what about the big picture on thom hartmann coming up in this half hour each year states lose millions of dollars in tax revenues to loopholes allowed companies avoid collecting sales tax on internet sales is it time to close that loophole and use the additional revenue to help strengthen our economy also a new report is out detailing the extent and abuses of the new york police department's surveillance of muslims in the big apple as that program helped to prevent any potential terrorist attacks or torn apart the muslim community instead and in france you can get a top notch cable internet and cell phone service all for just thirty three dollars a month and believe it or not we can be pain that little right here in the u.s. so how is the rights to take.

in scrooge news last month the marketplace fairness act was introduced in both houses of congress the act would allow states to collect sales tax from companies with no physical presence within their borders think amazon or zappa each year states lose tens of millions of dollars in additional tax revenue by not being able to tax internet sales and that last lost revenue will only get larger as more and more americans decide to make their purchases online the lack of an internet sales tax also puts a huge burden on actual store owners who besides having to pay the expenses of running a brick and mortar business also have to pay sales tax so isn't implementing an internet sales tax a no brainer when it comes to strengthening small businesses and improving the overall economy my next guest doesn't think so joining me now is the allows for.

c.e.o. and author of the book conscientious equity and host of the truth for america radio show me a welcome back they have very big thanks tom for having you back thanks for joining us neil let me. stipulate something to begin here and reality test are with you because i'm not sure that i'm actually but i actually have this right and i've been trying to fact check it all day and have not been able to get a really straight understanding of it my understanding is that sales tax in those states that have a sales tax at the obligation to pay sales tax is on the individual consumer in other words if i walk into a store and i buy something for one hundred dollars in the sales tax and that state is four percent whether i give that four percent of the store owner or whether i mail it in at the end of the year to the state the obligation is on me to pay that four percent and when the stores collect at four percent they're basically doing it as a convenience to me now it's facilitated by the state to make sure that they get their money because most people won't at the end of the year add up all their receipts

and say here's what i've bought so are you with me so far on this i'm with you on that and it's in it's into states or just not enforcing it this rush just on right words and so so basic but and so what congress did when i think was the telecommunications act they could be wrong but sometime back in the eighty's or ninety's when congress said ok we're not going to have internet sales companies collect state income taxes in part it was that back of that day internet coding was still fairly clumsy and so you know it was a burden to you know to keep track of all these different states that's easy now and in part it was let's buddha start this new industry and there's also the supreme court said that the states could not they don't have jurisdiction out of their borders to collect taxes right for free ok good point so massachusetts can't collect massachusetts tax on a sale made in california by a company in connecticut but massachusetts resin what a can of worms doubt would open. right but but if you live well you live in florida

so if you're right if you buy something regardless of where you buy it if you buy it in the united states from a state well it doesn't matter where you buy it if you buy it in the united states the state of florida has a sales tax right. you're right and that's right you know you have an obligation to pay it but the fact is is that they're not they're not enforcing and people are not paying and they shouldn't pay it it's a tax that we shouldn't pay it's ridiculous but it's their. sensually sensibly yes it is there but it's a it's not there and it's not there for a good reason because it would destroy this only this this is the only good productive part of our economy right now is our internet businesses and it would absolutely destroy these mom and pop businesses that are just getting off the ground and that are helping our economy in enormous way right now ok well you know being one of those mom and pop businesses i sell odd casts of my radio show and we sell them all over the world including all over the united states and you know i've

checked with our providers the people who do the clearing for you know visa master card american express diners club and pay pal and basically if the states were to flip on yes please click the sales tax they would just automatically do it it wouldn't cost me anything more it's no more work on my part it be the consumers you know in your case you live in florida whatever the sales tax is in florida my podcast and cost you an extra two or three percent whatever the sales taxes but that you know that's it i mean i don't see how this is so many onerous thing let me give you let me give you another example an internet business person came to see me today they manufacture healthy snack foods healthy snack foods and he lost his job during the mortgage mortgage crisis in today he has a fledgling internet business that he runs from his kitchen table he has three employees and i talked to him about this today he said if he had to click taxes on behalf of forty five states there's forty five states that have sales taxes and

there's over nine thousand jurisdictions in tax protocols in this country that he would have to know compliance costs would put him out of business i totally agree with his business and he's taken a little thing he he owned and he's put it in this business he's got money from his parents he's borrowed from his friends he's out of business in his employees don't have a job multiply that by hundreds of thousands of internet businesses and we can at least add another million to the unemployed in this coming up i totally agree with you force this i totally agree with you but he won't. he'll never have to face that problem because nobody because nobody is mailing him cash in the mail and probably nobody is sending him checks the way the people have paid him is master card visa american express or pay pal and. all of that is virtually you know ninety nine point nine percent of all internet in plain clothes and that was a tax issue and don't know that those are the papers really don't like to tell your taxes those if you file your taxes they certainly think they have the ability to they do in europe right now there's already what they got in order to get out you

