a way. tonight on r t u.s. lawmakers playing a game of political hot potato with iran on one side of the aisle accusing the other of sympathizing with the so-called rogue nation already the latest example and ask what this fingerpointing really achieve. plus it's one small step for the u.s. one huge opportunity for china despite the mars rover landing nasa is taking a backseat in space exploration while china aims for the stars is this the makings of a great space race. and nasa isn't the only one taking a backseat for so many who are struggling to find a way out of the economic ruin there seems to be no end in sight with those elected to help not even addressing the problem coming up we'll show you how the big disk

big the disconnect is between congress and the people they claim to represent. the washington pro post broke a big story today it turns out after serving as president obama's two thousand and eight campaign manager david plouffe accepted a one hundred thousand dollars seeking fee from a company that does business with the government of iran the company is a subsidiary of the m.t.n. group a south africa based telecommunications company and the article states that pluff was paid for two speeches he made in nigeria in december two thousand and ten it also goes on to suggest that although he did nothing that was illegal for a close the obama aide to have accepted payment from a company involved in iran could prove troublesome for the president as the white house toughens its stance toward the islamic republic. iran of course one of the

biggest chiefs boogie mans in this presidential campaign with governor romney just back from a trip to israel in which he pledged the utmost support and here he is a couple months ago at a campaign event also criticizing the president for his lack of action against iran this is a president who has failed to put in place crippling sanctions against iran he's also failed to communicate that military options are on the table and fact in our hand and that it's unacceptable to america for iran to have a nuclear weapon. so how big of a smoking gun is this really i'm joined now by just by jim all of the policy director for the national iranian american council and jamal let's talk about this i mean to what extent do you think this is actually troublesome well it is troublesome for the obama campaign and i i hope that the irony is not lost on people that this is a president who's being criticized by mitt romney for being too soft on iran and yet he's passed the strongest iran sanctions the strongest nations frankly that's

ever been imposed on any company in any country and they're so broad that his own top political adviser is now being ensnared in the same sions so either the sanctions are too broad and are having a counterproductive effect. you know or this president has actually been pretty tough on iran to the extent that even his own guys are now being sucked up in this in this nonsense again under this current round of sanctions i mean wouldn't david plus be interactive violation of some of what the obama administration put out there well the thing is that this company that he spoke for is a subsidiary of a larger company the largest telecom companies in africa m.t.n. he spoke for nigeria in subsidiary of that company made of the chinese are actually sanctioned at this time now there's a lot of talk that they will be sanctioned in the future because pretty much if you're doing business inside of iran there's going to be a way to connect you to a sanctioned entity that's just the way it is right now and so the fact of the

matter is in the near future he may actually have spoken for a company that is going to be sanctioned retroactively the doesn't necessarily make sense and you use. the word i you know it's ironic or whatever here but you know there are countless examples i think the biggest thing for me is that this is not that out of the ordinary there are countless examples of lobbying firms here in washington you know that work with countries believed to be you know quote unquote. anime's of the united states there's also richard perle who worked both under president ronald reagan and under president george w. bush this is a man who made a least a couple trips to libya to to have many meetings with colonel michael duffy and i want to show you just really quickly how this story was poetry portrayed by at least one of the mainstream outlets here in the u.s. . a shocking report this morning you know obama's senior adviser cashing and on doing business with the firm

a link to iran his government so why is this so shocking look there a few months ago it was the democratic congressional campaign committee that was hitting the koch brothers for their millions of dollars of investments in iran's petro chemical industry which is now sanctioned. just a few years prior this actually this whole incident reminds me of in two thousand and seven when mitt romney was on the campaign trail the first time he was writing these public letters to folks like then senator clinton and other senators and governors calling for them to divest from iran well then it came out that bain and co actually had invested in the ron's oil company and actually was working on a strategy to make that and i.o.c. which is now sanctioned to make them the largest oil company in the world and so this sort of this is this is i think campaigns playing with fire because these sanctions are sucking everybody into into them there's they're so broad that there are very few folks who actually you can't find six degrees of separation between

