these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to look for asians or old today. welcome to the launch show where we get the real headlines with none of the mercy or can live in washington d.c. now it's not going to look at the national defense authorization act and president obama will no longer veto despite provisions that allow for military detention without trial for u.s. citizens now a lot of people are calling this a cave on the administration's part but if you've been watching closely you'll realize that they never cared about your civil liberties to begin with then more staggering census figures show us that one in two americans can now be considered poor or low income so what's congress doing in the meantime while they're fighting

over partisan issues and bringing us closer to a shutdown for the third time this year so when's the last time that these lawmakers actually got anything done mark and is going to join us for that one and then sopa was discussed today in the house judiciary committee and we've been speaking about this horrible piece of legislation at length but let us fill you in on the debunked facts of the sponsors are actually basing it on the color from ciena is going to be with us we'll have all that and more fit and i couldn't get us at happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. i won't go through all of the details of this again on the fact that yes our troops are coming home but we will still have a massive presence of the form of contractors and diplomats in iraq and so does that really mean that anything is completely finished you've heard me make that speech before but today secretary of defense leon panetta got to come out and say that the iraq war is officially over and so the mainstream media made

a big deal out of it all as expected. is lord and the u.s. military mission in the family over rock after nearly nine years forty five hundred american dead thirty two thousand wounded and more than eight hundred billion dollars spent today the flag of your u.s. forces in iraq was retired u.s. military is formally shut down the war in iraq officially retiring the flag of you . forces nearly nine years after shock and all a small sober ceremony paying tribute to america's sacrifice most of the speech is focused on the sacrifices the accomplishments that u.s. troops have been able to achieve here in iraq since the invasion nearly nine years ago just a few thousand u.s. service members remain in iraq they're streaming out of the countries you know what i'm going to let them have that one today let them rejoice in the fact that the

last troops will be coming home from iraq at least in some way that chapter of what now has been ten years of our global war on terror which iraq really had nothing to do with but ended up falling into is closed but you know what happened last night that proved that this global war on terror will never really end and it's we the people that ultimately will suffer from it well we covered it briefly on the show as the obama administration had just released a statement to the press and just by all those veto threats from the white house they issued over the n.d.a. the national defense authorization act for fiscal year two thousand and twelve they change their minds they decided that they won't in fact be doing any veto is now this one of least have been a big opportunity for the press to ray a lot about how the president caved on something yet again since they love nothing more than talking political strategy and games and despite the fact that it's not actually true but to get into that in a minute with our first interview but seriously you would think that i know something like this would have made a blip on the mainstream media's radar that they would have carried through the story today because it was a big political flop but no dice what's even scarier is of course what this n.d.a.

actually does thanks to the provisions of the on the mccain levin bill they now have codified into u.s. law indefinite military detention of terrorist suspects and that includes monetary detention of foreigners as well as u.s. citizens suspected in crimes related to terrorism so basically what this does is bring the war on terror even closer to every single one of our doorsteps it puts the battlefield right into your own backyard as some of said lately it strips the entire idea from the constitution. that you have civil liberties that you have the right to a trial by jury to see your day in court and to get due process it's the same thing that we've been doing for years in guantanamo bay with the form of the tension order of the french president signed and that's wrong either way but we all know the us americans we can be a little bit insensitive about those kinds of things thanks to the constant fear mongering that's always thrown in our faces to the point where people think well you know what if it's the bad guys it's those foreign terrorists that it's ok it's not like my government would ever do it to me but guess what you're wrong because

your government would totally do that to you and now they'll be able to by law the other incredibly scary thing that's going on here is a business that the military not our civilian justice system is going to be in charge so start to sound more and more like we're getting closer to martial law by the day the military can detain american citizens without trial what's wrong with the court system that we already have nothing actually if you consider the fact that there have been more than four hundred people in the last ten years that i've been prosecuted successfully in our federal courts for terrorism related offenses military commissions on the other hand only six cases. and yet this bill also make sure that detainees at guantanamo bay can't be transferred on to u.s. soil and put on trial here and also continues restrictions that don't allow for detainees that have already been cleared to be transferred out there is no logic to it this is the war on terror not being anywhere near over but instead being extended being even further brought right onto u.s.

