so. welcome to the low nischelle we'll get the real headlines with none of the mersey i can live in washington d.c. now tonight we have michael hastings on the show we're going to have a lot for him to talk about pakistan's finally been invited to the nato summit president obama has issued a veto threat threat to the new n.t.a. and he's also issued an executive order regarding yemen that many argue could stifle free speech all the way here in the u.s. and then we're going to talk to kevin zeese about the upcoming nato summit and how both protesters and police are preparing and what can for documents from the department of homeland security tell us about how they monitor political movements

are now all of that and more for tonight including a dose of happy hour but first take a look at what the mainstream media decided to miss. well believe it or not it looks like we're really going to see another debt ceiling showdown on capitol hill and while will provide the media with plenty of fodder for months i think that everyone is collectively shaking their heads in preparation for the massive headache that is going to result. over again seriously speaker john boehner once an election year fight over the debt ceiling last year you remember that ugly standoff the government flirted with shutdowns and the nation's bond rating was downgraded for the first time ever well now boehner says again there will be no compromise the stage is set for another showdown over our nation's debt as it nears sixteen trillion dollars president obama and house speaker john boehner

headed for a debt ceiling agreement house speaker john boehner he spoke with our own erin burnett yesterday really his message was you know cut spending or else here we go again another showdown over a nation's debt heating up on capitol hill speaker boehner is setting up another fight over the debt ceiling john boehner is warning of another battle brewing over the debt ceiling pledging to put up a fight at the end of the year to reject any tax increases republicans promised on the standoff over the debt ceiling. now i actually think this is an important story where you have a political party that wants to bring the country to the brink of a default for the second time it's a big deal you could not have a better example of how messed up our political system is but for now i'm going to leave it to these guys because they've been providing around the clock coverage of what has yet to come there is however another story out there that they do manage to make time for in their busy day it looks like it could be the critical day at the john edwards trial edwards is accused of illegally using almost

a million dollars in donors money to hide his affair with hunter and the baby they had together the case against john edwards the feds may rest its case today we're told we're also told that edwards daughter might take the stand in his defense but apparently she has not shown up in court today but they have indicated they will rest today but that would say if you don't have john edwards take the stand or kate or rielle hunter they think they've made their case obviously the defense team has rested there will be no more witnesses john edwards' defense team has rested all without calling the former senator his daughter or his mistress rielle hunter to the stand his defense attorneys simply resting their now why of all things to make room for when you're not talking about the debt ceiling they choose this that's a mystery to me aren't find it's not that big of a mystery considering that it's a huge political scandal involving money thanks bribes babies it's got everything affiliations t.v. story needs but if we're going to talk legal matters let me highlight something

that didn't make the cut today something far more boring according to the mainstream media at the i direct or robert mueller testifying on the hill definitely doesn't have the excitement of the john edwards trial but in reality that's something that affects far more people in this country in their daily lives aka it's actual news and today was a bit of a hodgepodge but we got a glimpse of the f.b.i.'s priorities and they're not always pretty we were was questioned about that investigate. and that's now been launched into j.p. morgan's loss of two billion dollars and the london whale deal now into that i say good it's about time that somebody actually treats the casino style culture of wall street as a criminal enterprise that is thanks for not teaching anybody a lesson the first time around so they felt perfectly comfortable continuing their risky benteke but let's move on when asked about home grown terrorism mueller said that the threat is growing and i've said it many times before but it's about time that someone started asking the f.b.i.

if they think that it's growing because of them as in the increasing number of people whom they fund set up hatch plots for entrap that shouldn't count as homegrown terrorism increasing but of course they've got a budget to justify and last but not least mueller informed them that an investigation to find out who leaked the so-called foiled plot in yemen set up by a double agent to the press is underway now this one particularly cracks me up doesn't crack me up because i think that it's funny that perhaps yes some future clandestine activity could be in jeopardy now that everyone knows that we have moles and pete it cracks me up because this is what happens when you fuel a culture where selective leaking is completely acceptable where you prosecute whistleblowers want to go after organizations like wiki leaks and yet have unnamed officials giving out classified information all the time when it suits someone's political purposes not to mention of course the continued acceptance acceptance and i spoke about the other day about our escalation of the shadow war in yemen that's

