for your media. free media are to. lots of the news. and strong ideologies or strong belief in a particular candidate have decided that they would get involved in the process this way or get good intentions the road to the white house is paved with super pac money donations are pouring and by the millions making two thousand and twelve the most expensive election and u.s. history and this red white and blue hundred green is the only color that really counts and will tell you who would be high rollers our. politicians aren't the only ones rolling in the dough a private prison industry as locking up so-called hardened criminals for cold hard cash and lots of it will tell you which state is known as the prison capital of the

u.s. and just how many people are being incarcerated there. and. meanwhile millions of others say they are prisoners to their student debt the occupy movement is getting ready to take over graduation ceremonies across the country we'll tell you how. it's tuesday may fifteenth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r t well today we are going to follow the money who has it who does it and how it affects everything from elections to who goes to jail to education and we'll start with campaign funding as voters today cast their ballots in two presidential primaries and a time of unlimited campaign spending for millionaires and billionaires we ask does everyone else count nowadays and. expected to be the most expensive campaign in

history as backed by super funded super pacs are hitting the airwaves and of course many of them are negative attack ads here's a look at one of the most recent ones targeting republican presidential candidate mitt romney. if we lost they made money if we survive they made money. simpliciter he promised us saying thanks to the united states. we'll give you the same thing you gave us. you'll take it on. us action is responsible for the content of sacrificing. so it's so much money being pumped into campaigns by just a handful of donors and with deep pocketed donors funding the message that gets out to the public who really decides who will be the next commander in chief arts a correspondent christine for south takes a look at the faces that fund presidential campaigns today most money mo problems not for these candidates whose campaigns and issues were kept alive well past their

expiration date by excessive amounts of money oftentimes funneled in by one person to a large extent gingrich's candidacy is possible thanks to billionaire casino mogul sheldon adelson a new ad is hit the airwaves promoting the presidential candidacy of jon huntsman doesn't come though from the huntsman campaign but rather a super pac when you step up to sheldon adelson and hans von yeah i'm really the underdog billionaire and it's not just the red billionaires there are blue super donors as well like george soros are mover and shaker today hedge fund kingpin george soros a billionaire investor pledging to million dollars to two democratic groups and jeffrey katzenberg who gave two million dollars to the pro obama super pac priorities usa people who have lots of financial resources. and strong ideologies or strong belief in a particular candidate have decided that they wanted to get involved in the process

this way bob you're sachs says the money may not be able to buy the votes but often can control the message a reality that seems unfair to those who can't afford to give some americans can give several million dollars to a candidate. they like and a lot of americans can maybe afford one hundred dollars do you think that's a problem or do you think that's just how it is that's a major problem why is that a major problem i can't say have more say never had the money people to strength quite often the ones pulling the strings are anything but representative of the american people still their choices often determine who makes it on to the ballot the range of have choices is narrowed significantly because certain kinds of interests have a lot of influence here and that comes at least in part in no small part from the money they're able to bring into the political process john kerry has not been honest about what happened in vietnam he is lying about his record and i know john

kerry is lying about his first purple heart remember this ad it was funded in part by home builder bob perry to discredit democratic nominee john kerry this year he's given three million dollars to restore our future a super pac supporting mitt romney mitt romney turned around dozens of american companies and helped create thousands of jobs so how much can most americans contribute to help their candidates into office i don't know how much i would give you to be so he could become elected. because that would be you know what our budget would you give one hundred dollars. maybe would you give a thousand dollars i think there could be some things change that would make a little bit more fair for people like me to feel like they get more of a vote tis the season for the full impact to be felt with ads paid for by super pacs not just hitting the airwaves but dominating them and if you live in a swing state like ohio or florida or virginia get ready the millions of dollars

are aimed at you in hopes the message mind meld will translate into votes in washington christine for our tea. for more on this ben cohen joins me now he is the editor for the daily bands are in president bands or media group welcome to the show bad so here we are post citizens united and we're seeing the effects of this millionaires and billionaires like the one we just the ones we just saw funding campaigns so our average voter is becoming more irrelevant in the grand scheme of things now i think they are that's it's and you know it's it was a huge blow to to how democracy works and in america because it basically opens the floodgates for billion is corporations to come in and buy elections so yes. civility skews the game even more in favor of the bridge. so we have these super pacs and now president obama he just had last week one of the most expensive

