when are we near winner leaner and meaner than we are. so today i'm announcing my resignation from congress. yeah you can forget all that because in other real news president obama is getting sued over libya will break down the fight over checks and balances. the sign of the times welcome to bloomberg bill a small borough of protesters is setting up shop in new york city they say they are moving until mayor bloomberg takes back his budget cuts.

just a day on the life of a new york city cyclist so what's with the have to find there anyway should the police be protecting citizens and not to mention bikers and said. good evening it's thursday june sixteenth it's five pm here in washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster and you're watching r.t. well take a look at the big news coming from capitol hill today. we know we're a leaner and meaner leader wiener. and maybe this is the theory is right now anthony weiner about to announce his resignation so today i'm announcing my resignation from congress. for a lot of anger in that room socially for the morning for almost exactly four minutes he is here rock bottom are there seeds of a potential if he were to come back in that maybe this was just the beginning of

the healing but not the end of his political career those four minutes all over the mainstream media and believe it or not wieners resignation is maybe not the most important news you need to know coming from the nation's capital as the united states continues its military intervention in libya the two branches of government are now battling it out as a result ten members of congress and backed are suing president obama in an attempt to end the conflict in libya for failing to get congressional approval now the white house for its part claims it is not in violation of the law because it's not actually a war but is just operating in a support role now first i want to throw up a graphic so you can decide what you think the u.s. involvement has been or is in libya so let's look at this so there you can see graphically what the u.s. presence as far as the ships the planes the coalition force is that it has in some way deployed in libya now let's compare it to another nato ally look at the u.k.

wow why did if rence let's bring up another what about maybe france they are pushing for this all along oh quite a little difference so it's up to you to decide what you think the u.s. involvement is how much of a support role you think it plays verses you know whether it's in hostilities as the white house argues it is not earlier though i spoke to this about this really with david swanson he is author of this book you see right here war is a lie i asked him if he could prove the white house wrong because he's willing to believe that this war is illegal here's his response. white house doesn't make the arguments that many of its supporters make the argument it made in its report to congress yesterday was that the war powers act does not apply much less the constitution because this is neither a war nor hostilities this is something else this is a military operation that doesn't rise to the level of hostilities which is

absolutely absurd the war powers act was written in one nine hundred seventy three very intentionally and clearly to encompass all military engagements seem clearly imminent threats of us still of these and anything i'm only two possibilities. and so there was a program yesterday when congressman dennis senator made it was this morning congressman dennis kucinich was to be a former lawyer from the reagan white house he was defending obama and he asked this guy twice never got an answer if there were two thousand missions over the united states by a foreign nation and many of them were dropping bombs would there be war would that be hostilities right i would have that i'm saying i want to ask you david because even if you know you say that it doesn't even matter what they were i think that it would be illegal but what about their argument that the u.s. has a support role and that they're not engaged in hostilities aren't the rounds striking libya still is that not hostilities. they are in the president's report yesterday

admitted that in sort of apparent better poll remark but the war powers act i have more and more respect for this law it was written in one thousand nine hundred eighty three and it's this if a plea says this includes hostilities in military operations for the united states is a partner with other nations in acting in this sort of a role it's in their read that law to argue that it doesn't apply for reasons that the crafters of that law had the foresight to anticipate is just crazy but when president obama constitutional law what do you think you know what he's really thinking here. can't well he's thinking that he's the president any wants to get away with what he can get away with he could have gotten congress to authorize war in libya it would have been quite easily done he could have done it in the sixty day gap after he started the war he chose not to there's an intention here to enlarge presidential powers to strip away congressional powers and that's even down

in writing in an amendment it's sitting in the senate in the or in a section of the defense authorization act in two thousand and twelve it's sitting in the senate like a like dozens of ticking time bombs the future wars waiting to become law presidents want and this president is no exception the coward to make wars on their own center then why not more than ten members of congress that are really calling him on this a dramatic way. well that's an excellent question i think there should be the full body but you know we all their efforts to recent weeks cast you know minutes tonight funding in particular bills denying us ground troops expressing their concerns and so forth there has been huge numbers and it's already in the house of representatives but i think it would be slow as it will for the court to reply in this case congress can cut off the funding if it chooses congress can impeach if it chooses that's not habits and that's an interesting point i want to talk about the money because the white house had met that it is spending quite

