market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to conjure reports on our. son's own waters beautiful migrating water fell from all over the suburban walk to cars on the coasts america's getaways by no matter where you are. two years after the largest oil spill in u.s. history the federal government is aggressively going after b.p. accusing the british oil company of a culture of corporate recklessness so where is the evidence and how is beef the responding the line has been drawn in the sand and we'll bring it to you. and if you think super pacs are influencing the outcome of federal elections wait until we tell you about the major funding and power behind trade associations and their international connections.

and it's no secret that the democratic party has some strong ties with hollywood coming up next we'll take you behind the scenes of one of the star studded events with mega superstar power. it's thursday september sixth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm maggie lopez and you're watching r.t. . topping the news this hour it's been two years three months and seventeen days since the deepwater horizon rig started spewing oil into the gulf of mexico and still the story skips seeping into the news this week the news was twofold first that hurricane isaac has uncovered oil that was previously covered up after the spill this has left tar balls washing up on the shores alabama and louisiana is

just another sign that there's still work to be done in the region and that the gulf is still years away from returning to normal also new this week the u.s. justice department is ramping up its rhetoric against b.p. for using what it calls quote gross negligence and willful misconduct in a thirty nine page finding the d.o.j. the harshest tongue lashing against the british oil giant to date saying that the company has a culture of corporate recklessness but wait a minute i thought things were back to normal in the gulf i mean that's what the commercials have been advertising after all. this did earlier this year. if you are already here on back to mississippi or louisiana alabama the close america's galleys the men over there. and help make twenty twelve an even better year for tourism on the drug and all of us because the gulf. let's just say that b.p. isn't voluntarily getting involved in the gulf coast store as an industry and the

reparations certainly don't end with a few promotional videos or with a slap on the wrist the trial is set for january third two thousand and thirteen in new orleans resulting in a gross negligence ruling could actually quadruple the civil damages owed by p.p. b.p. under the clean water act to twenty one billion dollars eighty percent of which would go directly to the gulf coast as part of the of the restore act but one thing in particular to pay attention to is the timing of the d.o.j. rhetoric they were very critical. all when they backed off and now the report is coming up and they're being critical again could it have something to do with the election season greg palast of investigative journalist and author of the book billionaires and ballot bandit that will be coming out on september eighteenth he joined me earlier to talk everything the party was started off by talking about the timing of the report if you're going to announce this why would you do it on a day where be buried under the message of the president at the convention hall

wing you know bubba statement at the convention last night i actually think it's a d.o.g.s. is bearing this a bit they they definitely want to stick it to b.p. but i think that the administration actually does not want to make a big deal out of this and i'm glad you are glad you're putting it not the news but i think that the democratic party would rather it go away they want to be seen as not against oil companies right now they want to be seen as the guys who are trying to get down your gas prices yes they did the right thing they they nailed b.p. for gross negligence and the money will be valuable later but right now i actually think they want to kill this story so then if they want to tell the story then what saw with all the roundup rhetoric. well look at the timing that is a day that other than our t.v. when you're you know you're serious news organization the the other news organizations are who are just going to put just. you know the the banter is

obama going to show that he's a real guy tonight and he's going to be cuter than the show that type of thing so it's really kind of a last word is next week it would have been if they simply don't laugh till monday it would've been better now i do think that they are going to try to get some big bucks settlement out of b.p. that they wouldn't mind to say listen we're getting big checks into florida and into the gulf coast just before you lectured so i look to this is being east a basically a slap around b.p. and say get out your checkbook boys and we need to check right away now we kind of stall out when they talk to tony hayward and kind of got him slapped around although he was you know he was a very remorseful so he would make it up here but yeah let's talk about this money as you well know the last major oil spill was the exxon valdez spill in one thousand nine hundred nine i mean eleven million gallons of oil were leaked into

