well hand out of necessity i've got to. think suspect. they would like to do is show that you know the press is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy shrek. going. to go on i'm sorry and on this show we reveal the picture of what's actually going on and we go beyond identifying the truth rational debate a real discussion critical issues facing america ready to join the movement then welcome the. longtime are by washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. republicans like to portray

themselves as the party of morality so why are some of the g.o.p. trying to help out tax evaders by capitalist money also a group of oakland raiders cheerleaders is suing the team over wage theft violations that claim of that organization owes them thousands of dollars in the back table practices workouts it's been a turning point for labor in sports and believe it or not a rand paul presidential run might be a great thing for the democratic party i'll tell you why do. you need to know this conservatives have a pretty bizarre understanding of morality they're fine with the super rich cheating the government out of tax revenue but they freak out about the idea of unwed mothers getting welfare benefits are excuses bill o'reilly for example recently told

a guest on the show the food stamp dependency is pushing our country down cly. and is encouraging parasites to come out and you know take as much as they can with no remorse and this is how a country declines this is how we think of the coming week nation. attacks like that on food stamps or other government programs shouldn't be surprising for decades conservatives are portrayed themselves as the defenders of their particular type of morality is they put it they're part of the republican party is that all a party is stands up for those good old american values or hard work and personal responsibility at the same time is that created this image of themselves as the last fortress of the old american work ethic republicans have also wrapped themselves in the mantle of what they call traditional family values wonderful family values like forcing women to keep their rapists child or preventing people from getting tax benefits because they're gay they're conservative morality mean is actually extremely effective at making people feel like they're part of something

bigger part of what nixon used to call the moral majority problem however is that it doesn't really face up to much scrutiny the same people who rant on and on about protecting the unborn are also the same people trying to cut billions of dollars from food stamps a program that directly benefits children but hypocrisy is just part of the story by going on and on about what it calls traditional values the republican party has formed a virtual monopoly on the whole idea of morality and politics as a result the mainstream media all always calls issues that conservatives care about issues like banning abortion or banning gay marriage moral issues and cause issues the progressives and liberals care about issues like giving everyone health care extending unemployment benefits progressive issues or even worse economic issues and you liberals get caught up in this trap themselves because conservatives have been so successful at portraying themselves as a moral party some progressives try to avoid talking about morality and politics

all the you know those progressive zone of sounding pretty clinical and dry because it's damn near impossible to talk about food stamps or universal health care frankly without talking about morality or at least it should be our i mean what could be more moral than helping struggling mothers put food on the table. in reality both conservatives and liberals see the world through the lens of morality they just have different understandings of what morality is and conservatives just happen to live in a moral universe where cutting unemployment benefits is a good thing and cutting down on tax evasion that is allowing more tax evasion. is also a good thing joining me reducing tax evasion excuse me is a bad thing join me now for more on this is my pap and tonio attorney and host a ring of fire radio. radio dot com pap welcome back. great you know i'm not joking pap the r. and c. is actually talking about making the helping out tax cheats

as part of the twenty fourteen platform are they serious about what's going on here well they are you talk about this is this is gray poupon billionaire morality this this issue you bring up i think tells the story in simplest terms what the republican law on this repeal of this law does is it prevents the i.r.s. and the department of justice from being able to trace tax evasion money back to criminal corporations very specific you can't trace the money right now there's a possibility of doing it they want that to disappear secondly it helps corporations hide their money in secret places offshore banks exactly like drug cartels do exactly like terrorist organizations do it's a way to hide their money then the republicans want that mostly criminal money to be brought back into the united states with no questions asked tom this is the what this new this new republican in let me point out this isn't just run of the mill republican this is coming from the very top they want no questions asked when

a criminal corporation brings the money back into the country and they want no tax liability at all taxpayers this is what it does the taxpayers taxpayers lose three hundred billion dollars every year in all. offshore revenues if the republicans succeed here they also agree this is part of the this is part of what the republicans want to accomplish they agree to allow criminal corporations get out of jail for laundering billions of money billions of dollars and money the republican mobsters that are passing this legislative effort are actually the very highest leadership in the republican party that's the gray poupon billionaire morality that we're talking about here this is bizarre pap is this is this actually a piece of legislation that's being promoted or is it a concept of the. well as that's very very good question i mean that's a loaded question it is in the sense of contract and then you know what the

contract is the contract is that if this passes then you're going to have billionaire international corporations paying the republicans off with secret pac money this tax cheat bonanza is what this is this is a law is going to allow drug kingpins it's going to allow terrorist organizations to slip now here's what really gets interesting we're not even going to know who it is that slipping money to the to the republicans through these through these pacs because we can't trace the money now it's very clear who is behind this what this is a loyalty oath tom it's the republicans saying we are loyal to you criminal corporations and just to show you how loyal we are we're going to make it to where the department of justice can't trace your money and we're going to make it to where you can take your illegal money back in the united states without paying any taxes we're going to do that for you and all we ask is that you use our super pacs are five zero ones these super pacs these scam super pacs give us your money it's not

