thing about another big issue which is the economy not to go on mainstream minute charlie but i want to actually quote something i'm going to say it that sarah palin said recently she says that she believes the primaries will likely end with a deal over delegates she said voters have no enthusiasm for republican candidates talk about the delegate aspect of this because this is something that ron paul and his supporters have been really good about they have been you know the last ones at some of these primaries they're kind of they've got their eye on the delegate well you know i'm not a complete expert on this process but i do know that that is his goal he knows he's not going to win everybody knows he's not going to be the nominee for the republican party to run for president but what i believe what he's trying to do is try to amass enough delegates that he will have a voice in helping shape policy that is same color so i think you know for what he can hope for the money that he has i think the best from his point of view the best

thing he could do is keep on spreading his message a mass delegates and then maybe introjects of sanity during the convention and maybe be heard maybe speak for that on behalf of the american people on some of the topics that we've covered and certainly no matter what we see in the polls that message has really really had a hand in shaping changing even the discussion during this primary season i think it's an important one one not to be ignored charlie mcgrath founder of wide awake news dot com. so what do you think many of the recent polls do show ron paul not only gaining steam in the republican presidential contest but actually dominating in some states so is ron paul really a viable candidate for president on that show host laurie her finest took that question to the streets of new york. according to some polls ron paul is now back in in the u.s. republican presidential candidacy raised does he really have

a chance this week let's talk about that do you think rand paul had a chance i personally don't buy into that looks weak just physically don't know just looks like an old man and said to say it maybe his values are great and everything but. that's interesting so do you think the battle affect the way people vote that's affecting the way i've a aluminite is going to have whatever they want so do you think they're going to choose them prager that obama not a chance why not he's just too much on the fringe for the rest of america but he has such a strong contingent among the you. for now well i'll tell you that any changes he'll bring forward will be on obama's good work that's what i'll tell you that he's laying down a foundation for the next president whoever he is exactly that's my belief you know and i and i mean the strain here i think he's got his chance and i think a bunch of those effects in the public the novelty of his candidacy were off within

about twelve months of his arrival and ron paul certainly would be a novelty in office keep in o.t. but that's. politics is based on the moment and i think it's interesting he's a nonpolitician speaks very honestly but i don't agree with his policies and so if i were living here i wouldn't vote for him no he gets more independents than both then all three candidates of the candidates so why does the media not pay attention to him because he's against the establishment he's against everything isn't a stand for you against the military national complex here against the federal reserve do you think he has a chance here oh he is there are ten zero why he doesn't have the finances and he doesn't have the team necessary to put together a serious campaign. so you were just talking about how us running not actually his policies or whether or not he'd be good for the country well if he could doesn't have the team in the mood to get his message out nobody's going to hear whether or

not you think ron paul actually has a chance to become the next u.s. president the bottom line is if elected he certainly would shake things up and that seems to be something everyone is looking for. all right let's talk about something going on here in washington that you may not be aware of something that sort of snog under the noses of a whole lot of people and if it continues on this path that something could make it much more difficult for the band guys to get punished and the good guys to get praised in fact it will have the opposite effect so here's what's going on yesterday the house subcommittee on capital markets and government sponsored enterprises passed through a bill that severely weakens protections for whistleblowers and could now be considered at any time the house financial services committee this has the backing and i should mention the lobbying dollars of the all powerful u.s. chamber of commerce has often been pretty friendly to wall street interests and

here's what it would do if passed it would require a whistleblower to first report information about misconduct to his or her employer before going to a regulatory agency it would also require the agency most likely the f.c.c. to notify that employer or entity before taking any enforcement action it would also legalize retaliation by the company against the whistle blowing employee and finally it would remove incentives for the whistleblowers previously guaranteed by dodd frank since you know often whistleblowers will lose their jobs after reporting of the wrongdoing inside companies. and it's kind of funny with a lot of things here in washington the title of this bill is a little deceptive it's called the whistle blower improvement act so there's this and speaking of whistle blowers the accused wiki leaks whistleblower bradley manning begins his trial next week as it turns out president obama also has used the espionage act to charge six people for alleged mishandling of classified information six people may not sound like

a lot but before obama there were only three cases ever like this so not more about all of this i'm joined now by kathleen mcclellan attorney for the government accountability project kathleen let's talk first about what i just mentioned with president obama how already he has charged six people using the espionage act which by the way goes back to world war one yes it's a world war one era law that has been used three times as you said in history and obama has used it with. with the zealousness to go after so-called leakers who are more often than not whistleblowers and the problem with that is soon as you charge someone under the espionage act you rebrand them a spy and for a whistleblower who's probably not even had a chance to be public before being indicted that is a very very dangerous prospect to be calling whistleblowers spies sends a major chilling effect to all intelligence agencies and all government employees