the spill in alaska prince william sound and it's contaminated about thirteen hundred miles of coastline so that spill resulted in about seven billion dollars total as a result of what the company had to pay but now you look at the big i mean it makes it makes the exxon valdez oil spill look like child's play ninety thousand miles of coastline have been affected two hundred millions of gallons of oil were spilt and so that the gulf. is offering to pay seven point six million in record billion and reparations but i mean kind of like bill clinton said in his speech last night you know the first test of fiscal responsibility is whether or not the numbers add up and it looks to me like the numbers kind of just aren't adding up what about you. well in fact since i was an investigator on the exxon belle these case for the natives on the coastline it tell you this that b.p. was the party that was most responsible in alaska so they are basically repeat

offenders that's very important if you're going to go before a jury which is that these are the same guys i mean exxon's name is on the ship but those who read my tired looks like vultures picnic know that it was b.p. that was in charge of stopping the tanker from running aground b.p. in charge of the containing an oil spill cleanup and they didn't do it because they didn't have the equipment out there once again the negligence we're talking about is not having the equipment in case there's an oil blowout they could have simply you know surrounded that rig in the gulf with what's called a rubber boom and sucked out the oil that could have done that in alaska so they've repeated the same problem and you know there's another thing we've investigated and found out in our that our t.v. is bless you for putting out but no one else which is that in asia is there by john b.p. had a blowout just like the deepwater horizon seventeen months seventeen months before the deepwater horizon spill that was covered up unfortunately by the bush state

department helped cover it up and it never got out and therefore b.p. was able to basically get word the same swapping methods that led to the gulf spill so you have alaska you have central asia you have deepwater horizon this is a serial spill or after and and greg just to kind of put some numbers on to this that this that punishments that they. are saying right now i want to bring up a quick graphic to kind of show you some of these numbers so right now they have already put out eight billion dollars and payouts they're expected to put fourteen billion dollars in to clean up and seven point four billion interest attention and business says the total expenses bear about. a billion dollars but i mean how much of a difference is this money or if they're accused of being crossly negligent how much is twenty one billion dollars thirty billion dollars actually going to have on

the people of the gulf coast especially considering that i mean the louisiana seafood industry alone is worth two billion dollars annually that's just the louisiana one you're dead correct because in alaska. there this is needed to retrieve a very very few people live. we're talking about a populated area that was destroyed i met a casino worker who was living in his car went bankrupt you know and he's feeding his kids hotdogs and himself nothing he got a job cleaning up the beaches for b.p. for fourteen bucks an hour loses it the second that the that the cameras go off this is pretty paltry for a trillion dollar a year kind of company and i should also note very quietly in the deal obama cut for b.p. is that one hundred percent of the money that b.p. pays out must come from their profits in the gulf now their words and b.p. doesn't make a profit they don't pay that's right in the deal that obama cut so that yeah the

president that is i'm a tough guy speech and got some money from them about twenty billion first pop and they can end up spending thirty to forty billion but that it's all going to come out of their gulf leases because the obvious thing to do was to say you made a mess you lose your lease you get dumped oil in your apartment you lose your lease why don't they lose their oil leases those of you a better deal if the state of louisiana and the united states government took back those b.p. leases and said you're swab you're out of here you lost it it's ours again now these are public lands it's public oil they're simply have the least right to pull it up so b.p. is really saying oh spank me i'm so sorry but they're getting away with the rig murder and they're putting the money in their pocket all right greg palast investigative journalist and author of the book billionaires and ballot ballot and ballot pad that is coming out on september eighteenth i appreciate your analysis

i'm sure i'll have more of it in the coming days thanks for covering. to the presidential elections now where president obama is conceding that he will in fact be outspent by mitt romney's powerful backers he also admitted that he is losing the so-called ads war on t.v. and radio the president was slow at first to sign on to the idea of super pacs funding his reelection campaign but now he has a super pac of his own and has started asking for money for it albeit begrudgingly but super pacs aren't the only ones leading the pack when it comes to political spending you see super pacs must eventually disclose where all that money comes from trade associations do not and they are donating much much more than the signifies super pacs as one reporter describes it they have all the benefits of a super pac without any of the filings disclosures or fuss so how is it that this is happening in a country that touts election transparency to talk more about this i was joined by

