total earth of the. well it is it is a cradle. to grave i didn't put on trial as julian assange has to a london court to appeal his extradition to sweden exactly what will happen to the wiki leaks founder ends up in the us the power of his celebrity allows for a fair trial. if there is no question that other countries. torture itself. with which they do it it is forbidden in the u.s. constitution but is this country using cruel and unusual punishment for everything torture while condemning it abroad. ron paul is going rogue the texas

republican says he'll step down from running to hold on to his congressional seat in two thousand and twelve to step off his presidential election bid you know what he told our teeth about that this is. and president obama says the check stops here the august third that is so exactly who's to blame in this political game of chicken over the debt ceiling and the budget shadow we're going to think. it is tuesday july twelfth eight pm in washington d.c. and christine for a sound you're watching our team. starting off tonight a look at how time can change everything fifteen months ago i walked a couple blocks down the street to the national press club to attend a news conference on a little known website called working weeks the news conference was hosted by with

the web sites founder julian assange who at the time almost no one had heard of when the news conference was over i interviewed him one on one and asked him to come back to our studios that afternoon for a couple more interviews he agreed no problem and appeared on the news right here on our to america and then later on the. well fast forward to today and joining us on cannot walk the streets free his name is widely recognized around the world and his extradition case has become one of the most famous and closely watched well today as on spend most of the afternoon in a british court room where he's fighting extradition and where he climbed and hunter's in hand with two women who made complaints against him involved consensual sex but the charges should be dropped more and it's been today at the courtroom and look for so many ins and outs of this case and its consequences he still wrestles it right at school his own cheese day he was flanked by his lawyers and his

assistants he was silent obviously reserving his energies we were all asking him how he felt about how the day was going to go but he didn't answer any of us that he's had a half cut he's now wearing gloves does he look that she much older than his school she is and certainly much older than him but he did it looks like the these months of a bushel house arrest that he's been under had really taken that told he's been staying at the home of a friend of his out in the countryside where he's had to wear an electronic tag he's been under a curfew needles they have to report to the police station every day for that kid to really taken its toll on him this hearing that we're seeing this week a shuttle to last until wednesday but even then the rulings expected to be reserved so we might not hear what decision the judge has made for days or even weeks and insights even if this appeal is rejected. that he vows to take this case higher up the justice chain here in the u.k. but to decide between court and then if he has to go on to the european court of

human rights because he was last seen in court in february here in the u.k. where the judge ruled in favor of sweden they said that he should be extradited to sweden saying that that would mean a reason to expect that our souls would receive a fair trial later that he's now into. today to appeal that decision and here his supporters have always suggested that the prosecution on sex charges is politically motivated and that the end goal of this is that sweden will eventually send him to the u.s. where of course a grand jury is currently investigating the work of wiki leaks and in fact there are significant links between sweden and the us which is the subject of the reports that you can see now for seven months since today and i saw it was released on bail he returns to the high court to appeal his extradition if he fails our souls will be sent to sweden within ten days but many believe his feet won't touch the ground

next stop america i think the the worry is but which in the past has actually started people to america with a minimum of force when they röst was seen as a possible you know thought to carry water weight him in the us is this not well known as a criminal he ought to be. called trial for war used earlier a notorious neo conservative group helped the swedish prime minister friedrich reinfeldt win reelection last year and there's another glaring link in the shape of lawyer thomas bald strum his firm's representing the two women bringing the sex charges against our souls in two thousand and one he was a minister of justice and is alleged to have helped turned over to asylum seekers suspected by the cia of terror they were sent to egypt and allegedly tortured he might well want to stop wiki leaks from functioning the questions of gravity became

even even clearer thanks to some of the documents from exactly wiki leaks there is . a willingness to. do the united states over many years from. now. question seven. making asylum seekers in sweden in. the twenty's is particularly strong now with the. government can sweden sweden once i thought on sex crime charges the u.s. is reportedly preparing an espionage case and it suits nor need to remember sweden just fine to be a conduit in this case and in others they get. all the benefits of being an intelligence partner of the united states without the baggage of being in nato sweden seen as an easier way for the u.s. to get their hands on ourselves but equally after it requested the extradition of

