roma golds are some richer than the princess in bangkok reticence a chilling cold dream which will bring cold surface else until a grandson called him specifically children called grim friends who told them cool clothes and some even called a roll meridians. let's put aside the moral humanitarian do good side of what we believe and let's just talk it out straight reality politique so what exactly is that rail politic while secretary of state hillary clinton gets direct with us foreign policy president obama may not share her notion of reality we'll examine the white house divide when it comes to power versus principle. and the divide between the haves and have known clinton merica continues to grow but in one u.s. city that's abide and lives on the same street we'll take you to baltimore maryland for a disturbing look at the rapid d.k.a.

of the american dream. and dirty little secrets in the nation's capital you've heard of sex trafficking a monster crackdown on it but have you heard that it happens just steps away from where those walls are made to one woman who broke away from a lifestyle from which she should have been protected. it's friday march fourth four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine freeze out there watching our tape. i want to start today by talking about a tightrope this country seems to be walking on more and more on one side of politics then power on the other side principles and ideals we live in a country that has been described by some of the shining beacon of democracy and then he followed this notion including i think it's fair to say president obama figure within the united states is helping to lead an international effort to defer

deter further violence put in place unprecedented saying to hold the gadhafi government accountable and support the aspirations of libyan people we are also responding quickly to the urgent humanitarian needs that are developing but there's also another side this new israel polity the principles should be sacrificed for power and this is not a democrat versus republican issue even within his own administration there seems to be a difference in opinion here's secretary of state hillary clinton earlier this week . let's put aside the moral humanitarian do good side of what we believe in and let's just talk it out straight reale policy we are in a competition with china take toppling again so huge energy find it go to one of senator lugar's very strong points exxon mobile is producing at china is in there

every day in every way. and we're joined now by investigative journalist and r.t. contributor wayne madsen for this discussion which is fair to say i think it's fair to say very few people are having and when let's talk about the secretary of state clinton you know what put aside this notion of do gooder stuff president obama has not helped the people what side of the argument do you think is the dominant force in america today well i think secretary of state clinton's probably the one who is really advancing the real u.s. agenda and to hear her talk about real politic reminds me of henry kissinger and is this what is a century kissinger in a pantsuit come back to life here but. it's interesting she talked about papua new guinea we have supported regime after regime in indonesia they have half of that island new guinea under their control was spent poor which has an

independence movement freeport more in us mining company talked about exxon mobil is an interesting lolo soetoro who was president obama's stepfather went to work for exxon after he worked for the suharto regime that of course overthrew president sukarno and there was a terrible bloodbath that followed i think it's fine and president obama says these things but look at the reality of his administration's politics and we see backing for a lot of regimes around the world we even saw this kind of schizophrenia over egypt where frank wisner was sent over there biden and. all these people were saying nice things about mubarak and of course mubarak was going on. and the rhetoric doesn't match our policies toward the regime in yemen for example which is a u.s. close u.s. military ally where we can talk have this discussion without also bringing into the equation and china certainly when it comes to success on

a global scale china doesn't pretend to be guided by you know principles and it's becoming more and more clear that they're making good business decisions by doing that do you think i mean i got to what extent do you think it's working for china in comparison to what's happening here our country that's the astley and that well i think it depends on whether the united states wants to be more driven by the interests of wall street over the interests of what we claim to be a beacon of democracy around the world look you look everywhere in the world you look at some of these countries in africa where we're supporting basically dictators because of economics uganda for example most seventy there's oil natural gas finds here we back a guy the dictator a wonder for the same reason. so you see the united states trying to be like china in many respects and i think that's that's a wrong thing to do but at the same time when we're not doing business as with

countries like cuba and me and maher these are countries that are certainly have you know agendas that the u.s. openly disagrees with what happens if the u.s. does decide to put those ideals aside and say you know what if the pro-business we're going to open up trade again here's the problem with you when you have local . pressure groups in the united states we should have economic ties to cuba there's a lot of republican governors from farm states that would really go for that the minority vocal minority in southern florida now we have ileana ros lebanon who's the chairman of the house foreign relations committee who is basically there a person. there will be no contact with cuba and we have really just a disjointed foreign policy it seems like the administration is more of a committee where everybody gets an equal vote and it's basically pandemonium if you're another government around you know in the world you're looking at what is the u.s. foreign policy we had the schizophrenia play out with the demonstrations against

mubarak now we have like a split on how we handle khadafi in libya and i want to talk now about libya certainly this is a crisis that's going on as you and i think here through three of the fence robert gates has made it pretty clear that you know a no fly zone issuing a no fly zone would actually mean going in and you know some sort of invasion of libya. you hear him say that you also see you know u.s. ships starting to sort of mobilize around the area repositioning themselves i want to know in your attack on your in your opinion what is going on here with these mixed messages in libya well i'd say it's also interesting as secretary of defense gates said that to impose a no fly zone over libya would take more planes and we can actually we have on one single aircraft carrier we are so spread thin right now he knows the issue we're still in iraq we're in afghanistan we've got special forces and i knows how many

