so let's see is this more to show why the united states of america is still the greatest nation on earth really mr president greatest nation on earth and the middle arm of that is all that a little less talk and a little more action on the debts some americans think taxing times call for taxing measures. and he's known as bitter number seventy but his look big to big to save you tons ecosystem from oil and gas industries has landed him behind bars. and a missile mind game first there was a reset button and then a start treaty

a cruise missile shield blowout all those agreements. it's tuesday july twenty sixth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm christine and watching our team all right everyone i want to talk about the economy and what's going on here in washington of course you probably saw it last night right around this time both president obama and speaker of the house john boehner standing their ground and continuing to get out on the airwaves over who's right and who's wrong in the debate over how to solve the issues surrounding raising this country's fourteen point three trillion dollars debt ceiling president obama says it needs to be a balanced approach by both spending cuts and revenue increases are necessary but speaker boehner says it should all come from cutting. course in this whole game of chess there's a lot of talk about the moves the other side is thinking of making but here is the

reality we're basically a week away from a stalemate and in case you're counting that's six days three hours fifty eight minutes and twelve seconds eleven ten nine all right until some pretty scary things can can happen as far as this country's credit rating and economic standing in the world so far wall street seems not to really care and if you lived in washington for a while like i have there's a chance you're thinking this will happen as it always does at the last possible moment but let's talk about this there are some important aspects of this discussion that really need to be looked at closely and i want to sift through this because a lot of it is murky so earlier i spoke to two people about this from different sides of the aisle but who agreed on quite a bit in terms of what's gone right and what's gone wrong so there's thermo is an associate with blue skin solutions then o'connor is running for congress in two thousand and twelve as a democrat from new york city given that last night's speech seemed in some ways a kind of final i asked them if it proves that obama feels that he's already lost.

well i think that obama has taken a long time he still has does not a really specific plan the democrats under harry reid brought something to the table but really it's been republicans trying to get their cut cap and balance proposal through cut cap and balance right yes and you know at the in a day that's probably not going to be the case but the republicans who were elected in two thousand and especially have to show the american people who they feel gave them a mandate to cut and balance that they are doing all they can to make that happen and the reality is it's probably going to carry over into two thousand and twelve and then this is an issue that you're going to no doubt face in some capacity if you do you win this election in two thousand and twelve talk to me about what you've been thinking is that the core of this and do you think that obama has already lost this one any sort of trying to justify that for twenty twelve for himself but i think i think it's not only obama who should be shouldering the blame

i think everyone in d.c. should be shouldering the blame for this more so even than even the republican party because they they want to a lot of the elections last year on the platform of cutting of cutting spending and they haven't really done anything anything significant they haven't offered any sort of significant cuts especially on the issues of defense which they're never willing to cut on you know president obama of course talked about this last night and i want to play what i think it boils down to i spoke for fifteen minutes but that there's one little part that i think kind of sums it all up the only reason this balanced approach isn't on its way to becoming law right now is because a significant number of republicans in congress are insisting on a different approach a cuts only approach an approach that doesn't ask the wealthiest americans or biggest corporations to contribute anything at all. so there why is it that republicans say you know we don't want any individuals to have to have their taxes

increased but what about the oil companies that continue to get more and more revenue in these tough times what about you know goldman sachs which you know call them job creators if you want if they're actually laying off people these are huge companies like can't they pay a little more well the reality is that doesn't really work that approach we already have to be nine percent of the wealthiest americans paying. way out i'm sorry the wealthiest americans are paying one percent of the federal income taxes right now we have forty seven percent of americans who don't pay any federal income tax and you know you could very well argue that a lot of the people that are not paying those income taxes are some of the largest corporations like g.e. like apple well yes the corporate tax loopholes you're talking about you know i'm going to the opinion that though should be closed and i think that there's a fair way of doing that to where ever every corporation takes the same load and you don't have the corporations or for the high powered lawyers to get them out of taxes to do so i think that would be a fair thing the reality is

