plus the incredible invasion of your privacy. how you are being watched and how much of your personal data is being collected and how little you can do about it. and are hollywood politics determining how characters are being portrayed on television? i'm antonio mora. welcome to consider this. here is more of what's ahead. a potential breakthrough the australian government released these satellite images. they spotted two objects off the coast of perth australia aircraft. >> this is a lead. it is probably the best lead we have right now. the crisis in ukraine has now evolved into a global war of sanctions and counter sanctions. we are today sanctioning a number of other individuals who provide material support. russia is not backing down. russia responded exactly the same way. in venezuela, arrested have been made.

the mayor of san chris to balance has been detained. the government trying to crack down on anti-government protest. another mayor jailed for 10 months. we begin with what malaysian officials are calling a credible lead in the search for flight 370. missing with 239 people on board since march 8th. search planes are returning to a remote part of the indian ocean where an australian air crew dropped buoys on thursday. a satellite showed two large objects south of perth australia. while the objects could be debris from flight 370, an australian response manager cautioned that the area where objects were spotted often has large pieces of floating debris, including containers washed off the decks of merchant ships. 14,000 square miles were scoured until extremely bad weather forced them to turn

back. a norie january car carrier is in the area and british and australian vessels are on the way. for more, i'm joined from austin texas by robert goyer. editor in chief of flying magazine and david gallow director of special projects at the institution that helped lead the effort to find air france 447. he joins us from newton massachusetts. the larger of the two objects is said to be seven 59 feet long. flight 370 disappeared on march 8. could a piece of a jetliner that big stay afloat for two weeks? >> absolutely it could. there are parts of the tail that contain a lot of different boo ant sections to it. and the outer wing panels on the triple 7 as well. especially because the plane would have been out of fuel it would have been very boo ant and water tight as well.

it is very conceivable that it could. based on the size of it if it is part of the wreckage of flight 370 i would guess it is part of the wing panel. >> the investigation started in all sorts of ways. we saw the data buoys being put into the water. what kind of information could they give us? how useful will it be to find 370 if this debris does come from the plane? >> the big trick is you hear many days later, 12, 13, 14 days later to be able to backtrack the items. the big pieces, understanding how they move through the water being mushed by the winds and currents and then to hopefully backtrack them and end up on the same spot at the sea surface anded that would represent where to begin the under sea search. >> which i want to get to in a moment. air crews have been covering 14,000 square miles of ocean. they have not found anything of any significance to report. now this is one of the most

remote parts of the planet so it is a very rough situation they are facing. now, if they can find debris, what do they do next? >> the logistics thinned recovery operation, search operation are just daunting. you are dealing with a flight for this aircraft from the coast of australia that is nearly a maximum duration flight round trip. and they have to also once they get there spend some time over the site searching. you have crews working very long hours. the seas are very rough. the weather is terrible. and as david said, the logistics of trying to backtrack this wreckage, if it is indeed the wreckage and some hoy dom up with some site where you can start the search, it is just something that is statistically very improbable that this is going to be over in anything other than a very long period of time, if it indeed can ever be found at all.

what about the black boxes. before they confirmed the debris is from 370. do you think they will start listening to hear any pinging from the black box? >> i hope so. but you know, you have got to at least be in the right haystack or right ballpark with the black boxes. you can't just go out in the middle of nowhere. so that is one thing they can start doing if they start to get some idea. but we still have to cut this area down one way or another into something more manageable. air france 447 search was a circle about 40 miles in radius. 5,000 square miles. something like that. and that was at the edge of manageable. this is many times the size of that right now. >> that took two years. and as you said, it was more manageable. now robert, much of the investigation has focused on the pilots and what role they might have had. if the plane did go down, this far away from where the plane was supposed to have last been

or where we last knew it was initially when the trans ponder went off. what does this suggest to you about what caused this? the cause is really a mystery at this point. i think that just based on the length of time that the airplane flew before we lost contact it with and the length of time it would have taken for it to arrive at the crash site, we are talking about the max endurance of the airplane as it was fueled for that mission mission to beijing. you have to consider you are looking at the possibility. the very ereal possibility that it was an autopilot. if there was some sort of catastrophic vent how could an airplane have changed course in the way that it did because it took all sorts of turns. no, those turns had to be initiated by the crew. when i say a mystery, it really is a mystery.

