as republican leaders meet with the president over how to fix the u.s. debt crisis a debt ceiling vote looms and if history is likely to be made so is this all just political theater in the time. of literacy. and in the so-called land of opportunities even minimum wage jobs are hard to come by these days. and those in afghanistan may be having deja vu so as it becomes summertime in the city and obama plans to decide how fast it would draw u.s. troops will the west go the way of other empires that have occupied that country.

and is there a war on our t.v. mainstream media calls r.t. entertainment and lacking substantive journalism we'll give you a side by side comparison you be the judge. now president obama met with house republicans today on the debt ceiling in an exchange that house speaker john boehner called quote very frank read that 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's a risk that the country will default on its debts and 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 no it was a new groups for ok we'll get to that professor holden 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 think that scene i mean there is the whole scenario that people believe that the u.s. imports on its debts that will send shock waves through the entire globe so how can you say that as you can tell you're not right that you couldn't root not raise the debt ceiling and pay all orders how is that possible because the i.r.s. continues to collect revenue regardless of whether or not we raise the debt ceiling what many would argue with the economy would it be in dire straits if it isn't a god with us still so high but this is really a revenue crisis more than anything it is a revenue crisis the government spends too much money we increased spending by twenty nine percent in just the last four years at the federal level so why do we

cut defense you know there's nine million programs that are stupid wasteful abusive and demonstrably ineffective why do we cut medicare medicare medicaid social security let's start with the constitutionally prescribed duties of the federal government it mentions the national defense it does not mention medicare medicaid or social security all right professor how do i get in here what do you say to that . 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 from 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 do you think that that's fundamentally untrue because the deficit

bush had was four hundred billion well bomber's been over one point two trillion each year he's been in the white house these structural got as a result of tarp spending on the economic stimulus we've already. had one time which was stupid spending so we can try to put so out of the great depression. the respiratory depression the longer recession and let me finish my thought. there's 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 events in the last thirty. years government experience the private sector contracts because it eats up more money it's pouring more money it's. more all of which that is not very common but yes it's absolutely not at all what's happening right now and i can't. have stockpiled more money than they've ever had caroline i want to give you is likely to respond to what they ingest said about what's really the

problem and as economy what stifling growth what do you think it is. well if it was stifling if social security and medicare were stifling growth so i want to say seen the zero zero deficit spending that we had under under bill clinton and you did say that those were the driving problems and i don't know that's where we should cut yes because the baby boomers are twenty years older than out and then they're going to retire and we're going to get a little let's talk about the impact of viscosity though i mean seen what about in the u.k. where they've imposed fiscal austerity and kind of get one look at the cost that it's taken on the economy but what do you say that's all that it's a computer game day 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 us kerry measuring it when he was a driver of the united states yes it's not what's causing the you would prescribe that for the united and down the. order for austerity you know you're linking two things that are fundamentally diametrically opposed to one another government spending. too much really damages private sector recovery as we've seen with you

nearly one trillion dollars stimulus bill. to try you all argue that that should have been more and that in fact i guess we're going to put a name there in the. friends 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 trickle down corporations it has your daughter's evo pay has gone up but the poor are still poor jugglers are going to go nowhere. the government is creating uncertainty at every turn the f.c.c. the e.p.a. the national labor relations board are 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 and such an uncertain regulatory climate as is being tossed about present 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. wealthy and i don't think you can simultaneously say that government. when government spends that it causes the 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 airstream i'm going to. use me excuse me i need to finish my thought here so you know that it's true already dummy of course. we have seen corporate profits go up about forty percent corporations are stop oiling 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 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 factors because you just you just made my point for me government spending why does the gap between the haves and the have nots government overregulation why does the

