of them who said well this isn't about geopolitics this isn't about securing the e.u.'s energy this is all about business when it comes to the us i consider this comment from denier just it's quite ridiculous because we all know that american brought us are the best christmas man in the vault and like always learning from the west once we have learned from the americans that you always source from the cheapest source and always source from the most reliable source and liquid natural gas is neither cheap nor reliable that is why it's of course in determine interest to source mainly from russia what we're hearing from here at the gas conference in berlin is that no matter what pressures put on by the united states this is a deal that is going to get done it's a project that's going to get finished it may well end up upsetting some people along the way but billions of already been invested in it it is required for germany to meet its energy needs as it looks to move away from fossil fuels like

coal and also move away from nuclear power they're going to have to replace that with something and they saying here that they have to replace it with gas. in a dozen for me i'm shawn thomas this is art international be back with headlines in 29. she's a bestselling author and spiritual leader who's been embraced by oprah winfrey and now marianne williamson is running for president and joins me for a one on one conversation about issues activism and american evolution on this edition of paula. welcome to politicking on matthew cook in for larry king marianne williamson is

a bestselling author lecturer and friend and advisor to oprah winfrey who earlier this year announced her bid for the democratic nomination for the white house it was also announced recently that williamson is qualified for the debate stage where she will join a large number of other 2020 primary hopefuls she said that america is in need of a moral and spiritual awakening what does she mean by that and where does she stand on the political and cultural issues making today's headlines let's find out as marianne williamson joins me from columbia south carolina marianne thanks so much for being here. thank you so much for having me so why are you running for president. i'm running for president because i believe that the united states has swerved it is swerved in such fundamental ways away from the core values of our democracy and of our deep human principles and we need at this point a serious and fundamental pattern disruption of the political and economic status

quo that has caused this to happen now i don't believe that we will be able to defeat donald trump just with someone who is fierce enough or tough enough to defeat him i think anybody who thinks that it's that simple is very naive about the nature of this opponent i think the only way you can defeat a big law is with some big truth and too much of our political establishment does a lot of have truth telling i've worked with people for 35 years very up close and personal on transforming their lives and in order to transform your life you have to really get down and have a very serious honest woodenly honest conversation with oneself and this country has to have a brutally honest conversation with ourselves a person has to take a fearless moral inventory a person has to admit the exact nature of our character defects if we're seriously wanting to transform and we have to be willing to commit to change now all that individual is is a group of excuse me all that a country is is

a group of individuals so those same psychological and moral and emotional forces that prevail within the journey of an individual prevail within the journey of a nation i've had a 35 year career navigating that level of transformation and i believe that in the 21st century that's what we need a president to do i think it's really interesting that you talked about america's mission statement and this is something that we talk about on this program a lot is the consolidation of industry which of course kills competition and it kills the ability of the average american to get a decent job or to create and dry hump and he or be an entrepreneur where do you stand on facebook for example the. just means of the plan to communicate one of its co-founders just asked for facebook to be broken up and yet there is this this trend now for the last 40 years where americans feel like it's un-american somehow or they're being convinced to create competition quite the opposite isn't it is

exactly what you just said that kind of corporate consolidation actually kills the free market and so it's interesting there conservatives thought that way it actually kills competition how many young up and coming mark zuckerberg might there be if it weren't for the fact that mark zuckerberg is cut is sucking up all the all the oxygen same can be said of jeff bezos and so many other type of situations we have antitrust laws in this in this country for a reason today in too many cases we don't prosecute them and absolutely of course also they need to be updated so the free market not only can the free market cannot not exist unless there is healthy room for competition but also as adam smith the main articulator free market capitalism said it cannot exist outside an ethical context you know when i was growing up the social the social agreement was that the corporation was expected to have a moral and an ethical responsibility for

a greater or a of stakeholders than just the stockholders and it was only in in the 1980 s. where through do share a responsibility to the stockholders became the main marketing principle of the u.s. economy at the expense of the workers at the expense of the environment at the expense of the community you've called for reparations for african-americans and native americans can you tell us why and how does that look and how did those reparations be dispersed. i want to help america navigate a profoundly fabulous future but a nation like an individual cannot have the future that you might wish for if you're not willing to clean up the past and so when it comes to native americans and to american descendants of slaves these are issues that have been with us since our inception and which still need some apparent of work now i don't think that the america the average american is a racist that's not my experience and it is not my belief but i do think that the average american is woefully under-educated about the history of race in the united

