tv [untitled] March 14, 2011 6:00pm-6:30pm EDT
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oaken below to show the real headlines with none of the mercy or can we live out of washington d.c. p.j. crowley gets the boot after he speaks out against the inhumane treatment of bradley manning so has obama approved torture and condemned speaking out against it when all eyes are on japan as video continues to come out after the earthquake struck the country or bring you all the latest and we'll look into the confusing information from the mainstream media regarding potential nuclear meltdowns massachusetts residents listen up there's
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a new option for voters if you're sick of being labeled as a democrat or as a republican i'll give you details on the newly formed pirate party and why this group could soon become popular and states all across the country and the latest battle on capitol hill is all about money the g.o.p. makes of farm statement regarding the debt ceiling well find out what the threat of default in would really mean for the u.s. and is hollywood to blame for the growing islamophobia in this country we'll speak to a man who says that we can just look at pop culture from the one nine hundred eighty s. to explain the radicalization hearings today those stories and much more but first let's move on to our top story. on friday we told you on this program that state department spokesman p.j. crowley had denounced the conditions of bradley manning's detention when speaking at a seminar and mighty a student in the audience asked him to talk about the elephant in the room and crowley responded that what his colleagues at the defense department were doing was ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid and i thought that was
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a promising sign and not everybody within the obama administration was so blindly following the pack that somebody there still realized the holding someone who has not yet been convicted of any crime under such conditions was unreasonable and yet just as we saw that light. in a flicker and was quickly put out on sunday afternoon crowley abruptly resigned under reported pressure from the white house so where is the president had been up until this point shying away from any responsibility or a clear stance putting it on the pentagon to decide whether manning's treatment was appropriate or not by fiery crowley has he now made his stance very clear joining me from capitol hill is us congressman dennis kucinich congressman kucinich thank you so much for joining us tonight now just for starters here i know that you have put in requests to visit bradley manning yourself so you can check in on his condition on his treatment and so far the access hasn't been granted have you gotten a firm no already feel like you're getting the run around here it's very clear that
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there's a run around here so it goes i asked the secretary of defense he sent me a response and to talk to the secretary of the army i talked to the secretary of the army he said talk to the secretary of the navy and since they have control marines have control over quantico and then the secretary of the navy said no i have to talk to the secretary of defense so that it's a runaround now what do you think you know the whole situation the fact that p.j. crowley did in fact speak out and to states later he was forced to resign from his position what does that say about this country and about this president. well it says that the administration has great apprehension about the bradley manning case if they did not they wouldn't have insisted that mr crawley leave this post and it also says that the white house is in a quandary because the president is making statements based on assurances that he's receiving from the department of defense and it may be that the president's faith
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in those assurances misplaced which is one of the reasons why i want to go and meet with private manning and determine his condition to see if in fact he is under great mental stress and to question him about being forced to stand naked and to talk to him generally about the conditions under which he's being kept. by forcing crowley terrorism here do you think that the president has taken a clear stance where he's chosen torture which many have you know said explain the conditions of bradley manning versus those who speak out against it well you know my view is that the secretary of defense has the the responsibility i mean the president's only going you know someone has been told i wish the president would find out for himself but the secretary of defense has a clear. line of duty here and he hasn't kept it do i believe there
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is torture look i haven't been there to see it but the reports that i'm hearing would indicate that he's being treated in a manner that is unacceptable it sounds like torture when you keep insisting that somebody answer to the question are you ok every moment for sixteen hours every five minutes that is for throughout appeared of sixteen hours if you force someone to stand at attention outside of his cell with the stripped naked sounds like torture and the army field manual makes it very specific that you cannot conduct interrogation which presumably that's what they're continuing to do to private manning in a way that forces someone to. be naked that's considered a violation so you know the secretary of defense is has some explaining to do here and i just want to make it clear that you know to the extent that i can determine there is legal recourse to put in a secretary of defense on notice that i'm prepared to take legal action against him
