new orleans gets stuck in this kind of like puritan mentality that's completely antithetical to everything that's happening to sam's forward one step back we'll have an update on the easy on is it crimes against nature a walk along the main stream media isn't talking about. it by the media before the . guilty until proven guilty. from perp walks to screaming headlines just how can anyone be innocent until proven guilty and the mainstream media is in. the record from clues that this was a good mother you see body is the result of a voyeur it is well frankly we can't stand it either so why is the mainstream media

still captivated by casey. and some big talks for some big money issues so as president obama tries to build a bridge with tough lawmakers will the result make for a more divided america. it's thursday july thirteenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for a sound if you were watching our team. all right i want to start off by making an observation and i don't think i'm alone and people in this country are obsessed with the u.s. justice system these days with murder and juries and evidence the defense versus the prosecution we can blame it on the casey anthony trial but it's not just casey anthony and it's certainly not new for years shows like law. in order c.s.i.

have dominated the airwaves so if the laws of the land you want well then that's what you're going to get we'll talk about it i want to turn now to a law in the way the ana you've probably never even heard of but one that's been in place since before louisiana was even a state in which piece in which people were prosecuted as felons for get this having oral sex and anal sex so when you prosecuted as a felon you're then forced to register as a sex offender which changes things like where you can live for your ability to get a job and this isn't one of those laws on the books that's largely ignored this has been used in convictions as recently as last year well the state of louisiana just gathered enough courage to abandon that law at least for felony convictions it's now just a misdemeanor this antiquated law though was so interesting to us at least that we traveled to louisiana to look deeper into this subject moon brings us this report.

this is the carnival of colors and sounds. that is new orleans louisiana. a mississippi river port city awash in its southern roots its colorful french creole charms and its overtones of piety whom. it's very catholic very catholic very bad just even very few of the a city that lives according to code your lines get stuck in this kind of like puritan mentality that's completely antithetical to everything that's happening people are going to have conventions here because they know there's the french quarter they know there's strip clubs prostitution. this is bourbon street. for about two hundred bucks you can buy yourself six more specifically straight up intercourse. with a new orleans street walker anything else or sex and all sides can be negotiated

but anything else is also. against the law according to a law called crime against nature it basically prohibits anything other they on ordinary intercourse there's no police out there going into neighborhoods saying you can't have you know sex with your husband you can't have oral sex with your wife right and no one's actually enforcing that but it isn't forced and enforced heavily on the prostitutes of new orleans these are people who can least afford to be charged with something like this right now you have to do is have an undercover officer driving around in plain clothes and applying in an armored car now if you drive around and drive up to people that they believe are are prostitutes or known are known prostitutes. and just ask how much and she answers. she's just opened this huge hole in her life. a huge hole because

a crime against nature charges punishable by as much as a twenty year prison sentence incredibly large fines and. data you're talking about a woman who's in her early twenty's who has to register as a sex offender for the next fifteen years. for city whose cell job quietly includes pleasures of the flesh why they need to criminalize sex acts in which just about anyone in gage's and almost all of these cases and up in a plea to probation and finds fines and. and the important part about the fines and fees is that's all revenue coming in to pay for the court system to pay for police to pay for the jail to pay for prosecutors officers simply put an antiquated nineteenth century law. passed on the guise of christian values we are all only. needed being used today still to make money it's

a five year felony and you can use that to encourage people to plead guilty very quickly it justifies higher bonds the hookers often instead plead guilty to a lesser charge of prostitution leading down to a misdemeanor means you can charge higher fines and fees prostitutes who usually can't afford those fines and fees pay for them for payment for pride even more prostitution which they get hit again then they get caught again and right they have to engage in more prostitution it's a vicious cycle this is an old law it's a stupid law it's a law that a lot of people even within the criminal justice system don't agree with now you can see how some are trapped in the carnival that is new orleans. and if you think they're the only ones. there are others. that are minorities. all right so let's keep with this theme of justice in america let's talk about the notion that in this country there is a presumption of innocence until you are proven otherwise this is important because