hacker gary mckinnon from britain which so far hasn't been granted but critics say the u.k. is just as much in cahoots with the u.s. and sweden. to represent us foreign policy in europe. militarily and politically. unfortunately as judy back to court in london who have an eye on the british justice system which could save him from being extradited but the other eye will be firmly fixed on sweden a country that insists on its own neutrality whilst turning asylum seekers us allegedly to be tortured only our soldiers and his staff that wiki leaks know what else sweden's got to hide your teeth landed. well the topic of sexual assault and what constitutes a has been at the center of the conversation lately in light of this crumbling case of former i.m.f. chief dominique strauss kahn and of course the glory case that we just talked about with julian assange which should

a sorties continue to crack down on sexual assault cases and to what extent is it used by any as an excuse women who feel they have something to gain or her friends with the resident questions in the streets of new york city i know what people think. the sexual assault cases of d s k angelina stands are getting a lot of coverage in the news do you think it's right for women or men to report any sexual encounter they feel uncomfortable with this week let's talk about that well if you feeling accomplished get out of the situation there are two rules this one trouble leave and the second rule is the boss of the two proven otherwise if she feels that she's been violated i think reporting is the best idea and how that plays out you know that that's how that plays out the reporting is should be a woman's instinct at what point does it cross over to consider just for patient yeah it's a it's

a tough line between those two people we're just two people it's impossible i think women should not get in situations i think there are lots of times that we put ourselves in situations and we have a messenger inside us that says get out of there and sometimes we don't listen to that message once she says no or she says no it's a no if the same for women and for man one hundred percent. so why do we treat it more as a woman fashion because it happens more often to women. men have a pride to say about whether. it's about money richard original programs for. good the just another way for women to get rich. so do you think it's fair that the law generally tends to fight with women. i think it's impossible to really say what's fair or what's at this point. so much i think in general

my inclination is to say yes it is because women for the most part have been the victims for so many years that you always have to side more with them in order to make it equal it's like affirmative action in a way like you have to do something to make things better so that they're not always the victims no matter how you feel about the lines of sexual assault the bottom line is that the rule no means no will always be a good one to follow. and keeping with the story of julian assange as there's talk that is he is extradited to sweden will then be sent to the u.s. and as we saw just in that report a few minutes ago quite a few people here who are interested in bringing him down even talk about sending him to guantanamo bay despite the united states considering itself as one of the top defenders of human rights there is evidence of torture taking place like one hundred obey and his well evidence of torture tactics being taught are here in the

united states are to kill him for has more on a long dark legacy of teaching torture. it's been thirty years and i mean soldiers kidnapped be starved and electroshock out east peace about all for having a quote subversive but. remember he lives every day people for by thought through i'm very lucky to be able to tell the story most people get tortured for the stand there and then they get shot and killed and many have been disappeared hector says the colombian soldiers who tortured him and later killed his brother. were trained right here on american soil at the school of the america in fort benning georgia army major garrett a player with an instructor there i was very much in favor of the school. america's during the cold war era but major player says he was horrified with what his former students did with their anti-communist training in their own country the classified

