you know basically they're meaningless and there's so much that's not included in them and who knows if they even are accurate why do markets and the media put so much stock in that if the b.l.s. numbers are kind of the emperor that have no clothes has ever won just decided ok we're going to pretend that the emperor has clothes and we're going to trade on that information every month anyway. i think trading in general looks for reasons and if the b.l.s. unemployment number comes out it's something to look towards it's something to trade on if it looks like it's low or that means something good and i think they're just really looking for a reason they're not really analyzing too far in the media goes along with that it's a headline number it's easy it's up it's down there's no need for interpretation and that's been the accepted mode of trading and reporting on it and yeah i completely agree let's switch gears to this settlement with the foreclosures and the robo signing and those five biggest mortgage banks that are involved i know this has been going on for a long time it's been going on for thirteen months there's been one delay after another but now the new news is that this is closed this settlement might happen

twenty five billion dollars to help homeowners presumably and also let the banks sign off and have a settlement is this a good deal for who banks or homeowners. as usual it's it would be a good deal for banks in the disguise of being good for homeowners it's it's a different way of doing that the ham program which which obama had come out with which was supposed to help millions of homeowners and didn't and the reason it didn't was because it gave the banks the power to decide whether or not they would refinance or restructure mortgages for individuals so they had individuals going into default at the request of the bank so that the banks would be able to supposedly help them and then not helping them in exacerbating a bad situation so that was a disaster and it is an ongoing disaster so this is another take at the same type of situation except now the notion would be that there would be government subsidized twenty five billion dollars and out of that money seventeen billion

dollars which is the numbers being discussed of course nothing is really been decided but seventeen billion dollars will go as credits to these five banks from which they would be able to decide which of their customers they want to work with kind of be a different version of have customers would say all right here's this mortgage it's underwater we want refinancing can restructure can we reduce the principle the banks would be in the power seat of deciding how they use their portion of that seventeen billion dollars to do their job which is to work with customers to refinance or restructure their debt which is something that the government did with the banks when it provided them all these subsidies and bailouts a few years ago but which wasn't carried over into the homeowner community which is why foreclosures have continued to rise defaults continue to be bad in the housing market continues to be anemic so really all it's doing is giving them an extra option to do their work and the kick would be that if they don't work with

borrowers to refinance then the government would take away these extra credits that they were giving them to do their jobs anyway and yet the banks are having a problem with this because they really just don't want to have any one tell them what number should be. settled upon on the one hand on the other hand they want to get out of any future lawsuits and any future fraud problems that they could have and so part of what they would want from any settlement aside from getting this money to help them do their jobs and manage the risk that they took on is to be free of any prosecution of course and know me we just have a minute but i know you've said that nothing is going to well i don't want to paraphrase you but the issue of marking to market these these mortgages that are on banks' books will anything really improve and tilled that is where the pressure is now and this is what i've been saying from the get go is that if money had gone towards borrowers when mortgage values relative to homes were declining that would have helped this entire housing situation it would have also helped borrowers and

it would have helped banks but now what happens is banks have all of these homes on there and mortgages and on their books that they're not properly marking so banks show themselves to be healthier than they actually are when they actually have collateral or homes that are forward deuced in value relative to the loans that they gave borrowers on the back of those homes and so they're not showing an honest portrayal of their value and yet they're getting subsidies and cheap loans and build outs in any way right so a continuation a lot of a lot of the problems we've been talking about over the last few years i certainly appreciate you being on the show and giving us your expertise it's always such a pleasure that was off there are no mean thank you.

all right before we go we wouldn't want to miss an opportunity to give us to give you our three cents on a couple stories and we have a special cameo alone even kosky the illustrious host of the alona show is here with us dimitri is still out sick so i think that this is a very exciting replace i'm very excited to learn who i may dimitri get sick for a second coming we're going to talk a little bit but. ok so basically there is a new buzz about a threat to global markets first here's a hint. the . so reportedly the new buzzword is an extraterrestrial it's extraterritoriality or eighty and this in this case the u.s. is the global alien that is threatening markets acting unilaterally with aggressive

new market rules that critics say will hurt u.s. firms foreign banks and international markets and one fell swoop so this is obviously in reaction to the financial crisis concerns that the u.s. is going beyond its authority do you buy this of course i don't buy i find it very hard to believe because we haven't even seen the u.s. government been able to instill any kind of really strong regulations i mean you had dodd frank but i think that was a very soft job that really would agree they haven't gone after anybody in terms of criminal prosecutions of the financial system so now finally in one fell swoop they're going to be able to instill this on the entire international global economy if they can even do it here at home i don't know other than that i wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't coming from you know people out of the united states but if you have like jamie diamond and brian moynihan pointing this new phrase to try and get the u.s. to stop with the regulations shannon we've been talking a lot about aliens on the show with these stories of how character you have your

