coming up on our t.v. politicians say that they go to d.c. to serve public interests but it looks like they're doing even better serving themselves with lucrative private jobs when they in their terms will give you a glimpse at the revolving door of washington's wealthy. school could be out for ever for fifty four chicago schools that's of mayor rahm emanuel gets his way but parents and the teachers union aren't going down without a fight more on the showdown in chicago later in the show. plus during the christopher dorner manhunt two months ago the public played witness to a show of force from the l.a.p.d. so what does this say about the future of police tactics will look into that issue just ahead. it's monday april first five pm in washington d.c.

i'm megan lopez and you're watching r t. starting off this hour the jobs report from our 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's good news for the economy it could be yet another sign that the u.s. is back on solid ground financially but while the rest of the country takes the slow and tedious path toward 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 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 and that's in the whole u.s. and a standard two bedroom apartment in the district typically costs over fourteen hundred dollars per month so to break down how much that would cost you each month a renter would need to earn about twenty seven dollars per hour at

a full time job in order to cover the cost of burden expenses for those apartments to talk more about the dichotomy between washington d.c. and the rest of the country i was joined earlier by bart mailer he's a financial policy advocate for public citizen and i began by asking him what this huge financial contrast really means 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 affect policy making decisions you raise 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 congressman and lobbyist and so forth don't feel the same pain don't have the same aspirations don't face the same threats and it does i think that 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 that there can be importation of camden new jersey into washington a little bit better i mean the united states' policy is shaped very profoundly by television we engaged in rwanda and 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 that you you raise an important issue is if your paycheck is really not being dented the way it is from a recession else 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 upgrade just 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. for. so what's 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 the key to to improve communications between politicians and their districts which again social media is it's 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're looking 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 mean whites meanwhile cities like what utah kansas are experiencing a downturn because boeing actually close the lands and announce it is going to do that back in two thousand and twelve but 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 that the housing market is in a bubble i guess it's it's possible i am glad i'm not a professional forecaster in terms of bubbles 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 with a 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 the 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. this the certainly not a recommendation for for admiration for washingtonians in the culture of the capital all right well let's set let's turn the conversation for just a little bit and 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 sent such a step down from secretary of state and will be for a multinational housing council that's according to democratic sources now we don't know how much she's being paid but is this just another example of the ever

evolving door the revolving door i suppose at this 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 establish themselves in as high a position and one of such influence but they may actually meet out punishment or

justice at a level not commensurate with the problem 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 while being in the private sector they are making money about one. can be compared to the other maybe a little bit different part naylor financial policy advocate for public citizen thank you for joining us thank you and 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 the decisions that they made in the public sector as if the quest for digital diplomacy was difficult enough between the united states and the european union 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 is headed by daniel

white's nurse that man you see there 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 current director and co-founder of mit's computer science and artificial intelligence laboratories decentralized information group he is a former policy director for the world wide web consortium and the co-founder of the center for democracy and technology so impreza for us in may yes but privacy experts are concerned that white's newer and his new coalition will help companies like facebook and google continue their access over users' personal information here's how this coalition plans to participate in the transatlantic free trade agreement negotiations that will essentially determine how the international community regulates the internet many of the policies white snow supports with his group mirror those of the obama administration it all circles around one word

interoperability meaning improving privacy standers with new framework without changing the way the u.s. does business it's a notion critics call a race to the bottom because it means exporting weak internet protections from the u.s. to the rest of the world so with this vast experience whites and company could play a pivotal role in the relationship of privacy and policy moving forward however it could just be another extension of the current establishment reach. an update now on a story we've been following closely students in chicago are getting a firsthand lesson in civil disobedience these days the chicago teachers union parents and supporters are all protesting the announce quote closures of some fifty four schools critics are dissecting the number as mayor rahm emanuel and chief executive officer barbara bird bennett put out to justify the school closures 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 forty percent of the entire school systems population to break down a few more of these numbers and give us a look at the protesters demands i was showing earlier by jesse sharply he's the vice president of the chicago teachers union here's what he had to say. a word from you that i'm going to the. fourth floor. and the head of the commission and everything to this is a done deal but the decision about schools is hard. but it is. now chicago claims that the move will save the city's budget nearly five hundred sixty billion 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 our school the right place to be doing that cutting. absolutely not the

terrible idea that down the budget on the backs of young students on the south and west 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. development tax is 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 the people many of whom are donors to america 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 to say fifty four schools are being put on the chopping block and that's a lot of schools but it's hard to argue that all of 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 with the teachers union in the coming cutting some of these schools. well 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 of 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 affected ninety four percent of students in schools even closing costs around one and going to school that is no better or even worse than the one that been caught so we think the track record the history of this kind of program is terrible and until the

district and answer how they're going to actually improve education quality we don't think that should be doing and certainly 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 a much more aggressive school quarter ended anything ever tried in the past trying to 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 running 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. school district has been

closing schools at the mention before we believe just about one hundred two schools that they posed in the past twelve years. and yet they still have a quarter underutilization crisis more seats than kids and the reason why in both schools and got wind of it too many school is because they've been building charter schools at the same time they're public schools to really what we seeing in chicago or seen in chicago is the replacement of traditional neighborhood public schools but charter schools which operate very differently public funded but they get private donations they don't have attendance boundaries. they're nomen and we think this is not to be undercutting traditional public schools now since the passage of the and then the tory 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

but the lack of stability in leadership has been a real problem. who are afraid that what we're see is the 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 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 educational 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 stepped in about both of my children go to schools. we do know some things that work we know this schools work better when there's real