this is a foundation of what many people in this country see as vital to our freedom but let's hold on a second and i think this notion about let's take a look at the time between the u.s. criminal justice system and media and the court of public opinion are not really totally independent of one another and in this day and age with technology where it is you could make the argument that instead it's guilty until proven innocent parties on the reports. innocent until proven guilty it's a whole mark principle of the american justice system legally after shoved aside from the vigor of some of the arrests young african black and brown subjects being sat down in history in an obsessive kind of way fifty shots sixty sets laying on our stomach in our back as we run or as we walk or flee to beating suspects into offenses in cases of entrapment entrapment is not legal in traveling is getting

someone to do something that they would normally do to perp walks that parade suspects in handcuffs for the world to see. to a media frenzy devouring some cases and not others a family is it before they see it as guilty until proven guilty in these cases the government is changing the laws and tar is a former white collar convict who knows the criminal justice system discrepancies inside and out i had my eye on the road and years probably not my crimes. well i decided. read and read two more years. now a teacher he says media coverage also affects the jury pool they see an image of a guy in handcuffs and see an image of a person being arrested they see the image of a person doing the perp walk and warfare just like everybody else was.

so are you presumed guilty from the get go and how much of a role does the media play if you're accused of a famous crime it's going to be in huge headlines on page one when you exonerated it's on page twenty seven below the fold to column inches and your neighbors somehow didn't manage to catch it that day surfer would still thinks you're a child molester not guilty take the not guilty verdict in the casey anthony murder case involving her two year old daughter the court of public opinion remains split from a court of justice all fades to nonstop media coverage of the case for the past three years. it's crazy and i think it's great the adage that they get it from the media is going through is going to go through in the case of former i.m.f. head domine stross current and media satisfy their gluttonous taste with extreme passion only for the case to crumble i think there should be all the media outlets are required to play your exoneration up as big and as long as your accusation this

is rarely the case as dubious practices in the criminal justice system spread so does the finger pointing and questioning the future of human rights in the us where as we go on as americans and since one years old i'm like. this is no good. this is really good locally the principles that he was once part of itself in are on fire suspects are having to fight their battles publicly from the minute of their arrest and attempts to prove their innocence underlining the discrepancies in the u.s. criminal justice system are alive and kicking the citric around parts of new york. well speaking of the criminal justice system as much as we here at r.t.e. are sick of the casey anthony story we do think it's important to talk about the story of the media the number show people are watching h l n at its best ratings month ever last month averaging about six hundred thousand viewers a day during trial coverage so we will look deeper into why this case which if you

haven't been called pornography of sorts continues to dominate the conversation and the airwaves are deal or lesser takes a closer look at the hype that is and that isn't we have the jury find the defendant not guilty it was a verdict heard around the nation the climax this is a historic rejection of the prosecution's case in a case that has captivated america. and the mainstream media who's been covering and analyzing every single detail of the casey anthony murder trial but if you ask any average american on the street if it has actually affects their lives the answer is unanimous probably no i think is too much emphasis on it but that has not stopped every day from being groundhog day on the cable news networks casey anthony the woman accused of killing her two year old

little girl the latest on what happened in court today and despite the verdicts and sentencing both handed down and delivered media anchors and pundits continue to weigh in on every aspect in a case already considered closed from what i know of things there is a special place in the world. if you do like that with your child listen the record is concluded this was a good mother you see the you see the silver bullet you hear it i think we have to take all these street pull people now and there's water boredom so somebody caves in and tells us what happened why that kid's dead today it's a bad day for america it's a bad day for america it's amounted to more coverage for the casey anthony trial then any of the republican g.o.p. candidates according to a smart politics study that since opening statements were delivered in the trial the only thing up to this stunning. jaw dropping moment a moment in a murder there's a cliff thousands of other murder cases in the u.s.