. army school. use of the words terror again next door assassinate. commonly. waits for. graduates from the school of the americas have been implicated in massacres and torture throughout the hemisphere of the more than sixty thousand soldiers and police have graduated ten thousand of them have been columbia. of america's. abuse or you want rights and they were. the eighth amendment to the us constitution forbids torture and other forms of cruel and unusual punishment as those the geneva convention but it happened there's no question that our country on the occasion torture and sort of put thought others how to do it we also rendered people we also sent people to prisons in other

countries where they were in fact tortured there although congress to make them more oversight of military training programs and internal investigation by the government accountability office showed that school of the americas manuals advocated using quote torture truth serum blackmail and execution the pentagon said it didn't know what the manuals contained because it staff advisors assigned to review them didn't speak spanish united nations special repertoire for torture one mendez himself a survivor of torture says a lack of transparency in the u.s. led to further abuse in the eighty's unfortunately. aid military aid and police aid was restored and after that it's been difficult to document to what extent that includes teaching. techniques that are prohibited by law or by international law it's a legacy that sharply contrast with u.s. rhetoric about respect for human rights. abroad the fact that there is an engagement with police bodies for example that do yeah themselves extensively

practiced torture is an embarrassment and perhaps more than an embarrassment to the united states torture survivors and religious leaders in washington d.c. have come together to demand a full commission of inquiry into what they describe as torture practice enabled by the united states including in its own prisons like one time of day and by the cia when president bush says that he waterboarding and he would do it again. and send them right that he had ordered that. that's a very serious problem for the spirit soul of our country as they look at how many prisoners were tortured by the united states are hard to find but survivors like hector's say the numbers don't tell the full story when someone gets tortured not only the person with. the you know with the. positive. it's also someone who wants to be humanized themselves you know the humanize the north human being but a society that supports torture is going to pay

a price rises for ill informed artsy washington d.c. . all right now some surprising news from texas congressman ron paul came in the form of which meet today he said quote i have decided not to seek reelection to congress full story here and have a link to a story published in his local newspaper the facts instead he says he will focus his efforts on his presidential campaign and this is important for many reasons and twenty ten congressman paul won his seat with more than eighty percent of the vote in his district the fourteenth district in texas and would almost certainly enjoy another victory in two thousand and twelve if of course he doesn't win the republican nomination for president but polls are not showing him anywhere near the top of the somewhat crowded field but he did manage to raise the the second most of all g.o.p. presidential candidates who have reported second quarter totals so despite the naysayers representative ron paul seems to think the republican nomination for president could be in his grasp i spoke to ron paul just

a little while ago and i asked him how he came to this decision not to seek reelection here's his response. well i didn't come to it lightly i've been thinking about it for quite a few bonds but sought the one decision that was appropriate to let my constituents know so i did talk to the newspaper this morning and released it and i would not run and then i would not be you know campaigning for two different offices i would concentrate on just the presidential run i'm wondering if you've got any pushback from people who say you know you've been serving us for nearly twenty four years if you don't win you know the presidential office you know we feel a little hurt that you're abandoning us have you have you heard anything like that but no but i guess if i did it with the flattery. you know i haven't heard that of course you know it's it's only been out for a few months but nobody's indispensable that's what i know so somebody will have to fill you know and. i will miss being there congressman i've been been

a position for a long time and certainly another interesting fact about this congress the one hundred twelfth congress you're serving with your son of course who's in the senate kind of an interesting thing i want to switch gears though to your presidential campaign certainly if you look at polls you're not in the in the top top but your voices being heard much more this time around i know that back in two thousand and eight that election i remember i think it was the summer of two thousand and seven i was in chicago at a music festival and there were three guys walking around with the sign that says who is ron paul i remember driving to vegas from san diego looking at a hillside that same question who is ron paul on the side of a hill i don't think anyone's asking that question this time around what do you think has changed in the four years that's made your name in your voice so much more prominence but i think a lot has happened i think we got a lot of the message out four years ago when people became aware of what i was saying and it was it was met with

a lot of resistance there it was not accepted but because of what i was saying it became important because it. concerns i had for the economy were you know they are down and what happened we did have a financial crisis the foreign policy has gone to the dogs i mean we're still at war wars are being added and we're facing a bankruptcy the federal reserve has been on the defensive because we point out that the fed is so responsible for so much we've had so the the conditions of the country have changed dramatically but the the free market economists that i followed have been completely right on on their concerns and what's happening so it is a different world the support is tremendous now compared to four years ago and i think it's going to continue to build and we're going to continue to work at it and you say the conditions of the country have changed your message though seems to have stayed the same you said some of these messages some of these ideas that you brought forth four years ago were met with resistance one of the thickly i know