know they don't do it here because there's the federal law says they don't have to but if we said you know whoever is collecting whoever's clearing your money has to take care of the taxes it would cost us out of the extra other than the cost of the sales tax tom tom complains cost is the responsibility of the business of the entrepreneur i mean this is the ultimate leveling so in so one might have your hands your of i have the what might happen is instead of the two point three percent that i'm paying to mastercard and visa you are always credit cards on my vantage point seven percent you're always for the disadvantaged in the underdog in the you know i'm not businessman here to you know have story the small little internet retailer out of their garage or out of share a bedroom on their own i guess you know i got your point if they had to do the compliance i totally agree with you it would crush them but but i don't think they have any good deal where out of time but there are thanks for being with us tonight neal aspirates and tom great discussion thanks.

in the us there as the news earlier today in vatican city one hundred fifty roman catholic cardinals held the first vote to elect the new pope of the catholic church but black smoke appeared indicating that the new pope has not yet been elected when the new pope is finally elected in good ole regular smoke appears one of the pope's first duties will be to preside over easter services at the vatican that same day a few thousand miles away in england a heavily catholic nation well sort they'll be a different kind of easter service taking place the sunday assembly britain's up and coming atheist church will be holding its own kind of easter service form barely three months ago the atheist church already has more worshippers than can fit and services as receive request of atheists across the globe as king how to start their own chapters so will easter services in atheist church what are they going to look like and how popular will the sunday assembly becoming be because

become so many joining me now via skype from london is sanderson jones co-founder of the sunday assembly sanderson welcome to the program. well i love the exhibit here tom how's it going great great first of all how is the atheist church different from the unitarian universalists who profess no belief in god. or what. there is still within you know i before obviously starting an enterprise like this i went and looked in the alternatives and some people who don't believe in god going to the unitarians is a bit of an issue because they still you know you get people sort of you know do you believe in sort of some sort of supernatural things and cynthia's whereas i want to have a place where you can go along and it's just people who don't believe in god but do believe that life is amazing and should be celebrated ok so is there a place in your church for pantheists oh well the one thing we say is if people

want to come along who do believe in something live show they're fine but they just won't hear any of that from the from the front and so far it's been a really popular and people have really liked that message are you are using a church building. yes we it's amazing we went and found this old de culture creates a church and it's wonderful to think these building that has really been full and it's of use was certainly once again being used as a community since a lot of people who wanted to you know just think about ways you could get involved in a community to think about how they could improve their lives think about how they could help others and it really felt that this is what it was designed for i have to tell you as sanderson i i don't describe myself as an atheist i know i am not a me and. i don't even know what i am but but you know but i have for years been having this debate with atheists telling them that they have

a religion and particularly evangelical atheists you know they they have an epistemology they have a worldview they've got a story that they want to tell other people they want to convince other people thank god that you're you know or thank the gods or maybe the bunny rabbits or whatever that your comment out and saying here we are come to our church. i think there's a huge difference know the difference in religion and another belief is that this one requires no faith i'm out all you have faith that there is nothing out there let me finish the sentence please sir if jesus suddenly appeared next to me one you'd have a hard time telling us apart but number two i would instantly go oh deary me look at time now there was a goat after all so i think the argument that atheism is a religion is bogus however it is still it can still be something which is positive and something which is really celebrate sharee because if you think about it you're born from nothing you go from nothing you did nothing to deserve being alive but

then you won't and it really is a wonderful thing and so you know we certainly don't want critics just people in any way but we think we've got enough said right all of our own scripts i think we can agree on that sanderson johns thanks so much for being with us today it's an absolute pleasure to them good luck. after the break are you sick and tired of paying hundreds of dollars a month for some part cable and internet service that never seems to be working if so you want to tune in to tonight's daily take because i'll tell you how we can say enough is enough to poor service at sky high prices.

let me let me i want to know wouldn't let me ask you a question. here on this network is what we're having a debate we have our knives out. b.b.q. this friday just by staying there to get married at the rate we're being i don't want you to talk about the surveillance me. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought

you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. isn't talking about the same story doesn't make it news no softball interviews no puff pieces tough question. if you are going to. lie down for the day the radio guy and the minute they click. to go good you never see anything like that i'm telling.

