different day when it comes to the debt ceiling so do desperate times call for more desperate measures about shock therapy it's time for the u.s. to use this extreme. heat. to yours. and move over tea party because progressives are serving up their own hot answers to america's economic cold so could we be seeing a tea party on the left. but it's a little bit of a slap. circumcision is not illegal. now when you see jews

and muslims rallying behind the same cause and for san francisco's proposed ban on circumcision or will you win on the stiff debate. it's thursday july twenty eighth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for is now and you're watching our t.v. . we're keeping a close eye on what's happening right now in the street from here with the votes and talks and raising the debt ceiling and here we are one day closer to doomsday in fact actually four days three hours fifty eight minutes and thirty three seconds away we've reached a place where bitter divide over poly party politics has come to a head but the clock look at it continues to tick down so desperate times call for

desperate measures earlier i spoke to peter schiff president of euro pacific capital he also ran for the senate in two thousand and ten and i asked him what he would be doing if he was in washington right now calling the shots here's his response. you know i don't think we should raise the debt ceiling it is a charade for now it's true default is up to us if we want to default obviously we can do it but if we don't want to there's plenty a revenue that will at some point that won't be the case with interest rates rise then we did it then we simply won't be able to make the payments but for now with interest rates as low as they are it's still our choice eventually it's not going to be but for now it is but the real problem is not the debt ceiling the problem is that and raising the ceiling makes that problem bigger is i mean it seems to me like you're saying in some elements that deficit spending needs to be stopped dead in its tracks period but here's the deal the only way to stop it go over congress

is progress for years to reduce spending in the future but it never happens it's just like everybody has a friend that's constantly promising to go on a diet and lose weight but it's always next week so if you're serious about losing weight you know you don't like junk food now the delays are just part of you don't starve the person and keep them away from food for several months i mean if that happens i think if we stop deficit spending in its tracks there could be some serious repercussions people who rely on social security on medicare on food stamps they will be out of luck it sounds to me very much under like this is survival of the fittest so you know make the case for me that you're not saying that we're going to toss all the poor people the hungry people the disabled to fend for themselves. but remember one of the reasons that there are so many more people and so many young unemployed people is because of the government because of all the resources the government is draining out of the private sector so the government

actually stop spending all this money we have a stronger more productive economy and so we would have as many people would have as many unemployed people but who's talking about starving government is still collecting over two trillion dollars a year in taxes that's funny money you know that's all the government was spending around ten or twelve years ago so let's talk about starving to government i just think there are a glut i mean there are totally way overweight they need to come down to just eat a reasonable diet and i think the tax revenues that they already correct is one of the in fact if we could cut enough out of the budget maybe we can have some tax relief because i think americans are overtaxed and putting this government deeper into debt which is we're forcing even higher taxes on the american public and it's huge are that is the way of solving problems but the fact is peter i mean i think a lot of people would be offended at the statement that there's so much gluttony going on certainly not about the government that a lot of people would probably agree with you but let's talk about who these in heilman programs actually affect who that money trickle down to these are people

who maybe you're right maybe in the long term i don't think this is a totally invalid argument that in the long term if you have people stop relying on the government maybe it will make them more apt to go out and do stuff some people for themselves but the fact is this is also a right now problem as to what happens you know with these programs and with this money if these people start getting these checks in the mail there could be some serious issues i mean in a way this is shock therapy a treatment that you know it doesn't kill you but it is very painful so maybe you could you could make the analogy to rehab yes you know if you stop taking drugs and go through withdrawal there is some pain there but there's a lot of reward as a result the problem is if you keep doing drugs because you don't want rehab you end up dying of an overdose and that's what's going to happen to the u.s. economy yes it's unfortunate that a lot of people rely on promises from politicians. that can't be kept but the

problem is to try to sustain the lies that's what's going to destroy the country the first step is admitting that our politicians lied and over promised and let's deal with today's reality the money is not there and we can't keep borrowing we can't keep printing it we need to deal with reality i think it's a valid point peter seriously but rehab is different than throwing these people to the streets with nobody to help and by the way some people can't afford rehab and and need help for it so obviously when the government is figuring out where to cut the spending they don't need to throw anybody to the streets you know there are plenty plenty of people who are collecting social security checks right now that are pretty rich that are pretty well off they use their so security money to pay the dues at their country clubs they don't need that money yet are there people that if you took away their so security would be out the street yes so let's not