we have never seen anything like this before. looking at the human factors involved. when we have seen a pilot intentionally crash the airplane. they simply crash it and it is over quickly. in this case we had complex changes, some shutting down of the electronics and it seems as though it was done in order to mask the identity of the flight. if that were the case, it is just really hard to explain why they would have then flown for six hours to the south in order to let the plane crash into the ocean. none of it makes any sense. and mechanical failure doesn't really make any sense either because how can you imagine a mechanical failure that could take out a couple of systems that would keep us from having contact with little airplane but allow it to fly the entire length of time afterwards. it is an incredible mystery. >> good point. you know as much as anybody anybody in the world, david, about about the ocean and looking for something in the ocean. this area here. more than two miles deep. you can stack 14 empire state buildings.

one on top of the other. how does this this search if it is there, how will it compare other than the area you mentioned earlier with the search for air france 447? >> they both came down, if this is indeed the area. they both ended up on top of an underwater mountain range called the mid ocean ridge. but the ridge -- so it is a mountain range. and the mountain range where air france 447 is much more rugged than this particular area. but, then again the water above the ability to survey is not just about the depth and the terrains but about being able to be out there on a boat. i have been out there mapping to the west of this some distance and it was horrible. there were days when we are headed into the wind and waves if we were lucky if we went one mile. meantime just getting battered 24 hours a day by the current. so, this -- they both have their own difficulties.

this will be easier but not easy. so the to biography at the bottom of the sea is easier. how do you go about finding it? do you have to use a submersible? >> sure. well, yeah. i believe so. the water depth at the top of that mountain range is about a mile and a half and then it rapidly gets down to two, three, four miles. and there is a couple of ways of doing that. you can tow a system behind the boat, which is the traditional way. for air photographs 447 we used three autonomous underwater vehicles. robots. similar to drones. but these are underwater drones. and they did a miraculous job be in being able to navigate underwater terrain. it is initially done with sonar. then you follow it up with high resolution cameras to do a detailed study of the site. >> incredibly complicated. appreciate you joining us tonight. thank you. thank you. >> president obama announced

another round of sanctions against russia thursday targeting a russian bank and 20 of the richest men in the country, some close to vladimir putin. president obama threatened to do more if russia does not act to deescalate the situation in ukraine. nined a new executive order that gives us the authority to impose sanctions not just on individuals but on key secretariors of the russian economy. this is not on our preferred outcome. the sanctions would not only have a significant impact on the russian economy but could be disruptive to the global economy. >> in a game of tit for tat, russia shot back with its own sanctions and threatened more. one of the nine u.s. officials sanctions senator john mccain joked that his planned trip to siberia for spring break was now off. joining us now from washington, d.c. is ambassador taylor. he served as u.s. ambassador from ukraine and is currently

the vice president for the middle east and africa for the united states institute for peace. it is good to have you back on consider this. at this point, the russian parliament passing a first vote on thursday to admit crimea into the russian federation does that mean that crimea is lost as part of ukraine? >> i would say no. we don't recognize the illegitimate referendum. we don't recognize the acts of the russian parliament. i hope the rest of the world doesn't recognize it. these clearly sham actions that have no legal effect, so i don't think it is lost. it is de facto, of course and the russians have offrun crimea and their soldiers have surrounded and have taken possession of a lot of the bases. most of the bases on crimea. so in fact they are controlling crimea but i think -- i would note say that crimea is lost.

>> pro russian forces seized three ukranian warships on thursday. on these new sanctions. this round does seem to pack more of a punch because they are going after some big allies of vladimir putin. these are kremlin players. who may well be stung because they are being cut off from the rest of the world, certainly the international economy. do you think it will have more of an effect? >> i certainly think it will have more of an effect. they have moved some of their liquid assets back home. but it is hard for them to move their properties. their mentions in london or their town houses in new york or miami. is the bigger punch the sanctions on the russian bank. that will have real effect on russians and their economy.

