[captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! >> taking children away from their parents and sending them off somewhere, losing track of them, it is hard to think of a more brutal and sadistic policy. than 700 children ripped away from their parents by immigration authorities are at the border. they have still not been

reunited. court-imposeday's deadline to reunite all separated migrant children with their parents. today, in a democracy now! special, we'll spend the hour talking with world-renowned political dissident, linguist, professor, and author noam chomsky about how u.s. foreign policy in central america helped cause the refugee crisis and his solutions for it. >> compensate for the atrocities we have carried out. then the flow of refugees will decline. for those who come with solemn should bey accommodated in a humane and civilized way. amy: we'll also talk to noam chomsky about nicaragua, economic inequality in the united states, what the media is not covering, and democratic socialist alexandria ocasio-cortez's shocking primary victory that has rocked the

democratic establishment. juan: her victory was quite --noam: her victory was quite spectacular. what it points to is a split in t themocratic party between popular base and the party managers. amy: today, noam chomsky for the hour. all that and more coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. federal officials say 711 children remain separated and in u.s. custody, with government -- after the trump administration missesed a court imposed deadline to reunite more than 2500 immigrant children separated from their parents at the u.s.-mexico border. governmement lawyers claim the children are not eligible forr reunification. more thahan 400 of the children have parents who've already been deported from the united states.

in response, aclu lawyer lee gelernt said in a statement, "we're thrilled for the families who are finally reunited, but many more remain separated. the trump administration is trying to sweep them under the rug by unilaterally picking and choosing who is eligible for reunification." this comes amid nationwide protests a against trump's zero-tolerance immigration policies. in louisville, kentucky, police arrested nine activists thursday as they nonviolently locked themselves together to block elevators inside an immigration court building. in washington, d.c., scores of people led by children held a sit-in protest against family separations in the hart senate office building. the children wore t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase, "i am a child" -- evoking the "i am a man" protests led by dr. martin luther king, jr. 50 years ago. elsewhere on capitol hill, a majority of house democrats joined republicans thursday to vote in favor of a massive, $717 bibillion military spending g b, the national defense authorization act.

the 359-54 vote favors a bill that would deliver record military spending, with $70 billion for ongoing u.s. wars, and $22 billion for nuclear weapons programs, including a new submarine-launched "low yield" nuclear missile. the bill now moves to the senate, which could vote on it as early as next week. president trump's former personal attorney and fixer , michael cohen, is prepared to tell special counsel robert mueller that president trump knew in advance about a meeting at trump tower in june of 2016 , where russians were offering "dirt" on hillary clinton. the revelation, first reported by cnn, suggests trump may have lied publicly when he said he had no knowledge of the meeting, which was attended by donald trump, jr., jared kushner, paul manafortrt, his campaign manage, and others, along wiwith natalia veselnitskaya, a russian lawyer with ties to russia's prosecutor

general. meanwhile, members of the right-wing house freedom caucus backed off thursday from their efforts to impeach deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, the top justice department official overseeing robert mueller's investigation. republican congressmember and freedom caucus chair mark meadows says he will instead seek to charge rosenstein with contempt of congress if he doesn't turn over documents meadows is seeking. rosenstein has said the documents contain personal data, information abouout intelligence sources, and other sensisitive information. the impeachment effort came over the objections of republican house speaker paul ryan, as well as attorney general jeff sessions, who said thursday he backed the justice department's number two official. rosenstein, isod highly capable. i have the highest confidence in him. amy: in pakistan, former cricket star-turned-politician imran khan has declared victory in wednesday's national election, ahead of a final tally that's expected to confirm khan's pti party won the largest share of open seats in parliament.

