welcome to the lower show where you get the real headlines with none of the mercy me live in washington d.c. now it's not going to take a look at last night's republican presidential debate we're going to pull apart some of those talking points that may get cheers from the crowds but they don't really work in reality and palestinian president mahmoud abbas officially submitted a bid for palestinian statehood at the u.n. today it's not a debate over middle east peace but his top news but is anything actually moving forward here or is just the same decade's old arguments rehashed over and over again also it's now been almost one week since occupy wall street began and yes the

protesters are still there although you wouldn't know it from the lack of media coverage we have all that and more for tonight including a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. all right so last night there was yet another g.o.p. presidential debate and so of course the mainstream media is all over it acting like nothing else is going on in the world parsing over every single word over who's going to do over who or what about parsing is unfortunately for the most part surface level and still pretty shallow gossipy but we're going to get into that in our first interview for now let me go back to a really big critique that i've made before and it's only becoming more apparent with every debate so every cable network has at this point hosted a debate fox news has done it more than once and every single debate or policy well it's either come up dead last or last night for a change of came up halfway through but it's always been maybe one or two questions and that's maybe a good ten minutes out of two hours now i understand

a big con is issue number one for americans right now open we're engaged in more than two wars around the world it shouldn't be at the bottom of the totem pole. especially since our financial interests and our defense spending all those things are coupled the mainstream media which is in charge of the debates which takes the questions for the moderators to ask it's really a bad reflection on them to choose to give foreign policy so little attention so let's move on to the really scary part you see even the ten minutes or so that is devoted to foreign policy in each of these debates it becomes very clear that almost every single candidate out there doesn't have any idea what they're talking about when it comes to foreign policy now here's a little real that we put together last night and keep in mind these people are trying to become the commander in chief trying to become the leader of this country and our face to the rest of the world now to the topic of foreign policy and all that we've been showing you these word clouds take a look at this one all the searches on foreign policy. usually yes yesterday we

found this through admiral mullen that. has been involved with and that's the. terrorist group directly associated with the pakistani country. a relationship with india we should be fighting wars to win not fighting wars for politics in this. ok to stand with one hand tied behind our generals according to the state department's website there are four nations that are state sponsors of terror cuba is one of those nations we would never fight between the united states and cuba it's a state sponsor to. have some of those statements you know make you cringe get a really uncomfortable feeling going up your spine well they should be the first group there is actually reflected not just the candidates but the entire public and

party they were asked what the most important words were when it comes to foreign policy and it just said israel and big bold letters listen i know that israel's america's ally. this is something that americans have very strong opinions about but the middle east peace process has been going on for decades it's not can be solved up there by one of the candidates giving a one minute answer most importantly we're not at war in israel we're war in afghanistan and in iraq as well as of course libya pakistan yemen and somalia but we have troops we have americans that are losing their lives every single day in afghanistan in iraq and yet those words just don't make the cut they're not the first thing that comes to mind is crazy. you know then you've got rick perry who can talk tough but the texas attitude about what he does in his state what he thinks about social security the federal reserve but what do you say about foreign policy if you start throwing out random words i honestly think we had one too many prep sessions with his team and it all got mixed up in his head somewhere condi

taiwan ditch pakistan but this is not somebody who's qualified to be president ladies and gentlemen you really want him meeting with foreign leaders on your behalf and how about rick santorum so according to him we need to fight wars to win that and yeah i would say that's true i would say that's common sense now it's definitely it's a revolutionary idea but then instead of using out logic to say that the war in afghanistan is unwinnable the fact that there is no winning to do in iraq to say to all that is a reason to end those wars and to bring our troops home and he doesn't say that he just went on that to say that we need to keep fighting there forever and later on it didn't quite register in that clip he basically said that our generals should be in charge of the whole thing was he was he with the military junta now he was going to hand over his powers as commander in chief to the generals i don't understand what this guy is talking about and of course there's michele bachmann. oh michele bachmann bless her heart in those red pajamas that she was wearing last night to a televised debate did she really just say that according to the state department

