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the press is the stop for good at britain's the biggest selling newspaper mired in a phone hacking scandal media mogul rupert murdoch has pulled the plug with police investigating the tabloid for snooping on the mobiles of murder victims and the families of the dead soldiers and people killed in terrorism attacks. in georgia for high profile photographers have been arrested on suspicion of espionage just days after nine people were sentenced to lengthy jail terms for spying the opposition has attacked president saakashvili is regime for targeting mass media saying he's whipping up anti russian steria. politicians allow the condemned but rating agency moody's decision to downgrade portugal's debt to junk status and threaten possible retaliation verdicts send shock waves through financial markets

and triggers and worries that portugal could follow greece down the path of a possible default. and coming up on the alyona show from our washington studios looking at protecting computer privacy and the media frenzy surrounding the trial of casey anthony acquitted of murdering her two year old baby daughter. for the feast we've got. the biggest issues good voice ceased to face with the news makers. welcome to the lower show or you'll get the real headlines with none of the mercy we're going to live out of washington d.c. now tonight we're going to speak with us representative keith ellison about a debt deal that may involve cuts to social security and medicare about getting the

fixation back on jobs and about a contender in his state who's calling him a radical islamist then did you know that prison inmates are now doing the work that public employees in wisconsin did for free that's all thanks to governor walker's bill and we'll speak with one law professor who says the protect ip act is unconstitutional and aligns the u.s. with oppressive regimes around the world we're going to all of that for you and more tonight including a dose of happy hour but first we're not going to do our mainstream mr night we're going to do things a little bit differently so we can have time with the congressman congressman now washington it was rumbling last night as word leaks from the white house the president obama would be pushing for a big deal to bring an end to debt negotiations and appease republicans by tying it to budget cuts that deal would include three trillion in cuts one trillion in revenue increases cuts to social security medicare and medicaid also included those long considered off the table by democrats a report say the democratic leadership was stunned a dozen members of the congressional progressive caucus wrote a letter to the president asking him to refuse cuts to the sake of programs and

then the white house started walking back last night's reports the story is really not new at all the president has in fact. essentially was written. back when the president delivered his state of the union address and he talked about his openness to doing things to strengthen social security. things that would not slash benefits. so now the rhetoric is about strengthening social security but for the left as the president already made the final capitulation and why is all of the talk shifted from jobs to deficit when twenty five million americans are lacking full time work joining me from capitol hill is us representative keith ellison of minnesota he's the chairman of the congressional progressive caucus and one of the signatories on this letter to the president congressman thank you so much for joining us tonight now i know that you have written a letter to president obama but what was your initial reaction when we heard this last night that the president might be pushing a deal that includes cuts to social security medicare and medicaid i found it very

distressing that he would be open to cuts in those vital programs i am very pleased that he's walked back that initial position and now is appears to be firmly behind these programs that you know mean so much to people who rely on them you know it's basically an issue of values where is america with regard to its senior citizens where is america with regard to people who are sick and ill the poorest americans who depend upon medicaid i believe these are essential programs that make america a better place because they signal that we're all in this thing together and they were not to let any one of us fall but so but so far because i was glad to see him walking back oh you know with all respect to the president how many times can you allow him to make a statement and then to walk about to make a statement and then to change his mind it makes you start questioning whether he really holds some of these progressive some of these populist values you could say or whether he just the law is sometimes in order to get elected and appease people

no i think his record shows that he is committed to programs of social uplift like social security and medicare and medicaid but i. i think that in the in the rough and tumble difficult political environment of washington that sometimes you know political expediency can weigh on you and so it's important for people who are committed to these programs to make sure that the president knows that we are not the path of least resistance and that we are firmly committed to making sure that america is a place that honors its seniors and cares for its poorest most unfortunate people but then why right now is the debate on capitol hill focused around the deficit focused on budget cuts instead of something that you try to champion which is jobs that's what was promised when republicans left the house and last november's midterm elections why are democrats letting them when letting them control this