really let's talk about this i mean on one hand you could think of that movie i think it was called the insider in which this this guy based on a true story who works for a tobacco company told sixty minutes about what was actually going on that this company knew these dangerous practices were happening with chemicals in cigarettes but they went forward with it anyways that in many ways saved probably lots of people's lives but when you talk about government leaking sometimes you get along the lines of you know classified information classified because. it needs to be for the. safety and security of this country talk a little bit about that because i know that's a common argument that's used against these sort of government leakers well that is absolutely the argument that's used and i think that there are is information that should be properly classified the question is whether or not any of these so-called leaders who are often the whistleblowers have actually leaked any classified information and if you take the case of one of gets clients the n.s.a. whistleblower national security agency whistleblower thomas drake they came out

with a thundering indictment about how he'd leaked classified information but then when you look more carefully he wasn't even actually charged with leaking classified information and more importantly the government's case completely collapsed because it turned out in fact that he had not leaked any classified information or even mishandled any classified information in reality and so that's obviously what the government need wants to say because that is the strongest possible case and that's where the espionage act comes into play but. everybody agrees all experts that there's rampant overclassification in the government we have four million people with security clearances so whether or not someone's actually leaking legitimately classified information that could actually hurt national security i think we should be pretty skeptical of that let's talk about one of the most well known whistleblowers of our time a private manning bradley manning who is accused of leaking information and that video to the whistle blowing website wiki leaks he has his trial begins this

thursday he's already been in custody for almost two years i think nine months of that was in solitary confinement. it seems to me that there is going to be no stone left unturned that the government is going to get bradley manning on every count they can as you said to make an example of him among other things to punish him for leaking this keep this information let's compare bradley manning to the most famous whistleblower from you know my parents' generation daniel ellsberg who wrote the pentagon papers the government didn't like him but he. was hailed as a hero do you think that there's been a big change that society doesn't see bradley manning in the same way they see danielle's for well you know i think that there has been a change in the way that the government's rebranded leakers and whistleblowers instead of you know daniel ellsberg was called the most dangerous man in america but the obama administration has taken it a step further and actually charged six people bradley manning is one of them under the espionage act and threatened them with life imprisonment and that you know

takes things to a whole new level because now whistleblowers they not only have to worry about losing their careers losing their livelihood losing their friends and sometimes their family they have to worry about losing their freedom and that is a different level of nefarious retaliation that a lot of whistleblowers and intelligence community are facing now this bill that i talked about the whistleblowers improvement act you know if there's not necessarily a chance of this is going going to be passed it's not in their favor right now but it has already made its way out of the first committee and it's still moving in a direction and as we mentioned it takes away a whole bunch of protections that for years whistleblowers have had talk a little bit about what this says about the future in this country as it is for potential whistleblowers well you know i think like you said the bill doesn't have a very good chance and that's probably a good thing because it you know it isn't aptly name that was simple improvement act and it basically guts the very hard earned and badly needed whistleblower

protections in the dodd frank bill of two thousand and ten these are new incentive programs they haven't even had a chance to be tested the rule making from the incentives the incentives for people who work in wall street in financial in finance to blow the whistle and it provides a reward or an award program for them if they bring to light waste or fraud or abuse and the agencies then sanction the people who are agencies and sanction the corporations to the tune of least a billion dollars so whistleblowers using this program would be saved. the taxpayers millions and millions maybe even billions of dollars and yet already before the programs are even out of the gate there's a tax and i think you know deep throat said follow the money. there's a lot of money involved here and there's a lot of corporations that stand to lose money if the f.c.c. is the securities and exchange commission is actually able to enforce the the laws that they're given the power to those corporations all powerful as we know a lot of a lot of money and

a lot of power here in washington to influence so that's sort of where you see this delicate balance kathleen mccall an attorney for the government accountability project thanks so much. and that's going to do it for now stay tuned we will be back here in an hour and a half i'm christine for. any . one. ever. turn to. do we only want to see this on forever. download the official t. application to your i phone i pod touch from the i.q. zaps to. life on the go.

