reports from the international air show in moscow which welcomes aviation experts and enthusiastic from all over the world. more news in thirty minutes but right now let's go back to the only on the show for more insight on news in the usa from the studio in washington d.c. . all right it's time for you said it's read it right take time to respond to my brilliant and engaging viewer comments from facebook twitter and you tube because when you've got something to say i listen now first i would respond to a viewer who commented on my interview on the bart police shutting down cell service to ford a protest last week th thirty three m. zero kid twenty eleven said on you tube welcome to america land of the free unless you me that you want to use a cell phone or protest the government in that case we reserve the right to brand you a terrorist and block your communications got to say i agree with the viewer it's

quite interesting that in countries like iran or egypt want to turn off cell phones during government protest it's totalitarian yet when the u.s. does it it's a safety measure all in the name of safety so a little bit like hypocrisy to me and i want respond to a viewer who commented on our school time last night over spoke about representative paul ryan charging money for his constituents to attend a town hall aaron political set on you tube this is a great idea if you charge admission you'll keep out all those pesky poor and lower middle class folks out right now all right it is all just an act poll taxes it is truly appalling the way that money has corrupted our political system corporations pay millions of dollars to co-opt our politicians by political influence and now every day americans are being asked to pony up just to ask their representative a question at the sad day when politicians seek to further reduce the already dwindling political influence of the everyday voter who is a millionaire funding their campaign now next on respond to a viewer who watched my interview last night with the brilliant eve smith founder

of the blog naked capitalism harvey birdman again commented on you tube and said they both were hot pink how embarrassing very sorry to break it to viewers but no i don't coordinate my outfits with my guests so yes we both have to be wearing pink and i can't speak for my guests but i can say for myself that i was. very much not embarrassed about the color coordination now lastly i want to respond to crypt or eight thirty two who tweeted i'm kind of digging below to show on our t. dot com i think for yourself mainstream media makes us sheeple all thank you for starters and yes i agree you must break away from the pack now it's it for today's ranting i'll be back with more next week. well it's been a number of weeks since the debt deal was signed that includes a three hundred fifty billion dollars in defense cuts and the possibility of about six hundred billion more of the bipartisan super committee can't come up with a deal and the trigger effect goes into action and the cries against these cuts are only getting louder at first it was your typical warhawk lawmakers organizations

like the heritage foundation and then leon panetta the new secretary of defense got in the mix saying that three hundred fifty billion would be hard enough and even called the trigger a doomsday mechanism after which this democratic president barack obama are firm that he agreed with panetta don't forget the panetta also said he thinks that before congress takes another swipe at defense they should come from social security and medicare and raise taxes but if we want to weave through some of this hysteria try to figure out what could actually happen what could actually get cut well you have to look at much farther than the statements that you're officials make these are the facts that they don't want publicized according to pro publica in this debt deal that was signed they managed to slip in that would of it would apply not only to defense but also security spending which encompasses programs such as homeland security border enforcement foreign aid and even even veterans benefits as potential targets think tanks around washington have already jumped at the idea of overhauling pay and retirement previously considered untouchable so

does that system actually need reform or are weapons systems being chosen over the needs of those who risk their lives for the country or the skies this is retired lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer senior fellow for both the center for advanced defense studies and packed america tony thanks so much for joining us tonight now you were just on the show a couple of weeks ago talking about this and you said that you think it's all a gimmick no one's actually going to make any cuts here but it seems like perhaps they found exactly where they're going to cut are they going to go for benefits. well i think that's one of the easy fixes they always go for to begin with you have to remember that the veterans are not a large lobbying group they do have representation each service has somewhat of a sociopath but they really can't match the funding or prowess of a boeing a law keyed of any of these large corporations which frankly make a ton of money off of defense programs so frankly what you're going to see is

