05/20/18 05/30/18 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! pres. trump: you look at her of catastrophe like katrina and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here, really, a storm that was totally overbearing. nobody has ever seen anything like this. what is sure death count as of this moment, 17?

16 people certified. 16 people versus in the thousands. amy: months after president trump bragged about the low death count in puerto rico after hurricane maria, a shocking new harvard study estimates the leastm's s death toll is at 4600 am a dish 4600 people -- 70 times higher than the official count -- making maria far deadlier than hurricane katrina and d september 11. we will go puerto rico for the latest. then 39 animal rights activists are arrested at a california egg farm. >> supplies to whole foods and amazon. shipping crueuelty to millions of households. amy: we will speak with the pulitzer prize winning journalist glenn greenwald about the crackdown of animal rights activists and his latest expose, "bred to suffer: inside the barbaric u.s. industry of dog experimentation."

we will also talk about the firing of roseanne barr and the latest on the robert mueller investigation. all of that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. a stunning new study by researchers at harvard has revealed the death toll from hurricane maria may be 70 times higher than official count. the official death toll still stands at 64. but ththe new study estimates a death toll of at least 4645, with some projections topping 5700. researchers counted not just deaths directly from storm injuries such as falling debris, but also those who died dudue to storm-m-related dedelays in meml treatmenent for injujuries, infectctions, and d chronic ill. the findings contrast with president trump's boasts in the wake of the hurricane that puerto rico suffered a low death cocount. we'll have more on deaths from hurricane maria after headlines.

in the gaza strip, israeli warplanes launched scores of airstrikes overnight tuesday, while hamas fired dozens of rocketets and mortars into southern israel in the most intense fifiting in ththe besied palestinian n territory since 2014. to do the cease-fire seems to have taken place. cease-fire seems to have taken place with a mass. the fighting followed a recent wave of nonviolent protests near israel's militarized border with gaza, inin which israeli snipers killed 116 palestinians and injured thousands more. meanwhile, israel's navy intercepted a flotilla carrying about two dozen people, including activists challenging israel's blockade of the gaza strip and patients seeking medical treatment abroad. this i is participant mohammed u eidadah. >> we demand to break the blockade. and to seek memedical treatmenet anand other arabic countries because of my injury.

the attempt to sell today houses to break the blockade. amy: in the united states, hundreds of people were arrested in cities acacross the country tuesday in nonviolent protests calling for an end to ececonomic inequality, militarirism, and racial injustice, organized by the new poor people's campaign. in missouri, dozens of protesters held a sit-in protest at the state capitol building, calling for a minimum wage of 15 -- $15 an in nashville, hour. tennessee, 20 people were arrested as they protested for gun control and against militarism ahead of a visit by president trump. in washington, d.c., dozens of protesters were arrested as they held a civil disobedience protest outside the office of republican senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. "the new york times" reports that days after attorney general jeff sessions recused himself from the investigation into alleged ties between russia and the trump campaign, president trump ordered sessions to reverse the decision. "the times" reports the potentially inappropriate request is under investigation

by special counsel robert mueller as another line of evidence that trump sought to obstruct the inquiry. sessions recused himself following reports he met twice with russia's ambassador to the u.s. while serving as a campaign surrogate for donald trump. the revelation directly contradicted sessions' sworn testimony to congress that he did not meet with any russian officials in the run-up to the 2016 election. a top house republican has defended the fbi consist series of attacks from president trump who has claimed without evidence of planted despite in his 2016 presidential campaign. saidessman trey gowdy tuesday the fbi was acting properly when it deployed a confidential informant to investigate russian attempts to interfere in the elections. missouri repubublican governor eric greitens said tuesday he'ss resigning from office as lawmakers prepared for his possible impeachment over alleged sexual misconduct and corruption. greitens continued to profess

his innocence even as he said he's stepping down. >> i know and people of good faith know that i'm not perfect, but i am not broken any laws nor committed any offense worthy of this treatment. i will let the fairness of this process be judged by history. amy: an indictment accuses greitens of blindfolding and tying up a woman with whom he was having a consensual affair, and then taking her picture without her consent and threatening to release the naked photograph if she ever spoke publicly about their relationship. in a separate trial, greitens faces a felony charge of computer tampering for illegally obtaining a donor's list from a veterans' charity he co-founded to aid his election campaign. abc has canceled its hit show "roseanne" after its star, roseanne barr, fired off a series of racist comments on twitter. in one tweet, roseanne wrote -- "muslim brotherhood & planet of

