we have the most expensive health care system in the world and it's probably valued the least the least. until. welcome to the lower show where you get the real headlines with none of them or see me live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to look at i merely released a report on iran's nuclear aspirations patients expressed concerns the calls for a preemptive attack are heating up so what can be done to stop the world from engaging in another war then a study released yesterday shows the wealth gap between young and old americans has increased drastically but some say have the results here are misleading and that could result in an intergenerational class war natural hollande is going to tell us

his concerns and then the supreme court takes on a huge privacy case today do the feds have the right to track their vehicle with a g.p.s. device without a warrant we're going to talk about how this ruling fits into our world of ever increasing reliance on technology and farther reaching surveillance or how all that morphy tonight including details of happy hour but first take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. well it's another day of other big news in the world from the i reports increasing talk of bombing iran to italy's prime minister silvio berlusconi agreeing to resign to the u.n. reporting of the death toll in syria has reached thirty five hundred people to the occupy wall street movement still gaining momentum across the u.s. and the supreme court tackling some of the biggest privacy issues of today but for the mainstream media it's just another day obsessing over the herman cain sexual allegations saga today herman was holding a press conference. the fourth woman to accuse her main cain of sexual harassment

a fourth woman has now accused him of inappropriate behavior his campaign has already gone on the attack against a fourth woman herman cain says he's going to set the record straight about allegations of sexual harassment at a news conference in arizona herman cain is going to try to get control of the controversy and will address the allegations which you strongly. now let me clear a few things. up here i've been on mainstream media for a while now for going over the top with the cain story and i'll tell you why originally it was just that there were some legal documents and we knew no details of them i have a so found a way to talk about it twenty four hours a day seven days a week now we've actually seen one of the women speak out she has a face she has a name and if what she said is true that herman cain slipped his hand up her skirt pushed her head into his crotch and said i have a job for you but herman cain sounds like a sleaze and needs to be held accountable but the words coming out of herman cain's

mouth regarding all of this have been the same all along he denies it he stumbles around he always says the same old thing and dig himself deeper into a hole so why is it that the supposedly most trusted name in news the forward leaning fair and balanced networks need to spend hours upon hours of warning people that at some point today herman cain would be holding a press conference where undoubtedly he would just say the same damn thing is beyond me now listen asking for you to focus on some other stories that sort of defense of herman cain as some of our overly politically correct media personalities would like to claim if in fact his asking you to do your job and inform and educate the public and if you look at the polls the public doesn't feel like the herman cain drama is the most important thing going on in this country the public is concerned over unemployment over millions of homes being underwater over the debt the college students are requiring they're concerned about the fact that congress is still sitting on its hands playing a game of tit for tat and set of trying to move the country forward and creating policies that help us do so they're concerned over the fact of the wealth in this

country is concentrated in the hands of very few and it's getting worse every day and about the fact that the last three washington are just too close to the money in wall street hold such a tight grip over washington that our government can't even stand up to the bankers that brought the economy down and hold them accountable now these concerns all happen to be a part of what occupy wall street is concerned with so this is why people are going out on the streets spending the night some parts because they feel like there is no other way to get their voices heard and a new poll from a. in the last wall street journal shows that more americans are beginning to agree with the ninety nine percent message in fact sixty percent of americans strongly agree with the basic sentiments sentiments and here's how the poll described them the current economic structure of the country is out of balance and favors a very small proportion of the rich over the rest of the country america needs to reduce the power of major banks and corporations and demand greater accountability and transparency the government should not provide financial aid to corporations and should provide and should provide tax breaks to the rich and not now these

sentiments according to that poll now more popular than tea party movement are more popular than congress they're more popular than the president and they're definitely more popular than herman cain but once again that can get an ounce of attention from the mainstream media they'd rather bring on the cream of the pundit crop and discuss herman cain's press conference and miss what sixty percent of americans are now very strongly concerned about. why the long awaited i report has finally been released to media outlets and the results are pretty much what's been expected and leaked over the last few days he went atomic agency said it has serious concerns about iran's nuclear activities and credible information that iran may have worked on developing nuclear weapons including testing of component components and building computer models of a nuclear warhead report also says the rot appears to have carried out nuclear

