anomie with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to cons a report on r g. did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy which i call books. will. never go on i'm sorry and on this show we reveal the picture of what's actually going on we go beyond identifying a problem to try to fix rational debate a real discussion critical issues facing america by ready to join the movement then welcome the big picture. oh i'm sorry but i washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. a new york times report

about the seven september eleventh two thousand and twelve benghazi attacks that killed ambassador chris stevens as republicans on the defensive their depiction of how things went down that way just turns out doesn't add up with the facts so is it about time that they're oh i say apologize to the american people talk about that and more tonight's big picture rumble and the french have given us many good things good food good wine great art that was goes on all everyone likes a nice four duo the best thing we can take from france is its new tax policy i'll tell you why in tonight's we take. you need to know this millions of americans woke up this saturday to a nasty christmas gift from congress that's because on saturday december twenty eighth just three days after christmas federal unemployment benefits expired for

around one point three million americans unemployment insurance normally only last for twenty six weeks but after the economy crashed in two thousand and eight congress changed the law so the benefits could last longer while people look for jobs congress didn't renew that most recent extension before the december twenty eighth deadline so on saturday the one point three million people who had been on unemployment for twenty six weeks or more have lost their benefits thanks to congressional republicans those americans who are losing their unemployment insurance now have to make some tough in many cases brutal choices for the long term unemployed federal benefits are a lifeline extra cash from the government means they have one last thing to worry about as they try to make ends meet the mortgage or keep their spirits up as they try to find work here in the nation's worst downturn since the great depression without unemployment insurance things look pretty bleak tracy mulvehill. there's

benefits ran out on saturday told fox twenty nine in philadelphia for example but she is scared to death. of the hill spins precious time with her granddaughter as she thinks about an uncertain future scare scared she's trying to figure out how she can care for her family now that the unemployment benefits she depends on with this card have been cut off and there are nearly eighty seven thousand p.a. residents in the same boat. that. provide. the bills are stacking up the future of her house may even be in jeopardy i don't know how we're going to pay my mortgage. says scary it's really scary she's been unemployed for about a year. if tracy is looking for someone to blame for the hard time she'll have to go through until congress or news unemployment benefits assuming that they do then

she should blame the republican party republican opposition to unemployment insurance made it pretty much impossible for congress to include an extension of benefits in that two year budget bill that patty murray and paul ryan worked out right before christmas and if republicans continue to say no to extending unemployment insurance more people like tracy will go through tough times in the coming year without an extension an additional one point nine million people beyond the one point three who just lost their benefits this week will lose their benefits come june and another one point six million will lose theirs come next december conservatives like kentucky senator rand paul who oppose extending benefits say that letting people stay on the program for more than twenty six weeks does a disservice to the unemployed. do support unemployment benefits for the twenty six weeks that they're paid for if you extend it beyond that you do a disservice to these workers there was a study that came out

a few months ago and it said if you have a worker that's been unemployed for four weeks and on unemployment insurance and one that's on ninety nine weeks which would you hire every employer nearly one hundred percent said they will always hire the person who's been out of work for weeks when you allow people to be on pullman insurance for ninety nine weeks you're causing them to become part of this perpetual unemployed group in our in our economy and it really seems good it actually does a disservice to the people who are trying to help you know when senator paul was asked to back that up with any solid research his office chose not to answer senator paul is trying to do that whole compassionate conservative thing but it was really just a nice sounding way of saying that unemployment unemployment insurance makes poor people lazy. and of course tax breaks motivate billionaires as he and other republicans in congress see it the only real way to help people without jobs get jobs is to threaten them with outright suffering and desperation and this is exactly what the republicans are doing by refusing to extend unemployment benefits

thanks to republicans one point three million americans today now have absolutely no way of making ends meet this isn't just cruel it's illogical as a number of actual studies have shown people on unemployment actually work harder to find a job than those who aren't on unemployment it's just make sense extra cash in the form of unemployment insurance is people without a job the time the confidence the security frankly you know that the cost of gasoline to drive around and knock on doors to pound the pavement looking for new work all policy questions aside though this is really a moral issue a long term unemployed are victims it's not their fault the potential employers look at their lack of a job as a character flaw and it's not their fault that thirty plus years of reaganomics have killed the american dream and decimated economic opportunity for the working class not their fault that the banks crashed the economy and made off with

trillions and it's not their fault that republicans in congress think they're suffering should be some sort of learning experience for the american people the least we can do to help the long term unemployed is to extend unemployment benefits especially during the holidays. let's rumble. joining me tonight for the big picture rumble are david alaska from new york director of communications for new york state republican committee called williams democratic strategist and attorney and marc harrold libertarian commentator and attorney thank you all for joining thank you good to see you david way off in new york thinking joins so first of all thank you for that first of all you all heard my rant and you know setting aside all rationalizations and theories and policies and everything else. my conspiracy theory on this and i would love to get each one of your takes on it is that republicans aren't dummies they noticed what

