bichir there you work at the end of those. great intercity schools are important tools actually hurt the children to do things politicians say the darndest things and yet despite so many political missteps they're the ones leading in the polls to become the next g.o.p. presidential contender meanwhile there's a war going to war there were the nuclear weapon in the room you know it isn't worthwhile candidates like ron paul and jon huntsman are being overlooked in the republican precincts circus so in the contest between sirius and sideshow what will win out. they say ignorance is bliss but these days with all the depressing news

stories coming out around the world it seems people are taking that mantra to a new extreme tuning out of current events and into current pop culture trends so despite this new technology looks like people might not be getting any smarter. a good evening to you it is wednesday december seventh eight pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for you're watching our team. i want to start with a look at what's become a rapidly changing landscape that of the g.o.p. presidential candidate field now we all know that over the weekend herman cain quote suspended his campaign so he's out so we want to talk about who is still in where they stand and what this all means for the future of our country so much to the dismay of quite a few people newt gingrich now has a clear lead in the polls he leads with thirty seven percent of those republicans

who were polled compared to mitt romney with twenty two percent and ron paul saying it in there with eight percent now we've gotten to the point in the campaign four weeks away from the iowa caucuses where the candidates aren't playing nice anymore it's becoming clear that there are some marked distinctions between them but here's one thing all of those republican candidates all except ron paul have in common they're all unwavering in their support for israel you see here just today in washington they were all here other than ron paul addressing republican jewish coalition on paul is not there because while he wasn't invited due to his quote misguided and extreme views in other words he doesn't support the u.s. relationship with israel in the same way the others do well here's one of his recent comments on the issue of a treaty with israel why would we have this automatic commitment that we're going to send our kids and send their money and loosely to to israel. all right so as you

can expect this is not a sentiment shared by the others but there are plenty of ways in which they all differ the surprising thing for many is how much if things change let's take a look back michele bachmann won the iowa straw poll rick perry lead in the polls for a week or so romney was the assumed front runner until her man came was the front runner now it's newt gingrich and this is the story on the surface but what are the deeper in implications here well it's one of the many questions i have and to help me answer them i spoke with heather conservative political commentator and strategist as well as dan ferrazzi director of the grassroots political consulting l.l.c. and i started off by asking her what she thought made the ideal republican candidate here's her take. would be somebody who is consistent which unfortunately two front runners do not have on their resume they are both supposed flip floppers my favorite candidate actually did not run mitch daniels. and also can't it needs to be a leader someone we can trust someone who we think actually believes what he says he

believes and will lead this country in the right direction then i think someone who just disparages the difference between themselves and president obama and also has would congress is failing the president. in some backbone so bold ideas in how to move this country forward beyond having a vision for where we're going to go with this country to get it back on the track especially fiscally to success call and you know i showed you just a few minutes ago sort of the national polling results for this week i want to take a look now at the latest results in iowa the iowa caucuses of course the less than four weeks away if you can believe it take a look at these numbers newt gingrich leading with thirty three percent mitt romney and ron paul tied with eighteen percent now these figures have swapped a lot and some people who look at these numbers they say you know what the republicans are in the midst of an identity crisis what do you guys think about this i would just jump in and say i think the republicans or and i. it's also a mitch daniels or jeb bush person but the republican party is void of

a conservative alternative in the selection and that's all there is to it you had bachmann who was inadequate perry who was not prepared cain who had his big huge and that simply is a simple explanation to the rise and fall of the candidates. who are an alternative to governor romney who the electorate is just not enthused about what do you think either of the voters flip flopping i don't think so i think this is a very normal situation where you know they're looking at the candidates deciding you know who they like and who they like more or less i mean it you know it's there it's our prerogative really to kind of you know be for one person this week and for a different person next week but i will tell you that the republicans will unite behind whoever the candidate is because we are all united in our desire to see obama gone let's take a look at some of the things. as we know there have been so many debates and so i want to take a look at some of the things the candidates have said and i want to start with some

