a day. today on r t they are the few and the proud but one former marine isn't exactly pleased with his government he took his complaints to facebook and was detained for doing it will speak to the marines' attorney. you know the saying rules are meant to be broken that's not exactly accurate in fact an increasing number of d.c. elites are helping make the rules then switching to the private companies to bank off those rules will tell you about the revolving door between the public and private sector. and waste not want not that would be a wonderful mantra for the american food industry turns out forty percent of u.s. food is wasted each year while one in five americans goes hungry so what's with this disparity.

it's thursday august twenty third six pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r t. we begin this hour with a former marine who was detained at a psychiatric ward for his facebook post today a judge ordered the release of twenty six year old brandon routh you see there he was sent away for posting anti government messages on his facebook page the police and f.b.i. raided his home in virginia mid august and interrogated him about his online activity he was later transported to a psych ward against his will but a judge today said there is no basis to hold him at the psych ward so why was he ever detained in the first place earlier i was joined by john white you had an attorney for the former marine and got his reaction to the judge's order take a listen well we were. actually

a bit surprised that the system is very difficult to navigate civil commitments were i would have been here last week last thursday. he's driving his driveway and in front of his house he was out on the front porch he only had a shorts on and started talking said what's up guys i said you post is the controversial things on your facebook page while he was trying to explain itself they surround her name and then went ahead and handcuffed him and let him get away with him in police car i said what's the crime is that you really committed a crime or not charging with a crime and they're not going to charge him with a crime it was this facebook post they took into a psychiatric ward and the other fifteen minute psychological examination had a hearing monday and the special justice who's a lawyer rule that he knew the thirty or thirty days of to be in the hospital for evaluation and so we have to feel that a judge today a circuit judge ruled that there was really no factual basis you said for the keeping the psychiatric or what happened was he was playing

a game on facebook essentially private grouping his brother and his sister and they were quoting song lyrics from a root cultural members i never listen to the group i read the lyrics some of because that are violent lyrics but you know the beatles had a role in. mind but anyway so that was the basis because free speech. and by the way they couldn't get a search warrant because he didn't commit a crime and so the search is on they will they will realize he owns the weapon ok can you john describe more the nature facebook post that started that controversy i read posts were interpreted as terrorist or is there anything that you saw that you posted that fits that description. well one of the one of the callers was up your right to start my act but you gotta understand he was talking to his brother and sister in a gang called mr illuminati it was a game ever play and somehow the government got down low and that and again as

authorized to go to rather for a dot org i write articles on surveillance the private corporations are giving over authorized the permission to the police so anything you do on facebook is got to go to the police we know that but they conduct surveillance and that's what happened but he targeted no one he's a decorated marine we've been to iraq afghanistan and he's a combat engineer so he owns two businesses in richmond virginia he's a upstanding man is community a decorated marine he owns the weapons so it is hard to know what he eats uncertain about the government he's a ron paul libertarian did he have any violent history none he's never seen a psychotic or he's never been on drugs the only time he's ever seen a psychotic this is when they put him in the snow institution last thursday so then why was he the tane in the first place i mean what basis was there to justify him being sent to a psychiatric ward all we know is that facebook post they said some people complained about five people is what they listed at the hearing monday and people

basically he didn't know except for one person so what this means is if it happened anybody i mean there are twenty thousand civil commitment to virginia alone each year so what happened here and it was really key and really important is mother went on facebook and started talking about this case in my son's been taken away as someone contacted us and we provided little advance most people never get that so they disappeared and these institutions that was this the norm i mean does this happen often that a former marine will be sent to a psychiatric ward for saying things like this or is this unprecedented i said look there are about twenty thousand of these civil commitment to are genuine loan each year but what happened the the other night the veterans groups cons. i could make a cross because koreans said their routine either getting complaints divestments you have come back from afghanistan or iraq the f.b.i. and investigating them because of the political views you know if you remember a couple years ago the department all s.q.r.t.