happened when herbert hoover was president and the great depression happened other than a two year period one hundred forty six forty seven republicans did not gain control of the house of representatives from one hundred twenty nine until one nine hundred eighty six it was two generations before the republicans had power again and if these guys can crash the economy while president obama is president they are convinced the democrats will not hold power for two generations this is all about political power is it not anybody yeah i'm whole it clearly is about political power i mean it's funny how this bill has been passed has passed on with eleven times since two thousand and eight this bill to you know continue the unemployment benefits and it adds with bipartisan support and now all of a thetan as we are approaching the midterm elections now all of the third and there's republicans who have voted for this bill in the path all of a sudden have a change of heart and thought oh no this is really bad for the american public

though they are on the record for voting for previously i mean just this week the politics point blank david is a republican strategist is this a two edged sword i mean on the one hand if they succeed in really crashing the economy the probabilities are quite high that obama will take the blame for it republicans will come out politically really well on the other hand if they don't crash the economy but people lose their unemployment benefits republicans are going to look like scrooge. well look tom republicans aren't out to crash the economy and as far as your conspiracy theory goes you ought to tell that to senator dean heller of nebraska who's part of a bipartisan proposal in the united states senate to extend unemployment benefits so i think there's a chance you'll see the benefits extended when the new year comes but look how sad is it tom as you pointed out federal unemployment benefits were extended to protect people who lost their jobs in the. great recession of two thousand and eight and isn't this just symptomatic now of the fact that we still need this federal

extension because the obama recovery has been the worst recovery on record is so slow it's so weak it's so jobless that we still need to be giving people this insurance isn't that really the disease and isn't this just the symptom so david raises a really good point are capitalism has failed capitalism is one of those periodic bumps that road that it has always back to the george washington and straight we have recessions i mean it's just that's the nature of capitalism and even i mean obviously karl marx made that analysis but pro-capitalist make that analysis it wouldn't be from a libertarian point it wouldn't make more sense to do it franklin roosevelt who said i'm not going to give anybody unemployment insurance he said the best well and or nor welfare and save the best welfare program is a job and you know give people dignity and get something done rather than just passing out money and there's certainly a lot that needs to be done why don't we recreate the w.p.a. the c.c.c. the modern day version of it you know start running for example you know high speed

broadband out to rural areas i mean that would put a lot of people to work rebuild some of our roads our bridges but but in particular the like high speed bread bought broadband a small areas when franklin roosevelt did the world or electrification ministration and then the world to lawfully administration under either truman or eisenhower both of those dramatically increased the number of small businesses that were started because it was the business infrastructure of the telephone system but expanded i mean aren't there things that we could be doing with that money that would help business and i think that's a terrible idea i mean you have the tennessee valley project which we still couldn't get rid of years later and got into this huge boondoggle still couldn't get rid of it capitalism hasn't failed the free market hasn't failed what's failed is a capitalism or free market being refereed with high government infusion and obviously all the sudden now it's going to be insurance for unemployment insurance for health care the government's going to be the employer. last resort you just couldn't see a bigger government and sort of complex coming around peoples lives from cradle to

grave bad thing when the alternative is dying in the streets of hypothermia or or pneumonia but one thing we're talking about is we're talking about extension nobody's talking about getting rid of unemployment benefits an extension it can't be an extension forever the one thing about insurance that you have to look at is any insurance model has to have money coming in and has to have money coming out perpetual on an unemployment insurance just like any other type of insurance could not sustain itself so this idea there all day and into a do it will that's exactly right i mean we talk a little bit about morality as i think it's it's equally immoral to just take money and people's taxes and give it to other people i don't think that's the role of the government could there be limited forms like you know senator paul talked about you know could it be limited forms of unemployment insurance possibly but here i think the government needs to stay out of insuring anything i don't believe that's its role when you're talking about you're talking about you know you're either subsidizing you're the taxing more people you know the guys in non-war i mean this and you just there could be private you know an open surance well you know come back that more of tonight's big picture rubble after the break.

the year that was two thousand and thirteen and what has made it memorable we ask in this edition of crossfire who excelled and who disappointed us what stories captured our attention because of hope or due to despair.

i would rather i asked 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 for. well. ali i think you. should have you with us here today i'm sure.

