top stories this hour an aussie humanitarian aid enters the syrian city of homs after government forces pushed the fallen fighters from their stronghold but locals report that rebels are still in the area still killing. the prime minister and presidential hopeful let me put in says an energized opposition helps the government respond to the public mood but rejects calls for an early parliamentary election. cos the majority of evasion inside alone at the late deal to make economic discipline compulsory but critics fear unrealistic expectations were struggling nations i'll be back with more of their stories and now the brief

update for you in fifteen thirty minutes from now should say next we've got the eye on a show and this time it's all about the koran burning scandal in afghanistan google's new privacy policies and plenty more feel that's next on. but of the show that the real headlines with none of the mercy are to live in washington d.c. now tonight there's news that two more u.s. soldiers have been killed in afghanistan and the continued fallout from the koran burning in prison so to speak to colonel lawrence wilkerson on that iran syria north korea and the n.d.a. then former louisiana governor buddy roemer and reason dot com and reason t.v. editor and chief make unless you will join us for an alternative politics panel and google's new privacy policy started today we're going to tell you what's changed

with the ways are the can get around it and we'll explore the possibility of quitting google altogether with all that and more for tonight including a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. all right so today's one of those days when the mainstream media is all over the place and granted there is a lot of news today with the death of andrew breitbart continued tornadoes sweeping through inflicting damage in the midwest and of course more campaign coverage. conservative blogger andrew breitbart has died in los angeles he was just forty three years old folks in the midwest bracing for new storms after a string of deadly trying to go there i dozen people killed in three states reality stars well they say she's blowing. something rumors that she may be pregnant big turnaround to report to you right now folks mitt romney is now sixteen points ahead

of rick santorum and maybe it's unfair but you know this is an advantage bush had over kerry over the regular guy got here when mitt romney talks about sport it makes me think of polio and you know things that are not this kind of common man thing if years the track from the national weather service now at this point they think it's about seven miles long guide suddenly of natural causes out as it was just after midnight at least one poll showing that mitt romney trails rick santorum in the rust belt state and now this new twist this just in the donald trump will stump for romney in ohio the delegate count starts like this romney's at one sixty seven santorum at eighty seven the total you need to get the nomination one thousand one hundred forty four we're a long way from that right twelve people were killed more than one hundred hurt several hundred homes and businesses also destroyed. thank god that on this busy news day they also managed to fit in pregnancy but hey that's the end of the

so-called most trusted name in news always make time makes time for the latest breaking news on the jersey shore now some of the other stuff the mainstream media covered today is actually real new so it made sense what i'd like to do is keep highlighting the stories that don't get their attention and this week in particular there have been a number of investigative reports reports from human rights organizations that unfortunately don't get any coverage sure of the reason is that they just might not seem exciting enough right there's no breaking news element in it but that's the wrong approach because what these reports show us are in fact widespread long standing problems i deserve discussion and reflection. so to ask over a new report released by human rights watch that zones in on california's justice system where approximately three hundred youth offenders those that committed a crime while they were minors where they've been sentenced to life in prison without parole i just put this in perspective for you the u.s. is the only country where people under the age of eighteen can be sentenced to life without parole we pride ourselves on sentencing minors to death but life without parole is

a sentence to die in prison you just have to wait decades for it to happen naturally now while the number might be three hundred in california nationally there are more than twenty five hundred youth offenders serving the sentences and it's a horrible thing and this report is pushing to change it so we throw in a few more statistics that they compile the way in california forty five percent of the hundred twenty seven cases surveyed use have been who have been sentenced to life without parole hadn't been the person to physically commit a murder as in that they may have stood by they may have driven a getaway car participated in a robbery but didn't physically commit the murder many of the crimes also come under an adult's influence previous research that human rights watch did found an estimated fifty nine percent of youth serving life without the possibility of parole nationally are first time offenders one of the thing about california racial disparity unfortunately exists across the entire country in our justice system but california is one of the worst out of those given that sentence for life without parole for juveniles african-american youth are sentenced at an eighteen point