collation that nobody really seems all that concerned about hell they're not even curious about it despite the fact that we've now seen a full second front be created where the cia is conducting drone strikes on our behalf where civilians are killed and yet they never have to answer to anyone about it because they're above the law now i could go on for days about each of these topics and in fact we normally do but the mainstream media now have they want more john edwards so he was just a great example for you of a hearing where real world effects. on our lives the lives of others abroad are being discussed and yet the mainstream media is more than happy to miss. what we've got quite a few big developments to discuss with our first guest tonight president obama has issued a veto threat to the current version of the national defense authorization act for two thousand and thirteen that's due to provisions to continue to bar the transfer of get most detainees to u.s. soil for hibbett same sex marriage ceremonies on military installations and despite

last year's budget control act it's also eight billion dollars over budget then pakistan has finally been granted an incredibly belated invitation to the nato summit in chicago that kicks off this week at a close supply route to afghanistan has been the center of the hold up and this time around pakistan wants a lot more money and then perhaps the most disturbing news of the day president obama has signed another executive order but this one has to do with yemen it would give the treasury department the author already to freeze the u.s. u.s. based assets of anybody including americans who quote and gauged in acts the directly or indirectly threaten the peace security or stability of yemen and that specifically refers to the peaceful transition of power to new president that rubble months or heidi so let's get started joining me to discuss this is michael hastings rolling stone contributing editor and author of the book the operators wild and terrifying inside story of america's war in afghanistan michael thanks for

joining us tonight and like i said we got a lot to talk about but i want to start with this executive order when it comes i think if you just point out that i'm totally unprepared i thought i was going to talk about john edwards. yet you know where you're going to be so what do you what's your take on this executive order if you ask me it's pretty broad. right i mean i think what we've seen in the case of yemen is that human rights activists journalists could be affected by this it's an expansion of the war on terror powers yet again the bush the u. obama administration did the same thing in somalia and i think for anyone in yemen who is a dissident who does not agree with the current policy there they should be very concerned well how about people right here in the u.s. to right wing that's the interesting thing is that they've included american citizens they're going to people like jeremy scahill has done a lot of reporting from yemen was talking about this on twitter today and saying he didn't realize there was an exception for americans in the first amendment when it

comes to yemen. right i think you know there was a quote in the washing post henri that that laid this out which basically said this was a to put a chill on anyone who felt that they might want to go to yemen or anyone who might want to get involved in political activities in yemen it doesn't specify just terrorism i mean it's a very broad i mean look any any good citizen should is often engaged in disrupting you know what their government what the current government wants to do you know it does that count is does germany stories amazing stories just for the nation does that count it's going to get detained next time he tries to return from yemen probably not but you never know lesser known journalist or journalist who kind of on that line between human rights activists could easily be vulnerable to this let's talk about the situation in the yemen itself right here you had a solider who was in power for decades who we supported who finally had to be out and now we have the new leader who was sally's vice president all of these years

who we like to say was democratically elected although he was the only candidate that was the actual option and you know so clearly we're going to continue propping up certain leaders because we think that it's in our interest and to our advantage but who are we to say that people in another country can't talk about not. liking the new leader not liking the transition of power well i mean who are we were the last great superpower and you know there's it's not a double standard i think people in washington see it as a double standard as a standard that applies to us and the standard that applies to the rest of the world and part of that deal it's one sided deal is that we get to tell other countries what to do and i know we've seen this for years i mean when hamas won elections in gaza and then the west and the west bank you know we said oh well we don't like democracy then you know as the muslim brotherhood takes power in egypt oh we don't actually like democracy in those cases and in fact in yemen you know a

a sort of pseudo military dictatorship suits our interests much better because a pseudo military dictatorship can cut a deal with us so we can continue our drone program there without public outrage i mean and you look at pakistan the first sort of major front in the war on terror the sort of secret cia war you know the reality is we liked it much better when it was perez musharraf the general who was in charge of things rather than having to deal with this sort of civilian government. well let's talk about pakistan then shall we so the nato summit is coming up and apparently just maybe last night finally a phone call was made extending a hand in extending an invitation to pakistan to attend considering the fact that this nato summit is all about afghanistan right all about making the decisions as to what's going to happen over the next ten years how nato allies are going to contribute if you think that pakistan should be on the list anyway. right one would

