democrats in wisconsin showing their disapproval with the stages them please approval of a plan to curb unions but perhaps that shame should be directed elsewhere for reason or do shoots a candidate obama who may just contradict president obama. there's every expectation that with the end of the cold war nato will be disbanded one it's still kicking even after the just solution of the warsaw pact so what's the point of nato today and who exactly is benefiting. and drill baby drill mideast

tension maybe make what you pay at the pump a little painful so could the u.s. look in its own territories for relief. it's friday february twenty fifth four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for sound you're watching our t.v. . well all eyes are still on wisconsin as thousands stand strong at the state's capital protesting the republicans plan to curb unions this is the very early morning vote in wisconsin state assembly pushed governor scott walker's budget repair bill one step closer to getting passed but protesters and democrats are not giving up in this fight that is far from over. what you see here are democrats and protesters pointing the finger at republican lawmakers making their. through the chamber after the one am vote this morning now

the bill will move on to the state senate when that vote will take place remains a mystery because wisconsin's democratic senators are still nowhere to be found another democrat missing from the action president barack obama which may be surprising to some because during his presidential campaign it seemed there was no doubt he would support the labor movement. another set of american workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain one on the white house. comfortable pair of shoes by so long that they can live with us for a. while many people asking where exactly those comfortable shoes are now it's been nearly two weeks since the protesters took to the state's capitol and the country hasn't heard very much from the president this despite the promises he seems to have made during his presidential campaign to stand on the line with those workers and it's not just wisconsin the president has to worry about union protests

all over the country have broken out in states like indiana ohio and montana and much much more action as expected this weekend well it has been twenty years today since the warsaw pact a military alliance between eight eastern european states was dissolved and with it the soviet threat the u.s. and its allies were poised to fight against but the us equivalent nato is still alive today and has expanded its size and scope in the days in years since the cold war it's the oldest and largest military alliance in the world are these loyalists or asks why. it was an alliance borne of fear originally supposed to define or defend western europe against the soviet union but the fall of the berlin wall changed all that now decades later the military alliance for and against the soviet threat longer pride of its enemy has been. the

answer fumbling for a clear cut mission the north atlantic treaty organization has been fighting for justifiable reason to be but that doesn't stop nato from continuing to pursue a global reach it's been twenty years since the warsaw pact formed in response to nato dissolved but even without its main rival nato has continued to aggressively expand into. date and had operations spanning several countries with troops and resources in the sudan the mediterranean sea kosovo iraq afghanistan and the horn of africa in november they redefined their goals going forward at the summit in lisbon wanting to tackle everything for nuclear disarmament to terrorism and cyber security. it was all adopted and its protests on the streets and nato is out of date now out of time we need a world of peace and justice is not going to prepared for yet more wars and already nato members have been divided over the near decade long war in afghanistan nato

was not prevailed there calling into question the alliance mission. there's every expectation that with the end of the cold war nato would be disbanded instead what happened in fact and in violation of even the accords and the agreements at the time was nato aggressively expanded critics say it's u.s. defense companies benefiting most from this expansion with the sales of weapons to every new nato member and the building of every new base and that growth allows other tools to be used as it's changed altered militarily to become also this very powerful political entity that is used to pressure countries to bow down to nato as agenda nato is agenda being primarily a u.s. agenda it's an agenda some countries see as a threat and critics of that agenda right in the u.s. say it's global expansion must be stopped i don't believe there's anything that justifies nato as the continued existence. in terms of security and

peace an assault to the peace that nato once pledged was formed taking lauren lyster r.t. new york. well i want to broaden this discussion about the relevance of nato today ross maker is the founder and editor and editor in chief of who what why dot com and joins us now from new york and reza nato is both the thing that we created as a force to stand against the soviet military and you know the warsaw pact has dissolved the soviet union is gone so why is nato still around today well we really don't know the answer to that i think to get a literally today the issue if we can manage period one can of whether an intervention is warranted in libya. with khadafi using his air power against the pencils people with the problem of course and that many feel that that function with more properly rests with

a truly international body like the united nations and of course as you have these multiple bodies and by the way nato and the u.n. are not the only ones there are many different alliances and bodies each of which claim we have some sort of you're a speaker but i do agree with that element in your war that ultimately we have to work out what the military power is backing and of course client states like saudi arabia puts him in a difficult position what are they going to do is niño going to intervene to stop the saudi rulers from bombing their own people with the rights up like the others do. and i know as you've spoken a lot about the might of the u.s. military industrial complex i went through what role it plays in nato is geographic expansion and widening scope of operation lazy just as it does everywhere here in the united states we very carefully have cited defense contracts in every gresham a discreet united states and now this has expanded into hungary poland the czech

