point three percent unemployment numbers in america are false because when you don't clue one point two million people on the rolls you can say that the number has gone down number three it is capitalism the open market that creates jobs and opportunities allows people to grow thrive and survive you can't say and you can't sit there and pretend that you're in any way have any intellect whatsoever and say that dependency doesn't put downward pressure and doesn't hurt people from rising up if you create an opportunity for people to get something for nothing and you put them in a place to desire the something for nothing they will never try and build up to say otherwise you think it's going well you know you're just going to just. david go ahead i don't think you'll say sure there's no you can find david i don't know i just tore up the welfare checks and went to work the jobs would be there right right. that is i'm really not what i said what i said david you got to actually pay attention to the words that come out of the mouth what i said is that when you

think about the idea of the dependency class as if it's mythology that's not true that is in accurate when you have more people than ever than ever on food stamps one has to ask the question why some of the question has to deal with an economy some of it has to deal with the ease of being able to do that as opposed to other things so you have to take a look at it in its totality not in the political landscape you desire it but quoting karl marx as a guy who understood that is why there aren't jobs for those people their jobs are there for those people that's the obvious if all those welfare people want to get a job is it they're not you david all right gentlemen i want to go to new york david dreier engines we have free time you want to say oh no no no telling when you play i have to go to new york ok lou i think it's one of the interesting things that's happened right now is that and i would tend to agree with you and particularly in looking at europe and in the construction of the welfare state which was very popular with people in europe after the war but as the financial

ization of the economy occurred you have this double whammy where the state can or cannot produce protect these people anymore and you see slashes in budgets and all that austerity doesn't create jobs at all that's a double whammy and that's another reason why the middle class at least in europe is being crushed and there's very little prospect of seeing them coming back. in fact. notes on a do not g.'s turned on extremist case of will first state is that it's not good it's not intrinsically good or bad the problem is in many western countries the heights and always that we have who bad the with state set is not investing in should share in some not a dick european countries such as sweden you have a good way for a state that is investing in the future of children giving giving saying what all the genes a bitch education in in italy. in technologies enough and

in fact a good way for state is a way for theta which is interesting to well future so the problem in many western countries is that we are of welfare states of. fat cats we took which are not investing in the future of our children in order to to have a better situation then to his use of frustrations of the middle class we have to invest that have been education and not simply need to cation mitch mars and we do ok ok very interesting here because we actually look at who is going to house we had so little has done i mean our children we have to look who has the money and the fat cats as you say or the states and states seem to have not the money right now tony if i go back to you does it bother you does it bother you that the the very rich in the united states particularly have recovered completely from the crisis of two thousand and eight their getting their bonuses their dividends vary in the economy is actually growing but the middle class is still being pulverized i mean how do you feel about that because you know if you're really well off in the

top one percent well you don't really worry about much of anything because you just outsource everything abroad. well i i don't accept the premise of your question and in the slightest i think that one of the greatnesses of the open markets is the opportunity to thrive and survive in my point to david earlier was that this idea that the job has to be handed to somebody whatever happened to the creation of the job what happened to the small business owner engaging a small business this goes back to the conversation about regulation which is a good conversation about how you grow an economy and make let's make it easier for people to open the business less paperwork more interaction with customers that's a far better opportunity and let's not talk about the rising wage just being stolen by a by by the owners that's not true rising wages help people all the way around though those companies and corporations. and save it are the people who

create opportunity ok david go ahead because i haven't heard of an increase in wages for a long time with these are rising the part of the problem with the with the small business is it's part of the problem there's it's not regulation that's the you know yeah there's some regulation and so the problem is the customers aren't there people don't have the money now they've got so far in debt they're trying to get out of debt when people aren't buying small businesses suffer small businesses take the hit before the large businesses do so you've also got this peculiar perverse kind of new monopoly where the big companies the wal marts and so on are our cost cutting cost keeping prices down which is what people want but that means they keep pressure on their suppliers so that those wages stay down so that you've got this big problem when wages are down all over and the more unemployment the more downward pressure there is who's going to buy the stuff businesses private sector won't invest because they don't see the customers there it's going to take the

