welcome to the ilona show where we get the real headlines with none of the mersey coming live out of washington d.c. now tonight we're going to take a look at reports of the obama administration is going to move forward and delist and now comes just a week ahead of more talks with iran then americans elect trying to get a bipartisan team on the presidential ballot they ran into one gigantic problem no candidate got enough votes so does that put a damper on third party politics and a federal judge just said the two cases can be revived to see of military contractors can be held accountable for torture abroad throwing out all of that

morphy tonight including a dose of happy hour but first take a look at what the mainstream media decided to miss. hard tonight i want to start out the show a little differently rather than focusing on what's being covered today let's first think back to last october when the whole country was focused on georgia and the execution of troy davis. unless a convicted cop killer troy davis is set to be executed davis was sentenced to death for the nine hundred eighty nine murder of savannah georgia police officer mark macphail one juror who convicted davis questions her decision he's also insisted he's innocent and there are a lot of disturbing new questions that have been raised in regards to his case. it was a rare case where a national conversation was actually being had about capital punishment and even the mainstream media had no trouble shedding light on the case or

a man whose guilt could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt he was then put it that there was no physical evidence linking him to the scene just eyewitness accounts seven of which were recanted well before his execution date it's a horrible example of how our justice system operates and now sadly a part of our very tainted history of executions in this country now i'm glad they paid attention to troy davis' case it deserved every minute of attention that it got right up until the night that davis was put to death but it also made people ask if this could lead to more discussion more cases of injustice being highlighted the change in public opinion the case of troy davis was hardly the only one the deserved media attention and so today i would like to highlight two more which the mainstream media is not touching upon this wednesday steven staley a mentally ill man is expected to be executed in texas forty nine year old death row inmate has a long well documented history of paranoid schizophrenia and despite being put on

medication he stopped taking it in two thousand and six because he said that it put him in a catatonic state state and sadly a state judge decided that he should now be forcibly medicated so that he's conscious and coherent enough to recognize that he's going to die by lethal injection and he says that he came to that decision based on previous court rulings from the eighth circuit court of appeals all the way up to the supreme court but none of those rulings actually involved an inmate who was scheduled to die the idea of forcibly. medicating a mentally ill man just for the sake of executing him that's disgusting yet none of the networks out there are paying attention to it hell none of the local news stations are even talking about it you want to talk about a case where questions of cruel and unusual punishment exist well this is it let's not stop there how about the case of carl de luna he was executed in one nine hundred eighty nine for the fatal stabbing of a single mother but a seven hundred eighty page report came out today from the columbia school of law

that says the luna didn't do it they conclusively prove that an innocent man was put to death not only does the report state there were numerous missteps in the investigation but it explains how police caught prosecuted and executed the wrong man they looted was only identified by one eyewitness fleeing the scene something that the loon admit it because he was on parole and had been drinking that night meanwhile the man who police really wanted was carlos hernandez and the irony is that the two men looked extremely similar but there was one noticeable difference between the two men that night de luna is clean shaven and hernandez was not and in fact hernandez was incarcerated at a later point for using the same night that he used on the stabbing victim the dude was charged with he even admitted several times in jail that he was the one who committed the crime that night but thanks to his two trial a low budget lawyer de luna was still put to death and that was twenty two years ago and just today we learn the truth about what actually happened because somebody

actually dedicated their efforts to piecing together the physical evidence which is how the judicial process should be carried out and you know where both the loop instead of these cases are happening in texas in the lone star state with a governor who openly talks about the death penalty like this. state of texas has a. very soulful very clear. process in place you will face the old to move justice in the state of texas and that is you will be executed what do you make of. haunting moments like that really helped with the death of de luna and the impending death of salient a perspective where rick perry can with confidence say that you will be executed after all texas does leave the country in capital punishment cases they've had four hundred eighty two executions since one thousand nine hundred six the second highest state virginia only had one hundred nine executions in seventy six that's

