pianist jan and we're going to speak to richard ask out as well and david serota about whether it's time for a national popular vote we're going to all that and more for tonight clue to give us a happy hour but first take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. all right so as i said big news announced today that after sixteen months of wrangling forty nine states with the exception of oklahoma federal regulators have all agreed to a foreclosure fraud settlement with the five biggest banks and those with the bank of america j.p. morgan chase city wells fargo and alli financial the obama administration is obviously trying to show that they've got the chops and that they've got the will to go after wall street so they're making a big deal of it and the mainstream media is following suit. a legal settlement that could help home homeowners rather who over more than their house is worth to turn a juror recalled are talking about this deal that has been reached officials announcing

a deal between the states of the nation's biggest mortgage lenders over foreclosure abuse of a foreclosure abuses i'm a deal that would mean nearly two million current and former homeowners could get some relief from big mortgage lenders but the deal addresses a more sinister side of the mortgage crisis homes that were wrongfully seized because the banks cut corners government officials and five major banks have worked out this reportedly twenty six billion dollars settlement that we know it's twenty six billion dollars and it breaks down in a variety of different ways and for days we've been reporting the expectation that it would be cash to states some five billion there seventeen billion in consumer relief and three billion dollars for borrowers so they can refinance at lower rates . now we're going to get into more details of what exactly this settlement means in our first interview tonight but first let me point a few things out see once again here we see the classic example of the media just putting the press conferences repeating verbatim the details of this settlement

without really putting it on context on its face it seems like a big deal forty nine states settling with the five biggest banks over what was really a sickening case of fraud and abuse at being robo signing forging a backdating of documents in many cases kicking people out of their homes wrongfully but what you really have to get into here are the figures to the government the media would like to paint this as a historic deal but if you put it into perspective how many people does it really help relative to how many people need that help just think of it this way there are eleven million homeowners that are underwater meaning that they owe more than their homes are worth this deal is only going to help about one million of those people so this is a deal for twenty six billion dollars some say could go up to thirty nine billion and that collectively negative equity is currently at seven hundred billion dollars in this. so on average these homeowners are also underwater by fifty thousand dollars each and some estimates of this deal put average aid for the homeowners at twenty thousand still

a lot of money to make up for and the banks have three years to even make it all happen so that is a long time for those without a home to wait now for about seven hundred fifty thousand people who lost their homes wrongfully they're going to get a check from the government ranging from eight hundred to two thousand dollars if they choose to sign up because david de in a fire dog lake put it today that's basically the equivalent of saying these people sorry we stole your home here's two months rent so while it's good to acknowledge that a deal has been reached and some homeowners or former homeowners will be helped you really have to put it all into context so that people understand what big lawsuits and government programs actually result it that way we can hold them accountable and we don't just let them off the hook and have the mainstream media from what i've seen today has chosen not to dig deeper into the figures they've chosen to repeat the details of the settlement but have chosen to miss on how many americans don't get a piece of the piece of the deal. all

right so let's talk more about this twenty six billion dollars settlement reached between forty nine states government authorities and the five biggest banks and i've just pointed out to you have a twenty six billion won't go too far in helping the millions of americans that need it but what is twenty six billion dollars to the banks is this even a punishment if you look at with the new york times reported today that the banks have already largely set aside the reserves for the expected cost of this and if you think about the fact that over a three year period those are losses that amount of chump change compared to their profits doesn't really sound like all that much so is this a step in the right direction or just another example the big banks get off the hook joining me from our studio in los angeles is richard scouse senior fellow with the campaign for america's future richard thanks so much for joining us tonight there are a lot of details to get into name some of them are ready but just overall if you look at the way that this deal panned out or this settlement panned out what would

you say do you think that the american homeowners won out or that the government won out on behalf of the homeowners or that it was really wall street that took the lead. well you know i think you actually hit the right note in setting up the story because i think the real story is. it's up to us to stay on everybody involved to make sure we get the maximum for the american homeowners out of this you know i i'm sorry that that this deal trades away the best negotiating power the authorities have which is that the banks were caught dead to rights committing widespread crimes in the robo signing scandal and you know in an ideal world would they would use that we would use that on behalf of the american people that's what these guys and get them for everything we can that didn't happen and that's a big disappointment and dollar for dollar even though the figures are absolutely right they're way way way low for the wrongs that have been done but now what the deal does that it didn't do before or that eric schneiderman in new york and some

