president medvedev pushing swift action against those behind the terror attack in moscow's double bed of the airport airport management faces charges of negligence after a suicide bomber was able to pass security and kill thirty five people. more than one hundred people injured in the blast are still in the hospital many of them in critical condition. the new strategic arms reduction treaty between russia and the u.s. gets the green light from the lower house of parliament in moscow after months of debate. and europe's top human rights organization in fact a report that claims the kosovo liberation army was involved in organ trafficking during the conflict in the former yugoslavia more than ten years ago. continuing with our top story up next the alona show looks at how u.s. networks reported monday's deadly bombing of moscow's domodedovo airport stay with us. for the feel we've got. the

biggest issues good voice face to face with the news makers. welcome the ilona show will get the real headlines with none of the mercy or can live out of washington d.c. now although the airport bombing them idea that just happened yesterday it seems as if the mainstream media has been jumping to a lot of conclusions so that is show a lack of understanding or is this just an opportunity for the networks to put their political slant on a tragic event will speak with mark out among us about the spin next americans will be watching as president obama delivers his second state of the union address tonight many are already wondering is obama going to remind us of the man who was elected two years ago or is going to be the new centrist balance to whatever

republicans want obama will get david packed winds of painted on it also thousands of pro-life protesters took to d.c. yesterday to show their stance on roe v wade but here's my question how is this a pressing issue right now should americans be focusing on unemployment the financial crisis anything other than abortion we'll speak with radio host allison kilkenny to discuss why americans and lawmakers are caught up in a decades old conflict then will investigate a private spy ring that's gathering intelligence and afghanistan and pakistan and it's funded not by the military or the government but by private donors so whose interests is it serving all discuss with mt we'll blogger marcy wheeler and what if i told you the you could take a trip around the moon for the bargain price of one hundred fifty million dollars believe it or not it's possible thanks to a new chapter in space tourism so we'll speak about the company space adventures and. and there are potential space travel options with entrepreneur jeffrey manber

that's of the end of the show but now let's move on to our top story. as the world saw the aftermath of the bombing at the mine where the airport the mainstream media was very quick to report on the information they had and speculate on the information that they did within hours the media was spinning facts and drawing conclusions because r.t. is marina portnoy reports getting to the bottom of this tragedy is in fact far from over. it was an explosion heard around the world a terrorist attack inside russia's dome idea the airport killed at least thirty five people and injured another one hundred eighty eight a massive explosion in moscow became an international story terrorism experts immediately suspected rebels from the russian province of chechnya analyst andrew cautioned says rebels in the northern caucasus region of russia from chechnya dagestan are fighting for an independent mostly islamic republic most u.s.

reports were quick to conclude why the attacks took place when terrorism takes place in the united states and europe the terrorists are immediately represented there was absolute which is which of course they are but when it's russia their western media are willing to entertain causes justifications is there some reason they are pressed for over at fox news hijacked the tragedy to garner support for u.s. foreign policy russians have themselves a serious islamic terrorist problem and it just won't go away the second to help us in places like iran to get more russian cooperation with afghanistan things like that are they going to wise up and help us a little bit iraq iran what mr no spin zone dizzy ron have to deal with monday's deadly bombing in moscow russia a key u.s. ally in the afghan war has remained a key player in the transshipment of goods to the war torn region a fact mr o'reilly neglected to mention. in his view russia is bad because they

don't automatically support the u.s. in all of our foreign policy decisions so he's trying to use this manipulate this to anger his viewers to get them upset with russia other u.s. commentators didn't bother clarifying their facts they've recently taken their attacks into the heart of russia to transportation hubs and cultural centers in moscow and elsewhere c.n.n. may not know that terrorist attacks in the heart of russia date back to nine hundred ninety nine but a series of apartment bombings took place in moscow preempting the second chechen war one of many reasons moscow was warning the u.s. about threats of islamic terrorists before nine eleven if this in fact was following monday's attack us media outlets flipped the fear mongering switch morning about a possible destabilization of the caucasus region and the price of oil the worldwide price of oil which is already high that's right to get even higher and his russian president dmitri medvedev prepared to head to the world economic forum