>> the bank roza handles accounts of top officials is owned in part by putin's personal banker. if it frozen out of the dollar and some terminated it will have real issues operating. it will have real issues operating. it can't operate in dollars, if reserve currency of the world, it will have a great difficulty getting loans, financing trade making investments. have seen the credit ratings affected. the ruling is falling. the stock market -- yeah, this is beginning to have an effect on russians where they really feel it. >> and the president is threatening some bigger sanctions. so far he is not sanctioning the head of the natural -- of russia's gas company. he is not sanctioning putin himself. but if little united states

does go broader as the president suggested it could with sanctions on other sectors. he raised the issue that this cot not just hurt russia's economy it could hurt the world economy. true. >> sanctions are not good for economic transactions. economic transations benefit both sides. if you cut off economic transactions like sanctions do, you will affect both sides. it turns out, of course, that these sanctions affect the russian side much more than they do the united states side or even the western side. so, it is certainly true that there is a cost to sanctions. that is why no one likes to do them. what is why it is a real mistake for the russians to continue these actions against ukraine. >> talking about that cost. european union put 12 more russians on their sanction list on thursday. russia's counter sanctions so far have been mild. but they are threatening what they have called asim metrical

sanctions, making noises about the nuclear negotiations with iran. if this escalates, it could really be a geo political issue, not just an economic problem for the west. >> it could. but the russians are not doing favors for us by negotiating to get the iranian nuclear weapon put away. they are doing this because it matters to them. they don't want irianians with a nuclear threat. they are closer to russia than they are to us. so they are not doing us any favors. we are not doing them any favors. we are operating in our best interest. they are operating in their best interest and the interest of both sides, both the americans and the russians is to get rid of nuclear weapons in iran. or remove the capacity to make a nuclear weapon by iranians. so the russians would be

cutting off their noses to spite their face if they were to pursue that action. into the sanctions that russia has imposed on the u.s. are creating a social media firestorm. >> antonio, you mentioned that john mccain responded to being sanctioned by russia. he is not the only one. house speaker boehner tweeted proud to be included on a list willing to stand up against putin's aggression. >> if standing up for democracy and sovereignty in ukraine means i'm sanctioned by putin, i'll take it. and senator called it being a badge of honor. had is just one big joke on twitter. obviously these sanctions don't mean anything. but are there any sanctions that are you russia can put on u.s. officials that would actually hurt? >> you know, it is hard to think of things that the russians have that we want. there are not many people who

want to visit moscow. some businesses do work there. it is hard to think of any about. it is also true, however, that big u.s. companies have investments in russia, and those could well be affected. but in terms of the sanctions that are put on officials and congress people and senators and officials at the nfc, i can't see those being very painful at all. you know, a final question for you. i want to bring up eastern ukraine, which has been a big worry as we saw russia go into crimea. eastern ukraine. of course, bordering with russia. secretary of defense hagel said he was assured by russia's defense minister they had no plans to go into eastern ukraine. but defense officials say rush's forces on the border could easily mount an invasion of the ukranian main line without any warning. how concerned are you about that? >> very concerned.

we should be ready for the worst. i hear what the russian defense minister says to secretary hagel. but, we should be prepared. the ukranians are clearly concerned as they should be. i believe there are some things we could do to help the ukranians get ready for that kind of scenario. there are military things that don't involve u.s. forces moving to or into ukraine. that would still help the ukranians make their preparations. >> well, let's hope it doesn't come to that. ambassador taylor, always great to have you on the show. coming up, more reported deaths in venezuela as continuing to round-up opposition political figures. twitter turns eight years old today and the company is thinking about making some dramatic changes to attract more users. i'll tell you more coming up. and while you are watching, let us know what you think.

tweet us at a.j. consider this or give our face book page a like and post your comments there. >> >> scared as hell... >> as american troops prepare to leave afghanistan get a first hand look at what life is really like under the taliban. >> we're going to be taken to a place, where they're going to make plans for an attack. >> the only thing i know is, that they say they're not going to withdraw. >> then, immediately after, an america tonight special edition for more inside and analysis. >> why did you decide to go... >> it's extremly important for the western audience to know why these people keep on fighting... ...it's so seldom you get that access to the other side. >> faultlines: on the front lines with the taliban then an america tonight: special edition only on al jazeera america

after threatening to imprison on opposition leader wednesday.

