and that's round two of the economic crisis clash the government shutdown may have been averted but with less than a one week left until the u.s. hits its debt limit the pressure is on to reach a deal and do it soon that's the political fighting over the debt issue continues will lawmakers be able to avert another meltdown. and president obama has a bit of different battle on his mind to this as he heads to texas to try and win over latino voters is the whole thing too little too late. for the staircase of khalid sheikh muhammad but if that's true for proof if you will of intelligence it

was a good program it was a legal program it's not torture so is he saying the u.s. should keep using methods like waterboarding to get information we're going to explore what some call enhanced interrogation techniques and others call torture. good evening it's tuesday may tenth four pm here in washington d.c. lucy catherine of you watching our team. now immigration and bin laden's death may be dominating news headlines but with less than one week left until the u.s. runs up against those fourteen point three trillion dollar debt limit we decided to begin our newscast this evening with a look at america's financial health the u.s. economic performance does seem to be in freefall as public debt and deficits continue to soar the middle class is more at risk than ever meanwhile the list exclusions from washington are frankly nowhere to be seen now it's difficult to

overstate just how serious the u.s. debt issue is but sometimes it does take a little bit of a fresh perspective to really get the depth of the problem and yesterday my colleague lauren lyster spoke with legendary investor and commodities trader trader jim rogers and here's how he framed this issue. america's going to have to face the problem that we are the largest debtor nation in the world is getting higher and higher and the rest of the world a story and say wait a minute guys we're not going to continue to finance is we're not going to continue to play ball the countries are now looking for a replacement for the u.s. dollar there's a lot of movement not just in china but all over the world because everybody knows it's u.s. dollars now a terribly flawed currency i don't like saying this i'm going to american citizens and american taxpayer we've got to face facts well of the two i'd rather be the creditor than the debtor throughout history throughout history you know people have always said look over there with all that money i want to go over there where the assets are you've never heard people say look at all those debtors i want to go

there and join those debtors i mean the american press is simply more worried about the word which t.v. stars divorcing which t.v. star more than anything else in the rest of the world is sitting here very seriously concerned about us being overextended both politically and geopolitically and militarily and economically and yet i don't see many people in the u.s. even noticing it much this caring about it and yet countries like china are still used to justify i think the central threat to the united states and our leaders to be able to push continued military spending the united states military being the most well financed in the world i want to know what toll you think this is actually going to take on the lives of average americans you might be thanking has affected me so far. lister we've got wars going on in three different countries right now we'd like to have wars in four or five more if we can figure out a way to do it we've got troops stationed in one hundred twenty countries around the world that are doing anything he said making enemies for us and costing us

a staggering amount of money this is all going to come to an end and unfortunately no country has gotten self into this kind of situation gets out of the problem without a crisis or a semi crisis we're rapidly more and more rapidly approaching a crisis that's going to be bad for all of us two thousand and eight was bad but wait till the next time around it's going to be even worse well and worse it may get especially as the lawmakers seem to be at a complete standstill in the fight over the us debt yesterday house speaker john boehner demanded trillions of dollars of cuts in spending in exchange for the votes necessary to push up that ceiling here's what he had to say in a speech in new york let me be as clear as i can be without splits significant spending cuts and changes in the way we spend the american people's money there will be no increase in the debt limit and that crutch should be greater than the accompanying increase of the debt limit but the president has given we're

there are talking about billions here we should be talking about cuts in trillions if we're serious about addressing america's fiscal problems. i mean the should be are small clubs real reforms to these programs are not broad deficit or deficit targets that punt the questions to the future actual cuts in what's defense spending that's not going to happen entitlements democrats are going to budge on that and neither will the voters that put these guys into office and what about raising taxes well no that's also a deal breaker for the g.o.p. so both sides are digging in how the heck does this country move forward on the economy but here to weigh in with her take from new york is meghan carpenter she's the executive editor of the website ross story make it is great to have you back on it's been a little bit of a while break us down for me i mean how how do we move beyond the sort of political fighting where both sides seem to be dug in their positions meanwhile the debt

