but can they alone a show where you look at the real headlines with none of the mercy let me live in washington d.c. and as politicians call for the war in libya to ramp up a new report from the joint chiefs of staff calls for america to revisit its priorities but will anyone out there listen then he is officially in ron paul's announce that he's forming a presidential exploratory committee befalls typically been considered a washington outsider so we can't help but wonder if with all the unrest the instability in america could two thousand and twelve finally be his year and then

it's politics with a beat as we notice a steady decline in musicians using their platform for a political purpose to tell you today we'll tell you about one rapper who is making sure that her voice is heard will speak with jaja about her message and then our american cities on the road to ruins we'll speak with one radio host and says that reaganomics article aim for a quote municipal dystopia david sirota will join me to defend his argument and grab yourself a cocktail because we're celebrating happy hours today i'll be joined by producer jenny churchill and think progress as alex cites walt discuss all the stories that are making a buzz this week about fun has to wait until the end of the show first our top story. despite military officials telling today that they killed the number two man in al qaeda this month the war in afghanistan isn't going well especially if you consider that five hundred prisoners escaped yesterday most of them taliban and according to his defense secretary our troops also might stay in iraq past the

withdrawal deadline and our new war in libya which the administration refuses to call a war has reached a stalemate but instead of calls for this ridiculous conflict to end this is what we're hearing from our politicians right now. and nato is running this conflict by committee by taking u.s. leadership proud of it and us air assets out of it we have really reduced our ability to prevail on the battlefield we need be a c one thirty s. in the bag and we need the air merican airsick assets back in and a heavier way but here's what i mean is going to happen right now there's just not enough momentum by the rebels even if there are better armed to break through to tripoli there's not deep support for gadhafi so my recommendation to nato in that ministration is to cut the head of the snake off go to tripoli start bombing these inner circle their compounds their military headquarters in tripoli the way to get

gadhafi to leave is have his inner circle break and turn on him and it's going to take a sustained effort through an air campaign. so is it left only to the small group of anti-war advocates to ask for our country to revisit its priorities maybe not there may yet be a glimmer of hope as a reporter within the pentagon and by senior members of the joint chiefs of staff is calling for americans to stop overreacting to islamic extremism to stop under investing in its youth and to embrace the sense of competition an opportunity that made america a world power not militarily but is anyone out there going to listen to discuss this with me as more and soldiers and former chief of staff of colin powell lawrence thanks so much for being here tonight let me turn to our first of all this very interesting report first of all is pen with the pseudonym why turns out was written by two senior chief of staff members i'm assuming it must have been approved by mullen at some point what do you know about it i would say it's

probably been approved at least really. shake from both terminal and i know the marines pretty world record as well have met them or even worked with marines on a bigger project with the new america foundation is the word go. this is pure eisenhower this is pure hate it was no five star general hero of world war two who incidentally once in a moment of pique but nonetheless revelation said god help the united states of america if he ever anybody ever sits in this chair the oval office who doesn't understand the military boy i do what i mean it was that he saw the potential for us to be diverted by war and conflict and it will be a national security state which we've been hard absence will work to deflecting us from running our republic properly governing it properly and that's what we're seeing right now you just highlighted some of the aspects of that and we need to get back to taking care of our republic so why am i hearing this from

a marine and from a sailor at the joint chiefs of staff that had to write the report without even putting their names behind it and start hearing us from the president of the united states that we do not need to realize so heavily on our military power but quite the opposite invest in education so that we can be competitive on a much different level internationally well you're asking a thirty one year a veteran of the military first of all because they're smart they're very smart second because they do understand what i was never was talking about and that is that the fundamental foundation of security is your economic strength and third it's self interest you don't fly airplanes drive tanks leo ships without fuel without money without a strong economy. you lose that economy and you can kiss your time some planes and everything else goodbye but what we're hearing from our politicians obama is being obviously rather silent on this in terms of the john mccain's and joe lieberman's and lindsey graham says the blank is always to be. normal are more i mean who am i