lonnie communications an outreach coordinator for united for public he first explained how trade associations differ from super pacs. you know i think there's been a lot of focus sort of on the super pacs i think that's appropriate because they're really a powerful vehicle for people to sort of move their agenda and impact elections especially in a really wealthy individuals like child needles and you may pledge it to one hundred million dollars but i think one of the biggest problems is that super pacs the donors are actually disclosed eventually the public doesn't know where this is about money comes from the problem is that there's all sorts of vehicles they impact elections where the money isn't disclose what is trade associations so corporations set up basically large nonprofits a social organization that they're legally called and they could donate pretty much unlimited amounts of money and we have no idea where the money comes from unless you know one corporation happens to voluntarily disclose or we just figure out some other way and that was actually in one sense much more deadly because we don't know where the money's coming from we don't have to legally and they're not going to i

mean most of them are not going to disclose that voluntarily or hames no i mean i think probably the major vast majority of money that we know goes to trace associations or to you know what's what are legally classified as five zero one c four five one c. six organizations the vast majority of money that we know that goes there just because you know they picked up in a corporation is listed on their store disclosure on their website or someone has admitted that money has gone somewhere you know for example the largest organization that really is troubling is the u.s. chamber of commerce which is a very very large corporate fund group and we you know decades people have been trying to figure out who its members are and who finds we know a few of them because they're on the board or they voluntarily disclose a few corporations but they have literally hundreds of members and we don't know who's funding ads when when they drop a hundred million dollars of ads in back to election like in twenty ten so let me ask you this who is getting more of that funding from from trade associations as a republicans or as a democrat this point tend to lean more towards republicans they have sort of an

edge when it comes to the congressional elections in two thousand and twelve for now and that may switch going into the. things are kind of up in the air but you know historically the outsiders these are good ones and the other used to be five twenty seven groups which were the big deal and those were almost all for the democrats. but now you know things have shifted a law and i think most of the big trees associations and other as i groups are for the republicans and actually as you mentioned these organizations are spending way more the super pacs and we have no idea who's funding them which is which is a huge problem here and i know that also the big problem about this or the big question that comes in with trade associations that's right now u.s. law still bans foreign money from coming into the election process from being directly funneled into the election process does this open the door for foreign countries to to fund election election campaigns in favor of a candidate that they want well it's still illegal technically for

a foreign corporation to directly fund a candidate however they can find a trace initiation or one of these large advocacy groups the u.s. chamber of commerce and then those organizations can use their money in elections this is separate the money but as we all know that's kind of a silly excuse because if you're not using money if you know protest chairs you'll be using them for elections. that was said giuliani communications an outreach coordinator for united republic now trade associations aren't the only ones giving the presidential candidates a big boost both men are getting some star power to boost their popularity last week we watched clint eastwood deliver a colorful speech at the r. and c. and this week's democratic convention has also been star studded scarlett johannson actually was just giving a speech at the d.n.c. just to my moments ago so what actually happens after the convention curtains drop artie's own liz wall gives us an inside look at hollywood glitz that goes hand in hand with the election season. the red carpet rolled out the swarm of media awaits

the arrival of the stars fresh out of the democratic national convention we just left president clinton's speech which was electrifying in and rallying the really energized everybody in that arena the event called got your six is a hollywood back campaign aimed at raising awareness for veterans and military families the performer of the night grammy nominated hip hop artist flow writer. also gracing the red carpet retired general wesley clark to water great speeches. and of course preserve. the democratic national convention wouldn't be complete without red carpet events and celebrities let's take a look at what happens when the speeches and and the party we get around to was.

