welcome to the learn to show you the real headlines with none of the mercy me live out of washington d.c. now and i will ask what a downgrade for the u.s. credit rating could actually meet as both moody's and s. and p. throw around more threats or do you feel you are in with the latest details of a hunger strike that's going on in california's prisons some say they are willing to die if that's the only way to change the system and the bloated defense budget all that military waste that we talk about all the time today we're going to give

you a great example of a project gone wrong that could cost you six hundred billion dollars we're going have all of that and more into night's show including a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look at what the mainstream media has decided to miss. you know there's a lot going on in the world these days but for some reason the mainstream media hasn't gotten the memo that things which are not of actual apocalyptic proportions don't deserve apocalyptic end of the world type names case in point. this. is around in high school that of course the classic highway to hell by ac d.c. later today after weeks of warnings that big zion he had even fears of landslides ten miles in one of america's busiest freeways the four o five will be shut down and drivers buckling up her car mageddon

a breach demolition going to close down the door of five going to be a laser busiest highways. are now let me give a little bit of explanation here i'm from l.a. so i understand that this is going to be a big deal going to affect a lot of people over the weekend when the four of five a shutdown or five is one of the busiest freeways that connects los angeles to a really large portion of the rest of california and a lot of people are probably going to be completely out of luck when it comes to getting to work or just getting around in general so car mageddon as they're calling it is going to be big. in los angeles but if you live anywhere else in the country then why the hell would you care about this why does need to be national news because you get to play highway to hell and have a little laugh about it you know if only the media treated the economic situation that our country is in and the scenario of apocalyptic proportions or how about the fact that they don't talk about the wars that we're fighting abroad they have a lot to do with bankrupting this country will not be something well here's some

news from you for for you from our ever expanding and costly war front there are reports out today that american drones and fighter jets had a police station and southern yemen and suspected al qaeda fighters and overrun the reports very for now as to the damage done and the death toll some say that eight alleged militants were killed a c.n.n. report said the body count is it fifty and that's because some sources count at least thirty civilians were hiding out from the continuous attacks and the family members of the suspected militants were also were in the area now at some point all of the details are going to come out as to exactly how many lives were lost but there's one thing that's very clear right at this moment there are air war in yemen is only expanding and of course all reports always come from anonymous officials because well they're not allowed to talk about it because that's something this administration continues to act like we're idiots like we don't know that shadow wars are being waged on our behalf in a number of countries so they just pretend like it never happened here i want iraq

obama to come out stand of his podium in the white house tell us about the drone strikes in the air attacks that are ordered in yemen in pakistan even somalia i'd like an answer from the administration jeremy scahill as latest report which we spoke about yesterday about the secret sites at the cia has in somalia i want to know whether the practice or the rendition and torture black sites all those things that he chided the bush administration for and promised to end i want to know if they're still going on but we're never going to get an answer to any of that because those people who may actually have the opportunity. he would speak to the president himself those cowards in the mainstream media who have decided to ignore sales reports over the reports of the strike in yemen today they would never ever be bothered to ask our world wide counterterrorism policies are something that they prefer to simply miss.

all the politicians continue to bicker and snipe about the looming debt ceiling debate calling each other names storming out rooms people aside from the media have started to take notice you know it's not lawless region still seems schools a cucumber it's the ratings agencies who start to think the unthinkable the historic or u.s. downgrade on wednesday moody's place the united states triple bond rating on quote a review for a possible downgrade and warns that even if the u.s. did raise the debt ceiling that might not be enough to save the u.s. the aaa rating and if that wasn't enough yesterday the s. and p. announced there was a substantial likelihood that they were downgrade the u.s. rating in the next three months as to meeting the probability of the u.s. losing out rating at a whopping fifty percent so with all of that talk of a potential downgrade for the u.s. well that actually mean for you and i and for the u.s. economy as a whole joining me to discuss this is michael kinds o. senior economist for euro pacific capital michael pleasure to have you back on the

show tonight. tell me what you think first of all should the u.s. rating aaa rating be downgraded. well so we had a long time ago and as now get the s. and p. five hundred and raise ny state because we didn't raise the debt ceiling at media like that. if we actually released. that would be impetus for me to downgrade united states because we can't work forty dollars worth of debt that we're already engaged a pay raise the debt ceiling that's at least some side released really i think if they don't read straight on this will be our spirits billionaire. so when you think that americans actually realize i mean what do you mean when you say austerity and let's break it down first we threw in a what with our stare to be if the debt ceiling isn't raised and what would it

