lady is saying adios to president obama on his forty ninth birthday we just got pictures of the first did you notice the banner at the bottom of the screen obama home alone of course is not actually home alone in the white house but there were several over the top headlines nonetheless the new york daily news had the headline on happy birthday president barack obama spends forty ninth birthday without family public support wanes c.b.s. news went on obama's birthday politics and fund raising but no family and even rush limbaugh couldn't help himself he's even questioning if it's really the president's birthday at all. come tomorrow is obama's birthday not that we've seen any proof of that once more was obama's birth center and they're trying to really obama's base by sending out fund raising letters what what what surely what we haven't seen any

proof of that. is the birth there we haven't seen the proof of it. oh rush only you the burgers and orly taitz believe today's not his birthday so rush limbaugh and the rest of the media feeding the hype over obama's family being out of town for his birthday or questioning if it's his birthday at all you are tonight's tool time winners and party pooper. a ruling by the supreme court earlier this year triggered very much debate the court says corporations can spend on limited amounts of money on political campaigns now well now we're actually seeing one of the first cases of a major corporation giving money to a group running ads for a candidate in the minnesota government's race its target target has given one hundred fifty thousand dollars to minnesota forward it's a group that's been running ads supporting tom emmer he's a candidate whose views on gay issues has drawn the ire of the gay community now

there's top of a nationwide boycott over the issues so is target who markets itself as a progressive company showing its true colors or is this simply about their bottom line well joining me to discuss the fall out is radio host tom hartman. i learn thanks for being here first of all target claims that they donate money based only on economic factors not social views but come on is it really possible to separate a candidate from his social views on issues especially when it comes to something like gay rights well i think the they're making a deal with the devil they're saying we're going to go with the guy who is going to be most corporatist he's going to be most republican he's going to vote do whatever he can as governor everything that's going to reduce taxes for corporations do it this guys are opposed to the minimum wage not just a not just opposed to unions as opposed to the minimum wage. so and they're and they're kind of hoping nobody will notice that he also is like are involved with

the christian rock band that has has recorded a song that actually advocates the murder of gays and lesbians and by the way it's not just target is a minnesota forward organization which is headed by temple auntie's former staffers basically target him on hundred thousand bucks or hundred sixty thousand best buys gave one hundred thousand red when shoes all of a. cold springs granite goes on there's a long list of drugs this is my question this is my question does this just show that corporations no matter what kind of public image they put out there about their stance as a you know progressive company that supports gays or you know supports its workers that ultimately they are going to put their money where their bottom line is put their money with whoever's going to best protect their economic interests as a corporation well not only is that absolutely the case lauren and and and i think that this case makes them. even beyond bad that's more or less the law i'm not sure

that there's ever been a federal ruling to that effect with back in the nineteen twenties or thirties there was a michigan supreme court case forward in which horace dodge sued henry ford because dodge was painless employees a dollar a day and horde started paying them five dollars a day and. ford's rationale was they can have enough money to buy one of my own cars. but it was viewed by dodge and others as an act of slant to me and so dodge sued you know as the as the head of a corporation your first obligation has to be to earn money now the supreme court ruled in ford's favor but they ruled in his favor because they said he would actually make more money by paying his employees more because they could buy more of his cars which would make it more modern and to this day interesting logic there i want to ask how looking at this you know people are boycotting target people are taking notice of where they're putting their money behind this candidate who does not support gay rights so is this exit an example of evidence that citizens united

could actually backfire on corporations if the public really pays attention to where they're putting their money and then you know does things like boycott them if they do in a clumsy fashion the national chamber of commerce tom donahue is bragging that he's already raised fifty million bucks will probably never know the details of where that money came from karl rove's glaspie the former r. and c. multis put together a corporation. for a you know a job money on campaigns group and they claim to have very stiff three million dollars appears that ninety seven percent of it so far as come from for billionaires but nonetheless that raises money like crazy you know you saying so do you think that companies are simply going to get smarter about the way they bundle their money to disguise where they're actually putting it if they'll start laundering it basically and there already are so so tom what is this show about you know a company's values does a company have to profess its values or can they just you know throw their money

wherever they want to convey is this going to force them to maybe be more stonily behind their values or are they just going to put money everywhere they're going to put money where it's going to get a return on investment as they historically have been. i think the mistake the target made here was pretty money into a single group as basically a single candidate that one that's a record whereas if they'd given the same out of the chamber of commerce and so they asked authored sixty thousand bucks to the back door of lunches people here are you know the new guy i wouldn't get a problem all right tom i want to thank you for that insight there showing us how citizens united may just be making businesses smarter about hiding where they're putting their money still to come a ruling today in california has brought the gay marriage issue back into the national spotlight but is gay marriage a civil rights issue so we're going to discuss next with two people who have very different views on the issue.