almost four hundred more people but despite those statistics texas joins several other states where the death penalty is still being carried out troy davis' death happened in a georgia penitentiary and notice what happened when the media actually shed light on that case just a month after davis was killed a gallup poll showed that nationwide approval for the death penalty reached a thirty nine year low so how could they not be directly related with the rest of the country these incidents like that happen they're informed about the dangers of putting such a scary power into the hands of the government the power to kill somebody something that you cannot take back even though our system is nowhere close to being free of mistakes but it's not just individuals whose opinions are changing there's also been a growing trend of states abolishing the death penalty as well connecticut as a side of that they'll offer a life in prison punishment for criminals for anybody convicted after april two thousand and twelve making them the seventeenth state to abolish capital punishment . i struggled with this issue. mostly as a younger person when i became

a prosecutor in new york city and i understand very well that the legal system is fallible and that this is not a business that the state should be in. and just last five years new jersey new mexico new york and illinois also repealed the death penalty and voters in california are going to make their decision at the polls this november but keeping all of that in mind we have to ask when our country's actually going to take a closer look none of our other western counterparts our european allies they don't practice capital punishment anymore it's a brutal eye for an eye a practice that just doesn't seem to fit in a modern world like you pointed out it's still a divisive issue around the country while seventeen states a ball is the death penalty some audiences actually cheer for what texas like to consider its form of justice but even those who believe in it should really ask themselves if cases like that of troy davis carl de luna or steven staley are something that they can feel comfortable with again our system is not infallible

and yet we give the state to power to act on something that can never be overturned or changed and something that i wish that the mainstream media what spend a little more time on to have the patience to follow through on following the injust execution of troy davis was the exception and their case where it should be the rule but showing that consistency on matters of life and death in calling out that injustice that's where the mainstream media chooses to miss. well it looks like this very aggressive two year lobbying campaign just may have worked. he is a ron's democratic opposition working for a nuclear free iran founded on human rights unjustly listed a terrorist group and became is the victim of its radical regime and their rocky allies europe has to listed him. and in two thousand and ten

a us court order to review iranians u.s. lawmakers and former senior officials demanded listing secretary for the wall street journal reported last night that the obama administration is moving to remove the i make a from the state department's designated list of terrorist organizations while state department officials reportedly say that hillary clinton has yet to make any final decision seems like the camp ashraf will be one of the preconditions to seal that deal now we've spoken about the organization before high ranking officials being paid large sums to speak on behalf of the group despite the fact that most of the supreme court matters for anything that's actually illegal so if the administration does indeed go through with that kind of message is that going to send her to discuss with me is a raise in the russian research director of the national iranian american council thanks so much for joining us tonight so the last time you were on the program we have a resolving about the m e k and so now if this news is true right if what they're

saying actually does come to fruition are you going to be are you surprised are you shocked me there still are a lot of critics out there despite the fact they've been lobbying for this to happen for two years sure i mean i think at the end of the day we have to put it in its proper context you know there was recently a court appearance where the state department went in front of the judge and gave a little bit more detail about what their plan was going forward which is first you got to slay the wolf nearest the sled and take care of this terrorist military base in iraq and after you take the individuals out of that base and relocate them to a place where they don't have the capabilities necessarily to commit terrorist acts to the same degree then you can start talking about what the next steps would be in taking this group off the list potentially if they meet the criteria. you know in a very highly politically charged city like washington d.c. with negotiations between iran and the permanent over the security council plus germany coming up next week this kind of took on a life of its own so we're not there yet a decision to delist to be any k.

is not imminent but of course it's going to be a cause for concern because you know leaving your terrorist military base and then getting off the list there's a lot that needs to happen between those two ends of the spectrum well i mean if we're going to talk about it logistically right at the moment there are still what i believe twelve hundred fifteen hundred people there at the camp and so how long is that going to take every talking months to get people to leave at a minimum years at a minimum months it's taken months up to this point to get half of the members of this designated terrorist organization out of their terrorist camp. going forward i see no indications of the process becoming smooth sailing by any stretch of the imagination but i think as a terrorist organization is realizing that its leverage is minimal and its options are few so they're going to have to play ball to a certain extent and the longer they drag this out the more reason they're giving not only their critics to continue to lambaste them but also increasing the skepticism inside the u.s. government which is already robust if i may say so myself about what this group's