three percent higher rate than white youth hispanic you have five times the rate of white youth and let's not forget of course that having such a harsh criminal justice system costs a lot of money he would rights watch calculated it since one thousand nine hundred california spent between sixty six and eighty three million dollars incarcerating this population cost it only go up as more users sentenced to be behind bars forever now so to fix this point up a size the scope of this problem that we really need to have a discussion about and listen to researchers correctional officials about is the fact that these are kids young people have the potential. the changes are exactly why life without parole should not be an option and as soon as next week the california assembly might be able to vote on a bill called s.b. nine which if it becomes law and means of the youth who get sentenced to life in prison would at least have the opportunity to petition for a change to a parole eligible sentence but still not enough so this is one of the issues that plagues our country on a large scale every day every year it gets worse and while the mainstream media

should report on the news of the day they need to continue to look at the bigger picture connect the dots highlight these issues in our society instead of choosing to me. well i've got quite a range of foreign policy issues to cover today two more u.s. soldiers were killed in afghanistan an afghan soldier and this comes after the shooting deaths of four american soldiers last week a new poll shows that eighty one percent of israelis are against a unilateral strike on iran and members of congress are attempting to change the language and the n.d.a. that allows for the indefinite detention of u.s. citizens but my question of course is why they passed the bill in the first place so we have a lot to cover so let's get to it here this cusses with me is lawrence wilkerson retired united states army colonel and former chief of staff to colin powell thanks so much for joining us tonight for

a while since we've had you on the show and there's a lot going on so i read is really going to grab bag we have so much to catch up on and so i want to get your take on what's been happening in afghanistan stepping up and first time that we've seen protests in the country now the first time that we've seen protests in the country as a result immediately of a very stupid and insensitive action but you know if we look at the timing of this happening really before this major drawdown that is planned before it begins is they finalize it in some ways sealed the deal in some way. i think it's getting dangerous the general situation is such that we have polls from pakistan again for example the chair and i still think pakistan is the bigger problem. the biggest enemy for the pakistan people by huge margin is not the taliban it's not their own government it's not so mixed army factor other than us we are the number one enemy for pakistanis that's a very dangerous situation because i think pakistan is the real issue here

afghanistan can be handled if i stand india china turkey and iran and other countries with the best interest in its stability are brought in to the gain there is not going to be stabilized by the presence of u.s. forces in fact u.s. forces are destabilizing just as russian forces there are really are and it's a i wouldn't be surprised for example in the next six or seven months to see scars i just colleagues grab the money and run probably to do or someplace like that that's how fragile that government is as i said one time before on your show the joke on the streets of kabul was that karzai controls less and less dash kabul not afghanistan so it's a very it's a very dangerous situation we're even examining ways now to extract ourselves from this and i am not country because we realize that when we withdraw we will become targets whether we be drawn through pakistan we withdraw some russia or iran or

wherever we're going to be targets as we withdraw so this is a very very difficult situation. so how exactly do you see that playing i mean you think that within six to seven months karzai mike of cars like those. bennett might be part of that then what happens right and how does our own presidential election really got to if obama is reelected i'm assuming. it's hard to believe in certain timelines and promises anymore but i'm assuming that means that they'll go on with the scheduled withdrawal timeline of two thousand and thirteen if the republican with the exception of ron paul is elected so then what happens we have three choices if president obama is reelected and it looks increasingly like he's going to be in borneo scene sudden collapse or whatever we can either stay exactly as we are we can beef it up and stay even longer or we can stick to going through all schedule and pray that nothing happens on board while we do it

all three of those are bad choices and we've put ourselves in this circumstance and we have failed to do the kinds of diplomacy that i would have more good years ago and that should be going on right now with countries that have an interest in afghanistan stability post u.s. presence there we fail to do diplomacy to make sure that when whatever happens when we do believe there is a vested interest in afghanistan maintaining some form of stability that doesn't invite them doesn't invite civil war doesn't invite a continuation of the last thirty years frankly afghans are sick and tired of this they would like to see the turmoil stock and some stability call the question is can we find the ingredients around afghanistan india pakistan in particular and can we find the leadership in afghanistan to bring this about i frankly it doesn't look like it when you say it but if the diplomacy element that fails. would you say