debate well let me tell you this you know today nancy pelosi led a informal hearing focusing on the importance of jobs and job creation other caucuses are doing the same thing the congressional progressive caucus is on a twelve state jobs tour we just got back from new york we have a great one but also detroit milwaukee minneapolis we're going to go in miami on july sixteenth and we're going to philadelphia pittsburgh we're houston and so we're doing all that we can and i actually want to thank you because you are one of the few news outlets that actually wants to hear about how if we could make jobs the issue we're going to get more taxpayers more people to pay into the coffers of the government so that we can deal with these deficit unless we've got more people pay in and unless we improve the economy we're going to have this debt and this deficit we've got to grow ourselves out of this thing we can't just cut cut cut whittle away on the american dream is to wrong direction so thank you for giving us

an opportunity to talk about it you're one of the few why i'm just curious you know i think maybe the reason why every one of the few that actually allow to talk about this is because again we go back to that sense of messaging and what you hear from our public. is this obviously there's a general distaste towards taxes in america and so you automatically hear that these are socialist policies that this is wealth redistribution if you expect the rich to pay for the poor how do you battle those claims and try to explain to people that this is what needs to happen if we want to increase our revenue you know the way i was raised to much is given much is expected you know in my view in any decent society would not let a member of the languish in poverty particularly if their senior citizen or a or a child or a person with a disability or this is who is on social security medicare medicaid these are the people who bit for the from these programs these are not able bodied adults who can go up there and make their own way these are people who are aged people who are

children people who are sick infirm and so in my opinion you know we just have to go back to the basics i know of no code of ethics no code of ethics christianity judaism. islam buddhist hindu or any just being a moral person that says that it's ok to just ignore and neglect the most vulnerable people in our society you want to talk about seniors these are the people who blazed the pass for us young folks these are people who fought in world war two they're the ones who defeated our country they're the ones who built our country are we going to stay that year thanks for all you do for us but we're not there for you mom dad grandma grandpa i think that's repugnant and so that's what that's where i'm coming from and i hope a lot of people agree with me on this point and the thing is of course is that it's not just seniors it's the entire middle class right now especially when you look at the fact that corporate profits are reaching record highs that corporate executives

are having have record bonuses right now while the middle class is shrinking is it really just about getting back to basics or do you think that we're going to need something bigger and we need some type of a social upheaval is the new brzezinski even so. and yesterday that he thinks there might be some type of a social unrest or class warfare to get people to pay attention again i think getting back to basics is getting to something bigger i mean think about a simple idea that america should work for people who work for a living that's not asking too much unfortunately it doesn't work right now for people who work for a living our wages have been flat and stagnant for thirty years while bonuses have been just getting bigger and bigger right now the corporate community is sitting on two trillion dollars in cash which way they refuse to invest in putting americans back to work and so the fact is is that look it's a basic idea that we're all in this thing together that that old lady may not be my mom but she's somebody and we have to take care of her and we've got to get america

back to work we got more people working but we got more people paying taxes more people paid into the coffers we reduced the deficit duce the debt but we've got to have a mind to create and build this there's no shortage of work in america to do we the american society of civil engineers says we have literally trillions of dollars in maintenance and that needs to be done on our roads and our bridges on our water treatment plants and on our sewage treatment plants and all kinds of infrastructure people need to work we've got to get those carpenters up to bitch we've got to get those submit poor's off the bench we've got to get those people those electricians those folks working those sheet metal workers back to work then get those appreciate programs so we can bring young people along and have a future for them to now congressman i couldn't agree with you more on all of this but then if that's the case how do you tell people or how do you explain to them why it is that the president of the united states why it is the democratic party is

allowing the republican party to forget about jobs to hold entire the entire u.s. economy hostage over discussion about raising the debt ceiling while they refuse they put their foot down. and say absolutely no to raising any taxes especially if it comes to those corporations that are doing so well yeah well two thirds of american corporations don't pay any taxes including the biggest one of the country g.e. that's a shame they are they should be embarrassed for that but let me just answer the question what we we're going to us in the progressive caucus are going to the american people and we're saying lift up your voices let your congressmen know and women know where you're coming from let tell your story that's why we've had this speak out tour in the cities that are already mentioned because we want people to raise their voices and demand a better future republicans wrote in the congress of the majority because they said they would do something about jobs it's not for them to honor the commitment that commitment needs to be honored and it needs to be honored now. all right