trying to convince here do you think the american people are actually convinced when they sit at home on sunday morning and watch these these news shows or is are they going to think themselves the salt political moments thinking john mccain lindsey graham is not thinking they're all trying to score political points there may be half a dozen people on both sides of the aisle democrats and republicans who are actually thinking and their thinking is drowned out by the rest of them who are trying to make political points out of their little point that we're talking about with with defense contractors with the military grants political points right now there are even more per go on than that they're trying to make points against the president or for the president because this is the political season already we're trying to line up and have a campaign two years out and these are points that they're trying to reverse girl with that so who are they score any points at because i think knowing what america is there's a war that's really insanity of it you look at the polls forty percent i think that they said they thought that president obama's handling of the bar and lying afghanistan badly that's he's war my god he needs to take note of that seventy percent i think in poll after poll tomorrow are showing that they believe america

is on the wrong course showing that they understand what these two military officers were talking about that not having a job not having any prospect for a job not having a robust prosperous future in mind is a significant betterment the national security eisenhower said all of this in a speech to the un chamber of commerce in may of ninety six the one nine hundred sixty s. i recall he defined national security he said it's not planes it's not tanks it's not ships it's not soldiers or marines or even what it is is the prosperity and the economic robustness one hundred forty million americans it was that our that was our population at the top. that's what our security is it's all of us feeling reasonably confident about our status our future our jobs our prosperity and so forth we don't have any more why i think a lot of confidence also is going to last yesterday we were just talking about how the i.m.f. is now predicting that china's economy is going to overtake that of the u.s. might help you sixteen that's only five years away and i don't think that americans

are ready for that psychologically especially now i want to switch a little bit here if we talk about what's actually going on the way that we now are conducting our foreign policy stance so many of our politicians are more focused on what's going on around the world than perhaps what's going on here at home what should we do in libya because essentially if this situation has reached a stalemate you had the john mccains that are acting asking for the u.s. to play a more active role for more strikes here but now this humanitarian intervention if it keeps going it's probably going to end up costing more civilian lives doing more damage this is an indicator of in power in trouble this is an indicator that rome showed that britain did almost every empire in history has shown that it tends to concentrate on the margins the periphery even if you will rather than on its own home base in this case you can strengthen so for the concentration on these wars is absurd i agree with andrew bass of the who recently said we're going to come home

we're going to come home big time and it's not going to be you know gradual we're going to wind up retrenching in the significant sort of way because going to have to because we're going to be bankrupt if we don't that's the libya situation i don't i don't see what they're saying the libya situation will resolve itself the question is to watch but result was how will you go do you only gave he is going to go somewhere will take him out or he will finally get a golden parachute what is it going to be a nato airstrike leave a time out that we claim was an innocent nation in time could well be but i suspect it's going to be what lindsey said is probably going to be some of his own people and then what's going to follow here and on top of all away. this is not this is peripheral to libya is not part of the fabric of foment and turmoil and volatility in north africa the middle east and western asia right now that really matters because no one likes khadafi and it's a six and a half million person country it's got light sweet crude ok fine but it's not part

of the real problem the real problem center in the turmoil in syria on israel's point the turmoil yet to be decided in egypt on israel supplying the situation in iraq which is anything but resolve the situation in iran and a host of other countries like yemen and so forth that have a lot more in terms of our interest ability to impact and libya libya is just a side show but we need to get the side show over it's going to be over and what resolution some other tyrant probably eventually and what we have done we expanded dollars and perhaps some would certainly libyan blood and we will have nothing but the same with a different name it won't be could be off it will be some other day well today there's actually an interesting it pew research poll that came out of egypt right here the u.s. at first we kind of teetered the administration wasn't sure what to say at first they wanted to support mubarak then of course they turned against him then it was all about supporting democracy and this revolution in egypt but if you look at this