automatic joining in prisons big picture rumble david alaska in new york city nicole williams and marc harrold here in washington d.c. let's get back to with. according to the new york times this was a real i thought this was an interesting story today that the strategy from pay to new york times or at least electronic and this in the paper one that the democratic party is taking. a playbook out of what was really the george bush sr error republican party wedge issue you know they had they would they got these abortion restrictions on the ballots and states the swing states in order to get republicans to come out and vote it's been done with gun issues it's been the gun with gay issues god issues whatever you know all the g.'s and the democrats are plan doing this with the minimum wage let's you

know let's go into those swing states and get the minimum wage on because a majority of republicans are in favor of raising the minimum wage but a huge majority of democrats are in favor of raising the minimum wage. so you know first of all isn't. it david i'm curious your thought as a political strategist is this good political strategy first of all. well. well no i mean you don't have to go back to george bush sr look at george bush jr they tried it in two thousand and six to prevent the the coming democratic wave with gay marriage on the ballot it didn't work then and it's not going to work now i don't blame the democrats for being desperate to get the american people to talk about something anything other than obamacare which is the biggest legislative failure in history but it's not going to work here now it's ironic that you were just accusing republicans of using unemployment benefits as a political football that's exactly what democrats are doing here look at the

states that they are going these efforts in alaska alabama right i mean that but they don't care about the only the only jobs the congressional democrats care about of their own they're not interested in actually creating jobs for americans because they know that raising the minimum wage doesn't do it they're interested in using this is applauded actually you know all the research. shows that when the minimum wage goes up the economy is boosted and when the economy is boosted more jobs are created you can identify you know when you isolate for low skilled workers or or the young or minorities you hurt the most disadvantaged workers in our economy and the university of california at irvine did it did a study for sure they did a study of studies that looked at one hundred studies of times in american history or at the state level where the minimum wage was raised and they found it in eighty five out of one hundred there was an adverse effect on employment rates of the young and the economically disadvantaged so no raising the minimum wage will hurt people but congressional democrats don't care if it saves them i would submit that that has nothing to do with the minimum wage and probably have to do more with the

business cycle which tend they tend to go hand in hand unfamiliar that study them so i can respond to it i do know that if you look at the minimum wage and look at g.d.p. every job minimum wage goes up g.d.p. over the next three years increases and you know it's never not been the case but to call your thoughts on this you know my thoughts on it is when i find it surprising that this leaked out at the strategy but you know thirty three sound that the majority of folks who. or even in the center of politics you know a lot of independents are in favor of increasing the minimum wage the minimum wage increase you know it's been proposed in various states throughout the country anyway if it would just make sense for congress to go ahead and follow what's already been passed in a lot of state legislatures across this country anyhow you know and like you mentioned earlier an increase in the minimum wage causes you know it's better for our economy it allows more people to be able to purchase goods and to be contributors towards our you know that the economy and to be able to participate in

items that they otherwise could not afford so i guess that's somewhat of a political strategy but at the same time it's something that the american public wants anyway and so you know we'll see what the outcome it mark i know as a libertarian you're philosophically opposed to the government having anything to do with wages. the people if they want to work for a dollar an hour that should be fine. but. shouldn't shouldn't there be some reasonable i mean if we're if business business is a privilege to do business in the united states and if we're going to give those privileges those tax breaks and all those advantages to a company don't we have the right as a society to say in excess in exchange for that you have to pay at least a certain amount you have to benefit society in some small way no i don't i think we should get rid of the minimum wage as far as you know from a political strategy i believe the minimum wage increase is polling about sixty six for thirty three against one poll i saw i think the concentrating on income

inequality is smart politics for the democratic party everything that i just said about my views of unemployment would you would not poll well as far as political strategy i think we're seeing even on certain issues even speaker boehner has destroyed several other districts not polling well i think this could backfire for republicans if they look you know especially this time of year but even towards the elections to be you know scrooge issue or to not care about people. talking perception i don't believe that's the truth about what how unemployment would affect people in all cases but as for smart politics the original question you ask i think income inequality unemployment minimum wage these are great issues for the democrats one of the twenty fourteen and i think these looking forward issues will somehow by that time. will sort of eclipse obamacare is an issue in two thousand and fourteen when the elections are occurring yeah i think by twenty fourteen obama hears. all respect to your comment david i think by that time people are going to say you know much like they did with social security by nine hundred thirty seven

ok it's cool it works you know we're on with it but. there's a larger issue here which i'm concerned won't get any attention because it is a little bit wonky and that is this new business model that was created by the clinton gingrich changing welfare programs where we say ok you no longer have to be unemployed to qualify for welfare or you can simply be low wage employees and so all of these companies mcdonald's wal-mart all these companies said oh boy oh boy we get to be low wage employers and as much as half of the total cost of their employees what used to be paid wages is now being paid by taxpayers in the form of medicaid food stamps. subsidized housing etc cetera all these programs that people qualify for isn't it time to say that subsidize in low wage workers is no longer a reasonable business model in america anybody you know i think it is you let me go ahead no that's fine i'm interested to hear what you have faith that you guys to