the regime turned on two opposition mayors thursday. intelligence agents arrested the mayor on charges including inciting violence and civil rebellion. the supreme court has ordered the jailing of san diego mayor for more than 10 months for failing to comply with a court order to have street barricades torn down. meanwhile, student protesters clashed with police in the capital caracas. 31 people have died since protests began last month. for more, let's go to caracas and lucia newman. good of you to join us. the maduro government -- followed a move to try another opposition for inciting civil war. are more arrests coming and what has been the response on the street to this crackdown? >> hello, antonio. actually

machado is being investigated and the national assembly wants to charge her with treason. not quite civil war but gets pretty close. the students came out on the streets in fact today. they were saying that government thugs had invaded their campus, had beaten up at least 20 students and that they are promising to continue to go out and demonstrate is huge national demonstration has been called by the opposition in response to this latest i would say if not crackdown certainly the government is becoming far more hard nosed about this making sure it will not tolerate terrorism from so-called facist opposition members. we saw two more deaths and protests on wednesday. as you said, there is a big student protest in caracas on thursday. they are focusing against the often violent motorcycle gangs. where is the violence mostly coming from? is it the government and these

thugs? >> it is hard to say. the people who are carrying out the vialenence most cases are covering their faces. you can't see who they are. but you can get an idea who they are according to who they are attacking. there has been violence on boats sides. people have died and more than 30 of them on both the government side and the opposition side. national guardsmen have been killed. ordinary citizens have been shot trying to remove barricades and of course also protesters who want the government out. so, there has been violence on all sides. the thing is according to the human rights organizations is that the national guard, the security forces are using excessive force much more. since they are the government, they have to set the example. >> and this big protest on saturday. what kind of turn out is expected? and where does the protest movement go? >> that is the 5 0 million question. there is expected to be a large turnout especially now that these mayors have been arrested. that will add more fuel to the

already burning fire here. >> lucia newman, appreciate you joining us. for more on the situation in venezuela i'm joined by miami -- from miami by rafael who wrote an article. you wrote your warm barricades, smoldering clout side your family's apartment and smoke filling the streets. how are people who are not on either side of the barricades dealing with all the violence? >> well, it depends on where the people lives because barricades are mainly in neighborhoods, middle class neighborhoods in the main cities. if you live in a small town the beach or the plains or the mountains, you don't have to deal with barricades except in the states of maria in the andes where the situation is very hard. and it is very

violent. >> now the maduro government has been drabbing cracking down on opposition leaders. and now the mayors who are being prosecuted for not tearing down protest barriers in their streets. they have set the stage to go after other opposition leaders. what do you see happening if maduro keeps cracking down on political dissent? >> well, sadly there is no political institution that can stop maduro's desires to crush the opposition. they control the supreme court, prosecutor's office, ombudsmen and the congress. they have the entire support rough the military by far. and if the regime, if the maduro regime wants to crush

the entire opposition, it won't find any limit from any institution. that is one of the main problems in venezuela. the institutions are completely disservice of the government. there are no check and balances, there are no republican equilibrium librium of powers. and there are no institutions that could sustain, moderate in a pacific way to protect against government. the opposition has a little spay to make things differently than the way they are doing things right now. and the media controlled. you write about two main strands within the opposition. can either strand lead the movement? can there be some sort of unity? that to move forward?

>> i'm afraid more of the -- before the build barricades and set them on fire and fight against policemen are acting by their own. >> the political parties -- >> the more -- the political -- , yeah. >> and -- >> and it's the perfect storm. it is the perfect storm to escalation of more violence in the weeks and months to come. and you also write that the revolt in venezuela isn't some latin american version of the arab spring. the protesters want maduro out of power although they are not making that an essential demand. but you can't see in any way that these protesters could get to the point where it would force the dictators and countries like egypt and tunisia to step

down? >> i don't see in the incomes future i don't see any close scenario when the maduro government could fold. that doesn't mean maduro himself is powerful. he is part of the more collective regime. and the only thing maduro has was the fleeing of hugo chavez before his death. but, he is the problem is it is a system. they are fighting against an entire system of power in this moment more and more military than civilians and has a lot of power. more power than money, more power than popularity. what do you any the military will do. will the military keep supporting maduro?