of the past and present front runners. big tree or do you work on any of those slogans may be great if the schools are poor neighborhood schools actually heard the children do things what if they in that process were actually learning to work with their own money they had money enough to become a pimp or a prostitute i believe it's absolutely essential africa was a country on the brink now with the president he put us in libya he is now putting us in africa the very founders that wrote those documents he worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the united states. the. commerce and let's see. i can. see all right the liberty or dad let's take our kids out of school and put them to work when they're twelve years old these are you know some interesting things and these are coming out of the mouths of people who either now or at one or at one time or

everybody's favorite real quick i want to play some things that are said by a couple other candidates these candidates are considered either to be. on the fringe or or simply too low in the polls or torture is illegal. by our laws and it's illegal by international law and it's also immoral i don't know that this country needs a trade war with china is it worth going to war that we're going to nuclear weapon in iran you know it isn't worth while i take a different approach on afghanistan i see it's time to come home. so i guess my question for you two is why are the candidates who want to end the war in afghanistan and not engage in iran consider to not have a chance in this race daniel well i would say i mean governor huntsman actually is one of the intriguing figures because he's one of the more credible candidates that should be in the top tier i think he hired the wrong operatives which didn't help him at first and then on top of that having the resume of having served as

ambassador for president obama is just not something this republican electorate can swallow but the ideas are provocative and he is right on track with where a lot of the primary electorate is as far as ron paul's case he has domestic fiscal intriguing poll see that is causing a lot of people to for one for twenty some odd years but once you go into the foreign policy arena drug legalization xandra he's just off the radar for many republican primary electorate voters so yeah i would definitely echo what he said i think huntsman has some great ideas that i hope are embraced by whoever the candidate is and i can see him in a cabinet position even maybe even a vice presidential contender and as far as paul goes i think you know some of his ideas are fine but then they are completely undermined by a lot of it was about i mean i can see you know when we're talking about ron paul certainly people find it very hard to swallow the idea of getting rid of the entire

department of education or legalizing all drugs but what about his stance on iran a lot of people have called it sort of outrageous he simply doesn't want us to get involved with them to he doesn't want us to fear monger about the nuclear threat there why is that such a contentious position and why is ron paul the only one with that position. well he's very isolationist with thing i mean he really does not want to get involved in much at all and he so i think that you know at first that sounds great because in some ways the united states has gotten over involved you could argue really when it comes down to it that's not realistic we have to have we have to make decisions on who we support and and how whether we get involved in certain conflicts and so i think it's just really unreasonable he is and isn't off the mark on things like that if i believe in iran the sentiment of most of the candidates now is that president obama missed this opportunity in the two thousand and eight to two

thousand and nine use revolution to at least show verbal e that the west was behind this revolution and we probably wouldn't be having the nuclear conversation now if they would have taken place and afghanistan going into the overwhelming majority of the american public thinks we should draw down and pull back pakistan is another large controversy so i think he takes it a little too for his messaging is not consistent cohesive or coherent on his policies foreign policy wise but he's not dead for if you really dig into the details from where and i said you know we can i think certainly when we talk about ron paul he's certainly a least in many cases elevates the level of discussion and brings forth an outside perspective when everyone else is agreeing i got to talk now about newt gingrich he's in the lead right now so we should talk about him a lot of people worry a lot of conservative christians worry that if he becomes the republican nominee this could really change the future of how republicans identify it could mean some

people are even calling it the death of christian conservatism newt gingrich has been divorced twice he's been married three times you know he has gone after president clinton while he was having an adulterous affair and there are some groups who actually who say they will not stand for this i want to play you an ad put this is put together by iowans for christian leaders in government and they will talk about it. we don't always see eye to eye do we know but we do agree our country much to take action to address climate change sitting on the couch with nancy pelosi is the dumbest single thing. would you do a type of commercial about her again welfare evolution and future ok so we added