soil is our constitution being chipped away this is the legacy that this president is going to leave behind as kind of the executive director of human rights watch said today by signing this defense spending bill president obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in u.s. law to guess what everybody say goodbye to that america that you once knew and just so you know this was a bipartisan affair there were a few lone lawmakers on either side of the aisle that raise objections try to offer a few alternatives and amendments but the overwhelming majority is totally fine with it and of course that's just the icing on the cake for them let's not forget of this massive spending bill also authorizes six hundred twenty two billion dollars towards the defense budget just for two thousand and twelve so you would think that considering this big news this drastic change in our laws and the mainstream media would at least pretend to care just a tiny tiny little bit well while they ceremoniously mark the end of the war in iraq you would think if they would notice of the word here at home is being

expanded but no such luck all of that they have somehow chosen to miss. so yesterday the white house put out a press statement saying of their veto threat for the n.d.a. because of the provisions about indefinite military detention was no longer a threat that they were backing down and most people have looked at this as a major cave on the administration's part and now on one hand i guess it can be seen as such there are some very revealing words in the press statement as to why exactly they change their mind there's a lot of the state at the rates we have concluded the language does not challenge or constrain the president's ability to collect intelligence incapacitate dangerous terrorists and protect the american people and the president's senior adviser is not recommended so does this prove the president was never really concerned about civil liberties being affected but instead just his executive power to choose how

do the tane and prosecute people join me to discuss this is marcy wheeler blogger at mt we all dot net marcy i want to thank you so much for joining us tonight and you and i have spoken about this before so let's kind of try to go through the timeline or at least look at what it is that the president and the white house were thinking here originally they issued this veto threat but that after that threat there was a little bit of there there was some changes in the language to the bill that they took out some of these required things that maybe the president would have more leeway and now the veto threats gone right i mean there were two real bases for the administration's original veto threat and one was a very legitimate and very laudable. belief that the civilian legal system is actually better at or certainly as good at an important part of prosecuting terrorists as the military detention system as you pointed out i mean they've already gotten four hundred people in jail they get longer sentences in civilian detention and they have a fair amount of freedom of how they interrogate prisoners there anyway and they're

very successful so i think hard. it was legitimately that they were worried that the f.b.i. was going to be taken out of the counterterrorism business and f.b.i. is far better at it frankly than cia or the military at this point and there was language in there that said none of this will affect the f.b.i.'s role so that's that's how they addressed that part of the threat but the other part is that some of the language that originally was in mccain levin first of all that was originally a you couldn't use indefinite detention on u.s. citizens they were exempted from it and the ministration asked them to take that out. the administration asked them to take the exemption for american citizens out of the indefinite detention language in addition there was language about. basically repeating the a you america for afghanistan and expanding it a little and contract ing it

a little and the administration also wanted something in writing that would say and all of the other reasons all of the other justifications the administration has used for indefinite detention still exist one of those actually surprisingly is still the iraq war. as part of this process rand paul tried to repeal it and it went down sixty seven senators voted against it and there's a ton of language about terrorism in iraq or a math that we've seen administrations both but certainly bush we haven't seen the language that obama has used but we've seen them rely on that more generalized terrorism language for detention how i guess you could say right considering that today secretary defense leon panetta officially said that the iraq war is over you know i'm happy that you know i'm just getting out for one minute i'm happy you brought up the fact that it was the administration supposedly that said take out the language or remove any restrictions on the ability to detain u.s. citizens and senator carl levin actually is the one that started admitting that on