throw anti-welfare. that have take it right where you have the man on the monitor sure i'll go ahead i mean let me first respond to your point about obamacare i mean look the twenty fourteen midterm elections will be about obamacare i promise you the president and his men thought that we'd stop talking about obamacare after it was passed then we thought we'd stop talking about it after the supreme court ruled then after the two thousand and twelve election and then as soon as it was implemented and we could reap all the benefits then as it's being implemented we see that people are. losing their health care that the idea that if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor was a bald faced lie and the health care law is getting less popular and less popular americans were against it they never wanted it and they're against it now in droves and this is going to be what the two thousand and fourteen midterms will be decided over i was there no no you go in there and it's mitt romney care and massachusetts and the programs are indistinguishable. and they are the first of all anything done on a federal level is like apples and oranges if you're comparing a state policy i mean i can oh no i want him as a democrat sitting under

a lot of your i don't have are losing their doctors or losing their insurance is how many how many how many elec how many insure how many cancellation notices went out to massachusetts residents compared with the millions that are going out to americans this is this isn't going away tom this is going to give republicans the senate in two thousand and fourteen i can just about again go to the question of this business model of you know we subsidize every wal-mart to the tune of roughly a million dollars we substitute we subsidize with our tax dollars every month donal's to the tune of tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and it's not just those two companies it's the it's entire industries in the entire fast food chain industry the entire retail chain industry mark is this isn't this is an. opponent of you know government subsidies this seems like it should be libertarian want to one wire libertarians not at the front of the line preaching against this why i think you have to that i mean that's just core crony capitalism that you get into when you're basically i would agree with you that if if you're looking to what the government subsidy to make up for some other gap then you've

got to you don't just need entitle make cuts we desperately need entitlement cuts you cannot sustain this budget without cutting defense spending in entitlements i don't believe that you can do what you have to cut taxes to promote business and hiring and that's the core problem here is taxes and regulations government's too big not that it's not evolved enough but yeah going to go into the question i really i really don't see that i mean i think you have to you have to reform all of these government subsidies and programs and not let one make up for the other but you have to reform the. all it's i just don't think it's sustainable we've been talking deficit i think debt is the bigger issue but i think private is very much bigger issue than the public but that's a whole nother argument in a recent interview with the washington post n.s.a. whistleblower ed snowden said i got pretty much mission accomplished i think was his phrase in fact he told the journalist barton gellman quote in terms of personal satisfaction the mission's already accomplished i already won as soon as the journalists were able to work everything that i had been trying to do was validated because remember i didn't want to change society i wanted to give society

a change to determine if it should change its self so mark did it snowed and when i think it's no did when i just like you can't have witnesses in criminal trials without that some of those people being criminals you cannot have know what's really going on in the government without whistleblowers and people telling you from the inside it's just not possible i think transparency one i think that you know what he did was admirable and i think that he can self define but yeah i think journalists bottom line until journalists can get information they can't do anything and i think if he feels that he won and probably won you know at the same time nicole this federal judge district court judge william pauley said quote americans have no expectation of privacy and quote. and. said that the n.s.a.'s metadata collection program was just fine thank you very much now this contradicts other federal rulings it's going to end up before the supreme court but isn't it a little surprising that anybody would rule that way it is surprising you know

because we talk about civil liberties and things like that and they you would think that a judge would have you know i guess sentiment towards you know protecting one's civil liberties and things along those lines that the ruling is surprising but you're right there is a division amongst the circuit it is definitely going to get to the supreme court at some point. snowed in you know he started started a dialogue and now we have hearing thing congress and the white house. kind of reexamining their executive orders in terms of what the n.s.a. is doing so he got us to discuss thing the issue which is and just saying and you know hopefully this will become a way you are proposing that you know individual thought those of us who feel about the for the moment the way the. n.r.a. does about the second david that. thoughts on this and and b. i mean the obama administration's in charge right now we just have one minute sorry but is this a hit on. well you know look if snowden's goal was to facilitate

a conversation with the american people great he accomplished that but he did so much more too and the more is bad i mean look it would take eight cartoonishly childlike view of diplomacy to think that making it public that we're spying on our allies which by the way is something everybody doesn't like couples fighting you just you do it but you don't do it in public that's really going to make conducting day to day diplomacy very hard for this country imagine now this country trying to negotiate a new trade agreement with mexico we're trying to work with our e.u. allies to promote environmental regulations what have you anything conducting diplomacy is going to be a lot harder for our state department today than it was before so that is not a good thing if it's transparent and the data. no because the lawyer did do you do you really think that our allies are inspiring us to you think they're not bugging our all season i mean this is been going on since the cold war but what you have now according to michael hayden the former director of the cia is the most serious hemorrhaging of american secrets in the history of iraq always has been who did who

didn't understand you know the fourth amendment i mean in any case what with more of tonight's big picture rubble right after the break. that was a new alert animation scripts scare me a little bit. there is breaking news tonight and we are continuing to follow

the breaking news media elite alexander's family cry tears of joy and a great thing. that had been together brenda arquette a quart of wall around online there's a story made for a movie is playing out in real life. for the new little mom and a lot of these policies i think you're right. pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm sure.