weapons related activities as part of a structured program prior to two thousand and three and that iran might still be engaged and relevant research now prior to the report's release the rhetoric has already been heating up in washington and in israel even israeli president shimon peres said on sunday that an attack on iran was becoming more likely russia and china meanwhile are calling for a pause warning that in fact could be catastrophic so how saga play out join me to discuss that is dr thomas pm barnett chief analyst for wiki strat and contributing editor for esquire magazine. thomas thank you so much for coming back on the show tonight now you said in the past that nobody can stop iran from its attempts to acquire nuclear weapons so in that sense are you not surprised by the results of this report. you know i'm not surprised that the i.a.e.a. basically came out and said that by their best estimates now and contrary to the estimate of the u.s. national intelligence community back in two thousand and seven that iran has

basically been working to weaponize a nuclear capacity all along i'd end that they've been pursuing it basically since two thousand and three which is the year the united states went into iraq one from the position of iran having seen united states going to afghanistan and iraq as part of its little war it's not particularly surprising or rational that iran reaches for a nuclear weapon it does create however the dynamics that a lot of us are more deeply concerned with and that is. in an effort to counter what iran perceives to be. israel's ongoing. and allow capacity to have nuclear weapons in the region once iran does achieve that weaponization will likely see saudi arabia activate a promise long made by pakistan to get a nuclear weapon capacity as quickly as possible and we could see turkey moving down a similar path and once that happens then we're really looking at kind of a fast rerun in the middle east some of the same dynamics we saw in europe during

the early part of the cold war between the soviets and the united states and that's a scary proposition but ultimately i think it'll be much like it was in europe in between united states and the soviet union a stabilizing proposition once we go through that scary initial period so i tend to be more sanguine about this capability coming on line eventually i get i don't think there's much we can do to stop it israel may attack in the short term but i don't think it's going to have a lot of impact and i think we're looking at a new killer ice persian gulf which the world is going to in terms of its great powers have to step in somewhat and manage in the years ahead but that when he said the world is going to have to try to manage it in the years ahead me i think it's going to have to. accept it and start playing ball. i think we're going to have to to create some sort of dialogue between israel and iran on the strategic nuclear

question once iran basically has that capacity and i think saudi arabia will be so frightened by it that little reach for its own bomb parts to make sure that it's at the table and that's why i think turkey will very possibly can similar things i think it that point all the world's great powers are going to be highly incentivized to basically come into the situation and argue we need to have some sort of understanding here we can't let the situation and the railroads evolve integrate and ship like we saw in europe in the late ninety's fifty's or early one nine hundred sixty s. and i think once you get to that point it's actually to the west benefit to see iran recognize this and you can empower because once iran starts having a dialogue with israel and the west starts gaining that acceptance for being a nuclear power it's going to remove from its illogical calculus in the way presents itself to its own rather imprisoned population i would argue it removes the bugaboo the west as the reason for iran maintaining such

a confrontational stance with the outside world and having such strict regime control over the population internally they back to what happened to the soviet union after nixon science a piece of paper that basically recognizes and that's a nuclear power within a generation the place collapses from its internal contradictions i think a similar path could happen pereira at a much faster pace now i ask you what you think of course there are the reports coming out today that apparently when president obama and they were speaking they realize that their microphones are on they had a little you know little talking session where they said that netanyahu was a liar and obama said well you know you think that's bad i have to deal with them all the time thing of the world really be caring about i mean how important are personal relationships when it comes to you international relations between two different countries. i don't think it's actually that important that kind of