countries in africa the middle east and asia south asia you know how far can we stretch ourselves beyond humanitarian assistance and right now that's what that looks like what we're going for providing assistance to the refugees streaming into egypt and tunisia from libya just a very brief answer if gadhafi somehow maintains power does he kept all the western businesses out of the country i don't think so i think he's been a survivor for so long i think we're probably going to see some sort of negotiation president chavez of venezuela was pushing for something there may be some sort of an agreement me here all right r.t. contributor and investigative journalist when nothing. well it's just about a half hour drive from here in d.c. but in many ways it is the that is worlds away and talking about the city of baltimore maryland starting to crumble under the weight of foreclosures layoffs and budget cuts are just killing for takes us there and give us a firsthand look at

a clear disparity in the way people live. every day leonard gray used to leave this house in west baltimore to come here a job a living and a piece of baltimore's million dollar harbor revival until one day he and the other one hundred sixty employees of disney's e.s.p.n. zone were told they had been laid off effective immediately i'm working. for free from. these. cuts and that's colin are joining the ranks of baltimore's unemploy it's a crowded place with eleven point four percent of the city's residents right now struggling for both. of you know you would go through more. but business is booming in the inner harbor a luxury retail and dining district that the city has sunk millions of q.

and made its model of economic development people. who don't know what. i mean people or disrespect but like much of america where the richest twenty percent own eighty four percent of the wealth baltimore's harbor is split along class lines. the workers who work in these restaurants can't even eat what they're cooking because they charge the same price seven dollars for a hamburger and ours wage and racial line yes you can say it's a class thing but ironically enough most of the people that are pushed out by this new development happen to be blacks or happen to be like the inner. harbor is baltimore's jewel its model of economic development generating hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue a year for just a few blocks east or west the reality is much different a city crumbling under the weight of foreclosures and crushing economic crisis it was against this backdrop that president obama announced one point one trillion

dollars in cuts to the budget cutting things that i care deeply about. for example community action for grabs in low income neighborhoods and towns and community development block grants that so many cities and states rely on the domestic spending chopping block with thirteen point nine billion dollars in cuts to food stamp programs in maryland alone more than half a million residents depend on food stamps that's a thirty two percent increase since two thousand and eight. and that means more hardship for a place like baltimore where a staggering twenty percent of residents live below the poverty line. six percent more than when obama stopped here just days before his inauguration in two thousand and nine this is what i believe it's more about you. this belief we.

have spare the people who are the scum. that residents in these blocks and blocks of abandoned row houses haven't been able to change the spreading poverty threatening to engulf more and more of baltimore with homes are closed and jobs area in many ways west baltimore is a microcosm of the rest of the united states and when schools like these are closed little hope remains in this neighborhood for what the future might look like for the artsy baltimore maryland. it is a tale certainly of the haves and have nots and it's fair to say what's going on in baltimore is going on in cities all over the country but in baltimore also much much more magnified i want to bring you long way into the discussion she's a staff writer for the washington post you know it let's talk about as a lot there are a lot of people who argue that this is the way the system was discussed designed on purpose with you know people who are wealthy living in one place and sort of living

in a community that's propped up by people who make less than minimum wage do you agree with this that the system is actually designed this way and the only way to change it is by creating an entirely new system well certainly if we want to live in a casual society want to enjoy a free market income inequality is a byproduct of that that there are going to be people who make more than other folks but i think it's concerning to many people including economists is the level at which income inequality has grown in america i mean right now you're seeing something like the top ten percent of households keeping home is the percent of the nation's wealth and so the question becomes what are the social obligations that in terms of does that breed unrest does that breed zaya the among other income levels and then also what are the economic implications of that does such a large amount of wealth being concentrated among the top tiers american households does that it's stimulate economic growth does it trickle down to other economic classes so that what we're really grappling with is not

a sort of the fact of income inequality but the magnitude of income income inequality i think that's an important point and i how do you i want to kind of pick your brain on something that you know what little more about that a lot of people and that is food prices i know that some interesting information i think just out today is that a new record with that at least for as long as the the u.n. food and i were called organization has been keeping tabs on this and that is the food price index went to two hundred thirty six points last month and that was an increase of two point two percent from january a wreck. third let's bring the price of food and kind of relate it to this income inequality discussion so one of one thing to consider when you talk about rising food prices and also rising commodity prices in general not just through the energy costs gasoline extender is that you know lower income households spend a large proportion of their income on food on these days with our cities and that leaves them less money to spend on discretionary items which is one thing that