khan's victory came as his rivals alleged massive vote-rigging, charging that paksitan's powerful military sided unfairly with khan's campaign. in a victory address from his islamabad home, khan said the election had been fair and histor.. >> i believe t ts was pakistan's mo transparent election and i i believe pakistanis have participated in an election n e way ththey did todayay. it over the concerns about rigging arar they are -- we are willing to investigate it with them. amy: khan promised that as prime minister he will stamp out government corruption, while working to uplift poor pakistanis, and he promised to improve relations with china and the united states. khan's pti party fell short of an outright majority, meaning khan will need the support of at least one rival party in order to form a coalition government. in the gaza strip, palestinians have called for renewed protests against israel's stifling blockade of the besieged territory. friday's planned protests follow

the deaths of three palestinians and one israeli soldier wednesday, and after israeli snipers massacred 124 palestinians, while wounding some 14,000 others after the nonviolent great march of return protests began in gaza on march 30. meanwhile, israel is preparing to release 17-year-old palestinian prisoner ahed tamimi to her family on sunday, as she completes an eight month prison sentence. tamimi became a hero to palestinians after viral video showed her slapping a soldier near her family's home in the occupied west bank. the incident came just after tamimi learned her cousin had been gravely wounded by an israeli soldier who shot him in the head using a rubber-coated steel bullets. ahed tamimi's case drew international attention. on thursday, a visiting artist completed a massive mural paying tribute to tamimi on the palestinian side of the west bank separation barrier in .ethlehem this is palestinian activist ahmed odeh. today, as the palestinians

prepare nationally and officially for the release of imi,heroic child, ahed tam we are surprised by the people who came to paint the icon of the palestinian people and the resistance onal this wall. they are drawing in your love her to tell the world and occupation that we are partners in this case and that the palestinian national resistance is the only way to face the arrogant occupation. amy: in north africa, about 800 migrants rushed a heavily fortified border separating morocco from the tiny spanish enclave of ceuta thursday, in a coordinated push to reach european soil, where they could apply for political asylum. at least 130 m migrants suffered injuries in the incident, many of them wiwith injuries from the concertina w wire topping the metal fence separatingng the two territories. sever hundred who maditit to spanish soil successfully celebrated as they reached an

immigration processing center. dozens more were returned to morocco after they were captured by police.e. in laos, aidid groups s say thel from mononday's collapse of a billion-dollar hydroelectric dam is far higher than the officiail figure of 27 deaead and 131 missing. despite a government ban on foreign media covering the disaster, the bbc repoports the deatath toll could b be closer o 300. another 3,000 people are still stranded in homes surrounded by floodwaters. meanwhile, officials in northern cambodia have ordered the evacuation of 25,000 people downriver of the collapsed dam, due to heavy flooding. back in the united states, at least one person has died after a massive wildfire spread into redding, california, a city of 90,000 people. dozens of homes have burned. one local tv station had to evacuate in the middle of their broadcast last night shortly after warning viewers of the fire. facebook's stock value plunged

thursday by $119 billion, the largest one-day drop in market value for any company in wall street's history. the crash wiped nearly $16 billion from ceo mark zuckerberg's net worth, though the facebook founder remains one of t the planet's richest people with an estimated $70 billion in assets. the crash -- in assets. a new report by the group public citizen finds the trump administration has dramatically scaled back penalties and fines for corporations that break the law. the study, titled, "corporate impunity," looked at 12 federal agencies, , finding that in most cases the number of enforcement actions taken has plummeted since president obama's last year in office, with penalties against corporate criminals dropping by an average of more than 50%. the environmental prprotection agency saw the biggest dececrea, with a 94% drop in fines against corporate e polluters. education secretary betsy devos has proposed new rules that would cut an estimated $13 billion in federal student loan relief for people who were

defrauded by for-profit colleges. devos's changes would roll back the so-called "borrower defense" rule proposed by president obama after the collapse of itt tech and d corinthian college, but halted by the trump administration last year. in response, massachusetts attorney general maura healey tweeted, "betsy devos three r rulehe #borrowerdefense to let predatory schools cheat their students and enrich their executives. no surprise." devos is a billionaire republican activist, heir to the amway fortune, and the sisisterf blackwater founder erik prince. last weekend, devos's $40 million, 163-foot yacht was damaged after it was unmoored while in port on lake erie in ohio. whether the ship, which is one of 10 own bind d hr -- owned by her family, was let loose intentionally. and in los angeles, a man who was arrested for vandalizing donald trump's star on the

hollywood walk of fame was bailed out of jail by a man who did the same thing before the 2016 election. ,,s bail was paid by james otis who just as a construction worker and used a sledgehammer to destroy trump's hollywood star. those are some of the headlines. democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. federal officials say 711 remain children asom their the trump administration has failed to meet thursday's court-imposed deadline to reunite all migrant children separated from their parents by immigration officials atat the border. more than 400 of the children have parents who've already been deported from the u.s. well, on thursday, i spoke with world-renowned political dissident, author, and linguist noam chomsky. he is a laureate professor in