issued two memos a left wing and right wing extremism in the right wing extremism best rooms were listed as threats to america so there seems to be this idea that friends are some kind of threat that it's a little unnerving if you're in the veterans groups are very very upset seems a little bit ironic that that's what specifically be considered a threat considering they had once thought are some of them had once fought to defend the country. here's the point i've been telling constitutional cases for forty years i said this is the first one to give me the creeps they say to not charge the man with a crime they just take them up to arrest him and took him away not a crime i know that you had said before that this is an attack on his first amendment rights do you think do marines are former marines have some kind of special obligation to censor what they say or what they post on line i don't think anybody in america has has a duty to do that i think if you're concerned about your government and he is he

should speak out the other right the thing is he people like this because most americans don't do it they're too busy watching sporting events or whatever they're doing this guy here is concerned this country needs speaking out and i got him in trouble but again i said question is this america do we still have a person memorize if a judge today said we do. john what what is next for your client there we're talking to brandon and his mother right now about a possible civil lawsuit against the government for damages they put him through they put this man through hell. that was attorney john whitehead. well this week we've been reporting on the number of u.s. service members killed in the war in afghanistan that number has topped two thousand this fact has virtually been ignored by the mainstream media but they're not the only ones remaining silent about the war four years ago senator barack obama and senator john mccain both laid out plans for ramping up and then winding down the wars in iraq and afghanistan well fast forward today to two thousand and

twelve and now president obama and mitt romney are locked in a close battle and the war in afghanistan doesn't seem to be on their radar today at the white house press briefing r.t. correspondent christine for that was called on here's her question about the war in afghanistan. technicolor stanley even talked a lot about education part of the we have lots of down to the next four years for the war in afghanistan it's like if you want to have two part question first of all what do you plan for the next four years and second of all there's the challenge that the reason that has to start because governor romney has essentially three. so i can't speak for governor romney i think that he has been critical of what the president has made very explicit is his strategy and his policy in afghanistan which is having. having kept his promise to end the war in iraq and bring our

troops home. he has refocused he refocused attention on the effort in afghanistan which after all. we entered u.s. troops entered because of the attacks on the united states on september eleventh two thousand and one he refocused attention he plussed up our forces there he developed a strategy that made clear that our number one priority the reason why we are in afghanistan is because of al qaida and that our number one objective. for our mission in afghanistan is to disrupt dismantle and ultimately defeat al qaeda. a white house spokesman jay carney answering the question providing information about the objectives and afghanistan but very few details about the actual plan for the u.s. moving forward. but it's a new government agency aimed at protecting consumers the consumer finance protection bureau has done some good for citizens reaching multimillion dollar settlements between credit card companies and wronged customers but it also turns

out the c f p b as part of this revolving door that's constantly turning between government and the private sector one of their top guys leonard chan is leaving the agency to go back to a corporate law firm so is this just another example of the cozy ties between corporations and the government to discuss joining me now is our taylor a financial policy advocate at public citizen welcome bart so i mean how would you define this revolving door. well the revolving door as is commonly understood is the habit industry regulators government officials going through that door back into the private sector where they appeal for various contributions or regulatory laxity or regulatory favors from the agencies that they just served and how common would you say those practices it's so

common that it's almost like gravity public citizen counted for example in two thousand and nine that there were nine hundred government officials mostly former staffers for congress or regulatory agencies that were lobbying during the congressional debate over reforming wall street. wow that is quite a large number and want to give a couple specific notable examples here dick cheney is the first one he is the chief of staff for president ford he was also i don't want to also point out that the ones in blue are their public posts the ones in red are their positions held in the private sector dick cheney as i mentioned chief of staff for president ford he was also president bush's senior secretary of defense a public policy research senior fellow back in one thousand nine hundred four he was the c.e.o. of halliburton and he was also vice president for george bush jr and our next

example there was jake steward he held several positions in the clinton ministration the vice president of business development at alcoa the counselor to u.s. treasury treasury secretary and he was also the managing director and global head of corporate communications at goldman sachs from two thousand and twelve and he's still still in that position and we have meredith attwell baker she was a legislative affairs she was at the legislative affairs office of the state department back in one thousand nine hundred eighty also the director of program congressional affairs a cellular telecommunications industry association and she goes on there to a few more positions and interesting here for months after voting for comcast this the contacts and b.c. a merger baker accepted a job at comcast so bars a want to ask you why become part of a government agency if your intent is to go back to the private sector anyways.

