the break.