web site there are terrorists in cuba are there terrorist sympathizers now for starters you're on the house intelligence committee if you're getting your information from the state department web site that i am seriously concert secondly are we really talking about cuba and the threat that it poses to the u.s. right now how many times do we have to tell you people of the cold war is over it's a long over and yet you just haven't bothered to properly brief yourself to educate yourself on the wars that we're currently involved it and which you would take over if you became president so instead you just keep harping that the threats of the past you guys the words that are coming out of these people's mouths are really really disturbing and a lot of knowledge is really really scary and let's not forget there's one person on that stage last night who actually has a sensible approach to foreign policy and that would be congressman ron paul here's somebody who actually understands that we are winning our wars that we can't afford our wars anymore somebody who actually has the guts to say that we're doing more damage than good the we're hurting ourselves our reputation that we're creating

more people more jihad is more people who want to be against us by continuing to occupy countries and launch drone strikes and kill civilians and that's the conversation that really needs to be had but guess what fox well they didn't even let ron paul answer a question on foreign policy last night and said they let the rest of those who wins make incoherent statements shout out random world leaders and terrorist organizations names like they have to read and then they just moved on. you know i'm baffled i'm disappointed but mostly i'm really concerned being the president of the united states about a lot more than just domestic policy be my commander in chief isn't just about deferring to your generals at all times if you have no comprehension of the culture the history of the regions in which we're engaged in war and you have no business trying to be in charge of that and that's all that i have to say about that but that's what the mainstream media has been more than happy to miss.

now the lack of foreign policy is far from being the only thing that was wrong and last night's republican debate was hosted by fox now despite the fans he teamed up with google the network's attempts to incorporate you tube and social media and show that there are up with the times we heard of the arguments that are far from being moderate or progressive and then about gays serving in the military or the idea that offense is going to solve our immigration problems so let's go through some of the points that were argued prove some of them wrong and let's break down what questions were missing especially in the wake of things like the execution of troy davis just this week or this crisis with me as david kurtz managing editor and washington bureau chief talking points memo david thank you so much for being here tonight well for starters i just ranted for probably about ten minutes because i feel so passionately about this i wonder if you're with me you know when you hear these candidates or at least i grew up there and i don't know if you heard anything about ron paul or not when you hear them talk about foreign policy do you get the sense that they don't know what the hell is going on it's remarkable especially for republican primary field where foreign policy for every since the second world war

has been a private issue for republicans not to have that big gauge of it anyway i think it's a sign of just how bad the economy is and they're tapping into all the economic insecurity all of this out there all of the dislocation and what are those with an extended period of recession and so i think that's what they're focused on but it is it will probably change from even four years ago a little bit of during the cold war period where there was such a huge focus for. but the lack of being able to connect the dots and say that in an extended period of recession an extended period of war might also not be helping especially if you want to lower taxes all the time during a period of war these things don't make sense you can talk about them at the debates but you know i want to bring up ok we've seen a few scars it seems like come and go michele bachmann you could say started out as a big star and now she's on her way out rick perry has had a bit of a hard time with these debates and i want to play a clip of her last night and we'll discuss it. is it the mitt romney that was on

the side of against the second amendment before he was for the second amendment was it was before he was before the social programs from the standpoint of he was for standing you know for roe versus wade before he was against first rule versus way he was for race to the top he's. for obama care and now he's against it. oh that was just painful but ok i understand that rick perry actually came out of his defense today saying that republicans don't just want a smooth talker and a great debater and i know that being a great debater isn't all there is to being the president but how to play a little something right if you can't you can't formulate sentences that make sense it's tough when the day after the debate you have to emphasize the debate it's not really what the election's about i mean that just tells you right there and i think that if the commentary today not just from democrats who would have reason to fight

for with his performance but for republican pundits and republican establishment or through out the morning and into the afternoon it was just so my god you know what was that and i think you know he made a huge splash coming into the race and i think the first debate performance sort of exceeded what everyone's expectations are so secret but they performances have been sort of not even and i think it goes back to this one of those truisms in politics that everyone always thinks their reelection cycle that there's this candidate out there this sort of you know prince or the white stallion it's going to come in and shake up the entire field and just grab the nomination it's just never that simple it's a lot more complicated once you're in the ring in the arena you know you get you get your message gets muddled and there's just a lot of complications actually being a candidates a lot easier just to be the guy who might come in and shake things up to talk to me like sarah palin and sit around and talk about how they might run out of time for john bolton or someone that's what you think about really is kill a great perry's chances i mean is that enough to actually turn people against him or does he still have this you know this energy this momentum behind him where people. i'm still very transient he only gets so much the energy momentum but i