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personally to see to it that the rights of private manning are protected. but congressman king said as president obama himself was a constitutional law professor does he really need to be going to the department of defense to robert gates and asking them whether the conditions in the treatment are appropriate shouldn't he know from his own background that pretrial punishment is not allowed or of course you should know. in this case he does have to rely on what he's being told as far as the care of private manning if he had gone himself and i wish he would to quantico to check on the condition of private manning and then he came up with that conclusion that would be a whole different matter but he's hasn't been there and i would invite him to go but he hasn't been there and so the secretary of defense who has the. line responsibility here i think has to be held accountable i don't think that the president if this point should be held accountable but that may change as well now
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peter crowley had said that the views he was expressing was just his own personal opinion but do you think that there is a breakdown within the obama administration some split between the military leadership and the you know the civilian the diplomatic side those people to actually have to deal with the rep or questions of how people around the world see the way that we treat bradley manning and i think that it's obvious all right now congressman issa as you said of the president for now can't be held accountable but there are a lot of things that this president who promised the most open and transparent administration who promised to close guantanamo bay who promised to really rein in the global war on terror and yet has expanded our shadow wars in yemen and pakistan there are a lot of things that he promised to do that he clearly has not done when it comes for his reelection in two thousand and twelve are you going to support him. well i certainly don't support any of the policies of the obama administration i don't support a continuation of war in iraq their war the war in afghanistan i don't support their keeping guantanamo open and i don't support
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a continuation of the national security state which of bush administration brought about i'm very concerned about the fact that many of the policies of the obama administration are indistinguishable from the bush administration as far as who i'm going to support in two thousand and twelve that's way down the road a little bit too early to even talk about it ok i want to switch gears very quickly and talk about the fact that last week president obama signed an executive order for indefinite detention at guantanamo bay and to you does that show a clear sign of a good mo is not going anywhere that it's here to stay for a long time and we're still going to be using it well i'm very concerned about that i'm concerned about the fact that president obama made a commitment to close guantanamo and that for whatever reason he is not keeping that commitment but it wasn't only the structure of guantanamo it's work once represented real a departure from basic principles of justice and and and constitutional
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principles of recourse for those who are kept in detention and so we're at a point where still another administration must be held accountable for its. its violation of constitutional principles and as a constitutional attorney certainly president obama was aware of the gravity. of the decision that he's made do you think that he has been vacated george w. bush and dick cheney for all their policies on the war on terror with this move you know that's that's a real problem. so-called global war on terror has led us into an illegal war against iraq war that was based on lies were and were approaching the anniversary of that war. the obama administration really needs to help the american people. move on from. nine eleven
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by challenging the bush administration for the lies that were told to take us into war and challenging president bush vice president cheney secretary rumsfeld it really does not do the truth any good actually does violence to the truth so i continue to give president bush and his. closest advisers and cabinet people. a free pass on the very serious legal issues that are raised about our illegal intervention into. iraq and i will say why was it illegal because it was based on knowledge of over a million people god based on lies over four thousand u.s. troops tired based on lies over three trillion dollars will be spent based on lies i mean when you think about their words the accountability so the obama administration i think could go a long way to win more support from the american people and from the world
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community by challenging the lies which took us into war they haven't done that yet but i think there's still time to do that do you think that they will do about the obama administration hasn't shown any interest so far and i'm going to continue to encourage them to do that now some people have also compared the treatment of bradley manning in what's going on in this situation to guantanamo bay to abu ghraib what he made us compare i've made those comparisons so you ok so that definitely aren't agreements that if bradley manning is found guilty and for now we know that he has not been convicted of any crime we know the justice department has not been in any way able to tie him directly to julian assange what do you think his punishment should be some people out there say he should be executed. i want to be very careful about commenting on the specifics of the case. because you know that's very tricky to get into the details of his guilt or innocence what i'd like to focus right now is on the indisputable fact that
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at least indisputable based on a number of witnesses it's that he's being held under conditions that are inhumane and in violation of international law and the army field manual so i'm going to focus on that i will watch the proceedings of his trial very carefully and it will be easier to comment as the trial is underway so you can see what the government's case there is but i haven't commented nor will i now about you know his guilt or innocence but if he were to be found guilty for passing on these classified documents from the government you think about the treasonous act i don't want to speculate on his case i really don't want to do that because and speculation on his case. either way it could violate his rights and i don't want to be participating in a violation of his rights ok congressman dennis kucinich thank you so much for joining us tonight and please do let us know if you do have your access granted to go see bradley manning and check in on him maybe among the first and thank you