protection to the global markets needed to. bring in the back and in case you know that you. and all of these things come to fruition i think the markets will need to borrow my house i think that they might buy i don't know if i buy it maybe in the case of when the u.s. goes over to banks in other countries and tries to find out information on their clients but let's move on with one other example of this which i think kind of says exactly what we're saying which is in the u.k. they are having another hearing to talk about banker bonuses and we know they've already kept banker bonuses for state owned banks at two thousand pounds so here's another example where it seems like another country goes so much further than the u.s. when it comes to reining in something like banker compensation at banks where the u.s. . has bailed out yeah i mean it's a really good point we did bail out the bank sort of the same time people would absolutely screaming go crazy because that's un-american you can't put caps on how much somebody is going to make or you know what kind of bonuses they're supposed to

get this is capitalism at work is that's what i'm assuming the argument here is think that these bankers deserve these insane bonuses absolutely not but but never ever would they allow caps here i think we do you think that's what it's about that that's perceived as anti american or anti capitalist and that's why it would never fly in the u.s. despite the fact that these banks were bailed out i mean that's my guess and it's also not forget that nobody wants to piss off wall street too much there's supposedly anger at the obama administration but the biggest campaign donors speaking of campaign donors let's talk about a story that i know you're probably going to be talking about aloneness i wanted to get your take on it obama is now giving his blessing to his super pac he's signed off on his campaign to urge supporters to donate to it it's priorities usa people are freaking now because for one the president has often spoken out about this kind of money about secret billionaires that kind of thing here's an example well this week the supreme court reversed a century of law that i believe will open the floodgates for special interests.

tuning fork or so that was after citizens united was passed i think that people are blowing this out of proportion i say don't hate the player he game on not really sure i don't know i kind of agree with you in that sense for one thing the president not only said that a state of the union address a couple years ago just the other week he was also talking bad about super pacs and saying that you know he thinks they have a negative influence on the economy suddenly we see republicans all singing the same tune here and so it's just i mean come on that was kind of a very quick capitulation that you had there because suddenly they released the figures you realize that republicans are far and away outspending the democrats and it scared them but exactly why he wants to win more than he wants to stay on that message come on he was getting completely thumped out when i got here bill you know what do you have a you know in order and it's a game but i you know let's fix it there are people out there that are trying to fix it and get to the united overturn and get down with that but i don't think you can hate people for trying to work within that system if that's what exists we have to leave it at that then we don't have right here. that's all we have time for it

thank you so much for watching and from everyone here capital account have a great night.

rusher insists that an end to the bloodshed in syria will only be found of both government and opposition forces lay down their arms and that's why western countries keep up regime change rhetoric and recall their ambassadors from damascus also. because system of law and order in this country it's worked for many many years for the seach for the mother of a part of it why do we need to transfer the brussels to tell us what we can accommodate. the fury in the u.k. and the tories terror suspect up spiritual leader and europeans and allowed back onto the streets of london after the european court of human rights forbids his deportation. on the first signs of a rift between the u.s.

and post mubarak egypt says washington's threats to halt military aid won't change its position on the. west and. it's. going to be back with more news stories for you in a little over half an hour from now in the meantime discover the challenges faced by the occupy movement and stay with us for expert opinion on how u.s. unemployment rates have risen sharply despite positive reports from the government all this much more for you in the eye on the show next on our team. welcome to the lone a show where we get the real headlines with none of the mercy we're going to live out of washington d.c. now tonight going to speak with chris hedges about what he calls a cancer within the occupy movement he's referring to the black bloc then colonel lieutenant colonel daniel l.

davis is going to join us and tell us about a report he just admitted to congress has the pentagon is intentionally misleading the public about the war in afghanistan and edward harrison will talk to us about what federal federal reserve chairman ben bernanke said on the hill today we have all that and more for tonight including a dose of happy hour but first take a look at the mainstream media decided to miss. last week we all saw the insane amount of money the outside groups have been pouring in to the campaign season it was the first four primary states documents show that outside groups spending on ads had risen sixteen hundred percent we also saw a g.o.p. centered super pacs were far away collecting more money than the left and so what you know looks like this may president obama have a change of heart as he's now signed off on a plan to dispatch cabinet officials senior advisers at the white house and top