a lot of companies aren't talking about that because that sons and daughter rabbit trail and you know a lot of them get paid by corporations the honest year but i do think that the reality is what they're saying is we need to cut and obama and democrats are not willing to talk about the well that's not true i mean they're cutting all eyes are talking about tax what they call revenues which is nothing but they are worthy of being increases then let let's bring you in here i mean they're putting a lot on the table here. it's not like i mean that here's the other argument here in washington is that democrats are willing to cut well guess what president obama is very unpopular in his own party for some of the things that he is willing to put on the table then what do you think about this argument about how there's making you know that you know these wealthy americans are shouldering so much of the burden already. sure well i think i think a lot of the politicians in d.c. and this is both republican and democratic politicians they continue to next also neglect the biggest tax and that the inflation tax this is a perennial tax and it's not it's not politically. beneficial for them to him to

mention this because they benefit from this taxes it's a hidden tax and they don't have to impose and they don't even have to vote on it and this is what democrats and republicans and you see they allow the duck the federal reserve to continue to print money constantly respects all the biggest printing spree in the history of the world in the past few years we see our cost of living skyrocketing we see the process of gas skyrocketing cost of commodity skyrocketing skyrocketing but nobody in d.c. none of the politicians want to talk about this issue i want to also make sure that we get the other other side of this argument we did hear from obama and last night right after the president spoke of course speaker boehner spoke out let's hear what he understands the president is often said we need a balanced approach which i'm watching jim means we spend more and you pay more. i mean run a small business i know this territory bridges will destroy jobs the president is adamant that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entire program all right

with the president is adamant according to her manner that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entitlement programs i mean i would argue. fundamental if it has a different definition depending on who you ask a lot of democrats think that obama has already gone too far with some of the things that he's willing to cut back on so what's the deal here well i'd like to see things from a different perspective because i think what we're really facing here is two different paradigms of the economy and two different paradigms of of the future of america and what a new pew pew research study has shown is that many people don't think the american dream is alive anymore and the chasm that separating the poor from the rich is is getting wider black from white getting wider and the reality is what these people want is not that they're going to guarantee they're going to be able to get rich or that that happens going to close but they still have opportunity and unfortunately what's happened over the past few years and we've said that housing is the most

secure thing to invest in and what we've seen with the housing market bottoming out that that's no longer secure and especially with minorities they place a lot of security and housing so really what needs to happen is we need to put more of our time and investment in small businesses creating businesses and that's going to get our economy going again because the housing market's not going to be open up for a while what do you think down what well actually i do agree that that's sexes and you need to be removed from businesses and we do need to allow businesses to grow more will do more specific stuff goldman sachs didn't have to pay taxes. they certainly should and they should have the same taxes imposed upon them as as other businesses it should be universal at the same time you know what the politicians in deep in d.c. the republican democrat and democrats the biggest supporter one of the biggest bailouts in history in american history and they're getting away with it and the

american people have essentially forgotten about the bailouts but this is a complete transfer of wealth from the government from the hands of the government into the large corporations and the banks. and they've essentially gotten away with it i think it's really important i mean how are you brought up the point that a lot of people are saying that the american dream is sort of diminishing before our very eyes certainly we're also seeing something that's really important that you know we just can't reiterate enough this gap between the rich and the core continues to be growing so a lot of more people are getting poorer that some of those wealthiest americans and people who we're talking about at the table here they are not they're continuing to make money let's talk about the who is exactly at the table and certainly these are elected officials that were voted into office but these decisions will affect the entire country so i want to give you some food for thought here the average american had a real disposable income after taxes of about thirty three thousand dollars according to the bureau of economic analysis as for senate majority leader harry

reid and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell well they will each earn one hundred ninety three thousand dollars this year and when you take assets into account read reported assets of about nine point four million dollars and mcconnell one thousand nine hundred million dollars so you know what about those who have lost their jobs or those who rely on medicare they're not sitting at this table these are the people who will actually be affected why is their voice not being heard. well i think that there are advocates for them and i would argue that republicans are trying to advocate for them and i think that it will publicans are trying to advocate for people who rely on medicare are they saying that there should be more medicare cuts i think that republicans are trying to an advocate for the war yes those programs are supposed to be for the poor and unfortunately too many people have been on that and that we can't sustain it and i think if we rework the system as paul ryan has suggested and we help younger people start seeing their