take it away from the people but there are plenty of people who do not need that money and the taxes are being taken from younger people who are struggling to get by we're paying a lot of words security payroll taxes and they are in income taxes we don't want to raise taxes on now if you've got wealthy people that have a decent net worth they don't need that so security check but when you say i mean just a little at least to a small extent that your argument is very darwinian it's very survival of the fittest and the people at the bottom are really the ones who lose out and have less of a chance even than they have now of ever recovering from the us are already losing you know look at the cost of living look at the disparity now between the richest in the poorest that's a result of these policies that's the result of central planning and central banking that bleeds main street and feeds wall street that pop has to come to an end. now as peter schiff president of euro pacific capital. all this talk about how to deal with the nation's debt sometimes you just gotta wonder how lawmakers

measure up in terms of what they say needs to be cut and needs to be funded and what regular people think well i wonder about all the time and archie sent our intrepid producer lindsey garfield out into the hot summer streets to talk to people visiting washington and find out how they would spend their money was a little experiment i think may say a whole lot about the divide between washington and the rest of the country. for the august second deadline that's approaching those in congress have been discussing where to spend and where to say we came to the streets of d.c. to ask americans where they want their government spending money. stars and only gave people five pennies where they want to see their money go. got a lot of interesting jars right here what would make a good like balance. we're just going to put north terry on the side and. i think

that if we develop infrastructure. we definitely have to invest in education to station infrastructure i think there are a lot of people who would say the military is super important for sure military is the first where am i going to the next infrastructure for sure. just because everything's crumbling military is important but i think we spend so much of a military service already so probably looks like i want to put in health care maybe two and i would definitely give the last two kids in the military i will tell you i will not be putting any military they're going to put money in military no matter what. the social security because that definitely affects me in the future everybody deserves health care and that's something that is needed right now i'm not going to give me any more of my money to wage the nothing for deficit. reduction and those guys who played so much politics in the games it's

a really they just get down to business and securely i understand that there are a lot like fewer pennies and more points of you know that's. that's politics. there you go so what have we learned today americans want to see most of their money going towards education and other social programs and on the deficit talks have taken center stage in congress not so many people are concerned about it and where does the government spend most of its money that people care about the least so the military lindegaard artsy washington d.c. . all right so from the average joe to president obama everyone in this country seems to have an opinion on the budget crisis and the tea party is no exception yesterday a small crowd of them gathered on capitol hill to quote hold the line against deficit reduction compromise looks like that's still going on at this moment john boehner struggling to get his party to cooperate and of course today a group of progressive featuring van jones and representative keith ellison also

gathered on capitol hill their demands that congress not gut social security medicare and medicaid so what's going on here are van jones and other progressive trying to start their own tea party of the last for more on this topic i spoke to richard ask out senior fellow at the campaign for america's future i started off asking him what exactly does new progressive movement is trying to say if elvis here's his take they are basically expressing the viewpoint of most americans according to the polls including most republicans and surprisingly even in some cases most tea party members with their say is that there should be no cuts to social security or medicare as part of a deficit discussion that social security should be fixed by raising the taxes particularly the payroll tax about one hundred six per thousand dollars which is his current limit that military cuts should be

a big part of any long term plan and that we need aggressive action now to get jobs to turn the country around and i'm going to or we start talking about cars i'm going to have to jump in there for a second though because you said a lot of the tea party thinks it's way i'm going to have to argue that most of the tea party doesn't think that we should raise tax revenue and they also don't think that we should cut they also are ok instead of with cutting things like social security when you say. well not according to the polls or as far as social security is concerned yes on the taxes and remember you know the tea party has a great advantage over the people who are trying to organize the rest of the country which is they have a coherent narrative and they have call our attention to arguing for that narrative on a national scale the the other side doesn't have that so the tea party gets very confused we saw it during the whole performs a great when people were saying get the government's hands off my medicare which is a medic which is a government program so they don't really know exactly what they're for or against

they're against taxes because they think tax increases mean means increasing their taxes when it really means for the wealthiest americans but the polls show that they do not want to see their own social security or medicare cut so they're very confused but they're being given an easy story to swallow and that's what they've organized around i think that's an interesting point you make i know i was covering a few tardy rally once and one of the people said you know he was getting veterans' benefits but he doesn't think that you know government run health care should should be part of the system and i said i think you're getting government sponsored health care but anyway i digress here's the deal lot of times i quit i go to these you know these progressive they do get together it's usually much smaller groups but here's some of their reasoning and they say here's what we need a they said we need this elimination of of this hierarchy that we have now in america with this huge middle class they say let's figure out a way to allocate economic goods to satisfy the human need and they think should be more cooperative well guess what those philosophies last and i thought that

