an. instant. as the public and leaders meet with president obama over how to fit the u.s. debt crisis a debt ceiling vote looms and if history serve is likely to be made so with all of this just political theater. and in the land of the so-called opportunities even minimum wage jobs are hard to come by these days we'll tell you more. and those in afghanistan may be having some deja vu so as it becomes summertime in the city and obama plans to decide how fast to withdraw u.s. troops did the americans pick up in afghanistan where the soviets left off. and

it's us versus them mainstream media outlets may call r.t.s. entertainment channel say it's more like jon stewart than actual news but today we bypass once again and show you what it is we consider newsworthy and it may surprise you but doesn't seem like entertainment at all. but i can and it's wednesday june first four pm here in washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster and you're watching our t.v. now president obama met with house republicans today on the debt ceiling in an exchange that house speaker john boehner called quote very frank we've got how you will but they reportedly reached no agreement and that's really no surprise now on the line is this bickering over the budget and meanwhile there is a risk that the country will default on its debts now it comes just after the white house voted down an increase to the debt limit by two point four trillion now the

country has until august to get its act together and chances are congress will raise the debt limit as it has ten times over the last ten years so is what we're seeing all just what political theater well joining me now to talk all about it is motley he is president of less government. and caroline hellbent she is professor of politics at occidental college i want to thank both of you guys for joining me so first of all can we just agree that the debt ceiling needs to be raised and this is all showmanship in the meantime big picture seen no those need to be program will get to that professor hellmann what do you think i think it definitely needs to be raised it's been raised one hundred times since it was established and republicans are generally generally the ones in favor of raising it ok so what do you say to that scene i mean there is the whole scenario that people believe if the u.s. defaults on its debts that will send shock waves through the entire globe so how can you say that is you can that resume writing and not raise it and you couldn't root not raise it is something a pending in pay or debtors how is that possible because the i.r.s.

continues to collect revenue regardless of whether or not we raise the debt ceiling while many would argue with the economy we're in dire straits as it is with joblessness still so high that this is really a revenue crisis more than anything it is a crisis the government spends too much money we increase spending by twenty nine percent in just the last four years the federal level so what do we cut defense no there's not going programs that are stupid wasteful abusive and demonstrably ineffective what do we cut medicare medicare medicaid social security let's start with the constitutional unprescribed duties of the federal government it mentions the national defense it does not mention medicare medicaid or social security all right professor help me get in here what do you say to that what do we cut. well i would say we actually look at what caused the problem which is not this one time spike in spending as a result of tarp and the economic stimulus but rather look at the structural deficit problems nine out of ninety percent of our structural deficit problems can be attributed to policies passed in the bush administration mostly having to do

with cutting taxes on the wealthy and getting into wars we can't afford and about ten percent are due to president obama spending and the stimulus package so we can't go in with this big sword and start cutting things that didn't actually cause a problem what is there that it's fundamentally untrue the biggest deficit bush have is four hundred billion but obama has been over one point two trillion each year he's been in the white house all of these structural got as a result of tarp spending on the economic stimulus we've already done one time which was stupid spending so we can to stupid so get out of the great depression you know the rest are great depression prolong the recession and let me finish my thought absent the structural fundamental problems or social security medicare and medicaid liberal socialist ponzi schemes that are crushing the the budget and consuming all of the federal spending but what about the u.s. economy you know what would you say about the joblessness about the current government in the last thirty or so i think is going to say what is government experience the private sector contracts because it eats up more money it's

borrowing more money it's paying taxes more all of which i construct that is not very common but yes it's absolutely not at all what's happening right now and i can only think of stockpiled more money than i've ever had carolyn i want to give you a second to respond to what the just said about what's really the problem in this economy what stapling growth what do you think it is. well if it was stifling if social security and medicare were stifling growth what i've seen the zero deficit spending that we had under under bill clinton you did say that those were the driving problems and that's where we should cut yes because the baby boomers are twenty years older of now than then they're now retiring and we're going to our allan they're going to have later let's talk about the effect of fiscal austerity you know i mean seen what about in the u.k. where they've imposed physical austerity and any kind of get one look at the cost that it's taken on the economy but what do you say to the toll that it's a computer game day he got ok just let me ask you this first consumer spending has contracted people are predicting that their recovery is going to be pushed out

