remember the latest sign. of. the future. welcome to the lower show where we get the real headlines with none of the mercy we're going live to washington d.c. now tonight we get another another update from occupy oakland thousands shut down the city's for last night a peaceful demonstration but in the midnight hours you hundred clashed with police others vandalized banks and businesses so are we now seeing a breakdown within this group r.t. producer lucy calf enough will fill us in then g.o.p. candidate and former governor of louisiana buddy roemer will join us to talk about his support for occupy wall street as well as some staggering statistics about corporate tax dodgers and then world leaders are gathered at the g.

twenty pushing for a solution to the eurozone sovereign debt crisis and greek prime minister george papademos called off the referendum but in greece still the sate. leader is going to join us for that one we're going to all that morphy tonight including a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look at what the mainstream media has decided to miss. all right so the herman cain maybe or maybe not sex scandal continues on thanks to the mainstream media so do it a fully reporting on every single twist and turn as if it's a sport when i say twists and turns i really mean it. herman cain blames the campaign of a republican rival mccain campaign now blaming the texas governor meanwhile the campaigns are all seem to be pointing fingers at each other and then pointed the finger at the rick perry campaign chief of staff for the cain campaign pointed squarely at the texas governor rick perry's campaign rick perry and his campaign.

herman cain and his family an apology the perry campaign who has been accused by herman cain's campaign of leaking this information is widely denying this involved at no point in the finger at the romney campaign. now any normal person can see right through this the campaign's love it because it takes all the attention away from their weak candidates and their weak policies and the mainstream media well obviously they take the bait because they hate actually analyzing when certain candidates suck and are unfit to run and how their policies are only through our economy further down the drain so while they're busy with the he said she said finger pointing high school drama let me fill you in on a brand new report that you need to know about now we've told you before on the show that bank of america the exxon mobile so money is biggest companies paid no income taxes in two thousand and ten but let me tell you now that's only scratches the surface a new report from citizens for tax justice highlights just how much the biggest companies dodge their taxes and exploit the various loopholes and subsidies so next

time if somebody tells you that our corporate tax rate is too high that america is a business friendly anymore you just throw some of these statistics their way. see t.j. i looked at two hundred eighty companies all of them are fortune five hundred companies and they found that on average those two hundred eighty companies only pay half of the thirty five percent corporate tax rate and in fact seventy eight of those corporations in the last three years had at least one year where they paid no federal income tax at all and thirty corporations didn't pay one single dime over all three of those years but they did break and collect. of one hundred sixty billion dollars in profits so some of those thirty corporations are names that you will easily recognize general electric wells fargo boeing horizon honeywell dupont not only did some of these companies not pay any income tax they actually made money after their taxes take for for example in two thousand and ten they reported

an annual profit of almost twelve billion dollars now if you go by the thirty five percent corporate tax rate they would have owed about four point two billion but they not only didn't pay four point two billion they actually paid zero and they in fact had a negative tax liability of seven hundred and three million dollars so they made more money. now i was going to use the words of the authors of this report at this point because i think that they said it best they wrote most americans can rightfully complain i pay more federal income taxes than general electric boeing dupont wells fargo horizon all put together and that's an unacceptable situation and you know what i could not agree more that is unacceptable and that's why people are protesting joining the occupy movement all across the country and despite all this information and the public's realisation of how unfair the system is well congress is doing absolutely nothing to close up the loopholes because they're too scared of the corporations that line their pockets and it's not going to get any better if you look at the majority of the g.o.p. candidates the ones who want to lower the corporate tax rate even further in fact

some want to get rid of that corporate tax rate altogether and yet the mainstream media doesn't even bother to talk about this report to put it into context to compare that to the plans that these candidates have to offer because they just can't peel themselves away from the he said she said scandal of this herman cain stories becoming everything else that's what they choose to miss. yesterday we covered the general strike at occupy oakland at the time of our program the mood was cheerful music was playing police were nowhere to be found i didn't stay that way as the protests went on into the evening an estimated five to ten thousand protesters shut down the port of oakland for several hours last night by blocking gates and not allowing truck traffic in or out at one point this video was taken of a protester being run over by a car but as the evening turned into late night and early morning clashes between