gap between what has no answer that. i don't know address less. taxes that's what i say 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 do you think of that because they're there are sitting on money that was handed to them by the federal treasury they're not they're not creating the well for a sense are i mean. they got their money well no no no a lot of them have not that's they've been playing with other government money price was done that g.m. has done that a lot of the wall street banks have just taken other government money to repay other government money it's not been a recovery. obama claim we're going to make a profit on but we're not he just now announced today that we are all you know we're not we're going to obama just to now say we're 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. where the united states has to be able to get to foreign aid as there is and then that's there is in order to finance that operation well happens when investors no longer have the faith that the united states can pay its bills i default on its debt and what about debts what about reality the reality and the reality is are they going to have more faith in us if we actually start to rein in spending or they're going to have more faith in us if we continue to bargain artificially inflate the ceiling you know how many i did assuming is a question i think they will face that we're going to 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 once if it's such a die hard game why do you want what is borrowed from peter to pay the pensions that's what is there not comes into the treasury. if you want to pay off the debtors with wanted to come to the treasury you can 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 guys are on it ok it's as you thousand i think you're talking about things like medicare people want but how do you bridge the gap that people don't want these programs. rather rely on if we can take people want free ponies too but we can't afford that anymore either is medicare free pony. wow or you're equating making sure that elderly people have good medical care to free ponies government i don't care isn't good medical care the sort of mentally contract that is that it that is fundamentally you are fundamentally wrong about that we actually spend less and overhead costs that's because they probably sure you understand what they do you know the interest in what they do in medicare they are they pay much lower rates for goods and services the amount of time they pay we pick up a terrible time with our private sector insurance costs so i'm happy to do that i am no i've got to make sure that's true for you as medicare. let. me hear about yourself. why don't you let me get on to my next question because i want to move

this ahead let's 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 the 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 very 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 in 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. i think it's just the words the bits you would say about the job. meanwhile just across the atlantic the same a roma you're going to go but a much greater sense of appreciation this great work and i was able to go from person to restaurant manager. the benefits on going benefits working with people. it is a secure career and it's a secure in the us 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 were hired. we've done was 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 was forty five million americans are reportedly already receiving food stamps khana mist and author unless leopold says washington is ignoring a ticking time bomb we have the richest country on earth. to work that's a disaster waiting to happen that's a far the biggest threat to the american people in the wake of those. some of the assassination u.s. leaders say terrorism continues to be the biggest threat against americans there is no doubt that there 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 one point

two trillion and the richest four hundred americans hold more wealth in the bottom fifty percent combined to unfunded wars and tax cuts for the super rich they lost their focus they no longer have their eye on the prize which is you half the american people back to work back to work in what's being dubbed the big jobs us recovery we're a nation wide recruitment drive by a low wage employer still sends ninety four percent of applicants back to the golden arches merino artsy new york i saw a million people applied to mcdonald's on that one day in april sixty two thousand got jobs not a high rate of employment 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 they can disparity in this country hasn't been this great and 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 you get the government out of the way again let me know if you really want i'm not sure what you do sir but the disparity between wealthy in 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 proactive and this active invading the private sector there is not a disconnect here the connect is the greater the at 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 thought i'm going to do it now without food stamps forty three million people need to be. the great economic recovery. from the cleaners in recovery in forty three we're on food stamps housing answer my question what are people going to do without food stamps made look this is 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 have no idea 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 a miniature of of the government interfering in the private yes it is it's the decline of unions who we no longer have living wages so if you don't want unions by users like you need jobs and the private sector doesn't not you it's not like that i'm sorry but i mean wages seven point two percent of the private sector is unionized that's it's a dying entity if you want to the unions argue there's been a war against. in the last two months you know over the last thirty years you know the people of chosen not to you states go through space that i have always easy let me let me tell you campaign. against caroline that we 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. prices the taxes are kind of used two point two percentage points good or the rest of the united states so they are not anything i look at growing up or going. going is leaving the hammer of the union in washington state i'm going to south carolina right to work state because it's cheaper to do business in creating jobs right archies our to do business yes you know that they believe is this on the backs of labor i'll just as they later get to paycheck labor gets a page of that decade check out to be enough to eat or are they going to be need to be on. how do you get out of that like a large part of the the way to go to the. cycle is what's better having the job at a slightly lower wage or not having the job at all when boeing leaves the state what's better making two dollars an hour i'm going to that's what i'm going to be wide to pay you know now because the government has a minimum wage you know the minimum wage and all it does is price poor people out of jobs. that's not true that's absolutely true if you can afford to hire ten

