outrage and violence starts in afghanistan because of one florida pastor's decision to burn the qur'an so while the world's changing of the first amendment always dangerous and. for government she stopped working for a minute. but unless the government agrees to budget cuts well that's exactly what's going to happen so are americans worried or is this shutdown all just hype plus in the game of politics where timing is everything president obama picks the right time to announce his reelection. and he's

a russian citizen arrested in liberia for alleged international drug trafficking so why does constantine your shameful states lie in the hands of the u.s. . it's monday april fourth eight pm in washington d.c. and christine for you watching our team. fallout from the actions of one florida man terry jones he got florida pastor from the dove world outreach center who organized a mock trial that ended with the burning of the qur'an and his church and ignored story by u.s. media but it was news in afghanistan and it was news that sparked a major reaction there several people were killed including an incident in mazar e sharif when protesters overran to united nations compound and killed twelve people we did hear a response from a u.n. envoy to afghanistan who said quote freedom of speech does not mean freedom of

offending culture or religion traditions especially when there are so many of us both civilians and frankly military in many parts of the world and particularly in afghanistan so i think the main blame we have is about the irresponsible gesture that was made on that case the proof is that those who entered the building were actually furiously angry about the issue about the qur'an there was nothing political there so let's talk about this what should happen next earlier i spoke to journalist author and former c.n.n. host rick sanchez he's also the author of this book conventional idiocy why the new america is sick of old politics i asked miss terry jones should be reprimanded here's his response. i don't think there's any question that most right minded people would think that he has to be reprimanded the then let's get something on the table which is really important this point we should not be in any way condoning the actions of the people who have killed and committed violence

they should be punished to the full extent of the law twenty two people or so are dead the numbers i know are going to be changing and the people who have brought that violence upon those folks should be should be first and foremost they themselves condemned for what they did but as a secondary part of this there's no question that owns according to what he told the new york times today intended to cause this kind of harm knew that it could happen and went ahead and did it anyway very similar to what it says in the united states written by one of the best jurists that we've ever had oliver wendell holmes in one thousand nine hundred says yes you have free speech but you can't yell fire in a crowded in a crowded theater if you know that that's going to cause harm how do you think that there's a rack do you think this is tantamount to it's a yelling fire in a crowded theater. of course it's tantamount and the reason it's tantamount is

because he was forewarned as i wrote in my column that appeared in the huffington post. general petraeus himself the commander of u.s. forces in afghanistan all but told him don't do this if you do this people will be killed including some of the peacekeepers and some of the troops that the united states now has in afghanistan so it would be impossible to look at this and say that the man didn't know that his actions could cause harm i think that argument if he plans to use it has already been taken away well speaking of demand iraq i you know you actually interviewed pastor terry jones for a segment on c.n.n. i want to play just a click event and then have you talk about your take on him and generally to you it's not sacred. to them that's like saying i'm going to burn down your house because i don't like your house it's not my place to burn down or colony down a house and what we're also doing by the burning of the koran on nine eleven we're

saying stop we're saying stop to islam stop to islamic law stop to brutality all right so is this a crazy man or is terry jones simply a man of strong conviction. but he's not crazy because crazy would imply that he doesn't have a reason and i think it's quite clear from everything he's said and from my conversation with him that he's live and to stir the pot you see when a person has an agenda a clear agenda either it's they want to make themselves famous or they want to have more people come to their church services. and he does something based on that agenda then you can't really call him crazy you have to hold him accountable for what he's done and i think there's no question christine in this case that we're talking about an individual that has done something knowing full well that his actions could cause violence and now it's causing violence and it's because of that

that we need to be reprimanding him and as objectively says around the world and most of all in the western world most of all from americans they need to say we do not in any way represent corporate don't with this man has done the problem is some of the violence that we're seeing in parts of afghanistan are being caused by people who actually believe well this must be what america thinks of us they hate us so much they want to burn our most important book well the problem is enough of the message of the words that i used in my editorial haven't gotten to these people and i think it's important that we do that if we can stop him at least we could stop his actions or stop his action in burning the koran by letting people know that as americans we do not stand for this and you're seeing movement here in the united states today with several senators coming together both on the republican side and on the democratic side saying we're going to try and do just that we're