protesters and police broke out with tear gas flash grenades and rubber bullets once again becoming part of the equation now some say it was a few who ruined it for the many by vandalizing local businesses so let's find out let's find out what the mood is like today in oakland after another night of chaos our producer lucy catherine of joins us right now with more lose you thanks so much for joining us and you know like i said oh i think we just lost her for a second. we're going to try to dial her back up again for a moment but if you remember lucy and i spoke yesterday on the show and she was outside the sun was shining and the music was playing and everybody was really excited about what was about to happen now i also told yesterday that the police union had written an open letter to the mayor saying that they were very confused about what happened because at one point the mayor had initially told them to go and clear out frankly gavel plaza and get the protesters out of the encampment that's when we originally saw the first rounds of tear gas and flash grenades of rubber bullets being used and after that we also saw scott olsen the iraq war

veteran become injured and you know so since then of course the police have gotten a lot of critique and then mary jean kwan went back in the next day said that she supported the occupy movement she went to even go visit scott olsen in the hospital so the police union wrote this open letter saying that they were confused that they didn't know what side they were supposed to be on that they want to remind of protesters they're also part of the ninety nine percent and that they felt like the mayor had turned them in to a bad guy and so it's interesting if you look at what happened yesterday during this protest the mare came out and she actually praised lucy i think we finally have a back on the phone now lucy i was just saying that mary jane kwan actually praised the protesters last night that had peacefully closed down the port of oakland and then said it was a few bad seeds that really ended up leading to some of the violence and the clashes between the police can you explain it in your eyes what you saw how it all went down sure i mean as you were saying in your intro it did start off and it

really did in fact we talked yesterday when people were showing now it's relaxing after their area of the march and we actually did sort of get a little bit of a foreshadowing of what i eventually went down because during the b. two pm march march at two pm. so-called anti-capitalist march that is when we saw some of the property and destruction. take place i'm going to pop someone here so i think you guys might have me on video is that correct or should we keep going no we we just have you on the phone we have video in last night in the background to keep going ok so anyhow i we we ended up going on this march and we saw that the wells fargo branch next to us was vandalized there was a windows broken in there and a huge crowd was standing there i went over there and i actually talked to some of the folks that witnessed that and they said again with the black bloc it was the so called not so much a group it's a tactic that certain anarchists use they say they witnessed about

a couple dozen folks dressed in all black their faces were covered they came in the smashed the windows and they ran away and supposedly those are the same guys who are responsible behind the vandalization at the. whole foods that seems pretty fine we went to the march everything was beautiful everything was calm folks are having a good time i actually did not know we talked about this earlier i did not see any twenty four officers present at the march there to be to call them scooters and perhaps are here somewhere but you know completely completely peaceful and so the protesters had come back from this sort of a victorious nonevent. event for the sense of arrest the success of the park and had all of this excess energy and perhaps perhaps those black bloc guys there or just a few rowdy folks a sort of got out of hand and that is when the you know what really hit the fan well you said you know what really hit the fan from what i heard and from what i

read in certain reports it said that there was a giant bonfire that had been lit and you know there was only a couple hundred people left and that's what the police originally were drawn to before before the crowd right began. this is what happened so basically i was actually walking around there with a colleague of mine a we noticed there was sort of a commotion down the street we walked down there we were hearing reports of a foreclosed home that had been reclaimed by the occupiers occupy wall street folks we walked down there and there wasn't back some sort of a foreclosed property there were pulling out furniture putting it down in the street as a sort of barricade but it began as a barricade for a party you know folks are running around dancing there's music playing people are drinking in fact suddenly we noticed a group of about ten ten or twelve men and women all dressed in black their faces were covered they ran up to these barricades with these black tires you know with guns with the ground with tires where you do it and perhaps to burn them who knows and before the situation got out of hand we noticed the proximity eighteen white