republic they're well getting a piece of the action but it's not really with people who these countries that are getting a piece of the action that's a very small. norman clips who are with them that is benefiting from this and so yes i mean the bottom line is that the u.s. economy and increasingly these other economies are inextricably linked to the profit taking in so-called defense activities except how much of it really is defense and i'm wondering if you can break this down for us you know a lot of people think anything nato as you know a force of good in this country and don't see any reason why it should ever be disbanded do you have any you don't have a breakdown of this in terms of what people should really understand and simple terms about nato a lot of sure i mean the reality is look at some of the countries and in nato like denmark which is a stance of leads nato right now but this is a tiny country and they are always under severe pressure from the u.s.

government and i think from the british and our other larger powers germany and so forth a to cooperate in so in cases like iraq where you have a trumped up excuse for an invasion of their force to go along it's really it's not tenable for those been using force the notion is that this is all democratic countries that participate but i'm quite sure that the average person in any of these countries is not participating or understanding what choices that are involved at all i wondering what you see for the future regarding nato i mean do you see the denmark's of the world and from about their small countries that are sort of forced to go along with the war in iraq for example do you see them coming forth forward and saying you know what we want out. you know i think that the world is changing so fast now and things are so be stabilized as we see one country after another rising up now there are demonstrations in iraq itself i think all of these things are in play and i think people are going to start asking questions of like

the people rising up in those countries people now here in our country in wisconsin they're going to start asking all these questions and i think the biggest question of all if i may is is right is so much your car money we're going into this incredible machine that just eats it you know we're all struggling here in the united states people are struggling everywhere in the world and i think that if those resources were better diverted for taking care of people's basic needs we probably would have a lot less need for nato to begin with certainly an important question to ask russ baker founder and editor editor in chief of what white dot com. now for the millions of unemployed or underemployed americans times are already tough and rising oil prices are just adding fuel to the economic fire experts warn the unrest in the middle east could result in food prices skyrocketing as well and whenever there is a crisis there is also room for it exploitation because i ask explain. well three

little letters. could have dire consequences on any economy and here in the united states or oil is sometimes also accompanied by three big one. and with those three words you've got yourself a politically entrenched powerhouse will drill new wells cost shore and will drill here drill baby drill and drill now. and the crisis in the middle east has only inflamed so what we have now are soaring gas prices and fears of a relapse in the already weak economic recovery we have a world oil market so when one place goes down in one place is in trouble which it seems like it is today and it affects the oil price around the world and on the heels of the unrest crude is heading for the biggest weekly increase in two years and when oil prices soar the price of food also skyrocket and so a vicious cycle begins for many americans

a reality that is once again rallied the base and its spokes people perhaps for the wrong reasons and whenever there's a crisis either here at home or abroad it's usually exploited politically by the government or the media it loves to hate khadafi is now threatening to burn up the oil fields experts are predicting a worst case scenario of two hundred twenty dollars a barrel if that happens i don't believe that this this particular interruption of oil supplies will last very long so if you're trying to tie drilling offshore with what's happening in libya i think it's a bit of a stretch a stretch that some are all too willing to make the oil fields are on fire and we have no backup plan. well he has lifted the moratorium in the gulf for drilling oil thanks to cast sunstein know all new permits have been issued permits and backup plans aside what's really going to happen in an already ravaged economy where we

see this in the middle east. and this in our very own midwest. so the last thing you need is the people who are. in the worst economic shape are the first ones to get hit by gas prices and this will cause a lot of discomfort to a lot of people who don't need this bad news bad news recently echoed by floods even a bulletin russia's prime minister said that the unrest in libya has driven crude prices beyond fair market levels in danger in the global economy but here concerns of violence spreading to other oil producing nations in the region have been overshadowed and instead of asking how americans will cope with this are asking the question that never gets answered but at the same time seems to never get old who are our friends and who are our enemies for our chief kosofsky

well when chaos on the street affects prices at the pump it has been certainly a rough ride for oil prices this week yesterday crude oil prices reached one hundred three dollars a barrel of oil companies shut down production in libya due to the protests there you know a lot of investors seem to be concerned with what unrest could do if it spreads to major other other major oil producing countries they fear this could drive up prices even further so i'm throwing out numbers like five dollars a gallon at the gas pump people again is a contributing editor for foreign policy he's also the author of this book the oil and the glory of the pursuit of empire and fortune on the caspian sea i asked him if oil prices could reach two hundred twenty dollars a barrel in the near future. the question is what kind of a timeframe are you talking about and what event i do think that the markets have been calm down over the last twenty four hours how do you arabia has gone around and rightly assured everyone we not only can add more volumes to the market but we

