coming up on r t politicians usually claim that they go to d.c. simply to serve the public but instead it looks like they're serving themselves as they later enter of lucrative private jobs with their political corrections connections will give you a glimpse of washington's wealthy elites revolving door and as for as against chicago school closings continue it seems that rahm emanuel is getting what he wants as schools fight to stay open more on what the what a shock the system of chicago schools will be facing. and two months ago during the christopher dorner manhunt the public was treated to a show of force from the l.a.p.d. so what does this say about the future of policing in l.a. we'll look into the issue ahead.

it's monday april first four pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r.t. all right starting off this hour the jobs report for march is due out in the next few days but already economists are estimating that the u.s. added nearly two hundred thousand jobs and that is good news for the economy it could be yet another sign that the u.s. is back on solid ground in terms of financial ground that is but while the rest of the country takes the slow and tedious path of recovery one place in particular is on the fast track to riches washington d.c. according to a new analysis by zip reality inc the nation's capital is the least affordable city in the u.s. here's what else the report found out forty three percent of the richest one percent of counties in the u.s. around washington d.c. the region's median home prices are seventeen times higher than the median income in the u.s. in the standard two bedroom apartment in the district typically costs over fourteen hundred dollars a month so to break down. how much that would cost you each month

a renter would need to earn around twenty seven dollars an hour at a full time job in order to cover the cost of burden expenses or the apartment to talk more about this dichotomy between washington d.c. and the rest of the country i'm joined now by barton eyler he's a financial policy advocate for public citizen so thank you so much for joining me first off let's talk about this huge financial contrast between the d.c. area and the rest of the nation what does this mean for us well it means that we enjoy a nation of government services and government bureaucracies and naturally that is one thing that can stabilize an area commie through a recession so that we're more recession proof here in washington d.c. than let's say iowa or san francisco that would have a dot com boom and then bust ok so how does this split affect policy making decisions you raise good a good point because too many washingtonians are insulated from the realities of main street across america we we have some of these government jobs we have some of

these government contracting and lobbying jobs that are really not a very realistic portrait of what an average american does and i think what it means is that congressmen and lobbyists and so forth don't feel the same pain don't don't have the same aspirations don't face the same threats and it does i think it reflected in their votes in congress so let's talk about that how can we expect these people that we elect in the congress who say that they're going to serve the public interest really know what's going on in camden new jersey or detroit michigan where there's so much poverty how can we expect them to regulate properly it is a serious problem ideally in the age of social media better communication that there can be the importation of can the new jersey into washington a little bit better i mean the united states' policy is shaped very profoundly by television we gauge center along with other places because of the. graphic

television images that we see of some of these places so i think i think the problem can be answered but but you you raise an important issue is if your paycheck is really not being dented the way it is from a recession and it does change the way you behave and how you think in the decisions that you make so is this just the name of the game or is that a breach of public trust well i don't know that i would call it a breach of public trust i would call it a psychological or that ability ok so. what's so inevitable about it what is there something that we can change about it if it's if it's inevitable or not inevitable well i think to to to improve communications between politicians and their district which again social media is helping with i think that spending more time and having greater access of average americans into the war into washington is good we still however have too much money in politics and we do have too much beltway banditry you know look at

a pit in arlington virginia not far from the airport and it's about to be the boeing headquarters for washington and why they're well because across the highway is is the pentagon where that company obviously wants to win contracts meanwhile meanwhile cities like what you talk kansas are experiencing a downturn because actually close at the end that announcer is going to do that back in two thousand and twelve and let's talk about a kind of the bubble is it possible that washington d.c. is in a bubble is it possible but that's why they're experiencing this kind of boom or the housing market is in a bubble i guess it's possible i glad i'm not a professional forecaster in terms of bubble there are certain physical linkages between incomes and rents between house prices and house rents those fell apart nationally i'm not sure if they are bursting at the seams right now in washington d.c. it's true that if you had more base closings to the brick effort or if you had to downsize. in the federal government what is holding up washington housing prices

and so forth would decline inevitably and it could be a bust so how do you think the general public should react to this information knowing that washington d.c. is not affordable that a regular person would have a very hard time getting into this city and yet the people making these decisions are living in this should there be any type of reaction at all well i'm not sure how much lower american opinion of washington can get but this is certainly not a recommendation for for admiration for washingtonians in the culture of the capital all right well let's let's turn the conversation for just a little bit talk about kind of some of the ways that these people are making money politicians the former politicians kind of this revolving door now we just learned that hillary clinton is going to be delivering her first speech sense a step down from secretary of state it will be for a multi-national housing council that's according to democratic sources now we