actually look like for average americans if the credit rating of the u.s. was downgraded well ok. anyway do they really aaa. and they raised a very natural way i mean they don't really believe us were. really sure. where i was. you know. and coming here i believe there's a fifty fifty chance that we don't know your and. truly live we can roll over. if we're going to be interesting. but either way we're going to. actually if you can. but actually all do. we deserve it oh yes i say bring you all

who are in their ranks and who deserve that my body isn't the american people that deserve this that it is their doing their civic duty paying their tax dollars or is it the politicians that are going overspending. american. politicians are americans and we all. felt we pulled our we. are living standards are way beyond any that we should look and. see when you have the right expansion of money supply credit bubbles the world who they feeling. great depression. and. a leak little seizure louis arena. i don't. know what.

we are some. holy. war. i should say this. is trying to change and if anybody. he think of politicians are being honest with the american people when they say what that medicine would actually look like because of the moment it just seems like a lot of grandstanding a lot of posturing to pretend like they have certain principles but come on there's no way they're going to let you have the thousand and seven because one story doesn't want everything falls on its debt. well osprey doesn't dictate what happens a lot three dictates a lot of what happens in washington gambling place and right now we have a party. i do see a lot baseball nagas said cheap eighty increase in revenue and you're not going to

get more chilean dollar deal from obama if the possibility cuts were actually it was a steady and their politics a. while cause i read it here is tokyo up. early stuck at eighty eight surely it was a catastrophic week to the elections in november two thousand taught it was that we were. we will be. george w. bush. was great ten times. now so we have a new breed of republicans if i got it right they will agree. they are bothered that but their commensurate spending cuts clips the raise the debt such horrible. acts. right. well the funny thing of course is that. those

republicans that are the republican leadership those that are the most vocal the john boehner the eric cantor is the mitch mcconnells they're not a part of the new breed these are the same guys that did raise the debt ceiling a number of times under the bush administration and suddenly act like this is just a proposed dress idea that they could never imagine doing it i could point thank you. for your insight i got me the leadership here is right the people who are supposedly in charge of their party but i want to get back to these to these ratings because you said who cares about the ratings well internationally how do investors how do those that are buying u.s. treasuries these ratings have to mean something that. these are in generally in their shares of. their treasury but not reach away. but.

i it still is leisure travel. look like you get it's he will eat three to five years you know yes. this is. what your shop. but you. and. i need a little oh right for you and i get rid of. all of. asia. because he said sorry g.d.p. college and. really the big. blue. prosperity isn't working let's say in the u.k. right now they've already enacted a number of us parity measures and their economy isn't doing much better if you're just saying that we're going to have to go through this very terrible miserable

time before anything can be rebuilt here willing to just literally throw millions of americans into a depression like state. of the right thing but you know it requires a really you know when you're one of the way corey does what you i congress to vote on that and there was why i agreed about all longer does don't blame it on me although you said the word of blame because we voted these people and a lot of it was you know just. watch. the process here well you basically me. there's only one way to. show your. only way. i'm sure you. might do you are not. rich

a lot but it is very short. it. is much higher my goal and i want to thank you for joining us tonight and i don't think that congress is going to let that happen though who knows of the moment it does still. hanging by a string of us i think so much. thank you. i thought a consonant the tabloid phone hacking scandal has the u.k. and i'll throw out what is the same type of journalism happened here in the u.s. or find out when we come back and a sweeping hunger strike thousands of prisoners in california are entering week look out into the television rounds of these prisoners are thinking more about america. into it all their military mechanisms to deal with the to bring to justice or. i have every right to know what my government should do it want to know why i pay

taxes. but i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of american exceptionalism. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for sleep you think you understand it and then he glimpse something else and here's some other part of it and realized everything is such. a charge to the big picture. let's not forget that we had an apartheid museum right. i think the beautiful one well.