the apes had a baby = vj." it was a reference to valerie jarrett, long-time adviser to president obama, who's african-american. roseanne also accused billionaire george soros, who's jewish, of being a nazi collaborator and attacked chelsea clinton. the decicision to cancel roseane was made by channing dungey, the first african american president of a major tv v network. the reboot of the hit 1980's sitcom "roseanne" last year drew huge audiences and praise from president trump, who wants called roseanne barr to congratulate her on the show success. the supreme court has declined to hear a challenge to an arkansas law that's among the most restrictive anti-choice measures in the country. the law requires women's health clinics that provide medication-induced abortions to contract with doctors who have hospital admitting privileges. planned parenthood says the restriction is almost impossible to meet, and that it will be forced to stop providing abortion medication at its two

arkansas clinics, leaving just a clinic in little rock as the state's only provider of medication abortions. in france, police have begun evacuating hundreds of migrants from makeshift camps around paris, forcing them onto buses bound for so-called temporary accommodation centers. the sweep came as france added new restrictions for migrants applying for asylum. meanwhwhile, a 22-year-old m mit from mali named mamoudou gassama became a national hero this week after he risked his life to scale the side of an apartment high-rise in order to rescue a four-year-old boy who was dangling from a fourth-floor balcony. video of the rescue went viral, earning gassama the nickname "spiderman." he was welcomed at elysee palace by president macron monday, offered french citizenship and a job as a firefighter. hungary's government has proposed n new laws and a consnstitutional amendment that wowould crack downwn on anyone offering aid to migrants seeking asylum.

under the legislation, offering food, water, or legal advice to migrants would be outlawed. even printing leaflets with information for asylum seekers would become a criminal offense. in ukraine, a prominent russian journalist and kremlin critic was ambushed outside his home in kiev tuesday in an apparent assassination. arkady babchenko, a veteran war correspondent who was sharply critical of russian president vladimir putin's annexation of crimea, was shot three times in the back by an unknown assailant. babchenko had been living in ukraine since 2017 after calling russia "a a country i no longer feel safe in." the justice department has approved a takeovever of the u.. agribusiness giant monsanto by the german pharmaceutical firm bayer. the planned $66 billion takeover would make the combined company the largest supplier of seeds and agricultural chemicals in the world. the canadian government has announced plans to buy the transmountain pipeline

guaranteeing its expansion will move forward despite widespread concern about its environmental impact. first nations and activists of the project will expand highly polluting development in alberea tar sands region while endangering communities around unexpended export terminal near vancouver. and a transgender woman who was part of the caravan of central american migrants who arrived at the u.s. border earlier ththis momonth seeking asylum has diedn the custody of u.s. immigration and customs enforcement. buzzfeed news reports that roxsana hernandez died friday after suffering a cardiac arrest at a hospital in albuquerque, new mexico. hernandez was one of scores of asylum seekers who crossed into the united states earlier this month after taking part in a month-long caravan that began more than 2000 miles away in the mexican state of chiapas. hernandez's supporters say she was detained by u.s. customs and border protection after asking for asylum at the border. she was reportedly held in a freezing cell with the lights turned on 24 hours a day and denied adequate food or medical care. last month, hernandez told buzzfeed news that she fled

honduras after facing discrimination and violence. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. juan: and i'm juan gonzalez. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. we begin today's show in puerto rico. stunning the report by researchers at harvard h has revealed the death toll from hurricane maria may be 70 times higher than official count. the official death toll still stands at 64. but the new research says the death toll is at least 4645, and perhaps as many as 5740. the harvard study was published tuesday in the new england journal of medicine. amy: president trump has so far not responded to the new study. but in october, during a visit to puerto rico, trump boasted about the low official death count. pres. trump: i hated to take,

puerto rico, but you have thrown our budget a little out of whack because we spent a lot of money on puerto rico, and that is fine, we're saved a lot of lives. if you look at -- every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like katrina and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened to your with really a storm that was totally overbearing. nobody has seen anything like this. what is your death count as of this moment? 17? 60 people certified. 16 people versus in the thousands. you can very - -- you can be vey proud of our people working together. 16 verses literally thousands of people. juan: with a death toll of at least 4645, hurricane maria would become the second deadliest hurricane in u.s. history, behind only the