don't know how much she's being paid by it is this just another example of the revolving door the revolving door i suppose it's plot of it she will be making i don't know as you say you don't know fifty or sixty thousand dollars per speech this is something that she'll be able to do a variation of this speech regularly colin powell had made you know several million dollars a year giving essentially the same speech over and over again i think that is due to celebrity if you will you know if justin bieber gave speeches or angelina jolie gave speeches presumably she could charge that much and hillary clinton and others are celebrities because they became such from their government service i don't know that that is as serious or as toxic a problem as somebody leaving government service for private industry who then wants to petition the government and that dynamic works such that in government they not only try to. which themselves in as high

a position and one of such influence but they may actually meet punishment or just to a level not commensurate with the problem but with their aspirations for the private sector so that when they go to the private sector not only are they in effect rewarded for their government service but then they are in a position to affect government in the private sector. whether they're giving speeches or lobbying in the private sector they are making money but one that can be compared to the other maybe a little bit different part nailer financial policy advocate for public citizen thank you for joining us thank you well hillary clinton isn't the only person milking her political experience in the private sector it's common practice in the world of washington the conflict comes into play when these people who are switching into the private sector influence or profit from decisions they made in the public sector as if the quest for digital diplomacy between the united states and the european union wasn't complicated enough a new pro industry group is entering the arena the coalition for privacy and free

trade the coalition was created just about two weeks ago and headed by this man that's daniel we are if that name sounds familiar it's because he used to be president obama's deputy chief technology officer for internet policy and that's not all he's done he is the director and co-founder of mit is computer science and artificial intelligence laboratories decentralized information ruth he is a former policy director for the world wide web consort tory consortium and the co-founder of the center for democrat. democracy and technology excuse me so an impressive resume yes but privacy experts are concerned that whites near and his coalition will help companies like facebook and google continue their access over per user's personal information here's how this coalition plans to participate on the trends landscape free trade agreement negotiations that will essentially determine how the inner. national community regulates the internet many of the

policies whitener and supports the with his group mirror those of the obama administration at large it all circles around one word interop her interoperable profile of a meeting approving privacy standards with new framework without changing the way the u.s. does business it's a notion critics call the race to the bottom because it means exporting weak internet protections from the u.s. to the rest of the world so with his vast experience weisner and company could play a pivotal role in the relationship of privacy and policy moving forward however it could be just another extension of the current establishment speech. well enough that on a story we've been following closely now students in chicago are getting a firsthand lesson in civil disobedience these days the chicago teachers union parents and supporters are all protesting the announced closures of some fifty four schools critics are effective in the number of the numbers mayor rahm emanuel and

chief executive officer barbara bird bennett put out to justify the school's closure and coming up with a few numbers of their own in the process for instance eighty percent of the students affected by the school closures are black even though black students only make up about forty percent of the city's school system population to break down a few more of these numbers and give us a look at the protesters demands jessie sharply is the vice president of the chicago teachers union and he joins me now hi there jesse so let's start with the latest information has any progress been made over the weekend. you know the school boards the with the things that i plan to go ahead the plans are closing all four schools in fact both the mayor and the head of the commission have been saying that this is a done deal that the decision about the schools has already made the input of the final rounds during now chicago claims that the move will save the city's budget nearly five hundred sixty million dollars over the next ten years and capital costs

and an additional forty three million dollars per year in operating costs they have to start cutting somewhere are school the right place to be doing that cutting absolutely not it's a terrible idea to be down in the budget on the backs of young students on the southwest science of our town. from the most disadvantaged students in the country in the world frankly at the same time to doing that they're passing along big tax breaks to the trade. real estate development taxes called tax and finance times breaks and it goes into a pattern that we're seeing all across this country of tax breaks for the well the basic central social services are being slashed so how should we how should we cut these how should we fix this problem. well one thing they could do is they could start by just eliminating some of the big tax breaks that they're giving the time to comment finance breaks are worth two hundred fifty million dollars

a year they've also i think is in a whole number of the tax breaks to buffet people many of whom are donors to the mayor and we think that would be a good start there are a whole number of toxic interest rate swaps which are costing the city thirty forty million dollars a year as well now that's a fifty four schools that are being put on the chopping block and that's a lot of schools but it's hard to argue that all this schools are operating at their maximum potential yourself mentioned that a few of them are just are not doing very well in terms of education what the teachers union agreed to come in cutting some of these schools. the union doesn't believe that we should be keeping empty school buildings open that would be absurd . we think the problem here is that the district is going in making a massive cutting plan is the largest one in the history of this country all the evidence about this kind of cutting they've done in the past and this is not a new policy for them is that it really hurt massively hurts the students the fact

that ninety four percent of the student schools have been closed in the past around one of going to school that is no better or even worse than the ones been caught so we think the track record the history of this kind of program is terrible and until the disparate can answer how they're going to actually improve education policy we don't think this should be doing absolutely not massively increase in this program and just as i understand it the concept of shuttering schools is a new at least to chicago around one hundred schools in chicago have been already closed since two thousand and one is this just the latest round of school closures . it is but as i said before it's school closures on steroids it's much more aggressive energy to anything ever tried in the past frankly they don't have anything like the capacity organizationally or financially that they need to flee or children are going to suffer sure and as i understand it and then you also talk

