we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back to t.v. . you don't 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.

but we all know the government functions have become increasingly privatized and the criminal justice system is no exception to this phenomenon we told you in the past about the private prison industry and how it's profited from crime from hard sentences for drug offenders juveniles and even immigrants the private prison industry knows how to stay in business. we have one hundred fifty thousand birds prisoners that they have to fill every year and they're certainly devising a lot of strategists to make sure there's. space as. well now we can add sex offenders to the industry's portfolio the american independent has uncovered how virginia plans to work with the prison company g e o to keep certain offenders detained even after their sentence has ended the company is working to acquire a contract with the state to run the virginia center for behavioral rehab rehabilitation or the c.b.r.

for short facilities special specializing in civil commitment a fancy term for involuntary detention for violent sex offenders there are originally designed for inmates who had mental health conditions but over the last few decades they've expanded to include other types of people like sex offenders predators are confined there if a special court determines them to be high risk for re-offending using a special assessment called the static ninety nine the only way these offenders can leave is based on an eventual conditional release supposedly determined by the progress made during rehabilitation but according to virginia's joint legislative audit and review commission only twenty one offenders who were treated i v c b r have been released over the past seven years so basically are prisoners who have served their time but are being held indefinitely until someone decides that they are too big of a threat sounds a little like another place this country runs guantanamo bay perhaps but anyway it's obvious why the c.b.r. is the ideal purchase for any for profit prison company but this civil confinement

has raised a few eyebrows. just to have them tried criminally so it's them to whatever length of prison time they've been set to suit a criminal case and then say well now we're going to reset the issue to civil confinement under the guise of you know this is a civil case not a criminal one but it has all the trappings of a criminal prosecution that's unconstitutional. all right now this involuntary commitment concept isn't new among twenty states including virginia have utilized this indefinite detention method for years however the civil confinement population in virginia has grown significantly since two thousand and six previously the definition of a predator was reserved for those convicted of only four specific offenses but legislation enacted that year expanded the definition to those found guilty of fourteen different types of crimes as a result the number of those in civil confinement has skyrocketed before two thousand and six the projected population of the c.b.r. in two thousand and twelve was ninety four inmates but it has ballooned to three

hundred sixty eight this is made the facilities extremely lucrative to geo criminal justice expert michelle d.h. explains quote no one is likely to want to close them down the inmates probably aren't getting out you've got the growing population feeding into these civil commitment centers i would imagine private prison companies see it as a fairly safe area for growth. but why was gio selected to run the c.b.r. well turns out the company has a habit of filling republicans campaign war chests in virginia donated more than eighty thousand dollars to state lawmakers from two thousand and three to two thousand and nine not just chump change here and they gave almost thirty thousand dollars to two g.o.p. gubernatorial candidates over the past decade jerry kilgore and bob mcdonnell both have been outspoken about extending the sentences of predators and it looks like both have succeeded but now with a profit motive the questionable b.c.b. our practices are likely to continue or perhaps become even worse because in

virginia they seem to overlook the illegality of indefinite detention and ignore the fact that it's unconstitutional but hey i guess the long as there's money to be made the lawmakers are happy and if you think about it that's a little bit of a scary thought. all right well this is the last week that congress is in session before they head out of town for their summer break or rather this summer break members of congress are always taking breaks oftentimes returning to their districts doing what they say is spending time with their constituents but is often more more often than not asking their constituents for money perhaps this is why the approval rating of congress hovers at about seventeen percent and reached an all time low of ten percent just a few months ago but i think it has to do with a few other things as well made as i do with the fact that congress doesn't really get anything done right now they're working on a flood bill and kentucky senator rand paul has decided to add an amendment which would state that life begins at the moment of conception the amendment seeks to completely prohibit abortion here's senate majority leader harry reid that response

to that. i'm told last night one of the republican senators wants to offer a member of this one. wants to offer a member on when life begins. i think there's some of the stuff that's just you know i'm i'm i'm very. much more with my republican colleagues knowing i'm in realm of amendments on issues and sometimes we even do. relevant amendments. well i can imagine he's not the only one pissed off about this here to discuss this with me as meghan carpentier the executive editor ross story meghan this is of course just one example a very recent example of congress coming seems to do this a lot how does this keep happening how do they get away with this they get away with it because the leadership in both parties wants to be able to get away with it senator reid said just now in the quote that we were listening to that sometimes he