video on demand. my old posts. are s.s. feeds now with the palm of your. machine on the dot com. and you can. follow in welcome to cross talk i'm curious about syria and the spiral of violence why does the west refuse to describe events being played out in syria as a civil war why is there such resistance to finding a political settlement among the warring factions and will outside intervention eventual tear syria apart. and if you. could cross talk the situation unfolding in syria i'm joined by kurt worth miller

in washington he's a research fellow at the center for religious freedom at the hudson institute in london we have patrick case he's a journalist and political commentator and in cairo we go to rami he is a political activist and co-founder of activists news association all right gentlemen this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want patrick i'd like to go to you first in london there seems to be this amazing lack of recognition that really what's happening in syria is a civil war and i'm looking at western capitals right now but when i think about what's going on there and i see the pictures there are two concepts two words that come to my mind one is militarisation and the other one is lebanese ation and i'm of course i'm referring to the civil war that played out in well in lebanon for such a long time that was so horrific for that small country i mean it is a civil war and we have such a good example of historical example you don't have to look at libya look at lebanon and you have a reasonably good fit. i agree that i think it should be seen in that kind of way

as a civil war i also think you know it's a civil war a slightly different story because it is very difficult to establish exactly who the opposition is in syria and exactly how they came here and that is now do you think in terms of the struggle against this are that is one of the problems you have quite a split into its kind of chaotic situation in syria more so than you did in the the arab spring last year in say egypt or tunisia there's less of a sense of ok here in the opposition so i can understand why it's a bit hard to understand to define it in very clear cut but at the same time i think you know the west the west refusal to see it in these kind of terms and to see it's almost in a very polarized way where you have assad sees affectively now who was you know a couple of years ago seen as a reformer and was actually kind of welcome. you know the west very much saw themselves as being able to work with him now have kind of really polarized

a situation and see him as a kind of ogre like figure similar to the way in which he was portrayed who is effectively just playing on the syrian people and i think that polarized nation won't benefit anyone especially should it mean western intervention into the situation ok kurt if i go to you i mean we had we had assad come out saying he wants to have a referendum on the twenty six of twenty seventh of this i'm sorry twenty six of this month and it was scoffed at very much by western capitals again i mean want why is there such resistance to at least try and negotiated settlement to this conflict because if there is no settlement the deaths continue people continue to die and you know if you choose a side in a civil war which effectively is what the west has already done you still have more deaths i mean it's the worst of all possible worlds right now i think it is unfair to draw. a real clear parallel between could r.p. of course and bashar assad for one. reason and that is between us there's also

a fairly comprehensive regime it's not quite the same person if occasion of the state that khadafi was of course there is of course the significant cult of personality that surrounded the syrian regime long before bashar assad came to power of course and so when we're talking here about the syrian government not just talking about bashar assad we're also talking about the entire back the regime that's backing him up with all of their supporters and a pretty significant state apparatus and that's something that really needs to come into play or we're not just talking about a single individual who pulls all the strings of the state having said that i think it's fairly clear that there is simply too much water under the bridge at this point there been too many deaths there's been too much bloodshed and a tremendous amount of polarization between opposition figures. not necessarily in terms of just the leaders but in terms of the people who have been coming out to

protest putting their lives on the line and in between them and this state that's been perpetrating these i mean there's various i guess you know if i go to romania and cairo i mean again i'm very hesitant to make of this binary here i mean there's the protesters quote unquote protesters and some are pretty heavily armed now and they're killing a lot of people i mean there are even reports reports because not much is coming out of syria that we can rely upon of beheadings ok i mean this is there's a radicalization on the protesters so i don't i mean these people are not you know solzhenitsyn with the kalashnikov ok i mean this is getting much more serious that's why i started out the program by calling it a civil war i mean there is there is violence being committed by at least two sides and i would say all sides what do you think about that. i'll definitely answer to that but if i could first go back to patrick saying. what he said that there is one point to keep in mind syria is no exception from the arab spring from any other

country that's taking part in the arab spring that these are revolutions and syria is not an exception the only thing that makes it an exception is the excessive use of violence by the syrian regime and the fact that the syrian government has has as managed to continue killing its people without anyone stepping in or able to protect the civilians the syrian people have tried themselves the international community is also tried but failed to do anything and in that case in terms of syria now facing this civil war this is definitely over exaggerated this isn't this isn't almost as far as being claimed but what we're seeing in syria is the government basically placing this propaganda that there is a civil war coming in syria that it's already begun and that their sectarian strife the only party that actually introduced tarion strife at the very beginning of the syrian revolution was the syrian government this was the only way that the government could get out of this situation that we're in this mess that they were