a lot last year about funding private charter schools so can you talk a little bit about that about funding some cutting others the money and also the overall education that the children will be receiving the school district has been closing schools mentioned before we believe just about one hundred two schools as a posed in the past twelve years. and yet they still have a quarter underutilization crisis more seething kids and the reason why you can both school and still want to but to many school is because they've been building charter schools of. public schools to really what we seeing in chicago or seeing in chicago is the replacement of traditional neighborhood of schools with charter schools which operate very differently other public funded but they get private donations they don't have attendance boundaries. this election factor in terms of their nominees and we think this is not really undercutting traditional public schools now since the passage of the mandatory act that restructure the government

of the chicago public school system and replace the education superintendent with a chief executive officer the city has seen six of these c.e.o.'s come and go how does this type of turnaround affect the way schools conduct their daily operations . well the lack of stability in leadership has been a real problem. who are afraid that what we're see is a politicization of education decision for see the mayor making political decisions about what sounds good about sort of electioneering promises or claim. but he's ignoring the real educators we think that the school board should not be appointed by the mare we think that we do better with an elected representative school board as many other states and cities do have but how can we fix just focusing on the school system and the education system itself how can we fix the damaged education system what needs to happen. well. i've been teacher for the

past twelve years recently i've been working for the union and this is a question that i step out of the my children go to school. we do know some things that work we know this will it work better when there's real communication and real conversation between people in this world community parents teachers leadership and so we think those structures need to be strengthened not weakened the problem with those are being imposed from above and they are not those are not made in cooperation with the people at the local school so strengthen this kind of high that house there or not we need more services in our schools so that the schools are underutilized we think that rather than closing the shuttering the schools they should open up the space in these buildings and allow it geos are not for profit to come in and use space schools many types of organizations like god like to have connections with the local community with children. lots of possible solutions just

a shack a vice president of the chicago teachers union thank you so much for joining us thanks for having me well the rampage a former police officer turned cop killer christopher dorner might have come to an end with the death of the thirty three year old but los angeles residents are still dealing with the aftermath of this chaotic manhunt the l.a.p.d. is in full damage control mode two women caught in the crossfire are being offered forty thousand dollars in reparations after nearly losing their lives but while the city tries to mop up the mess two more cases of police officers using excessive force are making headlines one about a mother who are also a registered nurse who claims that she was roughed up by two l.a. police officers that incident was caught on surveillance video and she is now suing the city for her injuries also relatives of a los angeles man say he was unarmed and posed no threat. an officer shot and

killed him in echo park earlier this month so are these cases evidence that the l.a.p.d. has reverted to its old ways rango chaz is a community organizer and he might have some answers for us hey there ron so one issue that the christopher dorner saga brought into light was the questionable tactics that the l.a.p.d. has sometimes use now with the recent cases that i just highlighted it seems that this strong use of force isn't just slowing down anytime soon is that the sense that you're getting you know i've lived in los angeles all of my life and this is nothing new this is more exact these are more examples of what really is the norm for the los angeles police department i mean this is a department that has a long history of abuse and repression and these incidents the only real reason or we've been talking about them is because they were captured on video but there are many other cases that go unreported that we don't know about because simply known captured on video but unfortunately you know we're not talking about a few rotten apples in the department think it's something that systematic and has been seen for many generations here in los angeles one just to be clear dorner was

not a hero he was a killer and he did kill people but many of the people that the l.a.p.d. confronts every day are just ordinary citizens is our life such a dangerous place that these tactics are necessary. you know i actually live in south central los angeles which is known pretty much internationally for being a dangerous place but i don't think it's dangerous i'm not afraid of my community but however i think a lot of the people in our community were afraid of one of the most powerful organized gangs in the in los angeles and that's the los angeles police department because we know what's happening and of course we're not defending the acts of christopher christopher dorner but i think that what he wrote there's a lot of truth in what he said a lot of things that he was trying to expose are things that our community has been saying for many many years so i think that as a community whether you're political whether you're not whether it's young people who may look like gang members according to the police department people fear the police department because of what they have done historically and specifically to people of color and you know poor people in los angeles so as

a community organizer what do you tell members of the community when they're dealing with police well it's extremely important the one that we know are right so we know you know the law we know what we can and cannot do that we know how to defend ourselves and we know how to document things like i mentioned in the case of mr jordan this is only being talked about because this is captured on video so we we train our community to you know to use cell phones use cameras to document as much as possible to get badge numbers so that to know the names of the officers that way if there is an incident we have a way of following up legally not only in the court system but also in the streets and that means you know organizing rallying marching protest and whatever it takes to be able to defend the interest of our community now ron the l.a.p.d. has been trying to clean up its image over the past four years or so was there ever a point in time when you thought that it was actually happening when you actually saw the progress being made. you know i have to be honest and i would say no person met with chief beck i've met with officers within their the p.d.