hope i don't believe i went to the last nato summit in lisbon in two thousand and ten and also i'm going to be there this weekend and you and i don't recall pakistan now having a presence in lisbon at all yet you would think you'd want the pakistanis involved considering any peace negotiation or deal any plan post two thousand and fourteen which is the deadline for when americans are going to sort of withdraw from afghanistan is going to require pakistani buy in so to speak so yeah it is funny i mean the real i mean you know also you know you had mentioned. we were talking earlier today about all the money that we're now throwing at pakistan so i'm sure that that also was it was another factor to bring them along to see this or they're part of it so they don't shut down the supply lines that are are crucial to the u.s. war effort in afghanistan why has the number is actually in that sense because for now when it comes to using their transfer route to afghanistan which is only five or six hundred miles compared to some of the other ones we use that are thousands

you know they've been charging nominal fee is now it's going to cost about a million dollars a day which annually is going to be three hundred sixty five million dollars a year and so you have to wonder if this means that pakistan is getting smart. well pakistan has been doing this all along i think we've been we've given pakistan something like seven billion dollars a lot of this is the numbers i checked when i was doing research for my book you know some like seven million dollars over the past eight years maybe it's even more than that all the while they're hiding you know osama bin laden and i bought a bod and other major al-qaeda leaders there protecting the taliban leadership in quetta which is a large city in pakistan while they're while they're taking our money that we're and i should say taking i mean we're giving it to them you know so so it is very peculiar so i think you know the calculation was made in this case that you know

that they shut down the supply lines occasionally they made their point and if we're going to keep keep them open then there's going to be a price to that i mean it's it's kind of typical kind of gangster mafia sort of business that we're in we're playing right into it wants to play become somewhat of a trend i think it's a in the relationship between pakistan and the u.s. and to that right because you would think that as are winding down the war effort it would start costing us less money and so i kind of just want a little bit of a preview from you is what you think we can expect from this nato summit because they're going to. for the pakistanis i mean they're going to squeeze every penny out of us they can in the afghans are to as long as we're there they're going to try to you know that the gravy train is ending right because once the war ends what's the justification to keep giving billions of dollars to both afghanistan pakistan so you know that's why you wonder why they're asking they're making us pay now is because you know that the gravy train might be coming to an end as for what we're going to see at nato essentially you're going to see what will be the plan to

end the war in afghanistan at least from an american perspective there's going to be a lot of talk about the numbers of afghan security forces and the quality of those forces which one should treat with some skepticism and how they're going to take over in two thousand and fourteen and that the u.s. is going to withdraw to what i was told today by administration official to be a very small footprint. small footprint as in some of the reports i've seen of her of you know it's been fifteen to twenty thousand troops maybe yeah i think so i think around less than i was expecting to speeding it would be more than that but apparently that's what they're going to be aiming for all right so now let's switch to this new n.d.a. for twenty thirteen that's currently in the works and the obama administration actually issue a veto threat to it like i mentioned part of the reasons here is because it would prohibit any same sex marriages from happening on military installations it would continue to prohibit the transfer of guantanamo detainees onto u.s. soil but also it's eight billion dollars over budget because republicans keep

thinking that we need more money for defense while we want to slash every domestic program so i don't know if the balls the move that a good thing if the president decided to issue a veto threat this time around will it's basically putting in all of these supposed weaknesses in the democratic platform into the defense bill right oh if they oppose the bill next year then they could see obama as weak on defense if he if he you know put this same sex marriage thing in the can and you know continue to use the gay rights issue as a as a wedge issue you know it's to get motion as well you know bringing terrorists to the homeland you know to the homeland is something that you know can be beneficial politically so it has nothing to do with what actually makes sense or what's good palsied has to do with what will damage the democrats the most during an election year but from the president's perspective you know while one hand i appreciate and