them pushing very hard to maintain maintain the status quo while others are going to be asked to pay the bill and i think that's why i think we've talked about that both on and off the air and frankly that's where the tea leaves appear to be pushing this whole issue of this bill now i ask you obviously you might know much more about this than i do because they try to make arguments that well you know why the annual per person cost for active military military duty personnel has just soared almost fifty percent right that there are so many people now the defense department has too many employees are these actual things that should be addressed or are they just becoming scapegoats i mean we may have more costs for military personnel but we also have ten years of war. well let's be honest here the real soaring number of people have been contractors you need to look at the stats on is more fact you all may want to go and check out project on government oversight they have the stats that shows that we're talking about literally hundreds of thousands of civilian contractors being added to the books one of the sad truth about

afghanistan for example is that there are as many as as many contractors civilian corporate hired contractors on the ground as there are military personnel so frankly the cut should come from there first for anyone who's being paid for example one hundred thousand dollars a year the corporation is generally making fifty percent above that another hundred thousand dollars above that so there's clear money to be made and frankly it's an excuse and so what they need to do is look at all these corporate contracts first before they start actually looking at the people who have to do the hard work the soldiers and actual deity and other civilians having to do the actual dangerous missions so when you hear the new secretary defense leon panetta saying that if the trigger went into effect would have to be more than three hundred fifty billion dollars in cuts that would be called a doomsday mechanism who would have been a doomsday for for for the politicians that might actually have to talk tough to the defense contractors. i think they're bracing for this more than they're saying

and i was in meetings yesterday with dio day on this issue and this is what they're talking about they're talking about going to a budget based rather than a strategy based defense i think about that for a second the reality is that they're trying to basically figure out what amount of money they have and then figure out how we can spend it and still do everything we're doing so that's what they're telegraphing right now what that means in the real world is this they're going to cut in areas where they can if they to get away with it there's the old adage the squeaky wheel gets the oil so the people are going to scream the loudest are going to be those who are contracted to do government work and i just mentioned some of them be a and these other folks so that's where there's going to be a huge battle. there are they have let me say this for the audience there are clearly cuts that can be made safely the question becomes. will they do the right thing and look at where those cuts can be made or will they do the wrong thing which cut where no one will scream which generally speaking is benefits and things

like that and again that's where the debate's going to come over the next year i also know last time you promised they would have a specific examples for me of what you think would be a good projects or a good areas where we can cut spending what's happening let me yeah and i'll just tell you right now there's a certain agency national geospatial intelligence activities agency which actually has a team of folks who do nothing more than internal briefings i think about this they do internal briefings they of self promote this cell actually is paid each member over one hundred thousand dollars and from my it from my understanding there's like twelve people doing this internal marketing why on earth would an intelligence organization be internally marketing its products to itself think about the insanity of that and yet this is one of those critical programs that is necessary for the sustainment of the community nonsense so what i'm saying to you and you know your audience can judge for themselves or is that adding to the. national defense of anyone it is also

a promotion so this is why i'm telling you and others and by the way those are all contractors on the whole none for a second their take is not a lot of people like to actually say these things and name these programs the last time you were on you also said that you just received a retirement letter in the mail no warning can you tell us more well they basically emailed me my retirement order saying thanks a lot so you're around and yes they were a bit rude about it they basically or have never really been happy with me being in a policy level role in my civilian job as most of your audience knows you know i am a reserve i was a reservist and i work at a think tank which is policy stuff and let's be honest brutally honest here a lot of folks i've been told this by a general officer their general officers don't like the fact that a lieutenant colonel is out talking about policy so i think some of this is just. sour grapes if you will about the fact that i'm i'm doing a lot of the policy stuff and they just don't they don't like it but that's the way it is live and it's really important to people like you do speak out let's also not

forget for the audience that you had a book that was printed ten thousand copies of it were by far and which has never been done before so tell me thanks and i talk to us thank you. now on the topic of defense spending we've dedicated ourselves to reporting to you the latest in that wasteful military spending just recently we told you how the entire fleet of f. thirty five an f. twenty two fighter jets have been grounded due to a slew of serious mechanical problems and now an audit from the inspector general shows that questions are being raised over five million pieces of body armor that the army has used in both iraq and afghanistan for the past ten years. the pentagon report questions the reliability of five million pieces of body armor safety tests were conducted with the wrong place they were inconsistent and two designs were approved without any testing. approving body armor they didn't even bother to test can't really say i'm not surprised now the audit gave in-depth information about seven military contracts all for armor plates known as ballistic inserts and