the department of linguistics at the university of arizona and professor emeritus at massachusetts institute of technology, where he taught for more than 5050 years. his recent books include global discontents: conversations on the rising threats to democracy and "reququiem for the american dream: the 10 principles of concentration of wealth & power." he joined us from tucson arizona and i began by asking him about the trump administration's family separation policy. noam: it is a major scandal, of , properly condemned through the world, taking children away from their parents , itnding them off somewhere is hard to think of a more brutal and sadistic policy. here in tucson, there is a good deal of activism concerned with immigrants. groups that set up camps in the desert to help people fleeing.

it is a very live issue. it is not very far from the border. , i oftenve talks here referred to the area as occupied mexico, which is a good designation. the immigration policy altogether is a grotesque moral scandal here and in europe. to turn to president trump speaking earlier this month. >> well, i have a solution. tell people not to come to our country illegally. that is the solution. don't come to our country illegally. come like other people do. amy:y: we were on the borderer recently in brownsville going back and forth over the bridge. beenuatemalan mother had

.t the legal port of entry legal, who is being illegal? the u.s. is doing. where the migrants are freeing from. talk about the history of u.s. involvement in these countries and what president trump is saying, "do it legally." noam: actually, these people are fleeing from the wreckage and horrors of the u.s. policies in guatemala. no need to go through the whole history, but back in 1954, the u.s. intervened, sponsored a military coup, overthrew a mildly reformist elected

government. since then, the country has been a complete farce. hundreds of thousands of people killed, all kinds of atrocities, all kinds of torture. it peaked in the 1980's under reagan. some of the places where people were fleeing from, it was literal genocide going on, carried out by the man who stellar person. the general was implementing the genocidal attacks. the u.s. does not hire

terrorists, it hires terror states. it is much more effective. argentinarael, resemble the roles of the neo-nazi generals. people are still fleeing from the destruction in argentina that has been a horror story ever since. the same with el salvador. 70,000 people were killed during the 1980's. almost all by the security forces. almost all directed and trained by the united states. horror story since. which not long ago had the plurality of refugees, the refugee flow started to peak after a military coup through the elected government -- overthrew the elected government. condemned by the entire

hemisphere and the world with the usual exception of president obama. hillary clinton refused to call it a military coup because that would have meant terminating military aid to the junta, which the u.s. continued to do. had always been severe repression and atrocities. honduras became the homicide capital of the world and refugees started fleeing. there were so-called elections, which were mocked by almost everyone except the united states, and that continues. there are two countries in the region from which there have not been refugee flows. one is costa rica. that is the one country that functions and not by accident the one country that the united not intervened in

militarily, overthrown the government, and run a military regime. the other is nicaragua, which also suffered severely in the assaults,m reagan's but reagan -- nicaragua was unlike the other countries in the region, it had a whole army to defend it. and the other countries, the army were the terrorists. nicaragua could to some extent defend the populations from reagan's terrorist forces. there are plenty of problems in nicaragua. but it has not been the source of refugee flow. what president trump is essentially saying is that we will destroy your countries, slaughter you, impose brutal regimes, but if you try to get out, you are not going to come here because america is full. amy: i wanted to continue on the situation in nicaragua. in a rare interview, the

nicaraguan president recently rejected calls to step down from power amid mounting protests and civil unrest. this is president ortega on fox news monday. >> we were elected by the voters. electoralhave been periods. there are term limits. we will have our next election in 2021. and then we will have to see who will be voted in for the new administration. amy: that is president ortega. nicaragua's main business association has been demanding ortega hold early elections.

over 300 p people have died sine protests around it in april, anti-austerity protestss, and te vast majority have been killed by pro-government forces. in june, we spoke with the former sandinista leader who served as the nicaraguan ambassador to the u.n. and secretary general of the nicaraguan foreign minintry le, during thes ru sandinista rule in nicaragua from 1979 through 1990. this is what he had to say on democracy now! >> one has to remember keyey historical facts. the revolulution began in 1979 d 1990 witith the electoraral defeat of daniniel ortega.a. this is s not spelled the endndf ortega because, for 17 years, he worked tenaciously to get back into power. to do this, he got rid of his

potential competitors and many old sandinista backers. he embraced corporate capital in nicaragua. he adopted the most retrograde positions of the chururch and entetered into an alliance. and reached an understanding with the u.s., so that he was able t to barely win the 2007, but by that time, he himself is no longer a sandinista. yes, the trappings, the colors are still there, but his entire becomeent has in essence authoritarian, repressive. ortega's is president former nicaraguan ambassador t o the united nations and secretary general to the nicaraguan foreign ministry.