pew research poll the majority of egyptians still are very skeptical of the united states the majority of them along this peace treaty with israel completely unknown and so at the end of the day what we just gave here and it's the majority i think we've got the polls i've seen show about thirty percent roughly a third or against the peace treaty a third really don't know and a third probably are fair the majority in terms of trying to get that's the situation that shape but not by us we don't take anything very well but that's a situation that people ought to be able to deal with and bring the best product out of it what concerns me even more if you talk about polling is the polling very exclusive polling done by the military in the fox author. example of the star that shows ninety percent of the people who are good they think we're the number one enemy not a collar bone not al qaida not a not even you plus this is very counterproductive this is insanity that we're lingering in employees who are the most critical country of all pakistan with nuclear weapons has

a body politic that says ninety percent or they have our goods what do we do that's a good question well i think what they're trying to do is desperately keep selling this war to us and tell us that it's successful yesterday five hundred prisoners escaped from southern afghanistan in a prison in kandahar and today mysteriously we find out from a press release that the number two al qaeda guy was taken out this month i think it is nobody is really dead of course really get over it was a very good p.r. there lawrence i got to wrap it up at thank you so much always a pleasure to have you on. and on the topic of our military a department of defense it seems that the man in charge for at least a few more months is capitalizing on his position defense secretary robert gates has announced that he will be canceling the second engine of the joint strike fighter program a surprise but the friends on how you look at it he made no qualms in the past about cutting unnecessary spending to the defense budget. the attacks of september eleventh two thousand and one opened a gusher of defense spending that nearly doubled the base budget over the last

decade the gusher has been turned off and will stay. with those a shocking segments cave has chipped away at those access programs and as a last target was the f one thirty six joint strike fighter engine and here's a quick gist of why gates is that is on the ending this project turns out of this second engine design was a major project for defense contractors general electric and a rolls royce and even though they've already spent three billion dollars developing the engine and the contractor team claims that their project is already eighty percent complete gates still feels that this is a simply a useless project fighter jets have been sufficing just fine with the older yet still useful model the f. one hundred five and the betting on even admits it only put forth the money for the new engine because it determined that weapon system competition drives down prices now thankfully for us gates has opted to defend the american taxpayer instead of corporations and business and that's not something that happens very often surely

he is just as aware as everyone else that twenty six percent of your total federal tax return went soley to the department of defense or you by the way is singlehandedly the largest recipient of tax dollars in the entire federal budget so while the rest of congress might frown at gates for the way that he's taking it pet projects off to the to the chopping block we're on the low to show here salute him he hasn't delivered major cuts to the defense budget but he is sticking to his word on cutting at least these few bloated pet projects now if only we can get president obama and congress can do the same. we're taking a break but coming up he's running again ron paul says that he'll seek the g.o.p. nomination for president in two thousand and twelve but does outspoken and libertarian leaning congressman actually stand a chance brian do already senior editor of reason magazine and reason dot com joins me from los angeles in just a moment and then later and using music to spread a political message tonight we talked to emcee jaj off about rappers who are

becoming politically active for their music practice to not. let's not forget that we are currently working. on the well. we never got that they're going to keep him safe get ready because you're afraid of. a charge in here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

new web site with twenty four seven live streaming news times like to do about the ongoing financial part unlimited reason high quality videos for download. stories you may never find on mainstream news. those are. hey guys welcome to shell and tell me i'm going to show we part of our guests not to say on the topic now we want to hear our audience just go on to you tube video response or the twitter verse out of the question that we post on you tube every

monday and thursday to show your responses please let your voice be heard. well it's official ron paul's announced that he'll be launching an exploratory committee i'm flirting with a presidential run for twenty twelve is the announcement of die hard fans who raised millions online for his campaign in two thousand and eight have been waiting for but while the seventy five year old paul has long been considered a political outsider here in washington and a long shot presidential candidates you have to wonder if the timing this time around could be just right with libertarian ideals becoming more mainstream with the tea party fracturing the republican party and america's economic woes at the top of the priority list so could it ron paul actually have a shot in two thousand and twelve joining me to discuss this from our studio in los angeles is brian doherty senior editor at reason magazine and reason dot com brian