campaign. fund raising events ever with the help of george clooney he raised fifteen million dollars so is it getting out of control it is definitely getting out of control these types of sums or very dangerous when it comes to democracy when you have a concert the concentration of wealth in america where you have such extreme divides it means that power obviously if you if there is a lot of money in elections it means power obviously is considered to the top more money you have the more power you have so that you can avert that they're going to how they're going to buy candidates that work in their own interests but i want to ask you about because you're british sound you can tell by your accent but what a citizens united kingdom fly in the u.k. this kind of campaign spending you know it would wouldn't be tolerated in the u.k. absolutely and why you do you think it wouldn't be tolerated there. now it's flying here. there i think it would be to the population the voting public just would they

would never accept it wouldn't be it's a probably even a cultural thing that you just couldn't fly the media wouldn't wouldn't allow the press would be you would over it if anyone tried to kind of record actions like this just wouldn't you know no way let's say the leadership in the u.k. made it so that this this could happen what do you think the response would be of the british people. be that we must protest in the street you don't see riots it would be pretty bad i mean look at again i think the difference between. the relationship between the government and the people in europe and in the government in the people in america. british people don't fear that government but they have they have no fear the government so they basically tell them what to do it works that way round in in america you have the people of germany are fearful of the government and they accept. they accept the power and more corruption the rich you

know it's just a given it's a fact that you know every every person and everyone in washington you most of the millionaires most of the senate or multimillionaires most of the congress a multibillion as this is just the facts of life and people don't really seem to be doesn't really seem to be a big problem in america where is that would be a much much bigger problem in the u.k. and where do you think there is this cultural difference where something like this you know is happening now in the u.s. but it's from what you're saying it wouldn't fly elsewhere wouldn't fly in the u.k. i think the difference is the working class coach in particular in the u.k. history of the united nation. you know having kind of responsible press a genuine left wing press as opposed to us where it's a much more private side system where you have you need me there's been a gigantic war against unions for decades in america. one hundred years of of.

serious war between organized labor and private kept so. it's done quite successfully jorgen smashing that and us and all of that is again is reinforced through the media system which is owned by private companies you know you have a propaganda campaign to vote for unions to vilify the working class whereas in the u.k. culture does is the more difficult to do that the troika they've really tried to do it but it's not hasn't quite far reaching effects they have in the u.k. interesting so we saw there and percy's story we know who the faces of the big donors are there and you would presume you know these are very well funded millionaires billionaires so. they are exactly representative of the american people so you would presumably they are quite far detached from the average ever everyday american citizen so the policies that they would push would they be kind

of disconnected from what may be in the best interest of the average everyday working class middle class americans of course i mean if you look at showed in the . multi-billionaire did a lot. of question you can do is to bail him out who is committing to more money to to get obama out this guy was a democrat. back in the day he was a democrat until he became extremely wealthy and then he basically said well why would i why would i want to give a high percentage of my world away when someone who's poor the me i don't need to do that so you know he tried to buy an israeli newspaper as well. so this this this guy obviously believes he can buy his way into power. and he is only republican because the republican party is looking after his own interests are you his wealth so he's going elections for the sole purpose of saving himself money now do you

think it's possible these days to become elected by soul by small donors a lot of small donors are or is it just you know or can small donors not compete with the millions from sheldon adelson and the likes i think you're going to see a very it's going to shift quite dramatically i think you're going to start seeing it much much less likely for a candidate funded through small donations to be successful as opposed to. you know putting forward policies that the very rich i think they're going to attract the big donors i think the candidates that don't you know you have going for the bucks from a lot of different people what you know you can amount so you can different make a difference you know going to be a dancing multibillion where again you know the economy is supposed to be front and center in this election we see the occupy wall street protests they have been aiming to bring attention to this rising income inequality gap in the shrinking middle class and the way that campaigns are funded in the way that they've been

going does it kind of represent there's a growing income inequality gap you know you see your huge reaction to the in the occupy wall street movement is that it's the first time really that you're seeing kind of an organized movement against what's been happening against this destroyed county. concentration of wealth and corruption citizens you want to be in this is this is food this is the country's being. being sold off and you know seeing people who goes to. do when all is but it's something and this is the first genuine move we've seen in a long time and. goes provide some more that's very well it'll be interesting to see how what effect they have and how this does play out ben thank you for coming on the show that was ben cohen he is the editor for the daily bouncer and president of dancer media group. now we turn now to the prison capital of the world the state