issue is real and that's not going anywhere so how do we move past this. well i think the debt is real but the debt issue is actually just a political issue that allows both sides to take a different posture so the debt ceiling is something that we run up against all the time in this country we continue to deficit spend we're deficit spending more now because tax revenues are down because the economies don't work on the other hand this crisis is sort of a crisis of political mania factor it sets up a vote between the house side with boehner at the helm and problems with the treasury department and our ability to meet our obligations to pete to other countries on the one hand and on the other hand the tea party members of his own caucus who are calling for massive spending cuts as has been are said trillions well trillions of dollars that's a that's a lot of spending cuts when you examples as as i think you just pointed out in title meant reform tax increases or defense spending there's just not that much to

go around and when the g.o.p. comes up with these plans once they leave those things out they're really just making program two weeks around the edges of our spending programs so it's really just a political fight that illustrates the continued intransigence in washington to really get along changing thing but it's the political ideological debate where both sides are stuck in their positions you know the republicans don't want to change anything on taxes the democrats don't want to touch the entitlements or are they just going to make their little statements until they get really really really close to the deep ball deadline and what would be the consequence of that i mean what markets react ahead of time. i think that at this point because we have this whole budget standoff for months now up until april when they finally came to the table and agreed to a deal i think that markets are expecting that to happen again whether or not that will of course is the other question i think treasury secretary geithner suggests if there's about a month of leeway after they refused to raise the debt limit before the treasury

really starts to be unable to meet its obligations in terms of surgery notes and you know our outstanding debt so then even with the deadline there's another month beyond that so i think that what you will see is you know increasing posturing some sort of vote that probably doesn't go anywhere and then this back and forth and sniping in ability to come to some agreement and so it really really gets down to brass tacks i mean that's what they've done all year and that's probably what they will continue to do i mean it sounds like kindergarten to me i just i don't understand why you know when the economic picture is as dark as it has been when real solutions are needed why both sides can't somehow overcome this i mean let's turn to president obama for a second is there anything that the president could be doing that he isn't doing perhaps i don't know talking to the people directly to try to move this issue along instead of letting these sides duke it out. i mean i think that president obama's position for a lot of the presidency is literally just bend about these sides to get out and

kind of come in at the end it was in fact very often president bush's strategy i think president bush was more effective at the end of the day in pushing his position on the republican caucus than president obama has been pushing his positions on the democratic caucus i think that part that may be because of the kinds of compromises that the democrats either have had to or are willing to make and impart i think it's because there's just not the same sort of leadership that you can say what you will about the republicans in the house and the sun in the early part of the last decade but one thing they were not free to do is take stances that were unpopular with moderates and independents in favor of catering to their base and i think that you see that right now with house speaker boehner he's not really that on willing to take positions that are unpopular with centrists with independents with moderates with certainly with democrats as long as he maintains the support of his base and i think that's one place where democrats haven't necessarily been willing to go and do you think that the political system is so

ingrained and so entrenched that it's not even possible to sort of get beyond this i mean could it take a different kind of president a different kind of man or woman with a bigger broader vision to to really be able to overcome those stories that were victims of the way our congress works and the way that the checks and balances of the political system here work. i think that it's probably a more of a problem of the intransigence within the two parties i think that when you have to go through a primary process and you have to appeal to base voters who in many primaries represent maybe five percent of even voters in your own party you come out with candidates on both sides that have to kill to base voters and then find a way to backtrack a little bit and it feel to centrist voters and this back and forth and you know elections coming every two years every four years of the six years people get very entrenched and very unwilling to take stands that might lose the next election so should we all were known for citizenship to move somewhere i don't know each

country somewhere. i don't know that it's different any in most other countries i mean you look at political fights in everywhere from canada to the u.k. it's a germany to the fights in the e.u. this year i think a lot of countries are struggling with this professional political system and it's but of course the other countries don't play necessarily the same sort of role that the united states does or at least used to in terms of economic prowess and military prowess and so unfortunately it seems that our decisions really do affect other countries across the globe i guess we'll have to see how we get out of the situation but major megan carpenter thank you so much for your time. all right well fresh off his victory in the keynote killing of osama bin laden president obama is now shifting gears to focus on a problem that hits a little bit closer to home extinct america's broken immigration system now obama decided to head to the border city of el paso texas today where he touted his successes in cracking down on illegal immigration and he called for reforms that