going to try and come out with something that we condemn this man and his actions i think it's different correct i mean in your editorial you said you know this nanny to talking to you to your children how do you know they get talking to you when they you know misbehaved. but if there's a difference between americans coming out coming out in the media coming out together and saying we condemn this action and actually punishing him you know not arresting him i don't know what the punishment would be i mean what's do you think that he should be funded that he should be arrested. well that's a great point and i should tell you i'm a i'm a journalist and i was trained as a journalist i wasn't trained as a juror as there was a lawyer so i will tell you that just from my understanding of the first amendment as least as i've read it and studied it through my professors dr gilmore at the university of minnesota. when we use the term free speech people tend to think that

it's completely free without restriction speech is not free without restrictions there are restrictions on what you can say for example you're not allowed to libel someone and as oliver wendell holmes said in one thousand nine hundred you can't use speech to create violence or incite or cause harm the exact words that he used were a clear and present danger if you know you will cause a clear and present danger in quotations when you use this type of speech then you could be held accountable for it under the laws of the united states of america right but it has a very well fall under that exact proviso that is detailed in the limitations of free speech but i very much are going to bring out i you know yelling fire in a crowded theater if we're going to talk about supreme court cases i mean i've got to bring into the discussion a more recent one and that is the one with the wife for about this church the court

said one does not lose the right thing by using that right in an era in a interrupt or in a reprehensible fashion otherwise the entire current that would be needing rest i mean don't you think that this is simply a case of the majority of americans disagreeing with what he said with what he did but at the same time we can't pick and choose what's free and what's not make no law means make no law. no there's a difference there's a huge difference between the west or ok. someone else by the way that i've interviewed several times while he was. doing this and this case and. here's the difference i think christine in the west are ok some people are offended in other words as the law would see it it's their sensibilities that are offended i am hurt you hurt my feelings you made me feel bad when you said that in the case of terry jones it goes beyond hurt feelings it's people being killed being trampled by twenty two of them so far all ready so that in of itself i think is the the

distinction between those two cases we in america do believe and as a journalist i hold that we'll always revere this we do have free speech we have the right to say whatever we want to say but that right has to end at the point where lives can be lost or people can be hurt or property can be damaged but is it carried out jones is one of these purists have to make and i would never want to you know defend him but is it harry jones problem or fault that people were so angry about what he did that they killed people or was it his fault or whether their father and i know you said in the beginning that they should be held responsible as well first you know you're right one hundred percent and i want to be real clear about this this first and foremost responsible people who have killed trampled committed violence destroyed property are responsible for their own actions primarily terry jones secondarily is responsible for inciting them

and not just inciting them but it inciting them knowing that they would cause this kind of damage because he was warned and told many many different times real quick ramos at the time but you know i want to talk to you kind of switching gears a little bit as a journalist some people have blamed the media for this for giving terry jones the attention in the first place but back you know precept number eleven back when you interviewed him there was tons of media attention and he actually backed down in this case he didn't do you think the media has any responsibility here. well you know that's a tough question and this is an editorial decision that at the time we at c.n.n. and many journalists have to make and obviously we looked at it and said in this case and perhaps not in other cases where i have thought about interviewing people and then decided not to interview them because we didn't think that they were. getting a perfect example of this there's

a preacher in phoenix arizona who said on upon the eve of president obama's arrival there that he hated the president and something akin to that he should die but he wanted the president to die he said this in arizona and i called him and we thought about doing an interview with him after i thought about it i didn't think that he had created enough and that the story was out there enough that it had enough legs for us to actually go through with the interview so i canceled the interview i thought i was only going to make him more famous in the case of terry jones the story was already out there in part because he had basically created a website and disseminated it so once you get to a point where hundreds of hundred thousands of people have already heard the message and know the story as journalists know we can't avoid it we have to go through and tell the story and it may be more important to confront a man and say sir what you're doing seems to be irresponsible that is to ignore