further as a result of austerity measures when he was right library the united states yes it's not what's causing so you would prescribe that for the united i would slow down the . order for austerity you know you're linking two things that are fundamentally diametrically opposed to one another government spending did democracy really damage is private sector recovery as we've seen with you nearly one trillion dollar stimulus bill we've still got the ways to try you know argue that that should have been more and that in fact i guess we're going to put their name there in the minor james king's fence club it didn't work in the thirty's it prolong the great depression for a decade and it hasn't worked now what has worked extending bush tax cuts we have seen that money benefit the rich but i mean it hasn't trickled down corporations it hasn't your daughter c.e.o. pay has gone up but the poor are still poor just people are settling because i'm not really you know the government is creating uncertainty at every turn and yes you see the e.p.a. the national labor relations board or all assaulting the private sector with regulatory regimes that make it impossible for them to know what's coming next and

they will not create jobs they will not expand their businesses in such an uncertain regulatory climate as is being fostered by president caroline let me get in here because many people would argue the last thirty years we've seen massive deregulation of many businesses industries wall street being one of the biggies what do you think. well see i don't think you can simultaneously say that government. when government spends that it causes a private sector to shrivel up and then look at the facts which is that the stock market has rebounded four thousand points during this economic gastric i mean streak. is me excuse me i need to finish my thought here so that we're going to answer already w. bush. we have seen corporate profits go up about forty percent corporations are stockpiling piling trillions of dollars we have never seen the sort of recovery where wealthy people are getting wealthier and corporations are doing so well at the exact same time that the government is is spending all of this money which

actually saved wall street which got us in a liquidity crisis in the first place so how do you how do you balance those two facts because you just answered you just made by point for me government spending why you suggest between the haves and the have nots government overregulation why does the gap between the haves and the have not answered the question that no address let's take let's tax rats what i said let's look let me get in here caroline what do you think he needs to answer. i think you need to tell me why corporations are doing so well given your theory that government spending somehow stifles the private sector that's a great question what if they did that because they're they're sitting on money that was handed to them by the federal treasury they're not speed they're not creating the well worker ations are i mean. paid back their money no no no a lot of them have not that's they've been playing with other government money chrysler has done that g.m. has done that a lot of the last two banks have just taken other government money to repay other

government money it's not going to recovery we're going to lose you know obama claims we're going to make a profit on bill you know we're not he just now announced today that we over all you know we're not going to obama just announced they were going to lose twenty percent of our money over sixteen billion out of the eighty we spent i mean let me erika's i want to you know it's his number not mine ok let me get in here i want to ask a question you say that the debt ceiling does not need to be rates what about and reality where the united states has to be able to sell its debt to forecast investors in order to finance its operations what happens when investors no longer have the faith of the united states can pay its bills and it also is that what about that what about reality the reality the reality is are they going to have more faith in us if we actually start to rein in spending or are they going to have more faith in this if we continue to. artificially inflate the ceiling is how they are doing is it only is a question but i think they were faith that we can go out and yet tim geithner is being fundamentally disingenuous he runs the show if we do not raise the debt ceiling and his magic date which by the way he's already moved one to such

a die hard date will get i did not want is borrowed from peter to pay for pensions and that's what he said no matter comes into the treasury. if he wants to pay off the debtors with one of the comes into the treasury if you want to play games and play chicken with the economy his words not mine he can spend the money elsewhere on all the stupid programs that are going to exist you're going to earn it ok it's as he does and i think you're talking about things like medicare people want that how do you bridge the gap that people don't want these programs. that. people want free ponies to but we can still afford that anymore either is medicare free pony. wow you're equating making sure that elderly people have good medical care to free pony's government medical care isn't good medical care that's fundamentally contradict that is that it that is fundamentally you are fundamentally wrong about that we actually spend less and overhead costs because they probably should you know if you understand what they do you know the understand what they do in medicare they pay much lower rates for goods and services the amount of time they

think they pay when you pick up the terrible thing with our private sector insurance the shit the cost of i'm happy to do that i am not about to make sure that's good for you as not ok once or twice. a year or more yourself. why don't you let me get on to my next question because i want to know if that left one thing i want to talk about the u.s. recovery obviously the debt ceiling is something that we all feel has something to do with it and one way or another also one thing that many people would argue is a big part of that is jobs and jobs numbers that we just saw come out from a.t.p. pete payroll numbers were much weaker than analysts were expected it showed private sector job growth of just thirty eight thousand jobs this was far below the one hundred seventy thousand that were expected that means people are worried about the friday government jobs numbers that are about to come out and artie's green important one of our reporters look at where americans are vying for jobs and i want to play that report. there the golden arches that stretched across the globe