let's take a look at the numbers more than sixteen thousand murders occurred in two thousand and eight that's the year caylee anthony went missing that's almost forty five murders per day and in florida where the casey anthony place took place and the attorneys said that this should draw attention to the death penalty there are three hundred ninety four people currently on death row and twenty three people that were innocent and free from death row since one nine hundred seventy six so why then the overwhelming attention paid to the case of just one woman casey anthony you have not only a child but a white child who was murdered you have a young white female who is on trial a party girl a show trial that according to chambers has all the ingredients for middle america wants to see if it were a black woman was a single mother and the baby was there to be the people would say all that happens all the time who cares about that and it doesn't happen all the time and those

cases could affect the country how take really gives case as an example it's registered just a blip in the print world a black mother with fifteen had a miscarriage is accused of murdering her unborn child under a one hundred thirty year old statute because of an alleged drug habit it's in mississippi and the rule. elling is being awaited by the state supreme court in which the first case there of a woman charged with the murder of her unborn baby in. a move is michael austin powers of arrest the april twenty ninth and so forth for an armed robbery and this man represents one of the wrongfully convicted who has been found innocent and freed after a long flight. from iraq from the grip is that not a whole lot of fanfare it's not illegal aliens and big usually wrote about getting out of prison being in may so was is not a big guy thirty forty years ago prison one of many cases americans may never hear

about before i was exposed i would never move from court as they continue to be distracted and captivated by us. jaw dropping moment the continues to be rehashed yet again today it's like a modern day soap opera whether it matters or not lauren lyster our t.v. washington d.c. for all right so today in case you hadn't thing casey anthony was sentenced and will soon be released as a result about sentencing i can now safely say that this case is in fact being shoved down our throats this morning i turned on a political so and it was like it was live coverage of the sentencing you know just the boring stuff that count six counts seven couldn't find anything about the debt talks or the presidential race or grease all case the all morning long so i want to talk about this michael hoffman is a blogger for the political commentator and is in jericho new york michael i want

to talk to you about this obsession that we have michael. i'm here christine can you hear me i can hear you just fine i just don't quite see you yeah that's all right go ahead and ask your question and hopefully we'll figure our technical difficulties out michael you wrote about this casey anthony trial watching and you asked the question don't americans have anything better to do with their time it seems that when it comes to the impact of this trial it's hard to argue that whichever way it would have turned out it would have changed things for anyone in their lives legally economically and yet people were fixated so where do you think this stems from. i think christine that america and much of the world is really turned into a reality show based society where people love the jersey shore people love real housewives and six different cities and the media knows what the people like and they give it to them and no one can blame the media for that but i think that the

american citizens who are some of the most intelligent intellectually curious motivated people in the world should probably focus more on some of the things that matter most the debt ceiling the failings of the obama administration different things going on around the world a nuclear iran national security there's a lot of things that people need to focus on and while entertainment is certainly under sensitive i think people need to focus more on some of the things that will affect our lives the fact as michael i mean we can talk about the chicken or the egg you know i know you write about this you know was this frenzy created by the media or were people actually interested and you know we mentioned this before but a cell one had its best ratings ever last month during this trial is there something going on in america is it just that you know times are tough and people want to watch what can be compared sometimes to you know a bad car accident is that what it is or do you think or something else going on

here you know what i don't think it's a commentary on american percent i don't think it's a commentary on the world per se i think i think people i think the media the mainstream media elites people in the direction that they want to be led that they want them to be led where the ratings are where the money is and that's what the media does and you know the average people out there around the world there are usually love it but the bottom line is that of course there are much bigger fish to fry in the world and. things that need to be focused on again like like the failings of the administration like national security like like nuclear proliferation all of those things need to be to be focused on and so what about in addition to a trial that has no real impact on our lives well then i'll ask you a different question then we just saw a report and which some research was done and it turns out hundreds of other parents around the country have been accused of murdering their children since the