you all come back with me for giants big picture rumble david alaska in new york to call williams and marc harrold here in washington d.c. let's get back to it flora spent forty five thousand dollars last year drug testing there was there welfare recipients and discovered support fewer only two percent of people were using drugs lower than much lower than the general population utah spent thirty thousand dollars testing their welfare recipients and found twelve people this is like brilliant use of government money so therefore the republicans in minnesota said let's do it you know let's do it let's make these people feel terrible about being on welfare let's make all piano cop and embarrass them and everything else david how is this good policy. well it's good policy because if

you're if you're getting money from the government you shouldn't be spending it on drugs i mean look here in new york. you can actually hear hear. yes absolutely i'll manuever that one hundred percent but look seriously though here in new york you can actually take a medicaid benefits card and dispense cash from an a.t.m. like it's a debit card and use it on god knows what so yes government money when it's being used for public assistance must be watched as closely as possible but the the a people are made there's a whole lot of things that people need to use cash for i see no problem if you're going to give people cash give them cash number one and be people on people on welfare are less likely to be using drugs than anybody else that's a that's a nonsensical call argument it's just it's this is disputed to. be. well look it's not it's not nonsensical because you know up in warren county new

york our d.a. ran a whole investigation of people who use that cash to buy drugs so it does go on and look ok welfare recipients are less likely to use drugs that's great but the ones that are using public assistance money for drugs need to be stopped i mean in order to in order to protect welfare programs we have to safeguard them and then make sure that make that means making sure that every penny of taxpayer dollars goes where it's where it's meant to go enough for other purposes in the cold i don't think that anybody is interested in protecting welfare programs at least at least the folks who are saying let's people i mean this government waste at it that and here's the thing i don't have a problem with going after people going after drug dealers going after people who are engaging in illegal activity you can still go after those individuals and if they happen to be also receiving welfare then they happen to also be receiving welfare but i don't think it's fair to spend thirty thousand dollars a year going after everybody when it's not everybody it's only two percent if it was just utter waste of money just go after the people through good police work and

call it that and even that police work is a waste of time isn't in a lot of cases what we're talking about marijuana especially the idea here is if you have some for cause provision if you have somebody was arrested who happens to be on welfare and then you want to follow up you know well the welfare generally the that entire woman in most states needs to be you know revised or changed or at least looked at but you know if people have addiction problems addiction is a sickness so you're talking about going around trying to find sick people obviously if they're abusing the money and using it for something illegal and that's borne out in a criminal investigation or some for cause testing maybe there could be a narrowly tailored way to get to go about that this dragnet thing where you go out and treat all people who are on welfare like criminals even if i don't one hundred percent always agree with the welfare program to the way it's designed generally being addicted to drugs is a health care problem it's not a criminal problem. the crime that surrounds drugs the drug market all is created by the government. prohibition of in the black market to begin with so this all this money that's been spent on these expensive drugs because the government's made

i'm a little begin with it's all cyclical people on drugs who are addicted to drugs or at least it's a health care problem and the you should not good that you should not victimize people because they're on welfare and they happen to have an addiction it's a sickness i'm with you on that and it seems that there's probably a consensus on so maybe. david. well aren't are the victims the taxpayers whose money is being misused by people known as out of the usual welfare money found if areas and how do you know well you know if these people have an addiction i mean if they're addicted to cigarettes if they're addicted to alcohol if they're dicta to anything i mean this is a health care problem shouldn't shouldn't we be let's let's provide you know is that it's raise the question this way if you're using money that specifically earmarked for say say medicaid like in new york state like you can do you can get cash from your medicaid benefits card if you're using that money that's your mark for those purposes for drugs should you be booted off the medicaid. i don't know

but i don't know that you had to do and be i think you can in new york and you are missing the people if somebody is using medicaid money for drugs they're more in need of medicaid than somebody who's not in my they really need medical and it's a solution without a problem we're not seeing perceive it was ninety percent of the people this is a solution not a problem but the dragnet testing which is is unfortunate to begin with isn't bearing out the problem that they think that they're trying to prevent is twelve people as well ok last minute a half year recent study came out of the university of massachusetts it's pretty much confirmed what what progressives have been saying all along they looked at voter i.d. laws all the laws passed in two thousand and twelve in all of the states and they found basically that the only effect of these laws was to disenfranchise poor people minorities and people who were who were most likely to vote democratic big democratic had nothing to do with voter fraud i mean they they said all the mobley