in where people were going to the streets and simply calling for democracy and for regime change the government had to cover the up the only way they could cover that up is scare the minority. and i can interject here i mean if you want to put it it's water under a bridge ok fine but now all sides are committing acts of violence ok you want to say who started it ok fine ok but any state in the world is going to strike back at people that have arms ok and i'm not justifying the regime in syria but what i'm saying is that all sides are using violence right now and that's why i'll go back to my keep hammering away at my point of why can't why shouldn't the international community be pushing for negotiations on the ground instead of having saudi arabia and kuwait and all these other countries turkey the united states and who knows what israel's role in all this is right now i mean why should we be focused on the folks on the ground first before this spreads to the entire region. i'm sorry but i wouldn't agree with the fact that there were there was violence being patrolled

from both sides us not the case we have one side that it's attacking its own people in peaceful demonstrations and another side which is formed of defected soldiers and maybe some recruited civilians who wish to protect these civilians these are defected soldiers they don't have a hillary or they or they have weapons forty seven is that the max maybe an r.p.g. but not tanks not gunships and if i go to crashing in london now yes i mean change that may change back to go ahead. well i would just like to say i don't see what the problem is with the syrian people taking up arms against assad you know i do agree with me that you know in some ways you can see this as a continuation of the arab spring i think there is there's a slight difference in terms of the coherence of the opposition but. it is cracking down on particular areas in a very kind of brutal way it is difficult for people to get here and debate and for example go to a kind of tired square like situation that you saw in egypt but i mean sometimes in

these situations as we saw in libya people do need to take up arms against the state and to overthrow its i would defend that i don't think this necessarily can be resolved peacefully and you know attempts to negotiate could also put it on i i could put that struggle for freedom and democracy in syria which is going on you know on the on holds where i think is problematic though is where you have external forces effectively betraying the syrian people as vulnerable kind of like helpless in the situation and unable to battle against assad for themselves i think you know it's very clear in my mind that the only way in which history can be made here the only way in which a true democracy can be brought about in genuine leadership and coherent sense of ideas for how to take the country forward can really be established is through the syrian people doing this for themselves rather than having western intervention which effectively is trying to deliver democracy to that region it doesn't work

like that it hasn't worked actually it's actually been with me every country where that's they can actually be free but it may be contributing to the violence because if i go back to kurtz in washington you may have elements within syria they're hoping for a western intervention and that's not good that's stopping them from the go sheeting and assad i mean you could look at it from a different point of view if there's going to be an intervention he's going to do as much as he possibly can now to make sure there's nothing to intervene about so i mean this. prospect of outside intervention makes the situation even worse in the country you know i think one of the one of the difficulties not just in our conversation but in the broader conversation about syria is the definition of what we mean by intervention. and one of my concerns at the moment and i should say fairly fairly clearly i do believe that the i want to say the west but the outside world i think should be involved somehow i think there is some violence going on perhaps on both sides but it's clearly not not

a parallel situation you know the free syrian army which is an entirely uncoordinated organization if we can even use that term by no means represents the same kind of power as the syrian state i don't think we can look at those in a completely parallel fashion but at the same time i think it's very clear that the state which has its has a responsibility to people to protect not to oppress has been using a far greater degree of violence against people some of whom are armed many of whom are not. then has if we can use this term the other side so i do believe that we should intervene but i'm not talking about boots on the ground i'm not saying you know we should all go you know gung ho dropping bombs on the syrian army at the moment i think we can be much more imaginative in terms of how we talk about intervention. in a way to justice in terms of lives and i mean libya wasn't supposed to happen it libya happened ok all right gentlemen right we're going to go to

a short break ok and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on syria stable. i i. i . well going into the field of science technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the huge earth covered. me it'll eat me if he. if he feels the. need.

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still. welcome back to crossfire crime you'll tell to remind you we're talking about the war in syria. started. ok i want to go back to rami and in cairo i started out the program saying how disappointed i am but i expected that the western powers wouldn't like to call what's going on in in syria's civil war because it has

a very important political and geo political and what implications but let's talk about another thing that western media and politicians don't like to talk about it and if the the sectarian strife there i mean this is about you you said in the first part of the program about defectors most of them at least i've been told are sunni what does that tell you. not actually the case but the of the country is certainly so you would see a majority of defectors being sinise we've seen otherwise we've seen christian defectors that's actually not the case but what you have in in syria now is the government basically portraying the sectarian violence and that's sort of provoking both sides what you're seeing is in the army i have to be detailed about this in the army with mobile phones only the allies are allowed to carry those mobile phones and only they are allowed to film themselves basically undertaking atrocities against civilians we've seen these videos of soldiers beating civilians and they're mainly alawite it's not because only the other words are taking.