a bit that this has cost the pentagon more than seven hundred million dollars and is expected to cost one point one billion dollars by september but this is existing money from the d o d budget can congress block that i'm just curious it's not like you're saying they are and ok even if the white house is making this argument that they're not violating war powers act because the u.s. isn't really out war whatever you think of that does the white house need to go to congress when it spending this kind of money when the government spending is such a huge issue right now. one would think so one would hope so that the court case is dramatically strengthened by the fact that congress is not appropriate in a time for war making in libya that helps tremendously because the court will easily argue that have been appropriated funding congress as they are by approved of the war what congress may do with the senate goes along with the house is passed bills denying the use of any money from from those particular bill simply in the

defense budget bills for the coming year for a war in libya the fact is the president is going around to ask and taking the money from the incredible slush fund in the pentagon and the cia and the secret budgets and bush's you know they should allow even the presidents to transfer money secretly to secret budgets this is not of control but what congress could do in response would be to pass a bill through both houses denying permission to use any money from any source in a war in libya and you could do that you could do that tomorrow and that's not on the agenda it should be so than the real political well maybe more broadly even when clinton violated the war powers act in kosovo he went to congress to at least get funding approved which is then seen as and he's going to congress at that sixty day mark i thought of the interesting talking as a little bit that i was reading a one your latest write anything imagine that a college student when you were speaking asked if you were being extreme to call this war illegal and the point you made was that you know illegal isn't some you

know ideological statement you're talking about the law here i'm curious what you think that says about the way the public now sees us wars and the u.s. of course being in a constant state of war now for ten years. yeah it's somehow impolite or radical to talk about war says illegal when that ought to be a more clear cut question than whether a war is moral or desirable of course we have a majority opposing our current wars in this country with no response out of congress that's appropriate but these wars are blatantly illegal and the war in libya is the most glaringly illegal war we've ever seen outdoes clinton by far been a clinton at least had the money clinton didn't serve violate the sixty day limit and so forth this is intentionally going around congress and avoiding any appearance whatsoever of getting authorization from congress ok real quickly a group of twenty five u.s. senators almost all democrats a couple came by republicans and they sent

a letter to obama urging him to have a sizable reduction of u.s. or parts and to lie in afghanistan do you see this as significant as you can get carries any weight. i certainly hope so and so i don't want to lock it down but it's not an action hits it's an appeal to a higher authority from our first branch of government to its executive it's an inversion of how our government ought to operate you know kids can write letters to the president senators can begin and end wars and that's what they ought to be doing right but yet we see this you know kind of these token moves i'm curious as yes or no if you see these as more token moves or actually affected instruments well it's certainly cannot hurt for senators and congress members to be talking about their opposition to the war and it's been a stance but there has been a concerted effort by the leadership of both parties in both sides of congress to avoid taking any action on afghanistan and back is

a problem that should not be addressed by elections when this promised a rose since the election and will be broken prior to an election we need a withdrawal next month in congress is not foreseen. that was david swanson author of war is a lie tell all cameras have been camped out as you saw both in brooklyn where anthony weiner made those statements and at his apartment in queens today all over new york they're staking him out you know this might actually not be the most important place for news cameras to be putting their resources as our cameras found out artie's anastasio charkha shows you what's getting overlooked in a summer of scandal. actually this summer the us media is buzzing with these burning hot stories you do when you're right she didn't believe you me you do not want to see it is well it's a relationship like between casey and her parents and how is it now that she's accusing her father of sexual abuse the masterminds of big t.v.