restricted oh here we go we found that states that pass such laws were more likely to have republicans in control of state government the swing states have minority turnout that was higher in the two thousand and eight presidential election and there is they're being targeted and have larger portions of african-american residents although madly recently enacted restrictions on voter access not only a predictable partisan pattern but also an uncomfortable relationship to the political activism of blacks and the poor just we just have a minute left to just a quick note from each of you and let me start with you david is this not literacy tests jim crow poll taxes is this just not voter disenfranchisement. no voter id laws or jim crow laws like one direction is the beatles they're not even in the same ballpark the bottom line is connecticut delaware rhode island washington state all have voter id laws as do candidates sweden switzerland even the netherlands where practically everything is legal you need proof of id not of.

these absolutely was not these kinds of nicole your thoughts my thoughts this is a modern day literacy test the modern day poll tax it's purposely put in place to basically prevent a certain demographic from being able to go to the polls studies have shown that these voter i.d. laws disproportionately affect african-american women between the ages the state thirty five and sixty four is who are the ones who are most affected by these voter id laws that you see passed in the republican controlled state mark last and so i think it's a solution without a problem i think it's bad politics for the g.o.p. i think it's inclusive and i don't think it's a good issue for him i think they should back off as they did with more votes than the other way around that's interesting it's very interesting david alaska nicole williams or harold thank you all for being with us and happy new year to have you happy new year everyone.

in the us to the rest of the news residents of colorado will go green this new years but not because they drink too much alcohol on new year's eve that's because on wednesday the first day of two thousand and fourteen recreational marijuana shops will officially become legal in that state personal use was already allowed in colorado following the two thousand and twelve elections but the start of totally legal marijuana shops is something new and different and totally excited for the first time ever americans will get the chance to purchase marijuana just like they do alcohol and what's more colorado officials believe the allure of legal marijuana shops will lead to a big tourism boom helping bring in much needed jobs and revenue to their state joining me now for more on this story is mayor major neill franklin executive director of leap law enforcement against prohibition retired state police major maryland state police department and the baltimore police department major. welcome

welcome back to the program great to have you with us thanks for having me back thanks thanks for joining us first the basics legalize pot shops what's this going to mean for people in colorado it's going to mean many things for people in colorado number one i think it was in two thousand and ten they spent about thirty seven million dollars on a resting people process and people for possession of marijuana in the state in that state so that's a savings of the direct savings right there from the taxpayers but more importantly it's. being free from that. i don't know if you've ever been arrested before i have actually read it but it was for protesting against the war in the background but it's not a pleasant experience no it's not ok not just the act of being arrested but what the fallout from that you know many people have lost their jobs you know you spend a night or two in the detention center and and that process and being fingerprinted

and and the money that it costs to hire an attorney and everything that comes after that they will be free of that but more importantly at least from my perspective from one of of law enforcement and one police are going to be able to pay attention to crimes of violence more now real criminals real criminals you know the rapes the robberies domestic violence crimes against children which have been been neglected you know for so long now. in addition to that. i think that. the citizens of colorado are going to see jobs coming. they're going to be one of the very few states to economically pull themselves up out of this downward spiral that many states and cities are in today and what we've been hearing about are the direct cost savings the direct money that will be coming from taxes but no one's talking about the indirect savings and the indirect money that's going to be

coming into the the economy in colorado from those thousands of people who will be put to work you know they'll be paying taxes like after prohibition and the restaurant business boom absolutely countries cities absolute have a glass of wine with dinner so all the more wounded warriors are not just paying taxes they're spending money in local stores and buying cars and buying homes and wearing their bills on we have we have just a minute left curious your take from the from the law and your police well from the law enforcement i think this is a bad day do you where first will be a bad day for criminals it's going to be a bad day for the cartel at least those who are operating in colorado and soon to be washington state and outside of the country you're a it's a bad day for them and for local gangs you know because they're not they're no longer will they be able to make money selling marijuana on the street corners and the violence that they cause from that at least sixty percent of their proceeds from selling drugs is gone in colorado so it's

a good day for police good day for police it's a good day for our kids who are no longer going to be recruited into the illegal marijuana selling business selling marijuana in our schools. i mean how can anyone other than criminals be against this new policy in colorado. that's that's a brilliant analysis thank you so much for being with us thanks for having me have not your pleasure to be here thanks. to work. if we really want to jumpstart the economy and get it working for our one again we do what the french are doing to raise taxes on the rich i'll tell you why. thank you.

