president obama kicked off his second term last night with his state of the union address but does his vision for the u.s. match the reality of what's going on in america that's one question we'll ask next . and he is the president's pick to lead the treasury department during these troubled economic times jack lew goes before congress today for a confirmation hearing any faces a grilling over his close relationship with wall street details ahead. and it's back to cyber security bill cispa has returned from the graveyard we'll tell you about the proposed bill that could give the n.s.a. power to snoop on your internet activities. it's wednesday february thirteenth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v.

we start off today taking a look at president obama's state of the union address his hour long speech last night touched on everything from jobs to guns to immigration the president covered a lot of ground in artie's meghan lopez was at the capitol last night to ask lawmakers some critical questions. mr speaker. the president of the united states a phrase that brings the media to the steps of capitol hill year after year five hundred thirty five lawmakers some forty four million viewers all looking to hear one man's plan for our country's future r.t. was there and beyond the pomp. the glad handing and yes the clapping five we had our team came to capitol hill to find out what the real state of the union is when the actual hill blogger said that he believes that the civil union the strongest is the government is in shambles you believe that i think there's a lot to be said about that i mean i think one of the things that this speech

hopefully will do is elevate the conversation itself so that we're not just having these wobbles about you know basically self-inflicted wounds the question to me is are we getting stronger and i think the answer is yes not fast enough but we are moving in the right direction gun control immigration education and the economy we're all topics discussed at last night's state of the union perhaps less popular but equally as important were the issues of cyber security and defense and america's dependence on foreign oil and those are the issues we're told to focus on with lawmakers last night first up drones the idea of these machines has sparked as much conversation as it has conflict with in the halls of capitol hill i don't like the idea of killing i don't like the idea of being involved in combat when we have a declared war i support the drone program completely it's happy essential it's totally within the international law i don't care who you are you just can't call caused the death of anybody using the resources of the american government even

under the best of attention we need a framework a very clearly defined framework i think drones are a necessary tool to fight terrorism despite mixed reviews the drone program is flying high although the president did promise i will continue to engage congress to ensure not only that are targeting detention. and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances but that our efforts are even more transparent to the american people and to the work something congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz says is already happening the president keeps the consequential leadership of the intelligence committees as well as the leadership and the house and senate fully informed as he indicated tonight another issue that gets at the core of transparency in defense cybersecurity americans also face the rapidly growing threat from cyber attacks we cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our cup although all of the lawmakers are t.

spoke to agree that something needs to be done in the realm of cyber security the question is how how can we balance a person's privacy but also balance our national security and economic interests when it comes to cyber technology it's not easy obviously and we're going to have to develop legislation that will attempt to do it and and with the understanding that nothing is perfect but no matter what law comes to pass one platform stands to be a functioning democracy we need a free internet an internet that's that's free of government or ference and respect for civil liberties finally climate change and america's dependence on foreign oil a problem president obama has acknowledged in every state of the union since he took the oval office and an issue he reiterated last night even threatening executive action if congress won't act soon to protect future generations i will. i will direct. will direct my cabinet to come up with executive actions we can

take now and in the future to reduce pollution prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy so where is america's energy future headed we've got to continue to develop in solar energy in efficiency of homes and. in the things that we do despite the overwhelming challenges ahead to catch up with countries like germany and china despite past embarrassments like cylindrica and the volt at least one congressman remains optimistic we have pioneered breakthrough technologies in energy before if we do it again we've got to keep the home and we need to manufacture what was created here in the state of the union as president obama's chance to lay out his vision for the next four years but it's often more of a wish list than an actual to do list our team will be returning back here to the capitol to find out how many of these agenda policies will actually be achieved in

washington. r.t. from our president obama's remarks last night and what it means for the u.s. moving forward our to correspondent back and lopez is here and our very own abby maher and always outspoken welcome ladies so going to start off the president is known as being a good speaker and many say last night is an example of that but is it all talk. it's hard to say right now we've seen over the last four years and give so many of these state of the union speeches every single time he lays out this really bold agenda and we want to say that everything that happens comes true comes into fruition but oftentimes that's just not the case certainly if you know the past year and we look at his first term a lot of those promises made and the prior state of the unions not all of them were those policies were implemented to say the least abbi what do you think i think that it's all tone like you said i mean. talk is bigger whatever actions speak