this down a little bit but this is the gist of the ad put together by this group and there is a lot of speculation given these new poll numbers given herman cain dropping out that newt gingrich really does embody all those things that mitt romney doesn't and could actually become the nominee. in addition to newt's baggage though people worry that you know they worry about the religious aspect of this and that changing and not resonating with people who identify themselves as christians or talk about this one thing i don't think that. you know newt is really advertising himself as the conservative christian candidate i don't think they would be wise for him to do that it's becoming more and more apparent apparent that he's not even really that conservative as far as it being the death of conservative christianity i don't think he's that powerful to do that i think you know people are going to make a wise decision you know if it's mitt romney versus newt gingrich then i don't know where it's going to go but the reality is that people will rally behind whoever the

candidate is because people really do think that america is at a crossroads and we're going to go down the road that obama is leading us down which is more socialized government or are we going to go back to the what the founding fathers fathers and vision which is america that allows you to you know aim high and try to achieve the american dream and then what do you think about this i mean when you talk about mitt romney he doesn't have the kind of baggage but he's not a christian he's a mormon newt gingrich has baggage that many christians would speak on the pope it out against. well this is a fluid conservative electorate in the middle of a social conservative early state that's all there is to it so these independent expenditure red zin other five zero one c three zero everything else that's involved is coming from other primary opponents who have seen the rise and fall of perry cain bachmann take cetera and are trying to play on vulnerability to speaker gingrich now the fact of the matter is i was not as significant to me as any of the

others if newt is able to pull all of south carolina and intensely competitive way in florida and hire it get a flood of money and get an apparatus around and he very well could be the nominee and i agree with heather i think whether it's him or mitt romney everybody will rally around one of the other i don't know as with all the changes we've seen who knows maybe there's a room for rick santorum or jon huntsman to slide on up there let's stay on gingrich for just a little longer though because it's interesting to just think about all the different parts of him and i want to show you something this was a quote said by one of his former a he said he's a little bit like charcoal briquettes in the backyard when you first like them there's a lot of smoke and fire and a lot of stuff going on but you can't cook a steak and that was rich galen a former aide for newt gingrich what do you think he meant by that interview that statement however well i think it's a very passionate person and i think it's the smoke and fire right exactly but as far as getting things done that's where he kind of runs into some trouble and i

think the real q one of the real challenges for gingrich is that he does have quite a few enemies he's been in washington for a long time washington politics for a long time that's another thing that romney does not have does not have the kind of baggage yes he has political you know opponents but doesn't have those kind of intense enemies that gingrich has that's that gingrich is going to have to deal with and so if you look at the polls too i think it's interesting to note that yes romney has kind of gone between first and second but he hasn't gone all the way down to five you know so i think that. kind of consistency is going to really play out favorably for him then you have the last word he says well he's got an interesting history i mean having over twenty years in this town all the rest there is definitely going to be a lot of votes to leadership style opposition research and one of the ironic and most intriguing thing happening this week is the establishment is all coming out for romney and they are not coming out for new it's a polar opposite but however all that does is show the electorate that romney is

more the washington insider newt is more the outsider and that could create quite a narrative over the next few weeks i think it's hard to argue the new is not a washington insider that given all his experience here and all the major role he's played in washington the major ties with lobbying corporations certainly an interesting discussion and you know this is exciting the political season we have another year little less than this to talk about this and see what happens see what kind of crazy. conservative political commentator and strategist as well as director of grassroots political consulting l.l.c. daniel for us you. a new chapter to night in the occupy wall street movement and it moves as it moves close to its three month anniversary and here in washington today dozens of protesters were arrested on k. street the arrest came as demonstrators from across the country converged on k. street historically home to america's lobbying firms the protesters marched across the street which part which caused police to shut down some of the city's biggest

thoroughfares some protesters tried to block rush hour traffic and that led to arrests protestors were carried into police vans as demonstrators on the sidewalk jeered at the officers many lobbying firms had extra security for today's event and buildings around the city were double checking security badges for employees and they entered and they entered a house lobbying firms occupiers are also planning to protest this evening at the white house and the supreme court. and it's not just occupy wall street that has been front and center as a movement in this country recently there are a lot of other major things happening at home and around the world as well the presidential race of course also the egyptians who came close who came to embody the arab spring they are smack dab in the middle of their elections and the eurozone is on the brink of collapse so what if she was on the minds of people here well it turns out most people are not counting down the days to the next meeting of the european union instead they're counting down how many shopping days are left