congressman i want to thank you very much for joining us tonight of course and we have to let you go i know you have a vote to get to but you know i hope that some of this comes through fruition but unfortunately these days it seems like having your voice heard is often too often tied to having a lot of money as well thanks so much thank you and thank you for what you do. now we had to change our format tonight for the congressman so he could make a vote so now we're going to go back to our mainstream miss and take a look at what it is that the mainstream media missed a day. all right now i know that some of you out there might be getting sick of me or railing against the mainstream media for covering the casey anthony trial nonstop but believe me when david they stop treating it like the biggest news in the world while ignoring all of the real issues then all stop pointing out how wrong and misguided and loathsome they are but unfortunately today is not that day as casey anthony awaited her sentencing the mainstream media once again decided to spend

hours discussing how long her hair was how many helicopters were hovering above the courthouse and inside a very long haired casey anthony possibly hasn't cut her hair for the past two years and was similar to. one year ago orange county jail. imposing a one thousand dollars fine and lot of demonstrators that it showed today given specific areas around here part of the border security very high helicopters hovering overhead. don't you feel like the reporters the producers of the channels they need a good shake they need a good slap in the face and they can open their eyes and actually see what they're doing you know who do you guys know the while you're talking about how long it's been since casey anthony cut her hair congress has been deliberating on the defense authorization bill for two thousand and twelve. you know that's the one the it's going to cost us six hundred and forty nine billion dollars if all goes as planned

and you heard me six hundred forty nine billion dollars just for fiscal year two thousand and twelve that's not chump change that is in fact eight billion dollars less than your president requested and that's the same president that might be willing to cut social security and medicare and medicaid and here's another kicker while debating this bill on the hill yesterday lawmakers didn't really get anywhere when it came to making cuts to the defense bill but they did manage to raise spending for military bands to three hundred twenty million military bands listen i'm sure that they play a role of being crease more al but do they really need to raise one programs for schools for hospitals for heating assistance are being cut all over america you got to be kidding me now the other thing i suppose yesterday was a number of amendments by democratic lawmakers to force the president to make a substantial troop withdrawal from afghanistan not just get rid of that surge by summer of two thousand and twelve conveniently right before reelection these are all big things people troop lives war funding versus spending cuts this affects you

and i but that's what the mainstream media chooses to miss all they focus only on one cut and that's casey anthony's hair. now still to come tonight the clock is ticking down to an execution in texas to tell you why the case is putting international pressure on the u.s. and remember those massive protests over union rights a few months ago in wisconsin well the unions lost and now the state is using new power to find cheap labor as in free labor more on that some of. the issues that she must do you think is. more. more south sudan is said to become an independent state in july known as the world .

needs. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to corporations to rule the day. all eyes are on texas tonight as a man is set to be executed unless a last minute stay is ordered from the supreme court it's mexican citizen who maritally garcia jr he was sentenced to capital punishment for the rape and murder of a sixteen year old girl but there are some major diplomatic issues in this case that could keep garcia from being executed is he as a mexican citizen we al had the right to seek assistance from the mexican consulate

when he was arrested but texas police did inform of his rights so now the obama administration is have to step in the requesting a stay of execution for lee al based on the fact that under the vienna convention we all have the right to contact the mexican consulate and white house officials say that if we all have been afforded the right to contact lawyers from his own country he probably wouldn't be on death row today current attorney sandra babcock explain to democracy now the importance of following the vienna convention on an international level. that literally could have facts that well being of countless americans who find themselves detained in foreign countries at the moment because they realize just as mr lee would entitle to be informed of his rights as a controversial and they are entitled under the vienna convention if they find themselves in trouble and in a foreign country ask for the assistance of the u.s. consulate and that literally is their lifeline to their families and adequate legal