monk aliens and that he went missing so why not so all murder trials all the time why is this one the one that's getting the most attention but i think like the previous guest i believe it was life said this does have a lot of the of the the pieces that people find interesting it's you know it's a young mother it's a young girl you know i don't think it's a race issue by any any stretch of the imagination but you know i think that the media floats trial balloon stories where the ratings are going in this case the ratings were good and never stopping good so that's the that's the case if they push if it was a different case than they would have pushed our case it was really i'm sorry you were speaking about what chris chambers who was in that report was talking about he actually said in fact that it could very well have to do with race that you know a lot of people would say if it was a single black mother who perhaps was accused of killing her child that that

wouldn't have gotten barely any media attention i mean you don't think that race has anything to do with it you know i know that's a popular position to take but no i don't you know i think that the the fact of the matter is that this and this happened in a different time with some other case being the the case or the media do sure of the day that would have taken place and so i think you know it's just what gets the . i think we may have lost you michael are you still there i lived like we lost you thanks so much for hanging in there michael home and blogger for the political commentator thanks so much and we will switch gears now to the economy just down the street from our studios some pretty big talks going on between president obama and top lawmakers over the battle to come to an agreement on raising the fourteen point three million dollars debt ceiling while raising taxes on the wealthiest americans seems to still not be on the table more cuts to

programs that help the poor maybe this is a battle that's brewing in a much more concentrated way only further down the road in the state of minnesota where the state government there is still shut down there are similar issues there the republican led legislature refuses to raise taxes even on the wealthiest two percent of the people in the state governor mark dayton a democrat doesn't want to cut the more programs it's important to keep an eye on what's going on there as protesters now taking the streets to speak more about all of this i want to go to max friend wolf a senior analyst at green cross capital who's in our new york studio. and i do want to start off with minnesota we've been keeping an eye on what's going on there more than twenty thousand state government workers have already gotten layoff notices and people are planning a rally and apparently building a tent city to protest what are your take on what's happening there as it relates to you know this country on a larger scale. well we have a bit of

a cascade effect so we saw the stimulus come in about a year and a half to two years ago it was front loaded and the federal government stimulus is running out and as the federal government stimulus runs out we see some softening in the economy and some strengthening there are some good signs as well but we've also seen the pain from less government federal government assistance begin to filter down into the states and into the local areas so there is some real economic turbulence on the other side we have elected one of the most ideological and in some cases very point pointed struggle type folks in the state legislatures without much media coverage and the national legislature there's also an ideological commitment by a lot of people and federal and state houses to try to prevent any increases in taxation what this means is we have a structural imbalance in the economy so that a large number of high income corporations and individuals are paying fairly limited tax burden or holding a pretty limited tax burden and that leaves the states and the municipalities unable to keep doing business as they have in many ways at least since the one nine

hundred sixty s. so we have a structural breakdown and that erupts with the debt ceiling to some extent in washington d.c. that erupts in the state of colorado and the state of minnesota in a really unprecedented shift in the sanctity of pensions for state workers and also in minnesota in a shutdown that came right before the july fourth weekend i mean that the people of the great state of minnesota have more or less been without a functioning state government for nearly a week now you talk about the structural breakdown max i would argue it also contributes to a growing gap in any quality and you know as far as what that means i want to play a clip of an interview a former national security adviser dr zbigniew brzezinski from yesterday he was on morning joe and gave the prediction for what could be around the corner of this country. this sense of social injustice and the caribbean moralizing and politically in the long run very dangerous it can politicize social

economic issues related to radicalism clash conflicts extremism and i didn't that's a real risk in our society and dr brzezinski also said you know we can see a slide into into intensified social conflicts hostilities and radicalism i mean we're talking you know it seems to me that he sees chaos on the streets across this country what are your thoughts on. going to be forecasting violence in the streets that's always an impossible thing to forecast it always surprises people on it arrives and history is littered with people who try to make a forecast it's very difficult thing to do what i could and would argue although it's not always popular is that the tea party movie movement is already a manifestation of that what we have is a group of people who don't believe government can solve their problem and a group of people who don't believe at least any government we could elect and solve their problem and they've basically decided that we're better off saving some money on taxes and letting the social cohesion we get from federal state local