the floor when this is being debated we have a clip of him saying it. wondering whether the senator is familiar with the fact that the language. the language which precluded the application of section. thirty one to american citizens was in the bill that we originally approved in the armed services committee and the administration asked us to remove the language which says that u.s. citizens in law who are residents would not be subject to this section. our resident reiterating what you already said there but you know i i want to know what you think specifically when we start hearing this argument that the administration really caved by deciding not not to veto this bill for me it doesn't really seem like much of a cave it seems like they kind of got what they wanted and it's very obvious now

that civil liberties weren't ever what concerned them about this bill and yet i feel like nobody out there is willing to just address that and to admit it and to speak openly about it. right i mean you know they didn't get full civilian legal precedents you know as you said we get closer martial law with this so the other part the other law the bill part of their opposition to this they didn't really get they just got some language saying and in fact importantly robert muller who testified before the senate judiciary committee yesterday said he still had concerns so we know that the head of the f.b.i. is not happy with the language that supposedly makes the f.b.i.'s role ok and the only thing that's really left is this is and it's not just i mean i think the administration's concern is not just that they want to be able to indefinitely detain people including american citizens but the language that they used to justify the killing of anwar who remember is an american citizen all comes out of

this detention language in fact they actually cited some supreme court rulings that said well the police can chase somebody down and if they kill him if they use deadly force in chasing somebody down because he wouldn't be arrested easily that's ok they use that language on detention to authorize the killing of all aki so i think that's one of the things they wanted to make sure that they left the legal structures they put in place to justify the a lackey killing was an american citizen untouched so it's not just that they wanted indefinite detention they didn't want any restrictions on the language they use to authorize themselves to kill american citizens without due process well so then what do you think. to me it's an incredibly scary development and i'm happy that i think at least this is getting a little bit of tension out there you know as opposed to usually so much of this just gets swept under the rug but what kind of a precedent does it set you know what legacy is this administration going to leave

and how much farther could it go and you know now we have drones that are being used here by law enforcement in the u.s. i just wonder how much farther. well and i saw a report today that in england they are now calling occupy wall street people in london not here but there are now calling them a terrorist threat and so i think that's the concern is you're going to begin to see additional groups considered terrorists and again the iraqi human is very general it says any terrorist who attacks the united states that the you know it's not tied to afghanistan. and i think i think that's when you're going to i mean the drone assisted arrest in north dakota actually was members of the sovereign citizen movement who are you know who the who the d.o.j. has kind of used terrorist type language for some of their some of their indictments in the past and so i you know i think we're going to see and we already

are we're going to see the tea party really opposing this and they are you know they don't want a democratic president to get to decide who gets to change in who doesn't but but i do think you know you're going to continue to see and part of what's really important for people to understand is the administration's been relying on this theory anyway for the last ten years both the bush and obama administration they've been doing it in secret so we don't know what besides the killing of anwar locky they've they've used detention language to authorize we don't know that well you know i guess on one hand we hope there will be more transparency out of it but i fortunately now that it's it's a law you know i think it might be a bit of a catch twenty two maybe if it's law then we'll find out more although it legally allows them to do it but then at the same time they kind of got to you know play around behind the scenes and then stretch the language to whatever way they want to but i think that it's

a horrible and scary development marci i want to thank you so much for joining us tonight thanks and happy bill of rights day thank you. all right coming up tonight we have some good news about the overall approval of the death penalty here in the u.s. and a new census report that says that one two people are living in poverty or in low income situation keeping that in mind you think the congress be getting somewhere with the payroll tax cut but sadly that's not the case would have details after the break. there's the police corruption. but what a protest 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 you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything is ok. i'm charging welcome to the big picture.