going to be traceable it can come from criminal corporations it can come from drug cartels it can come from terrorist organizations if that's what you want you tell us what you want and we're going to let this this law go good is sound. this there it's almost sounds like fantasy it's so crazy it sounds like i'm sitting here making it up it's taking place right now as we speak and it's coming from the very very top of the republican party so this is an actual specific piece of legislation that that is being introduced into the house in the sun hunger is this it absolutely is right now there what's been happening is the government has been negotiating with foreign banks they've been negotiating with switzerland they begin been negotiating with offshore banks to say to those banks we want to know who the criminals are ok right now there was a whistleblower for u.b.s. although the whistleblower itself actually ended up going to jail but. that's exactly it so these corporations

a wee while we were going to tell you that now the republicans say oh no no no we don't want to know who the criminals are because the criminals are the people that are giving us this money so what's happen some cat by the name of you is a republican fat cat has as has passed is trying to pass legislation to repeal the law that would allow the department of justice to trace the criminal money and then tax the criminal money and actually put criminals in jail when they engage in offshore banking and then bring the but then bring the money back in the united states this sounds remarkable it sounds almost crazy to even hear these facts but i promise you this is what's happening right now as we speak and the republicans are on apologetic about it and now they're saying well we don't know if we're really going to do this yet they really are wanting to do this they've actually written the piece of legislation to make this happen amazing next week is the thirty eighth anniversary of the buckley vs fellatio decision which was the first time the

supreme court really kind of came out and said explicitly the money is protected by the first amendment and we're going to interpret money as speech and therefore it's protective of our spending and then this is a course was was. further cemented into our law by the citizens united the fourth anniversary of that was yesterday. maybe the day before and. you know what this is of a cut you know which is even worse yeah i mean isn't this just like the logical consequence of you know this this the these royals this this judicial supremacy these you know the five out of the nine right wingers on the supreme court turning america into a plutocracy tom they did two things they did there were two there were two angles that they wanted to do first of all you're not citizens united made a limitless money come into the system mccutcheon which is a case they're getting ready to size going to let more money come in is the right

but then the second thing they did is they said you know what we're also going to allow you to hide who they are the money comes from so in this situation the republicans can make whatever kind of satanic deal they want with the bad guys and they can say you know drug cartels you give us money nobody's ever going to trace the money and i know it sounds remarkably it sounds almost like crazy talk for me to say that but the truth is it's set up to where this new banking scam that the republicans have in place this offshore banking scam is actually arrives is to that very level and we will never know what the payoff is for these republican fat cats that are trying to push this through this is their caliber of morality to follow up on what you said this is their grey poupon billionaire morality this is what they think is right for the united states and we lose three hundred billion dollars in addition to that every year with this scam this is better than food stamps in their mind it's you know and it's mind boggling didn't it didn't school also we just have

a half a minute pap in school they also say. i think very disingenuously or maybe was john roberts in that in the in the in that citizens united decision that congress can also pass laws requiring transparency if they choose to. yeah they did well that came from kennedy actually what but at that point the point being that he knew was ridiculous he knew exactly what was going to happen this is been a long range plan for the republicans and right now they're winning and i don't know how to turn it around to be perfectly frank with you short of a constitutional amendment in most it should be the most important thing we have on our plates going into this these next few years it will destroy democracy it's already happening when you get to the point where you can make a devil's bargain with drug cartels to fund your to fund your campaign that things have gotten really bad like happened tony and thanks so much pat great to see you thank you joan coming up the c.e.o. of a major health insurance company has hinted that his company may i repeat may pull

out of obamacare concert is of course a raise the entire program is about to collapse but is there do really just another attempt to sabotage health care reform the answer right after the break. i got a quote for you. that's pretty tough. stay where it's not a story. it's just this guy like you would smear that guy stead of working for the people on the beach were pretty chummy bridegrooms days you know. they did rather well. it was. very hard to take on. a

life that had sat with me here. plenty plenty. plenty plenty. plenty. of.