students are saying that overwhelmingly it is the government that has killed the people. what are your thoughts? noam. 1990 -- first of all, there were plenty of problems even in the 1980's, but by the standard of the region, it stood out as almost a stellar record. by 1990, the first president informed thelly population of nicaragua that either you vote for our the terroristlse war continues and harsh sanctions will strangle the country. gun,d, at the point of a they voted the sandinistas out.

there were many things they were doing that they should not have. has not been anywhere near as bad as the other central american countries. there has been a lot of corruption, a lot of repression. it is autocratic, undoubtedly. the opposition is nothing to write home about either. it is by no means a pretty situation. one would hope that negotiations could reduce the tensions. my own view is that it think it would be a good thing for nicaragua if ortega were to call early elections. allow them to be run without corruptions. if --at does not look as

it is hard to see a simple way out at this point. it is very unfortunate, the situation. we should bear in mind that in the early 1980's, the situation was extremely helpful in nicaragua. even the international institutions like the world bank and others were praising the progressive steps being taken by the sandinistas. the country was full of hope, excitement, literacy campaigns, dealing with poverty. the u.s. intervention began in the mid-19th century and had been horrible all the way through, but they were beginning to pull themselves out of it, until the u.s. terrorist war began. we should bear in mind that the united states is the only country ever to have been condemned by the international court of justice for

international terrorism, technically unlawful use of force, and ordered to pay substantial reparations to nicaragua for the attack that it .as carrying out it was condemned by the government and even by the press. condemned it as a hostile forum. we don't have to pay any attention to it. the u.s. even vetoed a security council resolution calling on states to observe international war wenthen the contra on, the sanctions went on, the other forms of subversion continued. the hopes were pretty much smashed. you could just see the changes in expectations and attitudes.

one result was internal corruption, repression. is a very ugly and unfortunate situation. is that thisoint is a moral crisis in the united states and comparably in europe -- we should bear in mind that the immigrants do not want to leave their countries. happy to stayvery in their own countries rather than coming here to unpleasant and harsh situations. the first step should be to help reconstruct and rebuild what we have destroyed, so they won't be

.leeing from the homes that is certainly within the ands of the united states has incomparable advantages. that is step one in dealing with the immigration crisis. , again, not an immigration crisis. the conditions should be established so that legal, what is called legal immigration, i don't like the term, but what is technically called that, would be facilitated with decent conditions, plenty of entry points, lawyers provided pro support so they could plead their cases. and efforts so they could

survive, nothing like putting them in camps and stealing their children away from them. the appeals for asylum that are granted under international law and that should be automatically a assumd certainly in a rich country like ours. ththat is the second s step. thatght also recognize there aree countries t that have somehoww managed to deal with .uge flows of immigrants so, take lebanon. poor country. 40% of the population are refugees at this point driven out from israel by several israeli wars. in can 48, 1967. syrian refugees, iraqi refugees fleeing from the u.s. invasion of iraq. it is a poor country and there

are plenty of internal problems, but they are somehow surviving with 40% of the population refugees. the same is true of jordan, another poor country. kenya in africa, another poor country. a huge number of refugees. bangladesh has taken in huge numbers of refugees fleeing from burma. but the rich countries of the , the, the united states european union, the ones who have an overwhelming responsibility for the circumstances from which the refugees are fleeing, they can't tell with it, they can't deal with it too much, go somewhere else, go to a poor country, but not the countries who are the perpetrators of the conditions from which you are fleeing. crisis grotesque moral throughout the industrial world. amy: we will be back with professor noam chomsky with the shakeupp of the democratic

establishment and the news you are not getting. in 30 seconds. ♪ [music break] amy: "if the singer is silent" by mariachi flor de tolowache. democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodmaman. back to my interview with world-renowned noam chomsky . let's go to the upcoming midterm elections and the increasing number of democratic socialist candidate running. of raised the issue