mr. the sky. the light will come down. so must you carriers will be singing. and i we have a glimmer of hope in comes to america's acceptance of capital punishment and

a report from the death penalty information center shows that overall approval for the death penalty has declined over the past ten years and the number of sentences has declined as well seventy eight people were sentenced to death in two thousand and eleven compared to one hundred twelve sentences in two thousand and ten which makes a thirty percent drop but those are the only numbers a decrease the actual number of executions has declined over the past ten years as well there were forty three executions in two thousand and eleven compared to ninety eight in two thousand and nine so texas is notorious as a state which executes far more people than any other i think you are member rick perry's comment on his state's capital punishment rates. with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent no sir i never struggled with that at all in the state of texas has a. very. very clear. process in place you will face the old justice in the state of texas and that is

you will be executed when you make it. well despite perry's gung ho approach to numbers in the lone star state have even dropped by forty six percent over the past few years so is everybody suddenly having a change of heart one short yeah it kind of seems like it during the case of troy davis earlier this year he was on death row for years convicted of killing an off duty police officer despite the fact that there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime despite the fact that several witnesses had recanted their statements since initially placing the blame on davis so there was no way to find this man guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and he was still put to death by the state of georgia that case garnered more attention than any in recent history and service proof to so many americans out there that there are in fact serious flaws in our capital punishment system i think it's a sentiment it's being echoed across the country not only of judges and jurors offered new sentencing options like life and parole or life in prison without parole or prosecutors are tending to shy away from the death penalty because of the costs that would land on the state on top of that politicians are having trouble

turning a blind eye to the unsettling number of wrongful condition convictions a trend that nobody should be proud of and earlier this year we told you that states are actually having trouble obtaining one of the key ingredients necessary for lethal injection sodium thiopental the director of the death penalty information center also point out the courts are looking at these cases more closely and governors are sometimes granting clemency all because of the doubt and disfavor of the death penalty as it's been applied in the past ten years a perfect example of that was oregon's governor john kitzhaber who announced that he would place a moratorium on the death penalty while he's in office. twenty seven years you have to go. through this is the road. to those who will you know. it might seem to come along the road. it's simply what you know this practice is groups of so. so oregon now joins new mexico

new jersey and illinois have also abolished the death penalty in recent years now there's going to be those out there the side of the rick perry say the capital punishment is the best way to get rid of those who have committed serious crimes or there's no denying the people's opinions are changing in fact this year mark the first time since the death penalty was reinstated in one thousand nine hundred six that america has produced fewer than one hundred death sentences in a single year and for me that's a true glimmer of hope. now let me through a few different numbers your way to tell you where exactly this country stands at the moment according to new census figures that are released nearly one in two americans are now considered poor or lower income that is by these measurements a record according to the commerce department the financial sector now makes up a larger part of our economy than it did before the recession so currently coming out to eight point four percent of g.d.p. our congress is once again on the brink of letting the government shutdown and instead of just passing a single piece of legislation to continue providing a payroll tax cut to americans when they need it most things like the keystone x.l.

pipeline are putting that help in jeopardy so dysfunctional might be the nicest term to use to define our political elite but what do we really think about that or to discuss this with me is marking aims at the of the exiled and author of the book going postal. i thank so much for being here nice for me on i don't know where to start because i just like i said i just figured out a bunch of different figures different things that are going on do you get the sense that just nothing can go right at this moment well i think i think we're kind of at a late stage. of decadence you know in the republic and so everything's kind of accelerating all these terrible tendencies which started off slowly in the seventies that is this a slow kind of destruction of the middle class. the creeping you know expansion of the financial services sector into the economy while destroying some of the industrial base and so on i mean these tendencies started thirty years ago and what happens i think generally people people sort of thought that maybe this collapse

might be an opportunity to sort of redress problems and that things will get more fair and the rich will get less rich and so on but in fact usually when financial collapses or depressions happen historically. the banks that come out on top wind up getting a lot stronger than they ever wore the rich who are not in debt but actually hold debt. and can squeeze because they have the means of being able to squeeze that they get much much richer than there are now you know think about all the foreclose foreclosures out there think they're supposed to maybe another four million homes waiting that's right to go into foreclosure that's going to be somebody's property and it's not going to be four million people's property and you know as i mentioned to you the fact that the financial sector now makes more of our g.d.p. than it did before the crash before the crash when it reached its peak right you could say that things were getting built up to this incredible crazy bubble and yet despite that crash it only has now returned to that level but so if we look at