galveston hurricane of 1900, which killed as many as 12,000 people in texas. the harvard study surveyed almost 3300 randomly selected puerto rican households, and it found mortality rates leaped 62% from septembmber 20 through the end of 2017, compared with the year beforore. researchers counted not just deaths directly from stormrm injuries such as falling debris, but also those who died due to storm-related delays in medical treatment for injuries, infections, and chronic illness. amy: the survey found -- "interruption of medical care was the primary cause of sustained high mortality rates in the months after the hurricane, a finding consistent with the widely reported disruption of health systems. health care disruption is now a growing contributor to both morbidity and mortality in natural disasters." well, for more, we go to san juan, puerto rico where we are joined by omaya sosa, co-founder of puerto rico's center for

investigative journalism where she is a reporter. her latest article is headlined, "puerto rico government did not prevent most hurricane maria-related deaths." welcome back to democracy now! can you start off by talking about the significance of this harvard study? at the time it was said something like 60 people were dead, now this number between 4600 and 5700 people. morning. thank you for having me here with you again. it is very important -- it is significant because there is finally a prestigious institution saying what we have been saying for eight months. numbersbeen saying the were much higher since the week after the hurricane in september. as early as the first week of december, we had already said the first months there was more

than 1000 casualties. i am really glad people are finally listening. things are still really bad. last week we published a story about the situation in hospitals and health care facilities in puerto rico. and how they contributed to this high death toll. that the situation is still bad in some places. it is the result of decades of tolect from the government the health care system as a whole. juan: i wanted to know if you can expand on that? first of all, the study only 2017.hrough december 31, clearly, there were many areas in puerto rico that did not even have electricity into january and february, so the study doesn't even cover that. but can you talk about what has happened to the health care system in puerto rico, especially the privatization efforts that occurred in the 1990's? puerto rico, you

still have a public health care system that lets a in the 1970's was a model even to the world. by the 1990's, isn't many problems but it still had -- it had many problems but it had a comprehensive health care system. it was an organized system. in the 1990's because they were losing a lot of money, the government was losing a lot of money with the health care facilities and they had many other kinds of problems with supplies and so forth, they privatizeded most of t the syst, leleaving only the san juan hospitals mainly come and minor centers around the island. most of the hospitals in p puero rico are private now.. this hurricane struck in a that was not

reorganized. the government had no control over the hospitals on the rest of the island. when they started trying to see how they could order the system, ththey really had no way, no pl. privatization thing, thehe goverernment has aa responsibility over the private hospitals, state licensed hospitals, they regulate these hospitals, and they are supposed to inspect these hospitals at least every two years. we found out around 40% of the hospitals had not been inspected. -- hospitals and health care facilities. you have 70 hospitals and minor facilities and elderly homes that are also considered health care facilities, it is 400. we found out there were some of these places that were not inspected for eight years, let's say. so on one hand, the

privatization of facilities that left the government without any plan of where to channel the patients in this emergency and then you have the situation that the private hospitals were not being inspected as they should be. we asked for all of these reports. no surprise, they did not give us access to the reports. so we don't even know which ones they inspected, what these reports said. it is part of, as you've seen, a trend from this government to not give any information on this issue. amy: you are suing for the mortality data? close yes, we are. that was -- the mortality data was one of the main problems we encountered when we started investigating this in september. it still is. the harvard report mentions this. not even they got the data after

december. the government has not made public any data at all since december. we have been suing the government since february for the complete set of the mortality data so we can know what happened after december in puerto rico. feel, for youru investigation of this tragedy, that the government has clearly falses death toll a first 16 64, and even though now it has commissioned its own study, keeps delaying putting that study out of what the actual death toll was. why do you think that is? clubs -- >> in the beginning, it was a matter of looking good, that they were being effective in their response because they knew this was happening from week number two.

it is negligence that they have not attended the situation with the seriousness it needs. they could have prevented many, many deaths. andknow what is going on you take charge of the situation, how many deaths could have been prevented? the data that we have that goes until november only shows that ints were still spiking november. then he have been prevented. in the end when they had no other choice in december, data was so clear that mortality had spiked so much in their own data, the governor had to admit that their numbers were wrong and that commissioned the study. still, i don't think there's a real wheel to find out what is going on. newre already in the hurricane season and we don't

have any information. we c cannot prepare fofor the nt season. amy: i want to turn to a clip of the president of the puerto rico hospital association. the association claims that the puerto rican government never established a special protocol to handle deaths during hurricane riria. >> all deaths are ininical. in other words, ifhey want to make a detmination like afrr rricicanmaria a e depth down in puerto rico irereasedy 43%, and i make aororrelaon t tha i'i'm goininto put that number in t the maria death toll statistics, faasastic. i dodon't haha a problem with that, but need toe reonsible. fromhehe hpital's poinofof view, i can'asask th to make diagnoic determination that a death had ything to do oth clinical reason.nical reaso oya sosaif you c