louder than words you know i mean it's really just a bit of mrs obama in his first term you really do bring very little promises to fruition so i don't expect any different this time all right when it comes to foreign policy he talked about kind of minimizing our involvement in afghanistan bringing the troops home so not this boots on the ground approach he's talking about kind of being more in the background working with our allies so that kind of sounds to me like the drone campaign or drone that's that's what it was a record number of drones in afghanistan last year over three hundred and so what he's talking about you know shifting from the ground troops to counterterrorism operations what does that mean special ops military contractors and drones so it's really hard to tell what kind of forces will see afghanistan at the question of course is a will there be more transparency on the drone campaign we saw senator is now calling for more more transparency on this and president obama obama of course has vowed to be more transparent i guess we'll have to wait and see if that doesn't

factor play out in his second term another thing that the president made clear last night is that if congress doesn't act he will meeting executive orders and we already see that he is taking chance steps to do that he signed an executive order last night in regards to cyber security so is this a preview of more executive orders to come in. what does that mean what are the implications of that it might be he actually prior and another executive order now is in the realm of energy so what we saw with the first of all with the cybersecurity is him saying that he wants and he he's going to do whatever it takes to make us safer and that means both building up our infrastructure but also in terms of innovation allowing people to develop the kind of cyber technologies that we want to see in the future in terms of energy he was very worried he did mention the power grid but he also mentioned that he is demanding to see more of more

alternative energies more clean energy he also opened up more pathways for clean clean fracking and whatnot so-called clean brackets but also you know he he really focused on getting this energy policy moving forward it's something that he's talked about in every single state of the union that we just haven't seen you know play out yet in a way that he wants you know he says everybody you know has the chance to get involved in this and really make it the technology of the future but we're just not seeing that yet speaking of executive orders that kind of means that he's going to act unilaterally kind of bypass congress and we've seen a lot of gridlock in congress but also called into question is the power that that gives to the executive branch of the what do you think well we saw bush give a record number of signing statements on executive orders and i was really against that so i don't want to be hypocritical and say that even though some things might be good that's the way to go because i do think old power corrupts absolutely and you know make it executive orders that are kind of sweeping with the language

pretty broad still do we see the private privacy protections necessary to really become dual with this executive order. provides the framework for the congress to kind of act and get the hint that this is open with privacy so i don't you know i don't necessarily agree with executive orders. lastly if everybody's mind these days the economy right now we've got a seven point nine percent unemployment rate we saw the last three months of two thousand and twelve our economy is shrinking megan what kind of new proposals did he map out last night if any law that actually he talked about reforming both the tax code and also reforming the entitlement programs he said obviously these are not going to be popular decisions or this may be very hard to get them passed but he expects congress to be able to actually get them passed he also talked about increasing manufacturing he proposed three different hubs that would work with both the energy department and also with the department of defense to kind of get manufacturing going is a way to increase jobs and finally he wanted to do

a mix of tax increases in our tax increases and spending cuts in order to kind of get the economy back where it is of course it's stubbornly high with unemployment right now which is not moving right and so i guess the question is is this rhetoric or is this going to be a reality we're going to be keeping a very close eye you know you guys well you know abilene is certainly a welcoming to the both of you for a way again that was our correspondent. abby martin host of breaking the set. all senators today had a chance to grill president obama's pick for treasury secretary vote today on the nomination of jack lew he's president obama's chief of staff and former head of the office of management and budget from his ideas on generating economic growth to his experience on wall street all of that was on the table and up for discussion before the senate finance committee we're going to bring in now peter schiff president of euro pacific capital to discuss peter nice to see you so i want to kind of get into the the controversy discussed today some of his own finances are coming into

question a bonus that he received while. while working at citi bank of nearly a million dollars keep in mind this is back in two thousand and eight when this whole tax payer bailout of the big banks was going on peter what do we know about his role at citibank and is this something we should be concerned about. well a member a lot of former treasury officials were at citibank look at robert rubin right you wrote that company down i think they made a lot of mistakes but look also look at their look at you know when he was originally appointed he had his own tax problems and it turned out that he didn't even understand the income tax because i think after i forget i forget what mistakes the memory of men does return so it seems like screwing up your own finances is one of the job requirements and i think it's you know it makes sense because the u.s. government is a wreck we don't even have

a secretary of the treasury we have a secretary of the debt because there is no treasury the treasury is empty all we've got is liabilities. and that's an interesting comparison that you make that it's a qualification to be treasury secretary of course this calls into question who benefited from the taxpayer bailout of the big banks in two thousand and eight lou certainly is one of the beneficiaries i should say. well the beneficiaries were certainly people who were loan money to the banks employees of the banks you know but the big losers i think were the american public the u.s. economy in general eventually the losers are going to be holders of u.s. treasuries holders of any u.s. dollar denominated debt because in order to save the banks they basically have destroyed the dollar i think the dollar is kind of like a zombie currency it's walking dead only a lot of people haven't figured it out yet so it still appears to be alive but i think it's only a matter of time actually you know peter we do have that clip where he was grilled