i've been traveling around the country speaking of americans about what's important to them and how to keep moving this country forward. and showing off his patriotism flow right and his dancers energize the crowd is not an american flag inspired ensembles. this is. the music pumping in the drinks flowing it's time for v.i.p.'s attendees straight out of the democratic national convention to let loose the democratic party typically the one with hollywood star power standing behind it how do celebrities impact. i don't think celebrities impact politics i think americans and citizens impact politics and says. is is what i do but who i am as an american who i am as a woman who i am is in spanish. right here we've got celebrities who are coming out for better and flow right i wouldn't disclose who he's voting for but

has this message. we do have the freedom to water but you know i just look for supporting for. everyone else the border police work. in charlotte north carolina. for more on that action behind the scenes as well as a route up of last night r t s liz wall joined us earlier. but you saw the party there that was that the red carpet was rolled out for all the celebrities and and that's what happens after the speeches and here is a lot of partying a lot of exclusive partying a lot of powerful people mingling with corporate interest and with lobbyists and i sexually kind of a power if you can here it's kind of a party and here there was a mark anthony. practicing doing a practice run for the national anthem mary j. blige was just singing so kind of a party atmosphere inside but definitely once the speeches and the parties began and to these parties seem in step with the challenges facing regular america.

i would say. i don't think regular americans are are worried about getting into exclusive read party events i think they're more worried about the economy and jobs and and things of that nature so i would say that is a little bit out of step with with the worries and concerns of the average of the average american one i mean as you talk to in your story you talk to eva longoria i saw that question and i saw that she said something like you know celebrities on a soyuz politics people couldn't be argue that celebrities influence people so therefore they influence politics. well i mean i think that they they they try she's saying that she's not a celebrity that she is she's a woman and she's a hispanic and and she's a citizen and you know the democratic party typically does have the support of celebrities behind we have obviously evil and gauri she is the co-chair of

president obama's campaign to reelect jessica alba. all these people supporting president obama whether or not they do impact the vote i'm not sure about that but i think if you're voting based on a celebrity telling you to do so i think that's kind of a problem you know if nothing else it's a positive message to get out there and actually. use the freedom that you you are flex in this country well let's go ahead and talk about the senate show that it has freedom of speech yes absolutely and let's go on and talk about this is the actual d.n.c. speeches last night massachusetts senatorial candidate elizabeth warren blasted wall street let's take a look at part of it. i'm here tonight to talk about hardworking people people who get up early stay up late cook dinner and help out with homework people who can be counted on to help their kids their parents their neighbors and the lady down the street whose car broke down people who work their

hearts out but are up against a hard truth. the game is rigged against them so there you go as the game is rigged against them do you see our attitude being shared by others in the convention or orisha red meat. well you know who elizabeth warren kind of sound it sounded like there she sounded kind of like an occupy wall street protesters saying that the system is rigged pointing out problems of greed and corruption and and corporate influence in our in our government so i think it's kind of interesting that she kind of sounds like an occupy wall street protester but that brings like a whole nother issue to the table here is that the democratic party you heard out of the words of elizabeth warren built play and they try to portray it as this this populist party and they aren't immune to corporate spending but the reality is that they are i mean. a lot of the democrats flocking to the convention are schmoozing

with lobbyists and special interest groups so this is the this is contrary to this populist message of president obama tried to convey in two thousand and eight year we are four years later a lot of people say that he hasn't delivered on that message so i would say these are the grievances that we've seen protests across the country is that both the republican party and the democratic party are susceptible to the power and influence of the special interest group and we don't have much more time and this in this element but i do want to ask you one quick question i know that there have been protests occupy protests immigration protests going on at the d n c. what have you seen last night when president obama got there or was it ramped up. well i definitely would say that the security especially today i saw it get ramped up yesterday it's there it's more intense than i've ever seen it before today with the

arrival of president obama just getting here there's numerous checkpoints if you're not credentialed you are not getting anywhere near this time warner bill. there's actually the t.s.a. outside screening all your stuff like that like you're at the airport. used to if you're anywhere in the area there is a helicopter hovering above you so definitely security they are that they are not leaving any stone unturned all right are if you are a wall thank you so much for joining us and now we'll get to we'll get you back to you pretty soon. although it hasn't come up in either the or in c. or the d.n.c. conventions the ongoing conflict in afghanistan is sure to be a sticking point in the upcoming elections it is after all the longest war in american history and it's taken a huge toll on the u.s. economy and it looks like things haven't gotten have gotten have taken a turn for the worse remember that thirty thousand troop surge that happened in hell london coul kandahar provinces back in two thousand and ten well those