of louisiana has a higher prison rate compared to any other country and the rate of inmates in the state surpasses that of countries the u.s. considers to be less free it's reportedly three times greater than the rate in iran and seven times greater than china take a look at these statistics that will really put it into perspective forty thousand inmates are one in eighty six louisianans are behind bars there's more than two thousand private prison part of a perv in prisons in the state and they hold more than half of louisiana's inmates the private prisons are it's a very profitable business a one hundred eighty two million dollar industry so as you can see in louisiana the prison industry is profitable and there's big incentives to put keep people behind bars to talk more about the prison industrial complex in the state alternates runner colic joins us now welcome ranya. so what's behind this astronomically high

rate in louisiana it can't be that there is more crime in the state. well. no it's not that there's more crime in state although we've got a dozen of our really high crime crime rate the problem is the fact that there's a lot of there's a lot of these small rural towns that have local privatized prisons that are run by sheriffs and a couple of them are run by companies about a couple companies that make a lot of lot of money off of more prisoners being in jail. it's the more you know it's the private prison system the way the private prison system is run it's just it's a conflict of interest because the only way to make money is to have more inmates for the state to pay for you know how it's so now it is so what it sounds like is that this is a really in grained in the system from the sheriff to the judges to the whole justice system. seems like this is

a systematic problem. yeah absolutely it's you have an economic model where you have where you have somebody anybody making a profit off of locking people up so you don't want the prison population to go down because then you'll you won't make any money you'll go in the right so you need to keep people in your bed and in louisiana you actually have the sheriffs who are running these local jails who are in rural areas they don't have enough prisoners from there so they actually have to call around usually to up to more urban areas and see haiti in the inmates and this also makes it really hard to reduce the prison population when you have such an and vested interest in keeping it high so you have a lobby which gives campaign contributions and lobbies against any kind of our new legislation that might reduce reduce mandatory sentences rate or life without parole and all these are all these you know policies that that keep people in prison for so long in the. they have some of the most draconian. harsh these kinds

of things where the judges that have any discretion people are just sentenced to you know a certain amount of years for really not violent and sometimes petty offenses and louisiana several a safer place because of this what are the effects of us know that the crime rate is higher i mean there's no correlation even between the idea that you know blocking more people of gives you gives you a more just. and on top of that louisiana. actually locks up more have more nonviolent offenders locked up than violent offenders so it's actually these people that they're locking up are generally because the people in these local prisons which make up fifty percent of the prison population there. are not are not violent offenders in fact violent offenders get to go to state run prisons and we see any far better facilities if you think about it in terms of offering you know offering rehabilitation programs education. and ways for people to better

themselves now since this is obviously a huge business in louisiana as is seen as a job creator not only for the prison you know the owners of these and the these institutions but as employing people in the in the state. well i guess you have some guards employed but actually with private prisons they tend to try and keep costs so low that they're not efficient local prisons i mean they don't have a medical team prepare they don't have you know that that's that's that's being employed they don't they don't offer education programs it's not is that it's creating so many jobs and it's worth it and in fact you could say that you're blocking people who could be in the work force you're putting the behind bars rather than you know allowing them to be a productive member of society also the money that gets spent on private prisons by the state. that's money you're taking away from other programs right so you're taking it away from education you're taking it away from programs to help people

out of poverty you're taking away from programs that might help people get jobs so you know you're spending it on locking people up instead of you know helping the public become a better place for people to become productive members of society so you can't make that argument yet doesn't work that it creates jobs although you could say that because in the rural in these rural communities their system set up where the community is actually reliant on these prisons for some employment so that also can make it harder to shut them down in the long run so running out is there any incentive in keeping people out of prison. well you get profit wise for these companies you know for society absolutely but as long as we have this system where we allow companies to profit off of putting people in cages then there's going to continue to be an incentive to keep the progress of population as high as possible now if there is so much money to be made and if it's so systematic in the

say what can be done to reverse said. well. what can be done is. performing laws like reforming mandatory minutes where the sentencing laws that somebody commits three drug offenses they might get life in jail without parole. you could also instead of putting people in jail for drug offenses you could come up with new legislation or you just you need to reform laws that put a lot of people in jail right but you need the public will behind them and that's what's not there in the media and a lot of these more you know all of the southern conservative states and in in little bit as well there's the notion of being tough on crime is really really important but you know in the long run you're just locking people up for nonviolent offenses and it hurts everybody so if the public will need it you know there's ways to reverse it but not without people wanting to reverse it is that me so it seems like there needs to be at least more awareness about this to kind of get this