networks are knee deep in this story news coverage who could believe that congressman weiner's pictures or not pictures could be the number one story on capitol hill sixty tweets of a congressman are being stretched to the likes of the lewinsky scandal i did not have sexual relations with that woman. he was looking right at me when he said that and every detail is getting sucked out of a child's murder case she's looking at she looks pale in the fray over here back in a ponytail wanted cheerleader. meanwhile new york city has seen a small town of it's only a few blocks away from wall street in mere movie backyard. calif protesters on the doorstep since last week's different is that. the people pushing to camp out here are saying this is just the beginning they will spend the night here so

their message is heard. a loud no to proposed budget cuts that would throw more jobs out the window. the banks are sitting on trillions of dollars of our money. we're going to stay here until we get it we want to share we're all prepared so here we actually have pillows this resistance is inspired by global outburst protests over the last year not only of the governments here in our country but the governments abroad don't seem to want anybody to have any kind of subsistence living. citizen journalists are here. the main stream media is not once you go outside the. you go outside the herd and you start covering that unions and workers are are fighting against cutbacks from a powerful mayor and they want wall street to a higher tax well those are likely your sponsors if you're

a big commercial t.v. news operation as the media treads carefully around the issues the people's anger is growing ok. so how many will be camping out here for the media she can out of that self-imposed oblivion to report what matters and arts in new york and joining me now for more from our new york studio is our city correspondent and editor and felt and it's out there so good to see you now i'm just curious you know what is the biggest beef that these protesters have. well learned the biggest beef that they have is that mayor bloomberg last month has proposed a budget cut of an entire four hundred million dollars and what this would mean for these people common common american teachers health care health care professional social workers librarians that as many as six thousand jobs are going to be thrown out the window and these people are going to be either their paychecks are going to

be slashed road they're going to lose their jobs and what they're saying is that first of all the city has plenty more other sources to get the money to fill the budget gaps especially with wall street being here we know that last month there was a report out saying that compensation for. corporate c.e.o.'s has gone up an entire ten percent and ironically you know who makes up the top list in that in that whole list is the media see those are the ones who are really refusing to be covering protests like this and people are saying they are the ones who are who should be who should be paying for the budget gap ok well and just to kind of follow along with a little bit of devil's advocate if you know mainstream media with to say oh this isn't that significant it doesn't represent that much of the population and how representative do you think that these people's views are are new yorkers because i know you've covered a lot of the protests in new york. well you know or new york is a big city of course and at these particular protests we haven't really seen more

than a couple hundred people last night we know that a couple of dozen spent the night there and have been spending the night there and are planning to remain there until their voices heard like we say in that report but we do have to remember that this is not an issue that can be applied just to new york city of course we know that over the last couple of months we've had over eighty percent of the population over over over eighty percent of u.s. stocks being controlled by one percent of the population and in the meantime over sixty percent of americans are going from paycheck to paycheck and really suffering so this is definitely something that can be applied not just to new york city by any means right even if they're not on the streets it doesn't mean that people aren't struggling as you know i know that you've entered a lot of reporting on profiled i'm curious you said how much of a widespread larger picture issue this is and you've covered other labor struggles and other protests of labor activists in wisconsin where we saw a huge outpouring in response to governor walker's what some will call union

busting actions there i'm curious you know covering these from the ground do you hear similarities between kind of the sentiment and bloomberg bill and what you heard in wisconsin. absolutely lauren because as you rightfully mentioned when people first came out in february and march and were protesting these enormous gatherings took place in wisconsin this is really something that has been inspiring the people over here and throughout the united states of course we know that it wasn't just wisconsin it was the pretty much the entire midwest that was taken over by this frenzy that actually started in the middle east and then inspired people here in the united states and now these people in new york are saying that they are really following this example of what was going on in wisconsin and we also have to say that right now even though huge protests in places like wisconsin have ended we also have tent cities erupting there are also similarly called locker villain to the governor's name and people are really disappointed with a lot of things both here and over there and you mentioned kind of international unrest and something that we heard in your report with people talking about some of