and although i have to say some of them mean well again it's a systematic problem it's an entire department with a long history of not only racism in abuse but also of just just brutal attacks against our community and i think that while some may go into the department trying to do well they have a good heart and they want to do you want to defend our community i think that they quickly get swallowed up by the culture of the l.a.p.d. and that's one of violence of abuse of repression and in many cases of racism so i don't think i don't feel that the community doesn't feel it when we see the l.a.p.d. stealing cars from undocumented immigrants that they p.d. you know attacking black and latino you know for racial profiling so in the streets the sense that we get is no things are not getting better but that's why we have to keep organizing as a community to educate our community so that we can defend ourselves and let's talk about this racial profiling i mean you guys don't have a stop and frisk program but you do have a lot of cases where people are claiming that they were racially profiled can you write on that just a little then. sure the city of los angeles was making over twenty one million dollars annually just from the theft of vehicles from undocumented immigrants they

were doing you know quote unquote sobriety checkpoints at two pm in front of high schools trying to look for drunk drivers and reality they were they were traps they were set up to catch people who are undocumented to take their cars when we look at in the black community i mean this is not driving while black this is this is this is part of the culture in los angeles people know that for blacks and latinos to be driving in l.a. in a nice vehicle you know you're going to get followed you're going to get a look that by the los angeles police department and it's sad that we have to really. generalize an entire department but now you know this is the culture that we've grown up in and we know that this is a norm this is been famous famous in movies the news it's part of popular culture that they pretty it's a racist department that attacks the people in that city we're talking about l.a. where the majority the people most centers are people of color so you know unfortunately this is a reality for us and i hope that things do get better one day but as of now i think we have a lot of training to do to the police department so they don't attack people that

they do now we need something more we people can talk about things and not just simply you know shoot first and ask questions later on the other hand run i mean l.a. is notorious for having really high crime rates so how would you prefer to see the l.a.p.d. take on these crime rates but still both inform the community as well stay within their own rights. well i think it's a matter of funding of budgets i think that we can use a lot more of our money here in the city of los angeles like any other city in the country to really invest in our youth to music to sports to the arts i think that will really lead to a society that we all want will be safer it would reduce crime reduce drug use reduce gangs it cetera but right now we have a system where we over half of the money over half of the tax dollars here in los angeles go directly to the los angeles police department what's the law enforcement in general and that's creating a police state that really has obviously proven that is not reducing crime you know murders drug use etc so i think that what we can do is one is the way that we use

our money as a society invest into young people and to also that we provide training for los angeles police department so that they know how to deal with people so that they don't have these this culture of violence of attacking people that's extremely important and thirdly we need something that's going to we don't need these internal investigations that never come up with any real solutions we need a community elected civilian review board that would have hiring and firing power over the los angeles police department that way there's some accountability from the part from the department and the community but as of now there is no accountability not a single police officer in the history of los angeles has been you know tried for murder while on the job while they've killed hundreds of people in the city los angeles so it's they know they have total impunity and that's why they do what they do but you know as a community thing we have to continue to pressure to make that change has community organizer joining us from our los angeles studio thank you. well just a week after the anniversary of the nine hundred eighty nine exxon valdez spill that was considered one of the most devastating environmental disasters in history

the oil company is once again in the spotlight and this one says closer to home an exxon mobile pipeline ruptured on friday leaking nearly ten thousand barrels of tar sand crude oil into a small arkansas town the streets flowed with black gold. which is. unbelievable i mean look. credible and there's. twenty two homes were evacuated when the eight hundred forty eight mile long pegasus pipeline burst this one carries around ninety thousand barrels of crude oil from illinois to texas every day but that flow has temporarily stopped and this isn't the only issue exxon mobil is currently dealing with last wednesday a train that was reportedly transporting tar sands oil between states spilled nearly fifteen thousand gallons of those tar sands oil into minnesota what's more

exxon was recently slapped with a one point seven million dollars fine for a pipeline that dumped forty two thousand gallons of oil into the yellowstone river all the way back in two thousand and eleven so this is just one company removing on slick ground and continuing that path now all of this is happening just one week after the u.s. senate held a symbolic vote in favor of the keystone x.l. pipeline these latest incidents are just the newest chapter in a complex narrative of america's energy future. and that's going to do it for now for more of the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america and check out our website for all the latest and greatest information in a few stories that we just didn't have time to get to that web site is r t dot com slash usa and don't forget to follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez and i want to hear your comments your feedback your story suggestions send me anything send me everything i'll see you right back here at five pm.

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