before christmas at least that's what the resident laurie harshness found out this week on the streets of new york city. are people aware of what's going on in the world this holiday season are they only interested in shopping this week let's talk about that what do you make of the first egyptian election since the revolution. well what do you think is the importance of it. what's on your mind that shopping do you agree with britain's choice to pull out of its embassy in tehran. we don't follow the news these days so i'm not so informed about what do you follow these days. only on this need to go do you think fired the rockets on the lebanon is real border well since i just woke up this room a little vacation i have no idea about the story and i apologize but i have no idea

how do you think the european union should handle the greek situation. but hear me answer that really don't follow that closely now what are you guys been following the news. alerts. he watches the news i watch the. what is it h.d. t.v. and the cooking channel did you think nato had a right to pakistan this is getting very political i'm on a five day holiday and i'm not going to get into a big political discussion are you happy with hillary clinton's efforts in burma i don't know about hillary clinton's efforts in burma so i don't know about it sorry . why don't you know about it because on monday i haven't heard from her at all in texas sorry but she can do call you up if she by you never have a cell phone to call me if you need me i don't mean the sit down not worldly but i'm paying more attention to what's happened over here it was happening in another

country that is somewhat not affecting us do you think that's what most people feel probably what about you probably whether or not you've crossed everything off your list this holiday the bottom line is you might want to consider taking a break from shopping to find out what's going on in the rest of the world. all right so tis the holiday season but to be totally unaware of what's going on outside of the stores and have to have a be such a common thing well there's got to be a reason for that or maybe there are various reasons to try to answer that i spoke to georgetown university journalism professor chris chambers and asked him what he thinks the role the media plays in all of this here's what he had to say. we love to highlight kind of emotional issues that where we and we don't give the context i mean there's a lot of stuff going on on the hill now that affects everyday americans that

a lot of these people probably would not care about or haven't heard about unless you're in a specific interest group i mean say so fox viewers want to talk about obama's socialist judicial appointments or something but even there there's no context it's just boom boom boom appeal to a certain target demo and move on so even in domestic issues you know there's no context you're trying to grab that reptilian brain that firefly you know feeding or sex part of the brain and no context so what we're left with is ignorance is bliss or it might be even be a new paradigm where it's like pathological in the style just i don't know what's going on i don't care what's going on all i know is now is the time i have to think about christmas shopping because that's all i have left meanwhile we're at a time when the economy is still hurting great time and yet you know you turn on any of the mainstream channels and there's going to be in-depth segments about the latest holiday gadgets what's new what are the new apps for the i pad different

things like that so i want to contrast that with for example what is going on in egypt you know so far they're sort of in the middle of their elections right now but so far election results show that the hard line conservative fallacies have captured about a quarter of the vote there and when you look about it when you look at the southeast answer they are very anti consumer and they are sort of all about being more and more spiritual and they've captured a quarter of the vote in egypt to talk about that and how it sort of vastly contrasts with what we're. seeing here again is this paradigm that i have to close my mind off to everything and it's the opposite of the great depression like i said this is something new i mean the great depression. there was a psychological to freshen here it's almost it's escape but it's not escaping to like the romans called bread and circuses spectacle and stuff like that here it's really just

a mindless kind of turning word glassing on to these these consumer meems that are hit on in the media again and again and again in egypt on the other hand i mean you had the entire society basically up ended politically militarily socially and economically which is that at the base of all this and it is ironic that at the base of that is all this consumerism it's not anti israel it's not you know whether women should wear burkas it's really the consumer part of the western influence that they are rebelling against and so you know you have those two things in balance and you know we look at them and we say we don't care what's going on over there but we were the ones that kind of gave them that mean and shoved it down their throat now they're going to shove it back at us and it will only be sold to the american public in bite sized pieces such as well this is bad for israel or this is bad for our military are these are people are just terrorists and they are again they'll be no context and then we'll go into our shells again it is