immigration. i recently sat down with alexandria ocasio-cortez, the new york democratic congressional candidate whose recent primary victory upended 10-term incumbent, joe crowley, the fourth ranking democrat in the house, who was being talked about the next him credit speaker. i began by asking her how she achieved her staggering primary victory. >> i do think that the way that we won in new york 14 is a model for how we can win almost anywhere. i knew from the outset that i had no misconceptions of the fact that the new york political mamachine was not goingng to be doing me any favors. so, i tried to kinind of come in as c clear eyed as possible andi knew that if we were going to , the way that progressives win on an unapologetic message

is by expanding the electorate. that is the only way we can win strategically. it is not by rushing to the center, it is not by spending all of our energy winning over those who have other opinions. it is by expanding the elecectorate, speaeaking to o te that f feel disenchanted, dejected, cynical about our politicscs, and leletting them w that we e are fighghting for th. so, , i knew that i had to buila broad-based coalition that operates outside of the traditional democratic establishment. and that i had to pursue kind of an uphill journey of convincing activists that electoral politics is worthwhile. amy: and the issues you ran on? >> the issues iran on were very clear and it was an important part to us winning. tuition free public colleges and ununiversiti, trade s schools, a green new deal, justicice for puerto rico, and unapologetic

platform of criminal justice reform and ending the war on drugs, and also speaking truth to power and speaking about money and politics, how it operates in new york city. moment, on going to play her clip talking about immigration activism. alexandria ocasio-cortez went to the border right before election day. her plane was delayed. i was concerned she would not be back in new york for the primary day, but if you could start by responding to this, and then we will hear what she has to say ababout immigration actitivism. was: well, her victory quite spectacular and significant. to is awhat it points split in the democratic party. roughly speaking between the popular base and the party managers.

the popular base is increasingly social democratic, increasingly concerned with the progressive objectives she outlined in those remarks. it should be directed not only butxpanding the electorate, to the general working class, poor populations, middle-class population of the country, for whom these ideals are quite significant. they can be brought to that. that is one part of the party. the other part of the party is the donor-oriented, managerial part of the new democrats, so-called, the clintonite democrats, who are pretty much what used to be called moderate republicans. the republican party itself has drifted so far to the right that they are almost off the spectrum. the split within the democratic party is significant and it is

showing up in primary after primary. will the party move in the direction of its popular base, with essentially social democratic new deal style programs and beyond? cater tot continue to the donor class and be essentially a more moderate wing of the republican party? unless that issue was resolved, a good think they have chance in the forthcoming elections. i think she was right in saying that the policies she has outlined should have a broad to the population. we should bear in mind that 40

years since the neoliberal assault began taking off with , then and on from there large majority of the population are living in conditions of stagnation or decline. are not what they were in the 1960's. there has been productivity growth. it has not gone to working people. it has gone into the very few, extremely overstuffed pockets, and that continues. the labor department just came out with its report for wages in ending may 2018, and they slightly declined. all sorts of talk, real wages, wages measured against inflation , it is continuing with an even further drop.

this is a time when a lot of crowing about the marvelous economy, full employment, and so on, but wages continue to stagnate. , it is plainly going to get worse. the republicans are on a binge of pursuing the most savage form of class warfare. the tax scam was a good example. the tax on workers' rights. outblic citizen just came with a report on corporate impunity, which is almost comical when you read it. the administration simply cut back rapidly on any kind of dealing with corporate crimes

and the epa has practically stopped working. it is as if, grab whatever you can, stuff it in your pocket while you have a chance. under those conditions, the kind of appeal that she was talking about should mean a lot to the general population. the tax scam was a purposeful effort to enrich not only the , but it was also an effort to sharply increase the , pault, which can be used ryan and others kindly announced to us what the plans were, the deficit could be used to elements ofy government structure.