if. one of the key elements of democracy. which is so uncomfortable for me are forty. who pays for the new. dependent dues this independent media. and who is behind the t.v. story. georgia media fiction and reality.

be a vote for bush. the bush. always adds by one vote for kerry vote for kerry so the people that are going to be validating this machine can stand there all day long and vote for somebody and it will be right every time but the guy can walk up here and if he hits the right buttons. you can flip the vote. a judge just spoken and overruled the voters of california a federal judge today overturn proposition eight now prop eight is a constitutional amendment was declared marriage in california as only between a man and a woman prop eight essentially banned gay marriage and the prop eight campaign was a battle over same sex marriage that the entire nation weighed in on with campaigns

with millions of dollars all flowing into california to support or oppose the amendment back in the november two thousand and eight general election voters approved by a margin of fifty two to forty eight percent here to discuss today's landmark decision that was reverend anthony evans president of the national black church an issue to and christopher chambers georgetown university professor and author of the blog nat turner's revenge now gentlemen i just i first want to say that it's expected that this decision will be appealed some expected to go all the way to the supreme court but let's talk about this for a second let's talk about back in november two thousand and eight when prop eight was voted on with a fifty two to forty eight margin seventy percent of african-american voters voted yes on eight voted to ban gay marriage and. people do say that if black voter turnout had been along the same lines as it had been in prior elections of course there are precedents amounts in the november two thousand and eight election that prop eight may not have passed at all why was there such support from the

african-american community to ban gay marriage well certainly simple i mean we look at gay marriage as not a civil rights issue but a moral question in the market is what tradition to moon together to women together it makes no sense and makes no biblical sense to us so it's a religious issue. how is that not a civil rights issue chris well i mean it's not a civil rights issue with a capital c. in the capital or in terms of the history of african-american experience in this country for five hundred years i mean our experience in this country has formed this country i mean constitutionally economically etc with a small c. in a small or civil rights i differ with the reverend and i see it is because it might be a moral issue a biblical issue for him but when you're talking about the rights of american citizens you know the constitution doesn't draw lines and say you're

a second class citizen you're less than a human being if you want to fall in love with somebody if you're a productive citizen the people who built this city a kind of raise the tax base of our capital city have been gay people with jobs very productive civic minded gay people and yet some somebody can't tell them well you're not you're less than an american you're less than a human being what is that because let me ask you you know what about the separation of church and state why would you impose your religious beliefs on the legal rights of others ok well in this country we have such thing as what we call civil civil or civil religion and civil religion says that there's a mixture of theology in american culture and even if we had civil religion civil religion would not have tolerated gay marriage whatsoever because civil religions basically says it is the good of the general society in terms of producing can't sustain in connecticut let's talk about that because one of the defense in the argument that you know caused the judge to overturn this ban on gay marriage this

definition of marriage is only between a man and a woman were studies that showed the kids raised by gay families were just as productive as children raised in traditional e-mail marriage. i mean i don't know what the river is going to say it is a moral issue of biblical issue for him and i respect him for that but when you're dealing with with the constitution. state constitution or american constitution you have to have rational basis for telling somebody who's a citizen you can't have the same rights as somebody else so what's are you know what i mean by this they're actually not religion no no rational basis is the fact that every american gay or straight has the same rights but no one they can or will say that gay rights should be restricted when it comes to marriage absolutely because because marriage has always been not a state issue it's always been a church in the church has always allowed the state law exactly but they're that good of their children and what i want here be benefits by being recognized by the

state by the country as mary the ability to inheritance wills the visiting her loved ones in the hospital before making decisions for their lives because the state have decided that marriage is there's a value to marriage because of the benefit it takes to raise a child and sustain communities the one now in african-american communities with single parents well that has not always been but it is now and does that mean that what it is and that's why we're not let me look around i mean i don't and i respect the reverence position but the state in order for him perform a marriage he has to get a license from what the state the state can't discriminate in terms of licensing or licensing in human american citizen to marry the person they love number two i happen to think that here i'm going to going to get on the reverend the amount of time and money and energy that he and his fellow pastors are spending on this