welcome back a new study out of the new york police department's surveillance of muslims suggests that that program has done grave damage to that city's muslim community the n.y.p.d. launched its surveillance program in two thousand and one following the september eleventh terrorist attacks program monitors muslims in new york city and beyond study of fifty seven american muslims in new york city found that the n.y.p.d. surveillance program was commonly perceived as suppressing religious freedom chilling freedom of speech creating strife within communities and harming trust of law enforcement officials so just how much damage has the n.y.p.d. done to new york city's muslim community and are similar surveillance programs being used across the country joining me now is a good dear of staff attorney with care and the council on. american urban as

lawmakers relations thank you. tell me about the how it first of all how invasive was my pretties surveillance program as invasive as it gets the new york city police department set up a program to spy on all muslims throughout new york city and up and down the east coast they even went so far as to go on a camping trip of a muslim college students and that was the type of thing that the n.y.p.d. chose to do with taxpayer money and this was all. what's the word in secret nobody in other words people didn't realize who the informants were and they weren't yes for years american muslims in new york city and beyond have suspected that law enforcement has been watching all along and what the revelations regarding the intelligence unit and my p.d. reveal is that they were in fact the right that and y.p. was watching them go to mosques watching them. restaurants watching them go to

muslim bookstores watching the innocuous activities that comprise the communities life and not just watching them with binoculars the. we're actually infiltrated absolutely and the new york police department created a substantial network of informants where. well i'm just wondering what what does it do to a community to discover. you know you thought all these people are your friends your neighbors your relatives people who share faith with and suddenly you discover that some of them you can't trust and you're not even sure who they are what does that do to a community it warps a community's ability to develop itself so for instance when a muslim is attending a mosque it's no longer just an act of worship it's a calculation as to whether this specific religious practice is going to engender the suspicion of law enforcement and particularly to american muslim youth the muslim student associations that have been in america for

a half century being the predominant vehicle for developing muslim activism. american muslim students are now afraid to even engage in the activities of these student groups in campus that are very important we're hearing of and the all daft uniquely report shows that american muslim teenagers are hearing from their parents to be careful not to engage to fully in a related activities and that not only is a tragedy for those american muslims but it's also not making anybody any safer the n.y.p.d. had of their muslim intelligence division has testified under oath that all of this nonsense all of this waste has not generated a single criminal lead and not only that it's made a commits it's shattered a community which. is just a terrible thing has this program been shut down it has not so the community is

still of it absolutely so the n.y.p.d. has taken the position that what it's doing. his legal magic has filed a lawsuit in new jersey challenging the constitutionality of the n.y.p.d. spy program on the grounds that it treats unequally muslims from other groups and unfortunately this is why people are doing is doing here is similar to what the n.y.p.d. did in the sixty's to anti-war groups and student groups what they did yeah i was there we were i was in s.t.s. we were in full gear thank you so thank you so much for sure good luck with. appreciate it appreciate. it just. the.

it is the good the bad in the very very in a hollow boat taishan only glued together the good to resit house democrats libertarians aren't the only ones worried about drones on monday eight democrats including keith ellison barbara lee and raul grijalva sent a letter to obama expressing concern with the constitutionality of his administration's remote assassination program group identified the program's unlimited geographic scope broad definition of the phrase imminent threat and use of secretive kill lists as particularly troubling anyone who calls themselves a progressive should absolutely worry about expansive executive power and extrajudicial killings the left needs politicians like representatives ellison and lee to push the mainstream of the democratic party to promote our core values and not just the policies of the president this letter is a good start the bad mike rough for north carolina five guys franchise owner mike

ross for went full bob and john announced he will pass the cost of his employee health care plan to consumers in the form of higher burger prices under regulations created by the two thousand and ten health care bill owners of a small business of fifty or more employees must provide their workers with a health plan or face a fine rapper's decision isn't an economic one it's just cheap political theater helping workers get health care doesn't have to mean expensive burgers rough or doesn't care he just can't imagine taking a cut from his own paycheck to help out his employees obamacare is specifically designed so that those small employers who can't afford to provide insurance don't have to. being greedy and a very very. really former representative u.s. u.s. congressman joe walsh the ex illinois congressman joe walsh pulled a mitt romney on sunday when he told an audience attending one of his freedom movement rallies that. the american people have grown stupid democrats have made a concerted strategy for fifty some years to get blacks depend upon government but

blacks good decent african-americans on the government plantation they're doing the exact same thing with latino's this coming from the same guy who spent the last few months trying to skip out on his child support payments classy guy was just comments are racist and reprehensible and his hypocrisy is very very ugly. last week forbes came out with its annual list of the world's wealthiest people and once again carlos slim topped the list that worth estimated seventy three billion dollars so how did this guy get all that money he got it by controlling the majority of mexico's telecom industry with