that still you have the un somewhat unpopular position although changing rapidly about the wars in afghanistan and iraq what do you think are some of the messages that are really resonating the most people i think i think in all areas when it comes to war more people are skeptical there's more votes now in the congress to come home and bring our troops home from iraq and afghanistan and and surely not get another war started in libya so we've gained tremendous support there and i think the people of the country are agreeing when i talk about personal liberties people are more worried now about the patriot act and how the patriot act is used to harass us at airports and and pesters there in an attempt to pretend that they're defending us and nobody really believes are doing much good but certainly on the economy in the federal reserve that's where. you know we've gained so much support because we have talked about the financial bubble that existed the housing bubble and it would have to be a correction and certainly we're in the middle of that but we still face

a lot of problems so i think people are paying attention to in all areas i think are not running for another. sorry but you are still you know working here in washington on on this term want to get your take on what we're seeing right now with these talks about raising the debt ceiling and sort of the back and forth it's a hot day here in washington but it feels like one hundred fifty degrees if you kind of think about the mood and what's going on between the two parties here yes and they have a long way to go because they have no easy answers to this because they're trying to solve a problem which they can't solve unless they change their whole idea isn't notions about what government should do what they don't want to give up on is being the policemen of the world they don't want to give up on being the economic planner and the big government supposed to run the economy and that they don't want to give up on the federal reserve so therefore they don't have any answers and they don't understand the business cycle they don't know that they are supposed to allow banks to go bankrupt that are supposed to cleanse

a system of excessive debt and malinvestment so they're just propping it up and they're buying bad debt and dumping it on the taxpayers and they wonder why the recession doesn't am so i'm not very confident that they're going to come up with a solution and that's why they're in an impasse because they're trying to say well maybe ten years out we might cut some money and that just won't just won't work they have to do something now and i have to start talking about bringing our troops home and changing our monetary system and not being bogged down in trying to pay for all these entitlements because there's just no money left and finally congressman this is kind of a big decision i would say that you've made sort of regarding your presidential bid on that to decide not to run for congress again and as you said not run for a few office is that once can you give us some insight in terms of some of the other things that you're thinking about doing i mean it is still summer of two thousand and eleven but things are about to heat up what other changes are you going to make what else is going to happen what will we see in terms of your

presidential bid chris we're going to continue to do what we've been doing in my job has always been to do what i've been doing for thirty years and talk about the change. as that are necessary philosophically and in the campaign itself we'll continue to do more of what we've been doing and that's where we've excelled because we've had a small number of people beginning now the numbers keep growing exponentially literally into the billions of people now that they owe from us so we'll just continue to do what we're doing and stay as organized as possible next nicole we have right now is to do well at the ames straw vote which is coming up in august so that will be one area that we're going to keep an eye on now in the next month all right u.s. congressman ron paul talking about his decision not to run for another term in congress thirdly representative paul the matter what happens in twenty twelve have a feeling that your message is going to continue to resonate with a whole lot of people thanks so much for speaking with us thank you very much thank you. all right says the few hours ago president obama round out his latest talks

with one makers on raising the debt ceiling and new this evening a plan by republican senator mitch mcconnell essentially putting the ball in the president's court entirely but that would give the president the ability to request smaller increases in the debt ceiling and instead of voting to approve the debt ceiling congress would hold a series of votes mostly for those members who wanted to disapprove and this would take the responsibility away from republican lawmakers in blamed for refusing to compromise that or one raising taxes some tonight calling this plan a punt or an escape by republicans it is the latest idea in a series of plans but so far we're still no closer to an agreement so what happens when state and federal benefits run out by the end of this year or earlier i spoke to economist and radio host richard wolffe with all of the back and forth going on here in washington and i asked him to give me his take on what's really going on with these that tax thing well i think to be brutally honest that neither side