business private businesses will create jobs if demand is there if the. man is there they won't create jobs they'll speculate the put their money somewhere else it doesn't make sense for them to invest in the real economy it doesn't make sense in them to invest long term this is why you've got such gridlock in the political system frankly i don't think the conservatives or the liberals know what to do they don't have any solutions so let the wealthy do what they can and make as much as they can you know before i don't know before i don't know what's going to happen but it's not going to be good if i go to you i mean and i'd like to focus a little bit about the political implications of this is david was saying here i mean if we look in the united states we see not only gridlock but we see fragmentation here and we don't see really strong allegiances anymore that we would think we're middle class because we can have the occupy wall street movement we can have the tea party simultaneously ok and that's a reflection of the inability of the republicans and the democrats to get out of

this economic mess and i would throw in the cultural wars that are absolutely useless for the united states and not so much for western europe i mean how is this happening here because again we look at middle classes of having certain political identity that's changing as well and it may not be good it may be good i don't know yet in fact in many many countries of the west you are increasing frustrations of the middle classes over the last twenty years and booth heights wing and left wing solutions fade in front of economy clearly t. and of clearly t. over thinking and thinking you know well media class so there are problems high to know is that you of extreme frustrations or the development of strong produced movements over and you hope and maybe or so in the united states n.z. is frustration or increasing vicious cycle of political and they could make

problems so high trying and the left wing. these are your two talking create middle class and these international competition you we have quite an hour or so political systems of the west all week and week and i guess that in the end that's why i say the least i could go back and have problem if i go to tony on this because the middle class in the united states has been crushed for thirty years it is damaging the democracy in the united states because people are not seeing that they're the the political process can address their needs because far away from the united states most people look at the republicans and democrats and say what in the world is the difference between the two the do what's the difference between mitt romney and barack obama i mean standing at a distance there is no difference. yeah but that's another conversation a few other day right now there is a ground problem there for i'm ok and i'm good i'm good lately up for that but your conversation is really about is government the ones to make this decision and are

those those the ones we're supposed to depend on if you create the situation where people are depending on government to solve their problems they will of course be dissatisfied because they can't work it could never ever happen government can't solve your problem what government could do is create more problems for you and that's what we're seeing that's why these elections coming up the twenty twelve elections presidential election senate elections are so incredibly important because it's a conversation of dependence on horse versus independence does government to do for you or are you to do for you that is by the way the entire tea party basis you do for you you enable your life government doesn't control again tony we don't want to . run out of time here many thanks to my guest today in new york chicago and in los angeles and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember crosstalk.

well. science technology innovation all the list of elements around russia. the future covered.

the it's just. me it is easy to.

see. welcome to the lower show we'll get the real headlines with none of the mersey to live in washington d.c. now it's and i'm going to have our monday hangover panel where we'll discuss everything from one paul saying that the u.s. is drifting towards fascism tour new calls for aggression against iran and republicans want to arm the syrian rebels tony shaffer and reese final join us then one congressional candidate is riding the anti-social wave to take on the mar smith he's also an oath keeper and a former sheriff so we're going to speak to richard mack and fifty years ago today

the first american orbited the earth we're going to talk about where space exploration is headed next and all that and more food and including a dose of happy hour but first take a look what the mainstream media has decided to miss. it so was another weekend full of the political horse race that is an election year and so was another monday morning of the mainstream media obsessing over that he said she said between rick santorum and mitt romney. you look at this on the left column there where it stands right now and you can see rick santorum eight points ahead of mitt romney a weak performance by romney could ensure an upset in michigan and same torm get on the run the skin obviously romney is fighting very hard there and has dumped millions worth of negative ads on santorum he's got to reverse the momentum catch rick santorum and stop the g.o.p. hammering it somewhat of a controversial week and i think you can say for rick santorum you question the president's strategy of forcing or asking health care companies to provide three