thanks so much for joining us tonight as well for starters were you shocked at all with this announcement or did you know it was only a matter of time that ron paul would take another shot. not shocked at all ron paul's movement ron paul's momentum has been doing nothing but growing since his two thousand and eight to see him running again seemed inevitable the only thing that seemed like it might be real him is if they decided that his son and the new senator from kentucky might be a better standard bearer but they appear to be holding him in reserve maybe for twenty sixteen if it's still necessary well so let's look at the political climate right now i'm wondering if you still think that ron paul is a complete longshot or whether you know the economic situation that we're fighting and has really brought a lot of more americans out in terms of the tea party a lot of people you know are looking more at these libertarian ideals as perhaps the sane and normal thing to do what do you say yeah you know unlike nearly every other pundit who's commented on runs announcement i am not going to claim that i

can see the future one way or the other everyone else seems to think that there's absolutely no way ron paul could go anywhere but as you said take a look at what has been happening in america since two thousand and seven of the things ron paul has been saying for decades about the dangers of expansionary federal reserve monetary policy did indeed create the crash that he predicted we're seeing the dollar falling to record lows we're seeing standard and poor downgrading america's bond rating the crisis that ron paul said would happen really appears to be on the horizon so would be remarkably difficult for people to say that ron paul's ideas are outrageous or not worth considering in fact i'd say at this point with the united states facing bankruptcy and a fiscal collapse ron paul's ideas are about the only ideas out there worth considering in the g.o.p. presidential field all of a vibe you know i think that people are definitely starting to pick up and move in that direction but do you think that he's still a little too radical in terms of i don't know ending the fattah going back to the

gold standard he definitely wants to entitlements he's fine with the government shutting down and defaulting on its debt. whether ron paul is right and whether ron paul can win enough fans in the electorate to win an election or three different questions strongly toward the side that he's right i agree with you that the american people don't seem as we sit here today ready to embrace the true radicalism of his vision but i think if they pay attention to what lies on the horizon for us in terms of government spending in terms of debt in terms of what's happening to the dollar in terms of the way our various of foreign entanglements are or are costing us and costing lives and intelligent voters is going to have to look at wrong policy eight years ago he was actually saying that things can't go on the way they have and that i think is the moment right american history that this sort of post world war system of government growing and growing taxing and taxing spending and spending and inflating it's reaching the end that libertarians are

predicted for a while i think that's becoming more and more clear whether it's going to become clear enough in the next eighteen months to make him a real left or prospect i don't know enough about the future to say but i think we'd be foolish to discount the importance of his ideas right now reiner is really looking forward to you telling me the future i thought you had all the answers now i'm just wondering how much damage do you think that ron paul is going to do to the republican party here i mean if you look at the candidates that are already out there that mitt romney's the tim holland t.v. blog they're boring you have herman cain maybe michele bachmann and maybe donald trump they're kind of on the crazy bandwagon could ron paul playing a big role here also hand the next election to president obama. i think while i don't personally care that much whether he reaches the republican party for say or whether it damages any of those candidates you just named certainly what you've seen since two thousand and eight is that ron paul has been

one of the only forces bringing in a new wave of excited enthusiastic donating young people into the republican party i think the republican party powers that be would be foolish to not at least try to co-opt ron paul even though ron paul's ideas about government spending ideas about foreign policy go against what most republicans believe i think that the republican party is actually going to have a future ron paul and his young fans are the wave of that again whether two thousand and twelve is the year that comes to fruition whether ron paul right now could beat barack obama i wouldn't bet a lot of money on it right now but i think what happens with the american economy in the next eighteen months is going to be what decides that if the if they can split the fed can sort of squeeze out one more little mini bubble to keep their ridiculous game afloat for another year then undoubtedly obama probably will win if what ron paul's been saying appears more and more manifestly true two thousand and twelve could grow because you know i think good candidates this time around that