exactly that you know is it just a continuation would you say that's something that started the bush administration continued on with the obama administration is it a common. some of our tactics of drone strikes something that a lot of all the above beginning with the russian invasion in seventy nine and eighty and all up to the president in our neglect in between the end of the russian occupation of afghanistan and the mujahideen that we supported against the russians and what's happened in the terms of that neglect that led to bin laden and then led to our occupation of the country this is this is a study in how to fail from the beginning of the russian invasion all the way up to where we are now if you don't have the principal players in afghanistan come to some india and pakistan come to some kind of understanding that instability in afghanistan serves neither of their purposes and feed that consumed with trying to with turkey with iran alternately with the united states ultimately with russia and

the stance then you've got no way of bringing a reasonable degree of stability to afghanistan really excludes it diplomacy and a lot of work and i simply don't see that work done either by more grossman or anybody else in this country and certainly not by others in the region because they've been if it to a certain extent from the instability i have let's talk about iran then because obviously that's on the radar these days obviously the tensions there are heating up but you see an interesting dynamic in a sense that it almost seems like the obama administration certain military officials are the ones that are trying to tamp it down you have the media playing a very large role on you and i have spoken about iran many times before but on the show and said the you know maybe three years from now we will at some point have a war with iran because there is an element of the community here and the u.s. of the foreign policy community the neo cons that want this that are itching for it but then now you have this element from from israel as well right and we hear the stories of israeli officials are saying that they're not going to tell the u.s.

if they choose to strike whose purpose is that service. frankly it's serving the purposes of the more radical leadership in iran. and as a matter of fact if either israel or the united states were to attack iran and not follow up with an invasion which is the ultimate way to regime change. then we would have satisfied many of the runs political objectives at least the more radical elements in iran we probably would sway the international community away from us because we would have unprovoked attack iran we probably would to solidify the government with good people they're not solidified with those people right now there's a lot we're doing you say we are you and i mean we're just going to yes so clearly saudis are busy real says that they're going to preemptively strike without telling us you know by frankly i think that's a lot of rhetoric i don't believe israel has the capability first of all they have the capability to balance the rocks around

a little but that's about it and second i don't think they would be that stupid i think this is an effort to win credibility to the diplomacy and i hope like a every night when i go to bed i say a prayer i hope we're doing some model to go shake hands in secret because if we aren't our diplomacy is sanctions and sanctions as diplomacy will not work so how important then is this coming weekend apac conference on monday who's going to be here is going to meet with president obama and it's this constant never ending circle right as everybody has to pledge their allegiance to israel in a certain way we see every time that benjamin netanyahu speaks he gets more applause and were standing ovations than the president of the united states himself does i don't let me show you this ad that's been taken out in the new york israel saying that astonishing look at the bottom of that a look at the bottom right let's see if we can show it and you will see here at least at least two thirds of the groups listed as. calling center for american

progress media matters saying that they're liberal media you know the answer is reason you're jewish americans so what are they doing calling jewish americans and it's the mideast. this is true irony we have one group of jewish americans calling another group of jewish americans who are funding the efforts to stop war with iran and the sum ites this is incredible i never thought i'd live to see this not just in the not just small groups of people but huge groups of people on the left like the j. street group and in groups on the right like a pack or trading barbs of edison it is a between this is a style how it is ironic right how easily these that these words are now are thrown around and so in that sense i just want to finish here i ask you what you think about the situation in syria because we also see barbs being thrown around in the sense that if somebody. is on the side where they don't think there should be