medicare, social security, food for poor children, anything you can do to shaft the general population more can now be justified under the argument .hat we have a huge deficit this is an astonishing phenomenon. the progressive program should appeal to a large majority of the population, but it has to be done correctly, and not shaped in ways which will appease the donor class. amy: i wanted to go back to the interview with alexandria ocasio-cortez, who is really upending the democratic party thishe kind of message candidate of puerto rican descent in new york has sent to the entire party and i think the

republican p party as well. this is what she sayays about immigration. >> we have to occupy all of it, every airport, every border, we need to occupy every ice office until those kids are back with their parentnts. period. amy: the right-wing media, for example fox news and others, have written about this over and over since she made this comment , about occupying airports. interestingly, her areas of queens and the bronx include rikers island in laguardia airport. noam chomsky. we just had a very dramatic illustration of what a courageous opposition to these atrocious policies can do. woman, the young swedish who prevented an airplane from

taking off because it was deporting g afghann manan to almost certain murder. , looking go to the young swedish woman, the student who stood up on the plane, this flight to istanbubul because e e understood that an afghan refugee was on the flight, as you pointed out. she live streamed what she did next. this is s what sheadad to say. dow'm not gog g to sit untithis person isff the planane. becaususe he will momost likelyt killed if he is on this claim. the video.at was when one of the angrgry passsses threatened to take her phone away and then a flightht attendt grabbed it back, s she went t o

when passengers talked ababout beingg i inconvenienced, she sa, they are not going to die, he is going to die. there were many on the plane who suppororted her in her protest until the afghan refugee was removed fromom the flight on orders of the pilot. noam: yes, that was a very n indicationt and a of what could be achieved by really large-scale civil disobedience. here is one young woman standing up alolone to try toto prevent a person from being killeled in a difficult and hostste contions . large-scale civil disobedience could achieve a great deal more. again, i would urge that we think in broader terms. we should be considering why

people are fleeing from their homes, not because they want to live in slums of new york. they are fleeing from their homes because their homes or unlivable and they are unlivable largely because of things that we have done. overwhelmingly, that is the reason. away with you right the solution to the crisis is. rebuild what we have destroyed. compensate for the atrocities we have carried out. then the flow of refugees will decline. for those who come with asylum pleas, they should be accommodated in a humane and civilized way. maybe it is impossible to imagine that we can reach the level of civilization of the poor countries that are absorbing refugees, butut it shshould not seem entirerely ouf reach. amy: noam chomskyy is now in

linguistics professor at the university of arizona. resistance is in the air. when we come back, we move from resistance on the air. an unexpected interruption on fox. noam chomsky. ♪ [music break] amy: "down to the river." democracy now!, demomocracynow.o.org, the war ad peace report. i'm amy goodman. we continue our interview with noam chomsky, now in tucson at

the university of arizona. i asked him about a recent mix up on "fox and friends," in which the hosts thought they were interviewing former -- current democratic congresswoman ann kirkpatrick of arizona, who supports the immigration and custom enforcement agency, known as ice. but in fact, they were actually speaking to massachusetts state senator barbara l'italien, who opposes ice. here is of the interview started. >> good morning. i'm actually here to speak directly to donald trump. i feel that what is happening at the border is wrong. i'm a mother of four and i believe separating kids from the parents is illegal and inhumane. i am a state senator representing a large immigrant community and i'm running for congress in massachusetts. i keep thinking abouout what we are putting g parents througugh, imagining how terrifying that must be for those families, imagining how it would feel to not know if i would ever see my

kids again, we have to stop abducting children and ripping them from their parentnts arms. to stop making three-year-olds defend thememselves in court. amy: she said a lot, but she was thenen cut off with the shock of the "fox and friends" crew in the morning that they have the wrong democratic congressional candidate. but this kind of media activism also just goes to the whole issue of themm -- the media, nom chomsky. the issue of foxnews becoming really state media, when you have the person who supported the sexual harasser roger ailes, bill china, now a -- shine, now a top aide to president trump. that has gotten little attention. you have fox being a mouthpiece for trumpet and a place for him hear what others have to say.

and the other networks running counter to trump on certain issues, cnn and msnbc. your thoughts. my frank opinion is that i must say i don't pay much attention to television, soy don't know a great deal about it, but in general i think that news is by nowx basically a joke. it is state media. the other media i think are focusing on issues which are pretty marginal. there are much more serious issues that are being put to the side. even on the case of immigration, once again, i think the real thetion is dealing with roots of immigration, our responsibility for it, and what we can do to overcome that and that is almost never discussed.