them and in the iranian government it really is a small world after all what about him all the fact that for every rule there seem to be a lot of exceptions i know i recently interviewed california congressman dana rohrabacher about the fact that china has been given a waiver has one of the few corners and given a waiver you know even though china does still import oil from iran i want to play what he said when i asked him about this. it is a horrible double standard that we have. we have heaped on russia all kinds of requirements and restrictions and mandates if they're going to get anything even if it's the repeal of jaxon van eyck which would have been twenty years ago which left most favored nation status while china has had no liberalization at all and russia has had enormous liberalization their churches are pulled out and you you have opposition groups in opposition papers in russia nothing like that in china

whatsoever. you know if it is so let's not focus on china let's just focus on the fact that even when the u.s. makes rules regarding iran there are always exceptions to those rules. look the hip pocket see here right now is that level eleven because for instance even mr obama himself is somebody who if you look into his campaign donations is taking money from a designated foreign terrorist group the m e k which is an iranian exile group that is dedicated to overthrowing the iranian government but relies on terror to accomplish its goals mr obama here is one of a number of officials including officials working for the romney campaign who is taking the same speaker's fees from this group from a group that is designated a terrorist group in order to advance their political agenda and at the end of the day it's money that's driving these things it's politics it's you know with the any case sample it's not getting the same type of scrutiny because this is an organization that supposedly wants to overthrow the iranian government and because

of that because iran is this bogeyman the enemy of our enemy is our friend so somebody like dana rohrbacher can go ahead and speak for a terror group like that was my last question really i mean when we talk about this bogeyman of iran this is nothing if ron has been you know kind of the bad guy for not years but decades here so our presidents our lawmakers simply passing the buck when it comes to actually dealing with iran i think so i think that this is really an example of how the sanctions have been. an excuse to not actually resolve the tough problems that we do have with iran and to make the tough decisions that need to be made such as actually pursuing a serious engagement and diplomatic strategy in lieu of making those tough decisions we've relied. pretty much exclusively on sanctions and now for the obama administration and campaign the chickens are sort of coming home to roost in that they themselves are now getting swept up in the politicization of our foreign

policy and in the sort of fetishization of the sanctions against iran seems to be a never ending process here always good to have your insight jim a lot of the policy director for the national iranian american council thanks thank you. let's talk now about syria where heavy fighting is reported in the commercial capital aleppo over the weekend government reportedly amassed tens of thousands of troops and columns of tanks around the city meanwhile the government's already pushed the last rebel forces from the capital damascus after three weeks of fighting there as both sides rally reinforcements large numbers of al qaeda linked fire fighters are reportedly bolstering the opposition's ranks and these groups are being supported by the u.s. despite those extreme views they have a guy in a chicken reports. has infiltrated into the syrian opposition forces and his power there is growing i spoke with one of america's leading experts on counterterrorism and he told me that all kind of is effectively exploited the revolutions in the

region they're well armed having looted cut off his arms stockpile and they're now taking advantage of the crisis in syria six months from now they could be. a major force in the opposition hope blocky force. concerns about the growing al qaeda presence in syria are well echoed here in washington but right now if you use more as an argument to justify your foreign intervention the reality is that the u.s. has already intervened to this just come to light that president obama reportedly signed a secret order earlier this year authorizing the cia and other agencies to provide support to the rebels in syria but there was no information on the extent and the receipt of that support reports on the ground show that various extremist groups are doing the fighting al qaida in turn brought in a wave of suicide bombings german intelligence has attributed to these ninety terror attacks. syria since december most recently i went to a senate hearing on syria and the sense that i got was that there is there still is

no fool understanding of who the syrian opposition forces consist of but nonetheless there is fighting that could tie to provide them with weapons whether overtly or covertly that's another matter of discussion what we need to do is assess ok which groups could we arm and should we arm at what point and make that decision and i think that we're actually at that decision a u.s. group that supports the free syrian army has received a waiver from the u.s. treasury department authorizing it to provide financial and logistical support to the armed rebels in syria it's called the syrian support group based in this building in downtown washington they just moved day and it's the building is just being renovated so the money will be channeled to the syrian rebels through this route how much money and how it will be distributed those questions remain unanswered. the chance to ask the group about details of this newly opened support channel because they never return our calls i want to go back to the senate hearing that i attended the experts invited to testify were asked about what the direct