from london to brussels to moscow and millions flocked to mcdonald's in search of french fries and big macs but what about those in search of a career if i was in dire straits i might go to mcdonald's but the entire time i was there would be looking for something better not to offend but employee i would look for other things first that's for sure i don't know but it's yeah no. look myself i think it's just the words that you would say about the job ever. meanwhile just across the atlantic the same a roma. but a much greater sense of appreciation for this great work and i was able to go from a real person to restaurant manager. the benefits ongoing benefits working with people day in and day out. it is a secure career and it's

a secure in the u.s. where nearly fourteen million people are unemployed a career at mcdonald's has become appealing back in april the fast food chain launched its first ever national hiring day nearly one million people applied for a job but only six out of every one hundred applicants or higher. we've created sixty two thousand new minimum wage u.s. jobs in one day but for the past seven weeks more than four hundred thousand americans filed new claims for unemployment this as forty five million americans are reportedly already receiving food stamps economist and author les leopold says washington is ignoring a ticking time bomb we have the richest country on earth and can put its own people to work that's an sastre waiting to happen as that by far the biggest threat to american people in the wake of osama bin laden's assassination u.s.

leaders say terrorism continues to be the biggest threat against americans there is no doubt that it will continue to pursue attacks against us against a country where some forty four million americans don't have health insurance a reported one in seven children are homeless america's double war bill tops one point two trillion and the richest four hundred americans hold more wealth than the bottom fifty percent combined two unfunded wars and tax cuts for the super rich they've lost their focus they no longer half their eye on the prize which is you half a point the american people back to work back to work in what's been dubbed a make jobs us recovery we're a nationwide recruitment drive by a low wage employer still sends ninety four percent of applicants back to the golden arches q merino port ny on r.t. new york. ok so a million people applied to mcdonald's on that one hundred april sixty two thousand

got jobs not a high rate of employment but more than forty percent of americans who are employed now according to some figures on the business insider are now in service jobs paying low wages and income disparity in this country hasn't been this great in eighty years so what do you do and what do the american people that are making minimum wage do without medicare social security or medicaid will be you get the government out of the way again but when i do this on the way we went on the job wait wait wait you said but the disparity between wealthy and poor is greater than it's been in eighty years which takes us back to the great depression which was the last time the federal government was this problem active in this arc of invading the private sector there is not a disconnect here the connect is the greater to the federal level into the private sector the greater insertion of the government into the free market invading the free market creates look when you talk are they going to do it now without food stamps forty three million more people need to be all right margaret what

a great economic recovery or it's not three what exactly is going to trigger a recovery in forty three steps outside the answer my question what are people going to do without food stamps have gotten a good look this is just magically be able to eat carolina where they can eat. well you know as someone who received food stamps a number of times when i was a poor child i can say that scene it doesn't sound like you have actually been in economic straits because you know what you're talking about i was uneasy shang let them eat cake the whole point is that we need these benefits especially when you're unemployed and especially when we have wages that aren't living wages it's not an initial of other government interfering in our private yes it is it's the decline of unions who we no longer have living wages so if you don't like insiders and want unions there's like you need jobs who provide a service will not be true and i'm certain that i mean wages seven point two percent of the private sector is unionized that's it's a dying industry you want to have unions argue there's been a war against what in the last two months you know over the last thirty years you

know the people of chosen not to unionize states vote themselves states that i have pains you see let me let me tell you her campaign line if they get the caught up against kerry like that you want to say that's not true that it hasn't worked if you want to look at where wages have been increasing if you want to look at the place where you are living wage jobs and. others that are budget crisis but texas is a kind of used two point two percentage points better than the rest of the united states so they are not anything i'd look at blowing up or going to. bowling is leaving the hammer of the union in with washington state and going to south carolina right to work state because it's cheaper to do business and creating jobs and they are cheaper to do business just you don't think they mean the listeners on that that's of labor i'll just as the labor gets a paycheck labor gets a page of their paycheck has to be enough to eat or else they're going to be need to be on food there how do you get out of that like what's pretty good the the way to go to the cycle is what's better having a job at

