i am a a. to . here's mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that the americans call a donor. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot about my country you sir are a fool you know what that is my tears. that no one wishes to featurism be on the liberal and the christian public. can really support of.

everyone i'm abby martin and this is breaking the set so did you guys hear about the breaking news no i'm not referring to the protests spreading across the middle east starting in egypt and libya and now in yemen i'm talking about the other big breaking news the new york city board of health just banned the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks the mayor michael bloomberg is having a field day with it on twitter he said here to cities new sugary drink policy is the single biggest step that any government has taken to curb obesity he wrote it will help save lives but is it really something to celebrate when sixty percent of new yorkers don't even support the ban perhaps it's because they know that it's absolutely useless when you saw the first free will to buy two smaller sodas instead of one large one or perhaps it's because they know just like we do that the

government is not concerned with obesity at all i mean come on when they decide to pick on seven elevens big gulp instead of attacking the fast food establishments that have completely plagued food consumption habits in america blaming large sodas for the country's obesity problems is just as absurd as soon as the woman who says . mcdonald's for making her gain weight if fat americans want to drink thirty two ounces so to let him this is not about a health if the government were concerned about health they would be banning alcohol or cigarettes it's about more taxes this is just another example of what the nanny state does best managing the things that don't need managing at all so let's just stop focusing on pointless regulation and join me as i break the set. now i know many of you probably know about the national defense authorization act

otherwise known as the n.d.a. that president obama signed into law on new year's eve last year the law loosely defines the term terrorist and grants federal law enforcement a power to detain american citizens indefinitely if they're accused of participating in terrorism now the laws had a dramatic ripple effect on of outrage among university professors journalists and honestly anyone with a smartphone capable of expressing any sort of discontent over the federal government out of fear of being a round up simply for having an opinion activists like aleck's o'brien and pulitzer prize winning journalist chris hedges have been since working tirelessly to have the law revoked or at least part of the n.d.a. that was the most worrisome to opinionate americans with fear of this blatant attack on civil liberties well here's one glimmer of hope for you yesterday a federal judge permanently blocked the military from been able to enforce the n.d.a. that's right and one hundred twelve page opinion u.s. district judge catherine forrest expressed that the wording in the act was too

vague and pose a threat to americans right to due process she went on to ask the following she said where's the line between what the government would consider journalistic reporting and propaganda who will make such determinations were the be in office a stab. to read articles watch videos and evaluate speeches in order to make judgments along a spectrum or where the support was modest or substantial foresighted the chilling effect the n.d.a. poses to free speech and added quote first amendment rights are guaranteed by the constitution and cannot be legislated away this court rejects the government suggestion that american citizens can be placed in military detention indefinitely for acts that could not protect might subject them to detention so for acting as a voice against a government which so often turns a deaf ear to dishearten americans u.s. district judge catherine forrest is our hero of the day but sadly you know it just broke as i was writing this that obama's attorneys have already appealed her ruling

today guess he's really not going to give up the fight to indefinitely detain us top well aside from that she's a hero anyway for standing up for what's right so she's the hero who is the villain well this next man provides me with enough material to make him the villain every single day that this show airs and heck probably on weekends to see because every day he says something completely abhorrent radical remark that has no basis whatsoever in the unvarnished truth the man i'm attributing this lofty introduction to is none other than representative allen west of florida earlier this week he spoke to a group at the republican jewish coalition where he argued that obama's forward campaign slogan i can't even finish the sentence just take a look for yourself. they want to bring you know the soul the you watch socialist. calls for. you so wait a second here's the foreign slogan right here. so if you look

a little closer looks like it does in fact read the word socialism do you see it do you see it well that's apparently what representative allen west sees every time you take a look at someone's car or nearby sign in the front yard because according to him the word for word is reminiscent of the communist run soviet union i have just one thing to say about that are you kidding me now look i have my own two cents to share about the quote moving forward in this country when in more than one ways we're clearly moving backwards but i'll leave that for another day rather the point here is what he said is absolutely ludicrous i have one question for representative west since when did forward also happen to the official state motto of wisconsin does that mean republican vice presidential candidate paul ryan is also somehow crudely associated with this marxist socialist agenda as well and for that matter do you even know what the term socialism means you know i'm not sure you do so let

me define it for you it's economic theory or system which by means of production distribution and exchange are owned by the community collectively usually through the state so if that's what you think obama is running you may have missed one or two high school civics classes just one or two anyone with even a basic knowledge of what socialism means would know that it's preposterous to say it's an ideology that obama buys into in fact i would say that obama subscribes more to a fascist corporatist ideology than a socialist one by any stretch of the imagination the fact that the socialist charge even of resonates with representative west shows that his real agenda is a perpetuate an irrational fear of obama and rather than having real debates about difficult choices our nation faces today he would rather put forward nonsensical assertions that do more harm to our public discourse than good and that's why representative allen west congressman from the great state of florida is our villain of the day. really.