people at three dollars an hour you can only afford to hire five people six dollars an hour and now don't you understand there you go do you understand i understand math well i do understand basic math thank you very much i don't you know 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 he pulled making minute ok now who cannot afford what mark o'mara has an introduction to their employees where they pass out things for public assistance for food stamps and other other public employee programs are part ok and the mexican government here you go to france when you wages are not involved the mexican government hands out how to get food stamps and everything in our country if you want to get rid you want to drive up wages get rid of twenty million illegal aliens that are here driving down wages like our guy would if you target companies that hire them for. what i was like i would put the hammer lock on cars on companies that hire illegal aliens absolutely. and that was caroline hellbent professor of politics at

occidental college and state money president of less government without debate now meanwhile this month president barack obama is set to decide just 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 ordered nato to stop striking houses nato is saying no and karzai is warning that foreign forces are close to the behavior of an occupation and afghan people know how to deal with that he says that history is the witness to show how afghanistan deals with occupation and looking back at just how they dealt with that during the soviet occupation earlier i spoke with jerry van dyke is a journalist and author of this book captive my time as a prisoner of the taliban here's what he had to say. many people in the countryside do not see a difference in their eyes because they are judging solely upon the people who are killed in their villages in the continuation of this war and the reconstruction in their eyes that the soviet union in the united states are both in sybil's coming

close in the united states is coming close to being seen as occupying power so then do you see this is similar to what the soviets were facing in one thousand nine hundred ninety. there is a similarity with the soviets were facing in the one nine hundred seventy nine from one thousand nine hundred 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 china and it was backed wholeheartedly by pakistan through which all the funds went this time what you have and this is very interesting is that the taliban and according to the pentagon there are perhaps twenty five thousand khaled's who are fighting against nato and you have over one hundred thousand american troops plus nato its nato allies 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 elite the mujahideen

did really quickly i guess we're almost out of time but i just laugh going after. that but judging by your reaction to my first question i want to know whether the united states because troops can or ten years from now do you see this war 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 in very close to being called involved in what is now i would call a quagmire we have to find a way to extricate ourselves from there without having the country back over to the taliban that is why president karzai is making the 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 a slave of a master than the slave of a slave. that was gerry van dyke only with his words he is journalist and author of

the book captive my time as a prisoner of the taliban. now this is the part of the show that we're going to do once a week where we get a chance to respond and to reflect on some of the criticism of r.t. from the mainstream press they of course didn't call us to ask us to respond so we want to respond to you to our viewers who ever is watching 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 you tube comments with you here is one it says r t tells more about the truth than about america rather than c.n.n. fox a.b.c. c.b.s. and n.b.c. and all of the newspapers combined that in itself makes r t a saint thank you compared to the trash fed to americans and the rest of the world that's why the attack dogs are out in force to try to discredit our tea i'm very pleased with the truth our t.n. covers or at least ask the questions no one else in the media is asking that was

corral one of our viewers another says i worked for c.b.s. n.b.c. a.b.c. and p.b.s. in a twenty six year career in news and network programming from journalist to news producer i was fired for trying to expose the lies within the military industrial media complex about iraq and other endless cover ups r t is not perfect but they're far more truthful than the traitors liars and media whores that i experienced first hand i was from affinity news and here's another that says r t and the onion network go hand in hand kind of like watching jon stewart for your news that was from hobo fifty nine and hobo fifty nine that actually thank you bring me to the criticism that we want to address today in an interview on n.p.r. with a guest from global media wars dot com that guest was asked to describe artie's coverage to see what his assessment of it would be this was his analysis it is entertainment news and the gist of that entertainment is making fun of the. united states their content doesn't try to take itself that seriously now in that same interview the