intentions are and whether or not they have in fact lived up to their party claim to renounce violence well you know one of the things that i find interesting too is the when you see the way that people report on this the wall street journal for example they didn't mention at all any of the reports that came out from n.b.c.'s ritually that the m.k. had been trained by the assad to take out iranian nuclear scientists which i guess that's heartbreaking you have no direct confirmation but there are parts of it there at least is something to talk about to touch on there and if you want to say it that mckay has renounced terrorism and laid down their arms and i wouldn't call killing iranian nuclear scientists something that looks like you terrorism entirely but how come that element was left out of the conversation left out of the news reports about it. you raise a very important point i mean at the end of the day high level obama administration officials leaked to n.b.c. that the united states government had evidence that the israeli government was providing this material assistance to a designated terrorist organization that's a big deal why the wall street journal may or may not decide to include that

information in their report it's anybody's best guess but at the end of the day any time you pick up a particular newspaper you're only getting a few pieces of the puzzle it's the job of people like us to put those pieces of the puzzle together so that we can see what the of this and how we prevent more innocent people from succumbing to violence only a few pieces of the puzzle and often from unnamed anonymous officials they never even know you know who exactly to attribute anything to but i'm curious let's say that this does actually happen. i think that we are allowed to be a little skeptical because it kind of then just makes it look like if you have enough money to pay enough high ranking officials or former officials in washington then anything can happen right i mean i saw people tweeting about this and making jokes though maybe hezbollah just needs to throw a little more cash around that's right it's very problematic i mean the jokes are funny but it's a very serious issue because it sets a very dangerous precedent for any host of these fifty designated terrorist organizations on the state department's list to try and pull

a similar stunt now i find it hard to believe that they would be allowed to pull these similar stunts so then we're getting into the question of why has that been able to get away with what they've been able to get away with up to this point lax enforcement of terrorism laws after nine eleven if that's possible enough for or even just not really having information i mean this was a more or less defunct organization wasting away in the desert of iraq and then all of a sudden with an influx of cash and a little bit of training they became relevant again oh a lot of people you know two would describe it as a cult like organization in many ways and so we touched upon this last time but where does the money come from where is this influx of cash coming from that they. can they can wage such a massive lobbying campaign can pay people these high speaking fees it's a great question first and foremost i want to point out that it's the most reputable human rights organizations in the world that are calling. and it's not an analyst it's not any government it's independent human rights organizations is the

key point where's the money coming from nobody knows where the original leader right is i think a at this point either there's rumors that he's he's traveling from from paris to the middle east from very reputable european diplomats so we have to wrap our heads around this and really ask ourselves what do we know what we don't know why is this going on in the question that you just asked about the money is the most important first step the obama administration has put out feelers that they know they have a better idea of how the money is working but oftentimes you don't immediately pounce on an issue when you get a cent of what's going on you know you poll the pro be a threat to see where it leads you to try to get more information to put more of the puzzle together so that if a legal case comes to fruition if you need to hold people accountable you have the totality of the case as opposed to just one or two bits that maybe could slide through a courtroom a little bit easier and make the whole thing fall apart and they have launched you know certain investigations found a certain officials that were taking the money so i guess we'll maybe one day we'll get an answer on that but i want to just really quickly before we go to switch topics with you which is that there was something that was going to be voted on

today in the house it was calls h.r. five six a and so some people said that the significantly lowers the bar for what it would you know for what would have to happen in order for military action to be considered ok by members of congress here against iran can you tell us more about it sure i mean i think it's very telling when you have former high level u.s. military officials coming out and say this is the same playbook that they used in the run up to be iraq war that's the same kind of language that gives congress the political pressure to box the president in and reduce the diplomatic options and the diplomatic tools at his disposal to pursue a peaceful solution to this dianne feinstein lawrence wilkerson who would have spoken to guys on the show exactly lawrence wilkerson being. one of the most reputable voices speaking out of the senator feinstein as well so what this house resolution has done that is stood out to me is two things one it essentially said that a nuclear capable iran is unacceptable not an iran with nuclear weapons or anything like that but a new york capable iran and that there's