a slightly lower wage or not having the job at all when boeing leaves the state let's say that are making i learn al i'm going to that's not enough any wanted to pay you know now because the government has a minimum wage other minimum wage and all it does is price poor people out of jobs . that's not true that's our. salut you should you can afford to afford to hire ten people at three dollars an hour you can only afford to put. people at six dollars an hour and that's what i'm doing i understand there you go you understand understand math well i do understand basic math thank you very much i don't mean i think it's really interesting that you bring up three dollars an hour because if employers could pay that then we taxpayers would be making up the difference people making mental notes now who cannot afford landmark walmart gives an introduction to their employees where they pass out things for public assistance for food stamps and other other public employee program or publications the mexican government the difference when you are not involved the mexican government hands out how to get

food stamps and everything in our country if you want to if you want to drive up wages get rid of the twenty million illegal aliens that are here drug and wage that are guided by what if you target companies that hire them so you are what i was like i would put the hammer lock on cars on companies that hire illegal aliens absolutely all right it doesn't how much time do i have got a time are we are we keep on going here we have one more question here i want to ask you really quickly because we did talk about the revenue crisis you mention taxes they have base their revenue crisis to i was just like i was ok but people are dying i mean there's a story police and firemen in alameda california watched a man literally drowned on monday because they didn't have the third occasion to get him out of the water or even get his body and they laid it on budget cuts and in addition you have saved now or he's been spending way too much for that because it's a loan i was ok hold on but with so many states that are struggling to fill these budget holes are we going have to look start looking more outside gawking at illinois that is looking at massively expanding gambling are these the kind of things we're going to be spending don't look for new revenue streams stuff but how

do you need more learned you know if there's not buckle there is politics involved you need more regular white why do you think. government shrinks the free market expands because you know that good people magically have homes again or pay property tax on them they failed. it is when the government is borrowing money it's taking money out of the system that auto nora's could borrow to start businesses are people going to family the comment this is going to get money right now despite the fed pouring all this money that's a case of government is too involved in the ecology it's uncertain you know those are they don't go away ok we're going to leave it at that i'm so sorry you guys i wish i had more time with you that was caroline how then professor of politics at off the dental college and seen motley president less government now we touched a little bit on defense spending and meanwhile this month president barack obama is set to decide how fast the u.s. will begin withdrawing troops from afghanistan that's set to begin next month now this comes at a time when afghan president hamid karzai has ordered nato to stop striking houses it is saying no and karzai is also warning that foreign forces are close to the

behavior of an occupation saying that afghan people know how to deal with that and that history is a witness to how afghanistan deals with occupation and looking back at just how they dealt with that say during the soviet occupation joining me now is jerry van dyke he is a journalist and author of this book captive my time as a prisoner of the taliban running from new york right now i want to thank you so much for being here with me i want to just point out you know we saw in april two americans that were training security forces that were killed by a man in afghan police uniform and he became a local hero for killing american soldiers now ten years ago a reporter in our office my boss who was reporting in his region in afghanistan covering the conflict said that afghans were kissing the hands of american soldiers what does that say about winning the hearts and minds in afghanistan. it says everything that you know we're not what we have here is the specter of general

petraeus talking to congress talking to the american public talk through journalists saying that the war is going extremely well the counterinsurgency effort that was started under general petraeus and was done extremely well in my view under general mcchrystal has now changed where the united states is not is now we have a one tanks in helmand province we have launched more air attacks more night attacks on houses more civilian deaths than at any time in the ten years that the united states and its allies have been in afghanistan you are right in two thousand and one october two thousand and one afghans were almost universally happy that the americans had come and rid them of the taliban in the same way what we've had now is the united states initially went into afghanistan not to fight the taliban under under president bush we were there to prevent the united states or excuse me from the united states from being again attacked from afghanistan our

goal was to dismantle destruct destroy and anyway al qaeda that war has evolved over a period of ten years into not a war against al qaeda or maybe according to all intelligence estimates all talks coming from the white house and so forth of about fifty maximum to one hundred al qaeda people in the country the war has morphed into a war against the taliban and the taliban have morphed into a war which he was tied to nationalism and so what you have is in my experience having worked as a newspaper reporter in the one nine hundred eighty s. there of the new york times in the last ten years more for c.b.s. that many people in the countryside do not see a difference in their eyes because they're judging solely upon the people who are killed in their villages and the continuation of this war and the lack of reconstruction in their eyes that the soviet union in the united states are both infidels coming close in the united states is coming close to being seen as an occupying power and then do you think that that family actually want to have it for