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thank you so much. ok it's time for show and tell on tonight's program the last time we were speaking about unrest in saudi arabia we told you the police used force on protesters and we want to know how you got the u.s. should react to these reports of violence against saudi's own people so here's what some of you had to say christopher cook tweeted his response said there will be no response to saudi arabia killings not even reported in the u.s. logic also tweeted to us said probably a lot of it's a fluid situation a lot of biden talking about how they're like our best friends from high school on facebook we heard from miles lacey who said the united states won't do anything over the saudi crackdown on protests in saudi arabia because american intervention will mobilize both moderate and fundamentalist muslims who will take great offense at the mere idea of americans turning up and judy kale says since saudi arabia is
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the source of so much oil i think that the rhetoric and the u.s. position would be different the rebels in libya are being portrayed as sympathy as freedom fighters by the government and the media but if the saudis sought to overturn the saudi arabian monarchy they would be called insurgents and guerrillas or whatever other name would work to dehumanize them and get people to support yet another war now as always we thank you for giving us your input on these issues and here's our next topic for our viewers we just discussed p.j. crowley stepping down after he spoke out in defense of bradley manning calling his imprisonment counterproductive ridiculous and stupid now this is a rare moment we saw the bomber himself taking a steam side when it comes to the treatment of bradley manning so we want to know what you think crowley's firing says about washington stance on leakers do you think that president obama has now taken ownership of the abusive treatment of bradley manning you can respond to us on facebook twitter and you tube and who knows your response just might make it on air and also to come tonight grim
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information is coming out of japan after last week's earth. they can see an obvious conclusion in the media over what's really happening there tonight we ask a table it was is really capable of communicating complicated scientific information i'll be right back. let's not forget that we have an apartheid regime right. i think. either one well. we're never going to show that they're going to keep him safe get ready because of the utter freedom.
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h m r been here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture. new website with twenty four seven live streaming news tells us what to do about the ongoing financial hardship unlimited free high quality videos for download. and stories you never saw on mainstream news. so. maybe the political. posts aren't just.
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guys welcome michel ancel on the obama show. we've heard what our guests have to say on the topic now we want to hear from our audience does go on to use you to video respond or to twitter for part of the questions that we post on you tube every monday and on thursday in the show your responses during the week late your voice be heard. the world continues to watch in horror in the aftermath of friday's devastating eight point nine earthquake that hit japan and send tsunami waves all the way to california they're calling this the worst disaster to hit japan since world war two and the confirmed death toll rising every few hours reached one thousand eight hundred ninety seven today but didn't account for thousands of bodies japan's kyodo news said it been found in the hard hit me og prefecture on japan's northeast coast a number of dead is expected to go up as rescuers reach more hard hit areas and at least three thousand and two people have been reported missing today by the
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national police agency public broadcaster and h.k. has reported that four hundred and fifty thousand people are currently living in shelters but the damage doesn't stop there kapan also now has a nuclear crisis on its hands at the fukushima prefecture plant an explosion in a building housing the number three reactor at the fukushima daiichi plant injured eleven workers experts believe kewl rods in number three are melting at this time hours later cooling problems of the plant's number two reactor allowed nuclear fuel rods to overheat and generate radioactive steam that officials will now have to vent into the atmosphere and a similar explosion over the weekend occurred in reactor number one of the fukushima plant now as we watch this crisis unfold twenty four hour media coverage with one thing there has become very clear with that and that's how little we all really know when it comes to a type of energy that's been used for decades that has lethal and long lasting consequences and as we watch various experts go on and on giving different reports
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on what it all means well there's reports they change by the minute and so we have to wonder at this point why we know so little and why the media isn't helping his guys are with me is chris mooney author of unscientific america how scientific illiteracy threatens our future first thanks so much for joining me to be here now of course if we look at the situation in japan like i said here we have a twenty four hour. our news cycle of this is a horrible disaster and everybody wants to know what's going on and we just see the headlines in the banners they will tell you that you know word risk of a nuclear meltdown that a fuel rod has now been exposed but i feel like the media doesn't really tell anybody what any of that means it's a big problem in fairness this is a hard thing to cover because the story is changing rapidly and we don't exactly know everything that's going on but the media has big problems coping covering science and it's not getting better it's getting worse actually science journalists are being cut throughout the mainstream media and that's one reason that we have worse coverage why do you why do you think that is why are science journalists