in davos a fox talking had warned the world about more deadly attacks on the horizon i'm sure the terrorists are already in place in davos where they make an incident occur the swiss police were tough that is problematic but they've been there every year for the past several years and my guess is they'll try to simply have somebody to work within twenty four hours of the deadly bombings in moscow the mainstream media and the u.s. spy on the story in several different directions from fear to frantic analysis many american reports fail to deliver the facts of a story where the investigation has only just begun or important r.t. new york. so how do we put together the puzzle of media coverage when it comes to a major terrorist attack in moscow does it show the lack of understanding when it comes to global terrorism or is it the perfect opportunity for those with a political slant to use it to their. earlier i caught up with marc at

a monist legal assistant richard or i first asked him if he thinks that there is a difference in the way that terrorist attacks are covered by the mainstream media depending on where that attack occurred. i don't even think the western media themselves would argue that that there is a that there's a difference between the two i think when there's terrorist attacks directed especially against united states or its close allies there's a tendency to. if they apply a motive at all to the terrorism you know very simplicity hatred of freedom hatred of democracy there's never any attempt to ascertain any motivation that's not to say that you know that justifies it i think that's the danger that happens all the time the western media that keeps the analysis so simplistic when you try to understand why would someone walk into an airport and blow themselves up why would someone fly a plane into a skyscraper. a lot of times people treat that as a justification for it which i don't think it is but i do think it's important especially if you're a media outlet which is his job is to inform people to try to understand why people

do these things it's not usually out of a psychotic hatred of freedom or some abstract political concept there's usually a much more motivation that these people have for why they do these things and i think the western media is very willing to delve into those issues when an attack happens against a country like russia or china against countries that they perceive as unfriendly to the west which is non western as well as when it happens or selves and i think to a certain extent that's somewhat of a normal human reaction you like to think about yourself as being a very you know we'd like to they were sold as being rational and agreeable and anyone that has a problem with wants to blow us up they must clearly be psychotic deranged. whereas it's very easy to look at the flaws of someone else you know the words on russia are much easier for us to criticize because they're not our own and i don't think that you know something like tear terrorism which apparently we're fighting a global war on terror right america so you think that you would want to try to connect the pieces there you know. there was

a terror attack in spain or in london then you called the global terror attack that they're fighting the western world but i mean there are also lines that can be drawn between terrorism in the northern caucasus the militants there the fact that some of these people may be training also in afghanistan and pakistan in those tribal regions so you think that would be in america's interest perhaps in the american media interest really understands again assuming that they actually believe this stuff they say about a global war on terrorism which i think is pretty clearly again the double standards are so obvious that i don't even think a lot of the people that say these things can really say with a straight face anymore i mean the united states has aided and abetted so many terrorist groups and countries that have serious terrorist problems you know so frequently that i don't think it's even possible this juncture to really take the logic of the global war against the tactic of terrorism very seriously but it's not to say that i don't think that it's unfortunate that to a certain extent these atrocities in russia and other countries are treated as entirely separate i don't think they're entirely separate think it's very easy to

over draw the linkages between a place like chechnya and a place like pakistan or afghanistan but there are some similarities if you look at the motivating ideologies of the people that are fighting in chechnya and dagestan people in afghanistan and other countries there are some pretty strong similarities that's not to say in all cases their motivations are identical or that their targets are identical but i think yes there are some stronger similarities and i think we might sometimes willing to admit what do you think we see more generally a lack of understanding when it comes to the media you know earlier or last year we saw a study that showed that the mainstream media only devoted four percent of their coverage throughout the entire year to the war in afghanistan you know this is a major military theater that the u.s. is spending hundreds of billions of dollars were losing thousands of lives there and yet the media only put four percent of their coverage into it and the new york times tried to give them i don't know an easy pass or something and say well that's because it's a complicated issue so it's hard for me. do you think that it's just complicated

for them or at the same time is there some kind of an agenda if we see people like bill o'reilly who obviously have a political slant who instantly want to take a terrorist attack in russia and start bringing iran into the picture right right well look there always are going to be people that have axes to grind the bill o'reilly's of the world i think to a large extent just because there's really nothing very good going on in afghanistan doesn't present a very convincing story i have no doubt if that if we were experiencing some glorious victory in afghanistan instead of a pretty nasty protracted draw you know even the most optimistic understanding of it that you know there would be all kinds of leading stories about the glorious activities and deeds that our soldiers are doing afghanistan but there aren't any so we can't do that so the easiest solution in that case is just to ignore it which these seem to largely do i don't think it's as much about complexity as it is the fact that it really isn't going very well and that's not a very good story you know it's just not good for t.v. i guess but then what or how do we fix that because the media you could say is