intervention then automatically you have blood on your hands or you think that it's ok you know and this is a debate not only internationally but between left and right that we see here in the us army and people i'm listening to about syria or people who are serious about syria and one of the things they point out that the mainstream media in this country is not pointing out is how the casualty list is roughly balance that is to say. assad is killing some people and the opposition is killing its own people and this doesn't come out in the media here it's all bashar al assad bashar al assad if that's the case and i think it probably is i think this is the way the arab league presented it in its report which no one paid any attention to in this country if that's the case is the civil war and a civil war that's produced casualties are roughly equal balance on either side and while we've made a mistake casualties as we all do this is not something you should be interfering in this is something that the syrians have to take care of themselves imagine eight

hundred sixty one eight hundred sixty two of england had decided to intervene on the side of the south in this country we've been greatly perturbed by that in washington this is not a situation that's clarified. in any way and it's a situation that leads me to believe we should be very cautious look what's happening in libya now that was not a success but look what's happening in egypt now we're not sure what's going to happen there these are things that the people in the region ought to be able to take care of themselves and without external interference in my view we can provide humanitarian level policemen for a very long time to get started you know this local policeman role i'm with ron paul on that we have no business doing it thank you so much for joining us tonight thanks for your. time for our first break back all star panel with an independent candidate for president and reasons editor in chief makes a less peak. oil to answer right back.

to the. technology innovation all the developments around russia. the future. issues that so much of. which are. going for the future today's time the russians will go to the polls to elect their next president what is the nature of russia's political system how we see change. all right so all we ever get from the cable networks and political discussions is your typical right vs left so let's take it up a bit find out what the thought is somewhere in the middle of this weird middle libertarian independent whatever i am the world of the people only don't only see

our political discourse as black and white so from the contraception mandate to wall street rising gas prices to the president's flip flop on super pacs joining me is and he left me out of there and chief of reason t.v. and reason dot com and from our studio in new york and append a presidential candidate and former louisiana governor buddy roemer gentlemen thank you both for joining me tonight and thanks nick i want to start with you. i think you guys reason have some mixed emotions on the occupy wall street movement in and of itself and so yesterday they had another day of action where they specifically targeted alec and they you know that this is an organization that has a little bit too much influence when it comes to writing a piece of legislation and then heavy lobbying probably longer or pushing it in states across the country what's your take on that well you know one of the reasons why we like or you know we think highly of them right right the right word but are kind of charmed by occupy wall street is that like the tea party your group you know in these two sides don't seem to get along very well but they represent some

kind of authentic grassroots kind of movement and push back against the status quo and against our i think that's all good where occupy wall street i think goes wrong pretty quickly is that in its actual demands and so far as you can tell in many of the targets i think the movement was fundamentally flawed they should have been occupying pennsylvania avenue they might want to occupy the you know there because it's actually the government policies that are picking their pockets and screwing their future it really isn't wall street per se it's banks troops who have their hands in obama's pocket it's old people who are getting richer you know doing very well on a title moments that really are taking money directly from young people and screwing up our future or those of us under fifty group like al gore which is. you know right leaning. interest group i don't think the policies they're pushing are the ones that are causing massive unemployment and massive deficit spending in fact our us probably should be a lot closer they should be talking more than protesting governor roemer i'd love

for you to jump in here to say you were shaking your head no one at one point like you were agreeing at the next point i wasn't so sure as i went to take well i think naik is fundamentally correct i think we have a problem and the problem are the barriers between the leaders and the people barriers of money. often berry is a party sometimes barriers of culture and it tam's the leaders don't listen but all fun the people can't get heard there are too many barriers and the one barrier that i would begin trying to remove is the barrier of special interest money it could be multinational corporations it could be wall street banks it could be those with the special agenda like insurance money i mean it could be a variety of things i'm not against money for advertising on your show or elsewhere

but i'm against it in the dark i'm against it in overwhelming size from people who are hidden i don't think you can have a real public fund that way if i can counter that you know actually historically literally the united states was built on anonymous political speech in the form of the federalist papers which you know so we can say others so much money out there floating around and stuff like that in fact everybody knows who the players are and the way that you get rid of special interest money is by getting rid of a government that can clearly pick winners and losers and comes up with an unbelievably intricate business regulatory code with a tax code you know and this is something where as a libertarian i'm against all tax exemptions i mean people should be taxed along the same way and it pains me when obama says you know what we've got to we're we're going to give tax breaks to manufacturers whatever that is and then rick santorum