earlier today un's international peace envoy arrived in damascus as the syrian capital continues to see fighting between rebel groups and syrian government forces a seventeen month old uprising against syrian leader bashar al assad has left more than twenty seven thousand dead because a deep rift among world leaders recent violence erupted in north africa and the middle east has left many americans wondering how the u.s. will react and what is to come from the syrian crisis now to talk about this and more i'm joined by the executive director of the syrian embassy task force sasha siminoff thank you so much for joining me today pleasure so you are the executive director of the syrian virgins you task force you you meet regularly with members of congress to lobby for rebel groups support in syria what exactly does that mean i mean are you basically calling for the military to engage for the rebel forces to

out the assad regime oh my organization was started in april two thousand and eleven and as the conflict has evolved so have our policy stance and so we've always been open to a number of options when it comes to syria although as time has gone on and the region as the regime has become more brutal with its tactics and now it's using fixed wing aircraft to indiscriminately bomb locations around the country yes we do feel that at this juncture we need some sort of safe haven or no fly zone to protect the civilians and to help with the current i.d.p. situation which is rose risen to about two million inside syria and a couple hundred thousand refugees outside the country but so sure it's not hard to kind of back an opposition force that really isn't unified i mean it's more sectarian at this point how are you really determining you know who to back when it's really they've said themselves there's been a couple of. sources that have said that it's not even about the assad regime it's

more about sectarian violence at this point i mean i would disagree i would say that this is not a sectarian civil war i would say that as as a rule right now you have on both sides people of all faiths religions and backgrounds either i would say mostly on the side of the opposition some still supporting the regime we have kurds that fight with the free syrian army we have christians who fight with the free syrian army obviously we have arabs we have people of sunni faith of christian faith we have a very large coalition and i do not believe that the syrian revolution would have gotten this far against this kind of brutal regime without widespread support across serious population all but let's just take a look at i mean what's happening and look at the last couple days i think a lot of people around the country are looking at libya as an example of the complexities of a situation like this when you just decide to the u.s. use the u.s.

military to intervene and gauge into a country and pick a side and you know and such a complex situation and they're looking at it and saying how do we not how do we know that the same thing is going to happen in syria if we do indeed decide to engage yet again militarily and another nation absolutely i was personally deeply saddened by what happened to him master stevens i was down at the vigil in from the white house last night in which syrian americans and libyan americans gathered together to speak about the current situation and to express their outrage for what happened but i think we need to remember that in libya as things progress you know they're working on stabilizing their security and this was just a small group of people not representative of the libyan people as a whole just as the person who created the anti islam film here in the united states was just one person and is not representative of the american people as a whole so our hope is that we can understand that this is a long process no one said democracy would be quick it's a process we need to be. and we need to continue in terms of the united states

government continuing our relationship with the libyan government as it moves forward and we need to seriously look at the kind of support we can bring forward to the syrian opposition as we move forward as well so as always i guess my next question is why syria when we see essentially the same human rights abuses taking place in the. i mean to me it does seem a very lot of double speak a lot of rhetoric about humanitarian efforts but really i mean what is this all about do you really think that this is strictly a staunchly about eighteen humanitarian like efforts in these countries i mean when we see pretty much the same abuses going on in so many other countries so what's really going on here well i would say the response from the united states government to both the situation before and syria has been tepid and there are definitely are areas where we can ask you know what is the what should be the true response the united states government with regards to syria i think we have long term national security interests that

a syria that spirals out of control would definitely threaten and whether we work on dealing in repairing the damage now or we deal with a situation in syria that spirals out of control and we have to deal for the next twenty years to me the decision is clear dealing with it now is less costly and the better way to go forward are you just said that we do have national security interest there what interests does the united states have other than of course helping the people of syria to intervene there currently of course i mean syria's located at the at the center of many conflicts within the middle east syria borders israel syria borders jordan borders iraq it borders turkey borders love and on it is some people would like to say the glue that holds the lavonne to region together and should it become fractured should the syrian state cease to exist without any any sort of transition into a democracy there would be serious consequences for love and on and its current