neither the president the democrats nor the republicans are facing the basic issues of this economy we are in serious trouble we have very high and persistent unemployment and what we are doing is arguing over the technicalities of the debt limit ceiling that is going to be changed and raised as it has been every other time this trickle drama has been rerun and meanwhile our political leaders are not dealing with the underlying problem we have a state minnesota that has already shut down we have other states that are following suit we have cities facing collapse we have a serious economic problem the private sector has not provided the jobs so it shows no signs of doing it and either the government is going to step in or we're facing an economic situation that is more dire than any i have seen in my lifetime of being a specialist on the american economy i think it's really interesting. sure that you mention and certainly every state has big troubles we've been talking

a whole lot about minnesota and the government shutdown there are some other interesting things in that i want to take a look at just a few things in arizona for example there are now ten job seekers for every job opening in florida where there's nearly four hundred seventy six thousand people collecting unemployment benefits just eleven thousand two hundred were added last year and over to michigan forty thousand jobs added since may of last year but two hundred sixty seven thousand people are still looking so i want to ask you you know when the spending stops that much of these payments will stop so lucky you foresee as a result in states like this that we just showed. i'm afraid i see the very dire consequences now that president obama has indicated he is willing to participate in getting big cuts to all kinds of payments thereby taking away the capacity of the federal government to help cities and states they're going to continue to cut people should

know that since this great recession began over health a million city and state workers have been laid off that does not help our economic system that diminishes the amount of buying that those people can do that in turn cuts the deed for other jobs or we continue to commit our corporations to hire people in other countries because they are cheaper in addition to their not being enough jobs if you actually look at our economy because wages are going down the quality of the jobs that people get even if they're lucky enough to have one is the . that was economist and radio host richard roth. and as richard with saying the current economic situation is perhaps more dire than ever and everyone from the federal level on down feeling the pressure one of the states we mentioned the state of michigan is in such a grand position that it is giving up a prized asset to find a way out of its economic woes and decided democracy may be just too expensive an

elected financial managers have taken the place of elected officials and have been given a free hand to make decisions go unchecked party correspondent kareen a fortnight into deeper work at the extreme measures being taken here in the shitter. the american state known for its great lakes had seen the middle class state and automotive industry crumble in michigan for city benton harbor more than a quarter citizens are unemployed and elected officials have lost almost already to government as an unprecedented democratic collapse plays out we believe that this is illegal immoral and unconstitutional no one person in this country have on their story to prove the united states in that had a majority in the face of massive public opposition michigan lawmakers recently reshaped democracy by giving unilateral authority to officials known as emergency financial managers e.-m.

out to have independent authority to fire elected officials closed schools void union contracts sell public property and privatized assets residents like scott elliott say his city these are the start of a changing landscape in american politics people throw around words like only guard and all that sort of thing i mean that's that's what it already is i think the average citizen is going to have less and less to say about what is done with public assets these decision makers are appointed by the governor to oversee school districts and cities like budget harvard or they think financial distress in april benton harbor e.m.f. strip the elected city council of the democratic power leaving a city of eleven thousand struggling americans under the rule of a man they didn't unless they're hypocrites you know their ex trying to explore it marvelously for around the world but at home they're trying to suppress the

citizens of this country at least four other cities including detroit have an emergency manager in the motor city e.m.f. laid off some six thousand teachers and it's pioneering plans for corporations to privately run schools funded by public tax dollars well dr martin luther king. said and justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere so is there to harbor today but it could be in new york tomorrow or it could be chicago next week exit harbor is one of roughly one hundred cities or towns in michigan reportedly on the verge of this will collapse and economic desperation that either way for financial martial law to spread throughout the states critics say that would lead to a deepening demise of democratic rights the u.s. has always claimed to stand.