would have helped put some of the nation's levon million undocumented workers on a pathway to citizenship the keep in mind candidate obama's promise to fix them gratian issue helped him get nearly seventy percent of the hispanic vote when he ran for office but his attempt to pass an immigration bill last year diagnose senate and there's absolutely no chance whatsoever that a new immigration bill could even pass the dearly divided congress so is all of this about politics and is obama's efforts simply too little too late and more importantly how will the latino voters response to what seems to be a broken cog hope promise and when they go to the polling booth in twenty twelve well for the answer let's check in with someone who has his hand on the pulse of the folks that obama's trying to win over ron goshes is a social justice educator community organizer and he joins us now live from los angeles ron it's great to have you back what do you make of president obama's speech. well i always like to campaign with ahmed but we're not getting

our action. on his immigration reform a lot of things we have not actually our community. you know and i think that that was the percent of the community but what is the president obama i think that we deserve something and the more you put a record number of people. i hope that is that you now that you want to go again but again if there's no political will or realistic ability if lawmakers in congress actually move immigration issues through the latino community hispanic community has been waiting two years is all of this just obama putting on his twenty fold campaign hat and trying to make some nice statements so that folks like yourself don't forget about him and don't vote absolutely you know and i want to. go to democrats i do think there is some other communities you know i think i'm going around the need to vote you know that in places like arizona new mexico colorado you know it was sort of you know one of those so we know that. they need

our vote you know vote and i give you know i mean it is sending a very clear message that it is you know the equalisation or nobody but it's no reelection then what does the stereotypical hispanic voter do i mean you don't go for the alternative will you go for the alternative in the republican party let's let me ask you that first. absolutely not but you know that. part of american aren't always the democratic party under president obama and before that more people than any other president in. therefore what. we're going to ourselves moving although we cannot longer than we can at the local level organize over the present so you know if it means that we vote at all for president and so he's. not a democrat i'm for it always. or maybe more before what's that sound like

a great opening for some sort of third party candidate to come along especially given the growing numbers of latino voters. let's talk about the the obama i guess broken promises on this he did try to pass the dream that stalled in the senate he did to its credit for better or worse invite many spanish speaking broadcasters and celebrity so the white house over the past few weeks including eva longoria is that idiot enough to hang out with some famous celebrities who may or may not be able to say a few words in spanish and somehow when voters that way. are actually and i believe it is difficult to understand that a long process for immigration reform we do know that under the executive order you have the power. station. or action or not our community. organizing we're not going to the global community does not want to. let's try he does have some options under

executive order as you mentioned what do you think it is that's preventing obama from acting on that route. you know we don't have anything against president obama no no no i think i'm sorry to interrupt i think you misunderstood me why do you think president obama would not use his executive order powers to move this issue along what's preventing him from doing. i don't think it's going to do anything. the worst thing is you know today on what is in that in america we're sending a message to president obama. in our family it's something they can do and if he doesn't do it and we have no reason. that's a i don't know that sound and i don't want to be offensive but a little bit naive do you really think that it's not that you basically think that the president doesn't have any power to move initial along then that it's some sort of powers that be that are again that i would if i was

a good interview time him. on his campaign that perhaps don't have our community in mind little we're making a call from president obama as our. many many times and. so. we want action and if you have the power to do it. all right well if history is any indication i don't know if that's going to be an optimistic. way that the situation's going to play out but thank you as always for your time in your opinion strongbow joining us from los angeles all right well if you watched any of the political sunday shows this weekend it may have felt a little bit like stepping back into a time machine that's the era of president george w. bush this entire week torture enthusiasm back and all of the channels pointing their happiness at the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques take a look. i think that anyone who suggests that the enhanced techniques let's be