backbiting happens all the time whether microtones iran or as we saw through the wiki leaks release of diplomatic cables that kind of back channel nasty talk it is fairly common i don't really think israel is the key player in this whole dynamic as much as a ron likes to make their pursuit of a nuclear device anti western anti israel in its focus i frankly think this is all about its long term rivalry with saudi arabia and that iran remains simply a mix of the will scapegoat for this activity whipping boy if you will and i think we're seeing similar dynamic from the turks in terms of their reorientation these in the west i believe an anticipated when iran gets the bomb and turkey has a step forward with some sort of three spots of its own to maintain its own momentum that in its long term reach for a kind of a regional leadership so i mean when i look at it from a western perspective you have the turks making

a bid for regional leadership they may end up reaching for nukes as part of this process a lay can be included in this dialogue that i ultimately think's going to unfold once around gets the bomb but i think because the turks represent the west's best option when you think about iran versus saudi arabia and those tensions are rising and iran being and i either do gain jacking on saudi arabia's behalf which i think would be a mistake for israel to pursue or being caught up in the crossfire of what i fear would be nuclear and can ship between a nuclear i study arabia and you care i should rot so in a sorry time in this our time you're saying that you don't see any chances of israel actually acting on some of the heat of that rhetoric when it comes. to lining some kind of an airstrike or some kind of a supply of an attack on iran's nuclear facilities and you have to wonder is this something israel would deal on its own without the approval of american power of some of its european allies i think it's a lot less likely the saudis aren't going to cooperate. give israel sense that it's

strategic clients are going to be somewhat covered i think the united states would desperately prefer to avoid this outcome as with china and russia. i think at the end of the day israel makes that choice for itself but it is a huge enabling factor if saudi arabia feel so threatened by iran's continued activities that it's exploiting of terrorism it's the tent city to stabilize the kingdom of saudi arabia and in from one to the revolution on the persian and insula to the extent that saudi arabia gets more and more nervous and would prefer israel to act on its behalf that's what i think it's a key enabling agent i don't think the west or particularly the united states opinion on this is going to matter all that much to israel as on it's really great . that i releases these reports rather frequently or all the time and a lot of time they go by without any real fanfare except for i guess the crowd that studies this constantly so why is it getting so much attention now you know we we

have other powers you have china you have russia are stepping in and please are urging you know little bit of leniency here clear from both sides. you know i can't speak to the so that the agency's timing in terms of the report i think this is are just in doubt on a regular basis it will activate a lot of the actual iranian hearts in the united states and certainly in israel it will raise a lot of concern in saudi arabia for for all the usual reasons but from a strategic perspective and this is a simulation that we plan on running at wiki strad the next few weeks we think this would be a huge diversion i personally think he chip version you know and we want to explore what kind of future version it would represent for israel to make this kind of move at this point in the arab spring especially want to stop its regime that's under so much stress assad in syria in such a key proxy and an enabler of a reigning influence and violence and against israel through hamas and has a lot it's

a very different situation yesod regime falls i think much more strategically comforting for israel and it would put turkey probably in an even more interesting leadership position because today it's really been turkey that's been winning in terms of the regional rivalries of these of the iran and saudi arabia in the arrangements and not feeling very comfortable or happy with the way the arab spring it's gone and very nervous about assad's fall so i think the iranians would actually welcome israel striking them at this point and changing the dialogue from the arab spring to an anti western focus and that's another reason why i think it would be a mistake or israel strike in the near term i don and i thank you so much for joining us tonight and i certainly hope you're right and we won't see any kind of. church. so it comes right off my wall street's on the move of playing that few minutes and some say the staggering numbers on the wealth gap between the young and

old are misleading so they're driving that topic i'm just not. was. going to believe the rep was. like what a protester nobody seems to know. that never pepper sprayed the face but part of the argument that they're being overly dramatic. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so easy to understand it and then you know here's some other part of it and realize that everything is ok. i'm charging welcome to the big.