other attorneys general insisted on putting in was it leaves the door open for indictments investigations lawsuits all sorts of other actions for other types of bank crimes and i think now we've got to make sure they get all the resources they need to do that including federal government resources and you know one of the one of the things that's getting overlooked in this is that some of this money goes for legal aid that will be given to homeowners that have been wronged so if that legal aid can be leveraged to a lot of lawsuits we could be turning this into more money than it is today and if it if the federal government you know reverses course and starts getting serious about bank crime and backs up schneiderman and some of the others and pushes them for some of the other wrongs they've done even though these doors that they have left open could be a big deal but it's up to us to make them a big deal by pressuring the administration and the government and some of the attorneys general to use the tools they've been given and yeah i'm sorry about you

know the crappy aspects of this deal but i'm glad that those tools are there and we should make the most of them. well you know that's a good point you bring up in terms of the fact that people still have this power to pursue litigation and there are still investigations that can be done and that's something that you know could definitely be attributed to schneiderman from new york but i thought that eve smith brought up an interesting point on her blog and he capitalism today which is looking at now a task force that's been set up by the obama administration and just the way the order in which things go why do you settle on a deal before you actually do much of the investigating well it's a horrible idea look you know i don't disagree with the ad are you know and i'm really disappointed that they did that you can't settle on i can't pay you for the furniture our broken your house if we don't get to look at the furniture first and that's what this deal builds that's one of a number of things that's wrong with it but look let's let's be realistic the administration's been pushing for this kind of deal like

a lot of other cushy deals for a long time and you know if i were eric schneiderman i don't know what his thought process was pretty probably thought this is the best i'm going to get the statute of limitations is running out on a lot of the other frauds they did that created the housing bubble if i can horse trade this make it less of a bad deal leave these guys open to prosecution and get some resources if is it best i can get i'm going to go for it so are you understand that thinking but that doesn't mean that any of those criticisms are wrong or that i haven't raised them myself a million times now if you had it your way if you think about the fact that you know what was going on with so much of this fraud was going on with robo signing backdating documents is that a lot of people were kicked out of their homes when they shouldn't have been and you know what we have with the settlement is that they get you know what do we say maybe you eight hundred to two thousand dollars which really is a minuscule amount but it's interesting because now it seems like you put a price on forging documents you put a price on robo signing and you know at the same time there is no criminal

punishment here do you think that somebody really should go to jail for this. well i do and i'm sorry you know it's not happening but again you know and it's weird because i'm in the position of kind of defending aspects of video i don't like but but just to be clear i've heard that criticism that it's just two thousand dollars for losing your house and certainly that's insulting but if it's two thousand dollars and a lawyer so i can sue the guy who took my house away it's not quite as insulting because if i can get another fifty thousand or one hundred thousand or whatever through a good lawyer then it's not as bad a deal as it sounded but the trick is will i really get that that's up to the local attorneys general and it's up to the way the justice department handles it and a lot of details we don't know so that's why i'm saying look yeah i hate which not right about this deal but let's press for getting the maximum out of it that we can and that's a great example of it yeah i'd say getting two thousand dollars is a lot more than just insulting but you know one of the things that this really

brought up and we saw this massive fraud going on is that a lot of people thought there was an opportunity here that maybe this is the perfect chance to really sees on it and create across the board reform of our financial system that hasn't exactly happened with this settlement but do you think about opportunity is still there at that door as. well you know look they arrested al capone for tax evasion right so even though i mean we could have gone that route we didn't i think a huge opportunity has been lost it's tragic i'm disappointed in obama i'm disappointed in eric holder but you know there comes a time to say don't mourn organize says the old saying goes yeah i'm frustrated yeah i'm ticked off but look let's get what we can and in terms of changing the culture and really ending the way business is done that's a political fight we've got to have for years now because we did lose this opportunity we lost

a battle but we didn't lose the war so i'm going to come down on the side of it's aggravating but let's roll our sleeves up and and get back to work let me just throw more thing at you here too which is that warren buffett leaked to fortune magazine this annual letter that he sends out to the berkshire hathaway shareholders where he gives his advice on what you should invest in and it's kind of interesting he basically told in the instead of going for a treasury bonds and said i'm going for a gold you should go towards things that actually produce stuff like maybe real estate maybe farmers maybe business is do you think that's a good piece of advice. you know it probably is he's a pretty smart guy you know he also said trading in currency is risky which i think is true unless you're george soros who's brilliant at it but yeah sure but i mean the other thing to look at is that if you want to be a good corporate citizen you should invest in things that grow the economy at this point you know our government has a you know treasury bonds show people still trust the u.s.

