well hand of the stuff that i've got. i think. everybody told us. that you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy correct i'll fix. them you know i'm tom and i'm this show we reveal the picture of what's actually going on and we go beyond identifying. rational debate real discussion critical issues facing the camera ready to join the movement then welcome the big. time same sex in for tom hartman in washington d.c. here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. black friday is right around

the corner which means that wal-mart is getting ready to offer american consumers low prices on all their holiday needs but with those low prices come even lower wages and poor working conditions for wal-mart employees as wal-mart worn out its welcome in america. also lawmakers on capitol hill are preparing for yet another shot showdown excuse me this time over republicans blatant abuse of the filibuster are democrats finally willing to say you know it is enough and put an end to republican obstructionism. and there's only one surefire way to rebuild the middle class and to give power back to the people i will tell you about it tonight's daily tag. so let's start tonight in arizona arizona has this law it's called the legal

arizona workers act also known as the business the death penalty and it basically allows the state of arizona to or. the charter of any business that knowingly hires undocumented workers you can get caught once and keep doing business but the second time you get caught you're shut down and you're given the corporate death penalty the law was passed in two thousand and seven it was upheld by the supreme court in two thousand and eleven now whether or not you think this sort of law is the best way to address immigration that's not focus on that issue instead let's focus on this idea of corporations being shut down when they break the law or operate against the communities interest because fundamentally that's what this law is saying in the case of arizona lawmakers believe that if a company is hiring undocumented workers and it's doing harm to the overall community and should be terminated but really you can insert any harm you want any crime or any business practice if it runs counter to the health of the community then why should it continue operating corporate death penalty laws like these have

a long history at the local state and federal level thousands of corporations from banks still oil companies have been put down for things like labor abuses market manipulation and or services this is been a standard practice throughout american history it's an understanding between the businessman and the city or the state you have the privilege of using our roads our education system our security our people whatever you need to conduct your business but you won't do it in a way that injures us or that weakens the community by now you've all probably heard of this story out of a wal-mart in canton ohio those are bins asking for food donations for thanksgiving food donations not for homeless shelters but instead for workers workers at that very wal-mart store who are in need during thanksgiving way more than a thousand words have been spoken in this debate about whether or not wal-mart pays its workers enough but this picture of wal-mart management asking their employees

to pitch in food to help feed other employees is worth a whole lot. walmart spokesman doug curtis of criticism and said that it shows that employees care about each other and the food is for those who had hardships come up some employees even say it's been helpful but wal-mart can't hide from the reality a reality that this picture puts into focus wal-mart harms the community yes they have cheap cheap prices but that's it they say they create jobs but those jobs are subsidized by taxpayers since an average employee only makes about fifteen thousand dollars a year they have to rely on food stamps and public health insurance programs to make ends meet and on average wal-mart workers receive nearly two thousand bucks in assistance from taxpayers every year in total across governments two point six billion dollars to subsidize wal-mart's low wages annually and most states across the country the number one employer who is workers rely on state health insurance programs is wal-mart now if wal-mart was

a struggling business maybe this would be understandable it's not that it's owners are billionaires occupying spot sixty nine on the forbes four hundred richest americans list and in terms of revenue it makes more money than any other company in the entire world there's no excuse for the poverty wages but perhaps more injurious is what wal-mart does to once vibrant local businesses in each community think of it as an economic weapon of mass destruction research on a wal-mart opening in chicago from the economic development quarterly found that the closer stores were to the new wal-mart the more likely they were to close down eventually about four miles away from the store roughly twenty four percent of small businesses closed out of the close you get those numbers go up and in some cases they're as high as sixty percent closures or once independents show independent stores pharmacies groceries are now just to modernize into departments inside wal-mart paying workers poverty wages and relying on the rest of us and

occasionally their very own workers to make it work. so how is this not injurious to the community given what wal-mart does to local businesses and their own employees why should wal-mart keep its corporate charter why should wal-mart be spared the corporate death penalty. all right joining me for tonight's big picture politics panel are marc harrold libertarian commentator attorney and author ben cohen editor of the daily banter and founder of banter media group and he knew some member of the national advisory council and project twenty one black leadership network and member of move on up dot org thank you all for joining me here let's get started you heard my rant off the top about wal-mart deserving of the corporate death penalty. what good does wal-mart serve the community really well wal-mart employees a lot of people obviously were in a debate that when you're talking about putting other companies out of business you