blunt waterboarding did not produce an enormous amount of valuable intelligence just isn't facing the truth those that enhanced interrogation of khalid shaikh mohammed but a vast treasure trove if you will of intelligence so it was a good program it was a legal program not torture and i would strongly recommend that we continue these are not torture these are techniques that we know work that debate is over it worked it got the intelligence it wasn't torture it was legal i think without the enhanced interrogation methods authorized by president bush combined with the warrantless surveillance we never would have found where bin laden was hiding because we never would have known the identity of location of the courier so how did the killing of bin laden turn into a debate over whether torture actually works and why are we rehashing the past instead of trying to figure out how to move america forward in its endless war on terror we're here with me to discuss the jager porn burger he's the president of the future freedom foundation thank you so much for being here it's great to have

you on the studio so what was your impression after seeing these folks come out of all the channels why is this the debate that we're having right now the torture debate well my impression was these are all the dead enders that took our nation down the road to shame to evil to torture they were trying to rehabilitate themselves in equally shameful way they really ought to just go back in the hole and stay there i'm going to hone fair there and of course the news media is also just as complicit in this because you know we could as journalists be asking more important questions for example now the enemy is public enemy number one is that how do we move on in the fight against al qaeda against against that terrorism and how do we perhaps try to begin the process of winning back all of the so civil liberties that have been eroded over the past decade journey that weren't terror what's your take on that well that. the killing of osama bin laden is not going to change anything and they don't intend it changes anything. in fact notice that the terror alerts have gone up since he was killed and you've got now all these new

threats that are from people that are angry over the killing you've got this war on terrorism is perpetual i mean it's better than the drug war or the cold war i mean it's like this perpetual enemy they kill one guy they produce ten more the civil liberties we're going to see greater infringements on the subway because they've got to keep the safe from all these threats they're producing and lucy at the bottom line it's all about the u.s. empire and the in the so-called right of the empire to dominate the world and that's the root of the sun how do we move forward past this i mean if we are fighting an enemy like al qaeda that is landless that's more of a grander than an actual top down organization i mean you can assassinate all the people you want but the threat remains and more importantly do you think that we're hurting ourselves more a by allowing these kind of policies to go through this. rendition and keeping folks detained without due right to justice could we be hurting our country more by continuing this kind of policy or there's no question about it in other course

they've extended these powers to americans i mean all we need tonight right crisis and they have the same powers that ironically that these dictators in the middle east have and the enemy combatant doctrine the rendition doctrine the kidnapping indefinite detention i mean ultimately i think americans have to confront a fundamental issue do you want your country to be an empire where you've got troops occupying countries in the middle east torturing people kidnapping people and torturing people because if you want that then you're going to be living in this abnormal perverse life where the governments constantly monitor you checking on you infringing on your civil liberties there's only one way to stop all of this and return to a normally functioning prosperous society get the troops out of everywhere bring them home discharge them and then you eliminate all the anger and rage that foreigners have that ultimately manifest itself in the character of retaliatory strike or how do you get. i mean in this climate and politicians are not going to talk about withdrawing troops immediately because it makes them look weak on

defense they're not going to talk about backpedaling on the patriot act and warrantless wiretapping and all the other policies are in place because they don't want to seem weak and moreover when you're talking about lawmakers i mean if you're talking of the military industrial complex there's big money that goes into keeping these folks elected there's big money that goes into contracts for military operations and so there's a financial vested interest in keeping things as status quo and keeping them the way you are they are absolutely you've got power and money and those are the two big ingredients in all this. but ideas have power they have consequences i mean you know my heard some of the same argument during the cold war where the people said how do you bring down the soviet union they have all the guns that they have a monopoly of force in the eastern european countries but through the power of ideas people talking about what it means to be free what it means to have a normally functioning society they brought down the wall of the soviet empire peacefully that same thing can happen here that's what scares these people is the power of ideas you see people like ron paul and gary johnson that are now running

for president bringing these ideas into the forefront of the political arena this is very exciting but it threatens these people that you're talking about that are making big money and game big power over these also well and then you can still make the argument that a lot of the mainstream press still marginalizes candidates like that and ideas like that but i mean even the contrast with the fall of the wall and the end of the cold war but when you're dealing with something like the war on terror which is by definition perpetual because terror is not a country of all the can all how did in the past that i mean the powers that be in my personal view seem to be able to justify an endless conflict if there's no defined enemy in defined benchmarks by which you end that war well they've convinced people that the reason there is a terrorist threat is because foreigners hate america for its freedom and values i mean we heard bush say there are nine eleven if people can figure out that that's not the case. he said all that what's happening is you've got anger and rage over what the u.s.