campaign staff members to deliver speeches at fund raising events for priorities usa that's the largest democratic super pac now this new policy the mainstream media all abuzz today. president obama is now giving the go ahead to wealthy democratic donors to contribute to a super pac supporting him the obama campaign changing its position on super pacs in response to the massive amounts of money raised by those republican groups president obama makes a u.-turn deciding now for his team to help raise campaign cash for his super pac the president's campaign manager says look we cannot fight this campaign with one hand tied behind our back was this inevitable i think it was chris. all right so the question here that they ask is was this inevitable and like i never said we see said yes personally i'm not so sure on one hand this is a big flip flop and a cave on the part of the president not like we are used to seeing that happen by now but it's disconcerting nonetheless at the same time this is

a sign of our political system and the problems within it right now there is so much money flooding in from the right that the democrats in obama's reelection campaign obviously felt that they have to play the game if they want to keep their jobs now i'm going to get chris hedges take on this in our first interview tonight but before we do that let me just delve into one more point that i think needs to be made here do all the effects of citizens united are already drastic and yet really this is still just the beginning there is another way to handle this now this isn't the way that things have to be and so right now we see americans all across the country working fighting to get money out of politics we've seen a number of amendments brought up in congress to overturn this decision amendments that the president by the way said nothing about until today when his people signal that he supported that after caving and telling donors to contribute to priorities usa and we've also seen more than fifty local resolutions and cities to have citizens united overturn that's the right step if we really wanted the idea of

a constitutional amendment to become a possibility has to start local now this is also a key element brought up by many of the occupy movement we've even seen a few members of the media out there the young turks and dylan ratigan launch initiatives of their own to undo the damage done by citizens united so at this point it's no secret that there is a public battle that is going on. and if the mainstream media has seemed entirely oblivious to all of it they're happy to report on the figures when it comes to how much is being spent how many hundreds of super pacs there are who are some of the big time donors think the koch brothers and adelson the man with a single handedly funding newt gingrich's campaign but on the other front on the side of the opposition the mainstream media has been almost entirely silent now i say it again with the exception of dylan ratigan m.-s. of d.c. but somehow his colleagues have just left it to him to do on his own it's funny too considering that this is the same mainstream media that will often bring on extremes just to try and prove that they show both sides of every story often in

a very misleading fashion but hey two people yelling at each other always makes good t.v. right so why is it now when they have figures and stats to talk about the impact of citizens united do they only talk about the president's capitulation and act like that's just the way that it had to be there is a movement out there public opinion is not in support of the influence of money in our political system we see giving one person insane amounts of power we see transparency completely flying out the window so the people have realized that something is wrong and the mainstream media continues to live in an isolated bubble the only monitor is what's happening at the top echelons they've decided that these are the rules of the game and so those pretend from now on that it's just natural to play that way what so many people want which are amendment city council resolutions you name it that entire movement they've chosen to miss.

all right so let's continue on with our discussion of outside movements wanting to change the landscape take the influence of money out of politics wake america up to the rampant inequality and corruption overturning citizens united is just one step for those that have been monitoring the occupy movement for over the last four months you know that it's about much more but where does public opinion really stand on occupy now the majority of camps have been evicted even more so now that we've seen in some cities most notably oakland vandalism violence come into play and what's meant to be a peaceful movement our guest tonight specifically pinpoints the black bloc anarchists and calls them the cancer within occupy the destroy it so earlier i caught up with chris hedges columnist for truthdig and author of his latest book death of the liberal class i first asked him what he thought about the president's decision to send out his people and tell the donors to give away to super pacs. well he doesn't have any choice because the political system since citizens united in two thousand and ten has been rigged. if you step out of line these super pacs

have the capacity to wipe you out and it was the death blow to american democracy it's a game obama has to play if he wants to retain political power and so he's playing it well i think you could say that he's playing it from both sides as well right because now his aides are coming out saying it the president would support a constitutional amendment to get citizens united overturned but let's segue into the occupy movement right one of their things is also been getting the influence of money out of politics and yet you are writing about the black bloc and some of their tactics and call them a cancer within this movement can you elaborate why it is that you know you think that they're so detrimental. well because they alienate the mainstream i think you have to remember that the occupy movement if you look at all the polls articulate what the mainstream wants. nobody supports the

bailouts the pfizer reform act the wars. the. continued failure to help homeowners that are underwater and losing their homes this disastrous obamacare bill which. is going to force us to buy a defective product centrally you know two thousand pages written by corporate lobbyist so we have to look at the occupy movement as a mainstream movement now the prime mover behind wiping out the occupy encampments was of course a democratic administration and that's because they deeply fear this movement it is cold their bluff it has exposed them as corporate puppets in this two party corporate doggedly. i think that they realize that spite the efforts by move on dot org and van jones and others that they are not going to co-opt this movement and so on the one hand they will try to physically erase it we just have the d.c.