a little help from crony politicians however looks like slim's bad vast wealth could soon be taking a hit yesterday the mexican government announced a sweeping new proposal to crack down on the telecom monopolies and the tycoons like carlos slim. the bill which is part of mexico's most ambitious economic reform package in a generation would establish a telecom industry regulator with a wide array of powers to curb companies control of markets opening more room for competition in the marketplace thanks to slim's mexican telecom monopoly competition in that marketplace has been pretty much killed driving up the prices for mexican consumers america most slims an american telecom provider controls nearly seventy percent of the cell phone market in mexico under the new proposal the regulating body of the telecom industry could classify any company with more

than fifty percent of the market share as dominant dominant companies would then be subject to a variety of sanctions including fines pricing regulations and even forced asset sales but why is this happening no why have lawmakers in mexico finally decided to chip away at carlos slim xampp are no simple it's because they've really they've realized that libertarian capitalism left unchecked inevitably leads to monopoly slim's telkom takeover was left unchecked that he and ended up gaining a virtual monopoly in the industry at the expense of the mexican people unfortunately here in the us we've allowed our telecom industry to turn into a virtual do operate with a t. and t. and verizon having largely a stranglehold on the market as a result americans are being squeezed dry when it comes to their cell phone plans with a t n t a cell phone plan with unlimited minutes unlimited texts and five gigs of data costs about one hundred forty dollars a month on verizon a similar plan would be around one hundred thirty dollars

a month meanwhile across the pond in europe lawmakers in citizens caught on to the monopolistic tendencies of the telecom industry and it forced the european version of the sherman antitrust act as a result there's plenty of competition in the cellular market in europe which means lower costs for the consumers in the u.k. . for example plane comparable to a t n t's variety and verizon's plans that cost well over one hundred dollars is just under seventy dollars a month on an orange one of europe's larger cell phone carriers and even if you were to increase the amount of data on your plan with orange you would still be paying less than an a.t.m. tier of arises and on continental europe the costs are even lower in france for example the average citizen pays about thirty three dollars per month for what the new york times described as internet service twice as fast as what you get on a variety of comcast bundled with digital high definition television unlimited long distance international calling to seventy countries and wireless internet connectivity to your laptop or smartphone throughout most of the country. so europe

caught out a monopolies in the telecom industry and did something about it and now mexico is trying to do the same thing to help ensure more competition in the marketplace and lower prices for consumers is it about time that we do the same thing i do know by you but i am sick and tired of paying hundreds of dollars for cellphone service when dozens of nations throughout the developed world are paying far less than it was an effort spearheaded by richard nixon in congress passed the sherman to use the sherman act to break up eighteen teams bells as to in the seven different countries the baby bells in the realm of the bell labs this left the market open for new players to jump in and offer new prices you services and you prices eighty and he was broken up in the end it was good to all the investors will impact the value of a t.n.t. and its former subsidiaries tripled after the break unfortunately ronald reagan functionally stopped in force in the sherman act in one thousand nine hundred two

monopolies in oligopolies began to return with the m n a mania of the one nine hundred eighty s. and the baby bells that have been successfully broken up began merging together yet again forming bigger and bigger telecom companies if we were to give the telecom and internet oligopolies the same treatment today that richard nixon and jimmy carter gave eighteen t. in the one nine hundred seventy s. then maybe we americans could enjoy the same super fast internet speeds and the same super cheap rates the most of the rest of the developed world enjoys it's time to break up the telecom industry once again and this to make sure it sticks. and that's the way it is tonight tuesday march twelfth two thousand and thirteen don't forget democracy begins with you get out there get active occupy something today your it civil.

victims multiply here each day. it's very profitable to invest in colombia with that every profit out of them is a very high return on investment. you'll know me i said but i've been working in this area for thirty years and i've always had to pay the armed groups when they needed betis i knew the managers of change their name and strategy but just tell the same murderous. high ranking suspects give no comment pretty upset on that mr president soon. to president clinton. but the media. i won't give an interview i'm sorry but no.

investigation is a dead. end and says sick and stop your bullshit and keep quiet or else you'll suffer the consequences. even if they're your bodyguards to watch themselves because the same goes for them. blood rivers from gold since i've never heard of such a case as ours are so much money and gold has been stolen for so many years. for all the gold in colombia on our t.v. wealthy british style. that's not on. the. markets why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cons are for a no holds barred look at.