public response runyan i want to switch gears a little bit to a related issue you recently wrote an article for salon dot com about a texas man who was executed back in one thousand eight hundred nine he was by the name of carlos the luna a new investigative report by the columbia human rights law review now says that mr de luna was likely innocent and you've been covering this and similar cases talk a bit about this and that it a good example of a broken system. yes you know carlos de luna the man who was executed in one thousand i. was a very poor. hispanic man who actually had a very low i.q. he knew he would basically like you have the mental the mental intelligence of a child. and he was he was sentenced to death for a murder that he all is they didn't he didn't commit and throughout the entire

process from that you know from arresting to the trial there was all these signs that another man had done it who looks a lot like him another man also named carlos who had a really violent history the police knew him very very well because you know he was constantly hurting people and he was in and out of jail all the time. and at one point carlos de luna even said look this is the guy that did it and nobody believed to have and so at every you know in his case really is it serves as an example of everything that could go wrong in in a capital case to lead to somebody and then you know being sentenced to death and that's what's most important take away from it is that the death penalty while lots of people like the idea of putting awful terminals who have committed heinous crimes to death. the whole point is that our system is not perfect it's always going to be broken you can never have one hundred percent perfect system and it makes mistakes it puts people behind bars that aren't that aren't guilty sometimes and because of that you have innocent people like carl is deluded who we don't find

out until after the fact that they were likely and if that's when it's too late to do anything about it because already to a very heartbreaking sad story there and thank you for staying on top of that that was independent journalist running out kalik thanks for having me. well this is supposed to be a joyful time for college grads finals are almost over and their new life awaits them but a lot of graduating students are drowning in a mountain of debt and face bleak job prospects so students are taking action to voice their frustration take a look at this ball and chain you can buy this on line grads are encouraged to wear the items to accessorize their cap and groan at their graduation ceremony it's meant to show or represent how they're shackled to their debt that's part of the occupy graduation movement here in the u.s. correspondent takes a look at how student debt has toppled or topped one the one trillion mark and how

that's taking a toll on america's youth. it's the heaviest investment a young american can make now becoming a trillion dollar ticking time bomb for the nation i have twenty thousand dollars forty thousand dollars and one hundred fifty thousand and that the u.s. student loan bubble has inflated larger than car or credit card debt in this ballooning crisis graduates now have financial deficits that rival home mortgages ok tonight in new york many have taken to the streets protesting against the on the fordable cost of higher education we're already seeing a a large increase in the number of student loan defaults across the country and that's coming at a rate that is similar to the rate when the when the mortgages mortgage loans started to default as well and like i said this has a cumulative effect and it's a downward spiral according to reports more than fifty percent of recent college graduates are unemployed or working wage jobs that don't even require

a degree now unlike other that student that cannot be dismissed for bankruptcy this means loans that u.s. students and account for higher education policy them for decades or possibly the rest of their lives i don't think i'm ever going to be able to pay my debt as long as i live and so you're creating literally. class and then people it's peonage basically mike freedman has a ph d. in biology and works as a part time teacher because he can't find a full time position it's the option of getting an education and then being in a state of financial or economic insecurity for the rest of your life according to the federal reserve bank of new york americans sixty years or older still over thirty eight billion dollars in student debt and ten percent of that group is past due on payments senior citizens can even have their social security checks taken away the money reportedly redirected to banks weaving to collect.

as the investment of a green morphs from security to risk more americans are reportedly turning to online colleges to save money while others are suing for a refund dozens of lawyers have filed class action lawsuits against their own law schools accusing the colleges of fraud and inflating employment figures. it was an american dream when qualification equated to security but now the once cherished degree. appears to be no more than a gamble marina porter r.t. new york. well coming up next on our t. is the capital account with lauren lyster let's check in with lauren to see what is on today's agenda lauren what can we look forward to hi liz i don't know if you talked at all about j.p. morgan today but we are definitely going to ok j.p. morgan had it shareholder meeting today this is of course as everyone has been

digesting over the last several days the two billion dollar loss from the london whale trade that's now infamous well there are so many questions liz questions about the kind of financial shenanigans that were allowed that could have massed this kind of risk taking because that's just not about one two billion dollar loss that's something that could be a lot more broadly a problem and speak to this is demick risk that still exists in the banking system it's funny because i don't know if you saw president barack obama on the view today talking about the reason why we passed financial reform this was it this two billion dollars trading loss it shows why we did this why why we did what then two billion lot still have been it wasn't stopped by regulations or reforms and the ones that are in the pipeline it's very questionable of they would have stopped it either so we're going to talk about what really is going on here what the real deal is right that's coming up next on the capital account with lauren lyster thanks for that update lauren that's going to do it now for the news for more of the stories

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news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. sheinkopf oration to rule the day.