says you know what we really need to do is triple the tax exemption for children because for one or more children it's like no that's not what. you know just so we can get through a few more topics here too i also want to see you know we're talking about some money that's being spent in the dark and governor i really want to hear your take on the president's recent put flop when it came to super pac spending we have a little clip here to look at to think. yes you can take this progression of the president's take on it it's time to set challenge for america we can't afford these political games and what is at stake is norwest the integrity of our democracy as a democracy powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens and as long as i'm your president i'll never stop fighting to make sure that the most powerful voice in washington the last in. particular i'm about face for president obama president obama is actually reversing course the president seems to be having a change of heart asking his top fundraisers to grace the pro obama super pac. our

it's we've got that clip having opposed together nicely so going to over what were you disappointed how did you take that move or is that you got to play the game if you want to get reelected. well i wasn't surprised he's hypocritical i mean politicians in general were able to keep three thoughts in the air and they claim each one is needed that's the art of politics but this is hypocritical i mean here's a man barely halfway through is elected term in office two years into it decides to run for reelection and what's his first speech say i'm going to raise a billion dollars well you think ok from the american people there are three hundred million americans so he's going to ask three dollars a person he's going to get grassroots like nick said you know the best thing about occupy is that it's some semblance of grassroots but oh no he didn't do that he did

banking reform and next week he goes to wall street has a fundraiser at purdy five thousand dollars a ticket and it's hosted by goldman friggin saks i mean look i love being on american but we have the right to speak up we have to duty to speak up and i think special interest money has locked washington down it's not only broken it's bought and it's not right i have the will this president may be a hypocrite but do you think that i mean look around at the other options right now to i'm jarius what you think of that first of all i don't think there's any problem with tax or super pacs for individual spending you know people like sheldon adelson the guy who's backing newt gingrich as you know you know this is a little just. an entire you can't you know gold and i would rather know and you know this is why it's because of the one nine hundred sixty eight to the candidates who have eugene mccarthy who really got the if you war movement jump started in america it was funded by a single millionaire and you know when we talk about super pacs and we worry about

that the fact is is that obama in his own reelection campaign has hundreds of millions of dollars for more than all the super pacs on every planet in the universe will be spending what i like about super pacs is that it takes or any kind of into. an expenditure it does the it takes the message out of the hands of the politicians and out of the parties and whether it's with vets or george soros type group back in two thousand and four i think it's good it's spreads it around and it doesn't pollute the political arena anymore and it actually opens up more possibilities of messaging rather than fewer words. we had like ten times. he and i could not disagree more sure i dream of living in a country where every person has a bowl of ice not just one vote but a voice and decide to get off the t.v. couch and stand up and participate in the debate of how america can be a better partner in the world and how we could lift poverty out of its current

dilemma and how we could set standards for our children and grandchildren and it's not done by few wealthy men writing big checks i think it's better done in history by people feeling empowered to speak and i'm for more speech and the big chicks stamp on speech i couldn't agree with this guy more. that's a great. all right and one for see we're running out of time so i have to wrap it up but i want to talk about oil i want to talk about andrew breitbart we're just going to have to do it but it just right it can run you or ten right or it is a guy who always to a lot of different people whether it's matt drudge or arianna huffington or a bunch of conservatives living in buddy roemer world more people have more voice now than ever before that's a good thing maybe on the internet not so much when it comes to political campaigns or the legislation that's wrong with her in congress the unfortunate are the little gentleman i think maybe both are joining a congress i've been

a governor it's not true and i thank you so much for joining us tonight. i'll take another quick break but when we come back the h.s. is monitoring social media across the country so what exactly are you looking to point or even take a look some post the trouble that is the only way to get rid of google's monitoring to quit the company once and for all over whether or not you have any options left to outsmart google's new privacy parts. we all make choices sometimes it's tough. but it can be an easy. choice be left to fate. or it can be. limited.