retirement a different way then these entitlement programs won't be so another line of younger people who maybe as you're arguing might not get used to what some like to call handouts what are people who rely on it who have who are working overnight shifts and rely on food stamps rely on medicare people who will lose these if this passes right will the reality is the people who really need these programs which they were designed to help will still get them but we have far too many people who are on it for one thing you realize that the wealthiest among us billionaires can still get medicare the cancer system and they can still get it one that we don't need and they would even say we don't need that you know we don't even mind paying into the system but we don't need to take that for ourselves but they still get it but little things like that there's work all over the place including defense that can be removed and we need to come to the table and and make those serious changes medicare is one of those programs that need to be revamped than it is another program let me get your reaction your head there says republicans are advocating

for the poor talk to me do you think. short well first of all things that republicans have the best track record and they don't really have a lot of. they don't really have much to stand on right now especially when george bush ran on a platform of small government he doubled the size of government but you know what i actually do agree with there and on on on the fact that we do need to these issues you need to address the entitlements you certainly need to be addressed and i should one of the few democratic candidates that's actually willing to go into d.c. and bring up this issue because the rest of democrats aren't even willing to talk about it but there is we are finally at a stage in our history where we do have to address this issue of the entitlements they are bankrupt that they are insolvent and i'm actually one of the few democrats out there that want to go up and and actually you know try to change the system as it exists as well then i mean i would say that you're a little late because that's what they've been talking about for the last couple months here they've been talking about these entitlements i think that you're not going to have anyone elise you know on this day and twenty eleven saying that they

should be given more money or that they're fine the way they are they've offered cuts but i guess the question that we're talking about here is just how far is too too far how much but i think what dan brings up is he's got to have long term vision i mean right now we're talking about the debt limit which will be decided upon by august second and you're going to move on the economy has many many issues and it's going to take at it like two thousand and twelve big and when to come in and continue working on it and continue working on it for ten or fifteen years let's remember welfare reform was introduced in one thousand nine hundred eighty four it wasn't signed and tell around one thousand nine hundred six under president clinton fourteen years right there we have to have that kind of fortitude and and vision and to carry this through so they can hope you're going to be around and i agree that if you do. well and i agree it is a gradual process and it's also a very sensitive issue at the same time and it's not something you can attack and mediately because this is this is an issue that that really hits home with a lot of people but it can't be can people can continue to neglect the one thing

that could be done abruptly is pull it pull out a lot. these military engagements around the world this is something that can be dealt with abruptly but the republicans in washington d.c. are willing to do this but i'm glad you brought that up and because that's the problem that the republicans habits harry reid's plan because they're supposedly cuts in there but those cuts all go back to withdrawing our troops in afghanistan and iraq and that's a given anyway so those aren't the answer that's not good enough because we've already taken into account so that harry reid's plan is a smoke and mirrors plan i want to talk about something that we're not really hearing in the mainstream discussion here on but it does come out of obama's speech from last night this was one of his final appeals the entire world is watching so let's seize this moment to show why the united states of america is still the greatest nation on earth. well just because we can still keep our word and meet our obligations would because we can still come together as one nation i think the

president here really appealing to those who you know feel a sense of patriotism for this country the greatest nation on earth a lot of people like to believe that i think it's important to talk about a couple things so when you talk about you know social mobility united states ranks tenth when you talk about infant mortality united states ranks thirty fourth and in talk in terms of the people that are incarcerated in this country you thought there was a lot guess what this country ranks last so certainly the ideals of this country might be you know far above the ideals of several other countries but what about when you look at reality either when i look at reality i see that we still have the greatest democratic system that's been established i see that we have people who can speak freely their minds and can elect freely and then we have an election where people aren't impressed with the outcome they don't you know we're told in the streets i think we do have the greatest nation in the world however i do think that we need

to make sure that we are still in tune with the founding fathers wanted i mean people had a kind of government that downing others wanted and that's where we are at a crossroads right now deciding whether we want to rely more upon government and become more like european countries or whether we want to continue down the same track or the founding fathers set us on which is limited government ruled by the people revolting in the street so i mean i just gotta say when you compare this country to what we're seeing in greece what we're seeing in spain what we're seeing in israel in terms of frustration with economic measures i mean yes we had wisconsin but we certainly don't have egypt by anything that's as it were not rebuilding this you know we have but you have a sense of of peace and and unity and i think we need to attend to maintain that and we maintain that is that the people elect people to represent them in congress a congressman listen to the people and do what they want you don't have somebody who thinks that he's cain and you know exacting its will upon the people and he is now unity here dan peace and unity may be the case but that doesn't take away from