states i think most americans perhaps of not really stop to think about the fact that 2 and a half centuries of slavery was followed by another 100 years of what would be described today as domestic terrorism lynchings that's domestic terror ku klux klan that's domestic terror segregation institutionalized white supremacy but even though 1st of all it took a 100 years from from the end of the whole war to the civil rights movement so 100 years before that the terror of this institutionalized white supremacy at the end of the civil war to even be fundamentally altered but the civil rights movement and civil rights act in $1064.00 that dismantled segregation and the voting rights act in the 1965 gave black people equal opportunity to vote but even that's been

chipped away at since 2013 and economic restitution in a collective meaningful way has simply not been made yet so germany has paid 89000000000 dollars to jewish organizations since the end of the holocaust now that doesn't mean the holocaust didn't happen but those reparations have gone so far toward establishing reconciliation between germany and the jews of germany and the rest of europe i also think a lot of americans probably don't. that ronald reagan in 1988 signed a bill called the american civil liberties act whereby all the surviving prisoners from the japanese internment camps during world war 2 were given between 20 and 22000 dollars so by the mid 20th century the idea of reparations when one group of people has wronged another group of people particularly in such a transgressive way the idea of economic restitution and reparations should not be

considered a wild or french or crazy idea let's talk about the economy overall it's always the number one issue for american voters you know always the extreme voices get the megaphone and get the air time but the majority of americans aren't so stream left or right most american voters are independents and so forth for every day americans across the spectrum what are you going to do about the economy and about jobs i think specifically i want to talk about this trend toward automation we're also dealing with a completely radically transforming workplace we had andrew young on the program and he talked about 29 states of our union the number one job is trucking or transportation and all of those millions of jobs are going to go away millions of the jobs oneself driving cars come on the scene and that's just one industry of many how do we how do we address under your presidency the ever changing

technological nature of the job market. i read andrew's book and i agree with him we do have an economics anomaly on our way in the form of automation and the economic consequences that this can bring and from reading his book and from reading other things i have been convinced we do need a universal basic income i think universal basic income can be combined with a minimum jobs guarantee which would come about through such things as a green new deal i think if we have a green new deal and with a federal jobs guarantee that will come along with that then we can do the math and know how much of it has to be that there are that guarantee jobs from that deal and how much will have to be augmented with the universal basic income i think also one of the 1st things we need to do is to repeal that 2017 tax cut that 2017 tax bill was 2 trillion dollars and 83 cents of every dollar was given to the very richest individuals and corporations i would put right back in the middle class tax cuts

and i would permanent ties them they were a good idea what we need is a radical departure in our ideas about where money comes from we now follow this aristocratic notion down economics where you give all your money to the very richest and then whatever crumbs fall from their table turns into jobs for the rest of us well i think after 40 years trickle down economics the jury is in on that it has created the greatest wealth inequality in almost 100 years it is desert summated america's middle class one percent of all americans own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent and 40 percent of all americans struggle on a daily basis to make basic food costs rent cost transportation and health care so we need to repeal that we need to stop with those ridiculous corporate loopholes why do we pay $26000000000.00 alone to the fossil fuel companies and corporate subsidies last year i believe in a massive infusion of economic hope and opportunity into the life of the average

american that's why. we need universal health care immediately and a medicare for all type of plan i think we should raise the minimum wage to 15 although i don't have a problem with some government augmentation of that in a compensatory manner while some communities struggle to catch up because in some communities that would be too much i want to see college free state universities and colleges freeze other people get a higher higher education without this being a terrible burden and the cancellation most if not all of these college loans we have millions of americans who live in such chronic economic anxiety and despair and this keeps people from being able to self actualize it keeps people from being able to soar and when people are able to live their dreams to actually unlace their spirits then that's where money comes from because that's when you can move you can you don't have to work at a job you hate but you're there because the benefits it's where you have the money

for the discretionary spending for your new website it's where you can start projects where you have the time and the space to be a better employee and a better employer not to mention the fact that you have the time and the energy in the space to be there for your spouse to be there for your family and to be there for your community that's where money comes from is when you unleash the spirit of the american people uncapped the doings of the american people money will flow outward and upward not downward from some aristocratic class we were puti aided that in 776 and we need to repudiate it again marianne williamson i am so happy that you were running for the president of the united states position. if donald trump can be president then marianne williamson can certainly be president thank you so much for your time today. thank you so much for having me after the break from bass player to free speech fighter simon tam who took on the u.s. supreme court for the right to use an ethnic slur as his band's moniker he joins us

next to talk about that landmark case in 2040 you know bloody revolution to the demonstrations going from being relatively peaceful political protests to be recently violent revolution is always spontaneous or is it you know lawyer here to put it but i mean you know liz book video it's really in the new bill is that i mean you believe it or the former ukrainian president recalls the events of 2014. of those who took part in this today over 5000000000 dollars to assist ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic. come back to politicking on matthew cook sitting in for larry king 2 years ago simon tam co-founder of the dance rock band the slants found himself in a supremes court battle for the right to trademark his band's name which many

