but in the lower show we'll get the real headlines with none of the mercy we're going to live in washington d.c. now it's t. minus two days until the government shuts down unless an agreement can be reached between the democrats and republicans will take a closer look at the latest political bickering on capitol hill what about outside the beltway the shutdown will affect more than just politicians it affects you would home as well so we'll tell you what government offices will be closed and

we'll find out how the average american is going to suffer when we talk with him journalist katie and speaking of money matters you probably noticed that the price of every day necessities things like food and oil have been rising while your wages have it so does this mean that inflation has officially arrived and how long will it be here to stay the atlantic stare thompson will give us his take and secretary of defense robert gates went to saudi arabia today to speak with king are doing about a wrong we're wondering if there's a little trouble in paradise now there's evidence of the u.s. turning its back on another middle east. or could the u.s. maintain this friendly relationship with the house of saud i will take an in-depth look at wisconsin as a typical state election gains national attention it's becoming clear that state republicans are losing ground after scott walker's attack on unions so should we be paying more attention to politics on a local level rather than keeping all eyes on obama discuss all those issues and much more in tonight's show but first our top story. get ready for the government

shutdown if this or a deal is a result by friday at midnight that means that the government is officially shutting down for the first time in fifteen years and judging by the way things are going so looking more likely yesterday the president urged congress members to act like adults to figure this out and. as of tuesday the debate was over a seven billion dollar difference but at this point no deal has been reached and the president in fact left town to go about some other business so before we get into what a shutdown would mean let's first look at some of the ridiculous politics that's gotten us here to discuss this with me is a reporter from iran story so hill thanks so much for being here tonight and. first of all it just you know i just want your personal opinion do you think that we are going to see the shutdown happen i think it's very likely i think it would take a miracle to prevent that it's still possible but not likely so it's probably probably going to happen we find ourselves here and you know what's also interesting here is the technicalities technically it's already too late right at

this point with all the procedural things they need three days to review it and that means that we've already signed the deal basically saying that we can't get ourselves out of it under normal rules it would be too late but if the two sides really do and the white house is meeting with senator reid and speaker boehner so if they do strike a deal to me it's possible they could break some of the rules mainly the seventy two hour rule and start moving the ball right away and possibly get it sounds more but it doesn't look like they're very likely to strike a deal so i wouldn't bet on it but who gets to decide to just break the rules just throw them out the window whenever it's convenient i think if i think of the two sides agreed to go for it it probably will end an issue this big that will affect the people well it definitely definitely is a big issue it's not just just fun and games now here's something that i kind of enjoy because obviously there's a lot of finger pointing there's a lot of back and forth but democrats are clearly saying that this is the fault of the republicans that we tried to agree to a number last week at thirty three billion dollars now they keep wanting more

republicans are saying that this is all the fault of democrats that they don't want to negotiate and one thing that i found very funny was today michele bachmann was on capitol hill where the tea party was holding a protest and so called fashion she was blaming democrats saying we don't want this government shutdown and the tea partiers were yelling shut her down shut her down shut her down right. that's the i think that's a big can under republicans are in right now especially speaker boehner because on one hand he and the rest of the republican leadership they don't want to shut it down they remember what it was like in one thousand and five when this last happened it did not work out well for them president clinton has his paper ability ratings popularity ratings went way up because the public speaker gingrich but at the same time speaker boehner does go ahead and cut a deal with president obama and senate democrats he's going to possibly incite a revolt a rebellion among the conservative base and after what happened in the twenty thousand elections last november they see it so many republicans in congress who they viewed as not ideological enough not conservative enough i don't know that

republicans want to take that risk so perhaps they are who is all about bringing change to washington and all about welcoming the tea partiers and i guess these new rebels is now realizing that business isn't so easy when you have to sides not at all i don't think anybody would want to be him right now i think he is walking a very tight rope and he like the rest of the republican leadership like i said they have seen willing to negotiate just last friday i think it was he and senate democrats decided on the thirty three billion figure and then the tea party said no no no we want more you're not fulfilling your promise of one hundred billion in cuts you're too weak so you know the kind of buckled again and said he wanted up to forty billion of democrats said we've compromised so much already we've already you know you guys have already moved the goal post several times enough is enough it's now about president obama he obviously hasn't taken a large role here yesterday he tried to come out and take a stand so that he won't pass a seventh stopgap measure that's absolutely unacceptable but is it too late you know he's really been out of this entire debate the whole time i think it's