representation and protect them from harm. that's why obama's attempted to step in to avoid a massive outcry from countries around the world i should also note that many out there have called on governor rick perry to stay only al's execution but very says that he won't grant their request because he thinks of the court of international justice has no authority in the state of texas so now we else future rests on the supreme court who can give the last word on whether or not this. or will live or die in the first person who's been in this situation and that's n.p.r. report that back in two thousand and four texas faced a similar issue with another mexican citizen and in that case then president george w. bush asked for the state to re-evaluate the case of the prisoner was executed later that year now back to the case of rielle as the clock ticks down on his case gains international attention all makers in d.c. of rush legislation to keep him from being put to death but a lot of people say that it couldn't pass in time so only time is going to tell

what the true effects will be in this capital punishment case of liao and if it could have any effect on u.s. citizens who find themselves in legal trouble abroad. now as promised we'll continue to bring you the latest instances of unnecessary police brutality here in the u.s. and this time let's go over to mississippi where madison county sheriff's deputies are on the hunt for an assailant on the fourth of july weekend but they ended up at the wrong house and when at this wrong house there was a peaceful and respectful family party going on and that's when everything went downhill you see despite the fact of the police couldn't find the supposed that assailant nor the woman who reportedly made a nine one one call the police decided to stay anyways and as the local station a.b.c. sixteen reports and the cops started using their weapons says people were drinking and dancing and playing music but no one was arguing then he says deputies taste at least three people people being disorderly are doing it police.

then. you know i can't really say i'm surprised cops show up they can't find who they want to find so it is a let loose on whoever was in within arm's reach of course they're not going to respond when people frantically ask them what's wrong because hey they're cops and these days they usually are. they're above the law so while there are still many unanswered questions surrounding this incident like who was actually assaulted who the suspect is innocent party goers and of spending the weekend in jail now of course the sheriff couldn't be reached for comment after all it was a holiday weekend so there you have it the latest example of police behaving badly can't find the person you're looking for help just tase everyone else who happens to be there. now last week wisconsin's law taking away collective bargaining rights

from unions went into effect in the majority the debate for a long centered around the negative effects on teachers on nurses who came out and thousands to protest earlier this year along with students by their side and now we're seeing a new development you see this law not only took away collective bargaining rights it also took away the ability to claim certain work as union only which governor walker and supporters of this bill sold as an opening for the doors to private sector workers except for one county that's decided to allow prison inmates to fill those voids grayson county is now using inmates to do landscaping painting and other basic maintenance the previously had been done by county workers and the kicker is in may don't get paid so how can workers possibly compete with free labor and what happens if other counties in wisconsin start using this method to discuss this with me is my calculator journalist and contributing editor for in these times mike thanks so much for joining us tonight really room it out you know you and i talked about this when this was all going on in wisconsin of course and everybody

is protesting this bill but did you ever expected to go this far because of course like i said there is the argument that this is going to open the doors for private sector workers that we don't deal with all these public pensions that you think that they were actually going to bring it in mates and have them start doing the work for free yeah i thought they would bring in image this is what all of you know i mean it's a big trend across the u.s. you have you know hundreds of thousands of them each working for free or next to nothing in this country and this really underbids and you know states getting more and more troubled. turned more and more to inmates and we're just not talking sweeping trash you have inmates now being trained for underwater welding on state projects you have for example all the electronic cables for guided missiles in this country almost all made by prison labor as is almost all the bulletproof vests and they're paid you know next to nothing in most of these solutions the thing is how do you come to terms with that right because i think that on one hand people would probably support the idea that prison inmates can't work off some of their time i

think there are a lot of people who would be behind that but then when does become exploitation when they're doing this work for basically next to nothing there wolf let's first talk about something the amount of prisoners we have in this country we have four percent of the world's population to twenty five percent of its prisoners we have six times as many prisoners as china you know six times the rate. so we have all these people that don't need to be in jail in the first place and we run up massive deficits across something like forty thousand per person two point seven million people we have in jail you know running up these massive deficits as a result of all these prisoners so now you see more and more states in order to keep these prisons going you know which often are for profit private prisons to keep these prisons going using prison labor for jobs that used to actually be good union jobs support families and help foster communities the irony is just i think here i guess right those states are facing budget deficits of the making cuts that they're facing these deficits because of the large prison populations and so then they just go to the prisoners to start working for free there but i mean how far do you think people would let that go if you have prison inmates who are now doing