may be talking about the surrounding area with their competitors and i understand that and i miss the small mom and pop shops too but they don't put everybody on everything no i don't agree with you at all the market bears this out marketplace the people who decide to go there it provides goods and services you know you're talking about the fact that the sixth or ninth are very rich on the scale of the owners of wal-mart of course they are it's the largest employer it sells the most goods but you know they get the corporate death penalty they haven't broken any laws as far as i can tell i think obviously to let the government come in and pick winners and losers would be even more of a problem but you know this is a big issue with wal-mart it's been attacked from each side but no i don't agree with you that they should get the corporate you know death penalty or whatever it is the company is operating in they can't pay their workers enough to make a living they have to hit up other workers to fill those gaps so what are we really talking i mean this kind of we need more context are we talking about somebody who works part time at wal-mart part time somewhere else and needs some extra food donations are we talking about some of you who are more an employer you make fifteen thousand dollars

a year you can't live on fifteen thousand no you can't live on fifteen thousand but you're lumping the employees in i mean i really don't know the numbers i don't know if you're talking about somebody who works part time on time with a range of how many jobs do you have to have to stay alive in america i mean this is the problem is the problem as you say that they're not breaking any laws that's appropriate if they're not breaking any of those and then not paying their employees enough to eat that's a huge drop you're talking about a standard of living that doesn't have to do with their systems of eating but obviously somebody working part time at wal-mart is not going to make a great deal of money because of what they bring to the marketplace it's it's just not that type of job i mean let me ask you this what would you pay what would you expect somebody working the cashier as a general question as a cashier at wal-mart what would your solution wage if they work it would go to that you would have very much if you can wage how much is that way depends on the state you're in ok let me just generally to state like pennsylvania and i know this is this is not i mean this is something that's been worked out as you can. well know what living wages would be in those individuals are going to want to government to answer these questions and jump in and play referee yeah that's the problem i know i've accepted it because we've tried it we've let corporations try

in. here in their family and we have to huge poverty underclass here here with this is a rhotic that the story is happening this week there was a report that there the largest increase the job increases that we're seeing in the two hundred thousand jobs that we saw added in the month of october most of those were higher wage jobs so what does that telling me that's telling me that skills and experience are leading the way as far as economic recoveries concern so why is it that we're not focusing on making sure that these workers have the skills and the capabilities to demand more as opposed to forcing that down. the market but that's not the way the economy works the economy thrive as the economy thrive is afoot. and these guys can't unionize these guys call it they call negotiate but wages they are beholden to corporations who can decide what they don't want but wait a minute this this is troubling because i'm not part of a union but yet able to negotiate a better wage while because i bring

a certain markets. if you can't afford to go to the university so if you say if you don't have a whole lot of the loans you have that is going to let you know what is a this is a this is an issue that this is the reality here is that these people there are there are tons of people who have to work in the service sector and have to take these jobs we need to pay them enough so that they can be productive members of the economy but sticking on this topic there's this ruffle going on in washington they're trying to keep boeing plant there to to build the new seven seventy seven x. or whatever and they're offering boeing the biggest tax cut in the history of states like seven point eight billion dollars tax cut eight point seven billion dollars tax cut really they have to do those because they're competing with right to work states down in the south so this is all about creating a business friendly environment right why is it the only way to create business friendly environments is to screw over workers by not letting the mean eyes of paper over wages or bankrupt or stay. and bankrupt education dollars by luring corporations in with these giant tax cuts why are corporations understanding that to do business is

a privilege this is this is easy i mean first of all this all goes to show that we need a flat tax with fair corporate taxes at the state level and that at a lower people pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than you can have if you could have fair tax but we definitely to make sure at the core you know at the individual level and corporations we all need to make sure we put in some skin in the game because if that isn't the case i mean even mayor bloomberg who is not you know this is your bizarrely saying that to fix this we need to have working with people they hire to a fair tax there's no way a simplified tax system in this country when does it when do we have the right to say to corporations ok if you're going to be an american heart american work is right that you have to pay it if you number one number two you have to pay your fair share of taxes and that you can't ship you can outsource to other countries and destroy america that is also into. boeing is the source and some of the country by this i think this whole game of outsourcing right which is like given the economic system or the economic structure in this is it's