in the report the inspector general wrote consequently the army cannot be sure of the ballistic inserts meet requirements as a result the army lacks assurance that five point one million ballistic inserts acquired through the seven contracts provide appropriate protection and over the course of the two years of the i.g. investigated these inserts they noted that they did not conduct any tests on their own regarding the structural integrity of the armor and sadly politicians have been calling for the in-depth research of this equipment since two thousand and six when representative louise slaughter noticed eighty percent of marines died from wounds in the upper chest region you know issuing of protective equipment to our troops fighting tirelessly abroad and the pentagon can't even take the time to make sure that those soldiers are going to be safe but here's something else that's going to get your blood boiling the price tag of that wasteful armor and those seven military contracts are ballistic inserts came to a cool two point five billion dollars that's right billions for army at the pentagon it can't even promise will work and they can't be bothered to test it's

just more money to flush down the drain right after the trillion dollars of the pentagon is invested in those oh so precious fighter jets you know the ones that are currently not flying. so let's just hope that the military would actually look into the inconclusive evidence for the army body armor unlike when the pentagon signed yet another five hundred thirty five million dollars deal with lockheed martin for thirty eight more f. thirty five despite the fact that they don't work so there you have it more proof the pentagon loves to spend money without doing their research and no wonder they want they don't want to have their budget cut by the government they just need all that money to throw around of military equipment that doesn't even work and worst of all lives at risk. now still to come tonight for your rights a county in new york wants to ban certain people because of safety concerns we have more on the line award also ahead and happy our popular clothing line offers to pay pay a group of reality stars to not wear their clothes and also don't want a vacation from your favorite it's a camping trip to

a tropical destination packing some of. the takes fifteen to twenty years for the planet to recover from a major extinction event for the planet is time we don't. it's been going on for about twenty twenty five years and since it would be eco terrorists before there was even islamic fundamentalist terrorist in this country when the nine eleven happened the bush administration could not find any terrorists because the feds couldn't find any real terrorists they decided to take these young people who were accused of property sabotage and labeled them as terrorists someone to destroy property. with absolutely zero intention of harming a single human being. in my mind is not. real people work green in this country

are the housewives who recycle. and the children who play trees on the weekend with their cub scout troops. that's the. sound. of. it can hear dr swines policeman's wives minister's wife and i just. if you didn't find me if i could live through the night that i would get my kids out of here because i knew that what was going to happen was that he was going to kill me many victims don't understand that domestic violence includes verbal abuse psychological abuse physical abuse and sexual abuse at least four million women are affected by abuse every year those are my only two options that i saw at

that moment either i'm going to kill him i'm in jail or he's going to killing me. wealthy british style. market. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger no holds barred look at the global financial headlines comes a report. card is time for tonight's tool time award and tonight it goes to suffolk county

new york now the county is located on long island and they're having problems with gangs so community leaders and police have decided that they've had enough of gang members in their town so they've come up with a new way to deal with this issue. is it a legit of the crackdown on gangs or is it a breach of the first amendment that is the controversy to write a tell a long island where an anti gang initiative was launched today that prohibits dozens of known gang members from hanging out with each other in the town of wanted it. that's right city leaders and police are asking a judge if it's legal to ban gang members from a two point two mile public area and when doing now the area covers the downtown business district and police say the measure is desperately needed in the community which isn't plagued by gang violence between two fighting factions of the bloods gangs have the propensity to take over school yards. street corners playgrounds and in many areas within