pla?oamie his actuay right. the gornor andheovernmen was e one thahad to te chge of thisnd put o an ecutive order orderinthe spitals d theoctors tdo th in a ceain way, d they never di theytill haven't fixedhe procol. they hav admittethe protol is wrong a it is n working i ve to reat, i thk there is a lk of intest fromhe gornment to really make this happen. it has been months. juan: in terms of the federal response in washington to the hurricane, what is, from your aid that hasvel of actually reached puerto rico, not what congress does or what president trump says in a press

conference, but of the aid that has actually reached the people of puerto rico in their efforts of recovery? >> too little, too late. we still have about 100,000 people here without electricity, and it has been eight months. i don't think that would have happened in any of the states. i'm sorry, but it is unacceptablele. amamy: overall, if you can describe the condidition of pueo rico right now? it is much better in terms of -- is with electricity mean, the basic services. but it is still hanging on a thread. many places lose electricity or lose water service weekly or biweekly, a couple of times each week. the situation -- but that is just going to basics. inn you go to the situation

general, it is far from getting back on its feet. a lot of unemployment. the streets are in very bad conditions. it is difficult just driving around the island. amy, you were here, so you saw the conditions, what the infrastructure is in. everything is just, you know, hanging in there. amy: we want to thank you very much for joining us. omaya sosa is co-founder of puerto's rico center for investigative journalism. her latest report "puerto rico , government did not prevent most hurricane m maria-related deaths." special thanks to wipr public television in san juan, which like many pbs stations, also plays democracy now! daily. next wednesday we will have a special on puerto rico. when we return, glelenn greenwad joins us. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace reportrt. i'm amy goodman withth juan gonznzalez. as we spend the rest of the hour with the fillets are prize-winning journalist glenn greenwald of the intercept, we will talk about his latest expose on and on experimentation as well as robert mueller's probe of president trump, but we begin with today's big entertainment news. juan: on tuesday, abc canceled its hit show "roseanne" after its star, roseanne barr, fired off a series of racist comments on twitter. in one tweet, roseanne wrote -- "muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby = vj." it was a reference to valerie jarrett, long-time adviser to president obama, who's african-american. roseanne also accusesed billionaire george soros, who's jewish, of being a nazi collaborator and attacked chelsea clinton.

the decision to cancel roseanne was made by channing dungey, the first african-american president of a major tv network. the reboot of the hit 1980's sitcom "roseanne" last year drew huge audiences and praise from president trump who once called roseanne barr to congratulate her on the show success. amy: glenn greenwald joins us frfrom rio de janeiro. you have just been tweeting about this up until this moment. roseanne barr has been tweeting nonstop for the last, i don't know how many hours, since she did that initial tweet you quitting valerie jarrett with an ape and being fired by the first afafrican-american woman presidt of a major broadcast network. talk about the significance of what has just taken place. you have been following what roseanne barr has been tweeting for years. >> right. i think we ought to be extremely

cautious about awarding any praise whatsoever to anybody at abc for canceling roseanne's show. there is no question at all that what she tweeted is completely in line and perfectly consistent with what she has been saying and writing and tweeting for many years. abc had to have known exactly what she thought the things she believed when they gave her the show they gave her. i would and looked because i remembered i had a very that your outlook exchange, several of them, with roseanne several years ago that israel. she had become a very fanatical defender of israel. and she often spewed some of the overgrotesque and racism from any public figure you'll hear from the side of say david duke. she deleted a lot of the tweets but i remember because some of the exchanges are online in

which she wass talking about arabs and palestinians being inferior, being prone to violence, deserving to be slaughtered and killed. she previously had said similar things about susan rice that she set about valerie jarrett. obviously, her comments yesterday received a lot of attention because she now has a show and they were so grotesque and racist that abc had no choice. but it wasn't like this was something new for roseanne. this is stuff she has been saying about lots of different groups, including african-americans, but especially arabs and palestinians, for a long time. it's just that the racism towards them tends to be more acceptable. the other issue is, there's a lot of free speech debates now that center around not what the amendment is about, but private actors and their freedom to punish people who express ideas that are threatening to the commercial interest. there was a big controversy when