interesting and will be interesting to watch not just egypt but the other various countries part of the arab spring other sort of uprisings going on if they will if that will be a trend of them sort of grasping to returning to their roots going back spirituality but i guess what that western influence of whatever part of capital and they got that's just not working right well they're part of that's part of their pathological nostalgia too and i think if we go back to something simple our problems will be solved i mean we saw that in two thousand and ten in the midterm elections and that hasn't you know i mean maybe they're going to get into this malays or more of like malays ignorance and escape eventually to when they realize that's not going to work either it's so funny how often you hear about the good old days do they actually exist i think a lot of it. sort of like this collective amnesia but let's talk about media ignorance i've got to play this clip from fox news i believe you know this is basically how they've been covering the elections in russia and i want you to pay

attention to something pay attention to the landscape of the trees. thousands of protesters have gathered in moscow glassing out of prime minister vladimir putin and his family united russia party sam for widespread reform the ballot stuffing and irregularities in the vote count in sunday's parliamentary election all right so we're talking about people carrying not carrying maybe because now words like fox a misinformed that i don't know if you know if there are palm trees in that video palm trees there or not palm trees in russia that's because the video they show to talk about people you know all up in arms about the russian a lot of those are actually greek protesters exe you know i mean there there been studies done that most fox viewers don't know any more than people who don't read the news at all they actually know less i mean you know basically they're going after a certain target demo that's going to latch on to that stuff anyway but even even their target viewers once they get there they're still once they get they're fed of

the raw meat then they're still going to go out like zombies and hit walmart i mean or if it's their yuppies they'll hit groupon online and then use their groupon coupons because that's what we were leching onto i mean because the world is too complicated the world is too scary and this time unlike any other time in our history and it's it's it's it's a combination of digital media platforms reinforcing it what we're doing is rather than being depressed or rather than seeking escapist entertainment we're basically zombie find ourselves and going out and buying our christmas presents buying our gadgets dipping into our savings to do that. and buying one of the you know people of smartphones people i pads why is it that they're not more informed than ever well because there are too many outlets and they don't and they don't have the time to discern what's real across all these platforms specialty digital platforms now

and. we're talking about people who are very well educated imagine with. the service economy people the blue collar people who are getting hammered you know what what do they have to fall back on well they fall back on the same thing everybody is this in the style jewels this is the time of the year i need to close off this stuff i know things are bad but i'm going to go to wal-mart and get that flat screen t.v. on black friday you know. it's as simple as that i'm currently make things easier just not to be aware like you said ignorance sometimes can a blessed journalism professor at georgetown chris chambers as always thanks. such an cares of the capital punishment case against me abu jamal has finally come to an end he will now serve a life sentence in prison prosecutors call off their attempts of sentencing him to death after if thirty year high profile battle surrounding his case abu jamal a former journalist was convicted of fatally shooting police officer daniel faulkner during a traffic stop in philadelphia back in one thousand nine hundred one the former

black panther claims he's the victim of a racist legal system and the case has made him an international cost celebrity of the decision comes two days before the thirtieth anniversary of the murder of officer daniel faulkner was originally sentenced to death his murder conviction was upheld through years of appeals but in two thousand and eight the federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing on the grounds that the instructions given to the jury were potentially misleading after the u.s. supreme court declined to weigh in two months ago prosecutors were forced to decide whether to pursue the death penalty again or accept a life sentence without parole over the years abu jamal challenge the predominantly white makeup of the jury the instructions given to the jurors and the accounts of eye witnesses he also said that his lawyer was ineffective that the judge was racist and that another man had confessed to the crime mia got worldwide support from the free movement a movement with hundreds of vocal supporters and death penalty opponents regularly

turning out for the court hearings in his case now coming up on friday we're going to talk about this more we can have an in-depth look at the movie abu jamal case right here on our t.v. . but for now that's going to do it for more on the stories we covered we go to r.t. dot com slash usa also check out our interviews and other segments that we do we post them on youtube dot com slash r t america you should also follow me on twitter i'm at christine for the big picture with thom hartmann is coming up in just about a half hour tonight tom we'll be speaking to presidential candidate buddy roemer about getting money out of politics but that's going to do it for the news i'll see you right back here tomorrow have a great night. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry is a big.