then people around the world may not know that the rest of america doesn't agree with. that was journalist author and former c.n.n. host rick sanchez. well switching gears now to the brawl over the budget in a city never devoid of a good fight this one's all about money your money and how it will be spent and if there's no agreement well or maybe and we're money we're not just talking about government workers not getting paychecks we could be talking about people i would you go for medicare not being able to enroll and not hundreds of thousands of passport applications not being processed social security checks might not be mailed so will it happen and if it does what will the implications be and do american taxpayers well what do they think about all this argue producer lindegaard filter to the streets of the nation's capital to find out. there's been a lot of talk over the past couple weeks about a looming government shutdown and congress can't agree on a budget bill simply stop operating people on the street really worried about this let's find out why you just want to call the government's going to shut down the

rest of the country is going to run does it worry you a little bit because like you know everything's going on you don't know who's going to run the country or what's going to happen at the end of this week on friday if democrats and republicans can't agree on a new budget and the government's going to be shut down what is what does that mean to you shut down the home loan that's a question until they can agree on a budget. take a vacation not be nice i think you can and should be avoided i think we've got bigger problems in this world that we ought to be focusing on and we will keep everybody employed and working and we can afford government to start working for a minute. do you think it's actually going to happen i sometimes hear that they might start the whole government just because both sides can reach an agreement of course it's sort of right. does it anger you even that this side can't compromise on something like the budget. maybe just

a bit amazed that. in such a democratic country sides can really find a middle ground so i would. not such a good example if and especially if you're if the country is fighting for democracy in other countries then there's definitely doesn't set a very good example for democracy everyone should be able to compromise and there's got to be a middle ground but that would at least prevent the government from shutting down here in the u.s. and our congress and the government can't agree on the budgets they are going to shut down on friday what do you think if. we don't do things that where they do stay or. will they come to some sort of compromise will really shut down on friday will you don't think they will. i'll bet you my bottom dollar to use an americanism that they were. feeding it's just a lot of hype it's just. it's killing me you know i mean it in training and

services showing young parks people don't have work. to mean totally. but these politicians. their lives don't change they still get benefits they still get health care they still get taken care of it's unacceptable that the federal government would even need to come into this. and put all these people at work they don't really care. about that. so well a government shutdown actually happened earlier i posed that question to kristen soltis director of policy research for the winston group. i think that eventually speaker john boehner is going to come up with a sort of solution that will bring everyone to the table right now there are talks that there's a deal in the works of about thirty three billion dollars in cuts i know a lot of republican members would like to see that closer to sixty or sixty billion but right now they've really got to figure out what's the bigger battle that's looming and where should they be using their political capital and that's the thing that's really interesting when we can talk about any social issue in the book the

left tries to claim certain social issues are very same with the right but the fact is the main thing but these lawmakers on capitol hill right down the street from us the main thing that they actually have control over is the budget so this is a big deal to talk about you know how they do that staying true to their base staying true to their campaign promises and staying true to the people who this whole process the reason why this is so controversial is two things one that the way that they are it means that congress has to pass these thirteen different appropriations bills and they failed to do that and so because of that you have the overall number how much money is the appropriations committee going to be allowed to dole out you also have specific riders within the bill that they need to decide on for instance congressional republicans want to defund n.p.r. they want to defund planned parenthood so there's a debate over both the number of how much the cuts will be an instant programs that are going to be cut again entirely optional issues that are tying for the money right and so this this debate is kind of got caught up in

a lot of other issues and that's why we've had already six continuations of these continuing resolutions and we want to keep kicking the can down the road but now we're about to bump up into some much bigger debates and so it's really sort of time i think both sides are recognizing they can't keep just continuing this down the road indefinitely but even cristen if something is passed if we say or a government will stay open and you know again there are some serious issues here if it closes people things that people don't think about it's not just government workers not getting paid for the mean life will seriously be hindered from getting a passport to enrolling in the. care for people. but it's not just this if they pass this budget this is not the end of the story no it's not and there are two other very major things that are coming out first of all you have congressman paul ryan chairs budget committee who has a sort of plan for spending for the twenty full fiscal year and on and wants to make some serious reforms to entitlement programs like medicare medicaid wants to you know social security things of that nature and so that is that we're not just