government enormously but that's not getting translated into investment in goods and services so i think and i hope that what he was really saying to investors and to the banking community was stop investing in things that don't produce stop skimming this system by just using all the free money from the fat if you're a bank to buy treasury bonds and rake off the difference and go to work doing what you're supposed to do which is investing in businesses that build the economy that's the way i choose to interpret his letter y. and i think that it makes sense to with buffett pushing for some many of the reforms that he has been lately in terms of tax reform and you know the patriotic millionaires record thanks so much for joining us tonight sure always. are just ahead of the show we have another update for you on bradley manning and just a few days ago tenet colonel daniel davis came on the show to discuss his report about the pentagon purposely misleading congress and now he's reportedly being investigated so tonight republican scott shane about the u.s.

government's ongoing war against whistleblowers. issues that so much each musician. defeat in the battle for syria the international community is divided as the syrians themselves when it comes to resolving the situation. will. technology innovation. developments in. the future however. i was promised we'd made sure to bring you all the latest on bradley manning just days ago we told you that it was decided that the army private would be court marshaled and now a date has been set for that on february twenty third manning will return to fort

meade maryland for his arraignment and according to the a.p. the army private can request a trial by jury or by a military judge if teachers a jury it would include at least five officers and he has the option to have at least a third of the soldiers on the panel to be enlisted man who has been court martialed on twenty two charges including aiding the enemy which could carry life in prison sentence as well as a dishonorable discharge in the meantime there's some positive news for the army private has been nominated for the nobel peace prize by members of the icelandic parliament for the movement and the nomination describes how his alleged leaks have shaped uprisings around the world helped and combat operations in iraq and exposed corruption within the government so be sure to keep you updated on all the latest details surrounding maddie as they commit now on to other whistleblowers. well can i say other than i had a feeling that this would happen the other day we have the tenet colonel davis on the program active duty army officer that it's a bit of

a classified report to members of congress what he thought the real situation was in afghanistan report that told him that the pentagon has been intentionally misleading congress and the american public about so-called progress or success and there's also more than eighty page unclassified version of this report that davis wrote the pentagon hasn't yet cleared for release we all know the pentagon doesn't like to be criticized and when davis was here on the show he was accompanied by a former state department official matt matthew hoh and i asked them both just two days ago if there had been any criticisms or attacks waged yet and what they thought the chances were that that might happen and i'm just wondering if you think that there's going to be a backlash and wondering if anyone has already attacked you already said that you are putting national security at risk or being traitor well i got to say so for you know i got it from the rocks also going to give credit in so for the senior leaders in my chain of command in particular has said nothing bad is going to happen to you because of this you're not going to be you know your clearances are going to be

taken away you continue your job every day so so for everything's been good to go with it continues on you know after shows like this come out and what not is going to be another matter but so far they don't for you so what's your guess. that was tuesday fast forward today which is thursday and b.c. is pentagon correspondent jim acosta reporting at the pentagon has launched an investigation into davis's report so i was just seeing the same gay plane same game play itself out over and over again a war on whistleblowers or anybody who speaks critically of the d.o.d. or other government agencies joining me to discuss this is former state department official peter van buren author of we meant well how i helped lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the iraqi people and retired lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer senior fellow for the center for advanced defense studies and pack. america he's also the author of the book operation dark heart additionally pentagon and military officials claim it two years ago while he was stationed in joe i'm sorry this is a quote that was going to be later i was that guy our guys thank you for joining

both and both of you have you can hear me i can hear you can you hear me tony. tony can you hear us tonight are i think we're working out audio issue here with tony but peter you and tony both of you have had to deal with the consequences of speaking out right and you wrote a book about this and you had a blog where you linked to a wiki leaks piece and they went after you with full force do you think that we tenet colonel davis should have seen this coming that he should have expected and i asked him two days ago i had a feeling that's what happened to you but at this point so we just get used to it it's very sad to say that yes lieutenant colonel davis should have expected it all of the school into these things with good intentions none of us are people that are setting out to the anger of the government or destroy the government or harm the government quite the opposite all of us are patriots people who have served the united states in various forms for all of our careers who see something wrong and want to speak out about it and so into into the process