issue could be better spent dealing with children dealing with crime dealing with drug addiction dealing they do do that but they could do so much more than get into it's somebody bedroom and i don't we don't i don't like what you say what do you say about that because it's really interesting prop eight actually received millions of dollars from out of state from all over this was not. just the voters of california that were campaigning about this this was the nation and so what about that people put religious a lot of religions put money behind us a lot of the mormons put money behind us so why put resources there instead of like what chris chambers is simply because we recognized that you cannot have society and you cannot have community without having families and you cannot have one analyst says about having an eye on the warm are sixty percent of americans or something well that's not sure that's well they're hardly heard her family's more well the church. job is to step up which we are stepping up to deal with the issue

of divorce but we are also going to be dealing with the issue of children it is inconclusive that raising a child within the gay family are a scrape family have no affect it doesn't include the same. job that is just really out of the social sciences have not clear that at all there has not been a time when you have i mean i don't have it out yeah but there's not been a. lot of research showing that if you even without conceding to the river and the it isn't conclusive what is conclusive is that single parents of drug addicted people of criminals the problems that's going on in this very community in this capital city does conclusively have an effect on kids and what is it the resources that are being directed towards this which i think is again i respect the moral and biblical issue but you know close clothe the naked feed the hungry deal

with the crude the crime the hopelessness the kids you know who are hopeless who are out there robbing people because they are hopeless and deal with their don't deal well this reversion yeah well so i'm kind of worried that when you start well serious issue of research that's good but we don't take you know we don't take our orders we don't take our orders from you neither. it's come from the bible and it's come from god so gentlemen got to tell us what let me get in and i want to bring this back to civil rights. because even credit scott king the widow of martin luther king jr called this a civil rights issue what he had to say that we love forever but she was absolutely fundamentally one hundred percent in one percent wrong on this issue and it was an issue that her husband would have even corrected her own. like so sure about i mean we can't say that and again i say it is martin was very heterosexual because he was heterosexual doesn't mean he would have perceived. very well he would not have pursued this the result he was i mean the man was not blind to what you're going to

say merely because i'm going to rest and burn it rusted who was one of his chief strategist was gay and he had every opportunity to do in the sixty's to raise civil rights issues around the gay question because bridget reston was there a little there was a little bit more that there was an historic problem with african or do the right has been at the time you know really quickly john i want to talk about this because prop eight was something that the citizens voted on and we're talking about this today as a civil rights issue i want to ask the majority in california decided for the minority in that case when they voted on prop eight so that's the argument we're using for determining something like freedoms like marriage one would african-americans have got the right to vote well i don't think that first of all i reject the notion that gay marriage fighting for gays is equal to the civil rights movement be simply because of the fact that they were not. they were we don't we don't see dogs on them we don't beat them up we don't we don't go on the ice and we

don't run down there how do. they gain credibility that is what i did and i'm sorry but i'm going to get you out a civil rights issue with a capital c. the capital or with the small c the couples and the small are. definitely and the judge here and the judge of a defense of marriage act case pretty much all right gentlemen i appreciate both of your perspectives on this contentious issue that continues to be dealt with in our courts and keep. lives we have one more segment ahead on the show it's the story of people around the world who can't get enough of the flying donkey in russia we have a happy update on the animal's journey to moscow and we'll ask with everything going on in the world why is a story about a flying donkey grabbing so many headlines back in a moment. every month we give you the future we help you understand how we'll get there and what tomorrow brings the best in sign sending elegy from across russia and around the world. join

us for technology update on our g. hungry for the full story we've got. the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. well it's still one of the most clicked on stories on artie's website r t correspondent tom barton has more on one animal's very unusual journey. the donkey has learned it russia's notorious four legged fly is finally able to breathe easy not because the don't care arrives in moscow after days on the road from southern russia and i'm not complaining is very sweet and everyone fell in love with her and we don't want to give no. the knock a strange journey started with the now infamous flight of the beach the power sail pulled by a boat a publicity trick by a local water sports company but police found out the only run away or did not

present a family later. sitting on the beach was your parachute go i couldn't quite figure it out myself four legs. a donkey the animals distressed brain also brought simply from around the world celebrities and animal rights activists were hot to trot with their opinions this animal was suffering was captured on. videos and photographs and the way it spread through the media is really amazing and i think what the public has done is created a demand you know for animals to be treated better the culprit presented a vet certificate showing the animal was not physically harmed so is unlikely to face prosecution nevertheless the outcry means a napco now spend a month the prestigious kremlin riding school drinking filtered water eating a special diet prepared by a nutritionist and being messengers with medical appointments might get a little bit if they make it so we have well equipped stables good for her and a team of professional experts who take care of the horses. and what after office