have added these these volumes and that's why you see oil prices go down and the difference that would create a situation in which prices would really skyrocket if another opec country went offline so you lost a million barrels a day it is offline from libya. algeria which is also having trouble if it's run at one point eight million barrels or more saudi arabia that would bring saudi arabia right up to its capacity to to substitute the volume then you would see i'm not sure two hundred twenty i think that's probably an analyst trying to get a headline but but maybe one hundred fifty that that which is still pretty high so i want to stay on as you mentioned saudi arabia and they really kept calm promising to kick up oil production i know you've written about the fact they already have

but to what extent can they keep doing it i mean if this unrest continues. this is the this is the question one question that i'm exploring today is why is saudi arabia so nontransparent the the the single factor that has that has allowed a little crisis to go through the roof over the last week up and then all the way down which we've seen since the end of the day yesterday is this question can saudi arabia really replace those drawings and your question even if it does replace the iranians or how long can it do it and then a third question could be unrest that we've seen in neighboring the rain washed over into the eastern province of saudi arabia where all of the oil major oil fields are located i want to talk about the interesting relationship between the united states and libya certainly twenty years ago thirty years ago it was

a very tense relationship but i think what's changed over the last few years and there are some who say you know that the u.s. has invited libya bank in due to its rich oil supply your thoughts on that and sort of u.s. foreign policy in general as it relates to protests and or will. well just to get that one question one question out of the way first did the united states. renew its relationship with libya in two thousand and three because of oil yes. so that's that's that's a fact and i don't think that student will look at the situation in those days it was. right in the middle of this war that the united states was embarking on in iraq it was it was during the. war on terror that is very high and it was a state libya willing to renounce weapons of mass destruction to to renounce

is it a program to develop nuclear weapons and the bush administration and the blair administration it was two countries the united states and the united kingdom that. hey wait a second lesson in embrace good offie they did not look under the. baby nor is terrorist past nor lockerbie. for that reason the terror reason but also because the doctor said hey listen i'll let all your oil companies come in they can drill i've got forty four billion barrels of oil which it does have and incidentally. a lot of about fourteen fifty or no oil companies big big companies including gas. that's just been taken up a little further in terms of very current events i mean do you think to what extent

do you think you know president obama when he decides to speak out say about hosni mubarak stepping down in egypt what does he weigh in terms of ok how is this going to affect oil why you know do you think this is why we haven't heard as much on libya i mean how much of a factor is in the u.s. you know ability to speak out on these things. when i see it a little bit the office and i see that the united. is not speak out much on mubarak and his speak out on. the calculus there is. how much impact does our relationship with that leader have on the other moving pieces in the middle east in terms of mubarak he seems one dictator there are links to saudi arabia and other countries with which we have very important relationships in the middle east if we pull away precipitously from were barak do we tell those

other dictators our relationship with you is is. is very very strong now we may drop in tomorrow that was mubarak oculus doppie everybody knew this guy is a rogue the united states for obama can very easily stand up immediately and say you are a rogue staff. do not crack down on your people keep the silence down and now and now telling to see especially to step down because none of the other middle east leaders care about guthrie all right steve living contributing editor with foreign policy also author of the book for oil and glory well decreasing our dependence on foreign oil using clean energy and bringing jobs to poor communities these are all good reasons to drill for natural gas right and that

gas drilling is experiencing a major boom around the country from pennsylvania to colorado however people everywhere are experiencing important unfortunate side effects and there are many from contaminated drinking water to skin infections to nose bleeds i trundled a democrat of a now one small town that's been hit especially hard ever since oil and gas companies brought hydraulic fracturing or fracking to their neighborhoods. i bought . for the eally family and the problem runs deep. underneath the soil in their roots i was born and raised there are about the software for all that are. already here to grow from watching acres of land a swimming pool a pond and a new generation with roots here to go back here so it's kind of hard for me to pack up and. everything about me is here but times