actually helps drive the economy and also reduces the amount of a product that they can actually buy in fact in january in the u.s. we found was that even though we received a payroll tax cut you know all workers received a two percent benefit to their paychecks that money was actually eaten up by inflation by rising food costs by rising gas prices so that some things are going to talk or look the paycheck to paycheck a little better doesn't go quite as far as vastly and so that's something that is really important to think about when you look at ways to stimulate the economy in particular ways to help the most vulnerable consumers. you know i've got to bring this up because it was just kind of shocking to me a few days ago here on r.t. we did a story about. the left of the items in new york i'm talking about one hundred seventy five dollars burger it's a burger with you know cobie beef and four gras islands and there is something like that with yeah and this is on sale at

a cafe on wall street surprisingly can thousand dollar martinis are popping up one thousand of the one thousand dollar desserts do you think that we're going to continue to see more and more things like this things that only the wealthiest wealthiest people in the world can afford you know as more and more people are using food stamps and going to food pantries i think one thing that's interesting about the income gap in america is that it's really driven by tremendous teams at the top of the spectrum so it's not necessarily that the lower income people are making less money but that the richest are getting. phenomenally richer than the rest of us the top to being the top point five percent of americans you have to make two million dollars which being just the top one percent controlling these the eight hundred thousand dollars you're really seeing grows at the very high end and the question for americans is is the see environment the country that we want to live in and some new research recently came out that show that americans when looking looking at income distribution charts they actually favor income

distribution it was closer to sweden then closer to america and they don't understand that there is such an enormous gap in this country that's one thing to think about the actually interviewed one of the people who took part in those surveys and creating those charge i thought it was so interesting not only to disparity here but how many americans are unaware that it actually exists or at least to the extent to which it does exist a real quick you want your predictions for how this changes if it changes when it changes i think it will be very difficult to change there are a number of factors that contributed to it including tax policy some people's going to immigration there are also some political questions in terms of the strength of unions how much is that going into the picture so one thing i think that you will definitely see though is that there is a growing sense among some of the world's richest that this income inequality needs the rectifier you see that evidence by the billionaires pledge started by the gates foundation so there is a growing recognition that there is

a problem and hopefully people will look at ways to solve it certainly to see discussion going on on a national stage right now if one were a staff writer for the washington post. well it's all her if a crime and it happens in many countries around the world and banks there are reports put out with facts and figures and how many evil leaders allow this to happen on their soil i'm talking about sex trafficking but it turns out it's also going on right here in this country and the numbers of the stories are shocking are two corresponding i want to check on the story. the u.s. state department regularly puts out reports on how horrific human trafficking is in other countries but right under the government's very nose in washington dozens of girls and boys are sold. just walks away from capitol hill where on the street that's known as the heart for lobbyists and lawyers in washington that's by day and night this is where scores of prosecutors flocked to get picked up and children average age thirteen are also being trafficked here to washington and seoul asia

was one of them as a teenager she was lured into prostitution by a man who she thought was the love of her life working in sex trade fifteen hours a day she gave him all she earned over a thousand dollars a day it was a slight gropes for the parade a mass of workers separated. like i was another place when i happened as like it was in me the f.b.i. estimates that each year more than one hundred thousand underage american girls are exploited for commercial sex in the united states but the usual treatment the children get when arrested is either jail time or probation like a. criminal record in the u.s. prostitution laws do not exam minors from prosecution the office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention reported one thousand and six hundred juveniles were arrested for prostitution within just one year but lawyer saying the u.s.

the paradox of the system is that the children are prosecuted for crimes for which they cannot legally give consent to hold up we we say that this child is a victim and yet we sent somewhere along the line there's something wrong with that and we need to be taken a look at ourselves and a look at the fact that we have we have made detention and we have made law enforcement in the criminal justice system in the juvenile justice system a default setting for what happens to these kids and that we just kind of lock him up and ship him away and that's the end of our response to. this issue is we want to make sure that these children are treated as victims we're treating the victims and providing for their recovery requires funding fortunately there isn't federal money for us victims of trafficking tina front works with a nonprofit group in washington which helps the children to get their lives back providing housing and medical treatment she herself was trafficked at the age of thirteen tina says it's easier for the government to label the children as prostitutes charge them and send them to detention centers rather than fund

shelters and invest in their future there's not enough housing for sex trafficked things and are around the country there's one hundred thousand about eighty beds which includes mine that's it and the u.s. and so what they're saying is so for their safety we will arrest them and put them in jail. so the case is further states but they don't get any services and we charged the victim and we don't put great victims in jail so why would we put they were trafficked in jail almost all of the victims of child trafficking remember being constantly raped and abused both by payments and clients many of the young people that we serve have been incarcerated and charged as an adult under the age of sixteen and so they have this lengthy fifteen twenty thirty forty arrests both as a juvenile and as an adult for prostitution and so when they go to apply for public housing then i would settle for that when they go to do certain employment that