we never got the book says they're for keeping safe get ready because of their freedom. well the hacking scandal at rupert murdoch's media empire seems to be growing by

the day both the f.b.i. and the justice department here in the u.s. are now investigating claims that victims of the nine eleven attacks were hacked by reporters from one of murdoch's tabloids meanwhile her back a groks the editor of the news of the world tabloid resigned overnight she was at the helm of the paper when it closed last week i made allegations that a hack with phones of celebrities the royal family and of course a murdered girl's voice mail now today we learned that rupert murdoch himself met with the family of milly dowler that's a thirteen year old girl who was murdered in two thousand and two and at the time she was missing the news of the world was accused of hacking into her voice mail and listening to her messages even deleting some of that which led milly spam lee and all the worries to believe that she was alive because of the deleted messages you know this weekend murdoch is taking out a full page ad and all of his u.k. papers offering up an apology but it's not going to be enough the news of the world scandal is cause a huge outcry for reforms of journalism in the u.k. and discussed right here at home but are we missing that same type of journalism

happening right here in the rest. in the takes a look at tabloid journalism in america. sex drugs cheating and lies phony political scandals washing dirty laundry. celebrity gossip and crime stories almost the odds human imagination. over this is served on a platter and sold for a couple of quarters by its outboards headless mailers all posed by herself and secured small arms in the freezer. i thought it veteran journalist michael was one of millions falling for the bait of catchy headlines even though he knows the business inside out in america we don't break the law per se but they do have sleazy tactics i mean they will slap a story they probably make up sources i mean when you read in a source. a source said well who is that many times they can just make up the quote

themselves joe smith from queen said global while a lot of times they feel they're just inventing these quotes to back up the thesis of the story fascination with scandal is almost religiously observed in the u.s. and great britain we are both countries and both media environments the gossip sells and there's a tremendous interest in celebrity both countries are of was after rupert murdoch's news of the world newspaper phone hacking shocker broke in london his empire stretches far and wide across the u.s. as well let's not forget he owns the new york post the wall street journal and the daily at a protest outside murdoch's big apple pad protesters demanded an investigation into this publication that we know what murdoch does in england because he was caught and we want congress to investigate what he's doing here in the united states we don't know if newspapers are acting other people in this country yet but i see no reason to put it past them so how far from potential public embarrassment do

american newspapers stand by the ones that are owned by rupert murdoch without question the new york post. is one of the most hideous deceitful. tools of the criminals that there could be when it comes to getting scandal sold in the u.s. counting on the reader short attention span is a common publishing trick jennifer aniston brad pitt has gotten together about forty two times so far this year and i haven't seen them photographed together since two thousand and six they're able to keep selling and repackaging the same story that isn't even a story no publication but it's myth to paying for. information but that's also off to a technicality what a lot of mainstream news publications can get away with doing is even though they won't explicitly give someone money in exchange for an interview someone might set up a terrible organization and then the news will happen to donate twenty thousand dollars to that charitable organization the culture of sensationalism in the press is putting in the tree of journalism on the line the anglo-american style is it's

trashy it's ribald and there's just sort of this term is very american you know we're a juvenile society where young society i don't really know what they were at sixty uses of mean they've been around a long time but they blame it on them because we're their children while some will always remain fascinated by tabloids as continue to sell others have reached a breaking point i don't have that we have a sense of what happens in britain but i know it's pretty bad here and there are a lot of people who are really upset about the culture news in america and just how little information seems to get out in between all the gossip the press has to be vigilant and in the united states the press has fallen asleep and you know archie. this is the second week of a prisoner hunger strike that's taking place right now in california some theory and may lead to deaths thousands of prisoners across the state of joining together in a process that began in the security housing unit at the pelican bay state prison the

california department of corrections and rehabilitation is now admitting that over six thousand inmates across the tate state are refusing meals and become the largest hunger strike in over ten years to hit the troubled california prison system and as a jew in pelican bay prison is one of the oldest and largest isolation units in the country with over a thousand prisoners in isolation and they say that it is designed to monitor control and isolate only the most dangerous prisoners but striking prisoners are trying to draw attention to you and peacefully protest what they call twenty five years of torture the. at the c.d.c. are as arbitrary illegal and progressive progressive we putative practices and some of the demands include an end to long term solitary confinement an adequate and nutritious food some striking prisoners say they feel no meaningful change will come until prisoners start dying so will the state let it go that far and if they do what does that say about our prison system joining me from our studio in los angeles is clyde young revolutionary communist and former prisoner thank you so