think that he speaks and it's taken policy positions that really speak to the tea party wing of the republican party and i think you know mitt romney just doesn't have the sort of credit with that audience that perry does and i don't think that's necessarily going to change i think would were promised trying to do is to make the point again and again and again that i'm the only guy who can beat obama and perry can't do that but it doesn't seem at this point that republican primary voters are particularly interested about argument they want someone who's speaking to them directly on the issues there they feel strongest about and that's still perry even though as we saw he's not the sort of the most articulate well let's talk about an amazing like being knows how to speak to people at least he's been able to capture this tea party populist you know these emotions that are out there right now and that's michele bachmann but we have to collar out some statements that just don't make any sense and one more clip. i think you earned every dollar you should get to keep the have three dollars that you earn that's your money that's not the

government's money. that by the way somebody asked her how much of their salary they should be forced to pay in taxes and sure that might sound popular that you earned every dollar but then how you sorry no tax because the world's best work that way how do you keep fighting your wars abroad how are you going to maintain the roads that people have to drive on to get to work yeah she immediately backtracked from even during the debate and i think she told sean hannity afterwards on fox that you know of course you've got to keep the government running and i think even charlie thought the bridges and roads and stuff are the kinds of things government should have a role to play and so i but it's interesting because i think it is i mean we've we've been on this anti-tax crusader scene the rogues all the same types of acts who say since ninety eight when reagan was elected and through that whole period and we've been trying to reduce reduce taxes and we've got to a point where the rubber really hits the road and you see it with the pledge that many of them made not to raise taxes the grover norquist pledge and at some point at some point you really have to start making those hard decisions and it's no longer just a rhetorical gambit but you've got to make the talk policy decisions i think you

are running up against that now we're running out of time a little bit so i'm going to skip the next clip and i want to push a few things together you know i feel like and as i mentioned this was a google sponsored debate they had a you tube it had this really modern feel what i feel is lacking is really discussion of the things that are happening right at this moment i mean do you think that when there's a presidential debate when we have stock markets crashing for the last couple of weeks then you have europe on the brink of a sovereign debt crisis that very well is going you know is going to affect our economy that's going to drag us back down into recession those are things that the candidates should be asked about or how about the fact that troy davis was just executed this week and sure we heard about rick perry's execution record a couple of weeks ago but that is something that is very very timely and i feel like we're not hearing those hard questions death penalty didn't come up at all last night you know the economy comes up but i think that one of the fascinating things about this election cycle is that even with the economy is front center is it isn't driving so much anger in this in the same way or you saw the two thousand

and twelve race. that republicans are focused on policy prescriptions that don't really address those issues and so a lot of this is sort of the atmospherics of trying to tap into an anger that their policies don't necessarily address and i think that's the disconnect that you're seeing and yeah i mean there was obviously a lot of pride in having google on board with the with the program last night and you know they had the you tube questions you know people looked like they were sort of poking in their attics you know asking questions of the candidates but i think with which you really saw was this huge disconnect between the need for jobs the need for economic growth to pull this out of this and the sort of tax cuts and. cuts in government spending that they're a little bit a little bit of reality perhaps you know it's unfortunate that rick perry had to be the only sane one out there when it comes to talk about the fact that building a giant fans isn't going to keep immigrants out and a little bit offensive already out there people are just scaling it with ladders it's not working but very quickly do you think what do you think this means that the chances are for brock obama's reelection you know we're still far away but after last night's debate i think that so long as rick perry is

a potential standard bearer for the party that that is a good thing for barack obama i think there is much better in a general election against perry than he does against romney but you know hurried into him self in the favors last night and so i mean i think the white house obviously fair for whoever comes out the pike and i think i would rule it out being someone other than the two of these guys though is that does seem the most likely outcome at this point but it's so early you know and the cycles move up so much that tons of debates more to go i think that'll help clear oh yes i know it's time to more debates i'm very curious to see some statistics come out there eventually for how many republican primary voters actually watch this stuff david i thank you so much for joining us tonight thank you. now through a time tonight or over a palestinian state playing out for us this week cast palestinian nationalism in the best potato today but is it actually going to. be here soon.