in the best of the rest of the news on wednesday mark. c.e.o. caused a stir when he told c.n.n. he see that his company may have to pull out of obamacare is insurance exchanges if not enough people signed up for health care under the new law. to lose money on it that we stay in the program if we have to reach our big question is may fifteenth richest met rates for two thousand and fifty right so we'll go there in a rabbit legit and really get beat up for the because they're double digit or are we going to have to just pull out of the program in those questions can't be answered till we see the population we have today and we really don't have a good one at the dam bertalan his announcement as conservatives up in arms they

say that his totally hypothetical response to a reporter's totally hypothetical question if you lose money with it is a sign that obamacare is doomed so what should we make of burley's comments and what should we expect from obamacare going for joining me for norah more on this is a wendell potter former health insurance executive and author of the new book obamacare what's in it for me what everyone needs to know about the affordable care act wendell welcome back thanks thanks a lot that was not wendell just a moment. you get to see. what you actually used to be a senior executive at work i was that signal when the mark was a signal that the time that i was there for a time slow morning oh interesting so what do you think was. actually expressing concern or was this was the answer hypothetical with a hypothetical he was answering a question as mark would as an executive who answers to wall street it's all about

the money and they'll be looking to see how profitable this business is and that's where they always look at this is the way they look at their their medicare business if they're not profitable and one market they'll pull out of that. market and it's all about the benjamins that's exactly what it's all about so predictably republicans of latched on to his comment as a sign that medicare is or that obamacare is doomed is a doomed no it's not doomed it's not doom these just making a comment about it is just saying he doesn't know what his membership is going to look like you can't you didn't have a crystal ball he doesn't know what it's will look like in the day because people are still signing up and open enrollment will continue until march thirty first that's a long time for this is really romney care i mean can we extrapolate from the experiences in massachusetts with romney care about you know that that you know within a year or so maybe even by may when he has to submit is numbers that he's going to have a better sense he'll have a better sense and these companies keep in mind that they have all they've got all reserve actuaries and they they price their their policies based on what they think

the market will look like this is a brand new market though it is similar to romney care for sure in massachusetts but you've got you know all the all the states involved that have different demographics and so what it's a it's a gamble for them and the real people who'll be calling the shots are wall street financial analyst and their investor is if they like the profit margins ok they'll stay in it if not no big deal i don't care if it really if it stays in or not there are other other companies that would. come into the market and only that i had a fellow on my radio show a few weeks ago who's with a nonprofit progressive small business association that statewide in illinois and it's sort of like a progressive version of the chamber of commerce for the state and he said that they're about to the point where they have enough members and enough critical mass that they can actually legally qualified to be a health insurance provider and if and they're planning on doing this and if they

do operate a not for profit their costs are going to be ten twenty percent below the for profit providers and are going to get a run for their money this will be so isn't obamacare actually opening. up an opportunity for not for profit organizations absolutely is business yet and i'm excited about that and i've said that for some time i think it really opens up a big opportunity for for not for profit health plans and there are several of them out there they don't have to meet wall street's financial expectations every three months they don't have to pay executives as much as mark were leaving banks so they don't have to spend as much of a premium dollar on that kind of stuff they can spend it on people's health actually on health care health care today the. one of the things obamacare if my understanding is correct does not cover is dental care that's right this is really enough and i have two different to fail and others who have been through chemo in the last two years it's. and in both cases apparently it really whacked your teeth

and in both case and there's the the cancer message boards people are like you know why isn't this considered why isn't it why didn't the insurance companies pay for the out you know the side effects of the chemo when it's dental they do pay for it if you get a rational they'll pay for the dermatologist but if you know your teeth go they won't pay what's the deal and why was dental left out of this and where do we go with this well it's because the dentist have never really wanted to play with in the insurance market to start with we have about one hundred forty million people in this country don't have dental insurance far more than people who lack health insurance and it's mostly a cash market there's very little transparency in it working with and with a company in los angeles is trying to bring transparency to the market but on the other hand we don't have nearly enough dentist in places where they're needed so one of the things i'm working on is a try to see what we can do to expand the the workforce to have the equivalent of nurse practitioners and physician assistants and dentistry too to be able to treat

people who live in under-served areas so dental hygienists for example could do basic stuff without without having to have to be supervised by dennis could yes like it or supervised by. not necessarily having the dentist looking over your shoulder are they going to do about it remarkable do you think that obamacare will expand to cover dental care and i think ultimately i see i see obamacare as the end of the beginning of reform is what i've often called it it goes a certain distance but there's a lot more that we have to do in dental care and getting everybody in included in medical care doesn't get us universal coverage so we've got quite a distance you have yet to go from on has peter shumlin to actually ran for governor on the platform of single payer in vermont has passed it they're now putting together the infrastructure because in two thousand and sixteen it'll be possible obamacare opens up possibility do you see that as the next big step it seems to me like we're we're we're heading down a canadian kind of road i think it's a distinct possibility has been a lot of time in vermont that one there next month or so you and i remember your