a big difference between the two because having the capability to build a weapon and making the political decision to do so two very different things and our highest levels of our political military and intelligence institutions have said that the iranian government hasn't made that decision yet which is why the obama administration says we have time for diplomacy the other thing that it does is it tries to reduce additional avenues for diplomacy to try to reduce the powers of the president to move forward and and have the latitude that he needs the political space and by extension the political will to move forward with diplomacy so i think it's congress in a way overstepping its bounds not by violating the law but by intentionally reducing the options of the president has itself by creating law with more broad language in which i guess you could say that it might be easier for them to justify certain actions so the dr is always beating i guess we can say that we haven't stopped thanks so much for joining us and i. i thought to come tonight we have to show and tell and that the americans elect experiment seems to fail and have third

party help gone with it. more news today. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying operations today. wealthy british style. that's not on the title of.

markets why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

our guys it's time for show and tell on tonight's program now last week the latest on activist tim de christopher we asked if you think there's been more of a crackdown on civil disobedience in recent years or if stifling dissent is just as old as the country so let's go to producer for truth in ascending to find out what she had to say. i'm of the streets of d.c. to tell people the nation's capital what our viewers how to say on twitter facebook and you tube and see which comments we should keep or delete.

do you think that his sentence is too extreme and an example of the growing crackdown against civil disobedience i'm going to read you ever spawn's from brown and facebook he said there has definitely been a clampdown on civil disobedience in recent years do you agree with that oh yeah definitely i was involved with occupy up here in d.c. for a while and it's definitely has been a huge crackdown but it's like it's not seen people arrested for sitting on a sidewalk and due to political activism bargain on facebook said it's an age old tradition in all countries but it gets worse when people in charge fear the general public will agree with the protesters i mean it is cracking down which i don't know i'm really saying i'm going to read your sponsor i'm weight on facebook he said the crackdown for civil disobedience has become less over the years what do you think do you agree or just disagree with that because there's so much crime in the city and everything you know and people are getting away with a lot of white collar crimes three to one well some people seem to believe that the

punishment should fit the crime there is a growing number who seem aligned that the punishment for dissent is continuing to grow. well thanks for your responses and here's our next question for you earlier in the show we spoke about the case of steven staley a mentally ill man who said to be executed tomorrow in the state of texas this is after a judge ruled that he could be forcibly given medication in order for him to be mentally aware enough for the state to go through with killing him it's a truly horrible story and one that's gotten very little attention so why do you think it is that these horrific cases go under the radar while approval for the death penalty is historically low but also i think on facebook twitter and you tube and who knows a response it just might make it on air. well looks like one experiment and third party politics has failed americans elect is a nonprofit group that had set out to break through the partisan gridlock in

washington to place a bipartisan team of president and vice president on the ballot they are to qualify for the general election ballot in twenty seven states but last night they ran into one major problem as the midnight online voting deadline arrived no candidate actually got enough votes former louisiana governor buddy roemer got the most support but it's nearly six thousand supporters or still way shy of the needed ten thousand so considering the mood in the country right now the discontent with government why do you think it is that americans elect felt joined me to discuss this is james pullos forbes contributor and daily caller columnist james thanks for joining us tonight before we get into the nitty gritty we break down what it is that we think that went wrong here would you agree with me haven't we this seemed like a good time as any to try something else like this sure it's you know it's a brave new world out there he's speaking we've got. the right to an e.f. that they're kind it's it's well in some ways you know it's actually kind of the