days of testing be believes that in order to restore the economy to rebuild some vitality of the economy you've got to rebuild families expect romney to argue that he's the one republican who could grow the economy while shrinking the size of the federal government and cutting back on spending it's a direct way to try to convince fiscal conservatives that he's truly a conservative there is some indication that this race is tightening and again we'll look for more data coming out over the next couple days to confirm that trend if in fact it's happening it's a good. now considering that all the mainstream media talks about anymore when there isn't a false debate going on over contraception is the upcoming election in november that you just can't help but notice again something that we've pointed out many times before over santorum mitt romney are in the lead there are still other candidates out there now i'm not talking about newt gingrich he still gets plenty of play talk about that other guy ron paul and it's interesting too because we even saw the mainstream media stop completely ignoring him for a brief moment the beginning of january around the iowa caucus in new hampshire

primary but that was really short lived even after he got a good showing in the main caucus it was already too late the mainstream media had a verge of their eyes elsewhere and the reason that i particularly want to bring him up today is because there was another event at the mainstream media didn't cover a march and which hundreds of veterans and their families came out to show their support for this candidate many of paul's policies i can amik social might be divisive there's one thing that catches everyone's eye the no one else on the debate stage or the campaign trail is willing to speak about can. oddly and that is our foreign policy that is our wars that is the hundreds of bases that we have brought and so this is where we all have to take some time to pause and reflect see ron paul leads all other candidates including president obama and donations from the military that includes those affiliated with the army the air force the navy and marine corps and those were some of the hundreds of people that gathered here in washington today at the veterans for ron paul march. paul seems to be the only

person that's representing instead of the defense contractors and bankers that i don't believe that we should be over in these other countries and this in a room he wants to close the nine hundred bases that we are funding and a very expensive and growing really more expensive rate there that has bankrupted this country. now we've spoken about the statistics that show the only one percent of americans are actually fighting our wars for us only one percent and it's not the one percent that are the executives of the big defense contractors or many of the politicians that are calling for endless war intervention of course there are members of congress who have served we have john mccain out there who is always pledging for more war but don't forget it's all of congress that passes the defense appropriations bill every year and funds are conflicts the never even technically get congressional approval to be started so when much of that one percent actually does the fighting and their families who feel the sacrifices hit closest to home when they support the candidate that asks us to be sensible about our foreign

policy to end the wars to bring the troops home they deserve to be discussed the rest of us can just go on being apathetic to our policies of aggression when those who have experienced them carried them out are actually calling for our attention in the mainstream media well of course they didn't cover this march today big nor are wars and their consequences and we point that out on a daily basis here but these news organizations that play up their respect for the troops only with something horrible happens a deadly fire fight a helicopter crash or on veterans day itself they should be ashamed they ignore what our very veterans are telling us on a daily basis they should be ashamed that they normally choose to miss. all right so it's time for what we like to call our monday hangover panel and let's face it the politicians on sunday talk shows traveling the world calling for more war or political candidates the campaign rallies attacking each other giving dire

warnings to where our country is headed sometimes you just feel like you walked in from the week and somebody just hit you over the head with doom and gloom on this monday morning so we've got a lot of topics to discuss on this president's day monday joining me to discuss it is retired lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer senior fellow for the center for advanced defense studies and packed america he's also author of the book operation dark heart and we have bruce fein former deputy attorney general under president ronald reagan and chairman of the american freedom agenda john i thank you both for joining us tonight now ok we'll continue on first i just want to get your take in terms of ron paul in terms of veterans that support him marching in washington today do you think that that means that we should really start taking notice of that should cause some reflection when you have the candid that perhaps is the most anti-war right calling for all of our aggression to stop and he's the one that has so much support from the troops. well i don't necessarily think it's the end of aggression per se i think it's focusing on what we need to do as a as