provinces are still ranked among the most violent in the country and then there's the rise of the so-called blue on green green on blue violence green on blue meaning afghan troops attacking their u.s. counterparts this year alone forty five international service members most of whom more american have been killed as a result of these attacks fifteen in just august even the truth the top commander in afghanistan as far as u.s. goes john allen admits that he can't explain this recent upsurge in violence as a result the level of distrust is spreading throughout the ranks the u.s. military is even assigning guardian angels to watch over the american troops while they rest afghan authorities have detained or removed hundreds of soldiers in order to investigate the rise in attacks and the military has stopped training nearly one thousand members of the local afghan police force in order to better vet the trainees so u.s.

isn't only dealing with outside enemies but people on the inside as well now part of this mess we find ourselves in today how to do with the. training process critics argue that the military is not taking enough time to research the afghan forces before training them this might have to do with the immediate need for bodies in order to for the u.s. to meet its twenty fourteen withdrawal deadline meanwhile president hamid karzai is insisting that the blame lies with pakistani infiltrators but one insider told newsweek quote i understand why our men are shooting us unusual soldiers i too have been personally hurt by the way american forces behaved toward my soldiers our villagers our religion and our culture too many of them are racist arrogant or simply don't respect us he went on to say burning korans massacring defenseless women and children you're an aging on dead bodies and midnight raids are outrageous for which the u.s. is now paying a heavy cost the soldiers who are reacting to the u.s.

against the u.s. are not talan but these terrible incidents seem to have made them instant toll upon the evidence this man is laying out is a disturbing reality that so many of us here at home watching from watching the war unfold from the comfort of our couches cannot begin to understand keep in mind that when we started this war countries from albania to germany ukraine to spain and even georgia sent troops to help out today the majority of the fighting falls into the hands of the u.s. and canada as the twenty fourteen deadline looms overhead and the u.s. prepares to hand control over to the afghans maybe the war is changing from the u.s. first the taliban mentality to u.s. forces afghanistan mentality the difference between the two is very distinct and calls for some critical analysis of the why we went there in the first place as well as why we remain there today but as always what you decide if this observation

merits any warrant. an update now on the quebec election celebrations that turned deadly businessmen richard henry bain was formally charged today he faces eighteen charges including murder attempted murder and possession of explosives artie's own adriano settle gives us a look back at the events leading up to that p.q. victory celebration as well as the shooting. on tuesday voters headed to the polls in the canadian province of quebec after being controlled for over a decade the longstanding the liberal party lost its stronghold over the quebec assembly in power now the party kept kwok known commonly as the p q at the helm the first ever female premier paulina makarov the taste of victory quickly turned sour however and as we all know now shots rang out sept in celebration fatally injuring one man all things considered a strange turn of events so how does akeley did we get here pal accounts there has

been a wide divide bring up north specifically about the cost of higher education in may thousands of students took to the streets protesting what many called modest increases in state tuition the movement continued to grow and expanded to include regular citizens uniting under the cause of affordable education months of continued protest of the passage of a law written with the express intent of silencing mass demonstrations this resulted in an amplification of tensions between the liberal party and the citizens it governed meanwhile the p.q. took advantage of these tensions with makarov herself donning the red square of solidarity that became a symbol of the movement at the quebec assembly in addition to the solidarity with student with the student movement the party is in favor of the province breaking away from canada though the chances of that happening are doubtful at this point why even though the p.q.

won the most votes it's still only a minority government meaning that it needs to create coalitions who would they have to work with other than the liberal party it just thrown the c. a q a nine month old party started by a former p.q. politician who now things that the issue of separatism is paralyzing quebec. further complicating the politics so what does this all mean going forward are we looking at an example of how to enact change through the system by taking up the students' cause as her own and p.q. gain support from a broader base giving hope to the idea that movements that begin in the street and end in parliament from washington. are two. that doesn't for the news for tonight president obama as well as vice president joe biden are slated to speak at the d.n.c. in just about an hour or so don't forget to tune in right here to our tomorrow for a wrap up of those events for more on the story.