google fired an employee for theessing his views on ability of women to compete in the workforce. there's a similar controversy of the nfl finding and punishing teams whose players neil and .rotest of police brutality and now we have this. i think we need to formulate consistent principles about what our views are but in roseanne's case, so far over the line of anything decent, i don't think anyone would think abc could do anything but fire her. amy: i think she talked about susan ririce, former obama official, compared her to an ape back in 2013. >> right. that is what i'm saying. roseanne was the biggest tv star in the 1980's. the show she created and started an actual was pretty revolutionary in american television because it was really the first time a major television program focused on a

working-class family struggling with economic deprivation. there were other shows that didn't like "good times" and "all in the family" but this was an updated version of how working-class americans are losing the american dream. and because of her weight issues and lots of other things, it was a pretty revolutionary show. from theof faded american consciousness she had been on twitter and sang the most insane racist things for the last four or five years. the only difference is now people pay more attention to it because abc gave her a show. if anyone paying any attention to her over the last several years would have known this is exactly who she is. juan: the question in my mind, looking back now, is why abc would even, given the climate, especially the polarized nature of american society today, considered giving her the show to begin with knowing the history of hers am especially it

seems they acted so quickly yesterday. it was within hours of her statements. it made me think, first of all, given the context of the starbucks day of discussion with their employees about racial bias and the fact that some african-americanan leaders were instantly talking about possibly boycotting the advertisers on the show, what was stunning to me was how quickly abc moved to cancel the show. think roseann's comments, like i said, it was in the kind of racism that was implicit or dressed up or disguised or in code, the kind int is acceptable and common everyday american discourse. i mean, she compared an african-american woman to an ape. thats so far over the line -- it was shocking and visceral to so many people that i do

think abc felt their brand would be in jeopardy if they continued to be associated with her any longer. and that raises the question of why abc was willing to associate themselves with somebody who had a record of saying those things in the past. thatnk their gamble was roseanne with her high salary in the success of the show would kind of hide the things that she really believed. i think there's an important cultural issue which there is a huge part of the country that voted for trump, i mean, basically have the people who voted, a little less than half voted for donald trump. there isn't a lot of representation of those people who support donald trump or the republican party on television because the places the inner taman industry thrives in, which is los angeles and new york, 10 to be very pro-liberal and pro-democrat and anti-republican. i think abc thought they were correcting an imbalance in offering a representation of people who are not oftft heard

from. it is not t a bad thing to do as long as you're not having foisted the most racist aspects of that faction which is exactly what they did when they gave roseanne barr a platform. can't reviewy now! roseanne barr streets because she is had our cap blocked for quite some time. we're going to move onto a new issue. and: i want to shift gears talk about the topic of the increasing number of animal welfare activists facing criminal charges for filming and exposing abuse on industrial farms througugh direct actctiond social media. on tuesday, hundreds of people with the group direct action everywhere marched to an industrial shed housing chickens in petaluma, california, that is owned by sunrise farms, which supplies cage-free eggs to amazon and whole foods. what happened next unfolded on facebook live, narrated at first by the group's co-founder wayne hsiung. this is an edited recap.

>> i want to show you a photo of what is happening inside this farm. our activists were in this farm as recently as a couple of days. you see animals going blind, collapsed on the ground in feces. this is standing practice. this is a firm that supplies whole foods and amazon. crueltyhipping animal to millions of households across the world. its time f for this to stop. the only way to make it stop, when you have gone of the government and law enforcement in the corporations and ceos and politicians time and time again, thisnly way is to make violence stop is for people to take direct action. >> i am here with direct action everywhere. sir them a we do have the right. >> off the concrete.

>> we have the right. [indiscernible] this was taken from this morning. any person who and pounds the domestic animal -- >> i mean no disrespect you, but, guys. activists putting on by a security gear. demanding to know what happens inside corporate farms. what happens to chickens who are buy in this farms when you cage-free organic eggs. looks you don't have a right of anything. >> we do. >> we have pictures.