i think these are some of these are important causes like the allowing same sex marriage on military installations we've all been waiting a long time you know for detainees to be able to be tried in civilian courts rather than just the military commission system is a little disconcerting that he signed the last n.d.a. which included the provision for indefinite detention including american citizens which he promised not to do but then this one well that one got a veto threat initially to right so maybe it's not all that different but still. i think i think it's much easier to get away with indefinitely detaining americans than it is to prevent it to try to stop you know gay couples from being married on an installation just because there's not much of a vocal civil rights group has any real political sway but in those other but in the you know in the gay rights issue it's clearly there's a quite a vocal minority there was going to push for for their civil rights so so you know

you could see them actually going through with the veto for the because of the cultural issue in terms of like the actual like issues of one's own personal liberty and freedom and the complete erosion of the constitution i would doubt that that that is actually going to make the president veto it as we saw last time he did it you know that little stuff there some of the freedom and the erosion of the constitution while there are in fact a number of amendments and certain members of congress are trying to push to at least try to reverse some of that language or at least you know attack it down to where it can't happen to people that are detained on u.s. soil but i think it's going to be isn't that a magazine that i. like that has to be tacked on to citizens detained on u.s. soil you know i mean it's ridiculous this idea we're even talking about just sort of grabbing any american off the street and send them you know to prison for the rest their lives as something that's like a reasonable proposition seems to me quite incredible and shows how how far we've we've fallen post september eleventh yeah they have to tell the government no you

can't do that right all right michael thanks so much for joining us tonight thank you. or taking a quick break well we come back the nato summit in chicago is rapidly approaching with large occupy protests expected if the news of the h.s. spying on the movement are any indication it could get ugly. one of american power continue. on our job. might be time revolution. i mean. we were very good book. review. 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 knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. here is what i. like and they alone as though they'll get a real headline with none of them are the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and what actually matters to those viewers and so that's why young people just don't watch t.v. anymore if they want news they go online and read it but we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back in t.v. .

to the capital account i'm lauren lyster. well the nato summit in chicago is coming up this weekend reports say that bus loads of protesters are already on their way but the author already is are also gearing up chicago police to spend more than a million dollars on riot control equipment over the last few months and preparation some say that they're going to bring out the el rad a long range acoustic device as well so is this summit really going to be a violent want to some people are anticipating and what can we glean from foyer documents from the department of homeland security about their monitoring of occupy

as to how they've been preparing for chicago truthout and the partnership for civil justice fund have both received documents showing that there definitely was cordon nation and monitoring the actions of the protestors but we also have to ask if that's really what anti-terrorism funding should be used for her to discuss that with me is kevin zeese an organizer of occupy washington d.c. and co-director of it's our economy kevin thanks for joining us tonight so i want to start with these with these documents i mean overall when you think of the department of homeland security why the department of homeland security was created post nine eleven should have been monitoring. political movements like this dissent know knowing bravo to partnership for civil justice and truth are for getting these documents out what these documents really show is that more than just mongering and talking a lot of there's a recording they were in fact directing him deceiving the public they were doing white house to approve statements made with her own security that were totally false that they were not involved and deal with occupied and even the white house

is approving. anonymous statements from the media in the behind the scenes background briefing that was used all these years of through the background briefing even that was being approved by the white house also false and so you see years where the white house and more moves curity taking a lead role they were not only working with local law enforcement very closely with intelligence agencies and even the military even though the northern command which is based in colorado was kept informed and involved in this this is a way overblown reaction to peaceful protest going. we've seen this kind of you know reaction too often in peaceful movements united states now the deception everything i understand is there anything that feels really a smoking gun or really horrible or what we're just or is it really just coordination and i think that you would expect the authorities to be in touch with each other and tell them if there's something that's a nationwide happening across the country or what you see in these documents and supporting these documents or just the initial response they'll be litigation now

to try to black out lots of the pages that are blacked out so we have to get more as we get more information but even with this initial response we're seeing much more involvement than they were admitting to and so my suspicion it looks pretty clear to me keeping you know nor the northern command involved working with all these law enforcement agents both federal and state and local shows a very very coordinated effort to go out of the occupy movement if the occupiers didn't feel like they could support only because he had three chiefs of staff from wall street and he's had an economic team from wall street to put in for a wall street health care bill they did all this you know big business interests now we know the white house was involved i'm lying to the public about their involvement in trying to destroy the occupy movement that's enough reason not to vote for me well it's really interesting is especially considering the fact that the president has very much adopted the occupy rhetoric addict and the tragic party right it was after the occupy wall street movement really started gaining ground and the president suddenly shifted the conversation to inequality and now you hear

