you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else here sees some other part of it and realize that everything is ok. i'm trying hard is a big issue. here is what i. love and they alone are so 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. .

i'm lauren lyster. well piracy and privacy wonks will soon be focused on the european union as they decide whether or not to get on board with the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement more commonly known as active now we've told you about act in the past it's an effort being pushed by the us other nations to combat piracy and intellectual copyright infringement so essentially it would love piracy and counterfeiting into

one mega agreement and then make these actions criminal rather than civil offenses act it would also hold internet service providers responsible for any website and gauging questionable activity that is if it doesn't step in and play copyright in force or now the worst part about this however though is that we the public we weren't even supposed to know about it that's right we weren't supposed to know that president obama signed this agreement in october of two thousand and eleven along with singapore south korea australia canada and japan and even though the agreement has been in the works for over six years it's all been very hush hush and we only know the majority of the details thanks to a leak from wiki leaks and the thing is that we have no idea if the version of the bill that we've even seen reflects the latest one so as you can imagine as word spread about this bill the public became enraged we even saw people rallying in warsaw poland expressing their discussed over their government drafting agreements behind closed doors and thankfully it looks like the protests in the public outcry

may have actually been working because the european parliament the group that approves e.u. intellectual property regulation they're not too fond of this agreement either see parliamentary votes are heavily influenced by the decisions of five major committees and a majority of them have already made up their minds the legal affairs civil liberties and industry committees have already announced that they're going to reject the approval now a fourth committee a development panel they have yet to decide in the last committee the trade committee well usually they vote based on the recommendations of the other four so as you can see three of them have already decided that they're opposed to act after the books the alliance of liberals and. democrats in the european parliament released a statement explaining their members opposition saying the following they said we remain supportive of multilateral efforts to protecting intellectual property rights but one is based on a sectoral approach and a transparent and publicly discussed mandate and that lack of transparency that is where we find a very curious difference between how the e.u. and the u.s.

have dealt with act at sea while the e.u. has encouraged transparency europeans have protested the lack of the public's input on such serial serious international agreements america's take it a markedly different approach not only was this agreement drafted behind closed doors with the help of george w. bush and iraq obama but they completely circumvented congress in the process their argument was that it should be considered a national security secret and second the call explained to us last year congressional approval isn't necessary. if this were a formal treaty. this would require the executive branch to sign on and it would require ratification by the u.s. senate. because this isn't something that the us needs to sign on because. in the final version our launch lee lewis tracks the text of there's nothing that the senate needs to do. well just because that's how obama saw it doesn't mean that the

rest of america agrees anything that involves an international treaty agreement or whatever you want to label it should be publicly discussed in fact senator ron wyden addressed this issue during a senate finance committee hearing. looking over our shoulder with respect to whether or not we've done something that could cause an act of party nation to sue it's my question on this point is all over the world you've got parliaments and legislators having debates the people's representatives having debates on whether or not to pass act and why shouldn't the united states senate consider something like this is. aware that your hands parents see that on the worst part is that while americans are kept in the dark media corporations pharmaceutical companies we're all in the know working with governments on the agreement that we caught a hunch when washington decided it was going to start legislating on behalf of

hollywood there anti-piracy attack dogs like the n.p.a. and are a pretty sure that american politicians knew better than to tell the world how they're making laws that benefit corporations and that's why we see people taking to the streets in europe sadly there have been many protests here over act in the us but that's mostly because it's already been signed and hardly anybody knows about it if they did then we might actually see protests like we saw and it was working its way through congress so it looks like there is a strong correlation between lack of transparency and disapproval of the intellectual property agreement which is why the e.u. probably won't be on board act when the european parliament finally votes on it in july. ok guys it's time for tonight's tool time award and tonight the award goes to north carolina republicans pervading science and ideology and putting its residents and

economy at risk see like all coastal states north carolina is researching how to prepare for rising sea levels they want to be able to predict how much the ocean will rise by in the year twenty one hundred now i know that seems like forever but it's never too early to start getting prepared so the state assembled a scientific panel to determine what north carolina should expect and this panel concluded that the atlantic should rise by three feet by the end of the century now that appears to be pretty consistent with other predictions out there the u.s. navy comes through a number of studies they concluded the global sea levels should rise a little over thirty one inches and those are just conservative estimates some experts out there are suggesting that coastal communities be prepared for way worse for example in two thousand and nine or in gilkey a duke university environmental science professor he advised the state to build infrastructure prepared for a seventy eight inch rise in sea levels by the end of the century now you would think hit think the north carolina with its fragile coastline its vulnerability to