let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right here. i think rocket eatable and one well. whenever government says favor keep you safe get ready because you're going to lose your freedom. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for sleep you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else here sees some other part of it and realize that everything is ok you don't understand hard welcomes a big picture. we

just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old i like to tell the truth. i confess and i am a little get a friend said i love rap and hip hop is second and. he was kind of the guest today. i'm very proud of the role that al-jazeera has played. today palestinian president mahmoud abbas submitted a historical request to u.n.

chief banking moon asking the united nations to recognize palestine as a state and it is a member now for your membership can only be granted by the security council or nine out of picking the from need it the us has already said they would be for the palestinians have also left options open to a lesser alternative becoming a nonmember observer state and how be granted by vote and general assembly where there is overwhelming support overall though this move is seen as purely symbolic vote clearly isn't going to solve the decades long middle east peace process but the lead up to this moment has brought the israel palestine conflict back to the forefront of the us political scene being covered incessantly in the media but is there really anything to say that hasn't already been said join me to discuss this is mine rabbani a visiting senior fellow at the institute for palestine studies and seton motley the founder and president of the us government gentlemen thank you so much for joining me tonight now for starters so it's been a bit of a will he go for it will he not go for it leading up to this and today well abbas

went for it he did submit that there how do you see the situation playing out is going to go to the u.n. security council is the u.s. can have to go out and veto it or they just go the general assembly route well it will go to the security council and obama will try to mobilize you know votes against this application that he won't have to get to it but if the passengers have you know for us it will be to it because you know perpetuating this really impunity has basically become the central plank of u.s. middle east policy whether or not the palestinians decide to go to the general assembly we don't really know yet i think the important thing is. about this initiative is that the palestinians are once again returning to the international community it's opportunity to break the us monopoly over israeli palestinian diplomacy the u.s. is the snots. twenty years has nothing to show for its record except one failure

after the resulting in one new israeli settlement after the other and i think it's time now for the community of nations to mission with a verdict on the scene what do you think your because i want the critics we've heard a lot about surrounding this entire process here for statehood is that people think this is a clear example of america's waning influence over the middle east peace process that they're no longer the key players in the room to go stations are being made really where they are present well it's i think there's something america is waiting i think it's barack obama's way and i think he's seen as an international joke and he's not taken seriously on these things anymore he's been all over the place on this issue he's going to be a contributor to this i think somewhat ridiculous push by mahmoud abbas for palestinian statehood by clint calling for a return of the sixty seven borders which is patently absurd is never going to happen he's been feeding both sides of this so it's been a schizophrenia situation so they just keep him other room because they don't know what they're going to get from him from one day to the next but president obama i

mean can you really blame him for not being able to solve the middle east peace process right mean how many american presidents have tried this and you could say that bill clinton also failed when he had much more favorable conditions at that point. i have to say it's a little stunning i don't live in the united states and i haven't been here for some time you know president obama gave a speech to the general assembly yesterday which was received in israel with this belief. he was seen as going you know way beyond what any now in israel let alone the head of state of america would say on this issue. you know people were saying bibi is now going to have to rewrite this speech lest he come across as less is really the only american president and then you look at the situation here in the united states and obama is being denounced right left and center for having thrown israel to the wall so i think it demonstrates you know the united states. is so out of step on this issue with the rest of the world it's basically at odds with

the rest of the planet that it's simply you know it needs a little supervision on this issue you simply can't continue with a situation where the u.s. decides is a monopoly just tap your seatmate steadfastly refused to acknowledge that the united states needs adult supervision if the juxtaposition is with the united nations which is made up of iran syria china north korea and those adults and every other world but not everyone agrees with palestinian statehood i mean it's a patently absurd notion you would find that the vast majority of the below this is the in the us the general assembly right the chances are that it is going to pass that's fine it will be the un should be abolished they can turn it into an insane asylum that way no one will have to move. the the the proposition of the year israel has been force fed as a partner in peace terrorists for the last thirty years yasser arafat now is not going to pass and still will not recognize israel's right to exist and their pain