a tad naive believing in fact that the constitution protects protections that the united states constantly talks about and advertises overseas apply to us as well now tony i'm curious too because apparently danny didn't even know that this investigation had been launched until we saw something like this reported in the press so how do you think that we should properly read that you know i mean might there not even be an investigation and there's whispers to scare him or what i think an investigation is coming that that's a typical response to this sort of thing is is as you were just talking about there that's what everybody goes into this with the best and the changes and you you know matthew and i met you and i worked with danny and and we told him what to expect so he's going into this with his eyes wide open and we hope for the best we're all hoping for the by. yes but what he's had to say the truth is not popular in many circles that one of the first things i learned about d.c. is this is the champ the truth has to go she will and people don't like people

going against that dictum but at the same time you have seen this on a classified report that he submitted which the pentagon hasn't allowed to be released yet and a is that warranted for an investigation just because he wants to give his and his opinion it's not like this is not a wiki leaks of bradley manning scenario where all this information was put out on the internet and it was classified. what exactly is it other than they just don't like what he has to say well that's the bottom line like my book which one of your classification of your twice it's just that they don't like what he has to say i know his research i know his sourcing i know he gave a classified report to congress he followed every rule he called people in it and us advised him on how to do it properly so i know a lot of he's done everything by the book yet it doesn't really matter because it is his content not the method of his delivery the content of their after so you're going to see the worst of d.o.d. come out and the worst of some of the folks who are literally thinking with their

ego not their head that includes a senior generals who are leading this war and i think that's what we're going to see a lot of retaliation from that's very senior level i you know the thing is i think that. not like it's right but people might expect the military to actively pursue somebody that wants to discredit that and what it is that the generals are saying about the wars abroad right because they have so much power and so much influence now but peter you know from your experience that it's not just the d.o.d. it's not just the pentagon that does this you know it's fans across the state department i do think that it's all inclusive at this point this is obviously a u.s. government wide policy not something that's unique to the state department or any other government agency or the d.o.d. from one nine hundred seventeen until two thousand and eight the united states government used the espionage act only three times against its own employees for whistle blowing since two thousand and two. obama administration is pursuing six prosecutions currently against its own employees for whistleblowing this is not something that's being made up in one department or one office it's something

that's crossing the government and it starts in the white house. you say it starts in the white house right and you could say that this is the administration that promised transparency one point we've heard president obama praised most of blowers for you know the need for whistleblowers to show us fraud waste and abuse but at this point has it just become part of the culture it's become part of the culture to lash out at people who do we so blow who tell the truth i don't even like to term whistle blowing we're simply telling the truth from our own experience what's happening the people of the united states don't know what goes on inside the box of government unless those of us on the inside share that with them and we shared honestly objectively and we share with the best of intentions to improve things but what happens is the lashing out the investigations the removal of sere curative clearances the rumors the way the jobs the room careers are ruined and through prosecutions people are rendered financially destitute just trying to defend themselves against these accusations i we're going to get into that some of the

perhaps the extra legal means to the imagine but first i also want to talk about the role that maybe the press plays in this as i mentioned the first place where i saw this report was from and b c's pentagon correspondent jim acosta ascii and there was this line at the end of the piece that really got a lot of criticism i'm going to read it for you says additionally pentagon and military officials claim that too years ago while he was stationed in germany davis wrote a letter to petraeus advising petraeus on how to fight and win a war against iran the officials say davis also asked betrays to help him skip a rank and get promoted to brigadier general so he could help shape the strategy for a war against iran tony i mean how do you see that right what does that have to do and where did that come from is that a smear job well let me answer the question direct as my own experience when i was doing most was employing an able danger which had to do with. eleven intelligence regarding the nine eleven attacks they were coming down on me because they claim that i did safe convoy operations in afghanistan so how do you do and see if convoy

operations in a combat zone that's how loony they get so they will put out there anything they can they think will do it discredit the individual making the statement this is typical of them i would expect more to come in some point in the very near future but said the media to you know talk to anonymous officials and put this kind of stuff into the story rather than perhaps i don't know asking danny about it himself let me let me get into a quick when i was on with wolf blitzer when i was doing my whistleblower and he looked across to me and he c.n.n. decided to not run with what the pentagon told him so all said look this is what they teach only five things a pentagon told them about me all of which were patently untrue so at least i know c.n.n. of the time said we're not buying into it so you know i think the media should probably practice in common sense about what they put out there because frankly so what if you know what he jokingly said to try to say what you know which is what we don't promote we had a time so i can help you plan so for again what. all right peter i do have a comment on that in my own case the state department has audited all of my travel