unmarked vans with riot police officers pull up suddenly down the block the police officers all got out and stood information which was for this group of people a very provocative call that is when we saw protesters chanting screaming at the police and some i didn't personally witness the fires the start and they're turning around and then i saw the fire fires going but that is when the barricade was lit on fire and after that fire went off the police officers issued a call to the first and then they started shooting at tear gas rubber bullets supposedly i don't actually see the rubber bullets but some of the protesters had brought over the remnants of it and there was these heavy beanbags essentially that would probably hurt a lot if you got struck with that there's a pretty pretty intense situation at the end of the day as the standoff continued for several hours actually the police officers closed in were right on the front line they kept assuring the order to disperse they said that anyone in the area would be arrested that they had permission to use non-lethal weapons tear gas and

whatnot but at the end of the day it was almost a staring contest between the riot officers and the several handfuls of protesters that remain both sides obviously there are two other losing the thai government can you tell me what this is going to be the unity between the protesters no is it the way some people are describing as they feel like there are a couple bad seeds that might have ruined it for everybody for what was up until that point a peaceful demonstration. oh absolutely absolutely i did have a chance to go to the meeting today but i spoke to some colleagues who did and that was actually a major issue of discussion in fact some of the protesters had brought up the issue of a potential problem of people who may have been planted by the police to provoke the protesters and to do sort of more drastic actions they're very you know they're sort of reeling from last night and they they don't really quite know what to make of it is it just a few individuals with different needs or is it some sort of a tactic by the police to separate them but to provoke them into actions that get

them bad press that's something they're dealing with right now and that's that has sort of divided the occupy oakland community here at least now can you also tell me what happened because i was following your tweets last night and you had jumped into a c.b.s. news truck and then said that there were some kind of confrontation going on where protesters weren't sure or there was a half wanted to let you through because you work for r.t. and have said no because you work for are what happened there alone it was absolutely insane so we had this great video of everything that went down we want to rush back to peta so we can get on the air swiftly as possible just port for the vision down if huge and of course because of the general strike there won't really taxis in the area the only way that we're going to get out there in time is if we hitched a ride with one of the trucks that we had asked the fine folks at c.b.s. to give us a list unfortunately riding around a couple of a couple thousand rowdy protesters in the corporate media trucks probably not the best idea to start throwing things at the truck a put up a barricade and they would let us pass and eventually the cameraman made us get out

just because we had our logo jackets on and were sort of explaining that we were there from the start the protesters ended up getting into a heated discussion they surrounded us they wouldn't let us pass half of them said you know these guys are with our t. they've been covering it from the start they should go the other ones were much more radical much more militant we did end up getting out of there ok but it was a really really tense situation and in fact that the whole sort of people mike that . the first time out that people like wayne you know they were not there to put them in a bad light they were just trying to get the story out on the air we have possible i really felt our situation i haven't heard anything like that before i want to thank you so much for filling us in that looks like you know some kind of cracks are beginning to emerge there as the group gets bigger and who knows is trying to become a part of it like you said maybe some people are trying to provoke some violence or you know just people that have other interests thanks so much for joining us thank you now still to come tonight he's been

a supporter of the occupy wall street movement since the first couple weeks so tonight will get g.o.p. presidential candidate buddy roemer take on everything from corporate taxes to the fed is my guest really. sure is that so much i would have done differently i think the argument really can be a little the party is finally over it least it was twenty years ago the end of the communist party of the soviet union was the final step before the collapse of the u.s. . wealthy british style it's time to do it right in the front. of the. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy is really gorgeous on our. now fresh on the heels of a troop reorganization across the middle east which we told you about it looks like

the obama administration could be looking to end the u.s. combat role in afghanistan sooner than originally planned now this is of course according to his source a government official told the a.p. of the obama administration is considering a change in the military's role in afghanistan sooner than planned so while u.s. troops have been engaged in a combat role the shift would move u.s. troops to more of an advisory role and focus on training duties at a much earlier time like so if this agenda does go into effect u.s. troops especially special ops forces would still be involved in combat but afghan forces would then take the lead and the u.s. would offer their support no decision been made yet but this move would carry more broad implications for the u.s. role in afghanistan some are speculating that this could mean a faster drawdown of our troops in the country because the mission to train afghan forces would begin sooner rather than originally planned now it's not forget here that there is training going on now it has been for years but it would become the priority but of course this is all speculation government officials have rushed to assure the media that even if the mission shifts faster than originally scheduled