socialism so what's the difference why are these people simply just saying hey we're going to socialist in america and we're going to be proud of it. well what they're really saying you know you can argue about what is and isn't socialism what they're really arguing for are the kind of policies that were put in by franklin roosevelt in the 1930's when we had that same debate about what to label with them but those policies saved the capitalist system there really arguing against dismantling the system that's been in place and kept this country prosperous for seventy five years and that's what we're seeing today on the other side so what they're really saying is let's preserve the kind of social contract that's worked so well for seventy five years and let's then build it and modernize it and make it work for everybody is that socialism if you think medicare is socialism then it's socialism if you think social security is socialism and it's socialism but right now most american households haven't saved even ten thousand dollars toward their

own retirement so it's all it's a choice between starvation or socialism call it what you want i don't think people will pick starvation i think it's an interesting point and finally richard i want to know you know we're doing this kind of comparison and we're selling the tea party members and we're selling this what we saw today right down the street here in washington with these progressive people getting together with van jones sort of leading the movement one of their strongest arguments and once again to take for them to sort of be get on the level of the tea party. well they start they were off to a good start they had many more house parties than the tea party did at the beginning remember they're brand new but i think what they need to do is they need to build a very clear simple direct message to the american people it's the party says get the government out of your life well that doesn't really make sense but it's simple so i think the challenge for this opposition to the tea party movement is to get a message that's that simple that resonates with people that they can understand

that will get people all across the political spectrum say yeah i bet makes sense to me that's their task going forward certainly can't argue with that is definitely one thing that he party does really well richard ask our senior fellow at the campaign for america's future. and still ahead here on our team the first cut is the deepest or is it that's the question san francisco is trying to figure out when it comes to circumcision all of the snippets on the story. into only a. single word to bring justice to. help the right to know what my government should do if you want to know why i pay taxes. i would characterize the obama as a charismatic. american exceptionalism. what

drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions. made who can you trust no one. is your view of the global machinery see where are we heading state controlled capitalism is called that when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then you glimpse

something else here sees some other part of it and realize that everything is ok. i'm trying hard to be the big. all right of the majority of this newscast we've been talking about different ideas surrounding cutting the budget well now we're going to move on to cutting something else talking about for skin and more specifically whether or not circumcision should be made illegal in this country in one thousand nine hundred six a law came into effect that criminalize circumcision or any other cutting of female genitalia for women under eighteen years old now a group of people in san francisco think the law should extend to boys as well at least in the city of san francisco a judge there now says the measure doesn't hold water because regulating medical procedures is actually

a function of the state government not for cities to decide today the california superior court ruled that the initiative to ban circumcision will be removed from san francisco's november ballot still this was one issue that divided quite a few people also right to very unlikely groups together muslims and jews and brought out the question of whether this is right or wrong into the national spotlight i just returned from san francisco and i want to show you a little bit about what i discovered while i was there. it's one of the most colorful cities in america as full of flavor as it is people with home stacked on top of one another like building blocks san francisco california has always been a place where the hills are steep and so too are the issue. this time around the battle is over circumcisions to be or not to be forced circumcision

is fundamentally a human rights violation if you have it. children whether boy or girl have a fundamental rights so all the body parts that they were born with jonathan conti is part of a group that collected more than seven thousand signatures in favor of banning what they call male genital mutilation within the city limits and have to put the issue on the november ballot if passed the circumcision of anyone under eighteen would be a crime resulting in jail time and a one thousand dollars fine this outraged religious groups who see it as a direct attack on their religious rights jews like abby porth have joined forces with muslims to defend age old traditions this is a hate fiords campaign to curtail civil liberties encounter in san francisco she and many argue it's a parent's choice. the majority of american men are circumcised and according to the world health organization circumcised men have a lower risk of penile cancer sexually transmitted diseases and

a sixty percent less chance of contracting hiv but at the center of this debate religious people want to have their kids circumcised they should i mean major religions believe in it for over two or three thousand years so i think it's a little bit of a slap to jews and muslims to say circumcision is now illegal your freedom to practice religion and someone else's body religion is not a blank check to inflict harm upon your children and the vast majority of the world us. south america zealand australia most of europe the practice is virtually unheard of some have taken it a step further matthew hass the author of the bill is also the creator of the comic for skin man a superhero that saves babies from the evil doctors and parents trying to circumcise them this comic book has some of the most disgusting vile anti-semitic images appear to be lifted out of nazi era propaganda the idea that you know force

in the end is an area and looking superhero who's going to come in save babies from the evil jewish you know blood thirsty rabbi is disgusting the debate over circumcision has polarized this city with people taking sides on both religious and personal grounds who won't come to a head here at san francisco's civil court where a judge will decide whether or not the issue will be left up to voters some of whom say they'll vote to leave things as they are to make a law about it that's the way to find a lot of people it is a lot of history there but make their own decisions and i trust them to make the right decision for their children too and others who say they may be children at the time of the procedure but it's a decision they have to live with when they grow up this is a baby for most we've all made a life from and it's not baby decision vote or no vote the battle lines over circumcision have now expanded far beyond the borders of san francisco becoming