mr. bank of america is being asked to pay yet another settlement being held as a landmark payout over thirteen million customers who carry b. of a debit cards are charged billions in excess of overdraft fees from two thousand and one. the lawsuit claims that bank of america processed its debit card transactions in the order of highest to lowest dollar amount so it could maximize the overdraft fees customers had to pay the bank rate down about four point five billion dollars from overdraft fees alone and despite the settlement bank of america insists that there was nothing improper about the process sequence. and that's a pretty big balls the statement bank of america thought they were doing nothing wrong when they manipulated the processing of purchases made on their customers

debit cards by charging thirty five dollars for each overdraft fee calculations show that over the course of ten years the bank brought in four point five billion dollars so based on american made a killing off of ripping off its customers and they think that there's absolutely nothing wrong with that now thankfully a federal court disagreed and got to the bank was out of line in this practice yesterday judge james king ordered b. of a pay four hundred ten million dollars settlement and it's being labeled as a win for banking customers and undoubtedly is one of the largest settlements of its kind but when you really break it down the starts to look less and less like a victory so let's look at some of those numbers bank of america has been ordered to pay out or hundred ten million dollars to more than thirteen million of its customers but if b. of a actually brought in four point five billion dollars in fees that means that the settlement from the class action suit is only paying out ten percent of what it brought in not even coming close to the amount of money they made off of their shady practices now barry himmelstein a lawyer of one of the customers is estimated the average customer in the lawsuit

faces three hundred dollars in overdraft fees and so if they're only getting ten percent of the back they're going to be pretty surprised when a whopping twenty seven dollars shows up in their accounts we've got it twenty seven dollars overdraft fee itself is thirty five doesn't take a mathematician to see that the customer has got screwed over here again despite taking their anger to a federal court just another reminder of why the occupy movement is growing in this country by the day and bank of america is not the only banks growing their customers with overdraft fees of. errantly similar lawsuits been filed against thirty other banks now the settlement amounts to only ten percent of what the bank may think make america has to be feeling pretty good about this but now that you all have this data let you decide if this lawsuit was really a win for the people because all the numbers tell me is that the banks are still winning despite the landmark ruling. and now yesterday a pew research study showed the wealth gap between young and old here in america is growing out of the typical u.s.

household headed by a person age sixty five or older has a net worth forty seven times greater than a household headed by someone under thirty five big jump since one thousand nine hundred four when older families only had wealth ten times greater than those under thirty five now it's a state that many of pointed to in the fight to restructure social security and raise the retirement age is the ideal gold are doing so much better than the young kind of misleading our guests and i argue that it could fuel an intergenerational class war paying americans of different ages against each other and it's a time when the occupy movement is trying to bring the ninety nine percent can gather joining me to discuss it as joshua holland editor and senior writer at alter net dot org joshua thanks so much for being on tonight and i guess let's start with give us some figures some explanation as to what it is that you see as misleading within this study that came out. sure well this is one of those situations where you have a headline the one that you mentioned where the wealth gap between households headed by people over sixty five the ratio to younger households has grown from

forty seven to one whereas in one thousand and four it's just changed one. underlying numbers there is that back in one thousand nine hundred four the typical household headed by somebody under thirty five had eleven thousand dollars and she knew looted wealth and now they have three thousand dollars. the problem with that is that young people generally don't have a lot of accumulated wealth in the first place and also nine hundred eighty four was the year that we saw a robust growth declining unemployment rate it was two years after the nine hundred eighty one eighty two recession so you would expect that people had managed to rebuild their savings compared to two thousand and nine which is of course was at the tail end of a terrible crash a year that overall we had negative growth and still high unemployment at nine point three percent virtually unchanged from today. can you also say that while

young people and they never really have a whole lot of money to accumulate and wealth when they're young they weren't graduating college with an average of about twenty four thousand twenty five thousand dollars worth of student loans that right we now we have this trillion dollars worth of student loans that that is really weighing down the younger population. well that's an absolutely correct point i think that the financial and economic situation for young adults right now is extremely leitch the point about this study that i find problematic is that it is kids older americans older households against younger households and what few didn't mention is that if you look at the age group just beneath the retiree's or the people who are of retirement age of sixty five and over they also did quite well you know younger americans are doing very poorly the fundamental problem of course is that we've seen so much accumulation of wealth at the top so back in one nine hundred eighty four for example the top one percent of all households was taking about ten percent