talking about the difference between thirty in and sixty billion there i mean we're talking enormous sums of money over the course of a decade is what this is sort of proposing of course for so this debate is host this budget battle rages on there's little to something that will happen at exactly what we're talking about now is there wasn't permanent funds there were a pump permanent fund set aside for discouraged the school year they've just sort of been temporary stopgap measures what we're talking about now is the bigger plan for the next fiscal year and that's what's creating a big situation you also have the debt limit the treasury just announced today that in mid may the government is going to have spent fourteen point three trillion dollars which is our current limit and that means we can't spend or borrow any more and when we hit that limit if we don't extend it there are serious consequences as well and so in order to get members of congress to agree to extend that debt limit republicans are going to ask for some serious concessions in terms of spending rein to be seen if democrats are going to going to concede those are not giving i just saw the headline here secretary geithner asking for more money i think it's really

important point that you bring up these discussions you bring up these huge debates happening in congress right now this are serious issues that raising the debt ceiling this budget and yet this is the day when we have all seen president obama has announced that he will in fact be seeking reelection in twenty one now this is not a shock to anyone but let's talk about the timing i mean we've got no republican officially announced really. and yet president obama here he is saying are well on from i had at least one about this timing i think it's unusual timing when americans are expecting their president to be focused on so many others say. not only do we have these enormous budget issues looming in washington big national security issue in terms of dealing with libya we have on top of those things you had some stories come out today about the trial of clichy muhammad i mean in one sense you could say maybe there's never a night for a president to play politics instead of policy but i feel like this week was particularly ill timed the only reason why i think this was maybe a politically good move on obama's part is that you had some slight improvement in

the unemployment numbers last monday and so because of that you know maybe obama's hoping to ride that little wave of a bit of good news and say that he's moving forward but the r n c launched a web site today hope isn't hiring dot com they're sort of going to make the case long term that obama has not generated the economic growth that we need and therefore does not deserve reelection that was kristen soltis director of policy research for the winston group. switching gears now to a man who was arrested in liberia yet his fate will be decided by a judge and jury in america fighting a russian pilot constantine your yard shango he's facing trial in new york this afternoon for alleged international drug trafficking there are generals lawyers say the case is outside u.s. jurisdiction due to several violations committed by american officials among them kidnapping torture and rendition are you going to suffer jerkiness in our new york studio with the latest. on a fast tell us a little bit about what you've heard whether day one has wrapped up and what the

latest is. christine i do want has definitely wrapped up at the downtown manhattan courthouse we did hear statements from the members of the russian consulate here in new york as well as the wife of constantine you're show me a couple of statements basically the result of this first day of trial was jury selection which took an entire five rounds to decide some hearings lasted for almost four hours definitely a tough tough hearing for a man who's already been awaiting his trial to kick off for almost ten months and we've heard from the russian consulate that constantine is really not feeling well and one of the reasons for that is because he has serious health issues for which he'll specific calls that he needs to make him feel better are not legal in the united states so certainly a complicated case and the judge has said that it might take from three to four weeks for this trial to wrap up for our close a look at what this case is really all about but now go to our report. a legit tons

of cocaine a pilot snatched up and brought to a foreign prison and a wrong fax number this is a case of constantine your shango a russian pilot in his forty's scooped up by u.s. officials in liberia last year brought to a manhattan jail and along with four other suspects charged with international drug trafficking. and he didn't even know where he was when he was brought to the u.s. he was put in solitary confinement and he didn't even know he was in the united states constantine's wife victoria just arrived to new york she says her husband was kidnapped by american agents while america says he was smuggling drugs to south america africa and europe mostly from minnesota and like the area the pilot has complained he was beaten and tortured following his arrest. try to pick fights with him provoking him constantly close to trying to stay away from that he asked them why are you treating me like this i didn't do anything so you and i have not been