looks i don't give a -- >> we need to show you what is happening. >> do not touch my property. >> we are inside. happening --hat is show me what is happening. >> oh, my god. >> it is bad. >> tse birds are going to die because they have no access to water. >> we are alive inside a factory farm in calilifornia. juan: that's an excerpt of a livestream video of hundreds of activists with direct action everywhere protesting tuesday at an industrial shed housing chickens for sunrise farms in petaluma, california. activists say they removed 37

chickens and took them to get veterinary care. police arrested 39 people for trespassing. amy: this comes as utah officials have filed felony burglary and rioting charges against five members of the group, including co-founder wayne hsiung, accusing them of removing a pair of piglets from a smithfield foods hog farm during a direct action in utah last year. a warrant for their arrest filed monday said they had "engaged in a pattern of unlawful activity and committed the offenses of burglary and theft targeting animal enterprises located in utah and other states." the activists could face 60 years in prison.n. for more, we're continuing with pulitzer prize winning journalist glenn greenwald, who has long fought secrecy and is now investigating animal cruelty. he spoke this weekend at the animal liberation conference in berkeley, california, and just published a new report headlined "bred to suffer: inside the barbaric u.s. industry of dog experimentation." talk about this video we have just watched.

i was in san francisco in the bay area just this weekend. i just got back to brazil yesterday were interviewed a lot you justvery activist showed on the film. i think what is important to note is for a long time, the issue of animal rights was kind of perceived or even by the left, to be this fringe or isolated issue. this boutique concern that was not related to other fights for for political or reform. in fact, they're extremely closely related. no matter what your views are on the morality of slaughtering animals for food, i think that everybody should be able to agree that industrial systematic torture of animals on their way to being slaughtered for food is morally unacceptable. it reminds a lot of the work i do on war in american wars

around the world. the reason why the u.s. population is willing to tolerate constant, continual repeated killing by their own government of people in foreign countries is because they never have to see the results of the policies that they turn away from because the dead are never shown or rarely reported on. this is the same for the agricultural industrtry in facty farms in the usa keep these animals and the most horrific conditions with a sever greatly. everybody with pets or have interacted with animals know they have emotional complexity, the capacity for great suffering. they keep them in condions that it is just horrific to look at. that is why people want to turn away. al linking the activists are doing, really, journalism, goin and filming inside these facilities in order to make the onld see what actually goes inside of them. and that is why they're being prosecuted and that is why they're being arrested. occasionally as a symbol, they

will take a dying animal who is going to die before it makes its way to the s slaughterhouse andd therefefore has the commmmercial valulue and they rescue them and bring them to a veterinarian, care for them, bring them to a shelter.. they personalize it t to show te nature of animal suffering. they don't ever take anything of commercial value. their real crime is their shining a light on what these extremely powerful corporations are doing, and that is why these corporations, which control the government in control law enforcement, are prosecuting ththem. they're punishing them in response to the journalism they're doing to deter people from shining a light on what these -- what really goes on inside american industrial farms and the suffering that animals endure in our name. juan: and the issue, for instance, in his particular case, these were chickens that were being bred for amazon anand whole foods. the total.

advertising of these companies in terms of your reading about ns, that the reality is quite different. it is not only the barbarism of the way the animals are being treated, but the complete fraud in the advertising of these companies? >> exactly. such an important point. there have been, thanks to the hero a quirk of animal rights activists, increasing recognition of how horrifically animals are treated. a lot of consumers are receptive to appeals by corporations like all foods and amazon that there is ethical eating choices, that you can buy organic foods were animals are treated better. the reality is much different. last month we reported on a turkey farm in utah that the same activists with direct action everywhere were able to film and the abuse of these turkeys and the disease and injuries in which they were

suffering was absolutely horrific and completely at odds with the bucolic organic branding that this company, which is now a supplier of all foods, advertises to people and convinces people to buy their products on the basis of it. it is the same as this chicken farm. you saw some of the hideous images. it is corporate deceit and corporate fraud. the problem is those of the federal and state level, agricultural executives are in charge of the regulatory bodies. therefore, even the minimal loss governing animal welfare is viewed as a joke. even when companies radically and purposefully violate the minimal welfare laws, they barely get fined. a lot of times they get worn even for the most egregious abuses. the activists are saying there are laws in place to prevent animal abuse and the government's purpose the desk

purposefully abdicating the law will stop amy: if you can talk, glenn expose youabout the wrote "bred to suffer: inside the barbaric u.s. industry of dog experimentation." people don't even realize that it is legal in the united states to conduct on ontific experimentati dogs. not only is it legal, it is pervasive. in 2016, just in terms of what was reported in the numbers are far greater, 60,000 dogs were subjected to all kinds of experimentations. not just medical experimentationsns were pathoges are injected into their brains by journaling holes in their head, but where theyey are force fed commercial products s like water detergent right into the stomach using the same technique ras, placeke faux g