a downtown district they do not own no she treats. now here's how this proposal would work a judge must sign off on the plan and approve the thirty seven members from the wayne dank and braveheart bloods who would be banned from the area and the thirty seven members or people who've already had run ins with police for gang activity and if they violate the judge's order they could face contempt of court charges now i'm just wondering personally what these run ins are they get you banned from the city are they violent and felonies or is it simply something like getting pulled over and as you can imagine i'm not the only one who has some questions about this proposed gang free zone it's not sitting well with civil liberties organizations and well basically sane people it's plainly unconstitutional but civil libertarians say even gang members have rights the suffolk county chapter of the new york civil liberties union planning to fight the injunctions in court we have the one of the most highly paid police forces in the country i'm sure they can come up with creative thoughtful and smart solutions to violence. i know it's crazy right even

gang members have rights the reporter almost sounds shocked at the concept they're obviously not supporting violent gang behavior but one point of the police and the government here in the us acquire the power to simply ban citizens that they don't like from public places and are we giving police departments the power to determine who it is that gets banned come on we have documented story after story on this show of police corruption so this ban is just asking for trouble what happens in former gang member becomes reformed will he ever be allowed back in this city and what happens a police don't like somebody and they just banned them do it is absolutely absurd the police have no better ideas to combat gangs than to banish them from some place come on you guys you can do better than that now i'm betting the court system is going to stop suffolk county from these gang free zones but for attempting the obviously unconstitutional and plainly stupid ban we're going to give suffolk county leaders tonight's tool time award.

ok time for happy hour tonight and joining me this evening is archie correspondent lauren lyster and alex sites wall reporter and blogger for think progress dot org and the progress report thanks for joining me guys thank you so really big news in the fashion world today abercrombie and fitch had a little something to say to these guys. every italy. would have to. really. learn. america pride and joy the jersey shore so abercrombie and fitch has actually asked

not to wear their clothes anymore they like they just don't want to wear their clothes they wear these that will literally pay you to stop wearing our clothes i was really curious i didn't like who wears abercrombie and fitch anymore is cited for maybe like pre-teens or when you're like fourteen or fifteen years old and abercrombie and fitch should be all about you know tanning engines they're the only hire good looking people i feel like they're making a big mistake you know what it's so funny you said that because back in the day before i was a broadcast journalist i used to be an equity research analyst and i used to actually cover abercrombie and fitch and their brand was suffering from tarnished whatever they think is going to be tarnished by the situation more a several years ago so i can attest to the fact that the situation is probably helping their sales if anything i mean i can understand how the jersey shore doesn't really help your image but they're going to get really expensive for them because i think every single person who wears overcoming and fish is tarnishing their image i mean really if you're this is the exactly this should be

a positive promotion for them i think the situation is exactly their their prime client should put them on the cover of the next catalog but i think this says a lot about abercrombie and fitch right because you know if you are walked into an abercrombie and fitch store they only hire people that look like models that are attractive that is their criteria which also is i guess you could say unconstitutional you know and so now they're just being very blatantly obvious about they still only want certain people wearing their clothes that they like or you don't know you're totally they should because that's their sales kind of pen on it but they want to throw away or like burn their clothes for a new concept. it didn't work as opposed to donating it to charity or having it sold through you know those discount stores like ross or t.j. maxx rather than tarnish the brand they burn their clothes they're all bad people that's it i mean you walk into never going to show which i will admit i've done on one occasion and it feels like the jersey shore there's music bump in the lights are kind of low it's overwhelming smell of cologne that is to write this is no middle of them are going through yeah this is perfect for them so you don't like it

are just there as a hobby and yeah they're having an identity crisis they don't want to look in the mirror yeah yeah yeah. let's move on to a story for starters just just check out this video and tell me if you know where this kid is from. this has nothing to do with the story except for that little kid is german and a little kid that we're. looking at we never said we were adults here. there is an eleven for eleven year old boy in germany who actually called nine one one to report his mother for forced labor just because you told him to do some chores and call around the house and i don't just cracks me up i'm a guy with a pretty innovative approach he actually had a logical argument this is child labor not legal i think it's pretty clever why don't i ever think about that this kid is the hero of kids everywhere and the