goes along with totally non-germane amendments and some state houses in fact introducing non-germane amendments is completely not allowed and can jeopardize the bill being put into action if people are suing over it but when it comes to congress anything that's in a bill doesn't have to be relevant or only has to be as relevant as the person in charge of making sure it gets passed i mean sometimes though when we talk about you know pork pork barrel politics and stuff one time you're talking about you know senator your congressman adding in something to the transportation bill that includes a new bridge for their home state because it means jobs because it means their old bridge that people are scared to drive on you know get a new one. that's one thing you know that's that's one kind of politicking a lot of times it's compromise of how things get done but you know what happens when when congress here is trying to prevent these non-relevant amendments from getting out it well what happens especially in a situation like this is rand paul would certainly love to see life defined as

starting at conception in order to make abortion illegal he also isn't necessarily keen to see the flood insurance bill passed so he's got an amendment which would be very hard for his republican colleagues and even some of the pro life democrats in the senate to vote against and you've got. a bill that senator reid wants to pass that. then he would be forced to kill so for rand paul it's a it's a double edged sword he gets both things that he wants the bill that he doesn't want to pass doesn't pass he gets to take a vote on abortion in a year where abortion is one of the major issues and he gets his face on camera now that's a very good point i just i just wonder sometimes if people in other countries look at the way business is done here in washington and say you know for a first world you know important powerful country things are a little shady well i think it looks very different when you're coming from a parliamentary system because there isn't as much horse trading because you have a much more centralized power within the legislative branch and you don't have an

executive branch that's completely disconnected and so obviously the horse trading i imagine looks very unseemly when you come from a government where things are kind of decided in more of a consensus way and pushed along even for those of us who live in oregon washington that it's a little strange i want to get your take because meghan i know you cover the hill you cover washington tomorrow it is a i was going to say potentially but tomorrow will be a big day dipping no matter what the u.s. supreme court decides about the affordable care act about health care it's going to be huge talk to me about what you think is going to happen not necessarily predictions on what the court decides but how both sides will respond well i think it will be interesting because there is this one off possibility that the supreme court will just kick it to the next session which means they'll be deciding it in the fall you know everyone thinks that they'll decide to right now that's sort of the general consensus but the general consensus was that it would be issued last thursday and then it would be issued last monday so like with the citizens united case they can just hold it over for another term of argument that's one possibility

that i think no one to use the right or the left wants to see because that gives effectively no time to do anything to change it and before the election i think whatever happens republicans will hail whatever they get as a win and does. whatever they get is some sort of win or else it'll be completely catastrophic from both sides and people will be scrambling to find out how how it works best for them going into this august recess and catherine explain it to their constituents we saw that with the immigration bill how you know most of it was overturned but both sides sort of claimed victory ok so we talked about how congress is going on vacation at the end of this week as their last week what let's talk about what's still up in the air i think student loans this flood bill do you think they get anything accomplished this week. i think it becomes increasingly unlikely as the week goes on i mean no one is going to be more focused on what happens in the supreme court tomorrow than congress and they do have this period of time or low come back after august which gives them like all of us

a reason to procrastinate on really do anything that might be deemed controversial because they not only have to go back to their districts and fundraise they have to face their constituents and go door to door and effectively be campaigning you know and it's almost better to have nothing to campaign on what will do that in the fall done to have to campaign on or listen to something that your constituents think are wildly unpopular anything i'm just taking a look back this year up to this point i guess we're sort of a little past the halfway point that the congress had gotten done that you think has been important. i think it's not necessarily what i deem important but i think when you look at congress's approval ratings most americans can't point to anything that congress has done that's important to them in many cases and that's going to be the most difficult thing that they're going to have to answer to come august yeah they're showing these you know poll numbers for mitt romney and president obama in the forty's. congress as we showed just a few minutes ago seventeen percent approval rating this past month and that was in

february about ten percent so we've got the numbers on the screen it's just crazy to me that congress you know where do they get off that's what i want to know. megan carpentier always good to have you on the show megan is an executive editor for the raw story q thanks. all right we've got to take one last break but up next we're going to give out our tool time award and to be honest i'm surprised you haven't been the recipient before and then i'm happy you're getting ready to marry a scumbag we've got the ring just for you. out of american power. by the time. you are very well.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then a 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 is a big issue. here is what i. like and they alone as though they'll 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 in t.v. .