the u.s. will stay true to the original withdrawal date at the end of two thousand and fourteen which we also have to take with a grain of salt because officials have been very cryptic on actually settling on that date definitively so it's important to emphasize that this is an early plan no changes would go into effect until an agreement would be made at a nato meeting next major kaga so there's still plenty of opportunity to shift to a completely different game plan between now and that but a lot of people are already saying that this change in operations would mimic what the u.s. has done in iraq back in two thousand and nine president obama switched troops in iraq to an advise and assist role a precursor to the formal end of u.s. combat operations in the country although we all know that our troops have still been there in combat in danger of losing their lives so it's all rhetoric and with an election just a year around the corner even whispers of the u.s. ending yet another unpopular war afghanistan might help obama at the polls but even if this new policy does go into effect next year how much would really change as

jack rice pointed out during an interview on monday a shift won't mean a win for america. we will not win. in afghanistan we don't know who the good guys are we don't know who the bad guys are and charitably in many ways we funded both with the pakistani i.s.i. at one side and then the afghanis on the other and she's we can't figure that out since we extended our operations or shift our operations or change our operations it doesn't really address the fundamental failures that we've already had in the past and shaggier things continue to well do in the future. now currently there are ninety eight thousand u.s. boots on the ground in afghanistan with ten thousand scheduled to leave by the end of this year however if the u.s. isn't going to revise the current withdrawal date they're still going to be heavily involved in combat operations they just won't be theoretically leading the charge so it doesn't seem like any revolutionary changes to me. now let's go back to the information that i was giving to you at the top of the show this report from

citizens for tax justice we've now learned that some of the largest companies in this country that are in fact some of the largest companies in the world don't pay any income taxes or at least haven't done so for the last three years despite raking in billions hundreds of billions now this is part of the reason that so many americans across the country are upset this is part of the reason that they're occupying different cities and trying to get their voices heard so what's it going to take to get washington to listen joining me to discuss this is former governor of louisiana and republican presidential candidate buddy roemer governor thanks for coming back on the program tonight it's been a while since we spoke to you and you know i know that you went down to park only g.o.p. candidate that i know of so far doing that you went down to zuccotti park to express your support for occupy wall street do you still feel the same way i do they were. but i like their spirit i mean they sense something's wrong in america when the

richest and the larger the biggest and the most powerful don't pay a penny and students have to pay fifteen twenty five thirty percent there is something wrong in america but so i'm curious as to what you think about the recent developments we've really seen a lot of the attention about that now shift over to oakland california and what we've seen there the last couple of weeks are constant clashes with police we've seen the use of tear gas a flash grenades of rubber bullets you know what do you make of that. will eat it it saddens me i'm not saying the students are perfect and surely they must abide by the rules that our democracy said terms of protecting the lives of individuals i agree and all. but it's the spirit that i remember in the vietnam war protest by young people when i was in college and we we brought our troops home we

killed fifty nine thousand americans there for what reason and the young people brought them home i remember the civil rights marches in the in the deep south where i grew up on a farm and and across a bar and in my father's yard because as a methodist he believed that people ought to be treated fairly change comes it's never easy and here's my lesson at sixty eight i think a leader. a would be leader all of a listen to people first and be in express opinions i went to wall street to listen to the young people and i'm glad i did so do you think that perhaps police chiefs mare's like they've seen you know why they should let this continue they should tell the police to stand back just let it go on you said that's how things happened you know when it came to ending the vietnam war yes well in i'm not a law enforcement officer and i would not point my fingers and anyone who is they

do a great job however. demonstrations the voice of young people. debate in the streets requires some patience and compromise and room for it to to play itself out or build itself up you and i don't know how this is going to go but i'm hoping that we live in a country that would encourage debate and allow people to meet in public place for public discourse now there are rules they have to follow but i'm hoping that the police chiefs of america will give them room to express their opinion there are a lot of their belief and how america should change that's what i'm told now it comes to certain officials out there that have tried to express their support for occupy wall street or at least say if they're listening to the message it seems