a race to the bottom where everybody's outsourcing constantly and creating this huge mass of people who have no skills who can't get jobs because this. is not nothing for them to do anymore right now it's you know you get wages and mark i want to own this this quick issue here wal-mart is extremely profitable boeing is extremely profitable at what point does that profit profitability compelled them to pay their workers more or does it doesn't ever do they just keep collecting more and more profits screw their workers improve their product are going to have to bring in specialized skill people and remember you're not you're talking boeing and wal-mart may be kind of apples and oranges as who works at boeing and the type of pay they get in wal-mart but also there are many people in wal-mart making more money you're painting the broad brush of everyone at wal-mart makes the list but you also talk about the lower skilled job at wal-mart so again i think this is really out of context at this. but the lowest skilled job is now a permanent job unfortunately in this economy but we're out of we're out of time for this topic will be more tonight's big picture politics panel after the break.

i've got a quote for you. that's pretty tough. stay with substory. let's get this guy like you would smear that guy in stead of working for the people most issues in the mainstream media were pretty much on the bridegroom stage and. they did rather. it was a. very hard to take. once again to come on here. live happy ever had sex with me here the place that i want.

to. see. if . the people.

and welcome back to some nights big picture politics panel with me are marc harrold ben cohen he knew some let's get back to it let's talk about executive power ever since the president announced his fix to obamacare republicans are going nuts because they think that the president overstepped his authority by not working with congress here's a quote from trade frank she told the hill we're exploring options to try to somehow try to rein in this president's total disregard for the constitution. so this this is really funny to me considering i went eight years of bush in probably the most expanded executive power we've ever seen in terms of war and torture and all this stuff then we have the obama administration which we've seen spying in the strong warfare not so much from mainstream republicans about abuse of executive

power to rescind it from libertarian republicans but he does something about obamacare and now everybody starts freaking out here should we be more concerned about the war powers that have been expanded and why are we focusing on that mark i agree with you but we should be concerned about it all look the war powers act in the way that's been just totally disregarded the ninety day rules fact that we've been at war for decades with no declaration but specific to the you know to the obamacare yes we should be worried i mean the legislature as especially the lower house as representative of the people should be outraged you know you pass a bill whatever you think of the bill i think all americans should be worried about this idea i see. this is sort of a press conference that turns into an after the fact line item veto where you kind of just pass it nobody reads it you pass it both parties want to delay it and then the website don't work and all the sudden the president well you have been forcing the law that's been passed and then really comes down to the executive branch doesn't enforce the law well in force the law as it's written it doesn't forcing the law is slightly different than just making some some quick fixes that aren't

actually entitled i leave the constitution when he made that decision that is not going to lay off on deporting dreamers do i think he violated the constitution i think that's an abuse of executive power because i mean that's sort of what's going on where you have this law and he's in you have some wiggle room within the executive how to manage that well and i wasn't totally in favor of what he did with i think that what if you talk to the mountain but that has to do with prioritization of the monies he's been taking for congress and how much you can do this to me as a district the pace of the law. i'm not going to i don't want to talk about you know whether or not it was right or wrong but how he did it there's no question that it violates the constitution and. you know prosecutorial discretion i think is the actual term that's used that you're that you're talking about but here here's a major problem we have the legislative process is almost an afterthought in this country and so obamacare or the affordable care act as i should call it. exemplifies that to the nth degree because you have

a bill that was passed like mark said nobody bothered to read it but on top of that you have these band day that are being put on it last minute haphazardly so now it makes the law even less even less efficient than originally intended because people aren't thinking of going to court was supposed to go to congress so he was supposed to go to. law and then you know process in the market place of congress in pretty much the history of the united states he's going to he's going to go to them to help fix the website they say well these guys will this is an over example of how ridiculous the republican party has become. when they're picking on a topic they mention about you know there's no i meant there's no talk about the charges no to say but they pick up they pick on him for. the website that you're going after picking on him for not letting people keep their insurance plans he comes out and says ok we'll make this strangely do that then you scream that this is an abuse of how can anyone take the republican party seriously when they do this is clearly