money is the most obvious explanation one unfortunately. the nine. begin with a federal agency you do finish law school or business school you work for a federal agency and then you go to work for the private sector that. sex was overseen by that agency you'll make two to three times as much in that agency. for example one of the higher salaries that you could get at the securities and exchange commission if you were almost the senior head of the head of enforcement about one hundred sixty thousand dollars a year that by the way is what a starving warrior will get if she graduates from harvard law school one of the prominent firms so the lower of money is certainly there but the permission is problem. currying favor with that future employer or advantage in your

knowledge of how the agency works for that future employer certainly is is a problem that is a problem for public policy cannot i'm going to have more about that how this revolving door does affect public policy well. we see it focused mostly on the on the banking business and there are are two dynamics that have led to was in effect regulatory capture and if i can just step back for a second the wall street crash of two thousand and eight happened in part because our laws were deficient but almost as much because the regulators using the laws that existed were not zealous enough why weren't these that was enough and the true possibilities are that they were. the one explanation is that they were captured by industry why because they were essentially going to work for industry later and or they come from industry and then when we call the stockholm syndrome namely that

their exposure the regulators exposure is ninety nine percent to other bankers they get to see us the consumer side very very little and they begin to speak and think like industry data point there are roughly five thousand banking lobbyist if you add in real estate insurance there are thirteen thousand lobbyists for the banking sector up mo. of whom came from regulatory agencies we are out numbered one hundred fifty one there are only a couple of dozen people such as myself that are going on appealing to these regulatory agencies from the other side so i i see firsthand when we go into the research regulatory agencies it's almost as if i'm talking to bankers when i'm talking to some of these regulators you know and the argument that is made time and time again that you know the these corporate insiders these kind of these higher up bankers that they're the only ones with this extensive knowledge to be able to

understand and therefore regulate the financial sector what do you think about that argument that we hear well unfortunately as banking has become complex the ability to retain the mit ph d. rocket scientists that will know the complex derivatives is somewhat limited by how much you can pay them so it it's it's not unfortunately untrue that that's the concentration of expertise fortunately there are some people with what i would call a good conscience that work on our site they do have the ph d.'s from mit and they are rocket scientists that are helping us to amass the data and and combat industries certainly it's self-serving arguments but there is a. problematic mismatch in information is that industry has the data they have the firepower to hire and pay for any consultant they want and we are we are really

limited by resources wall street spends roughly one point eight million dollars a day lobbying and that's not just opening and closing doors and so forth that's producing reports and so we are we are very much outgunned on paper. and we are seeing the effects of this and the huge amount of corporate dollars being spent going towards lobbying. baard haven't gone too far and what can we do to get this revolving door to stop spending yes well. the obama administration has a two year lobbying ban if you are appointed by the president you cannot come back and lobby a white house agency and that's good if the marriage shapiro leaves her chair at the f.c.c. she can't lobby the c.c. but that doesn't stop the dozens of others of as you see regulators from going to morrison for store or one of the law firms and coming right back and making a telephone call to the f.c.c.

and again it is as you know there is what there is beneath the broad public policy is actually how the sausage is made in the agency and they enjoy these former agency workers enjoying such an advantage in knowing just who to call what argument to make where to make the argument how to how to throw in a wrench into just the right gear very easily and so a ban on this. would be would be desirable ok so a ban on those basically are saying we need stricter regulations to prevent this from happening i think some of our oversight yes if you leave an agency you can't communicate with the agency for a certain time i mean that would require an act of congress the president can simply do this by himself very interesting barr thank you so much for coming on the show and weighing and that was bar naylor a financial policy advocate at public that if that. still ahead here on our it's here we all know the u.s. loves good food that much is clear from america's expanding waistline but it turns

out forty percent of u.s. food is wasted each year so why bad is one in five americans begging for scraps that story ahead.

a client of american power continues. things in our country so bad that might actually be time for a revolution. and it turns out that a popular drink of starbucks has a surprising in radio. the

capital account. is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made can you trust no one. with the global

machinery see where we had a state controlled capital score. when nobody dares to ask we do r t question more. you might have heard of this story recently according to a study by the natural resources defense council forty percent of the food in the us goes to waste alarming to say the least but even more so when you take another shocking bit of information into account the latest survey from gallup states one in five americans can't afford food so forty percent of food goes into the trash while one in five americans go hungry how is this possible and what can be done to get this disc. food to the people that really need it all social luzzi policy analyst for the natural resources defense council joins us now he's also a contributor she excuse me is a contributor to the and our d.c. blog switchboard hi there syesha so alarming information you guys put out there