>> i don't see any sign that there is a relevant division in the military about support or not support maduro because the military has the control of many of the political and even economical activities in venezuela. venezuela is under a military government. >> as it is even though it is superficially a democracy. now it is likely that none of this would be happening without the mess the maduro government and hugo chavez did. but you think that no matter how angry people are about the crime, about the inflation, about the shortages, that maduro will be able to hang on. >> i don't know. i don't know. i don't have an answer for that question.

there are a lot of reasons to protest. you don't have to -- against your own neighbors to make a point. >> but the government is profiting about the violent protests and the blockades of the streets is profiting this situation to prosecute against opposition leaders and to crush what is left of the indiana media. terrible situation all around in venezuela. rafael, appreciate you joining us tonight. thank you. thank you. >> time to see what is trending on the web. >> twitter turns 8:00 this week. the company has made it easy for you to find your first tweet ever. here are high profile first tweets.

actress cameron diaz says i just got a super cool now app called twitter and twello. oprah tweeted hello twitters. in order to attract less social media savvy, users might be getting rid of elements that is the d.n.a. of what twitter is. they got rid of the at symbol in replies on android apps. on the left is what it looks like. on the right is what it looks like if you are looking at it on your android. some people welcome this change. the nc is not in into it. i don't think it is broken. i don't want it fixed. if i can figure it out. anybody can. let us know what you think about the changes. tweet us at aj consider this.

>> i agree with the simplification. >> it is more like face book now. thanks. straight ahead, the incredible amount of information about you that is constantly being collected. is there any way you can protect your privacy from the seemingly endless net of surveillance? >> and a controversial article indicates we are seeing the white trashing of television. >> the ukraine crisis as tensions esalate >> russia for all inents and purposes showing no signs of backing down. >> crimea's vote rejected by the west... >> here in crimea, a lot of them say the west should just butt out... >> new santions looming >> mr. ambassador will those sanctions work? >> things could easily get out of control >> will crimea break away? what's russia's next move? and how will th u.s. respond? >> we're making it clear that there are consequences for their actions... >> for continuing coverage stay with al jazeera america your global news leader.

we are living in a world where our every move can be tracked, all sorts of data is stockpiled on us with every click of our mouse, with every cell phone call, with our car's gps and in many other ways most people are unaware of. how pervasive is the problem and with this constant surveillance is there any way we can protect our privacy. joining us now is a pulitzer

prize winning journalist. her new book is dragnet nation, a quest for privacy, security and freedom in a world of relentless surveillance. it is great to have you here. the surveillance as you put it is relentless. it is out there in every imaginable way. how worried should we be? >> that is a great question. the surveillance is invisible and the consequences of it are somewhat invisible. so people legitimately wonder why they should be concerned. but i think there is two really big reasons to be concerned. one is when the government has so much information they can make arbitrary and unjust decisions about people, putting them in jail or on the no-fly list. we have seen cases like that. and i think i'm worried about a country where we feel scared to talk about things that might be subversive and fear of what the government might do to. and secondly, the commercial side, there is so much data about us and all these companies that we transact with, they have a lot rough

leverage over us. if they want to show us a higher price good because we can afford $5 more than the next guy. that technology is available. >> that spliced me that that is something they possibly do. >> talking about the government side of things. do we really have to worry about the u.s. government? because i know you went in to germany and you talked to people who had the archives of the old german secret police. you thought it would have been fabulous they would have loved to have the kind of now. >> right. we are not living in communist eastern germany, thank god. but it is worth reminding ourselves that the repressive secret police in that regime only had data about one quarter of the scenes. our government has it on 100% of us. really the question is what is the right oversight we can put in place to make sure they don't use it in some terrible way. >> that is the question. what do we do to protect ourselves. you went through to find out

how much data was collected on you. >> here is a list. they had everywhere you had ever lived. every phone number. a list of 3,000 e-mail exchanges. they had 26,000 web searches. your shopping habits. internal "wall street journal" communications of yours. ha is one that jumped out at me. who can access this stuff? >> each one of those things a different party had. although, some more than half of them are google. google has a lot of information because between my searches, e-mail and my maps and my android phone they had a big chunk about me. >> really credible information. precisely when you were searching for different things and you could see that you might have been working on one thing and then you got distracted and went to something else. it is incredible they have all that on you. >> yow know what is annoying? i wanted that information about myself. i thought maybe if i saw how my mind leaped all over the place like a crazy person i might learn something. this is the quantified -- i

could wear a tracker and make my mind behave better. but i couldn't get my data from google. but you could get the data from other places. how many people can access that? >> right, so it depends. for instance, the data that was troubling about the "wall street journal" communications was with the government. so when i asked for my customs and border patrol files strangely i found that the "wall street journal" through some technological glitch had been sending internal things that i had to get my boss to approve travel for to the government and it was in my files. and that actually could be sent to the counter terrorism center for analysis. in all sorts of places it might be sent to look for clues. >> it is amazing. you talk about how the facial recognition can lead stores to know all sorts of things about door. >> right. so the stores are starting to get excited the facial