like nobody really wants to take the blame and i think that this is especially true while we speak about federal reserve chairman ben bernanke who is giving a free press conference yesterday where a seventy sympathizes with the movement with the idea that so many americans are dissatisfied with the inequality in this country but that they shouldn't blame the fed that bailed out all the bags what do you think about that statement do you agree with that would only he says he's right they should blame washington d.c. they should blame the president of the united states and the congress will ultimately ask control of the failures i mean this finger pointing is not giving us anywhere it starts at the top it is my belief that washington d.c. no longer listens to people not use young people they don't listen to working people plain people people who built this great nation and i think it's a shame i think it weakens our position in the war all as as one of the leaders in

the world and as a leader that stands for freedom we all are practice what we preach and it's my belief. we've been a president needs to be free to lead that's why i don't take pac money i don't take super pac money i don't take special interest money out of the limited to one hundred dollars fully reported fully disclosed free to leave. now so i want to get back to united spoken about this before you think that corporate influence should be you know the corporate money shouldn't be so much in our political system you think that corporate tax loopholes need to be closed up so now we have this report that shows you that thirty of the biggest corporations didn't pay a single dime in income tax over the last three years seventy eight didn't pay at least one year out of three years did you know the problem was that big. yes you know i i've run a small bank community bank it's about

a billion dollars in size that's small in america a we didn't foreclose on the single mortgage holder we didn't shut down a single business we restructured we did bet for us we thought that was in our best interest as a community bank i don't see that spirit in corporate america as you were not talked a month or so ago corporate america made more profit last year then any year in their history and they did it by giving jobs away overseas and importing cheap products here that are not made to fair standards i think we need to change our tax code it's written by the corporations don't you think the lobbyist from g.e. had more effect on our tax code than the every citizen did i think they had more effect and i think they work to g.e.'s best interest we are worked in america's best interest and the president to lead if he doesn't i will well tell me this do

you think that congress is too scared to stand up to these corporations to stand up to general electric to stand up to exxon or it's of arise and you know there's an interesting development today there's now sixty democrats and forty republican lawmakers that have written a letter to the super committee telling them that everything should be on the table including revenues which means taxes going up so who is it that's holding it back is it all of congress is too scared of the just this twelve member group that has too much power that's too scared. case before all of congress i haven't been in congress in twenty years. and i enjoyed my ears there i didn't take pac money i was a democrat that worked with republicans my goal was a better america. i have no apologies for that but i do think that the power of special interest money might not have touched every congress man or woman but it has touched most of them i asked the speaker of the house and the president

of the senate to not pick super committee members who would take pac money special interest money our lobbyist money during the time they served on the committee i was ignored look i'm not trying to bring america down i'm trying to build our nation and when your nation is controlled by the one percent at the top the either the very wealthy of the very special interests you have a problem and i'm telling america has a problem and it's not dealing with it it's blaming other people it's horning its fingers but when the guys at the top are bought and paid for you do not have a free country i got a lot of thank you so much for joining us tonight. thanks. now still to come tonight we have our third day dishnet show intel and the g.

twenty summit is underway in france but all eyes focused on the debt crisis how much can the other member countries will do just in. the close a team has been to the region where technological breakthroughs save human lives. are to goes to the see. the unusual ways to protect nature. where farming pioneers place local cuisine to the highest pitch. and where future developments depend on the way. russia's black sea coast should close up on our t.v. . this

is all secret trip to the headlines and come on. the greek prime minister says he is ready to scram plan for a referendum on need you know but not under the proposals pontypool in europe and the parliamentary walkout at home. or is not taking a consensus little position pushed on its head of a confidence vote and. it was agreed dominated by a day of the g. twenty and turns the world leaders have been discussing how to turn cold a financial crisis facing the eurozone and prevent a global economic downturn or decisions and not the only ones having their say and the g. twenty one to have read police presence thousands of activists are demanding the government to listen to the people and not just take. in the us running battles in oakland as police and protesters go head to head down for a massive occupy demonstration shuts down america's largest port dozens of arrests were made and least of protests the protesters was injured after police allegedly fired rubber bullets.