welcome to the capital account i'm lauren lyster. all right guys it's time to give out tonight's tool time award and it's going to be a republican congressional candidate who is such a partisan hack and even as own party embraces him alan quist is running to unseat representative tim walz a democrat representing minnesota's first congressional district second time

running for the seat after losing in the republican primary in two thousand and ten now even at the height of the tea party frenzy quest failed to win the nomination and it's probably because of his they need fundamentalism in his illustrious career as a gubernatorial candidate and minnesota state rep he's made some pretty outlandish claims he's compared to gay counseling clinic to the k.k.k. describe abortion as first degree homicide and said that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time and called women quote genetically predisposed to be subservient to men he's clearly quite the renaissance man so why does quist think he could win the republican nomination in november while it seems he has an ace up his sleeve at a town hall last request was ranting and raving against typical g.o.p. boogie men undocumented immigrants gays he then use these themes to tap into republicans newfound fears about executive power and propose a pretty divisive response to obama's executive order on immigration and his justice department's refusal as well to defend the discriminatory defense of

marriage act that was. one of the. now on this show we have expressed reservations about executive orders too but one thing we point out is that republicans tend to only have a problem with them when they are issued by democratic presidents the quiz was outspoken about education issues in the late ninety's and throughout last decade often teaming up with noted tool time honoree michele bachmann and george w. bush issued three substantial executive orders on k. through twelve education so with his concern for education then and for upholding the constitution well as he interpreted it anyway you would think that would have

called for bush's impeachment but he didn't he was too busy denouncing the a.p. and the international baccalaureate as plots to subvert minnesota's sovereignty and pushing other bizarre ideas like ensuring schools didn't become breeding grounds for had homosexual indoctrination seriously to make with proposal worse his justification for impeaching obama is pretty pathetic he doesn't mention the kill list the shadow wars or drone attacks he doesn't cite the war on whistleblowers the bypassing of congress to declare war on libya the administration's refusal to prosecute wall street fraudsters or the indefinite detention provision of the national defense authorization act these are all much more serious abuses of executive power the quickest things obama should be impeached for refusing to stop gay marriages and for halting deportations of law abiding undocumented minors perhaps that's not surprising considering that in two thousand and ten chris basically called the republicans to move past the culture war and start

a civil war check this out. every generation has had quite a fight for freedom. this is our fight. and this is our time this is yet kerrison yeah that's the big bad the big bad isn't d.c. when the radical they are liberals their radical obama pelosi wall liberals their radicals they are destroying our country. all right now given chris' history of pushing crazy ideas and his failure to win elections it's baffling that he thinks he can win the republican primary in august according to him a mother jones profile critics within the party call him a dinosaur and not just because of his unique take on natural history former republican governor already carlson who defeated quizzed by twenty points in one thousand nine hundred four didn't have many nice things to say when interviewed by the magazine he said quote a wonderful wonderful guy one of the great intellectuals

of the twenty first century caustically remark that he said he'll do a lot to improve the i.q. of congress if we can get a bachmann quiz team together they could probably take over the world talk about a dynamic duo but even though he's a pariah in his own party quest is wasting everybody's time by running and it seems the only way he can make headlines is by making insane claims which he did last week so for that and for generally being an unhinged whack job alan crist wins tonight's tool time award. joining me for happy hour tonight is the alone show senior producer jenny churchill and matt ortega a democratic consultant all right i want to start off tonight with an interesting new piece of jewelry that's out i don't know if any of you guys have any girlfriends who are sort of with the wrong guy or sort of with

a scum bag i guess you could say but i want to take you to take a look at this cheating ring that's out you see there the word i'm married is imprinted in the inner part of the ring and you can see that even if the guy takes it off it's going to be imprinted on his finger. would you wear that well if i thought that fiance of mine believed i needed such a ring i would probably be in a bad situation to begin with but i had to i was going to die. for a little bit i thought maybe it was like a spencer's gift or something like that but i realize it's actually like several hundred dollars in the u.k. . yes it's a penny i'm banned and here's the thing you know i've heard for a long time that women are more attracted to men that have wedding bands on i don't know if that's true but i hear that i want to know which women those are i don't know but that's what i hear so i think that if you have the word married imprinted on your finger that's not only saying oh i'm married and desirable but i will hook

up with you as well so i think it's even worse yet i heard about your husband cheating i don't know it's interesting i thought it was funny but let's move on. apparently the most trusted name in news is a little less trusted these days it turns out c.n.n. just had his lowest rated quarter in prime time since one thousand nine hundred one that's a twenty one year low what do you think is happening here well i mean i think if you look at what's happened in cable news in the last few years ago amisom b.c. is decide to go one direction fox news is going where they've been since the very beginning and c.n.n. kind of state that this is you know this idea that there was a centrist place to be for them and they kind of gone the same way that say americans i like the way you write they thought there was a great centrist groundswell and it is not produced form oh i think we're going to do that and i think so but unfortunately i think with c.n.n. it's like they claim to be the unbiased in the middle news source but that's not

really true so then it's just kind of uncomfortable because you're not really unbiased however you're not doing as much you're going as there are and mustn't be seen and they're not they're morally as polarized as the other not nearly as polarized but if you're not going to be completely unbiased in the middle then you're just doing a watered down less good version of what m s n b c does so why watch that i don't care i think the big thing the big takeaway for me and a lot of people i know is that it's not about whether you slant one way or another it's that you don't get talked down you know you don't get bogged down in the he said she said you know reporting apollo. i think if you find yourself as the arbiter of what is true what is not true is absolutely key and i think you know that's that's the direction they should actually look into yeah i think that's actually they get bogged down in the rat race more than anyone else they're just not choosing the side so it's like oh my god i don't care about the polls homes for hours we should i mean i think c.n.n. still kind of owns it when it comes to breaking news they still you know really cover it well but you know we should mention though c.n.n.