a political guy i'm now this and i'm going to let it. go i don't want to fit i don't want to fin republicans out i don't think their methodology since october first of been you know they have been very sound but i'm very concerned about this whole idea of unintended consequences this is very haphazard there's no process there's no going to committee having discussions happening experts on. the haphazard last week. the congress which is dominated by the tea party where the tea party controls the republican party they cannot be negotiated they cannot be brought to the table to discuss things rationally because they irrational because economic terrorists try to rip you know they've tried to repay you. it. seems all this way by economic terrorism if they were at least authentic and genuine when it comes to these issues surveillance and drones then maybe they would have some water here when they're talking over and over again let's move on there's a new report from the american friends services committee prisons in arizona as

private prison prisoners in the arizona private prison complex are routinely denied medical care. they don't get mental health protections they're often told to just pray. look we've private prisons a lot. around here because there's something wrong with putting a profit motive when it comes to incarcerating people it leads to more stricter laws to throw more people in jail so that more profits get raked in and of course if you're providing the prisoners with medical care that's cutting into your profits which is the fundamental problem here isn't it here. i think that there is a fundamental expectation that if we're going to have a prison system you have to provide medical care to prison inmates and doesn't that make that more difficult there when you would touch a profit motive i mean there's a moral hazard there's no question and you know so let's get rid of private prisons i don't know about that what's the best way. to have it we have with you talking

about absolutely i don't think that you necessarily have the government completely take it over maybe there needs to be a different methodology of all present we have known profits. interest so here we are we can't fix the website and you we've just discussed have design was a private company that's built a website that's exactly what's going on here we have what governments do duties they're outsourcing to private companies they're mismanaging there's duties that's exactly what's happening with obamacare near private companies are managed by kathleen sebelius and other people that have never run a business but but that's what i'm always because i mean it's like ok maybe we're picking our poison here but i'm always concerned about ok to have the government take over something this completely dysfunctional so go ahead and federalize it or it's already been federalized or mark private prisons are bad ok i'm i'm for privatizing almost everything and i agree i will i will i will get absolutely you know everyone will say that's not very libertarian private prisons are bad both my law enforcement background and my my current job as an immigration attorney with

many clients who deal with these private prisons small government aspect of this is not putting so many people in prison not having to mean a loss once you take custody of someone and responsibility of them the profit margin marginalizes these people and i say put fewer poor people in prison but the people you put in prison you decide they can't be on the street and you have a law that criminalizes that you have to take responsibility i don't believe that should be out so do you believe it's the state's responsibility to do what i believe is the scope i mean no i don't believe that we should federalize all of it i mean the state has state prisoners federal government is federal prisoners it has to come back to what law they violated but again when you have so many laws you put so many people in prison and we've seen. alec we've seen three strikes laws we've seen truth in sentencing and these are all profit motives when you make a commodity out of a bed in the prison there is a profit motive to put people in that prison so that you believe in nationalized health care to you right now i don't believe in nationalized health care but not in a way but that's like saying i believe in nationalized health care because i think people the military defeat it would go to hell share take a leave give it up here to my visitors but not giving health care to their citizens know that the prisoners and the soul the soldiers employ the prisoners can't get

outside health care ok obviously we need fewer people in prisons that was actually pretty good that ok all right you got all of that a pretty good point let me move out of the office row in before we move to the next topic i. have they're tired of wealth inequality the swiss are tired of the rich getting richer the poor getting poorer so they want to do something about it they're going to vote on a measure that will limit the top executive pay to twelve to one ratio of their workers so the c.e.o. makes as much as twelve times to their worker and that's it you know here in the united states it's four hundred five hundred depending on one sector a thousand times more than their average worker when something like this be good in the united states which is one of the most unequal nations in the developed world and really what good is it for it to have these billionaires walking around who really aren't contributing much to economic activity in america me terrible idea obviously this is the puppet master this would be the government saying twelve no thirteen no fourteen this is a horrible idea now no free market no apple isn't is