on this very issue today let's take a listen. explain why. except for bill to take those two million dollars out of a company that was functionally insolvent and about to receive. taxpayers' support center in two thousand and eight i was an employee in the private sector did it in a manner consistent with other people who did the kind of work that i did in the industry right so he's saying you know i got pretty good conference compensation but so did my fellow wall street. colleagues i was just following orders you know. i mean he was incompetent maybe he was incompetent in the private sector and so he is qualified to bring that incompetence to the public sector. much your requirement remember i mean we are as a nation in worse financial shape then those banks were is just it's just that we

have a pretty impressive the banks didn't so we're able to paper it over for a while longer peter another criticism president obama. last year he during his campaign he was. kind of criticizing offshore accounts but it's reported that lou has one of these accounts in the cayman islands this is a critical well you know hypocrisy again is one of the requirements for the job of the they're all hypocrites in washington just about just about everything they say look at look at president obama's favorite billionaire warren buffett is always talking about how he wants to pay lower taxes and he's suing the iris to reduces taxes and he's doing everything he can to minimize those taxes so they always say one thing publicly but they do the opposite privately right we have about a minute left i want to ask you what are your thoughts will his approach be much different than that of his predecessor that timothy geithner. unfortunately it

won't be it'll be more of the same i mean basically what the they're ababa secretary of the debt is is to convince central banks foreign central banks and investors around the world to loan the u.s. government money even though it can't pay it back i mean i guess you could say it's a difficult job convincing the world to vendor finance a deadbeat nation but unfortunately that's the situation that we're in and he's just trying to make sure that we can keep selling bonds before the bottom drops out of the market he's just a p.r. man and ultimately what he's there to do is talk up the president's he's not there to actually give the president solid advice on the finances of the country he's there to rubber stamp the president's agenda and make sure there's enough buyers for our debt so we can finance this massive expansion of government along enough to get him reelected or you know in the case of obama i mean they've already got him reelected maybe they think they can get another democrat elected in two thousand

and sixteen if they can keep this ponzi scheme going for four more years i just think it's too big at this point i would be very surprised if they got out of dodge in time this time the always outspoken peter schiff appreciate you coming on peter that is peter schiff president of euro pacific capital. and i want to another issue that played a prominent role in last night's state of the union address cyber security after announcing the signing of a new executive order designed to strengthen cyber infrastructure the president made a push for prague congress to pass comprehensive legislation focused on addressing the issue and today he might just get that where chairman of the house intelligence committee mike rogers and congressman dutch ruppersberger are resubmitting the cyber intelligence sharing and protection act better known assists but for more on this i'm joined now by our producer bob english so bob tell us more about this announcement cisco is back it looks like cisco is back and it's better than ever we

promise this is actually one of several cyber security bill bills that has yet to be passed that we keep meeting opposition or at least the lawmakers do the previous iteration last year was killed literally at the last minute by president obama who refused to sign it and now it's back introduced today just after the state of the union address last night ok what differences if any are there to this cyber two point zero zero exist but two point zero rather to the first bill that surfaced in congress we don't know exactly yet i was at the at the event today with the congressman and they said we could see something forthcoming maybe in a few weeks they were pretty tight lipped about any changes they were careful to emphasize it's not sopa which is a completely different bill that was killed last year and it doesn't have anything to do with the senate bill which had an internet kill switch in it so all we know at this point is that it's going to look very similar to last year's bill but we

don't know of any differences so we don't know if it essentially is the same thing that was proposed last year yes i guess we're going to wait and see you know you were able to speak to a few lawmakers yourself today what are they saying about it. basically this bill establishes a framework. for the cooperation between the public in the private sectors for law enforcement purposes and for the purpose of national security and it also gives companies legal protection legal liability protection for their customers who they might share data on they don't want those customers suing them of course and that's something that has to be passed by law it's not something for instance that president obama could unilaterally issue through executive order. ok interesting on this bill one of the things that it does is that it allows the government to use information collected about citizens for national security national security purposes and we were going with the n.c.a.a.