hurricanes and they would be preparing for the worst i wonder is paper in wilmington one of the state's southern port cities they produce an animation to show what exactly might happen if it doesn't. this information shows what sea level rises of approximately two feet three feet and six feet could mean to wilmington if coastal protection measures are not put in place as one can see in each scenario more and more of wilmington is up underwater. but the thing is north carolina republicans attic are still economic development group called and see twenty they just want to shut their eyes to this inconvenient truth republican legislators have been circulating a bill that would force the coastal communities to prepare for a sea level rise of only twelve inches by twenty one hundred now how could they possibly arrive at that conclusion well. see the bill hasn't been introduced and it could be changed but here is what the drop says so far says these rates of

increasing sea level that is still only be determined using historical data and these data will be limited to the time period following the year one thousand nine hundred rates of sea level rise may be extrapolated linearly to estimate future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios of accel it accelerated rates of sea level rise so what they did only predict the future based on what had been in the past and now it's unchanging conditions i mean how absurd is that well scott hewitt he's a rally north carolina native and science writer he put it this way he said it's exactly like saying do not predict tomorrow's weather based on radar images of a hurricane swirling offshore predict the weather based on the last two weeks of fair weather with gentle breezes towards the east don't use radar barometers use the farmers out of an act and what grandpa remembers you know what that's pretty well set this denial is steady as she goes out into cairo reminds me of a joke out there about an economist on a falling airplane as engine after engine gives way he gripes about the flight's

arrival being increasingly the late finally as the last engine explodes he stands up and yells one now will be up here all night now this joke is tragically relevant here is one libertarian member of the state level rise risk management committee explained all this science prediction mumbo jumbo it's really just an attack on business and development some folks are they're passionate the just ideologically believe that development is bad in any excuse for stopping development or rolling back development along the coasts you know they're in favor of. darren he's figured out the evil plan it's clearly all just a ploy to stifle big bad business not a plan to protect the coastal economy and community in the long run not all that surprising the right wing republicans are denying science because of genius or jesus excuse me they must be denying it because of business interests and don't even think about bringing up the possibility the rising sea levels might have

anything to do with rising global temperatures climate change or the north carolina g.o.p. they might deny the water is rising at all but the evidence in this case is deniable we're talking about predictions made by numerous respected scientific institutions including the u.s. navy not exactly known for his liberal pinko views and all these studies say the same thing feed levels are going to rise by about three feet some even say more but north carolina republicans their business interests they just don't really all seem to care all that much because the the real predictions they don't fit into their short term gain model and it's not just people at the state capital level even local governments on the coast refuse to recognize the science here many of passed resolutions against sea level rise policies which is insane north carolina's beaches are magnet for tourist dollars according to the state's division of tourism film and sports development coastal communities pulled in two point eight nine billion dollars in two thousand and ten adair county alone home of the outer banks

they earned eight hundred thirty four million that year but will the tourists keep coming it's a state fails to adequately protect its picturesque beaches and they end up underwater i don't think so not of the state's shortsighted republicans have their way and while their reluctance to embrace science and logic isn't surprising well it is still inferior ating and ridiculous and not only is there in the state party a flood of complaints from around the country it also earned them tonight's tool time ward. our guys leave god one more quick break but we cannot close yet next to the fire for fireside friday and i don't have the out for the got another breastfeeding story that's making headlines. it's one of american power continue. might be revolution. and it's going to

kill or bridget. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you know. the other part of it and realize that everything. is a big. very good. luck and they alone are still you know get the 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 to t.v. . to the counseling i'm lauren lyster. to tonight's fireside fridays with your host cops. this year's election is probably going to be incredibly close bad as usual it's

probably going to be up to voters in just a few states to make all the difference that we've seen a broad attack on voting rights this year with strict voter id voter registration laws being passed in states all across the country and well they're sold as ways too. voter fraud the truth is that they serve to disenfranchise voters often those voters happen to be minorities or the elderly or the poor and if you look at the statistics the proof that voter fraud is a widespread problem only just isn't there so today let's focus on what's going on in florida specifically so earlier this week we pointed out that rick scott had an attempt to take non-citizens off of voter rolls but that attempt was filled with problems the list of more than one hundred eighty thousand people that have been compiled by looking at d.m.v. records which wasn't an accurate method well that was so riddled with issues that rick scott's former secretary of state didn't want to release and then he resigned then after his resignation rick scott went really set anyway and as you pointed out