vouchers back to two thousand and eight they've looked into my credit report and you can be sure i'm going to be very careful with my taxes this year but let's make it easier let's stipulate i'm a lousy human being i mean to babies psychic cats and all those other things please tell me what's wrong tell me what's wrong with what i've said tell me what in my book is not accurate let me know what tony you said about able danger that's not true forget about us as people because that's not relevant that's just the government's attempt to smear the messenger instead focus on the message and if i could say something to the media it would be that pick apart the message not the person and so i want to talk about you know you wrote about the obama administration's war on whistleblowers today i'm assuming probably before this announcement came out about the investigation too and you spoke about the fact that now they have really tried to pursue you in every way that they can all hit you in every way they can not just their legal circumstances can you elaborate that for us an hour and a half after my article was published this morning i was called into the state

department to discuss that and answer was i was talking about this that's an example of how quick things can happen and i spent this morning to finding myself inside of the department of state what happens is that it can be difficult sometimes to prosecute people it may involve telling the truth which is something the government wants to avoid altogether and admitting that tony was right when he exposed able danger or intended colonel davis has spoken the truth so they don't want to prosecute for those reasons other times they don't want to have the documents revealed through discovery or through a court process so it becomes much easier to destroy the person as an individual we saw that most explicitly in the case of thomas drake whose life was ruined and particularly with bradley manning who spent two years in custody without yet the chance to defend himself for an alleged action yeah they will go after you financially let's also not forget john kiriakou whose wife was then fired from the cia while he was on maternity leave thank you she was also a cia analyst there well so in that case you guys. is there any other recourse is

there still somewhere to go or does it become this this whistleblowers club where everybody just has to stick together and back each other up. well there are those asians i look to and i work with john divine over. their medical ability project daniel bryan over at the project on government oversight. and the guys over at the judicial watch i work with them constantly trying basically behind the scenes to put the truth out there so there are good good guys and gals in this tell but it's an uphill battle and you've got to work with the media because the media can be a great ally i think you guys do a great deal of gathering accurate information and it's really this the this this teamwork that's going to be critical to getting the truth out there is you know we talk about you know that the truth is the truth will find out why what your saying isn't correct don't come after us as you know as people really want to look at what we're saying and that's the key here and you guys are so important that process i

think senator i got to wrap it up any last where it's the most important place for all of us is now the office of the special counsel a part of the u.s. government that exists primarily to preserve the rights of whistleblowers and my case is going to be going to them against the department of state and hopefully we'll get a chance to tell our side i don't thank you both so much for joining us tonight let me thank you. i time for a break and when we return we'll have a plan of hope as the u.s. military moves one step closer to gender equality and as the current primary system makes time for anybody out there clearly that information to discuss alternatives with complaints about that. down the official auntie have to go on the phone or i pod touch from the top story . on the good. video on demand on t.v.'s mine will comes in on a sense feeds now in the palm of your. on the

dot com. but you are an arab league to join forces the blood should in syria as critics claim disinformation on the number of deaths is being played out of prop understanding of the situation this comes as the opposition accuses the government of a massacre of poems while damascus maintains its conduct to toweled ration. yours and ministers postpone a decision on a second financial bailout package for greece is the sky the coalition closing a last minute deal is in just over two measures you need to be just have announced a general strike for friday and saturday in protest over the cuts that creditors are demanding before they approve the one hundred billion dollars. and i've been president hamid karzai. children are killed in a nato air strike. twenty eleven as the deadliest year for civilians since the

start of the war and the u.s. announced its good old called possible break in afghanistan earlier than expected. as the headlines up next when all she would go back to the american capital football two of the iona show don't go away. is all. the light will come down. so carriers will be singing. well tonight we have a glimmer of hope for all the women who want to defend the u.s. for years there's been an argument the females who do serve in the military don't have the same rights that men do longstanding combat exclusion policy kept females from being assigned to ground combat units which are considered to be the most dangerous roles in battle but since the u.s. has been engaged in war for ten years not.