a little late if president obama wants to say this this is what we need to have in this is what we can have because he i'm going around for the negotiations so for him to draw a line in the sand now it would almost be like he's inviting the shutdown which i mean he's going to do but i think for the most part this sort of plays into his old nonchalant attitude his all of the fray thing where he wants a two two part. it's sorted out and you want to position himself as the only adult in the room and a history of these things you know in the past i've found there have been many of them since and seventy's and the executive usually ends up a president usually ends up looking like the adult in the room in congress and the pinning the blame to look like a bunch of squabbling children so i think that's what he's going for here at least politically well at this point it's hard for me to say that any of them are looking like adults because honestly i can't believe that we're at this point and they can't figure it out and that politics really is coming into play so the clock is ticking i guess that it might happen so hill thanks so much for being here and fun isn't thank you. now if this government shutdown actually happens which

increasingly it looks like it will and what does that mean for you for me and for those good for nothing politicians that actually caused it per starters the four point four million people who work for the federal government unless they're essential will take unpaid leave the smithsonian's will close here in d.c. they cherry blossom parade for which millions of people come to visit the capitol every year don't have that the i.r.s. will close but you still have to get your taxes in on time and of course we know that that means that social security checks welfare checks unemployment checks sorry they won't be coming in the mail either in the military personnel fighting our wars abroad and risking their lives will still be expected to do so and with this particular timing that means not only get one week's worth of pay out of their two week pay period so you see according to our government our vital interests are just to make sure the wars being fought but not pay the people that are doing it until some point later in time and in top it all off congress will have caused this

shutdown although they're trying to pass legislation to stop their paychecks from coming in that doesn't really matter because at the end of us they're going to be reimbursed when everything picks back up so what does that tell you about our priorities joining me to discuss it is the hip hop journalist and media activist hey thanks so much for being here tonight we're happy to have you in the studio here on our coast first of all i want your prediction to you do you think that the shutdown is going to happen it's hard to tow. the reason why is. it seems like nothing is on the surface what's going on behind the scenes and i'm wondering if deals are being cut at the eleventh hour that's going to prevent everything but i think the damage is already done once we get shut down and the damage in the sense of the confidence and the lack of confidence that people will have in this government so if we're looking to our congressmen and senators to resolve problems people are looking at this and going you know this is just a little too much i can't really trust these politicians and i think in

a way that's an endgame in itself to get a large majority of people especially on the younger and to not deal with government at all which allows all sorts of rules and all sorts of legislation to be passed without any sort of objection and i think when you have this sort of political theater at the worst at the most a shutdown at the worst. that's what that will be the end result well it is political theater but at the end of the day somebody is going to be in fact that here right and that may well be the politicians the ones that are many of them being many of them millionaires many of them have investments and many of them have more than enough money for a rainy day it would be the average john doe and jane doe that's on the street needs the government in some form or fashion it would be those people that you pointed out that have unemployment checks it will be those folks that are going to have to pay their checks to the i.r.s. while the i.r.s. was this is a close it will be. many of the people who are already facing budget cuts and

already on the state side we're not even talking about the fact that in many states like california we're already looking at budget cuts we're be looking at the prison saying ok well the school budgets are getting cut so these sorts of things and to the type of frustration and i think disenchantment that many people are having right now with the government and i think especially you mentioned the i.r.s. right around tax time is so frustrating that they will be shut. there are doors of the worst still supposed to pay our taxes on time but you know probably the most important thing remember many people in the tea party in a state or a driving force in this have said smaller government they don't want the government at all if you have that libertarian strain of thought you don't want to round anyway so if you can you know get people to buy into that ideology with willingly go along with it you create enough confusion and enough disenchantment that it happens anyway so the government shuts down i don't want to be bothered with it you

don't you don't feel you can trust them and eventually things with their way and it will be a little piece at a time a little p.c. or a little piece of them one day you look up and you realize that social security isn't around for you medicare medicaid aren't around for you student loans aren't available for you and you're wondering how did this happen it happened because of situations like this something significant is going to be cut we won't realize it until we need it but i think that's you know sense where a lot of people are very confused here we have this massive tea party movement that says that they want a smaller government but if you look at any kind of polling when you ask people if they want their social security or medicare or medicaid cuts they know they're completely against it so they don't realize that making a smaller government and cutting down actually means things that will be affecting them but i want to ask you where you think some of the priorities lie right right now we're breaking over maybe thirty three billion maybe forty billion dollar budget and we've already seen you know programs like planned parenthood being under attack and many states in education cuts what about this budget of paul ryan's that