i heard senator barbara boxer on the news this morning talking about the ninety nine percent versus the one percent of course they talk about the buffett rule which is equalize the amount that the wealthiest people pay compared to the working class when you have a much more progressive tax system and what you also see in addition to the rhetoric you see fear remember how the g. eight was initially planned for cargo they've now run the camp david they close the park around camp david they have military guards around it were you know they were occupied reactor we're doing our own thing we're doing occupied if you can get involved on friday is. it is our economy dot us you can see the details so we're trying to respond to that but you could see their fear they're afraid of this and this movement in its infancy and we've made it remain independent the two parties we're going to challenge the two parties and i think chicago's me very interesting where the former chief of staff of the president has militarized the police force brought in the national guard put in place all sorts of restrictive laws is communication in conflict i know that the occupy movement and the peace movement that i've been working on developing the nato protests want to be peaceful they're

calling their protests family friendly but as you mentioned they're bringing out the sound cannon and they're bringing out the troops to really threaten us and so as we see what happens in chicago sorry sunday on monday it is one of the things that just keeps getting worse and worse every here i mean even before occupy was around i went to the g. twenty in pittsburgh just a few that was a years ago and exactly it was ugly and the entire city was on lockdown is really hard to even get to the convention center had to go through a number of check security clearances then get by on your recorder stadium that's a member of the media the media thing they had these sound cannons there get ugly towards the end of the day but why every time that they hold one of these summits it's almost as much as these summits maybe you should take it elsewhere i don't know if they did lose it well that was a solution for g eight was to run there fredricka and hide behind barbed wire and military guards but we're still going to be there but you can go back beyond that go back to ninety six the chicago convention one out of six of the protesters in

that convention we found out ten years later according to c.b.s. news from doctors they got one out of six the protesters were federal agents so there's a cargo protests and they were just watching they were active they were involved and so this kind of involvement of the military involving the police is not something that's new and on for she's going worse you mention the n.d.a. and the indefinite detention as well and now it's the trend is in the wrong direction that front but i think people are reacting now there's much more much more education on. mobilization going on i think that you can see that in chicago in frederick in response to the g eight and i think we're going to keep saying it right now so i get that we have the d.n.c. coming up the r. and c. and charlotte they passed one of those provisions as well to make it much easier for the police to actually arrest you if you have a scarf or if you have a marker they can search on that we saw the bank of america protest. at the recent sheryl's meeting they tried to make a special event where they could arrest people who recently were going to go to ordinary events in other words i guess all over the country shareholders were not

only going to the politicians we're going to the people who are behind the politicians the corporate interests so i want to ask you one more question too we've seen this week of course as j.p. morgan scandal with a lot of two billion dollars is that the thing the occupy needs right now is something that people can't ignore that so in your face it is it's a great it's a great tool for us the problem is this election year congress is nearly all do the basics they can't do anything congress is so dysfunctional right now with an election coming up is just all posturing and so we can raise the issue we can get angry about it we can protest that we can do all that but what he wants result in a dysfunctional congress on the able act even to pass budgets they can't do anything and so yes it's a great evidence of why we can't trust wall street why even supposing one of the better run things j.p. morgan can't be trusted and we need much much more serious reform of the finances much more serious than we had in the dodd frank bill much of the dori protesting we go much further than that get real control of this industry and i guess my dad

frank shows is that you can't trust congress to actually pass regulations that one hundred million loopholes in them might as there's a health care bill that you know almost everything you do is so-called would go but is it doing both dodd frank or gone what that's about the rest that question dodd frank bill passes and both dodd and frank are gone interesting turn away anything right i mean really i mean the campaign coffers didn't have quite as much money as they did they kevin thanks so much for joining us tonight on. our it's time for a quick break but on the other side of the break we'll have you said i read it and it looks like someone is finally taking the f. twenty two health issues seriously but maybe not seriously enough. let's not forget that we had in the park hard work. i think. he'd want to play.