a reflection of the american people you know and if the media can't even tell you the full story if they can't tell you about you know the intricacies of certain foreign policy issues foreign affairs if they don't want to tell you about the intricacies of the war that your own country is fighting then where can people get that information how do americans not just have a complete lack of knowledge when it comes to you know anything international i think largely need to take things into their own hands they need to go out and you know it's not that hard these days almost everyone has an internet connection to alternative media. that's what i think unfortunately you know those sorts of things don't they don't find you you have to go out and make a proactive effort to read and to learn and to understand things and a lot of people just you know don't really have the time to do they were don't really care to try to do that. you know a lot of these media outlets you know the broadcast media they have to make money they have to try to get ratings and i can pretty much guarantee if whatever reason you're c.b.s. news cited tomorrow we're going to really you know have some in-depth hard hitting stuff saying just how bad it is in afghanistan there. probably wouldn't go probably

would go down because people want to hear that people to the extent that they want to watch the news yes they want to be informed but like any kind of rational person they want to be told positive things or at least the most positive kind of possible spin of things and it's pretty tough to put a barrier as it seemed entertained i guess you could say well you're right they want to hear about sarah palin you know you'd like to think that the media would have enough self-respect on their own to say hey this is an important story and regardless of whether this is going to. get us ratings that there's an important story and we'd like to tell the people need to know this and will make them aware of it but you know the kind of people my favorite is going the world writes a lot about how the sorts of people that advance in american media companies these days are precisely the opposite of this kind of people they don't take risks they're very aware of what management and the public want to hear and that's how they're promoted you don't get promoted a place like n.b.c. or a.b.c. or fox news by saying inconvenient stories that people don't want to hear you do it by talking about lady gaga or you know whatever the topic of the hour is and

putting is positive a slant on things that you can definitely is a business these days but i think that it reflects on all this mike thank you so much for joining us a pleasure. still to come tonight and just a matter of hours president obama will deliver his second state of the dress well obama trying hard to compromise with the right or stand up to that and tens of thousands flocked to d.c. in recent days to protest roe v wade so tonight we'll look at how abortion is viewed as a wedge issue there. i. really believe something. from the ground. covered.

the president will deliver the state of the union address tonight hours after tens of thousands of protesters left washington and they weren't here protesting the two wars that the u.s. is bogged down in or high unemployment and stead they held rallies for and against roe v wade the landmark supreme court case that made abortion legal in the u.s. artie's kalen for reports on the issue that still brings out protesters on both sides of the eight. all right we're going to give you a. read we're going to know where thirty eight years after the supreme court legalized abortion in the united states the issue is hardly out of the public arena one. seventeen thousand anti-abortion activists filled this arena in washington to pray for an end to abortion save them. armed with fervor and

conviction they took to the street. and were met by the evil conviction of pro-choice activists outside of the supreme court thank you. james cameron. whereas in many european countries abortion rights have been voted on and decided on and rolled on in america it remains a hot button issue year after year election after election they didn't forget it was in the holy spirit the christian right in this country has such a stronghold and it is decided to take on abortion as an issue. with complete disregard to women's lives. and to latch on to the issue of life and really polarize the issue and politicize it both sides are polarized on the issue they do agree on one thing keeping abortion on the political agenda we try to push our politicians to realize that we want to stance on abortion when you know pro-choice people are the majority of us americans so we want those politicians to be out

there and speaking for us do you think that they should be the number one issue that the congress should be tackling if everything is working right yes because every day we're killing thousands and thousand babies abortions going on is abortion on every fifteen seconds and that's a life just don that's not an american citizen it's an issue that stirs emotion and shakes the faith for decades later you know you have aborted i think in the last they were planned which means it's harm that they are on their way to hell to many it's a socio economic issue as well. whether it's that poverty leads to more abortions i believe that women should have access to abortion without having to pay for it and i think where capitalism comes in one of the big reasons that women choose abortion among other reasons is the fact that they can't afford to carry children to term or that a high abortion rate leaves tekken on the decline well quite frankly the economy is suffering because there are millions of people that are missing from the working