including the u.s. government consider disparaging to asian americans and thereby off limits to tam he won that landmark 1st amendment case and continues his free speech activism as a self-proclaimed asian american troublemaker and he details his supreme court battle and the reasons behind his effort to embrace ethnic slurs in a recent memoir entitled slanted simon tam joins me now from nashville simon welcome hi thanks so much for having me thank you so much for being here so take us back to the beginning why did you want to name your band the slants well originally the idea of slant referred to our perspective of what it was like to be people of color here in the u.s. but at the same time i wanted this. one. it to reappropriate this kind of outdated stereotype that all asians have slanted eyes because growing up i was bullied i was violently attacked multiple times and i always associated these i and my face with

shame i knew that i wasn't alone because asian americans are the most most bullied demographic in america so i wanted others to kind of see this as a possibility for empowerment and change instead and so this is such an interesting story because it gets into the complexities of free speech and trademark law so were you expecting to get into a fight for the right to trademark your name what did you think what were you trying to accomplish when you were you trying to prevent other people from using the name slants well i don't think anyone could have imagined what was to come play from naming a band called the slant is just very common for bands to do to you know some provide commentary on social issues just by the very process and the names of our albums of our band names or songs so i was just falling right in line with this kind of long line of work that artists and activists were doing. it was just kind

of a huge shock to me when the government decided to separate in and say no you can't register this trademark and you know for us getting a trademark is something that's very common for bands to do like it's part of just being able to build a sustainable career major labels in licensing agencies oftentimes won't sign an artist unless they can guarantee protection over their own intellectual property rights their name included. so i was just doing a very kind of monday and thing it just was really extraordinary that the government decided to step in and put so much effort into trying to stop us from doing our work even though other parts of the government outside of the trademark office were asking us begging us often to. you work on their behalf in reaching out to the asian american community so why do you think the government was trying so hard to prevent you from being able to trademark your name. i think the government

was trying you know if we were giving them the benefit of that out there trying to avoid political controversy by having you know so-called racial slurs and checked it into the marketplace and into and to communities but i don't think they realized that in their paternalism in their effort to try and avoid using this kind of language they were actually silencing a marginalized community and so in their efforts to kind of protect us from these words they were actually robbing us of the dignity of actually being able to claim this identity for ourselves so that that that's a really kind way to extend the benefit of the doubt to the government when i read your book and went through the blow by blow case by case step by step process you and your attorney and attorneys went through in getting the government to pay attention to what was actually happening here and the irony of the basically a group of white people accused

a group of white men accusing you of being the self appointed representative of the asian community and the asian communities needs when they're doing the same thing themselves and they're blatantly ignoring all the evidence that you're bringing up they're even lying about stuff so what do you think was their reason for continuing to deny you your right to take this name and repurpose it for your own representation. i think it's just the nature of the system that when someone. as already made a decision particularly in the government they want to double down on that decision even if they're in the wrong so much so that even willing to not only use biased evidence but oftentimes false evidence and that's the you know i think was the greatest offense of the government instead of just willingly listening to our communities they decided to distort things they. did to use kind of ridiculous bits of evidence such as urban dictionary dot com or recording the rhetoric from white

supremacist websites instead of actually looking at what was being shown to them i think for them they also wanted to avoid political controversy they were afraid that hey if we let this ban do it then all manner of hate speech or all manner of offensive things are going to get out there even though the reality is that there is all kinds of offensive stuff out there the law that they were trying to rely upon wasn't actually working like every single racial slur you could think of for an asian american was already a registered trademark before long before i came well where they registered trademarks that were registered by asian americans or were they trademarks registered by not asians well that's the thing any time there was a so-called slur being used whenever an asian applied they were swiftly denied it actually paralleled our own experience when we actually went back to the trademark office and we said hey there's actually almost 800 different registered trademarks

for the term slant what is it about this band like what is it about this particular application the trademark office said it was incontestable that i was asian and part of an asian band in fact they said we were to asian to use the mark because in their minds if people saw our faces and the words the slants they would automatically associate that definition with you know this racial slur instead of any other possible definition in the dictionary but it's just kind of a more convoluted way of saying anyone. just sort of the slants as long as they're not asian and we found that to be the case again and again with all these other terms and phrases as well that's amazing so tell us what kind of reaction you've had from other asian americans i mean consolidated it is a multi-year process but what kind of feedback have you received well to be clear i've been in this band for over a dozen years now and we've never received