government thought by the wayside because people have become embittered and they've decided i'm not always right lee but they've decided that economic booms in america i mean a boom for someone else and economic bust in america i mean pain for them so they'd rather just take their chances with the law of the jungle see the government shrink and try an alternative path that way i don't know man i mean certainly the tea party is loud and they've taken to the streets in a way that we haven't seen other groups but in a lot of ways i mean can you also say that the tea party has sort of perpetuated some of these ideas that are making the gap between the rich and poor at larger. yes absolutely that's most of what they do that's not the dream that i think motivates the average member to come out there that may be the manifestations of people behind some elements of the tea party movement but i think what i'm trying to suggest is that we already have fairly unusually avid somewhat extreme opinions dominating the american political discussion we see that in government shutdown we see that the game of chicken at the federal level about raising

a fourteen point three trillion dollars budget ceiling we see that in candidates who would normally be considered fringe being elected i mean we had a protest in which men and women with automatic or nearly automatic weapons paraded publicly as close to the white house as they were physically able to get a year and a half ago and while no violence came of it fortunately that's a fairly extreme moment in the politics of a country that has a stroke lead been quite centrist you were just talking about sort of this discussion or as you call a game of chicken regarding to get that discussions even the c.e.o. of pimco one of the most influential investment firms said that even a short term to default by the u.s. on its debt could have and i'm using a quote here catastrophic legal consequences when you have people like this saying such extreme things like this and yet i mean president obama came out of the meetings that were held this morning saying there's still a long way to go should people in america be nervous. absolutely part of the damage

done to the u.s. prestige in the sense the united states that's in charge of its affairs has already been done it's very important you'll see that actually right left and center including every business group in the united states of any standing has all said many times and very publicly that the idea of a default or debt standoff getting this lately game and being this extreme is unprecedented and deeply unfortunate for the standing of the united states and potentially for the u.s. economy and why i think a deal will be struck something at the eleventh hour it's already damaging to our reputation which has been damaged repeatedly through different misadventures since two thousand and one to have this go on this long and this extremely already even if it gets resolved tonight at midnight funny how it all seems to come down to that eleventh hour i do want to go back and i think it's important we had earlier this year wisconsin right now we're talking about minnesota and although we're going to look at some of the smallest towns in this country i know there's a town in texas that's called alto it was laid off its entire police force i also

read that the state has no money for new textbooks and public schools there so from an economic standpoint how should we look at this at these concentrated cases in fifty's in towns across the country it's not the federal government but i think it says something. absolutely i couldn't agree with you more look we're seeing i will see again tomorrow morning at eight thirty am eastern standard time when the bureau of labor statistics give us our june jobs number but we're seeing consistent and massive layoffs at the local level not just police but the largest area being public education which does not bode well for the future of the u.s. in a world economy that's increasingly competitive and we see that the basic tax structure of many municipalities is no longer functional with wealthier individuals and larger corporations able through various manifestations to mitigate their tax burden middle class individuals in revolt and with their backs to the wall financially we're seeing the erosion of the basic welfare state that grew in the united states from the one nine hundred thirty s. the one nine hundred sixty s.

and is associated with things like the new deal of the great society and we're seeing the political will and the economic and financial support for those great society and social welfare programs a road to a point where there's so much rot in the structural beams of that system that it begins to risk tumbling over and being no more certainly an interesting take on things we're not trying to be the messengers of doom here but it really is important to talk about all these things and to look deeply at them especially those aspects that are not being covered everywhere else max want to thank you so much max fred wolfe senior analyst at green cross capital and that is going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered that are t. dot com slash us they are check out our you tube page you tube dot com slash r t america thanks so much will be back at five. our g. is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like.