much for joining us tonight now for starters do you have any updates for us as to the latest and whether any negotiations are going on in this prison strike oh thank you for having me on first of all the latest report that i have received is that there have been negotiations and perhaps those negotiations are going on today as well but that they started it yesterday between the leaders of the strike inside pelican bay and also there mediators on the outside but no substantial progress has been made in those negotiations and i like to say that it's outrageous that the prison authorities have allowed this situation to progress as far as it has with the person whose health is in serious jeopardy without you know giving serious considerations to the mans that they very which religion which are just and legitimate oh yeah you know you mentioned i cried some of these demands are they include things like adequate food access to natural light warmer clothing and one

phone call a month those sound like basic just demands and yet up until this point the c.d.r. see wasn't even willing to negotiate i just can't understand why they would pretend or why they would act like those demands are really radical. yes well i think it shows you something it tells you something about the callous nature of the prison authorities these days i was in prison myself eight years ago and i served time in isolation for months but never years and decades and one of the most poignant things that was said in a letter from a prisoner recently was that prisoners who are incarcerated in pelican bay and ice are in pelican bay i should say. actually do not see the sun for decades and another thing just for your viewing audience to understand the nature of the problem they do and don't hear music for decades just imagine being in

a situation where you hear music no more. could you tell us about your personal situation like you said again you were in solitary confinement for a time a lot of international organizations would say that that's something that amounts to torture which you describe it that way. i would absolutely describe it that way if you look at the conditions and i'd like to focus on the conditions the tens of thousands of prisoners of facing today. their estimates are up to as high as one hundred thousand prisoners or are confined in isolation cells and pelican bay what i understand is that prisoners are in a cell no larger than small bathroom they have a concrete slab protruding from the wall which is their beer and they have a seat in the toilet and this is soundproof room and there i should say it's a soundproof what prisons have described as a tomb and they're confined there for twenty two and a half hours a day and whenever they leave their cells they have to be handcuffed in the cavity search this is nothing less than torture to combine human beings under these

circumstances and i think there's absolutely no justification for it at all well the thing is that california prison system will try to tell you that they place people in isolation that are only the most dangerous of criminals and they do this in order to break up the gang violence within california prisons as well but has any of that actually stopped is it gang violence inside prisons worse than it ever has been. well you know i don't exactly and i don't want to speak to the claims that the prison authorities have made but what i will say is this there's absolutely no justification for confining any human being in the kind of circumstances that i've described not only the cells that i've described where they're confined for twenty two and a half hours a day but oftentimes they're denied reading material and they're also prevented from you know having materials like color pencils so that they can draw

and they hear new music i mean just think of yourself if you are confined to a small space for ten twenty thirty years and have no access to music or anything like that this is just torture there's absolutely no justification for either inside the borders of the us or outside the borders of the u.s. now do you think why do you why do you think that we don't hear more of an uproar about this is because so many americans don't realize how many people are sitting in solitary confinement and suffering within the u.s. or is it because we have this tough on crime attitude where you say that these people deserve that treatment they're criminals lock him up and treat him however you think that. let me answer that question in two ways i think that yes there is an attitude of climate in the country being tough on crime but one of the reasons why so many people were incarcerated and in prison period to begin with you have to point million to two point three million people incarcerated in prisons this has everything to do with the fact that the upsurge in the one nine hundred sixty s. didn't go all the way to a revolution and here you see what is

a repressive steps that have been taken by the system to actually say that something like that will never happen again in this country and it was people like the ones that are confined all across this country not only in solitary confinement units but also in prisons. black and latino those in overwhelming majority of. people should read in the show xander this book called the new jim crow mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness to get more details on this particular situation of the mass incarceration racially targeted mass incarceration of people across this land now cried laughing like i said so this is going on for more than two weeks now apparently some of these prisoners reportedly are and horrible health some are saying that they're willing to die for this cause do you think they're worth a talent here that would change the system at all. why i think first of all i think the prisons have said that they're willing to die but they don't want to the

demands that they raise are completely gest and legitimate demands are not outrageous demands you have articulated what some of them are they've also said the end to long term solitary confinement and also the end to the practice of what the prison officials call gang validation or someone on the word of another prisoner or on the word of a guard with absolutely no evidence whatsoever can be labeled as a gang member and confined and pelican bay in the security units so i think this is just completely outrageous the second thing i want to say is that the prisoners are the health of many of the prisoners are in grave is a grave situation in terms of their health their deteriorating and i think it really requires for the public and the public has actually been duped it's important to say that that the public has been duped in this situation these prisoners have been labeled they've been demonized they've been incarcerated on a massive scale and people have.