recognition technology. some stores experimented with these cameras at the door. but basically right now are just alerting them to known shoplifters. but they dream of the day that they can identify their best shoppers and some of send the best sales person to them. i think i'll get the worst. you spent a lot of money trying to do all sorts of things to protect your privacy. you brought one of the examples with you. >> yes. i was frustrated with my inability to stop cell phone tracking. your phone is always sending out signals. so i ended up putting it in this bag. this is a metal lined bag that blocks all electromagnetic signals. therefore it can't communicate with radio towers for a cell phone or wi-fi. so they can't track you anymore but then you can't receive phone calls. so it is an inconvenient way to protect your privacy because i can't make calls. >> and you found a lot of things that help protect privacy are iffy, that they

don't often do the job and there is no real way of having quality control of knowing if they are doing the job? >> right. even with this bag, the only way it will detect it is if somebody calls me and it doesn't ring. if you called me that wouldn't ring. that is good. but it doesn't tell me that some silent pinging couldn't be going on. that is true of a lot of privacy products. i started to worry that i'm pleased that there are new services offering privacy. but i'm worried that we can't verify how successful they are. >> right. that is a tough one. how would you tell someone who is not really into privacy that does want to protect themselves. there are any simple ways of doing it? >> yeah, a couple of simple things that do work. i switched off of google search because i didn't want want one that stores my history. i went to duck, duck, go. he don't keep all my searches. i switched to using some technology in my web browser

that blocks a lot of the invisible ad tracking technologies which is easy to install. and changed all my passwords. the most common password is one 23456. >> or password. >> and it is time for all of us to up our game. >> what do you say to people who defend government surveillance and say what's the big deal, they are trying to protect us. >> if i didn't do anything wrong, what do i have to worry about? >> i mean, i agree that we should have that debate. but right now we don't have evidence that this surveillance is protecting us. what we have evidence of is every time there has been a terrific attempt the boston bombing, the shoe bomber, there has been data in the databases about them. it wasn't flagged completely or didn't rise to the level. what we see is this mass surveillance. there is information about everyone there. but is it preventing things? we haven't seen good evidence. so much information out there. it is really fascinating. thank you very much.

again, the book is dragnet nation. >> coming up, from true detective to justify the changing face of television. but first, it a grand old birthday for the grand old party. fake a look at the evolution of the republican party since its creation in your data dive next. >> >> al jazeera america presents extraordinary documentaries. >> i've seen nothing like this before in my entire life. >> the amazon rainforest is going up in smoke. >> hundreds of kilometers square are disappearing in a day here. >> indigenous communities at risk. >> if their forest continues to disappear, then eventually these people will disappear. >> this british firefighter joins a group of brave men. >> the most surprising thing for me is the size of the fires that come through. absolutely brutal. >> toughest place to be a firefighter. sunday at 9 eastern, on al jazeera america.

>> today's data dive looks at the changing face of the grand old party. thursday marked the republican party's 160th birthday and the g.o.p. was very different when it was formed in 1854. a group of former whig party members met in wisconsin to oppose the spread of slavery into western states. they quickly gained support in the whole northern half of the country. in 1860 a divided democratic party led to the election of a charismatic republican leader, abraham lincoln. he was elected despite threats of secession from several southern states. south carolina seceded first six weeks after lincoln's election. the rest of the confederate states followed and the civil war began in april of 1861. the end of the war consolidated the republican party as the party of the victorious north. in today's terms, republicans

then might have qualified as liberals. there was a huge expansion of powers starting the transcontinental railroad and state university system. they granted protections for now freed african americans against democratic objects. but things began to change as the country expanded. republicans became more pro business and democrats found willing supporters in western farmers who felt republicans favored eastern banks, railroads and manufacturers. democrats promised the less fortunate farmers more federal aattention. the great depression came under a republican presidency and franklin roosevelt's new deal with social welfare programs, increased infrastructure spending and regulation of final institutions helped democrats hold on to the white house for 20 years. many southern democrats were slow to turn republican. conservative senator strom thurmond filibustered as a democrat. thurmond spoke for many who recented the expansion of federal power.