pops up in the background check and you know kind of booted out of an employment training program these children is already scarred as it is that the nonprofit organizations that help victims of sex trafficking say by prosecuting the children by not investing in their recovery it is the government that is their future i'm going to check on reporting from washington r.t. . and you know according to some reports trafficking for minors for prostitution is the third highest moneymaker for going to is crime here in the united states falling behind gun and drug sales teenagers often recruited in arcades malls concerts even schools and joining me now to shed some more light on this issue is tina front the founder and executive director of courtney's house a nonprofit that helps girls who have been victims of sex trafficking in teen i want to start simply i know we saw you in that report a little bit but i know this issue is very personal to you and if you could just briefly share your story you know unfortunately my story is very similar to what we

hear today when i was thirteen a man who was fifteen years my senior who you know didn't kidnap me or throw me anything he'd be friended me and took months and months and gains my trust and then the trafficking situation started just like the girls now and it's still happening here today. i want to ask you i mean to what extent you think this is happening here and why you think this is happening here i mean launching to in d.c. just a few blocks away from where you know these laws are made to protect children well unfortunately this is nothing new so this is been going on for fifty years here we labeled it a different name and we call it a prostitution and we say that hey this is what the girls want to and it was a choice but for fifty years on the same blocks it has always been trafficking controlled always and so with that said it didn't go all the crime just bigger and here in washington not only the laws are made this is

a city filled with lawmakers congressman and you know there are some people who even say congressman take part in this that really be true you know i will honestly say numerous men take part of it will be congressman again marketers it can be businessmen it's. part of. what do you think are some of the biggest myths out there i think a lot of people would be even surprised to learn that it happens here but what do you think. you really want to get out there to let you know that the biggest mess is that you know these girls are eighteen and they choose it the average age of course prostitution is an eleven to fourteen so yes we may see girls when they're eighteen and nineteen years old but they actually were started one hundred eleven twelve and thirteen years old and that's the truth and that's a reality that. what kind of things you know your advice to people out there who do want to make things better what needs to change the news is change is what we call this is trafficking anytime anyone thinks for money be forced to live under age

eighteen you actually don't have to prove it so what the real thing is parents need to be aware of and they need to educate their children on older man who they are dating because of this does that just happen in d.c. happens in the masses and centerville it happens to kids in two parent home houses as well. i guess kind of i want to talk about the bigger picture here not just your story not just the story of trafficking but bigger reasons for how this happens well you know honestly how it usually happens is a pedal manipulates a child and that's it was one of the cases that we were committed with a twelve zero this man who was forty eight years old he started the twelve year old for marks and i have all of her to school she did not know this this is what traffickers do that's the trafficker did my situation then he made a kind of of the girl hey how you doing here and there once you've already learned her behavior so this is what these men do they are pedophiles let's label them as

such where they actually wait and watch the child to that very right moment to know and force them into prostitution and that's what we should be really afraid of i know you've been outspoken about this there's other people who have come to washington to speak about this to congress to really get the word out why is this still going on today you know. we don't have enough laws to protect our children it's kind of really be wilbur's me how i sit in front of congress and i actually asked congress to have loss to protect children there so i ask them to have laws to put traffic children on the part of lists so that they are actually on the such register you know that that doesn't happen that does not help so you're telling me that an eighteen year old who has sex with his sixteen year old girlfriend who can sense but then changes her mind and gets him put on the list is put on the list over somebody who psychologically tracked a young girl and trafficked her. and sells her every single day we put this word

prostitution on it immediately we go there is a choice and then we arrest and charge the child who's twelve and thirteen for it then we do now here in this area go after traffickers there has been no federal case where there is a man who got sick from a child who has been put on sex registry you know federal case what happens to those people who are caught. so the traffickers who are of the traffickers or just the men and you know they're going to hang up the street who finds a fifteen year old and likes or well i'm waiting to see that happen when soon as that happens i'll let you know. right thank you so much for joining us tina front founder and executive director of court house. i'm sure to tune in at five will bring you the story of a man who was just convicted of a serious crime getting in the way of the oil and gas industry

i. mean that we like you would think you know we're not really funny and we will. hear why this environmental activist may spend up to ten years behind bars again that's all new in thirty minutes at the top of the hour. and that is going to do it for now and learn more on the stories we covered and you can check out our website r.t. dot com or you to page at youtube dot com slash r t america and christine for sound we will be back here for a half hour. but we start right.

i think. we never got the book says they're going to keep you safe get ready because you're going to be afraid of. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through that sort of being made who can you trust no one will is there and built with a global mission to receive where we had a state controlled capitalism that's called sessions when nobody dares to ask.