are running for twenty are definitely going to have a lot more tough questions thrown our way in terms of the economy i'm sure they're going to be asked about the federal reserve and ben bernanke and the roles they think are paid playing the role of the u.s. dollar internationally it's going to it's going to be tougher than what they think of quantitative easing q one out there even speculated that perhaps the ron paul family with adam rand paul the other brother they might be the next kennedy dynasty except for from the libertarian wing we'll see how it all plays out brian i want to thank you very much for joining us thanks a lot. now seems like politics makes its way into everything the states politics and religion have unfortunately come to go hand in hand here in the us you look over to hollywood every actor has a political cause that they want to take up and they never fail to mention when they're giving their acceptance speeches at the biggest awards shows and all sometimes it's unwelcome it's just too much having a large platform and an audience can make way for change but these days one of the

areas that has the most history the most potential might not be living up to it and i'm talking about music you hear music you feel it you can be swayed by it but of mainstream artists given up on using their power for politics earlier i caught up with political rapper and i first asked her if she thought the music had become more or less political in the last few decades especially if we talk about hip hop . oh yeah in around two thousand you had the whole after nine eleven there was this subject. subdued whole temperament in hip hop and you had dead prayers and kind of political artists that were in the mainstream and right after nine eleven there was this shutdown and then you start seeing these crazy the gangs we want to call masonic gang signs that's being thrown by all these rappers of the include inside that are female can't really be

a mason number one and i didn't go to jail i went to the union you know so you can never be part of their club and you who would want to be part of their club because very not even allowed to speak their mind i mean none of them are give listen to some of these i don't want to see his name but you know some of the stuff he only talks about drugs you know if i could be in this and that and they're promoting corporate interests and they don't bring about anything that elevates educates stimulates. does anything to stop use the power of the of the actual artists use the power of their voice you know not just the screams but you know the message you know what does it mean you know why do you why do you think that is me do you think that it's because like you said the corporate interest because that's what you know when the when the when the companies become in control of an artist they don't want them to do that kind of music already think that's

because there's also not an audience for it because perhaps you know young people these days are more interested in hearing about partying and drugs or whatever latest celebrity scandal there might be out there. i think that's what the man behind the table likes to think is that you know what's a formula what's a quick cell and they want to they'd rather have like a fifteen year old in a bikini and they find that they know they're going to make money with that as opposed to making awesome music stuff that you can dance to even like missy or you know something's gone and still kind of bring some intelligence involved you know of you ok or is one i mean he kind of flip flops i've spoken to chris before i mean he likes to ride the lines between mainstream and dropping real knowledge i believe in the same thing you know i have albums upon albums with a lot of you know they're intelligent lyrics don't get me wrong but they're not always political i mean i did

a political song of two thousand two called bush country and it was a funny dance song and it was a lot of metaphors now i'm not so interested in metaphors i'm interested in punch lines dropping the truth and entertaining so you know i mean i'm at a different level and i do feel like there is a very awkward space for me in the music world because i look at artists like you know just what's out there i don't want to give them any means the mainstream dues there's like three major guys in hip hop and that's all you see and then you see their boys and you see those are their. three girls and you know if you look in the history of the female in hip hop you have. you have little kim they came out and she was part of the boys' crew you have really ma she was part of the boys' crew and part of the boys' crew foxy part of everybody because to be there's so few female artists that just come out as a with a message like

a janis joplin like you jimi hendrix somebody that's you know free of all the political red tape and it's tricky you know i mean it's you know i spoke to ask kept a day early a lot and i was discussing with you know performance rights for example and i said you know i haven't seen a check in a while and i said i know my stuff getting played in a lot of underground stations and they said it basically straight out you know we have a scan survey and we just serve a certain amount of hours. and if you happen to catch on that that survey then they might registry you otherwise i guess and you're out of luck josh i got to wrap it up unfortunately because we're still having our show tonight but i want to thank you for joining us for happening and to come in the studio there and new york and i'm with you i want more janis joplin's and more jimi hendrix out there taylor thanks. for having me. still to come on tonight's show in

the u.s. is it peace a man or running for president actually made that claim or revealed who he is in our schools and i'm thankful and i mean everyone is talking about budget cuts are cuts to infrastructure projects around the u.s. going to be the nail in the offing for american cities radio host david sirota joins us in just a few minutes. we . are. whenever the government says it is safe ready for freedom.