government is doing to people in the middle east and in latin america with the drug war all over the world and people figure that out then they might simply say you know what it's not worth it to us to have this empire we want to end that and then all of a sudden the terrorist threat evaporates and you don't need all these troops and cia and all this other stuff to protect us against the threats that they themselves are producing with their policies and just just to get your opinion quickly is it almost too little too late have we as has the united states or the country we cannot have and its various wars in the middle east to maybe not even be able to backpedal on that impression that that's so seemingly far mcbride in the anti american cause i don't think so i mean this government killed more than a million vietnamese people and as soon as it withdrew from vietnam none of the vietnamese people came over and retaliated they had lost family members i think most people are sick and tired of perpetual war including people in the middle east there might be some people that might retaliate because their mother their daughter was killed and all these conflicts but that's an isolated type thing that the major

threat in limit is a limited when the empire is forced to withdraw its troops from all these countries and into foreign aid for the dictators you know all those dictators were supporting in the foreign aid to the israeli regime then all of a sudden you can end the torture the kidnapping the rendition the assassinations and all this stuff i mean this is the only way to lead our country out of this thing otherwise you're just trim in the branches you're not pulling the weight up by its roots right and i guess the defense to be seen whether this is something that's going to happen by free will of the politicians or maybe something it would be forced into because of the sustainable economic situation that we're in well if there isn't sending this nation into bankruptcy with all the monies are spent on this thing and difficult times that we live in for sure thank you so much that a cheek a porn burger the president of the future a freedom foundation. now publicly the united states is backing for backing for the pro-democracy uprising in the middle east often consistent consists often consists

of a statement that people must determine their own future but is already correspondent marine a partner i reports that often times means that the u.s. desires to promote its ideologies leads to unexpected results. she is the country clothed in stars and stripes so i just arrived with a nobel peace prize winning president pioneering the big d. around the world let us be clear the united states of america stands with the people of tunisia and supports the democratic aspirations of all people from tunisia. to egypt to libya. lushington has said the will of the people must determine the fate of their country. but in iraq where america claims to be transplanting democracy our renewed sense of nationalism has united thousands against the us we're not supporting the democratic aspirations of people in iraq we haven't been for it for eight years now i mean the iraqi

people have wanted us out and we stayed there for their own good that's not democracy or anger over u.s. occupation that the president george w. bush a party that was in two thousand eight hundred in drafted an agreement promising all american troops would withdraw from iraq by the end of this here in today's more peaceful iraq critics say the pentagon is stepping up pressure to overstay its welcome and cement its pushcart the pentagon is pushing for a military presence after the summer to go to a level around twenty two thousand troops while the white house is talking about ten thousand troops so actually there is an agreement there is a tacit agreement that the u.s. will stay in iraq forty seven thousand u.s. troops still remain in iraq where america's embassy looms large and control over iraq's oil sector is perceived to be overly kopi probably in this eight year war at the very least in order to deny china or any other perceived sensual rivals

control of valuable resource and the idea. ingrained in the thinking of these new york our strength. just see washington d.c. we're still very much in our. control the middle east be closed that's where the. experts say the u.s. wants to remain in the region to keep an eye on syria and contain iran if the develop in syria go to the extent that there is a fall of the regime we don't know what kind of regime or maybe that could be. us three maybe it will be something even worse you cannot withdraw at this juncture but you cannot leave the vacuum iran will just take advantage of a that's from the perception of american interests meanwhile the perception of america's democracy remains somewhat distorted has it been used as a tool to achieve the geo political gains and financial interests who are all

washington in the end listening to the voice of the people growing up or nine artsy new york well that does it for now for more on the stories that we've covered is that r t v dot com slash usa you can also check out our you tube page it's youtube dot com slash r t america and as always you can follow me on twitter by going absolutely caffein up one word and i hope to see you right back here and a half an hour. i think. we never. safe get ready because their freedom.