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 r.t. question. well the. science technology innovation called the least i'm elements from around russia we've got the future are covered.

so sometimes you know as you know and sometimes you know if you don't know and sometimes as a farce and there says everything you know is wrong and i don't think you're wrong you have your right to your i'll just say things that sure i'm your mother i mean you'd always wrong. if you've ever been to church you probably recognize a sound of spare change in dollar bills being dropped into very donation bowl but the collection bowl isn't the only way to purchase finance themselves some churches go even further and ask their members to routinely donate ten percent of their salaries for church activities this is called tithing and churches justify it and other requests for money by saying that their parishioners most give god their life but what would jesus himself say about the practice let's ask pastor david lee former minister of the team de jakes mega church and author of the new book sunday

morning stick up what your pastor doesn't want you to know about it's pastor david lee welcome to the program it's time thank you so much for allowing me to spend some time with you and your listening audience and it's a really appreciate all thanks for joining us let's start with the basics what is tithing we don't have time being from a scriptural standpoint or to get the true definition of it we really have to go to the scriptures i know that most would interpret tithing today as ten percent of one's gross income but that simply isn't something that's found or spoken to in the scriptures and it isn't because they didn't have income or money in that day but in leviticus chapter number twenty seven it specifically defines tidy as a consumable goods something that can be consumed something you can eat soon to say you know whatever was grown or something that you could consume so as that comes out why in jesus' time the there weren't just money changers at the temple there

were literally people selling chickens and things so that people would buy them and take them in and give them as an offer into the priests. well during that day course the next specifically during that time there was a particular thesis that the jews were going to celebrate and of course they used a lot of those animals as sacrifices in light of the coming celebration that was going to take place but what had happened was those leaders you know began to pervert the whole system of giving that god had established in the sanctuary at that time which incidentally no longer exists in jerusalem to this day you know there's the. temple mount that sits there with the temple once sat but yeah they change the whole system jesus so ergo you know they were sort of running a scam of that time and you say that right now they're running a scam tell me about this well you know it's it's a lot deeper than just the discussion of tidy because you know tom i get the issue

of separation of church and state but when you talk about what's taking place in churches today the message of trying definitely isn't scriptural as far as new testament believers a concern but there's a bigger issue that's going on in our churches today and i believe however that is because there's no real oversight that takes place with many of the quote unquote men and women of god who collect be offerings in the tabs you know in ministry today and part of it is it has to do with exploiting a loophole in the laws that govern nonprofit five hundred one c three. and what is that well as it not profitable when c three may enjoy a tax free status and by law they are protected they are not required to report to anyone how they spend their money and so this is why we see the lavish lifestyles and many cases of a lot of the ministers that we see that are glamorized on television and some of the you know some cases that we saw in the past with. tilton. we also

had. a grant in dallas texas and many others just like you jim baker was famous for that i mean is the solution to this to just say enough with five i want to say three status to just i don't think it's i don't i don't think we should scrap the status because there are many who steal it here to the last and they're doing what they were designed to do when they were initially when they were initially established but the problem is is that because there's no real oversight in that area because there's no real no one no real watchdogs maybe like the trinity organization the trinity foundation in dallas texas really to hold these men and women and how noble for how they are you know how they are spending these monies the hard on living members who have given us money you know sometimes it makes it really difficult for us really to dive deeper into how to really resolve the issues if there's no real oversight remarkable pastor david lee thanks so much for

a brilliant book and for dropping by and sharing your thoughts with us and i. thank you i really appreciate the time and now everything you know about tithing and mega churches is right. for the past thirty two years americans have been living a lie. it's a lie that helps rich people and screws working people and it's a lie that needs to be called out the people promoting this live most of them rich people themselves have been so good at promoting this lie that pretty much everyone believes that it's even asserted as a fact without contradiction in the mainstream media it's a line in the us the lie is that raising the income taxes on rich people and hugely profitable companies somehow hurts economies and even leads to unemployment the

truth is that a raising income taxes on rich people and raising income taxes and hugely profitable companies actually helps economies and causes companies to hire more and more people bust and lowering unemployment what makes this live particularly relevant right now is that the french constitutional council there are court like our supreme court that decides what's constitutional and what's not has just agreed with the new socialist government that it's totally legal to raise the very top income tax rates on very wealthy individuals and hugely profitable corporations to fifty percent affectively seventy five percent when you add in their other taxes like our fica that fund health care and retirement and things like that. the lie that tax increases like the one the french constitutional court just approved raise unemployment and the tax cuts reduce unemployment is widely believed because like