found guilty which tory believes the case against her husband was bad recorded by the u.s. but i have not i think that is involved in this is unclear he has never been to the u.s. and he's going to tell you life you never had a u.s. visa and was in third country up on his arrest him. when constantine your shankill was arrested russian officials were not generally notified and moscow cited a breach of international law we have. apologized to russia the state department's excuse we pressed the wrong button on the facts and. to be brutally for notifying romania instead of russia to observers it seemed a joke and a series of questionable details in this case the idea that there's a bank of buttons that they push it i guess if they push the next one they would have gone to rwanda which is next on the alphabetical list so that sounds like a. strange story and i don't think anyone would buy that for your show because

cases are to that of victor boot similarly snatched up by the west in thailand and currently on trial in america for arms trafficking some see a tendency here they can use interpol they can use. picking up the phone to russia and trying to talk about this just going out and kidnapping people i think this is part of the carry over from the bush cheney administration the defense team has one labeled the case of provocation and unsuccessfully called for its dismissal the prosecution meanwhile has been fighting to limit the scope of issues that can be addressed during the hearings they want to exclude questions regarding the legality of trying your schenkel and a u.s. court allegedly lesions in the investigations leading up to his arrest and official conduct during and after the pilot's arrest essentially all the main arguments of the defense after almost ten months constantine your son course trial date is

finally here a jury is deciding his destiny if found guilty he will spend from ten years to a life sentence behind bars and. new york. so as i say i want to bring you back into this discussion here i mean so interesting that you spent some time with constance in your life and what was she like and how is she dealing with what's happening right now with her husband. well you know christine victoria your wife has only landed in new york to go and this is certainly something that has been a rough time for her because while her husband has been awaiting trial for these almost ten months she actually in these last couple of days got to see him for the first time in that entire time she got to meet him at this point twice and she did see him at the courthouse earlier today and certainly this is a woman that is completely baffled by the fact that her husband is being held in the united states now we have to make sure people understand that both herself and

constantine you're shango alleged and have pled not guilty but the woman has been saying look if officials feel it's necessary for my husband to be facing trial by not have him tried in russia or in liberia where he was arrested he's a citizen of russia he was arrested in liberia herself including the constantine you're franco's defense team really don't understand what this trial has to do with the united states and why her husband is being held here for this entire time and certainly it's no joke what the justice system is going to decide since like we mentioned in that report he's facing up to a lifetime behind bars so this question of where he should be tried is certainly no minor detail and this woman is really really shocked by what has happened to her husband throughout this last year and i'm as i say you're not too far from where this court case took place this afternoon when during what it's like in terms of media attention i mean this is not a story that i've seen on any of the mainstream media now works were there media

there. you know christine there really was absolutely no mainstream media coverage of this case there were a couple of russian media presence outside the courthouse and you know this is interesting especially when we draw that parallel with the victor boot case where media coverage has been a lot wider and people have been saying well you know this case is a lot quieter the mainstream media in the united states really does tend to catch on to nicknames and sort of louder cases and that's what happened with victor boot dubbed the merchant of death has been getting a lot more coverage and this man is you know is a is a man from a city that's a thousand kilometers away from moscow he has no nickname so you know why would the mainstream media care but speaking of the media we have to. get the spouse of constituting our son who did speak to a couple of media outlets primarily russian ones outside the courthouse and take a listen to what her perception was off today's hearing very interesting take you're getting what you got for which the judge keep slapping all the time i don't

understand english and was you getting a translation and so i don't really know why but he kept on laughing everyone in the u.s. is smiling all the time but you never know when. but we have to say christine that despite this sort of questioning of what's going on out look this woman did say that she's really hopeful and she said herself and her thirteen year old daughter are really hoping that they're going to be able to bring this mad back home with them but we're going to have to wait and see if they get that lucky that was our to correspondent ana. and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we cover and go to our t. done com slash usa also check out our you tube page you tube gun com r.t. america and christine for us now you have a great night.