the unrest in the protests that we've seen overseas in the middle east and it's something that we've heard activists say is inspiring their role it's even something that you know from afar analysts people like nobel prize winning economist joseph stiglitz has said that the unrest in the united states could reach the kind of levels that or have the kind of outpouring that we have seen in the middle east in countries like egypt how plausible do you think that is and what would it take even if these people's needs aren't met we will see more of that or is that part. you know where that's a very good question because it really seems like a lot of people have forgotten that fear there was talk for major analysts like you mentioned during the peak of the middle of the middle east process some were saying that this kind of outrage this mass outrage could spill out onto the streets of the united states we did not have of course see that at such a scale but many are saying it's we way too early to really give up that fear and

to really think that the worst is over because like we see people mentioned in that report they've been waiting a long time and really now people are on the brink because they're being pushed further and further with things like these budget cuts so many americans lost their jobs in the recession they're continuing to lose their jobs and politicians in this particular case mayor bloomberg are continuing to push the people to really get them to to push them to their limits and they're fed up so if if if this continues it certainly could be the case that these protests could grow and really turn into big big gatherings that then would definitely be harmful for politicians and at the same time you point make a good point that a lot of these budget cuts are in the pipeline they haven't gone through an effective people yet and this year alone i mean cities and states are needing to bridge trillions of dollars in a budget gap while i was so good to talk to you about all of this because you have been on the ground in the midst of so many of these uprisings here in the united states that was our chief correspondent and. now along with cuts and

layoffs analysts say cities and states are finding another way to deal with financial hardship more policing and finding more ways for people to break the law even in progressive new york city as our chief correspondent we're going to court ny is going to show us. our true silk is something of a smoker's rights champion. living in a city where a pack of cigarettes cost thirteen bucks and the freedom to post where you please grows ever more limited. down in our basement this retired new york city police officer nurtures a garden of rebellion this garden is about reacting and defying their attempt to control my behavior hundreds of home grown tobacco leaves hang to dry before silk shreds and smokes are nicotine we're talking about products here so bacco is legal

if they don't want people to smoke they should go to congress and lobby to have it from. the big apple's new smoking ban comes a bit close very soon it will be illegal to light up in new york city's parks beaches and pedestrian plazas like this one in times square violators caught blowing smoke can be slapped with a fifty dollars far. if that's so dangerous why do so probably make the law because they want to morning america. just like we so so much the bad how come you can't smoke in public officials say the band aims to limit harmful public exposure to second hand smoke this is the latest avalanche of restrictions rules and prohibitions being aggressively enforced under a shrinking economy among them a one hundred dollar fine for putting too much personal rubbish in public it's taking something from the garbage is also

a bio costing up to three hundred bucks this winter a new road rule was born drivers caught in bus leaves one hundred fifteen dollars fine this very first melting pot ponies ninety four different vehicle and parking violations arguably the bread and butter for great revenue in february the big apple broke records by issuing ten thousand parking violations in just the one day i took a blitz that generated a reported five hundred thousand dollars for new york city for the crackdown on working class america. followed weeks of snowstorms in which parking rules were suspended and a means of income for new york city was brought to a halt critics like gerald celente say policing the people is becoming a means for city and states to deal with budget deficits and economic hardship what are these cops still doing is this why we have a police force to check on every minor infraction that we make they become

goon squads they have to bring in revenue to keep their jobs. every day thousands of cash strapped new yorkers visit manhattan's finance office to pay the city for forgiveness. the city will try to make money where they can get people to. pay for. the city two hundred thirty tickets at two hundred seventy bucks each have reportedly been issued to cyclists in central park this year compare that with just eleven tickets issued in all of twenty time we just had just got on the sidewalk and so i'm going to start yelling at. you know it's legal you can get arrested and we weren't even cycling we were just standing over our meanwhile our jury silk may eventually be the last smoker left standing these are the remnants of last year's crop here in a liberal city filled with debt and

a rising tide finds. the cities and states across the u.s. may face as much as two trillion dollars in debt this year and as cities struggle to pay their bills and their creditors residents in many cases are paying the price cities and states have increased bines and these to raise revenue in new york for example police are accused of going on a bicycle ticketing blitz to meet quotas this guy with one victim he got a ticket for not writing in a bike lane he put it online here's some of his video. to secure for human rights not the blakeway. of the world of. course i'm sitting here looking. for a global forum for you you know bird flu. and . here i suppose.