and other forms of legislation there is always there is seems to be this trend of this vague language where there is this fear that it could be taken too far or misinterpreted or kind of allow these broad sweeping powers. is this in issue with this new sopa bill excuse me system. not to be confused with so. the congressmen were very emphatic that the government is not interested in the its citizens e-mail accounts or twitter accounts or facebook accounts but what happens in a time of crisis often is that once you have the cooperation and infrastructure already between the public and private sectors what is now a voluntary program could easily be turned into something that's compulsory so yes in a national national emergency it would be very easy for this bill to become much more onerous that it is as it stands right now it's maybe just a cause for concern but like i said they were emphatic that the government isn't

interested in our e-mail facebook or twitter accounts all right president obama signed an executive order yesterday on cyber security and he mentioned that this is going to be a highlight something that he's going to be paying very close attention to in his state of the union address last night let's take a listen. we cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our economy that's why earlier today i signed a new executive order that will strengthen our cyber defenses by increasing information sharing and developing standards to protect our national security our jobs and our privacy. ok so can you tell us more bob about this executive order yesterday that was signed yesterday and what kind of power it gives to the executive branch sure it establishes similar to cisco a framework for cooperation between public and private sector this is geared the president's executive order is geared mainly towards infrastructure and protecting

. public utilities say nuclear power plants things of that nature and another point is that he doesn't have the ability to give the legal protections cispa does but i think it says the important thing to get away from this is that he's interested in cybersecurity and the next bill that comes around he's probably going to sign instead of veto as he did last time interesting bob thanks for staying on top of this very important story that was our t.v. producer english thank you. well the manhunt for former l.a.p.d. officer christopher dorner came to a dramatic and last night after a firefight at big bear mountain a body pulled out of a burned down cabin is believed to be that of dorner and as you know dorner was fired from the l.a.p.d. back in two thousand and nine and he vowed to kill police officers to avenge what he called an unfair terminations deputies death in the shootout yesterday brings the total number of to four people believed to be killed by dorner well in the

suspect manifesto he details a culture of racism and misconduct within within the department and we want to know now take a moment to discuss some of this controversy surrounding the l.a.p.d. and to do that i'm joined now by david lindros he is an investigative journalist so david there's four innocent people dead yet dorner still has his supporters wife. well he speaks to a reality in los angeles that has been true for decades and now this is a police department that really is a model of a paramilitary organization when it comes to urban neighborhoods especially people of color and so there was a lot of sympathy immediately to dorner because despite the horrible things he did which i don't think anybody is cheering. he was addressing this brutality towards

people in these in these neighborhoods east l.a. you know watts and so on and the the shoot first mentality that was on display when they when they pulled up behind those two hispanic women in a pickup truck and just blew it away the way they do in afghanistan or iraq ok these police officers that they allegedly shot people by mistake and of course surely there's been a bit more consideration and thought before taking action there to pull the trigger but dorner allegedly targeted innocent people and the whole thing pretty meditated and he laid that out and this manifesto so i don't know if you could really compare the taylor what do you think i did it's not a matter of comparing the two it's a matter of it that what dorner is is is sort of a one man wants riot or it or you know post rodney king riots the well

what he's done is he has brought to the fore in a in a way that no no no amount of public action and political action has been able to do to shine a light on the true nature of the less interest police department the routine brutality towards people the unwillingness to investigate itself openly to do. to punish the kinds of transgressions that he's talking about you know the brutality the racism the kick the gratuitous kicking people who are arrested and the it and the shooting of unarmed people all of these things need to be addressed but the l.a.p.d. prevents it from happening they don't even have open hearings on it when police officer disciplined you don't know what they're doing and they don't want you to know certainly there are reports of a troubled culture within the l.a.p.d.

a culture of racism a culture of corruption but do you think dorner has done anything to help this cause besides some people yeah we know that there are some people that empathize with dorner but i mean has he really rallied. people to take or has serious action that this is going to lead to action and changes within the l.a.p.d. do you think this is a productive way to bring about change of course not but the fact is that it happened and it had the effect of already the chief of police had to admit well dorner was on the run that there was a need to really look at that hearing that he had not because they could you know turn it around and invite him back to be a cop he was a guy who went completely off the rails but because the chief was acknowledging that something might grievously have gone wrong and that maybe to garner was right about having reported to his supervisor having kicked him and the rest of men in

the face after arresting and that this is the kind of thing that provides an opening if the political establishment will now follow that up and not allow the police to bury it again but actually do an independent investigation into the racism and the brutality in leslie interest clues to court minute and to open it up so that it openly investigates itself in alaska outsiders to investigate it and have a genuine citizen control over the police it could have a good effect but it depends on the politicians and on how the people follow up with pressure to do something right we are going to have to leave it there for time purposes but do appreciate you on weighing and i was a villain here and investigative journalist thanks for having me and that is going to do it for now but for more on the stories we cover check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash our team america check out our website our team dot com slash usa and follow me on twitter al is walloping right back here in a half hour.

the. technology innovation called the list of elements from around russia. the future covered. download the official publication. language stream quality and enjoy your favorite. if you're away from your television. set now with your mobile device you can watch on t.v. anytime anywhere. 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 everything you thought. i'm

tom harpur welcome to the big picture.