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being how do people just don't think that it's important enough they don't think it's exciting enough well they always learn their lesson when you have a big science story like this one or like bird flu swine flu speed me but what happens is that with the growth of the internet the media industries business model has changed in the specialized journalists are losing their jobs throughout the media you know you saw c.n.n. called it science unit you see that now daily newspapers only about a third have a daily science section so no one knows how to cover this but do you think that the internet is at least feeling that void that people now if they do you want to get some kind of information an in-depth analysis of the situation and they would just rather read about it than ever go to the t.v. write that helps a little bit and so people are zooming around web concept but it's not necessarily the same as having a really trained staff science crew so i think that's one of the major issues here but there are a lot of other problems with the way the media treats science as well that existed even when there were were good science journals well let's talk about one of the issues that comes into play which i feel like you never know who to trust if you're
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watching the news and you want some real analysis of this story right because these days everybody has some kind of a vested interest you could have a lobbyist in for the nuclear energy industry and they'll be coming on and telling us that in america it's ok we should still build new nuclear reactors because our technology is perfect because they're not in any kind of danger well you know in fairness. so i think that the plants over in japan are really old and you could do a much safer type now but there's one for every expert there's an equal and opposite expert and you need the media to know how to vet their expertise in the term do they represent what is scientific consensus or are they representing a fringe view and again that's why you need a trained experienced beat science journalist who's done this for many years those people are harder and harder to find so you get a crisis like this and you might not have adequate vetting going on now you know in your book you talk about in general that america and americans and the media have a general taste for science that we're anti intellectuals why is that what is that
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stem from well it's a long history of any intellectual ism in the united states and that's not the only thing that's going on in your american spine science we're different not something they necessarily personally relate to they think scientists are strange others whereas in fact science is central to the economy and central to ensuring that we all have jobs and it's unfortunate people don't understand that but let's talk about other issues right now as we go forward in the future there are so many problems facing not only this country but the entire world that involves science you know what are some of those aside from climate change science is absolutely everywhere and climate is the one of the moment that is the biggest but before that it was stem cells and in the future it will be something else we don't know it could be synthetic biology could be nanotechnology it's going to be scientists can see change your lives the better we understand how the brain works i was going to change but what we think about ethics criminal justice science is constantly driving what the next story is and why do you think that is when you say there's a deep history right of this and intellectual as in america but also when it comes
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to other countries if you are compared to china for example we have so many so fewer children studying sciences and now well other countries realize this is the road to prosperity and that's something we actually learned sooner or earlier in the one nine hundred fifty s. when a racing with the soviets to you know get into space and put them in the moon all that that's when we were going through our science and. and that's what powered our economy for decades afterwards now we've gotten a little bit lazy and others are catching up to us so how do we get back to that well you've got to you've got to inspire kids and you've got to make the public see that it is not just some nerdy endeavor that they can't relate to it's actually subtly driving and so relating you know they can relate to the tech industry to some extent and they can see how about true of innovation and seem to make that message clear i think president obama is actually trying to put competitiveness in science now at the center of what he does and we definitely need it competitiveness and we definitely need a better understanding when it comes to science so that we can look at the t.v. and actually have an idea of what it is that they're talking about and you know for
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the media to take more responsibility there too as he said thanks so much chris for joining us thanks. how do you live in massachusetts and did you know that now if you live in massachusetts you can register to vote as a pirate that's right last week the massachusetts election division approved the pirate party as a political designation in the state and it's not be are are kind of pirates this party is about government transparency personal privacy putting people before corporations and promoting culture and knowledge through copyright reform so it cannot be long before we see a growing number of pirates all across america joining me to discuss it is the lead organizer for the massachusetts party james o'keefe james thanks so much for joining us so i just went through a few of the issues of this party but tell me what really makes it so different from from democrats and republicans essentially the only two powerful options that we have out there. james can you hear me.