u.s. interest is in the fall of saddam this would be a decisive blow for the islamic republic of iran i can't emphasize that enough and i think that is in our interests to roll back iranian influence where we find it to be more effective i think to put the uranium threat in some perspective and reduce its pressure on israel to slip syria in this urge to syria if you will the u.s. may be helping those who never wanted a peaceful solution for syria in the first place and one of the elements of the forces. which thrives in a civil war environment in washington i'm going to shut down. when it comes to space exploration by the united states things have been slowing down significantly in the last few decades and doesn't the last few years we've watched for example the shuttle program disappear entirely and funding for nasa cut exponentially now the news is not all bad we did just get news that nasa is rover curiosity

successfully landed on mars earlier today on a mission to better explore the red planet but projects like this are difficult and even though the u.s. still spends the most money another country is looking to compete china is spending more and more money on space exploration and even is planning a mission to the moon by the second half of next year if they make it they're likely to see a few things left on the moon by americans five out of six american flags that still stand on the moon some crashed space probes are also there and even some golf balls hit by apollo fourteen astronaut alan shepard but folks on a more serious note are we entering a new age with a space race the u.s. may not be able to win this time around joining me now is philip plait astronomer and blogger at the bad astronomer hey there philip i know we saw the much needed success by nasa last night but do you think this marks a much needed fresh start. well there's a lot of stuff going on in space right now in the us is not the only one doing it

that's something to be aware of the let me of curiosity last night was amazing it was incredibly complex mission that went off without a hitch and there are a lot of ways it could've gone wrong so that shows very clearly that nasa is still doing what it does best the problem of course is that they're being government cutbacks and it's funding at the same time though we have private industry coming in and building rockets which are also having successful missions so there's kind of a weird dichotomy going on there in the meantime as you said china is looking toward the moon and that's something we should be aware of and you said are we coming into a new space race well maybe you know what i really hope or not because i don't like the idea of racing other countries because that tends to. tends to make people rush to do something and then forget about it when it's done i'd rather be in this for the long haul so that we had a permanent presence in space but you know as far as

a race that was also a competition and a competition that growth that drove countries to develop of course before it was between the u.s. and russia russia now and a lot of cases a sort of our chauffeurs these days i know that our international space station the u.s. international space station sort of writes this and not that long less than ten years and twenty twenty and china's hoping to get to get in on that i mean do you think that this could bring back a new drive to develop. i hope so i just hope it's done in the right way we need to invest in space because when we do it at the very bottom line we get a lot of money back apollo was paid itself off in innovation and technology long time ago despite the vast amount of money we put in it and space exploration always pays off even if you don't know exactly what part of it will come back and make you more money right out like you said russia is the only way we can get into space as

far as astronauts go although just announced that three different companies are going to be sponsored by nasa with grants to bring humans back into space by around twenty fifteen so right now there's a lot of there's a lot of your pulling a lot of running a government so i suspect by twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen we're to see the dawn of a new space there now when we talk about china kind of pouring more money into this and they're also planning to go to the moon now the u.s. of course has been there already they're planning to go there in the next year or so do you think this is announcement is simply. step one in a much more involved process that they're preparing for. sure. the chinese have not really been boasting that much they've been saying you know we're going to do this and then next thing they've done it so their space program is for real and they're doing what they're claiming going to the moon first with the orbiters and landers is

a prelude to landing there and with with people with america when they're in the ninety's sixty's and early one nine hundred seventy s. but we abandoned it we didn't go there with the idea to stay we went there with an idea to beat the soviet union well we did and we have been back it was far as humans go and china is not stupid you know they're doing this they feel that there's a reason to do this and the reason to do this is in the spirit of exploration but also because there's a lot of stuff you can do on the moon as far as natural resources and just having a presence in space and it's something other countries america russia and the other should be taking seriously yeah you know i interviewed a california congressman dana rohrabacher a few days ago and i asked him you know just kind of focusing on this relationship with china on one hand of course china has helped the u.s. significantly when the u.s. gets into some financial trouble that on the other hand china is often seen as you know our number one competitor so i want to play a really quick a hell of his response. we have built china into