house that. and it's it's pretty exciting what they're doing there the insurance companies don't want that to happen so the rest assure they're going to be pouring a lot of money into vermont to try to get it off track really why it's really they don't want it to happen anywhere even in small vermont they know if it's all the what would happen is a schedule that's exactly the point that it didn't start or not it would in in canada it started in a small road only small province and the population wise way i think probably the smallest thank you so much one would think it's always an honor and pleasure to have you with us thank you appreciate. it other news it's award season in hollywood and one of the movies grabbing people's attention and snatching up a lot of awards this year is a film called twelve years a slave the movie tells the story of solomon northup a husband and father of two who was kidnapped by white slave traders and sold to a plantation down south back in the one nine hundred century northrup was forced to work on the plantation for twelve years until

a generous white man came along and securities freedom that white man played by brad pitt is painted in the movie in a way as northrop's savior a white man being the savior is something that's fairly common and sleepy so. slavery narratives but is that historically accurate and is it time to take with the white savior roll out of slave narratives altogether joining me now for more on this is daniel jose older writer editor and contributor to salon dot com his most recent article is titled it's time to take the white savior out of slavery narratives danielle welcome. thank you it's a it's a pleasure to be here thanks for joining us so you know i'm i got two sides to this last night i actually finished reading twelve years a slave when you and i talked last week i had just gotten and i was starting it and you know not only did a white guy actually you know get him out by you know communicating back to two is his friends in new york what was going on but the white guy actually wrote the letter in the movie i think it's it's is it's written that he wrote the letter and

self and and so actually there was a white guy who helped him out on the other hand you got movies like like the. it was james cameron's movie. with the blue eleven's avatar yeah where it is a classic example of a white savior kind of movie i think and that narrative you see so often repeated when there's actually no historical reason for it. i really opened this topic well if you could just riff on this a little bit i'd love to hear your thoughts. yeah i mean i think at the bottom line we're talking about a cliche it's a thing we see over and over like you said whether it's in science fiction whether it's an historical narrative it's not a question so much of this particular story of his life so much as which narratives do we decide to privilege when there are stories the talk about in the article david ruggles who was an amazin black abolitionist who was almost kidnapped and taken into slavery who took over a slave ship and had

a huge legal battle about slavery and freed slaves there's harriet tubman so there's all these examples hundreds of examples of amazing stories of black dating . without the help of a white savior my question is why do we keep falling back on this same trope over and over twelve years a slave is an amazing movie i don't want to take away from how powerful an excellent film that is. but i also want us to move forward away from that same old story of a white man saving the day do you think that it's possible that that was given particular emphasis in the movie or maybe i mean you know it's actually an important part of the story but that that makes it more acceptable to white audiences and that might be in the back of the mind of somebody who's thinking about you know i'm in the movie business but i'm also in the business of making money and getting a lot of people to see this in the white population and you know sure i mean in the black population. right you know i think that's possible this one of their

considerations i wonder then how true that really is i think that people in hollywood and people in the in the book industry feel that way that people won't read a story that features people of color being the savior but we haven't seen those so we don't actually know and when we do have stories about people of color as the protagonist they're never given the advertising money or thrust that that white stories are so the fact is we don't know and i would like to believe that you know that we would see something different if we tried it you'll see the right now with fox and a.b.c. with shows like scandal with sleepy hollow those shows are making money they have lots of people tuning in they're called runaway hits because since they're diverse shows which means they have that people in the main roles. you know they didn't expect them to do as well as they did but it turns out the you know folks of color watch t.v. yeah and and why public folks are not opposed to watching a black person is as the hero i mean i think scandal exact out of all the other

lessons there's a whole bunch of good action movies that prove that as well daniel jose older ranks thanks so much for bringing this out for cracking open this converse. and for being with us tonight a generator so much for having me good to see coming up our phone lines are now open for your take my take it live segment so if you want to chance to ask a question live on the big picture give us a call to a two twenty one thirty four it will be talking with you after the.

we welcome aaron eight and abby martin two of a terrific hosts on the r t network. it's going to give you a different perspective give me one stock tip i'll never i'll give you the information you make the decision to me about how breaking the set we're going to mine it's a revolution of ideas and consciousness and frustrated with the system the i'm extremely apologetic would be described as angry i think i'm a strong enough or single. dramas that can be ignored. to the. stories others through a few posts and noticing. the faces changing the world lights next. to picture of today's events. from around the globe.

look to. me. and. i would rather ask 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 r.t. question for.

us. welcome to your take my take a why phone lines are now open so if you want to share an opinion make a comment ask a question live on the air give us a call at two o two nine zero four twenty one thirty four if you're outside the us add up one country code for this country let's go to our first video comment of the night there always first from eric in lubbock texas. i thought i have an idea or a complex life requires exceptionally gifted hindu would go through intellect to draw up plans of positions of vision makers for us along we thought compass went off a candidate for the president at the end there is you know i think that devalue of his or her i.q. we did or did you know that we do often test must also be close to publicly as an aggregate index of a person's quality of the so obviously i.q. is not an absolute indicator of wanting to.