fragile state as. country there could be consequences for iraq as it tries to put itself back together there's the issue of the p.k. k. and the turkish government so this is very about a military stronghold it's not just about you know helping humanitarian thing it's about putting a stronghold in that region really to gain traction and to gain a footing i mean we already know the bush administration wanted wesley clark said that he was given a memo that said that syria was on the list of countries that they wanted to topple just weeks after nine eleven but i wanted to follow up as we're running out of time here so when are we going to see this no fly zone established we already know that the rhetoric is really strong but the chemical weapons assad you know he has them we do know that this is what's being spouted off by this stuff and so when is this no fly zone going to be established and when are we going to intervene our hope is that after the november sixth election we'll see a movement going forward on this issue and we will see some serious action by the united states government do you have inside information that the says that or i'm

hopeful. or hopeful that we will yet again do another diplomatic intervention to you know. help aid humanitarian causes thank you so much for coming on and sharing your perspective thank you so if you like what you see so far go to our youtube channel at youtube dot com slash breaking the set and subscribe also check out our facebook page at facebook dot com slash breaking the set give us a like i know the nature of the internet is that has gone i hate going to troll but if you're the more intelligent minded feel free to write me and let me know what you think and if you're wondering about what i'm doing or bitching about when i'm not on air follow me on twitter abby martin to let you take a break from my preaching for now but stay tuned to hear what the federal reserve happened today in our think tank they say to next.

thank.

you. well let's turn now to the federal reserve just today federal reserve chairman ben bernanke and now another round of quantitative easing to help the sluggish u.s. economy take a look we had to say. fortunately the form c. decided today on new actions electing to expand its purchases of securities and extend its forward guidance regarding the federal funds rate the committee will closely monitor incoming information on economic and financial developments in coming months and if we do not see substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market we will continue the n.b.s.

purchase program undertake additional asset purchases and employ our policy tools as appropriate until we do. interesting wall to help us figure out what he just said and what it all means joining me now is the host of capital account right here in our two lauren lyster i am nice to be on your show. ok so you know i think when a lot of people look at the federal reserve they don't understand that it's actually a private bank so when ben bernanke is talking about this quantitative easing you know to stimulate the economy what agency i mean what you can see is really going to be allocating this money that they're going to be pumping out now there are a lot of confusions about the fed i would agree i get confused it's very complex because the federal reserve was established by an act of congress the federal reserve act and in fact if you go to the new york fed's website for example it'll say it's an independent government entity but it's composite located because the federal reserve has banks across the country in twelve different districts where

they have presidents and when they act to establish these banks in the federal reserve act they have issued stock so they have private shareholders they have boards of directors so for example in the new york fed's board sits jamie dimon the president of j.p. morgan so that's where the confusion because there's this private element to it there are shareholders there's boards of directors for these federal reserve banks and then their presidents rotate on the f o m c which is the open market committee that determines open market operations like q.e. and then the federal reserve governors are appointed by the president of the united states warning by congress the fed issues the currency the federal reserve notes decides monetary policy so it is this weird kind of public private weirdness as far as who controls monetary policy the federal reserve does so they will you know they they announced that means that they will go buy mortgage backed securities in this case on the open market and who decides where that money goes that they're exchanging those for because the mortgage backed securities go on the fed's balance sheet the fed exchanges that for money which it prints of this is

a fancy way of saying printing money where that money goes. and you know nobody knows because i think it's up to the banking system of the financial markets where it goes and it can go in different places it can go in stocks it can go in commodities the theory behind q.e. and printing money is supposed to expand credit get it out to the real economy to people but i mean we've seen a few rounds of it and we know credit conditions in the third time's a charm lorne i mean this is yeah yeah you know if you didn't work the first time or the second time maybe if you keep trying you'll get unemployment below eight percent like you want it but i mean seriously he's talking about helping the economy the economy is in a really poor state right now but how is printing money backed by. nothing is that not going to debase the currency even more and essentially i mean. you know put the economy in a worse state than it is you're asking all the right questions because you should care that your currency is being defaced yes when you create money when you put

more out there into the market that is inflationary that that debases the currency that affects your purchasing power that affects your ability to save when interest rates are so low you can't get anything for your money and the prices for the paper things are going up or could go up more so so these are all concerns and yet the theory behind it is that by doing this ben bernanke his case with these mortgage backed securities he hopes to boost the prices of assets such as homes home prices mortgages boost stocks asset prices so that that will make people feel richer they will go out and spend money that will fuel demand that will increase growth and people will hire more people if the economy is going better but this gets to a really key discussion which is whether the job problems in the united states are cyclical which is a fancy way of saying if the economy improves there will be more jobs created with that improvement or if there are structural meaning abbie i worked in construction