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play here ok great did you hear my question tell me how your party differs from democrats and from republicans. sort of not hearing your view ok i don't think that james is hearing me i think we might try to get back to him. bring a saintly get back to the pirate party also first started in its weeding and now there have been pirate parties popping up all across the world changing back i am ok great it was us talking about the swedish origin the variation on a pirate party but tell me about this fire party and massachusetts and how it's different from the democratic and republican parties who massachusetts were the first her party to gain ballots some form of ballot status and massachusetts anyone can and when they heard should go choose to vote as choose to register as
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a pirate as opposed to a democrat republican libertarian or green here we follow similar platforms that in sweden we're focusing on openness and personal privacy so we want to open a government to make sure that it meets the needs of people we want to open up our culture to make sure and free it from the grip of large corporations as well as who want to open up. open up to a common system so that we can increase innovation that we're going to need to deal with the various problems that we have be they the cost of medical costs of drugs or to deal with things that will worry how many numbers they have so far. well currently we have about one hundred but that spring or early now do you think of this isn't it it could spread in america that we might see popping up and
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other states has it mainstream in africa think of thank. i believe it is certainly it will start small as these things do there's already curries in oklahoma new your oregon and they're starting up in other places. and i also just wonder you know your party says the you have your eyes set on taking down certain legislation he mentioned the combat in online infringements and can counter fix that right that would allow the federal government to seize the mains if they have copyrighted material on there but the thing is even without these laws the federal government is still doing that we have we've seen the department of homeland security through ice easing a lot of demands over the past year so it's a little too late to take them on everything with us it's never too late to stand up for liberty in. the fifth amendment guarantees that the government cannot seize your property without due process what we've seen with the seizure of these domains which are property is the government seizing them and we need believe there will be
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more court cases challenging these seizures and challenging the government's unilateral oher say basically they've got judges to rubber stamp their seizing of domains and we also believe that it's free speech issue i mean who maintains silicates free speech so we believe in first amendment and fifth amendment grounds these attends can be challenging we also think that both of these can be used to change these are challenging the bill now senator leahy put forward a lame duck session like i said this is a trans national organization now why do you think it took so long for the pirate party to really become more of a discussion here in the united states. i'm going to sure how to answer that to be honest i mean i only got into it plainly got acted in a year ago to one form or another. i think it's
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difficult for any third party to start i have no background in the green party here and i was the two thousand and two into their two thousand and two and two thousand and six candidates for treasurer of the commonwealth of massachusetts. so i have some background in this which i think is helps in moving it forward in massachusetts but i think there's a lot of people. who will work hard for this issue because it is important we are a youth party which i think sets us differently such as apart from the democrats and the republicans and so we're more willing to take risks and be innovative and challenging system that we have for our games i thank you so much for joining us and i think there's ever a lot of people out there in america that do want more options than just the two main parties thanks so much thank you very much for having me on take care i thought account night he's talking about running for president.
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