america has always been known as a land of plenty but considering the economic times that we're in today you know people trying to do more with less what do you make of this statistic well that's right liz thanks so much for having me on so right now i mean imagine you go to the grocery store and you leave with three big bags of groceries and you just drop one in the parking lot and never bother to stop and pick it up it sounds pretty ridiculous but that's essentially what's happening in america today and that's taking a big toll in our economy it's costing americans one hundred sixty five billion dollars every year in food that just goes right into the garbage for the average american family that's more than two thousand two hundred dollars every year and so at a time when a lot of americans are watching their own budgets it's tough to believe that every month they're they're throwing one hundred fifty dollars in into the garbage maybe

maybe unknowingly. really interesting way of describing the picture here the big picture you know in the u.s. we have this mentality that big or bigger is better what can be done to change that to change to this kind of culture of consumption. that's right so the bigger better mentality. is kind of pervasive in our system so the waste is happening actually throughout the supply chain from from the farm all the way to our plates but the two main places where it's happening are in grocery stores and then on the consumer and so in restaurants and in our kitchen and so in grocery stores i'm sure you've gone and you've seen these big piles of fruits and vegetables so the grocery stores want to create this impression of abundance but what that actually means is that a lot of those fruits and vegetables are spoiling before they ever get by and even by any one person vegetables are actually what gets wasted most over half of what

we grow never get eaten they just spoil and get thrown away. in in our own kitchens you know a lot of times you know where we're tempted to buy in bulk. i like to use a good rule of thumb you know only buy what you eat and eat what you buy that's a good way of sort of shopping smart but unfortunately a lot of grocery stores offer. you know bigger packages and it seems like you're saving money but really if all that money is going into the garbage can it's actually taking a big hit on your wallet and at restaurants i don't know if your viewers realize this but portion sizes have really gotten out of control they've just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger the average portion size now is over eight times what the government recommends and so you know you go when you eat out at a restaurant and you just can't physically consume that much food and so a lot of it goes right into the garbage a lot of it goes into the garbage and people try to eat what there are now we're

seeing this obesity epidemic care so it's a problem on many fronts meanwhile one in five americans can't afford the food any food or you know not enough food and that's a pretty stark contrast to what you did you just described and now we are in this situation we just had this devastating drought so i mean what are the outlook for food availability what's that looking like. well it's a really interesting finding of our report is that just a fifteen percent reduction in the food that's wasted in america could feed twenty five million americans and what you're saying is absolutely correct today one in six americans are actually food insecure which means they can't afford you know on a on a daily weekly monthly basis to make sure that they have the food that they need so there's lots of things that the grocery stores individuals can be doing to try and

reduce some of this food waste we have lots of great tips in our report i'd like to see restaurants start offering smaller portions and all of us as consumers when we go out to eat we can actually start asking for smaller portions we can take that food home and doggy bags and like i was saying we can we can shop smart we can plan our meals ahead of time we can use our freezers almost everything can be frozen and another another great finding this report i wasn't aware of this i'm not sure if your viewers are aware of this but all those sell by and best buy dates those are actually not federally regulated except for some baby products so what they really are just a manufacturer's recommendation for the peak quality of that product but what we've been telling people is use your nose put your food to us now test to judge whether it's gone bad and hopefully savior save yourself the money now so you know we can do our part to try to prevent wasting food but how do we get this food that is

wasted and there's so much of it into the hands or the mouths of the people that really need it. so there is there's lots of things that we can do and some of this has already sort of has already started a lot of restaurants are have started donating food to banks we also see that on the farm a lot of times soup gets discarded just because the price the farmer would get paid for it is actually not enough to cover their cost of labor so instead we're seeing some organizations that will bring people into the farm and actually have them harvest some of those fruits and vegetables and take them to banks it's kind of a win win the farmer doesn't have to discard that food and sometimes they get a tax break and that's who can go to people to people who need it very interesting a very stark contrast there hopefully people can stop wasting and start giving i

guess thank you so much for coming on the show that was sasha lee it's a policy analyst for the natural resources defense council she's also a contributor to the and our d.c. blog switchboard thanks or well that's going to wrap it up for this hour but for more on the stories we covered you can check out our you tube channel that is youtube dot com slash r t america we post all of our interviews on line and fall over there you can also check out our website it is our t.v. dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter at liz wall will be back here at eight pm.