he later changed parties. today, the g.o.p. is stronger in the south than in the north. and the modern g.o.p. is still changing. this week, chairman will shorten the primary season, schedule the party's convention much earlier in june and slash the number of presidential debates from 27 two years ago to fewer than 10 in 2016. and with libertarians, tea partyers and more moderate establishment republicans debating the soul of the g.o.p., the party of lincoln will certainly continue to evolve. coming up, is television getting even trashier? we will explain, next. >> >> join us on consider this... >> president jimmy carter joins antonio mora >> my administartion has a very strong human rights element. >> his perspective on the conflicts facing the world in the state of america. on al jazeera america

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characters. it pointed to "justified", "breaking bad", "the walking dead", and "the so-called trashing of television had overtones." we are joined by bill wyman. good to have you on the show. this is not every show in the golden age of television, but there seems to be a greater number of shows today that fit the thesis of the article. do you buy that? >> i really honestly don't. there are so many tv shows out there today that you can make a case, any case you want. if you want to talk about the "sop rarnos" at the same time you had "sex in the si", going on. "law and order", and "n.c.i.s." dominated and the sitcoms "two and a half men", and "the big bang theory." what you have,

which i think is interesting, is you could make a case that the high-end outlets, hbo, there was "carnivale", there's one show about a swampy, sexy, decadent reliageioso disturbing crime investigation. interesting. >> let me point out some of the other things that the article talks about. it's colourful in descriptions. it talks about "true detectives", describing the cast of sweaty, unshaven, heavily scented strip-clubbing neo-neanderthals, but argues that we see it in "true bloods", "vam pirs", "the walking dead", and in "mad men" don. >> the "mad men" is specious, it's 100th of 1%, and it is set

in glamorous manhattan. some of these shows are high end. "true blood" is an interesting show about otherness - first there's people, and then the vampires. then it turns out there's werewolves and fairies, and folds in the others, and then you look around saying everyone is weird and different. it's a positive message and not seem. >> assuming the thesis of the article is right and we are seeing more of this. some are concerned that because american tv has gone global, some are worried about the message of the characters. >> a lot of people overseas don't like that. i was looking into this, and it's a world, odd thing. it's hard to make a sweeping generalisation because of the

cultural thing, censorship, illegal file sharing, shown to people outside normal channels. take a show like "house", based on sherlock holmes, and for some reason it's a huge hit in france. so that obviously would present a positive image of america. they love the glamorous things, like dallas and things like that. they are always big overseas, and i assume that continues. and "game of thrones", how does that fit in. >> that's a different thing. again, it's fiction. it's fantasy, so it's somewhat different. taking your side on this. >> okay. >> most popular shows, are they always broad - you can run done ethnic groups that take issue with their portrayals on tv. is this

exaggeration something that hollywood thrives on. >> something like "the walking dead", 10 to 15 million people watch it "true blood" and "true detective", is smaller. you have shows like "jersey shore", and others. soon you'll have an accurate representation of everything we as americans are interested in, and i think we'll find slivers can be sold. you brought up jersey shore. we were showing some of "duck dynasty", the article does not address reality tv, and you have odd cases that fit with "duck dynasty", and "honey boo boo", and there's also "big brother", "survivor", and "the bachelor."

>> reality tv, when it started created difficult positions for minorities and outsiders. they were treated roughly. things have normalized over time. in reality these are scripted and are semiscripted, let's say. and the producers know what they are going for with the audience. let's take another step back. pop culture makes people happy. if people are happy watching those shows, it's a great thing about the world we live in. >> and a last question - the weekly standard piece makes a provocative argument that there may be political undertones, that liberal hood is portraying people from the red states in a negative way and the last line says, "rich hollywood folk making mince meat out of the poorer folk is another area that

should not go unremarked." >> "beverley hill billies", it's happened for 50 years in the american culture. i agree with him. the high end hbo types may play a little cultural prejudice among the audience. >> an interesting article and presentation. great to see you. >> the show may be over. for more go to aljazeera.com, google+, twitter or >> al jazeera america is a straight-forward news channel. >> its the most exciting thing to happen to american journalism in decades. >> we believe in digging deep. >> its unbiased, fact-based, in-depth journalism. >> you give them the facts, dispense with the fluff and get straight to the point.

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