encampment shut down and internally they will try and divide it we have to look back into the movements of the one nine hundred sixty s. to see how divisive. internal security apparatus in the united states can be there's no doubt that that's happening here and the fastest way to alienate the movement from the mainstream is to paint it as violent destructive of property. and our kids stick in the worst sense of anarchism which is kind of chaotic random attacks against targets spontaneous attacks and so the occupy movement is going to have to draw some very. sharp lines. it's got to stop these block block groups from essential be using them as human shields because remember there are tiny of these groups but they enter these large demonstrations

and then use them as a kind of cover to carry out violent activities we've seen it not only in oakland but in denver los angeles in new york. antagonizing and confronting the police because this is in essence a mainstream movement this is a movement that expresses the will of the mainstream it can't afford illian a the mainstream and i have no evidence that there are tours but if there are provoke a tours within this movement i bet pretty good money there within the black bloc and even if they are not they are certainly serving the interests of the one percent and you know this is a movement that wants inclusive a-t. and tolerance and a wide variety of opinions but it's got to draw the line on groups that essentially sabotage the work of this mass movement in the black bloc is the most egregious

example of well i guess i'm wondering if that was inevitable if it any point if there was going to be some kind of a large movement specifically one that really started out on the streets of people physically camping that at some point there would. be become more difficult to keep it nonviolent to keep it peaceful and i also i'm curious to do you think the occupy wall street was always a mainstream movement or you only think that now four and a half months in that's something that you can call it. no i think the reason that it resonated across the country is because it articulated the concerns of the mainstream which are not being articulated either by the corporate media or the political candidates who have descended into that and it is an absurdity these change the narrative remember before the rise of occupy we were talking about a deficit crisis with the rise of occupy we began to talk about inequality we began

to talk about corporate criminality we began to talk about how unfair the american political and economic system is it it reverberated across the country and the power elite and i think in particular the democratic party was terrified because if it could not co-opt this movement it had the potential to certainly restructure not only the debate but ultimately if it grew very configurations of power and so we shouldn't be surprised that there have been drug kone and forms used to try and wait these movements out and that has been manifested by the response of these encampments but you can be sure they're working internally just to suggest leah's they have been working externally to get rid of occupy and so in that sense is that you know really a lot about public opinion if let's say there are more black people to end up showing up at more occupy rallies and you know what we constantly see reported on

by local government officials and the authorities or you can even say by the media are some of these more violent tactics are cases of vandalism is the movement dead if that's the perception that gets put out there consistently. yeah i mean let's i think a good sort of template for what we don't want to be is how we're portrayed and if you look at how for instance in the days and weeks before the encampment in zuccotti park in new york was shut down if you read the new york post there were portrayed as drug addicts vandals anarchists radicals they the authorities attempted to paint the movement with exactly these kinds of attributes and that's a pretty good example of what we don't want to be we don't want to play into their hands and the black bloc which are you know primarily why i sort of neal

is stick. destructive embrace in sort of confusing petty vandalism in this repellent sort of cynicism with revolution. there are exactly they conform to the stereotype that the enemies of the movement would like and that's a pretty good window into why they have to be separated from the movement if they were if they really were about confronting the police and confronting corporate power they wouldn't be using the movement to hide behind they would be going out striking out on their own to go after these targets and i think that's because ultimately and if you look at sort of radical block block area logs it's pretty clear that they are an enemy of everything this movement stands for and in particular nonviolence i want to switch gears really quick chris it's been

a while since they've gone to catch up with you and you actually filed a lawsuit against the u.s. government because of the n.d.a. that was passed right that included that provision that allowed for the definite military detention of american citizens and so i want. hear more of your reasoning as to why it is that you follow the file this lawsuit i think you like many others of us out there find this to be incredibly scary and unconstitutional and egregious and bridge the fence on our civil liberties but at the same time the obama administration while they don't like this being handed over into military control they were already doing many of these things throughout the year from within the executive branch. yes that's correct under the two thousand and one authorization to use military force act many of these activities were already being carried out including the detention of american citizens without due process that's what happened to jose padilla who was reputed to be one of the hijackers the did make

a plane held for three and a half years in a military brig without due process it was under the two thousand and one act that the obama administration felt that it could serve as judge jury and executioner in order the assassination of a u.s. citizen on war a lock he in yemen. so yes but this is a radical interpretation of the two thousand and one act what we see with the national defense authorization act is the codification of this radical assault against basic civil liberties unambiguous li being placed in the u.s. law so not only can the u.s. military centrally carry out extraordinary rendition on u.s. streets holding american citizens who are deemed to be terrorists or with associated groups i mean there's a lot of very sort of frightening leave vague language in there but then there are in the language of the bill held until the end of hostile.