a single formal complaint by an asian american and despite touring across 4 continents and working with over 1300 different events i mean we work with over 100 different social justice organizations primarily in the asian american community so it's kind of funny to me that the government had you know for many many years claimed that were racist towards asians when nobody in the asian community felt that way you know in fact just last week i received a lifetime achievement award from the greater austin asian american chamber of commerce and you know similar accolades from the portland chinese citizens law and the japanese american citizens lee all these other longstanding groups every single advocacy organization in the asian american community sued on our behalf saying hey government you're getting it wrong we believe in this band we believe in the work that they're doing so how did you win the supreme court case can you take us through the trial how did it how were you able to convince the supreme court that

what you were doing was in fact the very opposite of what the trademark department was saying you were doing well ultimately we couldn't rely on this argument that hey we're not offensive to ourselves apparently that just isn't a legal argument that works in the court system but what ultimately did work was our reliance on the 1st amendment saying you know what this is our freedom of expression this is our right and that the law they're using well it's unconstitutionally vague and it engages in view. point discrimination we made these arguments and the supreme court agreed unanimously with us we actually won at the federal circuit as well so right below the supreme court were 9 out of 12 federal judges said yeah this law dating back to the 1940 s. is unconstitutional and i always found it really amazing and interesting that for folks who thought that this law was designed to protect minorities go back to when it was created it was created in the middle of the jim crow era laws back then they

definitely weren't designed to protect people of color so why was the law designed what is the disparagement clause of the land of the act well the law that we're fighting or as you mentioned the disparagement provision of the lanham act was actually designed to protect whatever the government thought was you know considered to be pure or lacking in disparagement or scandalous this so back then that had to do with american history former presidents and even. even american soldiers as well and there were a lot of brands for example right around that time that had racial slurs in their names yet it's specially for those in the black and brown communities native american communities a number of brands i mean if you think about all the marketing for some of the largest corporations in america today a lot of them use racial stereotypes or really offensive imagery because that's

kind of how people knew or came to come to know these different cultural groups back then just based on these really gross stereotypes and all of those things were protected by the u.s. patent trademark system and so now the supreme court case has been won what does that mean. it means that the government can no longer decide on behalf of communities what's offensive it means that our communities now have the ability to decide what's best for ourselves and what's interesting it's been about 2 years since that decision and when you look at the $600000.00 plus applications that come into the trademark office when it comes to ideas that could so-called be disparaging most of those applications have now been filed by people of color reclaiming the stereotypes and slurs and repurpose ing them for the purposes of self empowerment so it's really exciting to see that we're literally changing language and expressions used by the marketplace through the trademark regime so

fur white brothers and sisters out there. who don't understand how important this is for marginalized communities can you describe why is this why is this so meaningful to be able to take a racial slur and turn it around and claim it. i think it's just a really powerful process number one because we should be able to define for ourselves what's best for ourselves you know the ability to choose your own identity it is one of power it's claiming this this fundamental what i believe human right of choosing who he was presented to the world like how he would like to be identified but what makes it really interesting to me and especially to those who study linguistics is that you know who gets to use these words who gets to use these labels when it comes to terms that certain community. you know reclaimed what

makes it really interesting is that those dominant groups now have to check in with us it's so powerful that most people today would just refer to a certain notorious racial slur as the n word and you know that's the power of it that people aren't even willing to say it without checking and with the community say like a is it. if i use this term is it ok if i sing along to this song that is really really cool to me simon thank you so much for all your work and your time today the book is called slanted it's fantastic how an asian american troublemaker took on the supreme court it's out it's available everywhere including for download and thank you for joining me on this edition of politicking also thanks to larry king for letting me sit in this chair today remember we love hearing from you join the conversation on larry's facebook page and as always you can share your thoughts on twitter by tweeting at kings things and using the politicking hash tag i also invite you to join me on facebook at matthew cook official and that's all for this

edition of politicking. those who can very well known case the kind of art show that was stolen in 69 in. the sleeve a very important painting and somebody from the mafia just said a few years ago dead today has stolen and stored it in a mall. and when they wanted to pick it up it was called because tourists had eaten it. after the previous stage of my career was over everyone wondered what i was going to do next the pope the ball different clubs on one hand it is logical to search the home fields where everything is familiar on the other i wanted

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us police around. for anti-war venezuelan embassy after their month long sit in protest against the expulsion of president diplomats. chelsea manning is sent back to jail for refusing to testify on wiki leaks u.s. army whistleblower says she would rather starve to death and then cooperate with prosecutors. the philippines recalls and some are from canada and a dispute over vast amounts of trash shipped to the southeast asian country years ago. the latest on these stories you can head to dot com coming up and our detective is the guest on this.