he really is the b six point two trillion dollars in cuts that would cut medicare cut medicaid in this is what i'm saying this is the that's the end game at the end of the day so you come in with something outrageous like that something's going to be cut at the end of the day so you might have ten items on there and people will go no way but nine will stay but one will be gone but which one will it be will it be the pell grants will it be the medicaid will it be something else. we hadn't even thought about meeting until we needed and i think that's what i meant by this piecemeal step you know a little bit of time here in there and what's going to distract us will be some of the flamboyant political theater that we see and will the government shut down and everybody's arguing about that what exactly is being cut back what services aren't as readily available and those are the things that will hurt the average person who doesn't have a voice who's not going to be on t.v. who won't be sitting on the sunday morning talk shows to have this sort of

discussion usually what you have of millionaires who say that they're speaking on behalf of the poor and working class people who haven't had the hard times that most people have been going through over the past four or five years you know debating should they pay their light bill what do they pay their car insurance do they pay their medical bill do they pull their kids out of college that's not the reality for many of the lawmakers there at least ones that i come across and they talk like that is in it isn't even that way for many of the pundits who can you know city and plentiful and then get a you know thousand dollar you know gig giving a speech you know while everybody else is working nine to five and so i think this is a tragedy all the way around the priorities are in place in the sense that the average working class person and poor person does not have a consistent voice to really explain what they're going through and when that voice is represented it's usually the far extreme we're going to find somebody who

cheated welfare and say that's the person while we ignore the person who cheated on their taxes who made a billion dollars you know they're going to point to the person who was incarcerated in had to go back to jail for doing something wrong and say that the programs that are being gutted aren't needed and they're not going to talk about all the white collar crimes that were going on or the folks that were bilking the government for weapons and you know military stuff that was inflated when they when they when they put their bids in so. to me it's happening more and more to and i think you're very right there is that if we do hear anything from the perhaps average american and it's always a big story was and there's always this process of vilification now we see it coming out of the politicians we see it in the media they don't realize that you know it well people that they do need some help from the government not everybody is just some poor leash on the government i sit on a sunday they've got to wrap it up i'm sorry but i want to thank you very much for joining us our having here they have to go back now there's still much more to come tonight we told you how the budget issues affecting politics here in d.c.

but what about on a larger financial level r.t. financial correspondent lauren list will break it down for us and then is inflation here to say the global economy struggles or it's making a big hit here at home when it comes to the price of food and gas is the rising cost of commodities here forever what's up with their tongues and if they could. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so bleak you think you understand it and then you've lived something else here's some other part of it and realized everything you saw. the charts the big picture. let's not give that we in the fourth grade.

i think. either one well. we haven't got the look of the safe get ready because the freedom. hey guys welcome to show. our intel on the alone a show we've heard with our guests not to say on the topic now we want to hear our audience does go on to you tube to video response or to twitter for part of the questions that we host on you tube every monday and on thursday in the show your responses we play global economy.

in past reports we've told you about how several states across the country are experiencing a shortage of sodium pentothal the drug used for lethal injections but not to worry that hasn't stopped them from attempting to carry out these executions no matter how unethical and illegal they may seem which brings us to the latest case in texas the state that carries out the most lethal injections in the country all eyes are on the case of clea foster this forty seven year old persian gulf war veteran was convicted of killing a woman that he met at the bar i was in sentenced to death for the murder now at this presumed execution foster was going to receive the typical cocktail of three

drugs including sodium pentothal but since there's a severe shortage of the drug due to the manufacturer cutting off the supply the texas department of criminal justice authorized the use of pentobarbital and that's where things took a turn for the worse so you pentobarbital has a history of being beyond unethical frankly it's considered so dangerous and so painful that even better narry and are prohibited from using it to terminate the lives of animals to the state of texas is now planning to use a drug that is so excruciating that it's not allowed to be used on animals but they plan on using it on a human being now this drug is so painful that a british human rights organization has said that if pentobarbital is used in foster's execution the effects of the new procedure could be torture is they said that he would experience excruciating pain that's been likened to her. having one's veins set on fire as organization has even made a direct plea to the creators of pentobarbital begging them not to sell the drug to the states to avoid any chance that they might be used in