and the stomach are commercial products that causes them to vom and causes them to go into seizures and coma is. commercial pure testing. it produces little to no valalue because the physiolology of gs is so different from h humans ad therere are fafar better meteths suggested so research that provides better information but there is an entire industry in the u.s. that has no purpose but into life.gs those dogs have no purpose but to serve as objects of experimentation. they are kept in small cages, often never being removed in their cages, experimented on in the most horrific ways. when our usage is done as extreme as objects, they are simply killed. it is incredibly immoral to create life for n no reason othr than to experiment on n a living bebeing. we were able to report on these

activists who entered ridglan farms, just west of madison, wisconsin, where beagles, which are the preferred breed because they've been bred to be docile and sweet and trusting of humans, arare kept by y th thouousands and sold to resrcrch facicilies at t e university of california, to corpotitions ararou the world, with very few standards about what is dontoto them and to their suffering that ththeynd/or. the's lo of contversy in the u.s. an act to protest morally outraged over the news -- its that we read about is horrible, but in the u.s., there is an entire industry that subjects those dogs to methods that are just as horrible in terms of the pain-and-suffering they hinder purely for her killer fornd commercial profit.

juan: can you talk about sonny perdue, president trump's nominee were appointed to head the used affirmative agriculture, his oversight role in his own record? sure. sonny perdue, now the secretary under donald trump, is a typical appointee, not just of the trump administration, but for administrations for several decades in which he comes from the very industry that he is now charged with regulating and overseeing. when is governor of georgia, he was a huge recipient of agribusiness, donations and hundreds of thousands of dollars. he comes from that industry. he owned farms. i believe he was a veterinarian or a scientist who cared for animals, but then in his adult life, started profiteering off agribusiness and became a favored candidate of that industry and that is the reason he was chosen. it is amazing, the secretary of the department of agriculture,

like all cabinet agencies, has an inspector general whose job is to investigate its own agency indeterminate some complaints with the law. and every five years starting in 1995, the inspector general has said the same thing, which is the department of agriculture's enforcement, even the minimum treatment requirements for animals who are suffering extermination including docs, has been so permissive that there is no incentive for corporations even to abide by the law because even when they purposefully and systematically violated, they barely get fined at all. like so many things, it has gotten somewhat worse under the trump administration. whatt is a continuation of has been going on for decades in this country when it comes to the treatment of animals for corporate profit. sonny perdue is a really vivid example of the revolving door sleaze that is corrupting our democracy and corrupting washington because it sort of

them you know, exactly like putting the people who are most invested in allowing these industries to get away with it in charge of enforcing the laws that apply to them post of amy: i want to turn to a video about theirpeta investigation into dog experimentation by liberty research incorporated. >> if you were to drive by this cluster of buildings, you might never r have imagined the pain d misery behind their walls. dogs with holes drilled into their heads, cap suffocated under flipped over letterboxes, dogs injected with insecticides. this is what was documented byba peta eyewitness at liberty research laboratory hired by companies to conduct experiments on hundreds of dogs and cats each year. liberty also breeds thousands of animals to s sell for experimentation to veterinarian from cynical giants. government agencies and universities..

hundreds of ananimals and libeby are e treated likeke inanimate laboratory tools is the one well-established non-animal methods are available. dogs were injected with megadoses of an opioid. they refused to and became lethargic. in another experiment, a drill was used to bore holes into the skulls of 30 docs of this virus could be injected into their brains. some dogs whimpered during the painful procedure, indicated they were nonot properly ananthetize. senior workerst t one of thehe dogs repeatedly banged her head on the cage floor and others fofoamed at the mouth or hadad seizurures. in an experiment sponsosored bya subsidiary of merck, work is injected and incised aside in a dogs. liberty's clients include bayer, usda, michigan state

university in thehe universities of pittsburgh, florida, and louisville. amy: a video produced by peta -- people for the ethical treatment of animals. your final comment on this before we go to break? >> i think we need to have a reckoning with ourselves about what it is that we believe we are willing to permit when it comes to the treatment of living beings with the capacity to feel pain and suffering. there's a wide range of debate about whether you should be the vegetarian or is morally permissible to eat meat, but you can set that debate as i for these purposes and i think we should all agree the kind of torture that is being imposed on corporate and systemic on all kinds of animals in the u.s. is morally unconscionable and shameful and will have the responsibility to put a stop to it. amy: glenn greenwald, we're going to go to break and then

come back to to talk about the mueller investigation to what is happening with julian assad's come is ecuador trying to force them out of the embassy? back in 30 seconds. ♪ [music break] amy: this is democracy now!, democrcracynow.org, the war andd peace report.. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. our guest is glenn greenwald, pulitzer prize-winning journalist.