communication and real collaboration between people in this well community parents teachers leadership and so we think those structures need to be strengthened not weakened the problem with the closing those are being imposed from above and they are not those are not made in collaboration with the people at the local school so strengthen this kind of ties that house there or not we need more services in our schools so these are schools that are part of what underutilized we think that rising closing the shuttering the schools they should open up the space in these buildings and allow n.g.o.s are i'm not for profit to come in and use space in the schools many types of organizations like that like to have connections with all of the community with law again that. was a possible solution just a shack a vice president of the chicago teachers union thank you so much for joining us thanks for having me. 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 the los angeles residents are still dealing with the aftermath of this chaotic manhunt the l.a.p.d. is still in damage control mode two women con the crossfires are now being offered forty thousand dollars for reparations for nearly losing their lives when police officers fire on them but while the city tries to mop up the mess two more cases of police officers using excessive force are making headlines now one is about a mother and registered nurse who claims that she was roughed up by l.a.p.d. 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 when and posed no threat when police officer shot and killed him earlier this month in echo park so are these cases evidence that the l.a.p.d. has reverted to its old ways for more as a community organizer joined me earlier today i asked him about his sense of whether the use of these questionable tactics by the l.a.p.d.

seem to be getting any better 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 reason more 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 for 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 the 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 to one that we know our rights that 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 run 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 we'll 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 is in philly when we see the l.a.p.d. stealing cars from document immigrants 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 that was community organizer. well taking to the skies is hard enough these days given expensive ticket prices and invasive security procedures but it's even more difficult for people living with disabilities that have special travel needs one of those people is science guy he suffers from a neurological disorder that causes episodic newness and muscle spasms because of his condition doctors have advised him to have juice continuously available to help him control his condition according to the t.s.a. guidelines medically necessary liquids are allowed through checkpoints after they have been inspected but here is what size i experience when he tried to fly

recently. did you read the part of the special needs' memo that specifically said when you use it for medical liquids this is not going to get we have these answer my question if you have honestly the solution for you if you read the part of the special needs memo it says that you to the maximum. this is not. for you to do whatever you want not for. your choice i think. since you are essentially detaining me without cause. or not you're free to go take your own yourself ok sorry but my apologies you're feeling my life. yes. and you're also violating clearly established law and. also that such you have no qualified immunity in court. now according to side isn't the first time he's dealt with these problems he joins me now to elaborate has our side so can you tell me how many times he's dealt with this and

kind of break down the scenario each time sure so there's two different events. for trey on that web site. the one in boston is actually to my experience i've never had agents pull me aside and start searching through my papers and my business documents and my medication and stuff like that after my bags had already been screened that had never happened to be for and. my disability is is saw dick with regards to mutism so it was the only time that i've gone through t.s.a. while newt that's the one time that happened. however on the liquid which is the video that you just showed that's happened to me. probably a dozen times at least twice before i've had liquids confiscated unlawfully by the t.s.a. . probably at least

a dozen times i've had to argue with them including like pulling out a highlighted copy of their of their own policy saying please obey your policy liquids are permitted and been harassed about that now you mention that you have had at least a dozen times where these people have taken away your liquids is there a thought of doctors now or anything that helps you prove that you are what with our medical a necessary in order to help you get thorough i do actually have a doctor's note i have a note from a neurologist if if you go to size i. dot com so it's there's a neurologist now there and i have a version of it that the short version that fits in my wallet however as a foe i'm kind of set up with the t.s.a. this intrusion into privacy policy clearly says that i'm not required to give them

any information about my disability i'm not required to give them a doctor's note that says very explicitly it's not required and frankly i really object to that kind of intrusion into my privacy i don't think i should have to even out myself as disabled in order to have the rights i have to. now at the same time. what we have is you when you're claiming that these are medically necessary liquids that allow you to go through a checkpoint with any amount you're saying that it's necessary for you and your doctors are saying that it's necessary for you. looks like we just lost him but i do want to read this quick point from the t.s.a. own web site it says medically necessary liquids are allowed through a checkpoint in any amount once they have been screened however it is recommended that passengers limit the amount of liquid to what is reasonably necessary for his or her flight passengers should then inform an officer if

a liquid or gel is medically necessary and separate it from other belongings before screening so obviously folks you have to identify yourself as being medically necessary in order to get these these liquids through the t.s.a. but it is a bunch of question as to who should determine how much is necessary for a flight for one person somebody like he has to be continually drinking these liquids but for other people it's really hard to determine obviously t.s.a. agents aren't doctors we're going to keep you updated on this story that was. a disabled man that travels through t.s.a. and we'll bring you more of his stories in the weeks ahead now moving on just a week after the anniversary of the nine hundred eighty nine exxon valdez spill that is considered one of the most devastating environmental disasters in history the oil companies that odds again in the news and this one is a little closer to home now exxon mobil had a pipe that ruptured on friday leaking nearly ten thousand barrels of tar sands

crude into a small arkansas town the streets flowed with black gold. which is. i mean look. credible there's. twenty two homes were evacuated when the eight hundred forty eight mile long pegasus pipeline burst this mine carries around ninety thousand barrels of crude oil from illinois to texas every day but that flow has stopped temporarily and this isn't the only issue that exxon mobil is dealing with last wednesday a train that was reportedly transporting tar sands between states spilled nearly fifteen thousand gallons in 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 in the yellowstone river all the way back in two thousand and eleven so this is one company that is moving

continuously on slick ground 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 for the latest and greatest information coming out from around the world check out our website our two dot com slash usa our digital producers are always working hard to connect you to the world with new stories and in-depth interviews so check it out and don't forget to leave us your feedback and you can also follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez my question to you twitter followers tonight how should exxon be punished for this latest oil spill what should we do to stop it from happening again r.t. dot com slash usa and meghan underscore lopez see it right back here at eight pm.