a capital punishment case now we should note that the supreme court has stepped in on this case in the states and issued a temporary stay of execution on foster this case to determine if oster received adequate counsel during the course of his trial but i can guarantee you an investigation will be made as to the use of questionable drugs for capital punishment as well now texas is just the most recent instance where this barbaric drug has been used in human executions we've seen it happen in ohio and in oklahoma and i don't understand and i will only one who thinks that it isn't same lee immoral just plain evil to use a drug that's not even fit to be used on an animal on humans it's really disturbing the lengths of these states are willing to go to to make sure that they get to carry out their executions and end human life so much so that they're willing to result to torture. now as the clock ticks towards the impending government shutdown we discussed the cost of a growing national debate and the budget from top to bottom what about outside of

d.c. how does the financial sector feel about this growing debt crisis and what effect will this have on one of the u.s. is strongest financial assets the treasury bonds are two correspondent lauren lyster finds out. while u.s. lawmakers in washington over the budget and her blame across the aisle for the gridlock calling opposing colleagues relatively small that stream group of logs who wore an anchor dragging down the budget negotiation process give me a break another group of decision makers has been weighing in on the degree one of the country's top credit agencies telling the feds something has to get done this debt ratings agency standard and poor and moody's have been warning for months that the u.s. debt could threaten the country's golden aaa credit rating telling investors in u.s. bonds essentially they may have to worry about getting paid the u.s. debt problem is big fourteen trillion dollars big meanwhile the solutions lawmakers

are coming up with to solve this problem are small this tiny dot represents even the larger sixty billion dollars in cuts republican lawmakers originally proposed and meanwhile the u.s. government each year continues to spend a lot more than it takes in resulting in more than a trillion dollars in budget deficit so with all of this there rating agencies see as unsustainable and a concern and if the path the u.s. has been on for a while forty three cents of every dollar we spend this year. we borrowed against the future of our continuing on this trajectory of borrowing and spending however would not be an option according to financial analysts if the u.s. was downgraded so what would happen but it would be another crisis economist max fraud wolf says even putting the u.s. on official downgrade watch would be devastating it would create global shock waves in part because most models and understanding of the global investment landscape

landscape take is their sort of central banker the u.s. ten year treasury bond as the risk for yasser and if that asset goes from risk free to risky for u.s. bond holders like central banks and investors all over the world so goes the stability of currency as just one example and so goes the low interest rate the u.s. pays to borrow money as it is the interest the u.s. pays on its debt is staggering it was one hundred eighty seven billion in two thousand and. it increases to eight hundred forty four billion that number would grow exponentially faster with a downgrade because the us would likely have to pay higher interest rates to borrow money meaning less money to spend at home than we have to start cutting really aggressively and for many things that are too important for americans really to to be able to agree to cut them right now drastic cuts in everything from energy to

education to the military certainly and in dangers the u.s. position is an empire around the world being able to reach into every corner of the earth yes absolutely whether the u.s. would really be downgraded is up for debate the u.s. has the exorbitant privilege after all of printing dollars the global reserve currency to pay its global credit card bill the scarier scenario may be that the u.s. has even reached this point i think much more disturbing important in my opinion the fact that the u.s. financial situation already. possibly merits of downgrade a situation that once would have been unthinkable perhaps a downgrade for the u.s. whether it happens or not lauren mr washington. is inflation finally here and is it here to stay safe to say there's a lot going on in the world right now unrest in the middle east disaster in japan european bailouts strains on resources thanks to bad harvests and rapidly growing

asian economies and prices are showing for this food prices are soaring oil prices are too crude hit one hundred twenty three dollars a barrel this morning for americans although unemployment is finally going down wages aren't growing so could the tough times still be ahead here to discuss it with me is gary thompson associate editor at the atlantic there thanks so much for being here tonight and here let's talk about some of the basics here right prices are going up and these aren't prices on i don't know things like computers or some kind of technology you don't necessarily need these are the basics this is these are gas prices the things you need to get from one place to another it's food prices on staples like bread like butter like horn so is everyone affected essentially everyone is affected i mean this is what you need to live in move three out of ten dollars spent in the u.s. because of the food or gas prices to make our cars and buses go and absolutely as you mentioned asian economies are behind this you know you have three billion people in china india brazil indonesia even russia who are entering the global