a country i'm a reagan republican and one of the things notable i like to believe as ronald reagan understood to not get is bogged down in large land conflicts. lebanon was a perfect example of that so i think what i've seen of ron paul's policy is much more common sense relating to what are the real threats we have to deal with to defend our nation not become an empire and i think bruce could talk about the i'm going to i think it's worse than what you suggested because when you have a government that exists at present that can't even define what victory is in afghanistan how can you send people to die to risk that last full measure of devotion to spend one hundred thirty billion dollars a year on an enterprise you can't even define what the goal is i mean that's self-evident i think that ron paul is the only one that understands that the constitutional foreign policy in shrine by the founding fathers was captured in billions for defense not one cent for empire we should devote one hundred percent

of our military resources and personnel in defending americans on american soil other than that we need to let the other one parts of the world fend for themselves we promise retaliation if they attack and it's not because the world will necessarily be perfect but the idea that the united states is morally and otherwise responsible for everything that moves to syria yemen any place is insane it would mean we would have to be everywhere all get into that we were going to talk about syria too but first i want to bring up another thing that from paul said over the weekend because you have the media obsessing over things that rick santorum may have said about president obama's phony theology here by you know you say that we can't define necessarily why we find ourselves in certain parts of the world fortunately warmaking is a money making industry and so let's listen to actually having to read it because if there is. at a clip. in kansas said we've slipped away from a true republic now we're slipping into a fascist system where it's

a combination of government and big business and i for terry and rely on the suppression of the individual rights of each and every american citizen now is this just more of this this rhetoric that we hear of right we hear a lot of words thrown out all the time we hear socialism now it's fascism or does he have a point why i think is important this is why we met our military objectives in afghanistan by two thousand and four we should have been out of it by two thousand and five because we defeated materially the adversary we want to get after we taken out all the terrorism leadership to the point of war anybody who disappeared and attacks pretty much were gone or within the range of capture with that said we have a special operations war was always special operations war but other side we're going to counter insurgency which became a conventional war which entailed billions of dollars being invested in there to make them like us so why did we do that there was no military sesa to do that therefore i do think there's a valid point that we've we've made these expenditures without any interest of

achieving military objectives and i think that is a no you know that you know what fascism in some sense is understated remember this the president of the united states has announced that he claims constitutional power to assassinate i underscore assassinate any american anywhere any time any place based upon secret facts secret law and no post-mortem the president of the united states has signed a bill called the national defense authorization act that empowers him to send the military to your home to mind to tony's to any viewers home and say we think that you're connected you're linked to some hostile forces against the united states we're not telling you why we're taking to guantanamo for life we know accusation no charge that is beyond fascism that is dictatorship and this is not you this is not an exaggeration of what ron paul has stated now with regard to spying one of the most. precious things we enjoy in the united states under the constitution is a right to be left alone the government isn't authorized to snoop and everything

that we do or say and we live right now i think that is that what they do do they they they were out warrants issued by judges spy and retain any information that you've left with google or yahoo or any place you don't know what's done with it you don't know what's leaked out the idea of the right to be left alone is a joke these days and lastly does show you how bad this is become at the outset of the war against afghanistan and it was said we have to fight them abroad so we don't have to fight at home now and senator lindsey graham in defending the national defense authorization act said we are bringing the battlefield where here how do you say no homegrown that there now is now the right is right wrong wrong to get you think though do you think of that kind of rhetoric actually works as they get the crowd riled up is that going to get voters to connect to come to you right because if you look at what the media is covering today it's not what ron paul said this week and it's about whether obama is a christian or not or whether rick santorum is actually talking about

environmentalism and who you know whatever his excuse was well i think that's the issue we all have to face is what is the mainstream media really picking up on this is all law what bruce just said is law and this goes beyond what i was doing able danger what i wanted things are famous for we fought to retain basic data from a variety of sources and we were sold over there may be there may be u.s. pursed information in there now this may be the prism completely this side to the point of we're no one to question the assassination of a lot more lock in the sun to u.s. citizens and beyond that there are at least four other u.s. citizens not foreign nationals u.s. citizens on the kill capture list who put them on or how do they get on there what what what is the justification to have them on or so this is my concern as a military officer who's done this sort of thing that we have gone beyond the pale of of not caring about the fact that there's a secret code you know. secret star chamber if you will that someone can determine