class. so abortion is actually taking those people out of the work force absolutely abortion is taking children out of the workforce is taking god people out of the population altogether views on abortion are ingrained early in america. because it will be for both sides abortion is a spiritual and political issue and a deeply polarizing one as one generation passes its fight to the next abortion is unlikely to come off the american political agenda any time soon human ford r. t. washington d.c. . now i could think of a number of issues but i prefer the at the top of the political agenda rather than abortion how about nine point four percent unemployment our broken health care and education systems our wars public and secret the war fighting abroad and the hundreds of billions of dollars that we're spending on that what about indefinite

detention the lack of any respect for the rule of law by our government and yet for some reason lawmakers want to focus on abortion decades after roe v wade and it seems that americans are happy to let them do it well joining me from new york to discuss it is allison kilkenny co-host of citizen radio alison thanks for joining us now can you please please please just tell me why is abortion treated like the most important issue in the entire country. well it's a safe area of discussion for republicans because you know it's a third rail topic so they have three things that they're usually able to talk about religion gay marriage although they can't bank on that anymore because a lot of young republicans are pro gay marriage now so they have what's left abortion right so they know that it's a real hot button issue that their base feels really really strongly about and it also affects people who are extremely disenfranchised when we talk about abortion

we're not really talking about white women who are privileged because you know they're still going to get abortions if they need them or they'll go on vacation or whatever they tell their other friends but it's we're women of color who are going to suffer and unfortunately they don't have power pool lobbyist representing them so republicans know it's a saved issue that a hot button issue for their base and it involves women who don't have that representation but why do we even need a lobbyist for an issue like abortion you know why is it so public and a lot of other countries is considered a very private matter and so i just understand why it always has to be at the center of every single political debate why every politician has to come out and make their stance on it. yeah well it involves women and women's bodies and unfortunately in this country vats consider something that we can actually debate about we can't just say well leave it to the woman it has to do with a woman's body a woman so let's let her make that decision we don't do that in this country so

even when you hear republicans talk about abortion it's in this really creepy way where they don't even make reference to women or their health so let's talk about the area of conception or the womb but they don't mention that those things are within a woman's body and maybe we should just leave the decision to her well what's really creepy about it is that we've seen this issue become one you know almost a fundamentalism where there has been violence or we've seen abortion doctors killed for it we have people like you know erick erickson that says massive bloodshed you know will be necessary if roe v wade is overturned that's a get to this point where it becomes violent. well unfortunately the democrats have been pretty complicit in letting it get to this point you know they've been chipping away at abortion and women's rights or about ten years now and we see it most recently with the hyde amendment you know that would not have happened without democrats acting complicit way in all of this so you know democrats have always

been the party of women's rights and when you have the party of women's rights working with republicans to chip away at abortion and permanents rights it can only lead to this place where now when an abortion doctor is killed you know everybody says it's horrific oh my god how could this happen but no one's willing to say well let's step back here and reexamined the whole issue of abortion maybe we've let things get out of control now i just listed a few things that i would rather be on the top of the political agenda like i said nine point one percent unemployment the economy our wars abroad why is it you know what would you like to see why don't we see people out protesting in tens of thousands on the streets about those issues like we did with the war and abortion yesterday. yeah i mean one of your video clips that you just played someone was saying that you know it's four women who sometimes have to make the decision to terminate a pregnancy because they can't care for

a child that is true and i think that the issue of poverty is enormously important and i really wish that democrats would make that the priority over you know violating women's rights and by the way i think it's really strange that republicans are always anti government intervention unless we're talking about vaginas in which case there are a lot of come on in you know doors open boys but you know poverty is a huge issue the socioeconomic divide and being the words i always hear from pro lifers that there are so opposed to death but are they protesting the wars are they protesting the death penalty you know how serious are they about preventing death or is it only the death so babies they're worried about do they not. here about iraqi and afghan babies these are all very important issues we should be talking about now some of the great contradictions of our time i guess you could say i think you know the main question is will it ever change or will america always be this way alison thank you so much for joining us. well tonight in