he wrote that former ecuadoran president and inexcusable interview with the intercept rough karen denounced his country's current government for blocking julian assad from receiving visitors and embassy as a form of torture and violation of ecuador's duties to safety andan assad well-being. can you talk about what is happening with julian assad? we're reading reports that the ecuadoran embassy that he might embassy, which of course would mean he would be arrested by the british government. what do you understand is taking place? dangere is clearly a that the current ecuadorian government, which has become much more subservient and compliant with the demands of western governments, including those in the u.s. and u.k. and spain, is going to trade away the p protections that ecuador, for seven years, has maintained to julian assange bececause of e likelihood he will be persecuted not in sweden, but in the united states.

remember, the case in sweden for sexual assault, the investigation has been dropped and closed. it is still longer pending. what the cononcern is the trump administratition, specifically mike pompeo who was the director of the cia the time and now separate estate, saying arresting julian assange is reported because of the leaks, documents that wikileaks has published because o of th journalism have done, which just this week the freedom of the press foundation and the committee to protect journalists have so would d pose a grave ththreat to o the first amendme. when interviewed presisident korea, he was saying the way in which join us on has been silenced by blocking his access to the internet, denying him visitors from the outside world with the exception of his lawyers and a couple of other people, is in violation ofof his humaman rightsts will stop is ia -- doctors who have

examined him say he has grave and can'this health get treatment for because of the situation in the embassy. no matter what you think of julian assange, there are serious threats to press freedom and questions of asylum in the sovereignty of the ecuadoran government by what is taking place. top: on another topic, a house republican has defended the fbi against a series of attacks by president trump who's claimed without evidence the 2016u planted a spy in his presidential campaign. representative trey gowdy, chair of the powerful house oversight committee, said tuesday the fbi was acting properly when it deployed a confidential informant to investigate russia's attempt to i interferen the election. you have written about the person planteded and his checked history, stephen helprin. >> right. it is an interesting case

because obviously, in 2016, there were claims that there were members of the trump campaign who were colluding with or had improper relationships with various business and political interest in russia. legitimate.tely in fact, obligatory, for the fbi to investigate those allegations and using informant to do it is entirely proper way to investigate. they do it all the time. they do it to huge numbers of groups. on some level, it is one of the least invasive ways to have somebody with knowledge speak to the people who are being investigated and report back to the f fbi what it is s they have learned.d. the idea this is ace by or something improper is ridiculous. at the same time, there are a lot of questions about where the suspicions came from, about who it is who started them, about who is overseeing the investigation, w wre the dosossr came from.m. ththe question of who this informant was is a matter of legitimate public interest, yet

the justice department and fbi do with aoc when they want to hide things, they claim, oh, if we learn who the informant is, it will jeopardize lives around the world. it will compromise intelligence assets. it will harm the national security of the u.s. they made it seem like the informant was some kind of covert, undercover cia or fbi asset, whose damage or disclosed, would blow all sorts of secret covert operations. as it turned out now that we know the name, it turned out to be a total lie. stefan helberg is a longtime dirty ca operative who has ties to the bush family and the republican party. he was by one of t the worst cia scandals, which is a 1980 the reagan campaign spied on what the carter administration was doing by having cia officials report classified information to the reagan campaign so they knew of the carter administration was doing so they could use it against carter in the 1980 campaign and a person who stefan helper,s

working with the former cia director and then vice presidential candidate george herbert walker bush. has been around washington forever. the idea that naming and was somehow jeopardize his life or the lives of other people was an absolute lie, for the justice department used it to successfully convince media outlets to not name them for many weeks and it was only when the new york times and washington post published his identity that we are able to figure out who it was. amy: glenn greenwald, we will do part two and posted online at democracynow.org. glenn greenwald is the pulitzer prize-winning journalist and one of the founding editors of the intercept. if you would like to sign-up up for our daily digest come you can send the word democracynow and we have video fellowships, page year-long fellowships, go to democracynow.org to look for

those jobs. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

elaine reyes: did the royal bloodlines of the inca empire end with the last inca king? a quest for descendants is taking place in peru to find out. i'm elaine reyes in washington, d.c. and this is "americas now." first up, the ruins of machu picchu are one of the americas' most remarkable historic sites and peru's top tourist attraction. they're also a striking symbol of the long-lost inca empire. man: we have 14,000 years of history that is not recorded by----in writing, but is recordd in our dna. dan collyns: one can't help but be impressed...