the fact that a lot of people are jobless a lot of people are homeless who's fighting for them. of politicians certainly aren't and i agree that america is still the greatest nation but what makes us unique and what those separate us from other countries is that the fact that we have a constitution and a constitution that was well written not a perfect constitution the original intent of the constitution was written to restrain the role of government and currently we're looking at it but a government that is is under strain and this is why the idea of the constitution has become popular again is because we're looking at it out of looking at it out of control and under strain government and it's going to take people to come in and actually start to force the constitution in washington d.c. certainly an interesting discussion from both of you thanks again for coming heather thermo a blueskin solutions and u.s. congressional candidate dan o'connor keep us posted on your race there and clearly a lot of debate centers around this issue of who will pay because someone well

right now instead of just keeping the inside of keeping this inside the walls of washington worry harf a nest of the resident resident gotten took to the streets of the big apple to ask regular people what they think about whether the wealthy should pay more or if the government has already given enough and needs to cut back. would you be willing to pay more in taxes to save your government from bankruptcy this week let's talk about that. definitely with pay market value of their spending . their spending on defense. or education. so do you trust your government to spend it correctly i don't trust any of the parties in our country a little bit i'm just a little but. few percentage points more and that's about it that's about it since fifty percent of the american public does not pay a nickel i would have

a problem i believe everybody even if it's a dollar fifty everybody should be in the shared sacrifice more in taxes means more benefits which means more community programs get saved or not but what about the whole notion of people being responsible for themselves and not looking for a handout from the government some people can't help it i mean there are some people who tried really really hard in the us they still need help i mean it just happened so you got to get help where you can well i mean it all depends on how much work you put your life is you know if i'm working hard and i make you my good my fair share you know why do i need to get taken away from me when people who you know don't. you know you just spend a lot more money in taxes so that more people have my service that should you have to pay for people who aren't working as hard as you yeah yeah. yeah ok with that.

yeah i think everybody should have it ok so i think it's ok because if you pay too much taxes you know you take the energy from people who want to work so if you're too much there since you have a government like in the states government to spend all the money on crazy wars in iraq and. so i would go through still be stupid worse and there you go media is going to how you feel about taxes the bottom line is you're probably always going to have to pay them but it's up to your government to use those funds well. all right i want to move on to a story that we've been following for quite a while now about a man who showed up at a public land auction with the intent intention of protesting or at the very least causing a stir there to shed light on the issue of climate change see this is national park land in utah and it was going to be sold by the u.s. bureau of land management oil and gas companies ansted this man who at the time was

twenty seven years old and they dug bidding on the land driving the prices way up and winning many of them well when president obama came into office he invalidated the auction but even after that tim de christopher was convicted in the salt lake city federal court of making nearly two million dollars and false bids at a federal auction today tim was sentenced to two years in prison and a ten thousand dollars fine and he was immediately taken into custody outside the courtroom about one hundred people gathered in salt lake city to show support for what they are calling a courageous act of civil disobedience so why the criminal charges when the auction itself was deemed illegal earlier i spoke to kevin zeese the director of come home america dot us i asked him what he thought of timber christopher's actions here's his take. that's right it was an axis of the beating and that stopped and the illegal sale of leases the oil and gas industry the sale of the illegal and not

only the obama administration to stop it after to christopher a bit on the land but they reviewed the leases there are personnel and almost all of them would have been illegally leads what this was was a rush to try to get sales done by the bush administration to their friends in the oil and gas industry before the obama strategy came into power and tend to christopher ever was and that was making progress and tended crisper took in zone to stop this illegal leasing of oil and gas plants and i know yesterday r.t. spoke to timbuktu christopher about the broader issues of his case and here he is in the big picture last night talking about how corporatism is almost always the big winner i'll play a bit of that and we can talk about. the legal system the criminal justice system is a tool of those in power and so we shouldn't necessarily expect that tool to be used against those that are controlling our government be holding corporations