so many big lies it has a small germ of truth at its center that germ of truth is that when people who spend all or nearly all of their income every year which is basically poor people working class people and they have a little more money in their pocket they spend it and that increases economic activity because there's more demand for goods and services and so to meet that additional demand employers hire more workers. so you think that of cutting the taxes on poor and low wage people would cause them to have more money which they'd spend it would stimulate the economy and that's true except for one thing which is the germ of the lie that rich people use to get everyone to think that tax cuts for rich people help the economy and here is that why. while it would be true that if you cut income taxes on the poor and low and working people so they had more money in their pockets it would stimulate the economy it's impossible why is

that impossible because as mitt romney and rush limbaugh point out as often as possible the bottom forty percent of american workers make so little money that they don't pay any income taxes so there's nothing to cut when republicans talk about tax cuts and i'm talking about tax cuts for working people i'm talking about cutting taxes on rich people so what about cutting taxes on rich people when they give them more money to spend or even invest which would stimulate economic growth. that's the core of course of the tax religion of limbaugh who as we reported four hundred million dollars contracted romney who was reported to have paid no taxes for years and hundreds of millions in income. rich people's taxes they say in good times are going to or all the thing that makes this a law is that rich people actually behave differently with their money than do poor and working class people when rich people get extra money from tax cuts they don't

spend like everyday working people do after all they pretty much have everything they want or need instead as we learned about iran in two thousand and twelve the open bank accounts in the cayman islands and switzerland and stashed that money away for future generations. or they'll buy an american company likes and sata and move it to china where they can get cheaper labor and pollute all they want. or since they got the money relatively easy and don't worry so much about losing it after all their basic needs are already covered big gamble with we call it investing in real estate and the stock market but it's it's really just gambling. and none of that of course translates into american jobs. and history backs this up . in one thousand twenty two and republican warren harding drop the top tax rate from seventy three percent and twenty five percent it kicked off a gambling real estate and stock market bubble that burst in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine. president franklin roosevelt fix that by raising the top tax

rate on the rich back up to over ninety percent which led to more than forty years of stability and prosperity rich people left their money in their companies and only took thirty times what their employees did is pay after all take more you just pay more taxes economy boom middle class prospered then came reagan he dropped the top tax rate back down to twenty eight percent leading within a year of the worst recession since the great depression followed by the savings and loans crisis. bill clinton took the top income tax rate back up to thirty nine percent and presto the economy boom but then bush jr came into office cut it back down again and we got another crash and lots of unemployment simple point effect four times since nine hundred thirteen we've had big tax cuts on the rich to lead to major crashes the other two would lead to stagnation for working people all of them made the rich

a lot richer. and when taxes have gone up as author larry by our points out since nine hundred fifty we have had five tax increases on the rich four out of five times unemployment went down things got better in other words for working people. the flipside is by our points out is that since nine hundred fifty we've had ten cuts to the top marginal tax rate cuts six out of ten times unemployment has gone up tax cuts for the rich in other words screw working people at least sixty percent of the time and they never help working people when ronald reagan came into office taxes on rich people were over seventy percent and the american middle class was the strongest it's ever been ever since the reagan tax cuts however we've been lurching from bubble to bubble economic crisis to economic crisis. the french you figured it out if you want to stable economy. need to tax the rich that's why their

version of the supreme court just ok to big new tax on the wealthiest people in france. the countries of scandinavia be taxing their billionaires and millionaires for more than half a century and it's worked great in places like sweden and denmark. and the history of much of the twentieth century shows us that taxing the rich works right here in america too so if we really want to khana me that works then we need to do just one simple thing. ignore the republican lies and roll back the reagan tax cuts. and that's the way it is tonight monday december thirtieth two thousand and thirteen. don't forget democracy begins with you get out there get active today your it.

i'm. a side. i'm big corporation kind of can. do i'm the banker i did all that all about money and i was actually sick for a politician to write the laws and regulations that. there is just too much is it a diet. that. put

it under water on harmony like he's making new knowledge base i describe you know. the pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i roll researcher. i've got a quote for you. it's pretty tough. if they were it's about story. let's give this guy like you would smear that guy stead of working for the people most issues in the mainstream media were pretty much on the right right just as you know . they did rather well.

incarceration nation where the law does jailers in the world is it working when i start practicing thirty years ago a ten or twenty year sentence was a big deal now you can win in court and you get ten twenty thirty years people are given sixty years for less than unifying factor folks so we're locking up and in this country is beyond race beyond anything is that we're locking up an alarming number of poor black folk a large number of poor latino four and a white folk who are locking up or poor to twenty one people make money in the system every time someone is arrested this money being made off of the blood sweat of people to don't belong in prison plus we have to humanize the people that we're locking up in this country if they just become numbers and just become race groups and just become for folks we forget what you're dog next on larry king now.