into that corner for three decades and then told ok you've had long enough we're going to go for statehood is patently absurd but the thing here is so ok so now there is a statement big but what are actually going to see what is actually going to change i mean like i said is this more of just a some gesture than a micro through some process these you might see a vote you might see a veto it might be except in a general assembly and then what happens the next day after that everybody wakes up and says oh we thought a huge problem on our hands if we could return for a moment to the real world the world actually exists you know have a situation where you say mahmoud abbas what does a good knowledge because he said in june of this year that he does not acknowledge israel's right to exist in june of this year and he said it on t.v. i've seen it i've seen the video yes robyn was in whichever you prefer he has exactly he said on t.v. in june of this year that israel does not have the right to exist he said it on a video repeatedly over the course of decades that he not only recognizes he just said in june that he doesn't. well you know called looking at his word now if

you'll do your homework i just saw the video i can send the video to you see it's on the video it's on memory dot org and it's an ad for design and why it's not i'm going to bring it out we're going to break it out let's go back to its actual video using industry leveraging our the video now i'm going to argue for a moment here for a minute there is anything that world leaders for america that is flip flopping saying one thing one year and another thing the next and we say we're out of everyone who lives here or that you have to take them at their word i want to ask you why why this big palestinian statehood is even why is it being pursued what you do not think it's right there is that the palestinians undermine us and somehow engaged in a campaign to eradicate israel from i mean you couldn't possibly have a larger disconnect with reality ok to make the same you have to start from the video to answer to answer your question you know the palestinians had initially high hopes and the obama administration has basically spent the past eighteen months wiping spit off their face and have decided that they can no longer continue

in a process whose only operative principle seems to be on the one hand continuous deepening of the occupation through israeli settlement expansion and on the other uncritical and systematic american support for the occupation rather them arresting and reversing you know from the leaderships point of view this is a tactical maneuver to seek to improve the framework of any future to go through if you lose could actually make things worse for everyone i think for the palestinians it's a win win situation because i think you will now see a dynamic that goes beyond the leadership itself and in the sense that you know i believe going to see greater internationalization of the question of palestine again breaking the us monopoly which is an effectively in this really monopoly over israeli palestinians do you think we don't see this enough of an international i mean i observed in. thing interesting when i was watching the news this week is

that you could say that when it comes to this vote of the general assembly this is something that countries from all over the world this is an international glance at the middle east peace process and they're all i heard being discussed here on our u.s. media is how is this going to play for barack obama politically and saying that it's going to play for him well politically if he vetoes it here at home and it does seem like our political process a little bit removed because it's all about domestic u.s. politics any time netanyahu speaks it sounds like he's talking just to the g.o.p. and not to the u.n. leaders or because the u.n. leadership is it's absurd it's the human rights council. the biggest fogarty's on the planet the un is a joke and you say that represents any sort of international community is preferred only in the sense that if it were true you support the u.n. in cases where a u.n. resolution is passed for us to go to war in libya i mean i feel like people want to like i don't to be human and i don't even know when should ever have existed you know i think it's an absurd ridiculous cobol it's a tower of babel it means nothing so i don't want to. console i don't see your

approval i don't see their disapproval i don't care what they say it's ridiculous ok at the end of day one thing that we've heard from all parties involved here. obama is that this isn't going to happen at the u.n. level right if there's going to be some kind of middle east peace it's going to have to happen in direct negotiations direct talks between the two countries so once again why are we here and have any here at the u.n. alternately i think you will need negotiations and i think the issue is not whether or not you have negotiations but what are those negotiations going to be what we've seen in the past two decades is that these negotiations are about nothing and nothing but nothing but we need know is a clear agenda negotiations not about you know whether the occupation should continue or not not negotiations about this road block about transfer but negotiations about the implementation. of palestinian self-determination i was right because we're out of time but perhaps you know leadership could be playing

a role to president former president bill clinton has some interesting words of his global clinton initiative he said basically this whole thing is that you know whose fault is deteriorating but we're going to see how this all plays out i want to thank you both for joining us tonight and you. also come to see the presidential candidate worth millions from the families middle class. and the mainstream media keeps ignoring the eyeballs for a protester tonight we'll have an update on the protests taking place around half an. inch a little more mechanisms to do the work to bring justice and accountability. i have the right to know what my government truly want to know why i think. what i would characterize obama as a charismatic sort. of american exceptionalism.