accountable is more our job it is a legal justice systems job and we should be looking for other ways to do that besides just you know hoping for some u.s. attorney somewhere to go and i think bankers are all executors and some pretty interesting have and i mean we live in the united states of america and here tim is environmental activist saying it's our job why is this not a legal system stop because we have a corrupted government and tender christopher serves on the steering committee with me for a project called october two thousand and eleven dot org i couldn't live there or it isn't ever to bring americans to freedom plaza in washington d.c. in october to hold their government accountable and to end corporatism exactly what ima talking about we're going to have a tar here square type around we're going to occupy prison and we're going to mandan and corporatism and militarism and people have to be more than service. and on election day we have to be citizens every day is a constant work because many of the done to challenge the corporate state and tim

was one of those real amazing leaders rested up and i was willing to take the punishment my hope is that isn't going to jail or what the obama's race is actually trying to make an example out of them they're actually trying to link these guns on a gigantic million dollar fine against him for stopping any illegal sale and stop something that would be legal and you have your obama's vision was to put him in jail for years for stopping the law from being violated if any interesting i know this is a case that all eyes have been on at least me and environmental community hasn't been discussed very much a certainly on the mainstream media and people are confused about it what do you think are going to biggest next misconceptions i mean if the obama administration indeed is making the case that the u.s. attorney's office is making the case that you know he he did something illegal and therefore should be punished for it regardless of whether the auction you know with validated or not this is someone who was doing false bidding talk about that or

this was an obviously illegal obviously illegal sale there's not even a question about it and when it was reviewed time was right what should have happened was this should've been stop proposal occurred by a court and now that and in the course of investigated or or the government should investigate who was pushing this illegal sale in those people who have been prosecuted under chris originally made into a hero for this and we love the corporate media to cover this fairly because this is the corporate this is challenging corporate power and corporate and government working together to further enrich big business and so we don't expect record music are we really appreciate or are people government thank you for being there because i think and christopher needs to be known by people he is a hero to many and what he said today is the key thing is don't be intimidated use this in just a surprise in justice moore well and i know him as also said he would rather go to jail and serve time than be an active and sort of lie down but why then. are there not more to christopher's why is this such an individual case and why do so many people except you know the status quo unfair people on it so he was there as well

and also a new e-mail after this show to show you the types of videos of protests we run across the country all parts of the country on all sorts of issues from foreclosure on homes for banks not inner taxes were schools still are not changing well or do not change because the court was not covering this is good if you look at was we going to no state right now you would think a miracle was in revolt was not being covered kinda crisper is one of many there are many americans go this is enough it's time for americans stand up and take back our government and that was director of come home america us kevin zeese. all right well a pretty important foreign policy issue was discussed here in washington today the issue of how develop missile defense in europe and it appears the u.s. and russia continue to disagree on the best way to move ahead there says the system is designed to protect the european continent from countries like iran russia fears

the project is actually aimed at its military and it has offered alternatives however the u.s. appears to be moving forward with its original plan so the russian envoy to nail was in town for the talks today and afterward stopped by our studios to give some insight into what some of the major issues are here concerning anti-ballistic missile defense. if you will work there are questions that remain unanswered as missile threats against europe come from the south why is the us placing part of its military infrastructure in the north close to russia's borders this is the question that we can't get an answer to when we ask for legal guarantees the system has not ended russia we're told there's a big conflict between republicans and democrats in congress and they start to explain that conflict but we're not interested in that what's important for us is that the u.s. is behind this project and they should provide security for all partners russia is very flexible if for some fabricated political reasons they rejected our suggestion

to integrate our means of anti missile defense and there's another scheme they could be cooperation between two independent systems if nato wants to defend itself it's no problem but if russia wants to provide its own security so be it otherwise it's like when you come home and discover someone else's bodyguard sitting in your bedroom he's been sent to provide your security who's going to like that so if all our suggestions are rejected and if it's understood that iran is just a reason to have a plan well russia's nuclear potential is the real target and russia will come up with it own military response which nobody is going to like that was russian envoy of to nato to meet her and he talked about a lot of things here at artist areas including the ongoing conflict in libya he said quote this is a campaign that nobody really needs this is the west participating in someone else's military conflict and. and that's going to do it for now but for more on this.