tea party i'm talking about and then you've got a large group of people in the middle in the mushy middle independents people. maybe if you try to decide between ron paul and between gary johnson and these agreements you flux right now so sure why not stir the pot when it gives you a shot. at strategy was the right one so what was their breakdown in strategy in your opinion i mean it seems like right off the bat if their biggest problem is that they didn't have one candidate they got enough votes that they just another right candidate. well you know there's that i think the big picture here is there's a real effort by americans elect to say we're going to do this in kind of a trans courtesan or or bipartisan sort of way which makes sense given how entrenched based in nature to critics are but that's really where the sense of it ends if you're not able to grab people in a way that really appeals to some kind of coherent or it applies to american politics others and hey let's check radiology or you know that's

a nice spot there only gets you so far and you actually have to sit down it's through to the trouble to get your platform and start your into real problems and i think from the from the outset you know it was a let's just use was branded by what it was rather than by what it was that sort of black identity persisted right up through up through their final days you know i mean i guess do you think that maybe part of the problem was that they weren't quite radical or different and you mentioned this in your writing is something i've had a conversation with about a lot here on this show which is that if you look at our at our two candidates right now right you have president barack obama who's up for reelection you have probably romney at the end of the day they're not that different these two guys are looking more and more like you obviously have differences when it comes to tax policy or when it comes to certain social wedge issues but they take money from all the same people the two parties just look very very similar. well that says some people might see this as as a feature not a bug ramming one when you look at what's going on with carolina's gay marriage and

then when you look at what barack obama said about gay marriage technically those two things can co-exist in the same universe rock obama can say i support gay marriage and it should be a state by state issue and north carolinians can say ok let's have a vote that's the way that it turns out there is a real middle in american politics people might not like it is it is there i wrote the piece are you talking about over at forbes you know back in two thousand and rage against the machine made senator shelby of bush and al gore being sort of the same person they were able to make that kind of criticism to make it effectively even if just through music video because what they are offering is alternative is really a radical departure from what american politics is used to what america's allies gave us was this sort of paradox which is all the two parties are suit stream they're both so dominated by their fringes that they're basically the same that's credit too weird for americans trapped their brains around i think it's kind of a funny irony it's not a great political says which i have about the fact that they were doing all of this

online that's supposed to be really painful thing you don't even have to leave your home you don't have to go out and find time to vote it's an online national convention and it seems like you know that's an area where people really like interacting and being politically active and being vocal these days. you know i think this is a really important point on paper it seemed like a great idea obviously there's a huge amount of political journalism that's on the internet there's no shortage of comment sections where you can spend you know all day if you like wading through these tirades that people seem to have time to actually set down and type out in all caps but here's the point the point is it doesn't transfer over to actually doing the things that are the building blocks of citizenship the internet's really great for people having three million conversations about politics for rancy teaching about politics it seems to me not so good at actually being a laboratory of democracy so i think we really need to have a wake up call moment here and say gosh there's actually something important about

getting people out of their houses like you said into face to face. interactions with each other that are scripted where they might be stuck talking to someone they disagree with that's where politics can actually happen at the local level and it's that kind of experience that people need to not be afraid of be so afraid of that they that they think they can just kind of run to the internet and do an end run around local democracy in order to pick a presidential pick. well the same time though i have part of your thing is getting the money out of politics it's a lot cheaper to try to do everything on the internet that have to campaign the old fashioned way isn't it well this is true and you know in general i mean favorites try to do things on the cheap if it works good as the rumor the candidate who's been running on this get the money out of politics thing you know he's obviously well intentioned he's a funny guy's got a unique personality if there's a problem but he's always going to go to politics as long as politics is seriousness of centralized power why is the money going there to censor the powers

you can get the money out of politics and to get our essential laws and as long as that's a pitch that seems to you to take up the most oxygen in the americans like school and i think what we see is people you know kind of not in the long but not really putting any more of a personal investment in that message because i think they sense that in some ways it just doesn't get to the heart of the matter arjun's all thanks for joining us tonight i'm erica like by the way saying that they're going to wait on thursday to see what exactly their next rata g. is they don't want to call this a failure but you know i think that it would have been cool to see what they could have done with us to see this bipartisan take it and we'll have to keep following it and see how it carries forward thanks thank you. i have time for another break but coming up if they glimmer of hope about children's food and america and it turns out the plaintiffs say that they were tortured graves will get their goal in court.