interview were from n.p.r. talking about archie's coverage of osama bin laden's death said laughing well hey maybe they were just thinking the whole thing would blow over and also the global media wars guessed that in its report on r.t.e. that artie's high production values cannot hide its lack of substantive journalism so we want to take a look you know i wanted to go back and look at mainstream media coverage vs what our t.v. was covering in similar times and to do this i checked some pollsters research out pew research tracks the top mainstream media stories week by week so you can see a breakdown of the top five stories that they cover and that given time and looking back i did see that god there is a really really great example where we totally missed one of the five biggest stories of the week that was covered by the mainstream media take a look at let us begin with charlie sheen we don't have to tell you for the past week it is sort of wall to wall charlie sheen on t.v. . it's five thirty am charlie sheen climbs the series of his hollywood hills

mansion five people brooke say he's taking his media blitz to the next level sheen provided deep line with these oh never before seen version of his reality. 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 wondered why didn't we just minutes we totally miss it here artie we didn't cover charlie sheen at all but to compare i look back at what our top stories were some of them in that we take a look. america's middle class fighting the mournful ready historic. this is especially true in so that california where peter formants have fractured the cohesiveness of the law body community i'm fearful of retaliation because of. uncertainty over production has sent prices soaring i mean the shock waves from the

middle east turmoil are being felt worldwide the u.s. sixth fleet has been repossessed thing and ships in the mediterranean and u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton stated quote nothing is off the table and as we just saw the british prime minister david cameron has echoed the sentiments. but as violence continues in libya the u.s. sends warships and more troops in that direction fueling speculation that the military intervention on. the. seat. there was. getting louder. they were protests libya middle east oil charlie sheen you decide which is more entertaining or more of entertainment news or more serious journalism but i want to you know to be fair that was a big week for charlie sheen a very big week he lost it so maybe it would just be better to look at one day where another big story broke that we missed and on this day we missed covering one

of the biggest newsmakers of the week he was number three according to pew research that week arnold schwarzenegger say there are sure to those arnold schwarzenegger arnold schwarzenegger the governor california woke up today to a bob short shorts in anger admitting he had a child with a staff member who worked for the family for twenty years we now learn maria demanded he move out of the revelation. it was a bombshell for everybody except for r t what were recovering on that very day look in afghanistan today as these eleven people were killed and eighty injured when violent protests broke out after a nato raid that allegedly killed four civilians g twenty finance ministers are meeting in argentina to address commodity prices they're concerned about volatility now you may recall food prices have broken two thousand a tracker dogs have to be covered new of course died in misrata libya and it was the story he was covering that they were his life and obviously the u.s.

dollar is something that is the subject of a world bank report that just came out saying that it does not expect dollar gemini in twenty twenty five first of all sorry after so much of me i just happen to be anchoring that day that the big news broke with arnold but arnold commodity prices war which impacts more people i mean whose music worthiness is is more entertainment based you decide and let's just look to it what is going to the biggest stories this very day on the cable networks let's look. at new developments in the casey anthony murder trial the casey anthony murder trial now is in its seventh casey anthony's mother cindy break down on what it is. casey anthony all over breaking down every single little tidbit of one murder trial that effects one family that is now expected to rival o.j.

simpson levels of media coverage six hundred press have reportedly been credentialed for one criminal case today we're talking about the economy the debt ceiling unemployment a million people trying to get jobs and it donald's you can decide we just gave you three examples of some of the different choices and coverage you can decide which you think is more entertaining more substantive journalism and i'm going to have to leave you on that note because that is going to go for now one of the stories we covered go to our tea dot com slash usa check out our you tube page youtube dot com slash r t america and follow me on twitter at lauren the star and we will be back with more news and analysis and opinion shows in the next coming hours please stay tuned. into it with the reclusive to do the work to bring justice to the would. not have to carefully right to know what our government would you want to know why i think taxes.