have changed since can't really grew up here for the last year in four months he and his family have been unable to drink their water ever since he agreed to allow contador oil and gas to drill for natural gas on his property or one of more than a dozen families in dimmick prince of a man who have lost or not looks like this because it's full of methane gas. instead families like that you always have to live on of tanks two hundred fifty gallons of water delivered once a day for a family of five that's what showers in a correlate washing dishes and water well that's not. what we expect life really says he and his wife signed on only after they were assured it would be a quick safe process clearly that didn't happen. it got so bad that you and his cousin who lives down the street decided to find out what would happen if they let their water on fire. a lot like a flame would come

a gal would like let's hear how they were the clay like like that hi thank. you for having him in the town there was never. never any problem but for jim grimsley and his wife and dimmick is where they came to retire the drilling just started on their property but their home. we did sign on. not sorry that we can't just run out of town is kind of a poor town and so a lot of people didn't work and they got jobs and they're making money. so to be that's a plus but some who got jobs complained about the company and were punished or put on leave most employees are from texas and stay in rented houses and hotels the pennsylvania department of environmental protection has been out several times but has now decided to take action capital. a lousy job for less than a creature the e.p.a. has issued orders for cabinets a plug three wells they've already drilled which could cost millions of dollars

they also have thirty days to install permanent water supplies for families including the get water delivery if cabot doesn't agree to. terms and get it to your court seeking a court order to enforce what i've just laid out for grimsley what happened is probably simply a rough patch that's like anything i mean i'm sure when there were big and subways in new york city one hundred years ago everybody probably hated them and so who wants them today to move a couple million people a day without in new york city would be there but for easily it's a looming question of whether to offer through his family from the only place he has ever known a lot of memories or keep them there with the hope that at some point things will change prospering in a counseling or christine for r.t. . and we're at our two certainly not the only ones to tackle this issue of the impact of fracking across america earlier this year

a documentary which was really scalding gaslamp here's a quick look oh man. i'm never healthy as this explosive condition inside. and all those guys who look you here for oil and gas wells this is happening everywhere right that's the biggest of your people in the world i have samples from all over the country i'm wondering if you're interested in paying people to. well the documentary was so well received it's been nominated for an academy award oscars of course coming up this weekend well it turns out that a group that has disguise itself as a collaboration of small independent oil and gas producers called energy in depth as trying to discredit this phone calling it false and misleading well guess what energy and depth is funded by some companies you may have heard of how burton chevron b.p. shell the list goes on my forehead is a reporter with green wire and focuses much of his energy covering energy and the

environment. and i give us a little background on this from what i understand the industry group energy in depth to send a letter to the academy of motion picture arts and sciences what do you know about this. yes they did their energy and get this incredibly well known project of a group called the trillium so shushan of america and they formed this project to. be over here federal u.s. e.p.a. regulation for actually. kind of tracking gasoline and since it first came out at the sundance film festival. criticizing it's. trying to highlight considerably. accuracies and. they disagree with and as of course another side of the story josh fox and creative gasland wrote a letter in response and basically said you know this is my story this is the truth

and these are facts is that right yes there is the here and the energy. of these people and gasoline and then just in some disclosure it's wrote a piece called affirming. now it's really interesting because this film gasland it's sort of a david and goliath story is a big gas companies versus you know regular american families but it's very interesting because what happened with this film seems to sort of echo that symbolism you know these big oil companies trying to take down as the small filmmaker. just passes expressed kind of that kind of frustration to me although you know i communicate good deal with the industry folks who feel that. you know that they're not being listened to about what they perceive to be inaccuracies and. and i certainly this is not the first time we've seen a documentary criticized and questioned on the basis of its authenticity talk about

a couple examples and why do you think this is such a common thing well. you know it doesn't frustrating kind of have these charges and countercharges back and forth and that's why we set out to just kind of look at all the charges and countercharges so what the film says and what really what hydraulic fracturing is. just kind of later this kind of state what the facts are. the students coming from both sides and there's also other films though i mean even an inconvenient truth the al gore documentary about global warming that film was you know some some groups tried to discredit that. i guess i'm wondering just as a reporter this is just going to be your gas because the oscars are this weekend when we're just weekend what's your feeling how big of a chance do you think it is a gas land could win an oscar you know i don't know much about the us troops

i don't think though that the energy in depth. challenge to it or. do much to its chances i don't think it's a group that sort of hollywood is really concerned about it. and just finally i mean i know you have focused a lot of your time and energy covering the environment covering things like hydraulic fracturing what is your take on how much americans really understand the drilling for natural gas i think if they get drilling i think that people get confused with this terminology but i drill it fracturing. but. you know i think anybody would understand that having a drilling rig in your backyard industrialize is your backyard all right on that note my sorry hand reporter for green wire thanks so much for joining us thanks for having me and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered.