Skip to main content

tv   [untitled]    March 10, 2012 1:00pm-1:30pm EST

1:00 pm
top stories this hour on r.t.d. un arab envoys attempts to bring about peace talks in syria clash with calls for military action from some opposition groups. a test of will russia's opposition hopes to regain its momentum at a rally in central moscow for internal fractures and draining public interest leaves many on the sidelines. of physics change of fire on the israeli palestinian border moves into its second day with dozens of rockets fired and civilians hurt on both sides of the front of the killing of a gaza resistance leader. and optimism about the greek debt write down proves premature has happened suffers
1:01 pm
a fresh downgrade from fitch ratings agency with moody's going even further and declaring greece in difference. of summary camille went off enough none of the time it's the only show and the topics of today's program include the transfer of u.s. war prisoners under afghan control the reasons for becoming a whistleblower and plenty more the sides that's next on r.t. . going to be alone show at the real headlines with none of the mercy from live in washington d.c. now it's not risky to gary weiss about jobs numbers and his new book and rand nation we see of her philosophy echoed of movements and of the words and actions of republican lawmakers but we do see it there but what really happened if they were allowed to take it all the way then the us now afghanistan to reach
1:02 pm
a deal on the transfer of prisoners at parwan to afghan control but just how good of a deal is it and what is of the drives one to be a whistleblower to risk their life their reputation amongst other consequences and speak to all present his new book beautiful souls and tries to answer that question of all that morphy tonight putting a dose of happy hour but first take a look at the mainstream media has decided to. art so as a day we've got jobs numbers for the month of february and overall the news is actually pretty good. thank you where we report shows strong job growth for a third straight month but not enough to bring down the unemployment rate new numbers out today point to more solid progress in the jobs market the nation's jobless rate held steady in february at eight point three percent about two hundred twenty seven thousand jobs were created last month added two hundred twenty seven
1:03 pm
thousand jobs to the u.s. economy in the month of february it was private sector hiring companies hiring the trove the jobs numbers a lot of jobs added in the service sector which includes everything from restaurants and hotels to health care firms financial companies employers added two hundred twenty seven thousand jobs in february that's better than most economists expected with a jobless rate has exceeded eight percent for thirty seven straight months that is the longest stretch on record and now we've got revisions the bigger picture is even a little bit better it got better than expected december january and february now it's about two hundred twenty seven thousand jobs created in two hundred twenty seven thousand jobs created that's a little bit better than the wall street consensus the unemployment rate held steady you point three percent. now let me just give you a few more figures to round this out and you six which measures the marginally attached discouraged workers also dropped last month or fifteen point one to fourteen point nine percent also explains why the employment rate stays the same despite more jobs being added because more people are entering back into the labor
1:04 pm
force and the number of people who are long term unemployed meaning if they've been out of work for more than twenty seven weeks that fell from five point five million to five point four million so overall this is good news for the economy shows that some semblance of a recovery is actually visible doesn't mean that things are rosy if the economy were to keep adding about two hundred fifty thousand jobs a month by election day we would still have eight percent official unemployment and it doesn't mean that certain groups are more affected than others this is still considered a lost decade for young people who are entering into the labor force and wages for entry level workers have consistently fallen throughout the last ten years. but i want to zero in on a little point we've brought up many times before on this show we are so much emphasis on the private sector hiring a private sector creating the jobs not the government and yet last year we saw the unemployment rate was only getting worse as private sector hiring was offset by massive levels of layoffs on the federal level and especially on the state
1:05 pm
government level let's not forget that since president obama took office more than five hundred thousand government jobs have been lost last year government jobs are being shot across the board at around twenty two thousand each month that is a drastic effect on the unemployment rate and the private sector just wasn't making up for it plain and simple we were seeing the effects of austerity and the fear of the matter is it wasn't pretty and it wasn't helping how would you see a change emerging this year however in january and february there were still government jobs lost don't get me wrong but comparatively the number was much much lower it was seven thousand total so what do you know the unemployment rate staying steady not getting lower but isn't something you'll see mentioned on any of the news networks today a for some reason don't want to connect the dots show you the bigger picture the bigger cuts austerity what we saw across the country last year has a negative effect the policies actually have an effect so we're going to get into what a complete disappearance of government could mean what a scary unequal world that would be in our next interview but for now i'll just
1:06 pm
leave you with this tidbit that the mainstream media chose to miss. are now aside from jobs numbers there are a couple other stories out there that we need to discuss chose to put things into perspective for you a new government accountability office report shows that almost half of bailed out banks repay the government with money from other federal programs as in all taxpayers have been suffering republicans have been on a campaign to cut government help for them the banks keep playing their swindling game and using all the government help they can find to pull a fast one. the rest of us that and of global executives are still expecting to get their bonuses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars despite that whole scandal where they lost almost two billion dollars worth of customer cash and unfair world we get that but how much worse could it be if one for the last really took root what you any of my studio in new york is gary white's columnist and author of and
1:07 pm
brand nation the hidden struggle for america's soul gary thanks so much for joining us tonight and i guess first you know let's just go back to these jobs numbers that we got in the month of february if you had to break it down what's your takeaway. oh my takeaway is that things are getting better you know but as you point out you know there was a terrible decline in the number of public sector job the public sector is going to continue to be under attack and it's going to help keep unemployment high and it does in danger obama's chances of reelection but do you think we might start seeing that slow down you know like i mentioned last year twenty thousand jobs a month were being shed from the public sector seems like that's kind of petering out for now it seems to be but i think that the public sector is going to continue to be under attack it's been very politicized and as a result of think largely you know as i point out my book at large the result of the radical right in and you see the president's attack on the public sector and
1:08 pm
teachers we're not talking about waste just and certainly some of the teachers the policeman we're talking about essential government services are under attack really for the first time in many many years first time since the depression and it's not help the recovery at all. i will say why because the private sector is not taking up the slack let you know it's not picking up a side so let's talk about what you argue here in your book. and rand nation and so why is that do you think though that this is taking such hold right now i think you can say that we have maybe a growing group of libertarians in the country you also see the tea party embrace this in certain respects you have a lot of fiscal conservatives in the republican party now that are trying to take it far but why specifically now is this you know so strong but i think to a large extent as a result of the massive rewriting of history you know the a lot of people have become convinced by the radical right influence largely by
1:09 pm
your own area and that the reason that we have a financial crisis the reason that there is such hardship is because of government people aren't believing which is the true what are the true facts which have been established which is that it's the private sector it's the banking industry that caused the financial crisis of two thousand and eight and the resulting recession it's private sector that brought this down on the part it's not government and i think people are believing the nonsense that they're caught by the radical right by the ron paul types by the libertarians and by the republican party is really all that it comes down to i think it's that's where i ran times and there's i call it a book she is the she was the marx the karl marx of the radical right and so you know keeping that in mind you'll think it is government accountability office report that i just mentioned that shows us that what was it i forgot the exact number now somehow i lost it but. so many of these banks were actually repaying the bailout money they got pregnant taxpayers by just taking money from other federal programs and every day i feel like i say it's just can't get any more outrageous
1:10 pm
yesterday we were talking about making america the fact that a whistleblower came out and said that they were actually not giving people their loan modifications and misleading them while at the same time partaking in the government program in hand and passing on just enough modifications that they could still let it slide and then have this report how much more outrageous can i get it's an absolute outrage and you know that's that's the irony here you know so that's the real irony here is that the bailout was necessary but the actions of the private sector by the banking industry made this bailout this is there in the bill there's a turntable thing and the rangers in the radical right there saying oh this bailout was the government it was the government coming in and then all the bad stuff that you see coming out of the tarp program such as what came out today you know about how to reap the borrowing from peter to pay paul there's a you know that's the fault of the government what the what it really comes down to is the original reason we're having this bailout is the private sector that's what it can do with the banking industry running out of control and i think the public is losing sight of that now but as you mentioned you know one of the arguments that
1:11 pm
we hear from these ranters that that's the you want to call them is that some of this is rooted in basic fundamental american values of individuality of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. oh absolutely there's no question and i think that the reason one of the reasons why you're part of the rewriting of history and one of the reasons why rand appeals to people and she sort of popularized notions which i think are really pretty deeply rooted in the american culture you know individuality good things you know you have to admit that there are good aspects to her philosophy maybe if you read her novels and read or philosophy certainly there's a lot you can get out of it that's good i mean people aren't stupid it is good stuff and her also be but the overall point of her philosophy is to promote very radical capitalism capitalism that is basically out of control and we've seen in this country what happens when capitalism go it runs out of control and where was it we're living with the with the side effects right now with the it with the
1:12 pm
aftereffects you know what else is interesting too that you talk about is the fact that this is one of those iran's books are books that everyone reads while they're in high school or maybe when they're in college and if you look at the way that some of these things are being applied if you look at the g.o.p. candidates right now that are running for president they're not going to touch social security or medicaid or medicare because they know that they need the elderly population because those are the voters and yet at the same time if you flip it over and if you look at the way that they're trying to address the younger population issues education of student loan debt they're basically saying fight for yourself. oh yeah yeah there's no question about that you know they're basically they're all over the lot of these things you know the the the emphasis that they're basically trying to do they're attacking the social programs they can really do that for those times it's called water because the radical right has pushed them far to the right the tea party in the radical right influenced by rand has pushed them to the right of to the far right but that's
1:13 pm
a recipe for not being elected you know they're not going to be a look that by the public because the public relations people really want that they want their medicare you know iran was on medicare when she passed away in one hundred eighty two you know she what she has more american brands people need these programs i see i heard now lasted through i want to go back to another little tidbit that i threw at the top of the interview which is that and so many executives there despite the fact that they misplaced about two billion dollars worth of customer money a lot of these executives are actually still there ontopic got to keep their jobs not to mention they're now still hoping to get these massive bonuses which are maybe not as massive as some of the ones that we've seen jamie dimon get but still hundreds of thousands of dollars worth and you know what planet is that ok do you think that there is some kind of a victim complex that we see coming around wall street we saw that piece from bloomberg where they were complaining that they had to choose between selling their
1:14 pm
ferrari or their street bike and how hard it is to be rich. yeah you do see that you know you see that there's this whining let's coming out of wall street there they feel that they are you know they're being put upon they're being criticized they're out and with global this kind of an interesting kind of an outlier because you know in order to wind up the bankruptcy in order to sort out the big mess that john pours even left it was necessary to keep on some of these employees of these top executives to sort out the mess that they that the they the private sector created so as a result of which they now have to they did a good job they're going to get a bonus to sort out the mess it's really it's almost kind of funny when you think about it funny yet sad i guess or for the rest of us that are looking at the jobs numbers and for so many of those americans that are unemployed and continue to be carrie thank you so much for joining us tonight so it's my pleasure thanks for having. ice time for our first great welcome back mikey gets caught lying a once
1:15 pm
again about their surveillance of muslims in our case and then the u.s. finally reaches an agreement with the afghans to hand over control of thirty two hundred detainees at the facility are want to ask what that means for the tense relationship with back. three. three. three. three. three. three volunteers for your media drug free media.
1:16 pm
so this week the a.p. has again released information that they obtained as part of their ongoing investigation of the n.y.p.d. surveillance program post nine eleven of the muslim american community and last week during his weekly radio address new york mayor michael bloomberg trying to downplay the surveillance which has been a lightning rod of controversy for both the n.y.p.d. and we've heard for the past few months. everything the new york city police department has done is absolutely is legal and it's appropriate kid is constitutional we don't target individuals based on race or religion. i do catch that last part we don't target individuals based on race or religion. yes if i were bloomberg i might stop talking about that publicly because it seems like the a.p. is just slowly continuing to release information that proves what he said is a lie this week the a.p. released documents that prove the secretive and demographics unit has been targeting muslim owned stores and places of worship and you might be asking
1:17 pm
yourself how is different from the other reports of the a.p. is put out unfortunately for the n.y.p.d. and for mayor bloomberg the new documents show the unit was working undercover in these places because they were places that muslims and muslims owned or frequented but here's the kicker that also shows that they were doing what they were doing was in fact based on religion and nothing else the documents show they deliberately chose not to monitor the jewish and coptic christian populations in the exact same areas where they were monitoring the muslim community this report does not represent the coptic egyptian community and is merely an insight into the muslim egyptian community of new york city gaffney that's pretty damning and it kind of throws the whole we were just doing surveillance geographically argument out the window so basically over the last few years the n.y.p.d. demographics unit has been canvassing all of new york for muslims they've been hanging out in places muslims go places the muslims own and just observing taking notes pictures of people who have done absolutely nothing wrong in cases where
1:18 pm
there are no leads to be followed other than the fact that the people are there are of a certain religion but don't marry or bloomberg promise that they aren't doing anything wrong or targeting any people of any religion now as more evidence of bloomberg might just wanna let this one go stop coming and think commenting on it publicly over the weekend the times ran a piece that contained a coke by bloomberg on the surveillance controversy and what incited he have then on the topic he said quote i have many friends that are muslims that's right bloomberg decided to follow the footsteps of so many others make an argument that he associates with people of a certain group and therefore everything is totally cool as we all know he's not the first one to try to pull this move. i am fit least racist and great relationships in fact one as you know on the apprentice i have friends who are gay .
1:19 pm
i was just kidding with the ronnie clippy really is friends with nascar owners but back to bloomberg i thought it was the most commonly known thing that anybody who says i have friends that are rank are almost always people who have been accused of attacking a certain group and this week attorney general eric holder had this to say about the n.y.p.d. surveillance but i've read publicly and again just what i've read in newspapers is these disturbing these are things that are under view if you just or. i can say is this better be under review at the justice department until the investigation is over confident by some miracle and we're going to take more than having friends that are muslim to make this go away and you might want to start telling the truth when it comes to the n.y.p.d. is obsessive monitoring of the muslim community because the information is out there are learning more and more about the n.y.p.d. is tactics every day. now the u.s. and afghanistan have finally reached an agreement on the transfer of prisoners from the main detention center a deal that within six months afghans will take control of the thirty two hundred
1:20 pm
detainees at the thirty to par want which is a joy to bagram air force base now the u.s. will still have access to marwan and in fact they will still have veto power to block the release of detainees and the green it's being hailed as a compromise a major milestone in moving forward on negotiations ahead of the scheduled withdrawal of u.s. troops it's been especially touchy issue since the burning of korans by u.s. forces that are one sparked protest in the country and it's one the republicans like lindsey graham suggested are worth removing all troops over and then a cut and run strategy what does this really mean and what about the unresolved elements of nitrates and temporary holding pens here this cussedness joshua walker fellow at the truman national security project i should thank so much for joining us tonight thanks for having me so i took them a while to get here and they're finally reached this agreement but what would you say i mean u.s. troops will have access to all of the prisoners at thirty one of them it's going to take six months and they still are going to say yes or no or basically it's like if
1:21 pm
they know the people of afghanistan release i mean look it's a good compromise a lot of different ways it was something that president karzai made very clear there had to be a decision by today on march ninth the u.s. was very hesitant a lot of ways to just turn over all the prisoners given the security concerns and given the record of the afghan government but the same time something had to be reached and so this is a very symbolic very important decision where basically when you transfer these prisoners aren't going anywhere they're going to stay in the same prison they just had a symbolic change over to be able to give the government more legitimacy and to give the afghan government a chance to actually have some type of compromise and try to figure out how to have a larger solution so it's part of a look at the larger issue in and of itself you're right it's not all that significant but in terms of the long term strategy here of the u.s. continue to take itself out and to keep this situation under wraps it's something significant to pay attention to now we're talking about why the u.s. might be hesitant. you know let's talk more about that security concerns because there are goods and interesting moments in the past where what was it five hundred prisoners escaped but you know what else is there necessarily because according to
1:22 pm
the new york times they say that most of these detainees that are held there are taliban and we know that for sure i mean i think if you can call anybody what you want afghanistan is a place where one day one group can be one way another day they come from what so it's really about finding a much larger solution here and i think the fact of the u.s. is continuing to retain rights where if any individual prisoner is seen as being a major threat by the u.s. commander on the ground they can veto it and on the same side the afghans can do the same thing as a result i think that this type of compromise solution that we're seeing is kind of a good step it's not written in stone agreements not something that if you know the u.s. can't go back on at the same time as well the handshake it allows the u.s. and the afghan government to work towards building that trust as you pointed out trusted an all time low ever since the crumbling incident so you've got to start somewhere to get incremental step to move forward on what we actually expect conditions or treatment of detainees to get any better and these prisons i mean of course that's one of the problems that we saw in iraq as well is that there was torture in iraqi prisons after they were handed over to iraqi control but at the
1:23 pm
same time we're not really sure what's going on there under american control it's not like any of these prisoners get to go out and see a lawyer they have as i mentioned these other areas which are actual prisons that are questioning holds right where you might just bring someone in for questioning but they've been known to be detained there for nine weeks at a time i mean it's not just prisons in afghanistan that are not held up to western standards and say everything in afghanistan is not quite up to standard so you know in each individual case where will the prisoners get the same level of treatment there might be some prisoners get better suddenly get worse and i think you have to just kind of wait and see i think that's why we're all kind of holding our breath we're glad that the deal was done today it's a good face saving measure in a lot of different ways but at the same time we're just going to see how it goes moving forward and i'm sure that people be paying very close attention as they document any transgressions to go forward all right let me throw something at you. that ambassador ryan crocker said which is during signing ceremonies of the compromise for both sides he said that if anybody was the loser in this situation
1:24 pm