and constructions not coming back so i need to retrain for something else and i'm not properly qualified for the jobs that are available or coming available which is a totally different issue and no amount of money printing can solve that and so if but they get the same time that that balance sheet is going to be that much bigger to the tune of are we going to be and you know when the rich hoard their wealth that they don't necessarily want to trickle down into the economy and bolster the economy which is really the rhetoric that we're seeing coming from bernanke you but we're going to rather thank you so much for coming on and sharing your perspective thank you have a council on the start. so you guys great news the department of justice has finally decided to come out and accuse b.p. of gross negligence for the deepwater horizon explosion that killed eleven people and subsequent oil spill that pumped two hundred million gallons of crude oil into

the gulf of mexico for three months. the d.o.j. brief was filed in the court of louisiana where b.p. is in the process of settling seven point eight billion dollars in civil damages for gulf residents well you might be saying oh us then after more than two years the government's finally taking a hard line against the corporation responsible for the worst environmental crisis in history who funny thing is that it's been known since the beginning that b.p. was criminally negligent the commission that investigated the spill said b.p. and its cement contractor good old hela burton knew that the mixture use in the well construction was faulty and would allow oil leaks in fact they not only knew it but they purposely cut corners in every way to save costs. but all of this obvious criminal negligence aside at least the gulf is totally fine now all right. we're moving on spill related clean up plans and we've established a five when you million dollar fund so independent scientists who study the bones

wildlife and environment for ten years sunset waters beautiful people deep sea fish never try to put back i know horses are on our bed and breakfast have special rates and migrating water fell all over make this a bird watchers card so if you visited earlier this year come on down if you've already been here come on back to mississippi or louisiana alabama the close america's getaway spot no matter where you cut and help make twenty twelve an even better year for tourism on the gulf. yeah come on down y'all come on down to the goal the water's fine the sand clean and the seafood is totally out of all because the b.p. says it's all good it's all good right. you have some evidence of deformed shrimp which is another developmental impact so that shrimps grandmother was exposed to oil while the mother was developing but it's grandchild of the shrimp that was

exposed goes up with no eyes government agencies have been testing seafood but they don't link the defects to the chemicals from b.p. spill in fact they don't even acknowledge there's a problem. fish with lesions shrimp with no eyes yikes ok if he's paying for all the legitimate cleanup costs and doing environmental impact studies guys because we all know how reasonable it is to trust a criminal corporation to hold themselves accountable like an after the spill instead of focusing on legitimate cleanup efforts b.p. sprayed a highly toxic dispersant called correct sick all over the gulf to thin out the oil particles to make it look like there was less oil than there really was now correct sic is actually banned from other countries including the u.k. for being too toxic and also less effective for cleaning up oil but that didn't stop b.p. they were so desperate for good p.r. that they sprayed this poison all over the goal of making the oil spread and even

causing it to congeal into tar balls not to mention the residents in the gulf was who have respiratory illnesses due to their inhaling the dispersant also b.p. hired jail inmates at slave labor wages to clean up the gulf i wish i were joking but i'm not what gulf residents were struggling with how to continue their livelihoods amidst the economic catastrophe b.p. didn't even reach out to the community to offer clean up jobs instead it's much cheaper to hire prisoners the company dress prisoners up like b.p. workers and put them to twelve hour day labors clean up the toxic tar balls on the gulf shores to maximize goodwill for all those photo ops then when journalists started to ask questions about the cleanup efforts in the extent of the damages b.p. hired a private security firm called talon to keep those pesky reporters off the beaches how dare the journalist try to shed light on the reality and the severity of what b.p. had unleashed on public beaches they should know better but once again

at least the government's coming down hard on b.p. for all their misdeeds right well actually just the opposite since this disaster their criminal criminality has continued. to be rewarded with the more government contracts according to bloomberg in the year following the explosion and spill b.p. was awarded with over seven billion dollars and pentagon oil contracts in fact they're still the largest employer of oil to the pentagon so why would they care about fulfilling their commitment to the gulf when they could just keep cashing their checks from the same government that's going to have to wag their finger at the corporation for their negligence look b.p. is responsible for irreversibly polluting the world's oceans and causing a holocaust of hundreds of thousands if not millions of sea creatures not to mention the dead corals owns the effects of this disaster are still being felt today and the impact will be unknown for decades to come it's time that we call out these corporations and their criminal c.e.o.'s that are complete and utter

disregard for humanity we start calling out the politicians who not only turn a blind eye but actually rewarded this criminality this two tiered justice system needs to and it needs to end right now before the entire planet is destroyed for all future generations. you 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 trying hard as a big picture. please please please please please please please feel. a little easy. since. the bubble slip science technology innovation.