you're just here for the ride to the flame job you are structured so that you would rather be in the fight. now it is obviously resonates with people because it has become an internet sensation has gotten more than three million views online and joining us now from more from our new york studio is the very filmmaker the very victim of that ticket casey nights that thank you so much for being with that so my first question to you is why do you think this is become such an internet sensation. you know that you're not the first person to ask me that and i think i think for two reasons i think there are two aspects of the video that sort of transcend all social and language barriers and that's kind of a physical humor to it and then just the idea of kind of speaking up against something that is often hard to have

a voice so in my case is the police department but any kind of bureaucracy that you kind of feel like the little guy there and i think this video kind of kind of empowered me gave me a louder voice and my i'll certainly say three million is quite a loud voice as but it's interesting i read something you were quoted you said that you were not making that video as much to rise up to the man but to just be funny that you didn't see that did rising up to the man so do you not see this as political. you know i think. regarding it being funny i think that was my intention in making the video you can't meet as a filmmaker you can't sit down and say i want to make a video that can reach three and a half million people in a week i just want to make a funny video so my buddy archer and i went out and shot this in a day and put it on line as a joke but now that i think it has kind of the eyeballs of such a large audience i do think that there's a little bit of a responsibility that comes with it so my intention wasn't for it to be political but i think as a result of its reach there's kind of

a responsibility you know my shoulders well it shows that people may you know really relate to the kind of the taking and it's something that across the country as i said basan states are increasing those fines as increasingly they're facing need to huge debt burdens and do you think that this ticket is an example of that kind of this ridiculous getting a ticket for riding in the bike lane do you think that's an attempt of the city to kind of raise cash for the budget deficit that the new york native. i don't think so for a number of reasons the kind of paramount is just rational logic like fifty dollars to give that's if the odds are twenty minutes to write me just seems like completely ineffective and effective means of of exploiting your public your so your goal the delivery truck that i point out in the video that's blocking the bike lane carries a much rougher year fine than my fifty dollars cycling fine so i think if the goal is increased revenue stream by taking the citizens of the city it's entirely

misguided if they're going after cyclists for fifty bucks a pop well they're also going after other areas i mean i think that you're not allowed to smoke now in times square and that's another fine i think they've raised fines do you think that's all unfair to bridge the budget gap. if there were to bridge the budget gap i would think it's unfair but i'm a little bit more of an optimist in that i'm i do think not allowing people to smoke in the city a better place and i do think making this idiocy every place for cyclists makes it a better place to live and i think my take is a little misguided and i don't think it makes it a better place but i think overall the effort in the city to to you know make it safer for cyclists benefit everyone so so my question though than just the revenue stream ok my question you said earlier you feel like now that this is gone that exposure there's this responsibility on your shoulders what do you think that is what is the bigger statement here or do you think it's kind of ridiculous laws that hurt the people or ridiculous police it sounds like you don't think it's about the

budget issue i don't i don't think economics has much to do with it i think it's for me the goal or at least my agenda has become. this louder voice has become to make this place make new york city in maybe everywhere a little bit better for for cyclists and i think if anything my message is become you know make new york city better for cyclists by targeting people rather than the cyclists you know if you want to stick to the bike lanes and keep the bike lanes clean and. keep the keep the streams out of the bike lanes ticket people from parking in the bike lanes and get the n.y.p.d. to stop parking in the bike lanes there you go does probably the biggest ok there you have it making the world safer for bicyclists everywhere that would still make our case a nice dad. and that is going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to archie dot com slash usa also check out our you tube page at youtube dot com slash our teeth america all sorts of great videos on.