still is making money and it's kind of interesting that they still are but yes certainly this ratings decline of i three i think that needs to be looked into a little bit if their ratings are declining so much how are they still making the same amount of money that raises some questions for me how is that happening should your money becoming from ad revenue which is based on how many people are always you know when there's a scandal i don't know i think really silly anderson cooper did bly t. shirts i think you're. going to leave the go. to us because when you oppose absolutely what do you mean i think it's fascinating as a kid i used to look i mean i was a huge nerd carries the love watching the history channel when they would go into your phone settings and stuff like that so it's a very interesting topic but what we're going to believe in here is not do you believe in u.f.o.'s you want photos are absolutely real there's no doubt about that do you believe aliens are behind me you know you are right i mean i don't know that

i am ready and it is not the story let me not you guys there i was just wondering because i know a new national geographic study has just shown that eighty million americans are certain that u.f.o.'s exist and one in ten americans actually believes he or she has seen one take a look. do you believe that an alien is you're hardly alone according to a national geographic survey more than out sort of americans believe in extraterrestrial life forty eight percent not so sure the same poll by the way finding that one in ten americans believe that they have actually seen an alien. so how have they seen and i really i don't know if they've seen an alien have they seen the military testing a drone or whatnot maybe did they see something that they can explain yes are they possibly crazy oh maybe. republicans because they made a really question i was thinking the same exact thing especially those of oxen whose watchers they. are trying to get your own by fox nose so i would air their

own of the same umbrella i would think that would be who they'd be going through that we corrected i mean well there you go let's talk really quick about oreos in celebration of pride month oreo has come out you know the little cookie instead of little white cream on the inside they've done like a rainbow of cream you can see here in the picture but a.b.c. news has reported that this rainbow stuff cookie has parts of threats of a boycott the problem is there is no boycott there's just a facebook page and a couple people left negative comments about it well i'm sure there's a boycott now that a.b.c. news had to go and let the cat out of the bag that they were making this oreo and people are pissed oh yes but that on the boycott list well that it's an example of people reporting on something they don't understand that a lot of times working in the digital space you read articles that read like clearly these people don't know what they're talking about and you know nowadays anytime someone creates a facebook page it's in protest of something you write and organize was really just

a lot of the comments on the facebook page were very positive like hey oreo thanks for standing with gays i want to say though i might think about organizing a boycott of that oreo because i think it's promoting gay obesity which i don't think is right did you see how much icing is on our generals don't know. how anyone could fit that in their mouth and don't say anything. at all that i think is a much bigger problem for american democracy than culture and sex marriage yeah. exactly let's get to one more story really quick i think we have time apple is showing its dominance once again a judge has sided with apple that samsung gallery galaxy excuse me can no longer sell these tablets because it was infringing on apple it was too much like the apple i pad is apple going to rule the world that's what i want to know from you guys apple r.t. that is rule the world. you have and you're going to have people out there you know people out there protesting for the ninety nine percent while using their i pad smartphone so i think that that fight has already been won i just i personally

don't see the point of why they're doing this you know they have such dominance and people have a cult like love for their products myself included so i mean people are going to buy the apple products over the samsung products because they want to be cool and say i have an i pad now once when i did the others i think a lot of people just want a tablet especially older people my parents age would just rather have the tablet they don't care about the brand names but a judge in california says the company doesn't have the right to flood the market with infringing products so that's what's at stake here if it looks like an apple and smells like an apple it can't be out there unless it is an apple which can eat it so that's unfortunate. thanks so much for coming on this happy happy hour of going to do it for tonight show thanks for joining in thanks sure to come back tomorrow the supreme court will be announcing its ruling on the affordable health care act and we'll take a look at the ruling and what it means for you in the meantime don't forget to like the owner show on facebook follow us on twitter and some scribes who are you tube

channel now you can also check us out on hulu as well coming up next is the news. culture is that so much different and there's a huge percentage of the time on the mark when the downing of a term military jet by syria may prove to be the tipping point allowing nato to force regime change in damascus. there hasn't been anything yet on t.v. . it is to get the maximum political impact. before source material is what helps keep journalism honest we. we wanted to present. something else.