think progress found this week that hundreds of cases already in just one county where parents were u.s. citizens have been placed on this list wrongly but there's more the florida also passed a law that greatly restricts voter registration creates large fees large penalties penalties that in fact force groups like rock the vote to shut down their operations in the state and the rules include requirements that completed voter registration forms had to be submitted within forty eight hours as opposed to the ten days they were previously allowed they also disqualified university id cards as valid voter identification and according to a study by the brennan center for justice the voting laws could make it difficult for up to five million people to vote this november now there is a ray of hope in all of this the justice department wrote a strictly worded letter to the state of florida noting that their actions may violate the voting rights act a federal judge in florida also blocked parts of the state law on voter registration arguing that it violates the first amendment and the national voter

registration act so hopefully these laws will be held up hopefully eligible voters will have their say november but we have to recognize this attack for what it is we have to acknowledge that there are states out there are republican legislatures are . it can governors that want to take the right to vote away from many americans and it's no coincidence that these restrictive measures often affect those who are more likely to vote for a democrat but the truth is that it shouldn't matter which party these voters would be in favor of this is a right that's granted us citizens to have a say in elections and in picking our country's leaders and spreading myths about rampant voter fraud to enact haphazard sloppy legislation well that's a disgrace and i pointed out earlier this week but i need to say this again i think progress deserves a lot of credit here they initially started reporting on the voter purge in florida before anybody in the mainstream media any of the top so-called liberal commentators out there even took notice and even the letter from the department of

justice it referred to news reports that alerted them to florida's stunt i don't forget this is the same state that get thousands of people from voting in the two thousand presidential election the election were at the end florida filleted a crucial role in picking the president of the united states so unless we want that to happen again unless we want thousands of voters to lose their rights we should all pay attention and spread the word because november is results will affect us all. ok finally died for happy hour and join me this evening r.t. correspondent christine for south and amanda becker staff writer at roll call newspaper covering ethics and investigations ladies thank you for joining me because i write a when there's a tornado out. under the studio that kind of freaked me out during one of our

interviews there earlier i don't know if there was a bomb going off or something but since you do is that investigative work a roll call now ok to build or burry the conference is going on here in washington d.c. this week and and this is one. those things that's been like a conspiracy theorist favorite basically that's the way it's been labeled for years and years and years and now it's like becoming a little more mainstream in the sense that people of acknowledge that it exists that it goes on but nobody really knows what goes on inside but there were some protesters out about d.c. the last two days take a look. her group of some of the most powerful and influential people in the world are meeting here in secret behind closed doors so that's why i want to be here to document the event try to. get called summation of some of the attendees that way we can have a better idea of some of the things being discussed behind closed doors and in secret. what do you say i mean

a sure i would always want to know what's going on inside of some high profile conference where you know you just have a lot of rich and powerful people well there's billionaires there's bankers there's a lot of people who are now or used to be affiliated with politics and i know a lot of the protesters outside what they're angry about is they want to have it more open they want to know what these people are meeting about inside there's all sorts of theories about you know what was decided inside of builder or got hillary clinton would become the secretary of state for president obama there's talk now and maybe we can rewind to this day in a few months but there's talk now that marco rubio is there because he's going to be the probable v.p. pick for mitt romney so it's really really interesting it's been going on since the fifty's but it has sort of evolved just in the last few years in terms of coming out of the shadows and actually being something that people know about the people that plan and are willing to discuss i don't know much about it but honestly when i saw the list of locations that it's been recent years i'm thinking of becoming a protester because they know they are a member has neither one of the protesters even went to the south so i have no fear

no location is too far here there in d.c. which is kind of like boring i'm like really you know this is going to get me to start and i did you know i didn't sell insurance or they were they were in sieges in spain which is like a full beach town i've been there and it's like it's just it's gorgeous and so. why not follow around the rich and powerful and you don't get inside you don't know what's happening but at least maybe you'll get a little bit you know that. are let's move on oh how do i even describe this story. so there is a man he died while having a threesome and basically his family has now won three million dollars in damages against his doctor because what happens is that he had gone to the doctor before and basically he told him that he had some chest pains and so the doctor was setting him up to have a stress test and then he went he had a threesome many had a heart attack and he died during the threesome but they're actually suing the