these because of the bailout if we if we look at these census figures right where it says that one in two americans are now considered poor or considered to be lower income. i mean that tells you obviously if the middle class is nowhere near where it used to be but is that something that can still be fixed in your mind or is this just this is america and we now have to get used to having had only through mass action and a long political battle because this ultimately these aren't sort of about they want to believe these are sort of natural you know dynamics that just happen because the invisible hand but in fact these are all political decisions and political struggles and really over the last thirty forty years you know as warren buffett said there's been a class war going on but only one side's been fighting it and they've been winning every battle and that's why occupy is so important you know occupy is the first. it's really the first thing that's kind of put the fear of god a little bit into into the the finance class which which runs so much and everything that that's important keep in mind is that finance. at

a lower level serves a function in a capitalist society obviously because it can help create new businesses can help people you know buy things maybe that they wouldn't otherwise be able to buy but when it gets past a certain level and we passed that back in the reagan years it's predatory it's only predatory and so that's why it's going to keep gobbling up until until we actually buy mass action on the street and by actually taking power that constitutionally. we have the right to i mean it's not like we live in you know. i mean we actually have rights that we're not taking advantage of and that i think people are safe and running advantage of where you can say that are being heavily suppressed by the way they are literally bought into this by you know i want to bring it to you said that you think of this is really putting the fear of god into the financial sector but you know it doesn't seem like it's putting the fear into from my perspective we look at what's going on on capitol hill right now is congress i mean these people have an eight percent approval rating that's the

lowest that it's ever been and yet where we're at right now once again third time this year we're on the brink of a government shutdown they can't pass the payroll tax deadline because it's all about who's going to get a few cuts here and will we also add this massive pipeline that's going to run through the country to it has nothing to do with it and the only thing that they ever agree on are passing defense authorization bills like they're doing right now are extending the patriot act or was extending the daylight i mean can you think when when was the last time that they actually agreed on something that. initially what you said what puts the fear of god into them in two congressmen is our phone calls from lobbyists in you know occupy them in the protests here were not the same they were not they were not as vigorous and kind of threatening i don't think here as they were like in l.a. or new york especially boston so on and so forth so yeah i agree with you they they're not responding to these things that i think it's an irritant for people here and in fact this this this tone is such

a nefarious bubble i mean people here you know what there was a survey not long ago where this is the only little spot of land in the entire country where people think that the last couple of years the economy's actually improved all fifty states everybody agrees things will be going it's done well only this time a little breathing themselves money you know and the money is going to wash with the lobbyists and so on and so. they're not even connected to what's going on with these senators these congress members they have to go home at some point right they have to speak to their constituents they have to get low. they have to get some things sometimes they do and you see on you tube once in a while they get my check they get screamed at by their own constituents and so they're hiding from a bit alternately they're more afraid of a phone call from one of the koch brothers lobbyists or you know goldman sachs lobbies or so on because they scream louder harder they provide money and it's going to be awhile i think before people here figure out. the power of you know prolonged mass action and but we have a chance i think you know is this isn't the first time it's happened in this

country this isn't the first time it's happened anywhere in the world. you know it could get really ugly here but also. but so you have faith you have faith that they know action will be prolonged and instead want has allowed or it's going to get ugly i think it's going to get ugly fast and that's i think that's what the occupy showed it was kind of surprising you know mayor bloomberg who's buddies were all offended and upset by this started talking about how he controls the seventh largest army in the world and and i mean he wanted to stop people it was pretty clear what happened in los angeles to my own call the actual levine was was horrifying the abuse that he and other protesters underwent it's going to be ugly but i think that they need a wake up call for sure we have to take a break mike so i got to cut you off but you know they need a wake up call and whatever it's going to take but in the meantime people are suffering and people don't have the money right now they're not going to have.