landscaping who are doing certain maintenance at what point do people start getting upset about that what point do people start getting i guess you could say uncomfortable in communities too well in a lot of communities there are very uncomfortable about using prison labor i've talked with a number of union officials because a lot of defense contract jobs are now being given to prison labor these used to be high wage jobs so a lot of people are upset about it and a lot of people are upset about the money that's spent to this i've talked with a c.e.o. you who's doing a project on california to shift money for. prisons to social workers i mean we can create things that stop the problem of prisons altogether and actually create good jobs in the process for the people you know trying to create employment in communities so it's a lose lose situation you know the prison industry complex and what it does to labor how many other states you sort of thing that happens all across america we're just using wisconsin right now as an example but would you say that in every state prison there is a prison worker program like this yeah yeah there's in every state in some states that pay people you know twenty three cents an hour in some states they don't pay

the worker anything like they do in georgia where prisoners in eight prisons rose up in a prison rebellion last year so it's going on across the nation if you look just at manufacturing there's one hundred and seventy thousand prisoners working in manufacturing in prisons in this country making everything from office chairs to guided missile parts to the solar panels at the u.s. state department so it's a huge problem and it's good to american workers because you cannot outbid somebody making twenty three cents an hour you can't somebody that's working for nothing an hour is all that's working completely for free so is there any other way to solve this other than i don't know decreasing our prison population and reforming the entire drug war that we have going on in this country or what i think decreasing the prison population we have in this country is the most important part you take away the prison labor there can't be any body to do that i also think what we need to do is heavily regulate this make sure that union jobs are not being taken away by prison labor you know if prisoners want to grow their own food that's one thing

but make sure that these jobs are being taken away and i think it gets back to smart investments keeping people out of prison in the first place now since this law is taking effect like i said it first so much of what we heard about was that it was going to affect teachers it was going to affect nurses in the state to how have they been affected if it only went into if it only became law last week so far what's going on well already what's happened is we've seen a number of very qualified people that want to continue working that were tired before that law took effect we saw thousands of people. we do this in the state of wisconsin meet and part of the reason they do that is they were unsure about their pension and everything else so there's been a lot of very experienced people who have left the state government already because they're scared of what's happening we're starting to see cuts we're seeing you know already you know people are going about a five thousand dollar wage cut they're seeing cuts to their health care the pension we're seeing just problems on the work site now where people don't feel like they have a voice that they don't have protection so you're seeing. and it's a real problem for government because if somebody can't speak up and say that you

know government money is being wasted because they're afraid of getting fired from their job you can see a lot more wasteful spending so it's going to have a real chilling effect on wisconsin well that's something you know that's i also across the board you can factor into obama's entire war on whistleblowers and of course are always going to be afraid of them like that but you know i also think that the fact that states across the country are laying off so many state employees is something that never gets brought up when we talk about these jobs numbers that come out every single month right today the jobs numbers were leaked for the month of june and everybody was ecstatic because they were two or three times better there was over one hundred fifty thousand jobs created in the private sector but how many jobs have been lost in the public sector of the last few months we've seen hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in the public sector as governor slashed budgets and that's the big thing really holding back this recovery is that now we're seeing government spending being cut so at the time when you know government should be the backbone the foundation of a good economic recovery it's slowing this great proof we've had in private sector jobs so this is a real problem and you've not seen real solutions we should be taxing the rich we

could be putting tax on millionaires we should be eliminating wasteful corporate subsidies but instead we're seeing workers take the cut and children take the cut and at the same time prisons greatly expanded so that for profit prisons can make money and that's you know a good point too of course we were just talking to congressman ellison here what happens on a national level but we see other states right now including his home state of minnesota which i didn't get to talk about it they are shut down right now because of a battle over over their deficit and because people don't. to raise taxes on the rich or they don't want to raise taxes on on tobacco and quite the opposite it might just come down to the worker in that case and i wonder if we will get it we're going to see any other states shut down over this type of gridlock you might see states shut down i think what happens in wisconsin and minnesota is going to be telling of what happens throughout the u.s. governor mark dayton is trying to tax the rich he has about seventy percent public support for his plan but how long are people going to suffer a government shutdown and who's going to blink first so i.