anything in one thousand nine hundred ninety. there is a similarity with the soviets were facing in the in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine from one thousand nine hundred eighty nine to one thousand nine hundred nine was a very strong insurgency which was supplied which was financed by the united states and equally by saudi arabia to a lesser degree try and it was backed wholeheartedly by pakistan through which all of the funds where this time what you have in this is very interesting is that the taliban and according to the pentagon there are perhaps twenty five thousand to kellogg's who are fighting against nato and you have over one hundred thousand american troops plus nato its nato allies the soviet union had a maximum of one hundred fifteen thousand during its period there that the united states is waging a war against people who do not have the financial backing the league the mujahideen did really quickly i guess we're almost out of time but i just laughed i got to now question that bit judging by your reaction to my first question i want

to know whether the united states withdraw its troops can morrow or ten years from now do you think that far is already lost i don't think the. short answer the united states is not winning the war the war is not completely lost the united states is very close to being called involved into what is no i would call a quagmire we have to find a way to extricate ourselves from there without handing the country back over to the tell of it that is why president karzai is making these statements he of course is extremely angry as any leader would be as any parent would be because so many civilians are being killed on both sides by the taliban and by the united states however there is a saying in afghanistan it is better to be the slave of a master than the slave of a slave president karzai has to show that he's on the side of the afghan people as well as on the side of the americans he's caught in the bargain all right it's a very tricky situation i want to thank you joe for helping us to sort through with all of your wealth of experience that was gerry van dyke journalist and author of

captive my time as a prisoner of the taliban and. now this is the part of the show where we get a chance to respond to some of the criticism of our t.v. it's come via the mainstream press that didn't call us to ask how we responded maybe you saw the segment last week and there was such an outpouring of opinion to it on the internet that i wanted to share some of the u two comments with you one r.t. tells more truth than it about america then c.n.n. fox a.b.c. c.b.s. m.s.m. d.c. and all the newspapers combined that itself makes r t a saint compared to the trashed bed to americans in the rest of the world that's why the attack dogs are out in force to try and discredit r.t. i'm pleased with the truth archie uncovers or at least ask the questions no one else is asking in the media that is from a user parallel another says i work for c.b.s. and the a.b.c. n.p.t.'s and a twenty six year career in news and network programming from journalist

a news producer i was fired for trying to expose the lies within the military industrial media complex about iraq and other and with cover ups r t is not perfect but there are far more. truth told in the traitors liars and media whores that i experienced first hand i was from affinity net news and then someone said r t and the onion network go hand in hand i like watching jon stewart for your news that was hobo fifty nine well thank you hobo fifty nine could you actually bring me to the criticism i want to address today in an interview on n.p.r. when the guess from global media wars dot com was asked to describe artie's coverage this was his analysis he called it cold entertainment news and the gist of that entertainment is making fun of the united states their content is not trying to take itself that seriously now in that interview to interview were from n.p.r. said quote about our coverage of osama bin ladin laughing joking maybe they thought the whole thing would just blow over and then also in that global media wars report if we could go to the next slide they said artie's high production values can't

hide its lack of substantive journalism you know ok so to be fair with that criticism i checked out some of the pollsters and pew research tracked the top mainstream media stories week by week so you can see an actual breakdown of the top five stories each week and looking back there is a really really great example where we did we totally missed one of the five biggest stories covered that week by the mainstream media take a look. let us begin with charlie sheen we don't have to tell you for the past week it has been wall to wall charlie sheen on t.v. . it's five thirty am charlie sheen climbs the stairs of his hollywood hills mansion by people brooke say he's taking his media blitz to the next level sheen provided to line with his own never before seen version of his reality tonight charlie sheen he's been everywhere for the last three days and at the end of our shooting we wondered as you no doubt will what did we just witness that's what

we're wondering you know we totally missed it i'm sorry we did not cover charlie sheen at all just to look back at what we did cover i look at some of what our top stories were that week that same week take a look. america's middle class fighting the war already historic. all of. this is especially true in southern california where formants have fractured the cohesiveness of the law community and fearful retaliation by. uncertainty over production and said person soaring meaning the shock waves from the middle east turmoil are being felt worldwide the u.s. sixth fleet has been repossessed ships in the mediterranean and u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton stated quote nothing is off the table and as we just saw british prime minister david cameron has echoed the sentiments. as violence continues in libya the u.s. sends one.