of the nation's pretax income the year before the crash in two thousand and seven they were taking twenty three point five percent of the nation's pretax income so for the remaining ninety nine percent of households old young and in the middle i have seen their share of decreased significantly since four yeah and that's the life i was removing is trying to tell everybody that it's not right recent versus one percent but if you break it down do you really think i mean at the end of the day the occupy movement although it has happened will of all ages for the most part are young people young people that are frustrated because they did everything they were supposed to do went to school and now they're graduated with that now there aren't any jobs available for them and i think that they're a little better that they don't live in a society that's considered as fair as it once was for an older generation so if you think of there are the natural divisions here where is an older population i think well you guys are all spoiled brats that expect too much. well i mean that's

at the heart of the politics of resentment which i think is dangerous and plays into the hands of those who seek to dismantle the social safety net programs like social security and medicare the reality is that we need some significant structural economic reforms the idea that you have to choose and this is one of the things that i think is really problematic the way the study is being interpreted not necessarily the way that the authors presented it but the way it's being received by many is that we don't need to choose between keeping the elderly out of thirty and giving younger people a shot at the american dream social security is both solvent and keeps. the poverty rate for people over sixty five down to around fifteen percent whereas without social security it would be at forty five percent so we would have almost half of our elderly and without that program as i see you out. here weeks ago i

believe that if there is one thing at the time one has achieved at this point is to bring this question back to the problems of today back to the economy that the jobs and away from all of the deficit really just took over the entire summer and so i'm wondering if you think that they can take it even further so many laws unfortunately and this time terry are our legislative based on issues morality and so if you make this issue of inequality one about the ethics and the morals of this country again then do you think that there's a stronger chance of success. well i do and i certainly think that they've they've as as you mentioned i wrote about this recently they have already done a great deal to shift it just for us to talking about these issues and i think these are issues that really resonate with the american people even if they don't have you know a concrete grasp of all the statistics that i throw around in my piece is i think

people have certainly an intuitive sense that they've lost something in terms of economic security that their parents once had or the generation before once had i think that it is a moral issue and then lastly i asked this of my guest last night i am curious as to what you think do you think that president obama a dividing factor for this movement that if it was a republican that was in charge right now the much easier to rally all the troops are right now he's splitting the left. that's interesting i mean there are certainly deficiencies among progressives about how they view the obama presidency when you look at the polling though it seems to me that those divisions are amplified online in terms of you know progressive bloggers are certainly having a huge running battle over how to interpret this administration's moves but you know his support among self identified liberals has remained remarkably constant

around eighty percent so i think that these battles that we really highlight in the media tend to be a little bit overplayed compared to how the ordinary base of the democratic party were so identified progressive i thank you so much for joining us tonight thanks for having me. now earlier today i wall street announced it will be taking the show on the road small group of protesters plan to leave the coffee park in manhattan tomorrow for occupy the highway and their final destination as washington d.c. that you hundred forty mile march is going to make its way through new jersey pennsylvania delaware and maryland before arriving in the nation's capital and the marshals were marchers will arrive in washington on the eve of nov twenty third a significant day because that's when the super committee in congress must release its plans on how to cut one point two trillion dollars from the deficit so the protesters want the supercommittee to do away with the bush tax cuts for the wealthy or the outcry the highway protesters hope the other people are going to

join them along the route and all arrive in d.c. november twenty second camp with occupy d.c. protesters in macpherson square and the next day they plan to march to capitol hill and the white house to make sure to keep you updated on the marchers progress. alchemy of next we have our choose dayton of show and tell and police tracking citizens with g.p.s. your supreme court is hearing a case that could set a precedent for fourth amendment rights to not. include only. people with supreme justice or accountability. i have a right to know what my government's true if you want to know why i. would characterize obama as the charismatic. of american exceptionalism.