a major economic power without demanding any type of political reforms we've given the most favored nation status one with free trade we permitted them to steal our technology they get away with murder quite literally economically or figuratively economically but quite literally. you know in reality when they're murdering dissidents and taking the people religious dissenters like the falun gong and throwing them in the present so what we've got is we created a monster what was a very weak country before we have permitted. them to build man into a massive economic power so i guess well my question for you is is this a drive by the chinese to space just simply another example of them sort of you know catching up. well they are coaching but they're also surpassing us in many ways that they have actually the capability to put humans in space and they do have

the capability to go to the america probably will again if the nasa rocket program doesn't get off the ground literally or figuratively a space x. and other companies are building large rockets to do that and yes you don't you're into i know a lot of issues which i know as a government i mean every one of the issues of the united states government to do so i'd rather see us cooperating in doing this in a friendly manner than in any sort of space race or competition yeah i think that's a really good point too that we shouldn't forget about companies like space x. and some of those companies developing space on a more commercial basis a lot going on there and it is really interesting to follow good to have you on the show philip plait astronomer and blogger at the bad astronomer well both republicans and democrats in congress say they want to focus on jobs and the economy and u.s. lawmakers have gone home on their summer recess is and many of them are at home in their districts saying that very thing at this very moment and yet what about

action so little action has actually been taken during the last couple of years the action that we do see often revolves around trying to lower the debt and you know quote take the burden off of our children trying to lower the unemployment rate though what actions have lawmakers done to deal with that so does the majority of congress actually care about this nicholas carnes as an assistant professor of public policy at duke university and dr krauss i know you've been working on a book about this very topic how you know those elected to represent people aren't always that representative what have you discovered. well thanks so much for having me what my research shows is that you're absolutely right all titians tend to be drawn overwhelmingly from the most affluent americans and people who are the working class are almost never the ones making the rules that govern working class people and that has real consequences for public policy and for the well being of americans from all walks of life so you have

a you know extreme lack of working class people actually coming here to capitol hill to represent people so that means a lot of times i think what you're saying is that some of the policy created actually serves the upper class more than some of the other groups that how does this work i mean how do these people keep getting reelected then wallah those are those are two really interesting questions the first one so basically yes if millionaires were a political party that party would make up about three percent of american families but it would have majority control of the u.s. senate and people from the working class are manual labor jobs for service industry jobs if they were already they would make up a majority of the electorate but they would never had more than two percent of the seats in congress at any time in the last century why does it matter while people from different classes tend to have different opinions about the government's role in the economy if you look at the minimum wage for instance on average somebody who works a minimum wage job is going to support

a higher minimum wage than the person who is signing their paychecks. that works the same way across lots of different economic issues tax policy and social safety net and it works the same way for politicians as it does for the rest of us politicians from the working class tend to be more supportive aussies that help working class people unemployment insurance progressive taxes and politicians from a white collar private sector backgrounds and to be less support of those policies and so at the end of the day the kinds of economic policies our government act really reflect the on. occupational of the social class congress is tilted as it is that means of the working class people who care about the working class choose to nail it as an option yes certainly in order to become elected to any office these days even you know local more local you know city council members seem to have to raise a lot of money and they're not going to be able to raise a lot of money from those people with minimum wage jobs you were talking about some

numbers there i want to take a look at some numbers compiled by the pew research center that shows sort of just how a representative of congress actually is. we have it you know education with people with bachelor's degrees or higher ninety two percent of house members ninety nine percent of senators and thirty even though it's only thirty percent of americans over twenty five years old some other numbers that we have here too when it comes to wealth the net worth is over one million nearly forty seven percent of congress and only nine percent of u.s. households you know some really interesting things and then of course something that's very apparent and that is gender sixteen point eight percent of congress is female even though more than fifty percent of the total u.s. population is female and of course that is very similar with race eight percent of congress is african-american thirteen percent of the u.s. population is five percent of congress is hispanic sixteen percent of the