a problem that's not a free market but i would say no you shouldn't have some artificial if people are going it's the people would be deciding it's not scary and stick with the government it's the people voting for so you can't say that anything that people would vote for is either a good idea or constitutionally you can imagine the history of this country some of the things that people voted for i mean no i would absolutely disagree about it but it's to do with a regular i both in a court of say i mean do you not think that america can you get some you're picking winners and losers arbitrarily what where do we get twelve we were close we talk about you doing something but i'm going by the us gov and i think i'm against that too i mean by place types of subsidies. if you want it what is your guys putting on the table to do about wealth inequality without the good if the government can't play any role in lessening wealth inequality than are we supposed to do if the government is doing its job and we're not educating our children the generation they're told that generations are almost certain to drive what doesn't or it could just live once they want to talk to you cation and turn that into one of the profit motive in education as well so i mean then that becomes

a gigantic meet on the system as well where you've got the rich can afford a rolls royce education and he's going to probably crumble opportunity is important but doing this at the back end that's equal outcome and that's left you talk about a slippery slope all the sudden you say what happens is the guy get capped is that the can't get paid or he has to give it all taxes and one hundred percent actually going to pay as orderly as you heard so now you're going to. want to get into this once you break that seal of getting into this but you have so many out of it whining that you don't have that many wants us out of our you know where are you going to where you have twelve to one hundred years in the business owner to the rich because next week will change it to six to one and then it'll be two to one and then you'll then you'll have just outcome a common we've been north korea right this is a bit of a slippery slope you going to exactly just because that's the problem ben it's a slippery slope i've had with you what you say about minimum wage as well as i once thought monday and wait that it's going to get harder and harder now and they're going to have a house baby version of inflation is i mean it hasn't risen with inflation because

people don't quite get it anyway and you know you kind of live on the minimum wage in america and we could let each country choose what it wants to be but right now in america it's four hundred five hundred thousand to one which is obviously not good because when you have the very top wealthy elite class year they can't spend nearly as much money as a poor working class year that depends on the economy depends on the spend money but i again i'm not for the crony capitalism that crony capitalism is not free it's not part of the free market but where did you get this idea that the billionaires don't bring anything do you think the company the board of directors hires people that don't bring a lot to the company i mean or so they have skin in the game and their share of saying is a billionaire. doesn't purchase a billion pairs of pants he doesn't go out to dinner a billion times they pretty much spend the same amount on deeds as working people he knew it was a nightmare well what you don't you're not looking at the money put into investments that didn't get put into the law no warning they were risking many many days risk thing that you're right during that reset during the recession off to the question two thousand and eight but. has held on to several trillion dollars worth

of cash which they didn't spend but a frightening amount of money that could have gone back into the economy to do it they being with them if you know your capital gang was a what and they would it's a little bit me unstable time this is kind of a business sense through times you don't start taking risks right up to what they did is they wait until the government anyway and then with the types of silliness regulations you're talking about people will not want to take risk because it's less predictable and their risk is my reward it doesn't seem to have that's because of lack of immigration or if only you guys defended the billion working people of wal-mart with this bunch of vigor at the pentagon believe me i believe that they i totally believe there should be the opportunity just not equal outcome determined by the government we've got here marc harrold ben cohen here in tucson thank you all for just your thanks sam coming up as world powers meet in geneva to discuss iran's nuclear program capitol hill is gearing up for a nuclear showdown of its own all things reach full meltdown the answer right after the break.

i would rather as questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here. on our t.v. question. i know c.n.n. and the m.s.m. b c news have taken some not slightly but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate.

that was funny but it's close enough for the truth and might think. it's because when full attention and the mainstream media works side by side the joke is actually on you. and our teenagers we have a different approach. because the news of the world just is not this funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not sure. if. you guys stick to the jokes we'll handle to make us happy. this is my eagle like whenever i'm feeling a lowered one of the polish i still can't believe it i still pinch was. my first and says it is for the tri be good for. the fortune maybe the hope of the.

million maybe i'm very proud of the level of soul that means wars and blood touching me and getting people ready for. i feel i love them more. i think. everybody else did you know the price is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy schreck i'll focus. on. them again i'm tom on and on this show we reveal the picture of what's actually going on we go beyond identifying the truth rational debate real discussion critical issues facing america by the ready to join the movement then walk with the big picture.