the housing up to have flooded in from all over the world and all through the way you might expect the manager of england's top man hotspur football club harry redknapp has said he would happily put on that go up harry has an ambition to open his own animal sanctuary in the hunt sure area of england and he has perhaps could and could join him in the sanctuary and not come here now has her feet planted firmly on the ground so wherever she ends up after this month for the moment she can just relax tom barton party. well earlier i caught up with ashley burn from peter who has taken up the donkey's cause i asked her what the donkey safe and sound in a police investigation underway why she's still upset. well you know this donkey got a lot of attention fortunately because this horrific video ended up on the internet and this stunt happened in front of a lot of people but we hope that people realize that this is only the tip of the

iceberg when it comes to abuse of animals in the entertainment industry and behind the scenes we see animals abused on movie sets television sets in the circus and other times when they're used for entertainment and so we really hope that it won't stop here and that people will learn more about how for instance elephants are beaten with bull hooks behind the scenes in the circus or great apes are threatened with force than extreme physical punishment if they don't perform a correctly in a set on a movie scene no actually that's something i want to touch upon you mentioned the internet sensation that this video was it got one point eight million views for example on our tease you tube page why do you think this donkey has captivated so many people. people are compassionate and they know that it is wrong to cause an animal to feel fear. and everybody could tell that

this donkey was just absolutely petrified. was screaming the entire way down but do you think that really you know they can do you think that really is the case that a lot of the you tube comments i read were you know who knows maybe the donkey is having a great time a lot of people enjoy parasailing how do we know the donkey isn't you know really laughing instead of crying you know it seems like a lot of people get value out of the entertainment of this and are necessarily up in arms over the treatment of animals here. you know most people are far more intelligent than that and they know that a donkey feels fear just like just like we do or just like a dog or a cat does that i think any of us who have a dog at home would never dream of forcing them to go through a stunt like this because we know that it would terrify them. so i think for most people this was a matter of just sheer disbelief they had to watch this video to really believe that it existed and that's something that we see on a regular basis that's why we put the videos that we take behind the scenes at the

circus for example on the on the internet so that people can see for themselves that unfortunately cruelty like this is commonplace when animals are being forced to act as performers what about a little bit purse like just to play devil's advocate for a moment you know this doggie has so captivated people's concern and attention one point eight million views on you tube why do you think it is that more people seem to care about something like this than a lot of international disasters that are actually taking the lives of people this is a case of a donkey that you know perhaps was mistreated but it wasn't injured gravely it's not dead it's going to live a fine life you know there are lots of international tragedies going on where that's not the case. well i think the first of all people see that this was so unnecessary that this is something that didn't have to happen especially in this day and age shouldn't have happened so what do you think this disproportionate amount of people care about this sort of thing over more important losses of life

of humans well you know i think that people also realize that cruelty to animals doesn't it doesn't just and with the animals study after study has shown us that people who abuse animals regularly go on to abuse and kill other people and also i think there's a lot of importance in paying attention when things like this happen because it sends a horrible message to children children see animals being treated in this way it can hurt their ability to develop empathy for their fellow beings and again that might not stop with animals on a regular basis it goes on to affect people too you know really so you think. if we turn our heads when. cruelty or violence happens to an animal it's only a matter of time before it comes back to get us in other ways all right actually i think i want to thank you for giving us that insight and for your care for this

this parasailing donkey. and that is it for tonight's show i'll see you back here tomorrow.

every month we give you the future we help you understand how will get there and what tomorrow will bring the best in science and technology from across russia and around the world join us for its acknowledging update on our g. p.

destructive fire is still raging across central russia with an east forty eight. on the capital continues to choke on that smoke. the bars are still blazing threatening russia stuff to bring you the latest for one area left devastated. the capital is baking in record heat and choking on which you join me for more than just a lot of. u.s. military experts claim israel is preparing a surprise attack on iran which washington will inevitably be dragged into. and the arab capital is being want to westernize asian we look at why jordan's young muslims are shelling tradition turning to american domination t.j. it's.

a very good morning to you this is live from moscow with me eyes have it sways essential russia still in flames with firefighters tackling hundreds of new fires every day and it's like he's been several days before the school jean temperatures show any sign of cooling down want to take you around all those affected areas aussies and jacob is in woodland in the region for us well safe havens is right here in the center of the capital jacob houses into a should be developing overnight. well here. was heavily wooded area. left. charred remains of trees moldering

grew.