population is and three percent of congress is asian pacific american versus five point two percent so if you look there and you see just some really big differences between the makeup of congress both in how they look and the socioeconomic backgrounds and how that differs i guess i just want to ask you i mean you know getting back to my other question you know how do these people keep getting reelected. well school you're absolutely right to sort of color and statistics all those things matter legislators from different. different classes vote differently men and women in our legislatures vote differently racial ethnic minorities and in congress vote differently the white numbers all those things are important the question of why those inequalities exist why there are so few women why they're so your racial minorities why they're so if you're working class people or whole causes is sort of one of the from sears research best practice work right now

and that's still a question mark for scientists it could be that for instance working class people as some people often say voters just don't like working class people but in my research i shouldn't actually voters really like working class people but for some reason they are making it to the general election so what's keeping them out is that money probably that's probably huge part but even before money was as important politics as it is today go back to one thousand no one in congress was still less than two percent working class like it is today so there's something else about our process that makes it really hard for a working class equal to break into u.s. politics and that's what i hope to find out in my research and it's yours yeah and you know it's really interesting one of our producers actually took some time to reach out to her congressman mike coffman from the sixth district of colorado she said that you know she's from littleton colorado and she wanted to discuss the unemployment issue here and asked them simply what he and his fellow members of congress have been doing to address this issue. asking what steps have been taken

in both the immediate future and the long term to bring the unemployment numbers down and was wondering if anything will actually be resolved congress of course on vacation right now for the next four or five weeks we we haven't heard back she hasn't heard back from her congressman but we're going to keep our viewers posted better about yes that's my final question we're almost out of time but having any. will this pattern change it's a lot of laughs something else changes. one of the things we know is that this is one of the oldest and most widespread features or process you can look at any local government you can look at any theory american history and they're all of the working class people at the table in our political institutions that has real consequences for all of and their organizations try to change it there's also you know you know new jersey runs a candidate school for working people all right let's think it's less those things take off we're going to look at more of the same millionaires already it's going to

stay in power dr nicholas carr is assistant professor of public policy at duke university well here at r.t. we often talk about how wasteful the u.s. government can be when it comes to spending on the military recently we told you about the two hundred million dollars used for the iraqi police to bella development program a u.s. government funded program that was highly criticized by government officials both in iraq and here in the u.s. in regards to wasteful spending but this is hardly the first time the government has made big investments with a little return take the case of the three shadow this vessel while boasting some of the most advanced stealth technology on the planet it was never actually use for any operational purposes it was never reproduced and eventually ended up in the navy's fleet near been sci california after trying unsuccessfully to give this the shadow away to a museum and he decided earlier this year to sell it for its scrap value alone built in one thousand nine hundred four by lockheed martin it cost the united states fifty million dollars but was sold for scrap to the highest bidder this past

week for a fraction of that two point five million dollars. on a more recent purchase virginia base huntington ingles was recently approved for a project to build yet another landing platform dock ship despite the defense department's director of evaluation suggesting that the ship's critical systems are not reliable the price out at one point five billion dollars the pentagon purchased one more of these war zones anyway adding to the eleven that have already entered service since financial support from the us for building projects in afghanistan and iraq peaked in two thousand and ten there are countless reports of rampant waste here's a few examples one hundred million dollar water treatment system in fallujah that has cost three times more than initially projected only serving a fraction of the people initially it was intended for now waste is also easily spotted in the form of abandoned projects all over iraq that includes a forty million dollars prison built for thirty six hundred inmates instead that

sits empty in the desert north of baghdad there was also that one hundred sixty five million dollars children's hospital and that also goes unused in the south now in recent weeks we've heard talks and headlines about the department of defense being forced to make cuts to defense spending so what does this mean now perhaps could it be possible that the days of military waste could be coming to an end well probably not and the reason is although former secretary of defense robert gates made efforts to reduce wasteful spending it is ultimately up to congress to approve a budget and with powerful corporations operating in the districts of many lawmakers well the interests of government contractors weigh heavily on budget decisions after all government contractors are the ones who stand to profit from all this waste. well that's going to do it for this evening but for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america you can.