it was the taliban but it wasn't what you think it means that i mean i assume it means that as long as the u.s. and the afghan government are kind of at odds over the crown incident other issues night raids everything else is a victory here if the karzai government and u.s. government able to work effectively together that we can send any stretch of the imagination so this is a compromise that kind of takes away one of the major flashpoints if we missed the deadline today we've gone on just one more reason to protest on a friday is always a difficult day in afghanistan or any part of the muslim world and so being able to get that agreement to take away one more thing that you can use against us to try to drive a wedge between the two governments that's what i think he means by that statement but what happened with. that because that is as of unresolved and this is really been a big sticking point because after what happened on these night raids are one complaints that we get from civilians as well as from hamid karzai is that you often have civilians that are then hurt that are killed and so they want afghan troops to be able to do these on their own to have control of them and if we have any semblance
1:25 pm
of this notion of winning hearts and minds trying to have a good relationship still why wouldn't they let afghans take control rates so i think the night raids are actually a really sticky jump that i guess i mean i wish it was that simple in terms of a complex security environment you're operating in so yes there are unfortunately incidents anything that happens at night becomes particularly difficult but the idea if you were just to unilaterally so you know what we're going to give all the prisoners back we're going to know we're night raids we're leaving the country this is your your last no that wouldn't go very well in a lot of ways afghanistan is not just about individual reaves individual you know areas around that have security concerns so much larger strategic you know kind of respect if you're in terms of the u.s. credibility in the region continue to work with the afghan government to be able to give and take and so this agreement may be a way forward to find that compromise there wasn't you know there was a deadline set of night raids will set a deadline where the. he's a prisoner so there's a lot of credibility to be found after a war that's lasted ten years and still doesn't really seem to have any point to it
1:26 pm
but finally let me mention something else too that we've seen first we start nuking rich after president obama had apologized for the burning of korans newt gingrich of course came out and attacked him and said in fact i mean karzai needs to respond or otherwise we should cut and run and call the troops out now lindsey graham over these negotiations of the prison also said if cars i doesn't relent on this desire for us to hand over control the prisoners we should cut and run do you think of this is a new strategy that we're going to start seeing from republicans because these are people that have been pushing for the war to continue along i mean there's a big there's a big difference here between a new gingrich who's running for president and really is not responsible for anything he's able to take you know extreme views he's not in there and lindsey graham has too much control i guess you could say i don't know about that lindsey graham was just out there so he's a credible person to talk about it what's funny is he actually just came out today after these statements of a said ok this is what we're talking about this is in a suit for him that's a compromise i don't think newt gingrich will change position because all he wants to do is it president obama i think you have to be your sponsor in these cases and clearly a lot of the right wing republicans have no no interest whatsoever in really thinking
1:27 pm
and forward on the strategy they're the you know their rhetoric on iran has been heated their rhetoric on afghanistan as we needed it just takes its own level whereas people who are in the u.s. government today even if the opposition have to be a lot more structural like lindsey graham has been i don't know wealthy i think that it might be a trend as we have two election season now that the war in afghanistan isn't popular with the public i think we might see more people starting to try to take that route as if we didn't know is know that karzai isn't exactly a reliable partner thanks so much for joining us today so much for having me. all right as we've spoken about at length on the show states across the country have taken it upon themselves over the past few years to pass through coney and immigration laws some of which taken so far that parts of those laws are unconstitutional and what legal experts are screaming from the rooftops states like arizona south carolina georgia and now alabama are finding out first hand as law after law is being scrapped down or slapped down in federal court it all started with arizona's immigration law and seventy article requiring immigrants to prove
1:28 pm
that they're often rise to be in the country or risk state charges among others are blocked by a federal judge in july two thousand and ten georgia was next to the harshest provisions of its new law one which would require police officers to check the status of anybody without proper identification and december two thousand and eleven a federal judge blocked parts of south carolina's law one that would have made it illegal to shelter or transport an undocumented immigrant and alabama who praise their immigration law as the toughest in the nation seem escape from the courts and caves until now and september a federal judge gave the go ahead for alabama to enforce most of its immigration law ruling that the state could enforce laws requirements for schools to verify students immigration status and for police to determine citizenship and status of people they stop detain or rest now police are allowed to arrest anybody they suspected of being undocumented during a routine traffic stop as horrifying as that ruling was there is a big can of good news to report today the u.s. court of appeals stepped in to block parts of that alabama law they barred the
1:29 pm
enforcement of a provision forbidding state and local governments from engaging in business transactions with illegal immigrants and they also blocked another that instructs state courts not to enforce contracts involving those undocumented or illegally here in the u.s. and good this ruling take the alabama one step closer to humanity like it or not so i'm going to hold till the real day of reckoning for the latest batch of state immigration laws and the supreme court rules on arizona's law later this year. our take another break but when we come back what makes a person blow the whistle is because they are pressed about the psychology of bravery of those that choose to do the right thanks again payoffs. is the.

25 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on