if they don't like you they think that maybe you're just not not american enough you could be on that list to be assassinated no one's going to say anything but yeah that's very scary well let me let me move on real quick too because what we see is a increase of this heated rhetoric towards iran right and we definitely see this conflict building up till you have iran in military exercises you have the going there today and you know you hear it in the media you hear a lot of politicians talking about the need to now counter iran but the same time and i think that you just made a good point that when it comes to our military our generals when it comes to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff they're the ones that seem to be urging a little bit of caution here we have a clip of general martin dempsey who's the chairman of joint chiefs of staff. it's not prudent at this point to to decide to attack iran with me this that's been our counsel to our allies the israelis well known well documented and we also know or believe we know that the reader she has not decided that they will embark on the

cave efforts to weaponize i think it's premature to take a decision to arm the opposition movement in syria because. i would challenge anyone to clearly identify for me the opposition movement in syria at this point and let me all right if he's saying let's have a little caution. but this is exactly what the military said about libya remember it and then secretary of defense mr gates and it didn't have any influence because these are decisions made for political reasons for optics not because it's serious national security matters yet so we're just seeing the same the same story the same film over again and the military is not the people that get it and you want to get follow i know general dempsey he's an honorable man he's a great man and he's saying the truth the problem is the best counsel of people to the president may mean nothing because there's political objectives beyond the military roe let's talk about iran real quick it would take over three hundred sorties to hit that's three hundred airstrikes to hit the known nuclear sites and i

would predict that they would be able to put a weapon together even after that's done so it's not practical as he said the exact same thing to do and the whole thing of arming the rebels you know we involve ourselves we become responsible so do we know a dempsey going to saying do we want to have that responsibility not to say we shouldn't do it but he's saying we need to define better what we're going to do when we involve our stance think that we should do it because you have john mccain you have senator lindsey graham that are both going out saying version i talked about as we're going to have a small disagreement i think i want to i think i think we should but not us directly i think the arab league needs to get off their ass and do something here they should go to the u.n. it's silly they need to put arabs helping arabs what a concept but the idea should be if you have arabs dying under a rube regime and i'm not saying the other arab states are any better because they're not democrat democracies either but if you really want to do some some humanitarian then do something we will help you organize we will actually give you

some ability to do things but we should not to be the ones doing it because obviously if we do it we become involved like libya and then i think ultimately we're sponsor of the outcome of by helping organize you automatically get yourself involved in every card less than what we are even if the arab league meeting over here said would the united states sell the arab league arms or give the money that's one thing but when we then take the. we do become responsible just like in libya i mean libya has no freedom today it's tribalistic we've destroyed the country we are morally culpable for all the wrong doing the torture chambers or whatever against those who are black immigrants who are working under cut off and it's outrageous we just go in countries destroy them leave and say watch our hands like conscious pilot it's not our fault anymore and that's exactly what we're risking we going to syria and even in iran let's look at what we did the first time we went into iran overthrew most of dechen one nine hundred fifty three ended up with the shah and now well tim lee we end up with ayatollah khomeini and the mole is there and the in the crazies and then the crazy thing about this is these countries are not

a national security threat to the united states one thing that's stunning to me it is assumed in the united states that iran has committed an act of war justifying invasion if they develop a nuclear capability well we've got a million times more nuclear capability than iran will ever have or have we committed an act of war by developing a nuclear capability it's like international law is really not you know the difference that i've heard is i guess that's the excuse i want to switch topics really quick to we're going to wrap it up and this one's kind of just for fun but there's a movie that's opening that involves navy seals take a look we have a clip of it. before she was captured morales was working a job that could be why she was abducted. i was. the curious george clinton. our never thought about this on friday show but just really quick before we wrap it i've been curious what you gentlemen think is this is this cool.