a matter of hours obama will be giving his second state of the union address it's the time of the year for everybody to speculate analyze criticize and at the time for the president to either come out strong show conviction or fall in line what he thinks was what he thinks republicans who lacked democrats in november as we all remember want us to hear so we have to ask will he let us down tonight or really show us that there's still some obama left two years later when joining me to discuss it is david pacman host of the david packman show david thanks for joining us what do you think illustrating you know something that's treated as a very serious speech and is it really the time for the president to come out and you know to take a stand make lay out his plan or is it more of just a symbolic gesture full of empty rhetoric. day or you know in some way this symbolic i mean i talked to scott here from the pew research center and he said

basically all other factors aside this just gives a few point bump in approval rating for the president doesn't really do anything lasting and you can't really judge too much what's going to happen the place where it's not symbolic to me though is that you can actually set the tone i mean is this the beginning of the two thousand and twelve reelection campaign probably would be a campaign speech i don't know. well what we're hearing about this here in the wake of the tragic shootings in tucson is in this new era of civility as supposedly you know more than sixty members of congress are going to be sitting next to each other despite what party they're part of which i think isn't a bad idea but the way the media has been covering it i feel like it's turned into a kind of a joke everyone just talking about whose day it is you know who's bringing who and they're acting like this is a junior prom so has it really just dwindled into some kind of a joke in a way it has i mean one of the things i'm you give us a sense of how much of

a joke it may have dwindled ensuite i'm wondering whether a republican senator is going to make out with barack obama the way joe lieberman did with george w. bush before joe lieberman basically jumped the shark and went over to the republican side will joe wilson yell out you actually didn't lie i mean it is in a sense a joke but like i said it could still set the tone for what will the next year and a half campaign be like so what is it that you think obama is going to say tonight versus what he should say. well i think that he's going to talk about this so-called spending freeze and reduction in military spending i've been talking about the sun to do the david paquin show for years literally the thing i don't want people to be confused about is we're drawing down from two wars iraq and afghanistan so naturally military spending will go down i don't want people to confuse that with actually getting away from this war economy that we're in and the

war obsession the military industrial complex we're still going to have fifty military bases open in germany maybe we only need forty you know i'm not saying close them all but i don't think he's going to address that he's going to stick to military spending and it's a very carefully crafted. now i find the title of this just to be a little off personally it's called the winning the future and i do realize that we are all playing this big game but you know who is the addressing there if he is talking about corporations that he likes to bow down to if he's talking about wall street who he bowed down to than share i am absolutely positive that they're going to be winning in the future but you know what about every day average americans are they going to lose are they even part of this game i don't know just yesterday on the show we had a discussion about what exactly does democracy mean we hear from both sides we need to mock receive democracy is good but what exactly is meant by democracy winning the future is similar to when i hear that i think one dollar one vote or you might

notice citizens united is that really democracy i don't know in the name of the speech is probably a clue about where they're coming from yeah yeah i mean what about working on the future what about investing domestically what about investing in education i just don't think that winning perhaps you know is the right term very quickly and there's going to be a republican or a bottle and then a tea party or a bottle to the rebuttal and to the state of the union tonight are you really looking forward to michele bachmann i don't know looking like a freak again. i'm looking forward to it i mean how divided is the republican party that there are actually had multiple rebuttals and michele bachmann the last week has made it very clear she wants to run for president i believe sarah palin's chances are completely out the window will this speech do the same to michele bachmann i don't know i'll be watching it closely i can't wait very quickly totally inappropriate if you were to play a drinking game what's the one word you would choose to drink tonight. with i guess i would say future i think that's going to if you really want to get trashed that

were for his future we're probably are going to hear that a lot there thank you so much for joining us thanks. well still to come on tonight's show he's often called borat and his book sales are horrible so his staffers decided to grate some of us with an over the top to find out who i'm talking about in tonight's tool time segment and a secret spy ring tonight we're going to dig deeper into the reports of the private spy operation used to gather intelligence in afghanistan and pakistan marcy wheeler a blogger for m d we'll at firedoglake will join us in just a few it's. going to be soo much brighter than a few new songs from phones to permission.