nightmare of parents yet i don't know where to read this press because nine one one in germany one one or whatever it is going to be getting a flood of calls from kids that think that they will do you know you're just getting so smart these days right now they they know they can say like i'm going to sue you or i'm going to call child services on you know this is coming from children and what's to stop the kids i mean spouses room you know hey i don't want to take out the trash and i forced labor i'm calling the cops i'm going to start doing it still like it better when it's a kid. and it's when i get my head of his time. someone who is not ahead of his time but at all this guy. how do you respond to people who say that your campaign has been a mess so far first of all chris that i took seriously broach injunction to put it sort of the talking points and i wish you would put aside the gotcha questions. now

by the guy i met newt gingrich chris wallace but so newt gingrich does he even really have a campaign left anymore i don't know i'm going to go on a long shot and say no he's not going to be president but he did it now it's you know while everybody right now is in iowa and we're also they going. minnesota or new hampshire newt is announced that he's actually taking his campaign to hawaii and to hollywood first they're making a stop in hollywood and are going to screen two films or something and then they're going to hawaii that is the best excuse for somebody who knows that they have no shot at winning anywhere but all these people have already donated money he would say you just say well why thank you my loyal followers i'm going to take a vacation in hawaii that is particular absolutely you think it can be to go everywhere you want to go on vacation yeah i mean a couple things first of all the timing is a little suspect here in that it's new gingrich is anniversary with his wife and he just happens to be going to hawaii eleventh and imo because there were eleven of her i mean you know well who knows of the negative twelve also he's campaigning for the republican nomination for president why he will not play

a big factor in that and even if this were the general election barack obama is from hawaii it's a democratic state there's probably like three republican voters there this is a clearly it's on the stage manager parent move of all time and yeah just coincidentally it happens to coincide with what their anniversary and so you know he obviously doesn't like paying for things we saw the debt that he racked up at tiffany's so you know just kind of scam when it comes to giving his wife stuff no kidding obviously if you have that big of a debt and that he had been exonerated but it was going to be the stuff on board i mean i think that's what's really going on here if you're newt gingrich staff why are you staying on or you get a free trip to why i stick around well obviously to get them to know that you're losing like you know whatever the thing is. you know you guys you line things like that. ok alaska we hear do we have a clip here i don't remember ok we have a clip take a look. america's largest tobacco companies are fighting back against federal drug

administration regulations they're suing the f.d.a. over some extremely graphic warning labels that they want to put back over the package of cigarettes the company's going to be forced to use by two thousand and twelve they say that the federal government is violating their free speech rights. i mean i think this might actually go pretty far i've heard quite a few people say that today they think i mean specially considering the type of money that big tobacco has behind it that this might go all the way up to the supreme court i mean i don't know what do you or what do you think about radiative with your warning labels i think that it is a bullying on the part of the f.d.a. they already have warning labels on the cigarette packets i don't understand what grounds they have well i don't know that they're you i think which is so different because they're emotionally charged right because they're going to be any guarantee that you have and so they're saying that violates their free speech means or they're saying what the old your violation you know they all have the same things on their smoking packs but i don't know what he thinks going to win here i don't i

mean i'm a pretty you know a big government progressive but even this makes me a little bit uncomfortable and they basically what the cigarette companies are saying is that they're being forced to subsidize the government's anti-smoking message which sort of seems like a legitimate i mean joking is obviously a very public you know any other one who in terms of the wrap it up unfortunately but i mean i think there are legitimate points definitely on both sides are you guys thanks for joining me thank you to kareena for getting us fun little umbrellas today and that's it for tonight's show thanks for tuning in make sure you come back tomorrow to mel believed in the american prospect will be on discuss the congressional black caucus his job event in atlanta and the state of unemployment the black community i mean time to get to the family launch on facebook follow us on twitter watch everything you tube dot com slash the logo show and coming up next and over for the. it it

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british courts raised to read the riot act to those behind the recent looting and violence but human rights groups accuse judge of the lang down disproportionate disproportionate to. top flight trade at the international air show in moscow and the nerves of steel from russia's premier pilots as they take artsy on a white knuckle ride. scene or salvation as rights activists appears the syrian government of atrocities against protesters some syrians say they're glad to see tanks we're going into their town. good morning to you here from moscow you're watching our live with me and you so now it's eight am.