a national debate bringing what was once a purely private issue into the public domain reporting in san francisco christine for example r.t. . and earlier i spoke to catherine schneider she's vice president of community engagement with the jewish federation of los angeles for her take you know i asked her why she thinks this issue came up and why people are getting so worked up about it here's her response. i think it's cause there are because you know this is a parental rights issue and in california in los angeles choices is very important and this is a diverse community many different faiths many different ethnicities and we recognize that parents get to make decisions for their children and that those rights would be taken away by a locality was a frightening thing not just for the jewish community but for the general community but what about this argument that a lot of people make that you know parents might make these decision for

a baby it's not a life or death it's not even a healthy thing for some people in the eyes of some people but it's a decision that even ones that baby grows up and becomes a man that they still have to live with. what i think that's the nature of family and parenting parents make decisions for the children across the board that they were asked to deal with for the rest of their lives in this case this is this is a religious decision this is a decision this is a decision that parents will make with their clergy with their doctor with their families and parents make decisions like that across the board that's the right of parents. what about this you know we talked a little bit about this law that came into effect president bill clinton time this one nine hundred ninety six that totally made it criminal to perform circumcision or any sort of cutting on a girl's genitalia and yet it's not just same and a lot of guys that i spoke to in san francisco people behind this bill they say it

is the thing you're taking away nerve endings on you're taking away some sexual stimulation and this should not be a women only or girls only build it it should extend across the board. well i think what we're talking about in terms of circumcision is it's a standard medical practice and you know i think it isn't clear there isn't a clear study that says that it does or doesn't do this and there are many studies that suggest there are in fact health benefits so it's not it we want to compare them but they're not the same they're in fact very different you say they are not as you say this is a standard medical practice but in fact it certainly is here in the united states every figure i read says that more males in the united states are circumcised the not that's not the case though in the rest of the world. you know who we are not advocating for circumcision that's not what this is about this is about parental choice and religious freedom we respect those that choose not to circumcise their

sons and we would defend them and their right not to do that this is really about parental choice and giving families and parents the opportunity to act in accordance with their faith or with their medical preference or health preference this is about choice it is there are key issues right now in california that we have to deal with we're still in the middle of our recession and i think that that for most voters they want the state to regulate medical practices and they want to ensure that they have jobs that they have quality of life that the key issues that we're struggling with are dealt with and this is really a tremendous distraction and that was katherine schneider vice president of community engagement with the jewish federation of los angeles. all right so i got to bring something up because i've had sort of an unprecedented week year for the first time in my two and a half years on twitter i am getting twitter hate mentions oversight than i did earlier this week about comic-con is that i interviewed a woman

a costume and susie astin frequent common con attendees and much of the anger is coming from a question i asked her about why this convention draws so many people and so i think more than one hundred thousand people to san diego which by the way is my hometown so here's the question i asked her. we're in some really tough economic times i mean i know that right outside the convention center as we just saw in the story that we just showed homeless people glore really really terrible rate of homelessness there and yet people as you say they're spending a thousand dollars why do you think they're not spending this money maybe even half the money coming to washington to protest the economy or choosing an issue that's going to make a difference for the world or giving it to a charity why are they spending it on comic con all right so i got dozens and dozens of tweets about this and i'll read you just a few it of them as the market roll wrote me and said a friend of the ok well you

also complain about the super bowl are versus sports is one more valid shouldn't sports fans also protests rebellion barbie says so i think frenzy isn't allowed to have hobbies or go on vacations anymore she should spend all her free time and money protesting in d.c. l.o.l. and finally danis said it's odd and unfortunate you insult people attending a convention it's vacation your intolerance is embarrassing and ignorance. all right so here's the deal i actually thoroughly enjoy comic-con i attended for several years and that already mentioned i love that my hometown is economically stimulated by the surge of people coming into town my apologies to our guest and to my twitter haters if you think that i would ever discourage you or anyone else from having a good time i'll just say that and we'll leave it here i'm just raising the point that it's comic books and cost play that draws a hundred thousand people out in this country and not the fact that millions of

americans are unemployed not the fact that big banks and big oil companies are making more money than ever the hard working intelligent people are having to make a choice between their heating bill and dinner i always appreciate the feedback but this wasn't a personal attack it's just another way to look at things that we here at r.t. like to do. so that is going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered go to our team dot com slash usa check out our you tube page at youtube dot com slash r.t. america also follow me on twitter i'm at frowsy and i thank you so much for watching christine for us our new web site which twenty four seven live streaming news towns what to do about the ongoing financial hurricane unlimited free high quality videos for download. and stories you'll never find on.