think we find it the same across the board. trump's policies on climate change pose a dangerous, existential threat that is really destructive. we are facing an imminent threat that is not far removed. sealevel rise will be massively destructive. it will make today's immigration issues look like trivialities. it is not that the administration is unaware of this. donald trump, for example, is perfectly aware of the dangerous

effects in the short-term of global warming. for example, recently, he applied to ireland for permission to build a wall to protect his golf course in ireland from rising sea levels. rex tillerson, who is supposed to be the adult in the room before he was thrown out, the devotingxonmobil, was enormous resources to climate change denial, although he had sitting on his desk the reports , warning of the dire effects of this accelerating phenomenon. i can't find a word in the language that applies to people of that kind, who are willing to existencethe literal

of organized human life, not in the distant future, so they can put a few more dollars in highly overstuffed pockets. these are the kinds of issues that should be the focus. marginalia.ocus on did the russians interfere in our elections, an issue of overwhelming concern in the media. of the world, that is almost a joke. first of all, if you are interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the russians may have ore, that barely counts

with whatthe balance another state does openly, brazenly, and with enormous support. israeli intervention in u.s. elections vastly overwhelms anything the russians may have done. the prime minister of israel goes directly to congress theout even informing president and speaks to congress with overwhelming applause to try to undermine the president's policies without obama in 2015. did putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of congress calling on them to reverse u.s. policies without even informing the president? and that is just a tiny bit of

this overwhelming evidence. in foreigninterested influence on elections, there are places to look, but even that is a joke. one of the most elementary principles of a functioning democracy is that elected representatives should be responsive to those who elected them. there is nothing more elementary than that. but we know very well that that is simply not the case in the united states. literature in mainstream academic political science simply comparing voter'' attitudes with the policies pursued by their representatives, and it shows that for a large majority of the population, they are basically disenfranchised. their own representatives pay no

attention to their voices. they listen to the voices of the famous 1%. the rich and the powerful and the corporate sector. tom ferguson's stellar work has demonstrated conclusively that for a long period, way back, u.s. elections, you can predict the outcome of the presidential or congressional election with remarkable precision by simply looking at campaign spending. that is only one part of it. lobbyists practically write legislation in congressional offices. the concentrated private capital, corporate sector, super wealth intervene in our elections. massively, overwhelmingly, to

the extent that the most elementary principles of democracy are undermined. of course, all that is technically legegal, but that tells you something about the way the society functions. if you are concerned with our elections and how they operate and how they relate to whatat woululd happen in a democratic society, taking a look at russian hacking is absolutely the wrong place to look. someee occasionally attention to these matters in as media, but very minor compared with the extremely marginal question of russian hacking. think we find this on issue after issue. of what trump says, for whatever reason, is not unreasonable, so he is perfectly right when we should

-- says we should have better relations with russia. being dragged througugh the mud with that is outlandish. russia should not refuse to do with the united states because the u.s. carried out the worst crime of the century in the invasion of iraq, much worse than anything russia has done. they should not refuse to deal with us for that reason and we should not refuse to deal with them for whatever infractions they have carried out, which certainly exist. better to move toward relations. right at the russian border, there are extreme tensions that could blowup anytime. it could be a terminal nuclear war, terminal for the species and life on earth. we are very close to that. we should do things to ameliorate it.

secondly, we should ask why. nato expanded after the collapse of the soviet union in violation .f verbal promises to gorbachev mostly under clinton, partly under the first bush, then clinton expanded right to the russian border, expanded further under obama. the u.s. has offered to bring ukraine into nato. kind of a heartland of russian geostrategic concerns, so yes, there are tensions at the russian border. issues that should be of primary concern. the fate of organized human society, even of the survival of the species, depends on this. but how much attention is given to these things, as compared to whether trump lied about something?

i think those seem to be the fundamental criticisms of the media. amy: noam chomsky, wororld renowned p political dissident, and linguist, now a laureate professor at the university of arizona, tucson. he thought for 50 years at the massachusetts institute of technology in cambridge, massachusetts. tune in next week when we continue our conversation with noam chomsky about gaza, israel's new nationality law, the recent trump-putin summit, the war in yemen, and more. in december, noam chomsky will be celebrating his 90th birthday. happy birthday to rob young at democracy now! democracy now has a job opening for a broadcast engineer in our new york studio. 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!]

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