doctor for saying that he failed to warn him that he shouldn't do these things i mean really if you're having chest pains and you're probably older individual i'm just going to go ahead and guess that maybe having a threesome isn't you know isn't the safest idea if your doctor is already telling you that you have a maybe a problem with your heart yeah i mean i would say if you can't go on a two or three mile jog maybe you shouldn't be having a threesome either because it didn't work out so well for him what i think is that the family should not be getting the three million dollars the other two people involved in the three said it was a million things happen because none and then of the people involved were his wife but he did have a wife and two kids i think he was in his thirty's thirty one thirty one yeah but oh she i didn't realize he was so young i'm going to be really like yeah ok but i think of the other two people involved at least should get part of that i mean how traumatizing that's true as jenny churchill who is not on set with us right now but we were talking about this in our editorial meeting this morning and she said you know you never know when a threesome might happen and. you can't plan for these things exactly

when to take some of those things with a warning labels like when you have to say like don't live animals inside the microwave you know it's kind of like the doctor has to literally list off everything to you there like maybe don't do hyperactive things if you're having chest pains i don't know i kind of think it's b.s. personally. ok let's move on to this no the r t has this new whether it's a game basically it's an occupy wall street game or like the has been. a wall street movement and you can download it on facebook and it's a game where i think you get to go around and like occupy certain buildings the average showing it right there and. it's in the finals global excellence awards from promo x. ray which i think is actually pretty cool but there was a guy in the financial times that didn't like it so much he said the russians are coming to teach the disaffected to play games i'm guessing this is a somewhat russian thing to do since they like other people who have lived under

authoritarian governments probably needed to play all kinds of elaborate games in their heads to keep safe in the face of dangerous and depressing circumstances. i think sometimes the game is just a game yet it's a facebook. when you do it's nice but i mean there are half a million people that have signed up to use it one five hundred one hundred thousand people like it and you know you get to interact if you're there's so many people that are into the occupy movement and r.t. has certainly been covering the occupy movement you know very aggressively since the first day so it's very appropriate this is the first act that r.t. has put together and you know people can we do have an r.t. app that you know the live stream is too but the first. game but it's really interesting you know you can like interact with people on a global scale and it is only in new york. the anyone can play the game i mean that i think show location of the virtual map is only i think from when i took a look at it that's all i saw and i haven't played it yet. but i got to check it

out. ok what's our next story i'm getting all confused here with my notes ok breastfeeding. breastfeeding. what about. this photo was taken in and fairchild air force base in washington state and so these are two air national guard members and basically now people are freaking out saying the mothers are wrong be photographed in uniform i mean there's other things you can't do in uniform including apparently talking on a cell phone while walking but you can stand still keeping your hands in your pocket. i don't know what do you think i mean on one hand i am the number one biggest proponent for breastfeeding i think mothers should breastfeed their children to therefore if they want to i don't like the time that you know exactly that i'm going to be her sunday. and i think it's great when people i love the campaign however having covered the military for years i know that this is has

always been the case that you cannot wear your uniform in fact it when you travel you're not supposed to wear it unless you're going to work and you're not supposed to ever wear it you know off base you know it was worked out to the bars i know there were a couple of soldiers they got in trouble because they wore it to the bars shortly after coming back from the war and they would always get drinks fall for them people trying to say thank you but they're not supposed to do that so i mean these women should have known that but i certainly have no problem with that i just you know are they breaking the rules yes but is it for a good cause absolutely well i should be careful because i tweeted about the time magazine cover and i got you know a lot of anger sponsors about that on television but what was your take oh you know what people get so angry no i just i just kind of was like new to the cover i guess it was my general tweet if that's what you want to do fine i'm not sure i need to see it on the cover of a magazine but for this i mean it's my understanding that the powers that be weren't necessarily upset about the breastfeeding they were just saying this is one of many activities that you shouldn't be doing in your uniform including even like

traveling in uniform if it's not official travel so i say as long as it's not breast feeding specific policy. then i think it's ok. wonder what they would do if you had a woman like breast feeding a little kid that they put uniform are some really really too old yeah i don't know what. ok i got her out but. thank you for joining you think this evening and have a great weekend and that is it for tonight's show thanks for tuning in and make sure they come back on monday night welch editor in chief of reason magazine is going to be joining us and in the meantime don't forget to like the i want to show on facebook so if you get to follow us on twitter subscribe to our you tube channel and don't forget that you can also check us out on hulu so coming up next is the news. led mission and free accreditation free zones for charges free arrangements free risk free. to tide free.

download free blog clothing video for your media projects and free media. tom. download the official location. called touch from the. life on the go. video on demand. blindfold comes an r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the dot com you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

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