middle class and when you enter the global middle class you start consuming a lot more food demand rises prices are going to rise because we don't yet have the supply to keep up with it and so that's exactly what's causing the problem and does that mean that it could be more of a long term problem than we expect because the federal reserve right now is in a bit of a debate over this they can't even really decide what to call it inflation or not they don't normally look at commodities or just the normal ebb and flow and you know they're also saying the. worst case scenario this is going to be a short term temporary problem but if this really is this kind of global economic. shift where there's always going to be this higher demand that is i mean we can expect these prices to continuously rise you said a perfectly i mean the fed is used to seeing food and oil prices and gas prices and sort of moving like this it goes up twenty percent and it goes down twenty percent twenty percent so it doesn't make a lot of sense to attach a long term monetary policy to something that's just going to look really just like a sine curve. but a lot of people are saying this is and this is unlike every other time that food

and gas prices have gone up this is different this is being caused by a a worldwide change the type of people that are good at that are buying food and gas it's a middle class that's emerging in brazil and india and russia and so they're saying this is this is something different that is used to basing its long term monetary policy in what's called core inflation which specifically disregards food and gas but a lot of people are now saying look this is a different circumstance maybe we need to have a monetary policy that takes into account rising inflation in the medium and long term i'm just curious though you know there's also been a lot of talk of course of speculation when it comes to food prices so how much do you think that plays a role here it could play a role there is nothing argument that the fed has been loose with money in order to bring down interest rates in the u.s. and is there being loose with the money instead of giving thanks a lot of cash and saying investor if you want the banks are saying well look we're do we know prices are going to rise and we're working we bet we know prices are going to rise for oil gas food because all these people are in the global middle

class so it's possible you're seeing speculation in food commodities gas the same way you saw speculation in the two thousands at the same time in the federal reserve isn't ready to be wholesale change the way that it looks at food and gas inflation what is the federal reserve supposed to do the right typically if you have a situation where there is inflation what the federal reserve does is they just raise interest rates and right now they're incredibly low but our economy also is you know you may say it's not in a recession anymore but it has not recovered by any means at least not in a full way so what do they do here right i mean the federal reserve wants to you know. two things are in charge of inflation and they're also in charge of employment unemployment still near ten percent and there's a lot of people on the sidelines for a way to get a job so it doesn't make a lot of sense to go after higher interest rates you know we might see is a political pressure on another body in washington the white house or congress to do something about getting middle class folks relief in terms of unleashing some of the reserve oil maybe giving people some break. you know whatever they can do in

order to keep her. alive seems to me like they have bigger problems going on right now the white house and congress because we're basically on the brink of perhaps another government shutdown here in the u.s. and what would how would that affect the economy right because when we talk about the fact that sure federal workers are going to have to take some unpaid leave but at the same time there are a lot of businesses that are going to be affected because of that a lot of shop owners people are here for the cherry blossom festival like i mentioned that's not going to be going on any more so down the road can that even you know put it back into a recession if this government shutdown happens right on the one hand the government shutdown if it lasts say ten days thirteen days twenty days as it did in one thousand five hundred ninety six you know that's going to have some sort of effect it's going to you know people are going to have less money they're going to have this money to spend and a lot of this is going to be concentrated in the washington d.c. area which has been pretty economically safe but i don't expect actually the government shutdown if there is one first of all to last very long second of all to have any sort of meaningful impact on our on the recovery i mean you're going to

see a situation where. obama read they're going to get together they're going to find some sort of deal it's going to cut about thirty billion dollars to forty billion dollars this year and the government going to be back on track and we're going to have the same problems that we had to begin with do you think that that's going to make them more likely to raise the debt ceiling though finally the republicans got this whole symbolic stand that they took out of the way and they'll actually raise the debt ceiling is now saying perhaps may sixteenth is the day yeah maybe i should hadn't thought of the idea that there's the party might have said well we spent and . now we can raise the debt ceiling but back to the debt ceiling has to be raised a lot of what we're not going to fault and no one's going to stand by. it's going to go off the question is what sort of deal is going to be around that in order to facilitate it and of course the question is should we even have one of the same thing out and every single time gary thank you so much for joining us if you now it's time for a quick break and when we return i'll tell you what fox is totally cool with the use of disciplining children.